As the Para-Olympics have now finished our minds are fresh with the
image of plane-loads of athletes returning with an unbelievable number of
medals. The world is asking how we do it. Sixty six medals in the Olympics put
us second in the table, one above China. One hundred and forty seven in the
Para-Olympics also put us second, this time one below China. How can so small
an island produce so many champions. The answer, it would seem, is that a lot
of lottery money has been sunk into Olympic sports. We (that is lottery
players) funded our athletes to the tune of about four million pounds per
medal. The whole situation is a wonder of focused strategic planning with money
being targeted to fund what is likely to succeed. In the process, some pretty hardnosed
decisions had to be taken and not only have athletes been funded, to enable
them to devote themselves to full-time training, but the infrastructure of
Sport GB has been set up and funded to achieve the greatest effect.
It brings to mind another scenario, which is the current state of play
in the Church of England, in which the treasure chest of the Church
Commissioners is being unlocked to fund those projects of church building and
growth which are deemed likely to succeed. The same principles are in play.
Proper strategic planning is thought likely to produce results and the
hoped-for change to church growth. Money will be channeled into those things
which will provide such growth, whilst other parts of church life will lose
their funding. If it worked for the Olympics, then why should it not work for
the Church?
Olympic funding and sharp management is not the whole story. Without
the skills of the runners, the rowers, the horse-riders and so on, there would
be no medals. It is not just focused strategic thinking that brought in the
gold, although that seems to have helped. Primarily it took the focused and
often sacrificial dedication of each athlete to devote their lives to the
pursuit of excellence in their chosen field. The good management of second rate
athletes will not active Olympic glory, but good strategic thinking is a tool
which can greatly assist in the fostering and development of talent.
For the Church of England, the Renewal and Reform program is a welcome
tool both to unlock and to focus the potential that is there within the church.
Indeed it might be said that the church will only succeed in its mission if it
gets its act together and starts working in a much more determined way. But we
must not confuse good management with the inherent talent of being the face of
Christ in the world. I support the Renewal and Reform program, indeed I voted
for it before I left General Synod in 2015. But the program itself cannot be
the success we hope for. It can only a means to foster that success. Being good
managers is not what the church is about, although managing well ‘what we are
about’ is to be expected. What we are about is to live lives of holiness with
an engagement in the world which will always be sacrificial and self-giving and
through which the face of Christ is revealed. This raises questions as to
whether all bishops need to be outgoing, dynamic managers, or whether there is
a place for mystics, prophets, thinkers, or men and women of deep prayer. Good
management on its own is of little use unless what is managed is thereby
transformed and empowered in mission.
But there is one other question about Olympic gold which is relevant to
these discussions. There is something glorious about coming home with so many
medals, at the cost of several hundred millions of pounds, but does that help
engender community sport projects in the ordinary places of this land? In other
worlds, it has been argued that there is something very elitist in the way that
Olympic funding is done. It can be argued that, by going for excellence,
ordinary people in ordinary communities might be inspired to go out and engage
in sport, but would the money being spent of Olympic gold be more productive if
were to be spent at the more local level? For the church, is the present ethos
of the Church of England weighted to the more 'successful' and high profile
churches, whereas there may be many small congregations, perhaps condemned by
having small numbers, which area nonetheless exercising heroic ministry as salt
in the communities in which their lives are set?
