Bishop Martin’s Letter to Christ Church
To the Congregation of Christ Church, Worthing,
on Palm Sunday, 2025
My brothers and sisters in Christ,
You have been through some exceptional times of trial in the last few years. The knowledge of that brings me here this morning.
The sense of shock, horror, disbelief, and being betrayed will have challenged your Christian faith. Some have not felt able to remain and have left this worshipping community. For those who remain, their departure might have deepened concern about continuity of your mission and outreach.
In many ways, you are where the first disciples were, when faced with the catastrophe of the crucifixion. And I feel very strongly this sense of your plight. So what part am I to play in serving you, as Holy Week begins?
Your former archdeacon, Luke Irvine-Capel, was recently consecrated as a bishop, and the words to him at his consecration echo in my mind now. Bishops are to be mindful of the Good Shepherd. ‘With the Shepherd’s love, they are to be merciful, but with firmness; to minister discipline, but with compassion’.
This turns my attention to the gospels and their presentation of the ministry of Jesus the Good Shepherd, who heals the sick, who teaches the people at some length, and who sends apostles to carry out the work of teaching that he himself entrusts to them.
Returning to the account of the passion, we discover that the disciples were scattered by the events of Good Friday. And when we meet them again, there is something different. They are behind locked doors, no longer in the public space of the Temple.
In the exhaustion of grief, of astonishment at the resurrection, of bewilderment at the appearance and disappearance of Jesus, they must have gone back over their experiences of Jesus and trawled through what he said to them, looking for clues about what to do, how to honour his investment in them, how to understand his promises, against all the odds.
Perhaps in this process they recalled his compassion for those who were like sheep without a shepherd. Perhaps they recalled how he shepherded them when they were exhausted by the public life of being a disciple and an apostle, living in the constant grip of conflict with those who sought to undermine and discredit the gospel. And what does Jesus say to them in that context: ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile’ (Mark 6:31).
The ‘deserted place’ that Jesus speaks of is a place of safety, of healing and refreshment. It is our bounden duty, in the Church of England nationally, and in every single one of its parishes and institutions locally, to ensure that our sacred spaces are safe places for children, vulnerable adults, and anyone we have the privilege of welcoming and serving in the name of Jesus Christ.
You yourselves have been well-served and supported by Chris Skilton and other clergy from the deanery. I want to express my thanks for that support and to underline my recognition of your individual faithfulness and commitment as disciples of Jesus Christ. And just as those clergy carry out their ministry to you in the terms of their mandate at ordination and their vow of canonical obedience in all things lawful and honest, so I also look to the canons of the Church of England, and to the charge given to me when I was ordained as a bishop, to assess how best to serve you well and effectively as a Good Shepherd.
Like the ordination service, those canons are clear that every bishop is accountable before God in discharging the responsibility entrusted to them to ensure ‘the edifying and well-governing of Christ’s flock’ and to take steps to put right whatever might be amiss. And the ordination service was clear about the use of the authority entrusted to a bishop, as the canons define it (canon G5): to build up the Church, ‘in a holy fellowship of truth and love’, and to use episcopal authority ‘to heal not to hurt’.
Healing takes time. Your wounds and hurts are deep and it is no surprise that this has damaged the capacity to ensure the level of safeguarding that the Diocesan team needs to be assured of, and about which you should also feel as confident as you possibly can be.
‘Come away, to a deserted place,’ said Jesus to his disciples, so that they could have some respite, and reorder their energies for the next stage of their challenging mission. I am now saying something very similar to you.
Like the first apostles, you will, during the course of this week, witness the death and the resurrection of Jesus. And then the waiting for Pentecost follows, when the Holy Spirit descends to empower the Church for the mission ahead. Using the authority that is entrusted to me, I wish to outline three things to help you live through this period of prayer and waiting.
First, I am now going to call you into a very particular sort of deserted place. As the apostles no longer met in the temple for the prayers, but gathered elsewhere, so for the season of Eastertide, from Sunday 27 April, public worship in this Church will be suspended in the expectation of resuming on Trinity Sunday, when we celebrate the gift of our faith and affirm in the words of the Creed our certain belief in the invisible God who made us, the incarnate Son of God who died and rose again for us, and God the Holy Spirit who lives and prays within us.
In this limited time of coming away to another place, I commend you to the many churches in Worthing where your bothers and sisters will, I have no doubt, be glad to welcome you for a season. I invite you to keep company with the first Christians, who ‘devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers’ (Acts 2:42).
Going to another church can be like going to the Church of another time, the first Church, where you can re-learn the joy of believing. You might think of it as an extended family holiday, when you are freed from the burden of managing your own household after it has been severely and profoundly damaged.
Second, the annual meetings currently scheduled for 27 April cannot go ahead yet, but they will happen at a later date in the summer. That will then be an opportunity to reflect on this process of healing, your ‘desert time’, and to consider the next stage of the life of Christ Church.
Third, I am appointing two people to act as ‘critical friends’. They will be like the consultant you see in hospital whose task is to explore, to make expert diagnosis, and to outline options for a remedy. But it is the patient who ultimately has to undertake the treatment.
These two people will make a fresh and independent examination of what has been suffered here. They will both be from outside the diocese. They are commissaries, appointed by me but independent in their exploratory work. Their diagnosis will take the form of a report and a series of recommendations.
They will explore issues of governance, safeguarding, and the culture of the ecclesiastical and wider community life here. They will also create space to speak with anyone who wishes to speak to them about any of this.
And I am asking for your help with this, please. I encourage you to tell them what you believe is/has been working well, what is/has not been going well, and whether there are concerns that you might privately want to see addressed.
Both people have accepted the invitation to work with you as my commissaries but the terms of their engagement have not yet been signed. Who they are, their terms of reference, how they will operate, how you contact them – all this I expect to be announced before Easter Sunday.
You will recall that after Pentecost, things changed for the apostles. They lived with a new sense of awe at the work of God that was unexpected, beyond human fathoming. And yet it was seen in material ways. The number of believers grew. Their giving was selfless and generous. The household of faith held all things in common. Above all, they praised God (Acts 2:43-47). But conflict was not eradicated. Peter was imprisoned. James was martyred, so was Stephen the deacon. (Acts 12:1-3; 7:54-60).
My prayer is that you will discover profound refreshment in the celebration of this year’s Fifty Days of Easter. Remember the parable of the sower (Mark 4:1-9), and how much it was in the mind of Jesus as he approached his Passion (John 12.24).
The seed has to fall into the ground and die. Something is lost from view, and we cannot see or understand what is happening. Waiting is never easy. But like a pregnant woman, the Church is content to wait on Jesus to be born again in us, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I pray that these Fifty Days will convey more than the discipline and authority of a consultant. I hope that you will find yourselves close to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who in compassion says, ‘Come away, and rest awhile’.
+Martin
Public worship in this Church will be suspended in the expectation of resuming on Trinity Sunday, 15th June