A compelling read

‘THE challenge of Covid had a surprisingly liberating effect on our congregation’

‘As a direct result of Covid, my family was thrown into a challenging situation. My husband and eldest daughter were made redundant.’

‘We had weekly Zoom meetings during lockdown, which were great to keep in touch. We sang hymns and chatted. We also have a Facebook group.’

‘I am (while aware of the suffering and difficulties and heartbreak) thankful to God for 2020. It’s been a significant time of growth in my walk with Jesus.’

‘My faith has wavered during the pandemic.’ ‘During unsettled times, I have felt the presence of the church within our community has more or less disappeared.’

‘The most significant thing for me during the pandemic is that the church has been highly visible and active in the community, and has supported, reached out to and linked with the whole community, not just church members.’

YOU have just ‘heard’ a tiny sample of the many and diverse ‘voices’ that contributed to the Church of Scotland’s Listening Project’.

Last year, as it became clear that the Covid-19 pandemic was going to be longer and would bring more significant disruption to our lives than most of us realised initially, the General Assembly Trustees were eager to find out how the radical changes to life were impacting people across the Church.

In order to hear first hand from a broad range of people, an open invitation was issued for people to pause, reflect on how the pandemic was affecting them, especially with regard to their experiences of faith and the Church, and then to share their reflections in their own words.

Participants were also asked to share what, from their viewpoint, the Church (locally and/or nationally) was (or should be) learning. Participants submitted their contributions via an online form or over the telephone with the help of a trained facilitator.

The period over which the Listening Project was open for contributions was a time of Covid-19 cases rising rapidly and government restrictions having a major impact on all of our lives. When the project opened in early November 2020 the Covid-related death toll in the UK totalled just over 48,000. By the time the Listening Project closed to new contributions the following February, that grim statistic had exceeded 100,000. In the middle of this period, plans for a five-day easing of restrictions over Christmas were curtailed and Boxing Day saw the beginning of a further lockdown.

The saying that God gave us two ears and one mouth in order that we might listen to twice as much as we say may be a threadbare cliché, but it expresses a profound truth. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a person intimately acquainted with the challenges of faithful Christian living in times of crisis, wrote in Life Together (1954) that: ‘The first service one owes to others in a community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for others is learning to listen to them … Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either.’

From the beginning of the Listening Project there was a determination to hear from the full range of people who see the Church of Scotland as their community of faith. As well as people who, in normal times, would be weekly worshippers, the project endeavoured to hear from those who engage with congregational life less frequently and in different ways. By the time people had contributed to the project from all generations, from all corners of Scotland, and including those with internet access and those without, more than 50,000 words had been collected. In this kind of research data is collected until no new insights are being added. This is called the ‘saturation point’ and with this project was deemed to have been reached after hearing from 224 people.

In order to make sense of all that had been shared with the Listening Project a team of trained volunteers scrutinised the anonymised texts, identifying common themes. Every text was analysed by at least three people and then some specialist software was used to cross-reference the themes that had been identified with factors such as gender, generation, and the nature of people’s connection with the Church.

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Some themes were very strong. For example, nearly nine out of ten participants talked about technology and just over eight out of ten discussed worship. Other prominent themes were related to a sense of loss and experiences of fellowship or lack of fellowship. People highlighted the importance of communication and pastoral care. Many explained how their personal faith had been impacted. Another recurring topic was how people had found themselves reflecting on the meaning and purpose of the Church.

Imagine gathering around a large table people with very different experiences of the pandemic and with diverse perspectives on what we might be learning through this time. Wouldn’t it be fascinating and enriching to listen to what they had to say? Well, the Listening Project’s final report, ‘Listening and Learning’, provides us with exactly that opportunity, but without the need for a really big table!

As the Very Rev Dr John Chalmers, chair of the Church of Scotland’s Assembly Trustees, said on the publication of that report: ‘As members of the Body of Christ it is vital that we listen to one another. We easily assume that our own experiences are typical, but a great value of a project like this is the way it highlights the enormous breadth and diversity of others’ experiences. It is both a gift and a responsibility to read these reflections of others and consider how they should shape our own learning and practice.’

Being comprised mainly of word-forword quotations from the people who took part in the project, the report is a compelling read. There is much to encourage us, as many people share examples of how their congregations have displayed inspiring levels of faith, creativity and perseverance in how they have both supported church members and served the wider community.

However, no one could read the report and not be challenged too. Among the many stories of loving service and innovative practice, there are also accounts that are sad, disappointing and heart-rending. Both extremes express honest perspectives from within the family of which we are part. As Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians: ‘the body does not consist of one member but of many… If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it’ (1 Cor. 12:14 & 26, NRSV).