The Revd Clive Hicks, Healthy Church Development Enabler, writes about the seemingly 'ordinary' people in our churches who quietly with their influence make churches healthier.
The individuals who others may only see as ‘ordinary’ may be a personification of Christ-like - affirming, ‘rounded’, and releasing possibilities for others by caring, yet not through power or means or status. In my parish life in one of my churches in the North of England, I was influenced by two particular men who I have cherished memories of; they both lived quite simple lives in provided accommodation.
T. had significant physical disabilities and lived with others in supported housing. A., a former miner, was one of the first at church each Sunday, and warmly greeted me and others as we arrived, from his chosen seat in the corner.
When I took T.’s funeral, and he had led a very long life, we opened the heart of the seating in the church to welcome his friends from a day centre in their wheelchairs. I spoke about his ‘eyes’ and how they communicated joy, and an impish sense of humour. He could not speak, normally, but during one service he exploded with a praise word, and could be included by his church small group by taking the offertory plate at services.
I got to know A. through our mid-week communion service, which was more like a holistic small group than many a group with that name. Here, A. had the space and opportunity to share stories from his remarkable life, unseen to many. These were told with reality and compassion, including some traumatic experiences within the mining community. I travelled hours to attend his funeral, as our relationship had been so special.
I now have an appreciation that special people are to be found all over the place, yet often in unassuming and understated circumstances that took me back to a favourite character in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, set two hundred years ago when France invaded Russia. On several pages of my Penguin edition (Volume 2), Tolstoy carefully describes the charm of Platon Karatayev who Pierre (one of the main characters) encounters in a prison shed along with captured soldiers and officials – held by Napoleon’s army as they leave Russia.
Platon was for Pierre “a most vivid and precious memory, and the very personification of all that was Russian, warm-hearted and ‘round’” [in physical shape, his pleasant smile, and his large brown eyes]. Although a figure of no consequence within the epic, he was a Christian, who “would often say the exact opposite of what he had said on a previous occasion, yet both would be right!" … He liked to talk and he talked well, adorning his speech with terms of endearment and proverbial sayings. He was the one who shared a crust with Pierre, it was him who Pierre felt “remained what he had seemed that first night – an unfathomable, rounded-off, eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth.”
Pierre said of Platon, “Every utterance and action of his was the manifestation of a force uncomprehended by him, which was his life. But his life, as he looked at it, held no meaning as a separate entity. It had meaning only as part of a whole of which he was at all times conscious. His words and actions flowed from him as smoothly, as inevitably and spontaneously as fragrance exhales from a flower...”
With all the busyness, the struggles and challenges facing our individual lives, and our churches, you might enjoy reflecting on ‘round(ed)’ people you know or have known. They are quietly living in the way that expresses their connectedness and joy as faithful followers of Jesus. Even if they are a rarity, could they be like the yeast (Luke 13.20-21) that leavens the bread? As we approach the end of a month attending to aspects of healthy churches, we may do well to value individuals who quietly, seamlessly, influence ‘the whole’ church, their friends, families and communities.