The Sermon given by the Revd Ann Leonard on 7th March, 2004.

 ‘What is KAIROS?’

Ann Leonard I think I need to preach today about the Bishop’s initiative which he has called Kairos .. you must have seen and heard the word a few times by now - it’s to do with change and this week for me has been full of nudges of one sort or another nudges to tackle this subject of change.

Last Tuesday Paul and I spent the whole day learning about change management linked with Kairos. On Friday the Prime Minister was speaking in his constituency in a widely reported speech where he revealed the thought processes that lay behind his judgement that war with Iraq was necessary. In that speech he said he believed passionately that ‘we are in mortal danger of mistaking the nature of the world in which we live’. I believe that is a reality for us in the church context - it is quite shocking how the church and probably God does not enter the thoughts of most people in this country until a tragedy- personal, national or international happens.

So many people today do not know about Jesus. If I asked you to tell me what you know about Mohammet or Buddha, - unless you had a particular interest in one or other of these founders of religion - you would be able to tell me very little. It is the same now with Christianity and the majority of young people below the age of 40 if you were to ask them about Jesus they would know very little.

The next nudge for me to speak about change and Kairos was also on Friday. I was at the Women’s world day of prayer service at the UR Church and the speaker there spoke of the church not being very good at change. The world changes rapidly and the world is our mission field yet we, as the church, are like dinosaurs when we should be like dynamos filled with the Holy Spirit and ready for new adventures with God. She went on to ask ‘Can the church cope with the complexity and confusion of the current age?

The success stories of yesterday have little relevance for today and tomorrow and we are seen by many as a preservation society. Yet I believe that many today who never come to church, are hungry for something spiritual in their lives something that is beyond the mundane and the trivial. So the harvest is ripe, but where are the workers?

My final nudge came in the post yesterday. A letter from the Archdeacon, Chris Lowson outlining the next phase of the Kairos process the phase that involves all of us throughout the diocese so I gave in and prepared to speak about it this morning. What is Kairos? Well the word is a Greek word to do with time not the ordinary linear measuring of hours and days and lives which is chronos (where we get the word ‘chronological’ from) but rather God’s time, a watershed, the right time, an opportune moment or the critical moment which is what Kairos means. Jesus spoke about his time ‘my time has not yet come’ at the wedding in Cana and ‘now is the time to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand’.

Two years ago Bishop Kenneth discerned that we had come to a point of challenge (falling numbers of priests, falling numbers in church and ever increasing financial burdens because of clergy pensions and costly buildings) - not crisis, but certainly a time of challenge. Kenneth was convinced that we needed to seize the opportunity to act and act now. He set up a strategic review group to review the work of the church in this diocese and to plan for growth and renewal. I was actually part of that group of 11 whom Kenneth invited to come together for an intensive piece of work and I helped put together the theological basis for the process of change which he is now calling Kairos.

The purpose of Kairos is for all of us to reflect on how the church can grow and flourish now and in the years ahead. Kenneth is aware of the good work that goes on in our churches but is also aware of the decline in much church life in the last 20-30 years and wants us to think boldly and creatively as to whether and how we can engage with current society in its complexity and diversity, its virtual reality and its sophistication and its deep dissatisfactions and need for depth and peace. This may well involve changing some of the things we do and how we do them but to quote Kenneth ‘if we become stuck and everything else moves on around us then we will no longer be a living witness to God’s presence in the world’.

We can sometimes be so bogged down by the details of everyday church life that we lose the wider picture and forget we are being called to work for a broader, deeper and leaner church. Broader in the sense of more inclusive, more hospitable, more accessible to those who live and work around us; deeper in the sense of a meaningful spiritual life for all of us and on offer to those who come in to contact in any way with the church, and leaner in our structures and organisation so that we can use the resources we have in a more effective way.

We all have a part to play in this reflection process and are invited to participate in several ways. This Lent the Bishop has been visiting the deaneries to talk to the local churches and help us understand the issues that face us as a church. The date for our deanery is Monday eve March 15th and we shall need people from this congregation to be there. It will be a useful time to find out what the Bishop hopes from us. After Easter the next phase will begin this is the exploration phase which it is hoped will involve as many people as possible in our parishes in looking at how we live out our faith and how we are being called to new ways of being church in our day. There will be a six session course helping us to reflect on what we believe and what we do as church the titles of the sessions are:

The rationale for this phase in the Kairos process is that as the Body of Christ we cannot address the challenges that face us and the opportunities open to us simply by undergoing a secular management review and reorganisation important as the insights of change management are for us. Instead we need to place our reflection in the context of an enhanced understanding of the role of the church in today’s world and a deeper commitment to God who is the source and goal of life both as a church and as individuals. ( Archdeacon Chris Lowson)

Also, we need to reflect in collaboration with our neighbouring parishes sharing insights and experience with the other parishes on Hayling and with Havant and Emsworth with whom we have been placed in a local cluster. This will help to build relationships across parish boundaries so that when it comes to the later phases of the Kairos process ‘mission audit’ and ‘planning for change’ we shall already know our neighbours a bit better. As a sign of our commitment to this Kairos process, the incumbents of the Hayling parishes, Paul and I have been meeting with David Gibbons, Rector of Havant and Simon Sayers, Rector of Warblington and Emsworth, to get to know each other and the similarities and differences in our parishes and in our work.

So what is it that we need to be doing now? Well, in the short term we need at least two people in each congregation to be our representatives - they need to be people who feel committed to this process of change and planning for being a more effective church. If you are excited by all this talk of planning for growth and change then please let me know that you want to be involved. I’d also ask for your prayers tomorrow as a group of us try to finalise the six week course which will help us reflect on all this after Easter.

I would like to end with the Kairos prayer written by our Spirituality adviser Dr. Peter Lippiett:

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