On Sunday 17 November, Bishop Jonathan spent Safeguarding Sunday with the parish of Christ Church, Anerley.
In his address, he gave thanks for the care and attention being given at the grassroots in parishes to safeguarding.
He also said that the Church is at a watershed moment, with a fundamental shift needed to ensure that children, vulnerable adults, and victims and survivors of abuse are 'at the heart and centre of everything we do'.
As part of an interview during the service, he spoke about how growing safer and healthy churches was a key priority in the emerging diocesan vision:
Our vision is that seeking first the Kingdom of God, we are called together by God to change, serve and grow with compassion, courage, and creativity.
What does that mean?
Well the number one priority for me given all that has happened and on this Safeguarding Sunday is that we are called by God to grow churches that are safe and healthy for all.
That people may come to faith, that they grow in faith, that they may be nurtured in faith, that they may grow into the likeness of Jesus Christ and that they may experience the fullness of life that is his wish for all.
Read the sermon in full below or watch (watch from 1h 16 min in)
Bishop Jonathan's Safeguarding Sunday address - Matthew 18:1-14
As we gather on this Safeguarding Sunday, the Church of England is in the midst of probably the biggest crisis it has ever faced over safeguarding. This is a major crisis for the whole Church and especially for its leadership.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has taken “personal and institutional responsibility” for the failures revealed so starkly in the Makin Report, but it cannot end there. This must be a watershed moment for the Church of England as a whole – and particularly for the leadership of our Church at the national level, and by that, I mean the Bishops (and I include myself in that) and the Archbishops’ Council, who have a key role in shaping the culture of the Church and the way in which priorities are set, and resources are allocated.
Right at the start, I would like to make it clear that I want to make a distinction between what we have been hearing about over the last few days about safeguarding at the national level from what is happening within our Dioceses and in our parishes and other church communities.
At the more local level, I believe there has been huge change in recent years and there is fantastic, dedicated work being undertaken by clergy and lay people, by Parish Safeguarding Officers and Diocesan Safeguarding Teams, to ensure that our churches are safe, healthy and nurturing places for all – and especially for children and vulnerable adults.
And I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has been working so hard to strengthen the quality of safeguarding in our parishes and Diocese. I recognise that this has demanded a huge amount of time and effort on your part, whether to undertake training or to ensure that people on the ground understand what good safeguarding means and put it into practice week in and week out. Thank you for all that you have done and are doing right here and now.
And the second thing I want to say is sorry. Firstly and most importantly to all victims and survivors of church-related abuse, and to all those close to them who have been affected in any way. But I also want to apologise to you in our parishes, that while you have been faithfully working so hard in your local church community, we are still finding that the national leadership of our Church has continued to fall short – and not just in the past but right up to the present day.
The Makin Report revealed failings in the last decade, and I believe there are still ways in which the senior leadership of our Church risks perpetuating these mistakes, because people still do not fully understand the powerful and insidious nature of abuse and because we still do not have the tools needed to identify and address signs of abuse at their very earliest stages.
I will say more about that in a few moments, but I want now to turn to the passage of Scripture that we heard a few moments ago, from Matthew 18:1-14. Here Jesus talks about the place of children in the Kingdom of Heaven, about our responsibility to protect them and about the need therefore to put children (and here I think we can add all vulnerable people and especially victims and survivors of abuse) at the very heart of everything we do.
At the opening of this passage, the disciples come to Jesus and ask: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” I guess they may have been hoping for a pat on the back, or maybe they were jostling for position and hoping Jesus would single them out for praise. But that of course is not how Jesus responds. Instead, as so often, Jesus provides an unexpected answer.
Now to our ears of course his answer does not sound so strange. We know that Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and don’t stop them”, so this is what we expect. But for the people of his day, this was completely unexpected: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” In Jesus’ day, children were always the last and the least, and hardly worth being considered at all.
Sisters and brothers, we need to understand that children are at the heart of the kingdom of God. They are not an optional extra! And we need also to understand that unless we become like children, unless we become child-like in our attitudes and our behaviour, then we will never enter the kingdom of heaven. That’s what Jesus says here! So, what does that mean for us and our churches?
Well, there is something about childlikeness that is to do with open-ness and honesty and being ready to ask questions and trusting people and crying when we are hurt and when we recognise that we have hurt others – and of course there is so much more besides.
This is about relinquishing our love of status and position, and our ideas of what leadership looks like and how leaders should behave. It’s about letting go of deference but nevertheless treating others with respect, and especially those who are often regarded as less important or not worth listening to.
For all these reasons and more, safeguarding is not an add-on after we have done everything else in the life of the Church – it is and has to be absolutely central – because otherwise we are disobeying the explicit command of Jesus right here in the passage.
And of course, that message is reinforced even more strongly in the next section of this passage, where Jesus warns that it would be better for anyone who puts a stumbling-block in the way of these little ones to have a millstone tied round their neck and to be chucked into the sea!
Now of course it’s dramatic language, and that’s what Jesus often does when he wants to make a point, but this is strong stuff and clearly it matters intensely to Jesus! If we take him seriously – and we must – then this is about clearing out from our lives and our churches everything that gets in the way of caring for our children, nurturing them in the faith and helping them to receive the fulness of life that Jesus intends for them and for all of us.
And the same applies whenever we fail to do all we can to prevent and to respond to abuse of any kind – including domestic abuse which will be the focus of White Ribbon Day later this month. These failures are why there is still so much to lament in the life of our Church, not only in terms of historic cases but also when more recent abuses come to light, as they have done in recent months.
To go back to what I said earlier, I believe we still need to revise our national policies and procedures to enable us to deal more effectively with potential abusers and especially with potential abuses of power in the Church, particularly by clergy or lay officers.
I do not think that some of the tools we have (for instance to do with clergy discipline) are fit for purpose in this regard and I do think we need to learn from other sectors, such as the teaching profession, about better ways of handling cases where there may be well-founded suspicion but where it can be so hard to reach the threshold for effective action, until it’s too late.
Our national leadership – Bishops, Archbishops’ Council, General Synod – needs to heed Jesus’ warning and to act upon it.
Turning to the last section of our passage, we need also to take to heart Jesus’ words: “Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.” What that means is that these little ones – these children, these vulnerable people – are incredibly precious to God. He cares about them even more than he cares about everyone else – and therefore so should we.
That in turn means that we should be putting children and vulnerable adults (and of course victims and survivors of abuse of all kinds) at the heart and centre of everything we do – including how we plan our priorities and where we put our money. And that must apply not only in the national church but in our Dioceses and our parishes and other church communities.
Is that happening, right here in your parish? Is that happening in our Diocese, as we plan our budgets and our emerging Diocesan vision and strategy? And is it happening in the Church of England at a national level? There have been lots of grumbles about the things people are expected to do as part of safeguarding – and in the vast majority of our parishes people, lay and ordained, have risen to the challenge and have seen the benefit of what they have been asked to do.
But there is still more to be done – and above all I think there is more to be done in order to change our culture – the way we are and the way we behave – so that what we are talking about here is embedded in our DNA and affects every aspect of what we do in the Church.
If we are to change fundamentally as a Church, if we are to meet the challenges laid out in the Makin Report (and in many other reports to) then I believe we need to undergo a complete shift of orientation.
We need to turn around and face in a different direction – which is what the Greek word metanoia, which we translate as repentance, really means. We need to put children and vulnerable adults first. We need to become like children. We need to let go of our love of power and status. We need to rethink our priorities and the way we use our money and resources. And we need to change from the inside out and from the top to the bottom – but most especially at the top!
This is not just about safeguarding. It is about the whole culture of the Church of England. It is about putting children and childlikeness at the centre of who we are and what we do. It is about being obedient to Jesus and to his words here in Matthew’s gospel. Because when we do that, everything will change, so that the Church becomes more and more a safe and healthy place for all.
Amen.
Bishop Jonathan Gibbs
Bishop of Rochester
Finding support
If you or anyone you are in contact with are affected by the publication of the Makin Review and want to talk to someone independently please call the Safe Spaces helpline on 0300 303 1056 or visit safespacesenglandandwales.org.uk.
Alternatively, you may wish to contact the diocesan safeguarding team or the National Safeguarding Team at safeguarding@churchofengland.org.
There are also other support services available.