RACHAEL INVESTIGATES: MORE REVELATIONS ABOUT ANGLO-CATHOLIC EVANGELISM PART 1 OF 2

My job is to support Christians in sharing their faith with others. It’s to keep evangelism on the table as a core thing that we do. It’s to help people to take every opportunity to appropriately, comfortably and lovingly give a reason for their faith in the different situations they find themselves; at the pub, online, at Nandos, in church.

And if I’m to be at all useful to the churches I serve, I need to properly understand if different church traditions approach this business of faith sharing differently. Logic would suggest they probably do, since they do most other things differently.

So, let me introduce to you Mother Gemma Sampson, Curate of St Aidan’s and St Columba’s in Hartlepool whom I’m visiting to grill her on this subject of Anglo-Catholic evangelism, just like I did Father Kyle McNeil in my last article. I wanted to interview them both, recognising that Traditional Catholics and Liberal Catholics may well have different approaches to this.

We’ve just got back from evening Mass at St Aidan’s, and to my delight, Gemma has provided a Chinese takeaway which makes me think Anglo-Catholics must be pretty magnificent people. Hanging out with them always seems to involve food.

As I munch on prawn crackers (Gemma would like me to stress that she wasn’t because she’s a vegan!) I start with some pretty basic questions, like this one, to set the scene: how would I know if I was in an Anglo-Catholic church?

“In Anglo-Catholic churches you’ll always find a dedication to Our Lady. The worship will be sacramental [there’ll always be one of the sacraments like Mass or a Baptism within the service. It wouldn’t ever be just preaching and singing for example]. It’ll also be liturgical [centred around a particular printed set of words]. It’s where you’ll find the bells and smells style worship. And you’ll often find Anglo-Catholic churches in places where poverty is higher.”

Our Lady (AKA Mary, Jesus’ mum) gets lots of attention in this tradition and Gemma absolutely loves her. She gets really animated at this point.

“Mary has a massive prominence in our worship. Asking Mary to pray for us is definitely one of the features of Anglo-Catholic worship. In a lot of churches there’ll be a Lady Chapel [a whole chapel dedicated to Mary], and in Anglo-Catholic churches Mary will feature in the Eucharistic prayer and intercessions. Plus the festivals of Mary will be observed, like the Annunciation, and Mary’s month of May [special devotions and services held in the month of May, sometimes outdoors].”

I’ve experienced this myself. I’ve preached in Gemma’s churches a few times and worshipped at St Aidan’s at Easter. It’s where I first learned to recite my Hail Mary. Mary’s everywhere.

“What else is distinctive about Anglo-Catholic worship?” I ask.

“Well,” she leans in over the noodles and does her best serious face “the other thing about Anglo-Catholic worship is it’s all about reverence and awe. There’s no talk about Jesus being my personal Lord and saviour. It’s about the whole church. Community. It’s more God almighty than God all matey.”

I snigger. I love this line. And I know what she means. In Anglo-Catholic churches I always feel very wowed by the experience. It feels formal but in a good way. Awe-inspiring. I love that feeling. It’s brought me to tears so many times and feels incredibly special. I don’t get the same feeling (or at least haven’t yet) in evangelical churches. Yet, I can’t help but also lean comfortably towards the idea that Jesus is my best buddy. Anyway, moving on…

“So bearing all of this distinctiveness in mind, and as I’m here to explore evangelism, tell me Gemma, how do you share your faith?” She thinks for a moment then begins,

“Historically, in the Anglo-Catholic tradition there weren’t things like Alpha courses or Home Groups or that sort of thing. What you’ll find more of is the practical meeting of human need. So, like feeding the hungry.”

Feeding the hungry? Even though I’ve already heard what Fr Kyle had to say on this subject, this kind of answer still stumps me. When I think of sharing my faith, I picture me talking to a person or group of people about how, where and why I became a Christian. I think about story-telling and conversations. Testimony. Words. The Word. So the answer “feeding the hungry” is confusing. It seems to not actually answer the question I asked.

But I trust Gemma so I think maybe I’m asking the wrong question. Or maybe my whole understanding of sharing faith is just completely different from hers. So I press on because I honestly think I’ve misunderstood,

“OK, feeding the hungry… but what about deliberately and obviously talking about or telling people about Jesus? Would you do that? Do you do that?”

“Yes.” She tells me, very matter of fact. I’m confused. I still think we have our wires crossed. “Could you describe that?” I ask.

“Well when we’re feeding the hungry [she means literally, at the kitchen they’ve set up in her church which feeds hundreds and hundreds of local poor people] I bang on about how Jesus thought this was really important and how it’s a Gospel imperative. I tell people about how much he did it.”

Could you help them reach their target so they can get a proper kitchen instead of just containers? Click here.

Hallelujah. We are on the same wave length. This wonderful, intelligent and deeply committed priest does know what I’m asking, and does, literally, tell people about Jesus. She simply tells the hungry people who turn up at her church’s kitchen why she’s caring for them in the first place.

Mother Gemma elaborates,

“So what I wouldn’t say is, ‘Oh you’re hungry, what you really need is to know Jesus and then you won’t be hungry anymore.’ I think the Pope says something like ‘You feed the hungry and then you pray for them and that is how prayer works. You don’t just pray that God will end poverty. You meet the need then you pray.’ I think that’s a very authentic expression of the Christian faith. People want to help those in need. I just connect the dots by saying ‘Well I feed hungry people because I love Jesus and Jesus massively cares for the poor. And Jesus is food and we’re fed in the Mass so we can feed other people.’”

And then her eyes properly light up and she puts down her fork. She’s just mentioned Mass, and as an Anglo-Catholic, she definitely has more to say on this topic.

“I haven’t mentioned the real presence yet! I have to tell you about that. It’ll blow your mind.” I put my fork down too. It’s about to get serious.

(here’s part 2 but warning… it gets pretty weepy at the end!)

RACHAEL INVESTIGATES: ANGLO-CATHOLIC EVANGELISM PART 2 OF 2

Read Part 1 here where I had to get my head around some basic assumptions of Anglo-Catholic worship, in order to set the scene.

We’ve been chatting in the vicarage for a couple of hours now and mostly Fr Kyle has been leading the conversation and teaching me some important things about his tradition, but most of what he’s prepared (yes of course he’s prepared hand outs and a reading list! Have you met Fr Kyle?) has been exclusively on mission, and yet I came here to talk about evangelism. I might not be a theologian, but I know they’re not interchangeable words.

I tentatively mention this and he explains. This is partly because he had forgotten exactly why I said I was coming (!), but also because, for me to understand evangelism in the catholic tradition, I need to understand the catholic view of mission first. I need to understand the huge importance placed upon community, upon the Church as the collective people – a ‘communion’ of God’s people, living and departed. Because it’s not just about individual soul saving. By this I understand he is alluding to the caricature that, with mission and evangelism in the opposite end of the church – in the evangelical tradition, more emphasis is placed upon one’s individual relationship with Jesus as one’s personal saviour (this is something I intend to discover when I visit some evangelical churches to discuss the same topic).

Back to Anglo-Catholicism…

Fr Kyle says, “If God’s one plan for the world (and there’s no backup plan) is the mission of the Church, then mission is only ever done through the Church. Seeing where God’s prompting us to be and getting stuck in. That’s the (traditional) Catholic interpretation. Where God wants us to be he’s already sown seeds. He’s sown seeds everywhere. But for them to bear fruit, they must do so through the Church.”

I’m told the whole purpose of catholic evangelism is to bring people to a living relationship with Jesus in the Mass. I ask for clarification on the phrase “bring people to a living relationship with Jesus”. I want to know what that actually looks like; what it means practically. So I ask “What does the word evangelism mean to you?” After a long pause, and careful consideration, he says it’s “Announcing the Good News of God’s love and showing people how they can enter into it more deeply. That relationship of love begins with Baptism, and it’s achieved primarily by encountering Jesus in the Eucharist.”

The Eucharist, it’s no surprise, is key here. As I understand it, if you’re an Anglo-Catholic, to share your faith with someone isn’t simply so that their soul can be saved through hearing the Word, and you leave it at that. It’s about bringing them into the Church (the people and the building) so that they can experience Jesus through his body and blood in the sacrament of Holy Communion, which isn’t only about being part of a shared meal, being in community, but actually makes them a bit more like Jesus every day.

“So,” I press further, “Does it mean actually telling people about Jesus?” I want to really get to the heart of what evangelism looks like in Anglo-Catholicism.

“Of course,” he replies.

I want details. I want specifics. How does it happen? Fr Kyle begins his answer with a brief history lesson and I worry he’s being evasive, but he’s not at all, just setting the scene so that I understand:

“The main aim is to form people into communities that are Eucharistic and that invite people on a lifelong journey of sanctification. Traditional Anglo-Catholic parishes tend disproportionately to be in areas of deprivation, or that have a history of deprivation. This is because the C of E was not quick to plant churches in the new working class communities that came out of the industrial revolution in the 1800s. But at that time Catholic minded missionaries did, and staffed them. That’s why there are more Anglo-Catholic churches in deprived areas.

“This is not only a historic pattern when the movement was beginning, but is still the same now. So the method of evangelisation in such communities has been incarnational. Relational. It’s engaging in presence for the long haul. A slow-burn evangelistic method. That’s partly to do with the aim of taking people on a journey – of ‘conversion’ being a life-long process of becoming more like Jesus – but also to do with the sorts of communities that we’re serving.

“In the past when clergy numbers were higher it meant clerical presence. Being involved in the local community. Conversations. Connections.”

I’ve already seen this in action today. When we were walking through the parish I was very surprised to see how respectful, even deferential two youths were to Fr Kyle when we passed by. They were well-used to seeing a man in a long black cassock walking through the streets. The church still means an awful lot here. Whether they’re believers or not, it’s clearly normal to see your local priest out and about.

“So if anyone was telling people about Jesus it would be the priest?” I ask.

“In the past, yes. But since the object of the exercise is to form a worshipping community, historically a great deal of energy has also been invested by the whole congregation in social events and activities that benefit the local community.”

I get that it’s natural that the priest does it, but I want to know if the congregation ever do it themselves and if there are any particular barriers to sharing their faith – any barriers that are particular to Anglo-Catholics. I’m told there are no more than in any other tradition. There are the common barriers of talking about something deeply personal, which touches on emotion. People have a fear of rejection.

This is a very stark point and I know for a fact he’s right that these are the kinds of barriers faced by Christians of all flavours. Christian speaker Michael Harvey has written and said much on this tricky topic of our reluctance to invite people to church, and it seems to cross tradition boundaries. It’s something most of us find really hard.

But is our willingness or reluctance to share our faith really nothing at all to do with our theology or tradition? I put to Fr Kyle that surely it’s the theology which creates a culture of worship and “doing church” that feeds certain behaviours, and surely that affects how likely an ordinary lay person is to share their faith, and how they go about doing it. Could it be, that whilst it’s true that people from all traditions find it hard, some congregations are naturally more inclined to have conversations about faith with friends and strangers than others?

“Yes,” he agrees. “It is possible that, because the Christian life as an Anglo-Catholic invites you to explore it – requires you to experience it – it makes the Christian life more difficult to just explain. You can’t just lay it out on a stall.” We’re back to the importance of community again and the Eucharist. It’s much more than words. I’m beginning to understand, I think. Evangelism looks very different in traditional Anglo-Catholicism because how it understands and does mission is so different from other traditions. It’s a slow burn thing. Perhaps less explicit?

We leave it there for now but my investigations into Evangelism in different church traditions is far from over. My next stop is dinner with Mother Gemma Sampson, Curate of two Anglo-Catholic churches in Hartlepool; St Aidan’s and St Columba’s. I’m keen to see if she can shed any further light on this topic. I’m off to find out, and could be coming to a church near you soon.