Friday Offering from Fr Marcus 7th August 20202
A ‘Must Read’ for everyone connected with our Chaplaincy Part 2
O Lord my God,
when I in awesome wonder,
consider all the works thy hand has made,
I see the stars,
I hear the rolling thunder,
thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to thee,
How great thou art, how great thou art,
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to thee,
How great thou art, how great thou art.
Many of you know that I do quite a bit of mountain walking, and have done a few stretches of the Camino to Santiago. (My trip to do the Portuguese route was cancelled earlier this year) Although I get scared when I am up high, it is truly beautiful and awesome being up in the mountains, and they certainly become very spiritual places for me. But at the moment it is hot. So Hot that walking during the middle of the day is almost impossible. So on Tuesday I went with a group of friends for a night walk around the Sierra de Olta, finishing some time after midnight. It was a route we knew well, and we were equipped with head torches, and plenty of water as it was still hot as we set off at 7.30, and the climb is very steep.
What amazed me was all the things that we saw that are not around during the day – frogs came out to meet us. The eyes of big spiders lit up by our torch beams were peering at us from the banks of the path. A Pine Martin climbed up the tree and stood staring right at us with its huge eyes clearly visible. A wild boar thankfully rushed away from us, but made enough noise to scare the living daylights out of some of us, and a derelict tumbledown Finca just had to be explored in the dark. Best of all, I couldn’t see the drops by the side of the path, so it didn’t feel like I was up high. Once we rounded the sea side of the Olta, we waited for the clouds to part, and there was the beautiful full moon.
The reason I am telling you this is that something very familiar created a very different experience when viewed differently. We came across things that were not obvious, but always there, and somehow in the dark, we felt even more a part of it.
I am continuing with my thought about The Diocese in Europe, and hope I can encourage us all to see, and experience how much we receive by being part of it.
Today I shall speak a little about Archdeacons, Safeguarding, Lay Leadership, Synods and Communications.
I don’t know if you have much of an idea of how, in normal circumstances, my week pans out. Suffice to say that my diary gets pretty full most of the time, although we rarely have meetings in the evening. (In the UK most meetings were in the evening) I am never at a loss for some work to do. Our HFD Clergy, Fr Jim and Fr Rodney often work way above their allotted hours, and we survive through the generosity of those clergy with Permission to Officiate, some of whom are here most of the time like Fr Robin, and some visit for a few weeks, like Fr Richard Horner, who is with us now.
Well, imagine a full on work load, and then being asked by the Bishop to act as Archdeacon as well. That is how it was in the past, and several Archdeacons burned themselves out doing too much. And our last one, Fr Geoff was pretty much full time, and responded to every enquiry very quickly, and was such a fount of wisdom – but he was supposed to be retired!
So the diocese has changed its policy, and we now have a dedicated Archdeacon, Fr David Waller, and part of our contribution to the Diocese goes towards funding him. We really should not expect clergy to make themselves ill by working toohard. Jesus says the worker deserves his pay. Luke 10.7
Fr David will be visiting us in November to re Licence me, as the Licence runs for 5 years and has expired. His visit will be at no extra cost to us. He has also been very helpful in guiding us through the process of re opening our churches, and I have spoken with him about dozens of things over the last year, so I am really pleased he is around. He acts like the Bishops representative.
Having said that, Bishop David is also very much available, and has phoned a few times since lockdown just to see how we are all doing.
Safeguarding, as you know has become a major issue, not just for the church, but in all walks of life. It is right and our duty to make sure that everyone who comes into contact with our chaplaincy, and indeed every chaplaincy across the diocese, and in turn every diocese, experiences both a welcome, and a safe experience. We can never make the assumption that ‘Issues’ only happen elsewhere.
Because of this the Safeguarding Team for the Diocese work tirelessly to help implement a policy which cares for all. The main areas of work are investigating and resolving all cases and queries that come to the attention of the DBF, training of key stipendiary clergy and volunteer church officers and processing DBS checks for large numbers of clergy and volunteers.
It just so happens that since Fr Don has left, and our finances have taken a tumble, two retired clergy have got in touch, one moving here full time, and the other planning to spend a considerable amount of time next year, and they have both offered to help out in the southern part of our Chaplaincy. But first they need to be checked in the UK, and every country they have lived In for more than six months. This is a huge task which the Safeguarding Team manage on our behalf.
Just to remind you that all people, clergy and Lay who have positions of responsibility within a chaplaincy need to be checked and get their safeguarding clearance.
2019 saw a number of unusually complex and long running cases being handled by the diocesan Safeguarding Team with consequent increases in the workloads of the COO,(Chief Operations Officer) the Director of Communications, the Suffragan Bishop and the legal advisers to the Diocese as well as the diocesan Safeguarding Team.
You only need to watch the news and realise how important this work is. Part of our contribution to the Diocese goes towards Safeguarding.
The Diocese as you know is huge and complex embracing over 40 countries with a mix of languages, cultures, political differences, financial obligations and worldly and legal as well as spiritual issues, and so there are Lay People who help us with the posts that clergy are not equipped to do. We have a Legal Registrar, Diocesan Secretary, Chief Operations Officer, Head of Finance, Diocesan Safeguarding Advisor to name just a few. These folk make sure we do the things that we do properly, and we would fall apart without them.
But we also have Lay leadership in many of our Chaplaincies, and as I mentioned on Tuesday across the Diocese we have 30 Readers in training (They used to be called Lay Readers). In our own Chaplaincy we are Blessed with Stephen Carden and Tony Cooke.
The Church of England has a Synodical structure of Chaplaincies / Parishes, Deaneries (in the UK), Archdeaconries, and then Archdeaconry Synod, Diocesan Synod and General Synod with the House of Bishops and the House of Clergy and the House of Laity.
So our Clergy and Synod Reps got to our Archdeaconry Synod where they are informed of and vote on policies which come and go to Diocesan Synod, which does the same at General Synod Level.
Everyone who goes to our Archdeaconry Synod will tell you what an inspiring, up lifting, educative, informative, Spiritual and helpful experience it is. Retired previous synod reps still go in their spare time because it is so good (they don’t have to, and they pay for themselves).
So in a real way we have a say in the governance and future of not just our Chaplaincy and Diocese, but the whole of the C of E. Part of our financial contribution goes towards this.
And finally for today, we have a diocesan Communications team.
The focus of activity through 2019 has been on continuing consolidation of diocesan media platforms, across the website, social media, and blogs to make these platforms more effective and consistent.
Strong content has driven the projection of our diocesan communications across these platforms. The current diocesan website continues to average around 3,500 views per month, and encouragingly, half of those are new visitors. New followers continue to engage with the Diocese on social media, with an increase of nearly one-third on the previous year. A suite of online social media training courses for people across the Diocese was offered in late Autumn, with highly positive feedback. This is going to be repeated with training given in the use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, A Church Near You and hopefully Youtube.
Blogging by the Bishops covering their visits across the Diocese has continued to draw significant interest, in and beyond the Diocese.
Brexit remained a focal point for diocesan media coverage during 2019, with key messages on the impact of Brexit uncertainty for over a million UK citizens living in EU member states. Bishop Robert contributed regularly to Church Times coverage and gave many interviews on Brexit on the BBC and other continental European radio and TV news programmes. Positive news stories from across all aspects of diocesan and chaplaincy life in the Diocese continued to feature in our website coverage.
In addition, a new diocesan publication, European Anglicans was launched last summer, with a further edition produced before Christmas, then monthly throughout this year. This publication makes direct use of our website content and is published online, thereby achieving cost savings. At the same time, it has been possible for the Friends of the Diocese and chaplaincies to use the publication as a printed version. Check out this on www.european.anglican.org It really is good.
Part of our contribution to the Diocese goes towards communication.
I could go on talking about Continuing Ministerial Education, the huge role of the Dicesan Director of Ordinands who helps people discern their vocation. I could speak about the voluntary Chaplains of the Camino de Santiago (who don’t cost anything, but their work is administered by the diocese), and the Diocesan links we have with other Dioceses and our Archdeaconry Link with Peru. But you get the point. In my opinion we are blessed to be part of the Diocese in Europe. Like all things it could be better, but I am proud to be part of it.
Bless you, Bless you, Bless you.
Until next time.
Fr Marcus