The General Synod of the Church of England debate last week about working class vocations was really encouraging. I was called to speak. Unfortunately, the length of time you had to talk was reduced as I was walking from my seat to the podium so I had to cut from 5 minutes to three on the fly.
This is the full text I had prepared so that you can see what I didn’t get to say. As always, I write to speak not as a written text:
Robb Sutherland
Diocese of Leeds
132
We had a fringe meeting about this motion a couple of days ago where someone asked “what is the fear that working class Christian’s have about the Church of England?” Which made me think about how to explain to fish that they are swimming in water.
The Church of England has it’s own water that everyone swims in and because people are so used to living in that water, they don’t realise it is there until someone like me comes from outside and starts trying to breath it.
It is twenty years since I was taken to Matalan by my middle class wife and bought me a dressing gown for my upcoming trip to Hogwarts for a BAP [Bishop’s Advisory Panel].
It is twenty years since my DDO, Sue Penfold told me what to expect.
“Robb, you drink one beer in the bar and you go to bed”.
This is very different to the mining community I grew up in.
And I can confirm that General Synod is very different to my first experience of governance.
That came when I was elected to the committee of a working men’s club.
On the day before I started college, I rang Sue in a bit of a flap.
“What do I do about going to college tomorrow. Do I take my earrings out?”
Sue replied “Robb. God called you not someone else. If you do that you’ll never put them back in”.
Then my first service as a curate came with this feedback: “That was weird. It was like going to church but in broad Yorkshire”.
Spit and polish.
Make it so Robb can get through selection.
Make it so Robb can get through college.
Make it so Robb can get through curacy.
Make it so Robb can get through canapés. Whatever they are.
Yeah. If you’ve read the report, “what is a canapes?” is what I added to the report.
I now minister on an estate.
I have a young Ordinand who has got himself to college.
We’ve navigated it.
More importantly, he has navigated it.
His isn’t the only conversation I’ve had about vocation.
You can’t see yourself being part of something unless you can see someone like you being part of it.
My presence in our community has shown people that they can be part of it.
Two conversations about priestly vocation came to hurdles that were too high.
They weren’t encountered. People saw them on the horizon and thought they were going to trip and fall.
For ten years I have been a member of the Estates Evangelism Task Group with Bishop Lynne.
One of our key focusses has been vocations.
We have been searching for language to describe the struggles that people have navigating the posh world of the corridors of power in the Church of England.
We now have the language.
And Synod have agreed that we should be actively enabling working class vocations.
So now we need action.
We need the support structures we want putting in place to support people from the first step of the vocational journey onwards.
We need support for ordinands and all of the other roles we have in training.
We need working class people represented in all levels of leadership in the Church of England.
I checked with Alex that I could say this.
At the fringe he said “we’re not asking for the Archbishop of Canterbury”.
I disagree.
Inclusion should not come with limitations.
One day, I hope to be sharing an Iceland prawn ring with whoever is resident of Lambeth Palace.
I am sure they can also have canapés for those who need them.
I support this motion and urge you to vote for it.
But importantly, I pray that you will return to your council houses and palaces and actively get on with the work it calls for.
Go and ensure that working class people are included in all levels of our beloved Church of England.
A huge thank you to Alex Frost for putting this work forward as a Private Member’s Motion. We have been looking at this in the Estates Evangelism Task Group for ten years. What we really needed was someone to write it down on a piece of paper and ask for signatures.
That this Synod welcome work that has already been done to encourage the ministry of people from working class backgrounds, and request the Ministry Development Board to go further in developing a national strategy for the encouragement, development and support of vocations, lay and ordained, of people from working class backgrounds and report back to Synod to debate that strategy within 12 months.
I have since learned that not everyone knows what an Iceland Prawn Ring is. Who knew?