Join the Adventure of Hope
Tim Matthews
Hodder & Stoughton, 2018
I knew Tim Matthews as a teenager, being friends with his elder sister, and attending the church where his father was one of the clergy (St Saviours, Guildford). Tim was positive and energetic, which is evident in his book ‘Love Church’ which describes is experience in leading the revitalisation of two churches in Bournemouth.
Books of this type can be irritating for readers who have not been blessed by rapid growth in their own churches. Fortunately Tim writes ‘warts and all’, recounting the strains, setbacks and tiredness of the long haul. This makes it a realistic as well as aspirational read.
Tim does not offer a set formula for church growth, but stresses that prayer and closeness to God are key:
“Forget strategy documents, budgets and meetings with donors and decision-makers. They’re all necessary in due time, but if I were to start a business, charity or church out of those things alone, I’d be done for. I have found that the two greatest factors that determines success over the long term are the health of my personal relationship with God and the vitality of my core relationships with those I love.” P.145.
“I get to meet a lot of leaders now who want to plant churches. They want to talk about the place, the church, the project – just as I used to. I’ve learned to do for them what people far wiser than I did for me. I begin by asking them about their personal prayer and worship lives because at the core of every church is the senior leader’s daily time of prayer. When we turn to discuss their plans for a church plant, I start by asking them about their plans for prayer and worship. Out of all the things that we can prepare and plan for, nothing is more important than that. Every church needs a worship leader. Every church needs lead worshippers. Every church needs leaders who worship.” P.169.
When Tim started at St Swithun’s Bournemouth, he sought advice from the Revd Archie Coates of Holy Trinity Brompton:
“I went to see Archie, with a long list of all the issues over which I needed his wisdom. One of them was what to do about the lack of a church office. He laughed and told me to work out of cafés, which was where I’d not only get to meet the people I wanted most to connect with but also to get to know the place where God had sent me…We now have a budget line in the church accounts for me to buy coffee for the people I meet in cafés and, for such a small cost, we’ve got some very big returns as a church. Some people I’ve met this way have given their lives to Christ; some have also joined the church and become our most committed volunteers, contributing hours of skilful time towards serving others.” P.123-4.
The hospitality of food and drink, Tim also considers to be a very important part of the church experience. Rather than have tea and biscuits after the service, they provide a free café experience before the service:
“we’ve never served a single pathetic biscuit at St Swithun’s and while I’m here, we never will. They’re not good enough. Biscuits don’t shout about God’s limitless power and extravagant love. Biscuits scream mediocrity. Give me fat cookies and delicious pastries but Lord, deliver me from stale church biscuits!” P.137
“I still regularly stand up to open a service and say that if any newcomers weren’t befriended and offered something to eat and drink within three minutes of entering the building, then I’m truly sorry and if they introduce themselves to me at the end of the service I’ll take them out for a coffee myself to make it up to them. It’s a great thing to communicate and it also sets the bar for our hospitality teams. Despite our best attempts, over four years I’ve had a handful of people take me up on my offer. Without exception they’ve been phenomenal people. I do shudder occasionally, though, thinking who God has sent our way but we’ve allowed to slip through our fingers.” P.132.
Food is also his answer to fractious Parochial Church Council meetings:
“All our leadership meetings happen only after we’ve sat down and eaten a meal together. At the end of the day, we’re friends and we’ve stuck with one another through a few tricky things now, so there’s trust there.” P.149.
Whilst it feels like a trendy thing to have a café in church before the service, my own Anglo-Catholic Church, All Saints, Woodham had for several decades from the 1940’s a ‘Parish Breakfast’ between the two morning services, where the congregation would sit down together and have a cooked breakfast and get to know each other. During rationing, people had to bring their own butter! The importance of food and hospitality is not new and it is good to rediscover it in a new context.
Personally of course, there are some things I would rather are not modernised. When watching a You Tube recording of a St Swithun’s evening youth service and eucharist, the curate presided at the Holy Communion wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with the communion wine consecrated in a wine glass rather than a chalice. The official Church of England liturgy was used, but the lack of reverence when remembering Jesus’ sacrifice for us did make me feel uncomfortable. Even in the trenches in the First World War, chaplains celebrating the eucharist on the battlefield would use a chalice, not a random wine glass.
One experiment Tim did, which I’d never heard of or imagined in a church before, and now thinking about it, think ‘why not?’ was:
“secular dating models are leaving many people damaged and alone. To show that we don’t regard this as a taboo area, we hosted a massive Christian speed-dating event one Valentine’s Day. It was quite a risk and a lot of work, but it was also huge fun. We had three hundred people – equal numbers of men and women – dating and partying that night in church. I don’t see it as inappropriate or sacrilegious at all; I see helping to get every young person who wants it, into a healthy, godly dating relationship as one of the most important aspects of their discipleship.” P.150.
He breaks the mould in terms of seating:
“Most Church of England churches have this terrible social disease whereby there’s a kind of radioactive zone around the front two rows so that no one sits in them; it’s awful for times of worship and terrible for preaching. We try to fill from the front to the back and not the other way around.” P.159.
He also takes the reverse approach to trying to find volunteers to fill all the church jobs:
“At church we very rarely draw up lists of our ‘volunteer needs’, but we do regularly sit back and consider individuals trying to figure out who they really are and where they’d be best placed in service. That way people will flourish and roles will be performed to a high standard:” P.179.
He sees church leadership as more a coaching style than a directive style:
“A wise man I know urged me that to get the best out of the team of people God had given me, I needed to change my approach. He advised me to stop saying ‘Here’s what I want you to do’ and start asking ‘What would you like to do and how can I help you?’ It’s extraordinary to me how that has unlocked so much potential. Now, having listened to a team member describe a challenging situation they’re battling, I usually ask that question and listen to their answer. Nine times out of ten I agree with their suggestions, although I often tweak them a bit in the light of other factors, resources or solutions they might not have seen.” P.216.
Their ministry with those who are addicted to drugs is not seen as a social service done to people:
“we’ve tried very hard at St Swithun’s to resist the world’s ‘them and us’ approach when it comes to people who are addicted or homeless … we’re in it together… We’re all addicted to a life of sin, the very thing that Jesus is trying to bust us out of…I’ve spoken to many addicts whose self-perpetuating sense of guilt and shame is the biggest barrier to their coming forward to receive the help that’s available. But that’s not how they’re received nor viewed by God nor anyone at St Swithun’s. We just think, ‘Yup, you’re one of us.'” P.187.
Tim has a clear vision of what Church should be:
“Jesus is forgiveness, love, truth, life, peace, freedom. Who doesn’t want that? Everyone longs for those things: they just don’t yet believe that’s what can be found at church. Zechariah tells us that it’s up to us to convince them that it’s really true: God is indeed here, wanting and waiting to be found; he’s even out there searching for them. At its best, Jesus’ one global Church is an incredibly beautiful thing for which there is no substitute.” P.260.
June 2022
Adrian Vincent