Doorways to the Sacred: Developing Sacramentality in Fresh
Expressions of Church edited by Phil Potter and Ian Mobsby is the latest book
in the Ancient Faith, Future Mission series. As with other books in this series
it is predominantly Anglican in it’s outlook, whilst trying to be an ecumenical
book and is made up from contributors based in the UK and USA. These include
people like Graham Cray, Lucy Moore, Sue Wallace and John and Olive Drane who
many will be familiar with.
The book looks at various sacraments: baptism,
confirmation, the Eucharist, healing and confession raising questions relevant
to their use in missional communities. The book appears, to the outside reader,
to have two aims. Firstly, to argue the importance of the sacraments and look
at how they might appear in missional communities and Fresh Expressions.
Secondly, this book appears to be seeking to give a reasoned argument as to why
some of the “laws” or “rules” around the sacraments that the church has need to
be re-examined to give more room for them to be contextually appropriate. The
book shows how the rules around who should and shouldn’t be taking communion,
for example, are already being broken with regard to everybody – baptised or
not – being able to come to the table in many situations and words being used
which are more contextually appropriate than some of the official liturgies. In
her chapter on communion and Messy Church Lucy Moore talks of now being at a
point of entering negotiation with the Liturgical Commission.
The book is also interesting for those of us who have been
following the literature for many years by showing where some of the people and
missional communities themselves have moved onto as time has progressed. It
outlines how some have taken the journey from “post-evangelical” to Anglican vocation
on to parish priest seeking to use what they have learnt in their missional
communities in deprived parishes. Ian Mobsby is interesting in that he has moved
on from Moot and in his current appointment is becoming a mixed economy parish
containing both “traditional” community and “fresh expression”. Similarly in
the USA Karen Ward has moved from a “hipster, arty community” in Seattle to
seeking to develop a new community in a poor parish in Oregon. It has Reagan
Humber, who is one of the priests at the House of Saints and Sinners in Colorado
talking about their recent move of building as well as about the open policy
they have, which readers of Nadia Boltz-Weber’s books will be familiar with.
Cray starts by talking about how sacraments are useful in
our contemporary world but they have to be something which take us beyond our
current yearning for individual experience. This is something which is echoed
by other authors, but as John Drane points out it can be that individual
experience within a corporate ritual which enables somebody to have a moment
with God where they become oblivious of everything and everybody else. Sue
Wallace uses the example of the Eucharist being the Tardis which enables us to
go back to the foot of the cross – which I think is a good example for showing
how sacraments can and should be both communal and individual experiences both
at the same time.
With regard to who should take the sacraments and whether
they should be truly open to all this is explored in the book. As one might
expect the overwhelming response is they should be. However, there are some
useful points made about why boundaries or careful handling may be needed. Ian
Mosby talks of the value of confirmation as a sacrament but how we need to
ensure that it is done of a young person’s own free will and certainly not just
to help said young person get into the religious school of their choice. As
somebody who made my own daughter argue her case for “adult baptism” before I
would give permission – wanting to ensure that it was done from a point of
belief not “fitting in” I echo what he is saying.
Jonathon Clark has an
interesting chapter where he looks at how baptism can be open but it needs to
be seen as a commitment to a community rather than an individualistic act.
The book is split into five main sections: Sacraments in
Context and Culture, Sacraments in Formation and Worship, Sacraments in
Initiation, Sacraments in Eucharist and Holy Communion and Sacraments of Healing,
Confession and Reconciliation. However, as one might expect with this type of
book Eucharist and Holy Communion does tend to dominate.
The most interesting section of the book for me was the
final one on healing, confession and reconciliation. With my low church
background I had never thought of confession as a sacrament. Yet, it is an
important one as Bryony Davis who mixes prison chaplaincy with leadership of a
missional community in Surrey (not linked to the prison context) explains
within her chapter.
I think that this section is important because whilst other
chapters allude to working with survivors this section directly relates to it,
(amongst other groups). There is a huge work to be undertaken with regard to
this area and it is something that I believe churches are only just beginning
to get their heads around. Missional communities by their nature of working “on
the margins” to some extent are useful sources of wisdom on this work. Yet, as
Julie Leger Dunstan makes clear there is a difference between what is occurring
in these contexts and counselling. She highlights the place of spiritual
directors in being able to hear confession, but not being counsellors (as they
are very clear they are not there to be).
The one real nod to UK ecumenicalism, apart from some of
the comments in Lucy Moore’s chapter comes in a moving chapter from Simon
Sutcliffe who talks of reconciliation rather than confession. He argues that
this sacrament is deep in Methodist DNA if one looks back at the class meeting
structure, yet he says as Methodists we only tend to concentrate on communion
and baptism as the sacraments.
So is this book worth a read? I would say yes if you want
to think through what sacraments are in a way which is non-threatening. I say
this as somebody who values ritual but finds the rules of the church with
regard to who can and can’t do things related to sacramentality and how they
have to be done “properly” difficult to get my head around. This book speaks
into my experience and the times I have found the eucharist most special being
ok. These experiences came in festival fields where nobody knew who was what
and my CP blessing / wedding when we had an open communion table in Bletchley
Park. Excluded from the church building in that situation due to what our birth
certificates said about gender we were able to have a table in space where all
were truly welcome in what was effectively a pop up church where the ball room
became church for that hour.
If you are somebody who is hung up on “proper polity” you
might find this a difficult read, but that’s good too because we need to find
ways forward. We need to find ways where the traditional is fully respected but
also all are open to receive the invitation to wholeness God which the
sacraments offer.
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