Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Jim Elliot stand next to a beautiful yellow PA-18 Piper Family Cruiser aeroplane. Two of the three wear something on their head: one a pith helmet set at a jaunty angle, the other two what look like flowery headdresses. All three are grinning. I don’t know who took that blurry, slightly overexposed photograph, but I like to think it was the pilot, Nate Saint. Like his perfect missionary name, the photograph is perfect.
I saw this photograph as part of a talk given by Marcia McLean, an American missionary in Wales and also the newest member of the editorial board of this magazine. Marcia was speaking to some young people about Jim and Elizabeth Elliot and the profound effect their story had on her and her future husband when they were younger.
Listening to her and looking at the photograph, I was struck by the sheer pioneering zeal these five men and their wives appear to have had. It was a zeal summed up in the photograph: they had access to an aeroplane, so they flew it. They had a yearning for a place, so they went there. They desired to see a people saved, so they gave their lives for them. They were (it appears to me) blessed with a lightness of being, unencumbered by worry that enabled them to move easily in the world.
It feels different today. Perhaps it’s our age, perhaps it’s our circumstances, perhaps I’m missing something, but many churches in Wales seem to lumber. They move slowly, their decision-making process is slow, they worry about money and resources, and they struggle to capture or articulate a vision. Few things seem to take flight.
Who is to blame? Is it personal sin? Inertia or lethargy? Perhaps it’s the fear of man. Maybe it’s the rules and laws of the land that slow us down and constrict us: the safeguarding culture that prevents us from being limber and lithe. Perhaps it is our history.
The Presbyterian Church of Wales was once the biggest nonconformist denomination in Wales. Originally known as the Calvinistic Methodist Connexion, its history is characterised by pioneers, men and women with the same zeal as the Elliots and their friends. Many of the great preachers, teachers, church planters, poets and pioneers came from Connexion and changed the direction of the nation. The impact of those men and women is still seen across the country today in the shape of their buildings.
Sadly, the landscape has changed, and the pioneering zeal has largely dissipated. The buildings, however, remain. Where once they were useful, they have become a burden: expensive to maintain and not useful in the modern context. The Presbyterian Church is not alone in wondering what to do with this legacy. Every denomination is asking similar questions, and so the Presbyterian Church of Wales organised a conference in Llandudno in April to discuss what could be done with these buildings, or as they put it, to ask the question from Joshua 4:21: ‘What do these stones mean?’
The conference itself was held in a very modern and well-equipped building, Gloddaeth United Church. One of the speakers Rev. Neil Kirkham, spoke about the part he had played in the change and development of the building, and his talk inspired the rest of the day to be conducted in a very positive and joyful manner. You can see lots of what was said on the Presbyterian Church of Wales YouTube channel.
What I was surprised to find most useful, though, was a talk given by the Head of Corporate at the PCW, Ffion Williams, who spoke about governance. Not all of the following will apply to every chapel or congregation or fellowship in Wales, but her attitude to the rules and requirements under which we are living seemed very helpful.
What are your core principles?
As a denomination, we are required to ‘ensure our charity is carrying out its purpose for the public benefit’. Some non-conformist Christians will bristle at the idea that the government should place many expectations upon us and cry out in defiance. The rest of us understand our obligation to operate within the laws and expectations of the land. Ffion Williams’ point was that this need not be done grudgingly: there is liberty to be found in this.
Consider my denomination. The purposes of the PCW are to promote Christian faith, to lead public acts of worship to God and to spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Obvious, you might say, but the church that forgets its purpose can suffer from mission creep. They begin with a clear vision, but over time, they take on ministries and missions and suddenly find themselves committed to things they never planned to do. This load can make them heavy, unable to fly off in a new direction. Revisiting the original purposes of the church, indeed, demanding that we review them regularly, permits us to stop doing some things and frees us to re-emphasise those things closest to our core principles.
What does the Kingdom need?
As a denomination, we are required to ‘act in the best interest of our charity’. This sometimes gets subtly changed so that we end up ‘acting in the best interest of our charity’s members, which is not the same thing at all. Henry Ford once said, ‘If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.’ Our church members can be like that. They lose sight of the vision, become cautious and wary of change. They can sometimes settle for their own best interests rather than that of the church or the gospel. Revisiting the best interest of the charity (or more specifically the kingdom) might mean working together with another church, dividing resources to plant a new church, or committing to some other mission to a particular people group. Change can be frightening, but asking the question can liberate us from burdens and help us to move with a lightness of being.
Using resources wisely
A third requirement for the Presbyterian Church of Wales is that we ‘manage our resources responsibly’. Too often, we have assumed this means fixing the organ or mending the roof. This thinking has led to us spending more on maintenance than on minister or mission. It is the reason why we organised the conference and why we are asking this question. Again, the charity rules force us to think more creatively. Our responsibility in our denomination is the same as the responsibility you have in your church: to take what God has entrusted to you and to use it wisely. If our spending requirements limit our mission, our mission must be to lower our spending commitments.
A new vision
Five men, their wives and children and a yellow PA-18 Piper Family Cruiser. That was all they had. That and the prayers of their churches and the support of their mission agency. Unencumbered by the weight of tradition or unreasonable expectation, they soared in their little yellow aeroplane, their vision fixed on that little part of Ecuador that God had called them to.
The hope of the conference in Llandudno was that by unburdening ourselves of those heavy stones, the Presbyterian Church of Wales might itself know a new freshness, a new lightness, a new ability to move with the Spirit. May it be so for every Christian fellowship of every hue, for our good and his glory.
The conference meetings can be viewed on youtube.com/@ebcpcw8450
