A conversation, on 27th July, between Mark Pengelly, Minister at Trinity Methodist Church, and Richard Cecil, Secretary of CTiC
The following is a transcript of the conversation.
MP: Well, it’s just occurred to me, you know, talking about hope for the future, that we that we started off talking about the restoration – of tractors and cars and clocks. As you say, with the clock stuck there at 20 to 7 when it’s half 11 in the morning I need to do a bit of work on that.
But, you know, talking about what has sustained us and strengthened us and given us hope through the pandemic and, I guess, I would say, that it’s a theme through ministry really, it’s this business of restoration that God can continue and, in an ongoing manner, will restore us, his people, and I hold out the same hope for the church you know.
RC: How much is that pre-dated by lamentation and forgiveness, picking up on what Tom Wright was saying.
MP: Yes, well I was very impressed that he said, you know, we mustn’t just wipe away what is gone before in our enthusiasm to rebuild which where he was heading to with his hope rebuilt talk, wasn’t it?
I thought it was words of great wisdom really that we need to lament and, you know, acknowledge the pain and heartache that’s gone before. Now I suppose in terms of a restoration project, that would equate to not papering over the cracks, you know, if you’ve got a rusty car not just get an out of body filler and whacking it in there to cover up all the difficulty and the pain of the past experience, you know, it’s all too easy to paper over cracks and pretend that things are okay when perhaps underneath, there are still issues to be dealt with and I thought that was what said the lamenting and the sorrow as we look to offer hope to people was about. You know we’re going to be real, haven’t we?
I always find the last chapter of Revelation to be one of the most inspiring passages when we talk about hope, I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth, for the first Heaven and the first Earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, See the home of God is among the mortals. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more. For the first things have passed away.
I always find that a tremendous vision of hope, especially for those for whom the tears are flowing now. And, you know, talking about our Churches Together there won’t be a church amongst our fellowship in Churches Together in Chelmsford that hasn’t had direct and first-hand experience of mourning and loss due to the pandemic, or perhaps, due to all the knock-on things, which are still going to be with us for some time. You know, the delayed and deferred medical procedures, the lack of treatment because people didn’t feel they wanted to trouble the doctor. You know, these things are all going to play out and have their impact.
RC: The Pingdemic that people talking about us.
MP: Yes, absolutely.
RC: The consequence on supply chains.
MP: Yes absolutely. You know if things went badly wrong in terms of, you know, getting food to the shops, you know, it is potentially serious. I’ll never forget my first pandemic memory really was queuing round the block at the Aldi over at the clock tower trading estate there. And we were queued for yards and yards and yards and I’ll never forget the sort of apocalyptic feel that it engendered. We have lived through something extraordinary. And well, not all have lived through it, of course. But, in the midst of it all, we’ve been called upon to proclaim that God is with this in this and words like these, ‘that he will wipe the tears away from eyes when all things are restored’ become essential, as something we build our hope upon.
RC: So, for better or worse I suggested that we look at, how this fits with Isaiah 61, where Jesus says the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord. Well, no! Where the prophet says, the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. And a day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn, and to provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
In that it has a full stop there, I stop.
And I wondered if you’d be able to see examples, for example, of freedom for the captives, release for prisoners, praise instead of mourning.
MP: Well, I think, that whatever we can say about the restrictions and limitations that we as churches have experienced, there’s been absolutely no question that we have not carried on being church. You know, there’s been no question, as far as I can see, that we are any the less God’s people. And, in that sense, faith has sustained people, regardless of whether they are able to get out on the Sunday morning, or not, or at least, you know, this has been my experience. And in terms of, The Lord’s favour, you know, it’s pretty tough to use the language of the year of the Lord’s favour. I don’t know if I want to say we’re in that year now but there’ve been favourable things in amongst the challenges of this last year and a half. For example, the way in which technology has been used, as a tool for sharing a life of church and proclaiming the Christian message. I’ve never done anything digital really in terms of ministry very regularly and I’m an IT enthusiast, it’s another of the things that I like to do is restore a broken-down computer but I’ve never used such tools very seriously in day-to-day ministry but I have jolly well had to in the past year and a half. And some of the most effective things have been some of the simplest. So, me and my two Methodist colleagues decided we would offer evening prayers; just a short time of prayer each evening seven o’clock on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays; we would take it in turns. And we simply picked up our phones and press, ‘Go Live’. It really was a simple as that. And offered ten to fifteen minutes of devotions and prayers and the reading of Scripture. And, I wouldn’t say we’ve gone viral, but we have offered something to people which has been warmly received and back in the height of lock down I would get fifty, sixty people look at my evening prayers, not all live at the time, perhaps fifteen or so would be watching live and they could make comments, which was lovely. But over the course of the next day or so number of other people would watch it, and also make comments. And the incredible thing was many of these folks were way beyond Chelmsford. They were Facebook friends of mine and my colleagues have the same experience. And many of them were folks beyond the life of church. And I’ve had wonderful engagement with people, who, you know, perhaps would never ordinarily have got involved in any prayer kind of ministry that the church was offering. If I organised a prayer meeting at one of my churches, I’d be lucky to get half a dozen, every Friday watching live and then you know thirty, forty people watching there afterwards. It’s been relatively simple and it seems to be something that has sustained and blessed people. It’s been quite remarkable really – the simplicity of it. And, at the moment, we’re carrying on offering that. Whether we will into the long-term future, I don’t know, but… Yes, it’s been interesting to see that the ways in which favourable things can be drawn out of years that certainly don’t feel like the Lord’s favour.
I think there’s going to be a whole realm of ministry that is going to be needing to unfold in coming months because the mourning process has been very much limited really, you know, as people haven’t been able to attend funerals in the normal way. At the beginning of the pandemic, there was talk about, ‘Well, we’ll have a memorial or thanksgiving service for loved ones, you know, when this is all behind us.’ The idea being that that might be two- or three-months’ time, you know. But I think it’s probably going to be not what some families will want to try and revisit the funeral, as it were, with the thanksgiving. I’m thinking of some more communal kind of ministry to those that have lost loved ones in the past year and a half. And whose celebrations of their lives were, you know, very much thwarted. I’m wondering if All Saints and All Souls this year is maybe going to be a significant opportunity for offering something along those lines.
RC: Yuh, yuh. I mean obviously you are new to the area and as you said earlier you’ve only had six months or so before the pandemic.
MP: Yes.
RC: Have you managed to get any sort of relationships supporting you in terms of other ministers of other denomination as well as your own?
MP: There’s been through the ecumenical partnership churches which some of our Methodist Churches are involved in there has been engagement with other ministers along those lines but, just like everything else, it’s been not as simple ordinarily would be. You know, some of the online events like the shared Zoom services with the friends at Sandon and St Augustine’s, they’re good examples of the way in which we did come together, you know, despite the staying at home. But I think what I’ve found difficult is that all the peripheral conversation is what is stripped out of those kind of encounters. You do your thing for the Zoom…
RC: Zoom can only support one conversation at a time.
MP: This is the weakness of it, isn’t it, you just can’t float around. I know you can have the breakout rooms and that sort of thing.
Yes, and you can’t talk over each other in a soon breakout room in the way that you know conversation around that table might. And I’ve been involved in the Anglia Ruskin University Chaplaincy Council. And there’s a whole raft of people in those meetings which I’ve only ever attended on Zoom. And I’m very conscious that I haven’t been able to get you know that group of people because we’re from many different places for start, but there’s no extra conversation around the meeting. And I think, it’s definitely been harder.
At least I have the six months, you know, just to get a head start and I did meat a lot of people in that time. Done a number of pastoral visits, which is perhaps one of the hardest things that’s been stripped down to ministry in the pandemic. But I’m very mindful that, you know, that other people have started appointments since lockdown. And that would be even harder so count my blessings when I can.