Why so little discussion of Lambeth?

[Tim Mathis]

A friend on Anglican, whether you like it or not on Facebook recently posted a question about the relevance of Lambeth, and the way it's being discussed internationally. It's been a curiosity for me why there's almost no discussion of Lambeth on this particular Anglimergent.ning network. I'm inclined to think that either a) it isn't seen as particularly relevant to those of a missional persuasion or b) we're trying to get along, so no one wants to broach the topic (how very Anglican). Thoughts?

[Tim Mathis]

(Stupid ads--I just accidentally clicked on one and deleted my post, the gist of which was:)

It's funny, I've often thought that I really want to be at Lambeth. I don't have a particular longing for the episcopate, but my impulse is to not quite trust that the bishops will get it right for the clergy and laity (my own stuff?). To refine that thought a little bit, I'm not quite comfortable with the idea of a bishops' gathering as the sole official definer of what it means to be a part of the Anglican Communion. It seems like things should be bigger and messier than that if we want an appropriate icon and instrument of Communion. Bishops themselves are symbols, but I think they are symbols whose meanings are changing. Undoubtedly the nature of their authority is changing--also a factor to consider...

Out of ignorance, is there currently any regular international Anglican gathering of clergy and/or laity?

[Karen Ward]

There is the Anglican Consultive Council, another 'instrument of unity' (along with the Primates meeting, the ABC, and the Lambeth Conference ) but the ACC it is a smaller body, more like a board, but it does have clergy and laity.

My 'Lambeth Congress' idea is much more expansive and would be much broader and richer to truly bring the 'vox populi' into the Communion mix.

Who knows, someday it may happen!

[Karen Ward]

Okay, I will ask +++Rowan when I see him at Greenbelt in August about this, so in 10 years from now I can go!

Seriously, I like my idea. I thought of it because of my experience with the Lutherans and knowledge of other communions (Reformed, Methodists....) who have world 'assemblies' with lay and clergy and overseers/bishops from around the world every 3-4 years, and moving them all over the world.

I also love the Anglican tradition of Bishops meeting. I want to keep the Bishop's meetings and keep us at Lambeth instead of globe trotting, to maintain our history and tradition, but just to add a lay and clergy track, so each national church could send a delegation of say, 6 clergy and 6 laity (or maybe proportioned numbers based on the size of the national church) to this 'Lambeth Congress' that would happen at the same time and place as the Bishop's Lambeth Conference with a joint session or two and a big joint opening and closing Eucharist.

Another way to do it is to do a Lambeth Congress with national church Primates only+ clergy and lay every 5 years, and keep the Lambeth Conference every 10 years for all Bishops as it is currently. So you heard it here first, folks. Either I need to become a Bishop or to get this idea through to the Anglican Consultative Council somehow. Luckily, I've got some years to work on it ;-)

[Steve Hollinghurst]

Karen for Bishop as well as Abbess ;o) sounds good to me

a lambeth congress would be great...yes 6 clergy and 6 Lay could be good. but OK i'm gonna get practical, who goes and how are they 'chosen' and who pays for them to go? i can just imagine the CofE deciding which 12 folk could 'represent them' ..mmm...but it would be fun if we got the right people....

[Karen Ward]

You can manage my Bishop campaign ;-)

The Lutherans and Reformed have perfected this.
Each national church 'delegation' is elected at their regular national convention or general assembly. It is a kind of popularity contest of sorts. Usually they use 'formulas' of wanting a balance of men and women, representing different geographic areas and parties within the church, and they seek folk are who are recognized lay and clergy leaders in mission and ministry within their local synod/presbytery/diocese and the wider denomination. + each national church would budget or set up an endowment to fund the Congress delegation at say 2K or 1000 pounds or whatever cost per person in their systems to pay out every 5 years + the ACC would have to establish some global Anglican trust to help 2/3rds world churches with their delegation costs.

[Tim Mathis]

It's entirely appropriate that the Anglimergent discussion around Lambeth is centering on how to make it better.

It does seem kind of surprising upon reflection that there isn't a large international gathering of Anglicans across the board, but suppose that it isn't surprising that the closest thing is an irregularly meeting committee.

The number of the "Instruments of Unity" has been growing in recent decades, which seems appropriate. I could see something like a Lambeth Congress actually happening. I'm currently really intrigued by what happens at the Spouses conference at Lambeth, as well as Fringe events, while the bigwigs are off marching around in their super-hero outfits. Anyone know of blogs reporting from either of those?

[Karen Ward]

Yes, on the front page of this site I have a link to all the blogs under 'news'

[Malcolm French+]

Not sure where best to insert this.

The idea of a Lambeth Conference, while doubtless new to the person who suggested it, hearkens back to the Anglican Conferences that were held post war. I seem to recall there were a couple and that one was in Toronto.

In any event, there has been some discussion of a new Anglican Congress, but it got sunk - partly due to the cost and partly due to the difficulty of setting it up when the various Provinces are busy threatening not to be in the room with each other.

[Vincent Karl Schwahn Ryckman]

I asked the Question....What did we get out of Lambeth? Is there any difference?
Perhaps the fact that it is over and that we are still talking to each other is the miracle
at Lambeth. The fact that we continue to do our ministry and mission trying to break
new ground among our communities and just "getting back to business" speaks more highly
of the church in general. The same happened in the U.S. when the pope visited.
A catholic writer from the New York Times said that most catholics are not very interested in what happens high up in church circles. They would rather complain about their local bishop or the bad sermon they heard last Sunday. Perhaps for many of us Anglicans the day in day out challenges of doing and making "church" affects our personal lives in a much greater manner. What the "bishops" do out there in Lambeth affects us very little on a personal level. The Gospel still has to be preached and proclaimed by us all in our own circles of living.

Vincent Schwahn

[Kelvin Wright]

It's 2 O'clock in the morning here, and I'm awake, thinking of this question. Thanks Tim.

I have been ordained since 1979 - I was ordained shortly after one Lambeth, and have been part of the church during another three, including the recent one. For most of that time I have been a parish priest. I ask myself "what practical effect, for good or ill, has the Lambeth conference made to my parish?" and I am simply unable to come up with an answer. Lambeth seems to have a profound personal effect on the attending bishops. I suspect that's where its influence begins and ends.

All my ministry has been in "successful" churches. I've seen encouraging growth and there have been some wonderful innovations and initiatives down through the years which have resulted in changed lives, and growth in the Kingdom. Again, I cannot think of one of those innovations - one of the things that have actually worked - which has come from a diocesan or national initiative. None of the networks which have helped me have been the official ones, they have been rather, groups of people gathering informally around some shared perspective or other.

Here in New Zealand, the Anglican church is crumbling - any set of statistics you care to look at tells the same story of decline and increasing irrelevance. That is not to say the church is dying - there are bright sparks of hope and life all over the place. But these bright spots exist despite, not because of the byzantine structures of rules and committees we have built and maintain at such colossal expense in money and personnel. I guess I have recently joined a group like this because I am looking for networks, ideas, a way forward, and I have long since ceased hoping to find it in the committees, commissions, boards, canons and standing orders of my own church. So why am I not commenting on the Lambeth conference? Because in six months time there is only one person in the diocese who will remember that it happened.

[Tim Mathis]

Hi Kelvin,

Don't blame me for your insomnia. If anyone, blame Mary Little. She's much closer to home, and she put forward the initial question that got me thinking in this direction :) Really intriguing commentary coming from someone with as much experience w/the structures as you have.

I think most of us 'on the ground' have difficulties with the diocese, and I've had some interesting conversations around the question of the positives and negatives of its existence. I grew up in an independently structured church w/no denominational government to speak of and transitioned over to the very institutional Anglican/Episcopal Church as an adult, and I tend to take diocesan pomposity with a grain of salt. That said, I have mixed emotions--my present bishops are generally humble people that I have a lot of respect for, and who understand to some degree the silliness of it all--the big hats and fancy titles, and the reality of their office's growing cultural irrelevance. I've got a lot of friends in the diocesan office, and I of course worked there myself in Dunedin. I have seen one or two effective initiatives coming down from the top, so to speak, and appreciate the support that the diocese can provide for ministers when it functions properly.

My biggest points of contention tend to arise in relation to the gatekeeping function that the diocese plays, often ineffectively. My sense is that the diocese (and bishop, and commission, and committee) best serves the modern parish(ioner) where it recognizes, resources and challenges those who are doing the work of the church, but in reality it seems that it often kills its best missionaries by 1) pulling them out of their parish context and subsuming them into the structure, 2) forcing them to conform to an outdated, unrealistic or irrelevant set of standards or 3) withholding (or unconsciously absorbing) financial resources, and in particular failing to support entrepreneurial types. As you've alluded to, most (?) of the best work in the emerging community in the Anglican church has happened despite the establishment structures and without their support rather than because of them--though in some places emergent types are beginning to get resources. Some emergents are also becoming bishops. It remains to be seen what that will mean, but my hope is that it will mean we'll begin moving--at least in places--towards a church structure that works more fully for the kingdom and less against it. In American politics and in church politics, I'm committed to remaining hopeful, evidence to the contrary be damned.

RE: Lambeth in particular, in some ways I think what you're saying is just how I would like it to be--that is, that it's really relatively irrelevant to those who don't attend. To state it crudely, I see the conference as important as an icon of church unity and an instrument of international community building, but think it gets problematic/un-Anglican where it begins to become a body that sets policy for the folks back home. The reports I've heard from bishops this year seem to paint it in that sort of spirit--lots of discussion and 'being together', not much policy setting or decision making--or even commission forming. I don't know if that's b/c bishops are moving in the direction I've mentioned, or if there are other factors at work...

Tim

[Kelvin Wright]

Speaking of Mary, I was at dinner with her on Saturday night. Just Mary, me and 140 others. Very cosy

Like you, I spent a little time as a diocesan functionary - ministry educator (aka canon to the ordinary) in the diocese of Waikato. I returned to parish ministry because after 5 years, despite having a good seat at the Cathedral and a nice blue cope with a badge on it and some interesting travel opportunities, I didn't think I had achieved anything. I was closely involved in setting and executing policy in all things connected with ordained ministry and know what you mean about gatekeeping. I remember one conversation when the five examining chaplains and the Bishop were discussing recruiting a sixth chaplain. I was acting as secretary, writing down the list of preferred personality traits in this person who would help select fututure clergy. As an MBTI administrator, I realised that they were giving the characteristics of an NF personality type. All six of them (well, seven if you include me) were themselves NF. Here we were, with the best intentions and the highest possible motives, ensuring that the church would continue to be a safe environment for people like us. Our system, like all systems, has built into it one paramount consideration to be taken into account before anything else: its own survival. Now of course this is fair enough, unless the structure survives it can't do the work it was set up for; but our structure is so developed, so big in proportion to the number of people we have, that it is crushing the life out of the church. You are right that our brightest and best are taken out of mission work, and turned into organisers and functionaries of the system. You are right that those who will take risks and thus threaten the structure -the entrepreneurs - are screened out or controlled through the allocation of resourcing. Or at least that's how it appears to me here; perhaps you Americans do it better.

I sometimes find myself asking why I remain an Anglican but not for long -the answers are always readily at hand. My parish is a wonderful community filled with superb people. At the local level it all works pretty well. The Anglican way - our ability to deal with diversity through the application of Faith, Tradition and Reason gives a take on Christianity which is very congenial to me. I like also the sense of continuity and international connectedness present in the person of the bishop, and our generally sensible synodical form of government but when it comes to dealing with the malaise of the church, the Bishops' decadal inhouse training event and junket can't be expected to do all that much that is useful. The system can't be expected to come up with solutions to the problem when it is the system itself that is the problem.