9 May 2023

This week I had occasion to review a series of short articles I wrote a few years ago for TMA (The Melbourne Anglican) for a column titled “Revd Up.” Several pieces jumped out at me as worthy of revisiting in this blog, so here is the first – a re-working of a piece on one of the besetting sins of many clergy and parishes. 

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Several times in ministry I have used Robert Warren’s excellent Healthy Churches Handbook (2004) to assist with a parish discernment process, especially when I was an archdeacon. Warren lists seven “Marks of a healthy church,” and provides a number of points against which one can measure each. The final “mark” is “Does a few things, and does them well. Focused rather than frenetic.” It is a useful measure of parish health, and could equally usefully be applied to clergy in parochial ministry. It is so very easy to lose sight of this mark. Our bishops, our senior clergy, our diocesan staff, those who populate the upper echelons of diocesan committee-land: EVERYONE is busy. Too busy. Far too busy. It sets the tone. Many parish clergy, especially as we try to compensate for the effects of Covid on our congregations, can find ourselves doing more and more new things whilst making no space by culling what was done before. Could it be that we are doing too many things, and in consequence doing too few of them well? Are we too often frenetic rather than focussed?

Sir Thomas More (1477/8-1535) used to speak of the “sin of busyness”. More himself was a workaholic, so he knew what he was talking about. When we try to do so much that we, in consequence, fail to do things well, we are not just inefficient, we are unhealthy and, in an ecclesial context, we are even sinful. God’s call can be lost in the midst of the endlessly urgent. The important, which often requires reflection, space, calm conversation, can be missed when we are running frenetically from one meeting to the next, one crisis to the next.

What would our parishes look like if the busy amongst us took a deep breath, and set a goal to halve our workloads? What if the clergy set out to become examples of prayerful reflection and ready availability rather than the sort of people who other people don’t bother because “you’re so busy already.” Maybe a whole pile of stuff wouldn’t happen. Maybe some people’s pet projects might fall over. Maybe some of our lay people might need to “pick up the slack.” And maybe all of that would force us into better practices. And maybe that would be healthy – and Godly too.