The British at prayer
Martin Cavender
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There is an intriguing passage which begins on page 131 of Mission Shaped Church and reads, ‘this report highlights a problem in Anglican methodology. We are an English Church moulded by history and culture to be like the English: in favour of slow evolutionary change. However, that is not the context we face’. It goes on, ‘How can we enable fresh expressions of Church to flourish while being true to what is good in our current systems?’ Those words reminded me of a piece in Longbow by Robert Hardy, in which the author describes the English/Welsh archer of Crecy and Agincourt, saying, ‘neither he nor his nation has ever taken kindly to servitude, and often his simplicity turns out to have been a reticence which, once dropped when overt action has to be taken, is found by his enemies to have concealed both dogged and dashing courage, subtlety together with intransigence, and a total refusal to yield to pressures from outside his nation or from within it that are not acceptable to his not quickly formed but formidaby defended attitudes.’ Alongside that, from another piece of military history, were words of the brilliant German Field Marshal Rommel in the Western Desert, when he spoke of the British soldier’s ‘genius for improvisation’.
The sort of amazingly privileged birds-eye view that ‘Springboard’ has had over the last 12 years or so convinces me that in matters of spirituality and prayer the Church around this country is hugely creative and imaginative, and is constantly working to new ways of being.
So, I ask myself, how do these things work together in my experience in questions of spirituality and prayer? Has our national character got anything to do with it, alongside all the other things we’ve been examining for the last few years like context, culture, even personality and communicating the Gospel? We’re not a nation that takes kindly to ideas imported from outside as some kind of package or formula. There is no doubt about those ‘formidably defended attitudes’! On the other hand, the sort of amazingly privileged birds-eye view that ‘Springboard’ has had over the last 12 years or so convinces me that in matters of spirituality and prayer the Church around this country is hugely creative and imaginative, and is constantly working to new ways of being. Rommel was right about that genius for improvisation, that sense of invention. I could list hundreds of different ways in which I have come across people applying themselves in prayer, welcoming the work of the Holy Spirit, crying out in intercession, resting in contemplative prayer and meditation, Ignatian retreats, Julian groups, receiving the Eucharist, praying with the Saints, using incense, lighting candles, the daily offi ce, the use of icons and so on, many from the Catholic tradition. Sometimes these are neatly updated, such as the way in which many of the hits on the ‘ReJesus’ website and another, ‘Embody’, are in the section on spirituality, where you can, eg. light a virtual candle. One visitor said, ‘Hi, I just wanted to say that I’m on a path of discovery Re Christianity. Your website (especially the daily prayers and the spiritual journey) are an enormous help and guideline for me. I come from an absolutely atheistic, sceptical background.’
Other developments include ‘The Quiet Garden’ which began life from the thinking of a parish priest in Amersham and has now spread across the country, appearing in many different places; and its followup, ‘Contemplative Fire’. Quiet days and retreats are increasingly popular. Alongside the traditional prayer group is the triplet – informal, meets when it wants to, prays in its own style. Thus three business people meeting for a prayer breakfast once a week; or a triplet meeting for coffee when they can; or three people on their journey to work on the train. Increasingly around the country, prayer walking the community – what somebody has called ‘the body on the beat’. Wherever we have come across it, it seems to produce great fruit. It’s something about the offering of unconditional love into the community.
One of the most vital evangelistic tools in this culture is prayer visiting – going from door to door in the community, perhaps in twos and with words to the effect, ‘hello, we’re from the parish church; here’s a letter from the minister to prove we’re genuine; now, is there anything youwould like us to pray for?’ This can be carrying prayers back into the church, or it can be an offer of prayer there and then. The response can be dramatic and thevast majority of it positive. I have known of people converted on the doorstep in this,and a huge response across whole communities – for example, one street in Liverpool in which the overwhelming request from the majority of homes was,‘will you please pray for my loneliness?’ Internal prayer for church members comes with The Honeycomb model, froma church in Sussex – where at Epiphany,they put on the chancel step a pot with slips of paper with the names of everyone in the congregation. Each person comes forward to take a slip – not their own – and then commits themselves to pray for that person named every day for a year. Thus everyone is prayed for every day – but no one knows who’s praying for them. The 1.1.1. model from Korea – at 1pm each day I pray for one person for one minute – simple, realistic, realisable and effective. The Sleepless Prayer Campaign came from a church on a tough housing estate in Kent where the minister found that a number of the congregation could not sleep at night through illness, pain, insomnia or whatever. She formed them into a ‘sleepless prayer group’, giving them a logo of a sheep jumping over a gate. They were asked to pray for the work of the Church in the community when they awoke at night, or got up to make themselves a cup of tea. That church gives a great sense of the Spirit’s presence when you walk into it. One member of the group, Kathy, who has been in constant pain for 14 years said: ‘It has transformed my night-times. When I go to bed now, Iexpect to meet with the living God. The only annoying thing is that sometimes I sleep right through.’
ReSource is now reprinting the ‘Oikos’ prayer card put together by Stephen Cottrell and James Lawrence, which enables everyone in a group, o rcongregation to pray personally for individual members of their ‘Oikos’ or network of friends/family or business acquaintances, using the prayers provided. It can then become a rhythm, with those people named in your card becoming the ones you pray for as you go forward to the Communion rail I nchurch, or in private prayer times, or as ‘Surrounded by the Lord’, in which group members pray for one another using only promises from Scripture – a simple work which can be a very powerful experience. Notes on this and other models for prayer can be had from the ReSource office in Abingdon or from the website.
We’re good at talking ourselves down. We can be skilled at deriding our Nation and our Church. I’m increasingly sure that the work of the Holy Spirit around these Islands is very often seen in the creative and imaginative, inventive and improvised responses to perceived needs. Combine that with the ‘dogged’ and subtle elements that Robert Hardy sees in the longbowmen of Agincourt and I believe there are national qualities that we miss at our peril. Not for nothing are the Church’s ‘prayer warriors’ called just that. They are the ones who hold the secret to the mission-shaped Church and the communication of the Gospel afresh in this generation, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
About Martin Cavender
Martin Cavender is Director of ReSource. A former solicitor and Diocesan Registrar, he was previously Director of Springboard. He and his wife Cesca have three grown up children and two grandchildren. They are based in Oxfordshire.
Read Martin's introduction to ReSource
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