Travelling On

The First 75 Years of St Michael's, Amersham-on-the-Hill,

1919 - 1994

Written by Kenneth Prideaux-Brune

There is no stopping place in this life - no, nor was there ever one for any man, no matter how far along his way he'd gone.
This above all, then, be ready at all times for the gifts of God and always for new ones.
( Meister Eckhart )

A living organism is continually changing.  We are inclined to think of religion, of the church, as something static, unchanging, carved in tablets of stone.  We talk about going back, back to a time when the church was central to life, when beliefs were fixed and immutable, when nothing changed.  But, of course, there never was such a time.  A church which tries to live in the past inevitably dies.  Change is uncomfortable but it is unavoidable.  Everything is moving - even the apparently solid desk at which I write is in fact a swirl of atoms constantly colliding.  A church must always be facing new challenges.

And so there's something artificial about an anniversary.  St Michael's won't stop changing just because it's celebrating its 75th birthday.  But this birthday marks more of a landmark than most because it happens to fall at the end of one phase of our life, at a time when we are looking forward, with hope and apprehension, to the start of the next.  We know that St Michael's isn't "Griffiths' church" - Brian Griffiths has taught us that.  But we also know how important the full-time minister is;  we know how much Brian has contributed to our corporate life.  I write this as we approach his retirement in 1995 and the search for his successor, a time which is, in a very real sense, the end of one era and the start of a new and unpredictable one.

It's an appropriate moment, then, to look back and celebrate what St Michael's has been at different times during the past 75 years.  It's also a time when we need to look forward and try to discern what we should retain into the new era.  I have tried to do both.

I am grateful to many people for their help in producing this essay, especially to those who were willing to talk to me, all of whom are quoted in the text; to Joan Macnab, Jacqueline Markham and David Redpath who between them found the archive material on which I have drawn; and to those who read and commented on a first draft of the manuscript - Roland Gillott, David Glover, Vicki Harvey and Clive Whitfield.  Many of their comments have been incorporated in the final text.

A history, however, especially when written, as this is, by a member of St Michael's, can never be a purely objective account.  The choice of what to include and what to leave out, the way things are expressed, inevitably reflect my own views.  However objective one tries to be, the result is a personal story.  I cannot offer the story of St Michael's, just my story of St Michael's.  I am grateful for being given the opportunity to do just that.

Though the guns fell silent on November 11 1918 the first world war didn't officially end until the peace treaty was signed in Versailles on June 28 1919.  So it was in July 1919 that the nation rejoiced, giving thanks both for the coming of peace and for the victory that had been achieved.  In Buckinghamshire the week of celebrations brought, according to the Bucks Examiner, "a whirl of rejoicing, wind and wet weather, all inextricably mixed.  All parishes rose to the occasion; there was unity and happiness."

That was the time deliberately chosen for the laying of the foundation stone of St Michael's, as its inscription - "in thanksgiving for victory and peace" - makes clear.  Foundation stones are usually laid when the walls have already begun to rise but this one really was the very first stone laid on the site.  It was a statement of intent.

The site on Sycamore Road had been bought, in three lots, some years previously but during the war there could, of course, be no question of building.  Now that peace had come at last the building committee decided that a foundation stone should be laid as a pledge that there would be a place of Anglican worship in this new part of Amersham.  The coming of the railway along the top of the hill above the old town of Amersham had brought a new community into being, and that new community was sure to grow rapidly now that the war was over.  Already the parish of St Mary's, Amersham, had established a small mission church on White Lion Road (later to become St George's, which is now in the parish of Chenies with Little Chalfont).  Now the Amersham on the Hill area of the parish was to have its new church too.

But that particular week was chosen for the laying of the foundation stone because the building committee wanted the new church to be linked for ever with this great period of national rejoicing.  "No better, no greater, way could they have", said the bishop at the stone-laying ceremony, "of showing their thanks for the glorious victory we have achieved than by building a church in honour of Him to whom we owe all glory, all victory and all peace."  Was it, I wonder, this thinking which led to the decision to dedicate the new church to the commander of the angelic armies, St Michael?

The following week drawings of the proposed new church of St Michael and All Angels' were displayed in the parish church.  The drawings do not survive but the Bucks Examiner tells us that it was on a massive scale, with seating for 600, and was "a building worthy of the position and the purpose".  Its design was "thoroughly in keeping with the parish churches raised by England in the past".  Its exterior was "full of dignity and beauty" and it would be built of local materials, flint and stone fairings.

But getting the work done in post war conditions, and raising the money for such an ambitious project, would not be quick or easy.  In February 1920 it was announced that the rector and the building committee had "reluctantly but very definitely come to the conclusion that temporary provision must be made for worshippers".  The present needs were great and the future needs, "judging from the signs and rumours of development", would be much greater.  A plain, but permanent, building would be erected.  Once the new church had been built, this would become the parish hall.  The statement added that "the old cottages which do not adorn the site have been purchased for removal".

The temporary church - "completely plain, we did not want to spend a penny unnecessarily" - was ready for its first service on December 19 1920.  The Rev P S Warren, who was already serving the mission on White Lion Road, was appointed to serve St Michael's also.  Sunday services alternated between the two.

An organ was given.  It came from a house in Coleshill, for which it had been built in 1895.  When the permanent church was finally built more than 40 years later this organ was renovated and extended and is still in regular use.  The consultant who advised on the renovation said that 1895 was a very good year for Walker organs and that we mustn't think of getting rid of it.

St Michael's was from the start in the Anglo-Catholic tradition.  During the 20s and 30s, Winifred Mould remembers, parties used to go to the Albert Hall in London to take part in Anglo-Catholic Congresses and a small group went to Oxford on July 14 1933 to mark the centenary of John Keble's Assize Sermon.  Winifred, who was for many years the organist at St Michael's, also remembers "a practice of holding days of continuous intercession at parish churches for the conversion of England.  The Fiery Cross was passed on from one parish to another and received at each church at midnight, with a choral service of Holy Communion.  Amersham took part and St Michael's choir and organist led the music at the parish church, which did not have a regular choral Communion service."

Throughout the period between the wars the new church remained no more than a faint aspiration.  There were more immediate needs.  The temporary church would in due course become the church hall but a hall was essential now if there was to be any social life; it was thought that one could be built quite cheaply.  But the tenders greatly exceeded the estimates (and the available cash) and the plans had to be modified.  It was not until June 1930 that the new hall was complete.  But it became "a focal point of Amersham", according to Joan Macnab, remembering the 1950s.  "We used to have dancing classes there.  The St John's Ambulance used it.  The annexe was used for a lot of functions.  And the Post Office used it every Christmas to do their sorting."

Then there was the need for a priest's house.  As early as February 1927 the St Michael's Committee minutes comment on the inadequacy of the house in Elm Close occupied by Fr Wheeler, who was by now the priest-in-charge.  Winifred Mould remembers that Fr Wheeler moved to a house in Station Road, not the best base, she comments, for someone who travelled everywhere by bicycle.  It was clearly necessary to build a parsonage house adjoining the church.  But the hope of a new church had not been forgotten.  The minutes of December 1933, for instance, record that "the plans of the proposed new church" (presumably the plans drawn up in 1919) had been studied when deciding on the route of the drive to the new house.

Fr Wheeler's ministry at St Michael's is commemorated in the name of one of the meeting rooms in the present church.  He was extremely High Church, which was not universally popular, but he was described to me by Gerald Sturt (who began worshipping at St Michael's in 1921) as someone who "lived very simply.  If he'd bought a new pair of boots and a tramp came to the door, off came his new boots."

There are times when the inter-war years seem a very long way off.  Winifred Mould, for instance, told me:  "A club was started for girls in service on their afternoons off.  Many people in the area at that time had resident maids."  But in other ways parish life doesn't change all that much.

Attracting new members seems to have been no easier then than now, though attempts were made.  In March 1930 it was reported to the St Michael's Committee that the PCC of St Mary's had decided that a letter, signed by laymen, should be delivered to every home in the parish.  It would call attention "to the spiritual help the churches were prepared to render", and would include a card giving the times of services at the different churches.  And there were open air services in the summer, run jointly by St Michael's and St Leonard's, Chesham Bois.  These, however, it was recorded sadly in July 1930, hadn't attracted many outsiders.  The services the following year were again reported to have attracted few non-churchgoers, though it was felt that the poor weather had been partly responsible.  In March 1933 it was decided to cut the number of services from three to one.

But there were successes which also sound familiar.  In the May 1936 St Mary's newsletter Fr Wheatley, who had succeeded Fr Wheeler the previous year, wrote:  "A deeper spirit of devotion during Lent and Holy Week, and a sea of smiling faces on Easter Day, are signs of the growth of our family and spiritual life at St Michael's."

The outbreak of war inevitably brought changes, though only occasionally do these surface in the St Michael's Committee minutes.  But the arrival of evacuees in Amersham is recorded in October 1939.  Some had started coming to church and it was agreed that they should be invited to fill in their names and addresses and that the priest should then visit them.  Many of the evacuees, of course, were children and a committee was formed to visit them all "with the object of claiming as many of them for the church as possible".  The increased number of children in the area led to a shortage of space in local schools and St Michael's Hall was used by the Education Authority throughout the war.

In February 1944 St Michael's achieved (if that's the right word) its first appearance in the national press.  Dances in the hall, attended by troops stationed in the area, were banned not, as the press suggested, because of damage but because of the inadequacy of the sanitary arrangements.  Help in meeting the cost of improvements was sought from the Education Authority (although the authority does not appear to have expressed any previous concern about the provision for the children).

In 1945, shortly after the war ended, Fr Caunter arrived as priest in charge.  Previous priests-in-charge, because they were junior clergy in the parish of St Mary's, had moved on to become vicars or rectors after a few years.  Fr Caunter, however, was at St Michael's for nearly 20 years.  He refused all offers of 'promotion' and it was under his leadership that new plans for the permanent church were drawn up and the first steps taken in the formation of an independent parish of St Michael's.

Fr Caunter was described by one parishioner as a "priest of great spirituality, a man of great stature, a humble lover and follower of St Francis".  If that description sounds just a little conventional, set alongside it the Bishop of Reading's comment, in his sermon at Fr Caunter's funeral, that he had never known anyone like him before and didn't expect to do so again.  "He had little time for pomposity or sanctimoniousness," wrote someone else.  "He had a great sense of fun and humour, delighting in exchanging anecdotes with the more broad-minded members of the church committee."

He had a deep understanding of people in need.  "After he had conducted my mother's funeral," one parishioner recalled, "we returned to my house.  Fr Caunter had another funeral service to conduct in less than half an hour but instead of rushing off he made an excuse that he would like to see the garden.  We walked down to the trees at the end and for five minutes he talked with such inspiration that my deep unhappiness was lifted and I was left with a real sense of peace."

And that help wasn't confined to churchgoers.  His sister, Barbara Spurdle, recalls a Jewish family whose father died.  "They asked my brother to go over and say prayers for them.  They never went near the church but they knew him."

"The children and teenage members of the congregation were very attached to him," wrote another parishioner.  "He was in his element producing nativity plays, sketches and pantomimes."  Barbara Spurdle recalls that he "started a thing called the Knights of St Michael.  They had a little uniform - a pale coloured shirt and a maroon coloured scarf.  And a maroon coloured beret.  They were like Cubs."

Jane Norris (she was Jane Allen when she was in Amersham) remembers that "he loved Onward Christian Soldiers.  Whenever there was a gap he would say:  'Let's sing Onward Christian Soldiers.'  He was a very good man.  He did a lot for people both within and outside the church.  But he hadn't got any idea about money!"  Or, indeed, about administration of any kind.  "He found it very difficult to track down papers," says Arthur Clarkson, who was for several years a key member of the St Michael's Committee.  "We used to have occasional concerts in the church hall, timed for eight o'clock.  Well, at ten to eight he would still be running off the programmes to give to people."  The picture of Fr Caunter that begins to emerge is of a kind of "holy child". 

People, of course, always took precedence over administration.  Canon Tom South, Rector of Amersham from 1947 to 1962, wrote:  "I once telephoned Fr Caunter to ask for his 'copy' for the parish magazine.  I was told he was in Bristol and the following information was added: 'Someone he knows is in hospital there and he thought he might be able to help.'  Although an extreme example, this was typical of Douglas Caunter.  Even if it did not help in getting the magazine out on time it was a great lesson in priestly priorities."

For those of us who have only known Amersham-on-the-Hill during the last 15 years or so it is hard  to imagine how rural it still was in 1945, despite the building in the inter-war years.  There was a field behind the church, where East's now is.  And, recalls Barbara Spurdle, another field in front of the parsonage house in which someone kept a horse.  There were allotments on the site and two large trees on Sycamore Road.  Kendal Barrow recalls:  "I remember mother going into the grocer.  He always had a chair for her to sit on while he took her order.  He delivered it on his bicycle.  It really was a village then."  But from the mid 1950s the town started to grow again and the need for a permanent church became urgent. 

During Canon South's incumbency Fr Caunter was encouraged to run St Michael's almost as a separate parish;  but it couldn't become legally separate until it had a permanent church.  What turned the new church from a vague dream, to be achieved in the far-off future, into an immediate possibility was the realisation that it wouldn't need the whole of the available site.  Part could be sold and this would help to finance the building.  This was agreed in principle by the St Michael's Committee in May 1955 but it was another year before it also received the agreement of the PCC and the Diocese.  Then an architect had to be commissioned to advise on the best use of the site and to negotiate with the Planning Department.  All of this took time - the plans for the site were finally accepted by the County on August 26 1959.

But St Michael's didn't lose from the delay.  Amersham was growing and the value of the site was increasing.  Then the Free Church, which worshipped in a hall on a site adjoining St Michael's (roughly, it has been suggested to me, in front of where the Midland Bank is now), decided that they, too, would sell and build a new church across the road.  Offering the two sites together obviously increased their potential value.

The sale (by auction) took place in June 1961 and the following month the Rector, Canon South, is reported in the minutes as saying to the St Michael's Committee:  "The favourable result of the sale was, of course, most gratifying and opened a splendid opportunity ...a great responsibility, not without its risks and dangers ...[We must] concentrate on getting the church built, at the same time avoiding the giving of cause for dissension....[It should be] modern in design, but not exaggerated or ultra-modern."

It was another two years before plans were finally approved by the parish and the diocese.  During that time the possibility of St Michael's becoming a separate parish was first raised officially.  "Having regard to the present size of the parish", say the St Michael's Committee minutes of April 9 1962, "the development in progress and the potential growth, a division of the parish would be desirable.  This might best be arranged by setting up a Conventional District of St Michael's" (a Conventional District is a kind of stepping stone on the road to independence).  On February 1 1963 the proposal to create a Conventional District was approved by the Rural Deanery's Pastoral Committee, attended by the Bishop of Buckingham and the Archdeacon, as well as the Rural Dean. 

St Michael's was growing, too.  Each annual meeting recorded that the average number of Sunday communicants had risen again.  And in 1961 Fr Caunter had told the meeting that their record of putting forward candidates for ordination to the priesthood was "probably outstanding in the country".  It seemed that all Fr Caunter's dreams and hopes were being fulfilled.

And then it all fell apart.  In 1963 Canon Tom South, who had shared the dream, retired.  His successor, the Rev Allan Campbell, felt no necessity to abide by plans which had been developed over several years and had been approved by the parish, the rural deanery and the diocese.  "At the first clergy meeting with the new Rector on June 25 1963," Fr Caunter told the St Michael's annual meeting in March 1964, "[we were told] that the Conventional District was off for a year.  This was followed in September by a repetition of the statement that a year would be required for consideration.  However, at the end of October the announcement by the Rector that he had decided against the Conventional District was issued to the press."

The Rector, of course, had, in the words of the Bishop of Oxford, "an unrestricted right to enter into the agreement or refuse to do so.  No one else in the parish could make the decision."  He took a second personal decision, as he was also perfectly entitled to do.  He sacked Fr Caunter.

It wasn't just the members of St Michael's who erupted at that point.  Three quarters of the members of St Mary's PCC attended an extraordinary meeting to protest.  The elected churchwarden, who had supported the Rector, was voted out of office at the next annual meeting.  A parish meeting, attended by over 300 people, passed a motion of 'no confidence' in the Rector by a large majority.  The Bishop of Oxford did his best to be a peacemaker but he had no power to overrule the Rector on the points at issue.  And the Rector remained adamant.  "My decisions have been made in good faith," he said, "and if I was called on to meet the same situation again tomorrow I would make the same decisions.  I believe they will be for the ultimate good of the parish."

The final move by the protesters, in April 1964, was a petition to the Archbishop of Canterbury.  More than 3,000 signatures were collected in just 10 days.  "I think to have secured that many signatures in so short a time was nothing short of remarkable," said one of the organisers, according to the London Evening News.  But even the Archbishop had no power to act; he could do no more than express his "deep concern".

Looking back on those months "most of us are very ashamed", says Jane Norris.  "I can't tell you how awful those months were.  Such nice people were so rude to the Bishop.  At a meeting with the Rector, people sat on the backs of the pews and banged their feet.  People behaved in ways that were quite unnatural for them."  David Redpath remembers it as "a period of anger, bitterness and recrimination".  But he adds:  "The laity had been stirred into action and the unhappy experience left the congregation strongly united."

The person who suffered most from it all was Fr Caunter himself.  It was nearly a year before a new post was found for him.  For most of that time he remained in Amersham, living with his sister and brother-in-law, Barbara and Ted Spurdle, but in fairness to his successor he couldn't worship at St Michael's.  When he did move it was to a church that the authorities planned to close down.  As the St Michael's Newsheet said when he died, in 1972: "It seems right and proper that all of us should recognise the high price that one man paid for our independence."

The dispute also changed the life of a monk in Nottinghamshire.  Brian Griffiths was then in his late 30s and a member of the Society of the Sacred Mission.  But he had decided to leave the Society and was reluctant to spend his final year as a monk back in Africa, where he had worked for the past 11 years.  The Superior "said he didn't know what to do with me," remembers Brian.  But the very next day he was summoned to see the Superior again.  "He gave me a letter from the Archdeacon of Buckingham, who thought the community might produce the kind of person who could come into the Amersham dispute.  He said:  'Would you like to go down there and see if you can cope with the situation.'  I was met by the Archdeacon off the steam train at Aylesbury.  He brought me to see the Rector of Amersham.  I was selected by the Archdeacon but had to be appointed by the Rector, who didn't have much choice."

The appointment was with immediate effect.  Brian took the services the Sunday after Fr Caunter left and he moved to Amersham full-time a month later.  "The Bishop of Oxford told me my task was twofold.  One was to hold the St Michael's congregation together, the other was to see the building go up.  For the sake of the community it had to go up.  I didn't even look at the plans.  The Bishop said the building must go up as designed."

Brian found St Michael's "the kind of Anglo-Catholic community that I felt very happy to work with.  They were all very friendly.  It was fairly informal and easy-going - in some ways a bit slap-happy."  Brian himself, according to Jane Norris, "was very proper when he first came.  He always wore sanctuary slippers (and still does).  All the colours were correct - all that business of changing the altar frontal!"

But if St Michael's had been going through turmoil so had Brian.  He was unhappy in the Society of the Sacred Mission - and was now having to adapt to an independent life outside.  Both his parents had recently died.  "I was sorting myself out a lot," he says.  And the Church of England, too, was entering a period of rapid change.  The previous year Bishop John Robinson's book, Honest To God, had challenged the traditional formulations of Christian belief.  The New English Bible had been published and the need to modernise the liturgy was becoming widely recognised.  At the same time a growing movement encouraged the wider use of the parish communion as the main Sunday service.  The old division between high and low church was beginning to blur.

And some of the new members of St Michael's had come in spite of, rather than because of, its Anglo-Catholic tradition.  "It wasn't our tradition at all," says David Redpath, "but it was always a very friendly place.  I think that's why we stuck."  And his wife, Judy, adds:  "It was the people who really held us."  Barbara Baer remembers her first Sunday, in 1970 - "all the servers and incense and things."  But she also remembers being welcomed very warmly and says, simply, "the church has provided our friends."

It was a congregation that had been united by the dispute over Fr Caunter's departure.  "It had drawn everybody very close together," says Sheila Marsden, who came to Amersham about a month after Brian.  "People who hadn't been friends before became friends.  It broke down barriers of age and class and where you lived."  "We were told by Fr Caunter," adds Jane Norris, "that Brian was a good man and we had to do exactly as he told us.  And that is what we did.  Brian came, full of bright new ideas, and we followed him like sheep.  But it had brought us all together and he had the sense to make us work together.  Brian is good at healing and he understood people."  But he was also convinced that the lay leadership which had emerged in the struggle must be nurtured and encouraged to learn from the methods they had used.

Clearly St Michael's would change, though no one then could have foreseen how great the changes would eventually be.  But first the new church must be built.  By November 1964 the tender was accepted.  By February 1965 the alterations to turn the existing church into the hall were agreed.  And in September 1966 the new church was dedicated.  That meant an enormous amount of work for Brian and the buildings committee - Kendal Barrow, Arthur Clarkson and Leonard Hicks.  "We were always meeting," remembers Kendal.  "We met every Saturday morning.  You never knew when you'd have to make a sudden decision.  The big thing was planning the sanctuary - we spent hours on that, re-doing it."

The result, said the Bishop of Oxford, was "a splendid and spacious church."  And the Bucks Advertiser captioned a photograph of the new church:  "With the pillars and arches this picture could well have been taken in Rome."  Fr Caunter joined a huge congregation for the dedication of the church and the consecration of the altars on September 17 1966 ("Sacked priest returns to Amersham in triumph", was the headline in the Bucks Free Press).  The first High Mass was celebrated the following day by the Bishop of Buckingham.

That summer there had been the first St Michael's stewardship campaign, introducing the notion of "planned giving".  The objective was not just to ensure that St Michael's could maintain its new building, but that it would have money to help meet the needs of the wider church, at home and overseas.  Support would be given to USPG and other overseas projects and, said the campaign brochure, "we have promised to give an annual sum towards the cost of providing churches which are urgently needed in the new housing areas being created."  The campaign target was an annual income of £9,600, of which £1,800 would be given away.

The planning of this campaign, to cover just the St Michael's area of the parish, and the earlier refusal of the PCC to support a campaign in the parish as a whole, helped to persuade the Rector that the creation of the Conventional District of St Michael's, which he had so vehemently, and so disastrously, opposed, must now go ahead.  "The Bishop persuaded him," says Brian Griffiths, "he couldn't go on when he was only nominally in charge.  I was his curate but answerable to the Bishop.  I just got a phone call from the Bishop of Buckingham:  'If St Michael's becomes a Conventional District are you prepared to be the first Priest-Missioner?'  I was absolutely stunned.  It wasn't discussed at all."  St Michael's became a Conventional District on December 31 1965 and Brian Griffiths was licensed as Priest-Missioner on February 10 1966.  A separate parish wasn't legally created until April 1973 but St Michael's was in fact independent when the new church was dedicated.

"There've been changes in the church and changes in myself," says Barbara Baer.  "One of Brian's great strengths is he's able to make you look in at yourself and your feelings."  And Sheila Marsden talks about Brian's vision "- not just looking forward but something more.  Helping us - if we could accept it - to be able to see our beliefs, our faith, in a different way.  That's been a very positive thread in what we are becoming at St Michael's."

And it began within weeks of Brian's arrival.  The October 1964 Newsheet announced the setting up of the first discussion groups.  "Because High Churchmanship was new to us," says Judy Redpath, "we wanted to find out why certain things were done.  And so Brian said we ought to get a group together.  That was the start of Study Group B."  "It had a fairly long life," adds her husband David.  "It went on for several years.  Brian used it as a sounding-board for a lot of his ideas."

"I didn't know anything about groups," says Brian, "though I'd experienced them and knew they could be powerful.  That's where people learn, where they get knowledge which is their own, which becomes motivating."  From then on discussion groups have been a regular part of the St Michael's programme.  For many they've been the most important thing that St Michael' offers, a chance to learn and to grow and to get to know other people at some depth.  But that hasn't been true for everyone.  Some people, says Barbara Baer, "are not group mad.  People who didn't want to participate came to feel that they were inferior." 

Two courses which attracted larger numbers (perhaps because they were devised by the churches nationally) were No Small Change, in Lent 1965, and People Next Door, two years later.  Ecumenical groups met in people's homes.  They discussed the kind of changes that were likely in the church and they were also encouraged to look outwards at the world around them.  People were asked to go somewhere locally that they'd never been before and both Judy Redpath and Jane Norris remember visiting a betting shop.  Judy says that she knew "absolutely nothing about how it operated.  I was totally ignorant".  And then she realised that "that's exactly how people feel coming into churches".

Parish day conferences, laity meetings and participation in local meetings of Parish and People provided opportunities to talk through impending changes.  In October 1967 Series 2 was introduced, using familiar words but in a different order.  "The big thing that hit people," says Brian Griffiths, "was when we changed from 'thou' to 'you' (in Series 3, introduced in 1973).  We didn't handle that well."  By then the use of incense, except on special occasions like the Michaelmas Day Patronal Festival, had been discontinued.  A lead was given and people followed, some enthusiastically, some stoically ("if incense hinders people from coming to join us, then it must go") and some (in Joan Macnab's words) "moaning and groaning all the way".  "Often," says Judy Redpath, "it's been the small things that have been of significance - when we started using Christian names, instead of surnames - the way Brian mentions people by name when giving communion."

And Brian, too, was learning and changing.  He went on group dynamics courses and community work courses.  He read important books and encouraged others to read them.  And he shared what he was learning in his sermons.  There were times when he seemed so concerned to demolish views he considered were no longer tenable that he appeared to have no faith at all.  But his sermons never simply pushed a 'party line'; they were true to his own experience.  He never lost the courage to witness to his own vulnerability and he therefore attracted, and helped, many who were uncertain what they believed.  "How to introduce people to their own feelings, who've mostly been conditioned to shut their feelings out, that's been the big battle," he says.

The learning goes on.  More recently many members of the congregation have studied Scott Peck's The Road Less Travelled or have visited Emmaus House to take part in spiritual development and personal growth courses or in parish weekends.

A changing church with a changing vicar is not always a comfortable place.  For some the changes were insufficient, for others they were too many and too fast.  But to be alive is to change.  What's important is that we accept and value each other and recognise that our differences are in themselves opportunities for all of us to learn and grow.  "I wonder what we shall have to let go of to move forward," says Judy Redpath.  "There may have to be some mighty big sacrifices."

Brian Griffiths has always been convinced of the need for church members "not to be a cosy group, not just to be concerned with their own welfare.  Every congregation has a world-wide responsibility as well, for world poverty and mission."  That has been one of the central strands in the St Michael's story.

When Brian came there were already close links (through Arthur Clarkson, one of the first churchwardens of the new parish) with the Diocese of the Windward Islands.  And the first stewardship campaign formalised the commitment to help meet the needs of the church in poorer areas of Britain as well as in the Third World.

But it wasn't just about giving money.  Awareness of the issues in all their complexity was seen to be far more important.  At the end of 1969 a national sign-in on world poverty, organised by the Christian missionary organisations and aid agencies, provided an opportunity.  Most of two issues of the Newsheet were devoted to it and the fundamental question they posed was:  "Even in an imperfect world, by how much and for how long can the minority tolerate the miseries of the majority - without themselves being diminished and degraded?"

Awareness comes above all from personal contact.  On several occasions mothers and children of homeless families in London came for days in the country.  In November 1967 the first International Weekend took place.  Overseas students, who rarely had the opportunity of seeing the inside of an English home, were entertained in Amersham for the weekend.  Though a St Michael's initiative, this soon became a joint activity of the churches of Amersham and Chesham Bois; and it continues in May and November every year.

In the summer of 1978 a group of Bangladeshi young men from Tower Hamlets spent a weekend camping in the hall and being entertained by members of the youth group.  These boys, who had been born in villages in District Sylhet in Bangladesh, were working long hours in tailoring workshops, sending money home to support their extended families.  They ran whooping into the woods, delighted just to see trees and grass again.  And, at least for a weekend, they escaped the hostility they met every day on the streets of the East End of London.  In his thank-you note youth leader Peter East said:  "More than anything else we were pleased to be welcomed in such a friendly way. ... In the East End life is very tense and it makes a tremendous difference to the attitudes of the Bangladeshi youths if they are able to meet friendly white people in the country."  The point was underlined the following summer when about half the group dropped out at the last moment because they dared not leave their flats empty for fear of what might happen.

A link was developed with St Botolph's Church, Aldgate, in the East End of London, which runs a centre for homeless people.  In 1980, for the first time, people were invited to bring tinned goods for St Botolph's as their gifts at the Harvest Festival service.  This has continued each year since then.

In 1989 a new link was developed following discussion of the Church of England's Faith in the City report.  Some 30 members of the congregation accepted an invitation to see at first hand something of the East End of London.  The day was arranged by Prideaux House in Hackney, which works largely with elderly people in the area.  We toured the new developments in Docklands as well as run-down 1960s tenement blocks and gained some impression of the changes taking place and of the stark contrasts.  Roland Gillott wrote in the Newsheet:  "The elegant, architect-designed homes, with a car in every garage, contrasted with the concrete jungle of the council house flats, which we saw later ... graffiti on every available wall and grubby, dimly-lit lift areas, the 'front gate' for so many people."  Two further visits have since taken place, the last including members of the youth group, who put on a much-appreciated entertainment for the older people; and twice a minibus load has come to Amersham from Hackney.

The financial support of work overseas has also had a personal dimension.  Through USPG we assist three specific, very different, projects - the work of Keith Benzies, Bishop of Antsimarana in Madagascar, whom we have supported since 1970, long before he became a bishop; St Anne's Hospital in Liuli, Tanzania; and St Nicholas' Institute for the Visually Handicapped in Penang, Malaysia.  We have had two visits from Keith Benzies and in June 1993 we were visited by Dr Sam Ndimbo, the chief medical officer at St Anne's Hospital.  These visits, and the regular reports which we receive from all three projects, help to make us much more aware of the conditions under which they work.

It has only been possible here to pick out these few highlights.  Nothing, for instance, has been said about the substantial support for Christian Aid, organised jointly by the churches of Amersham and Chesham Bois; nor about the quarterly newsletters produced by Christian Aid, the World Development Movement and USPG, which are passed around and which help us to understand something of the wider picture of world poverty and its political dimension.  I hope, nonetheless, that enough has been said to show that this kind of awareness is an important part of the St Michael's tradition.

When the new St Michael's was built it received a chalice as a gift from the members of the Free Church.  They cancelled their morning worship and came to share in the first High Mass in St Michael's, bringing their gift with them.  It looked forward, they said,  to "the day when our divisions at all points may be a thing of the past.  That by this gift we shall be represented at the heart of your corporate devotional life is to us a precious thing."

This powerful gesture was followed by the ecumenical house groups for the People Next Door Lent course in 1967.  And the following year Church Forum was launched, courses attended by members of St Michael's and the Free Church and run jointly by Brian Griffiths and the Free Church minister, Neville Clark.

And the churches worked together in a number of ways.  There were the International Weekends and the collections for Christian Aid.  Later there were the Wheeler Coffee Pot and the Sycamore Club (for elderly people).  There were joint services in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - later replaced by invitations to small groups from each congregation to visit one of the other congregations.  The churches of Amersham and Chesham Bois had moved through a phase of tolerance and mutual recognition to one of co-operation.  But was this enough?

The spur which led people to feel it wasn't enough was concern over buildings.  St Michael's, the Free Church and the Methodists all had comparatively new buildings within a few hundred yards of each other.  St Michael's had become increasingly aware of the inadequacy of its new church (this will be the subject of the next section).  It didn't make sense for St Michael's to seek to solve its problem without any reference to the other Christian properties in the immediate area. 

But before there could be any discussion of details the congregations had to be formally committed to each other and to the search for unity.  "Is the time ripe for the churches in Amersham-on-the-Hill and Chesham Bois to enter into a Local Ecumenical Project?" asked the Newsheet in December 1982.  And it went on:  "The belief is growing that it is.  LEP's, as they are known for short, make it possible for two or more neighbouring churches of different denominations to share their resources of people, ministers, money and property. ... There are now around 300 LEP’s spread over the country.  They all have the approval and support of their national bodies, and each is tailored to the needs of the particular community." 

A statement of intent was drawn up in which the four churches, St Michael's, the Free Church, St John's Methodist Church and St Leonard's, Chesham Bois, covenanted together "for an initial period of five years to seek to do together all that we can and not to do apart what we could do together".  But the LEP was not an agreement between ministers, or between governing bodies.  It was between the four congregations.  "Going into an LEP," said the Newsheet in November 1983, "is like entering marriage, it is a venture of faith."  An initial meeting of the congregation that month was followed by discussion in ecumenical house groups throughout Lent.  "It is right," said churchwarden Philip Woodhead, in a statement in church on November 27 1983, "that we should cherish and perhaps even be proud of many of our ancient traditions, but a divided church is not one of them."

Each of the churches held a meeting on April 11 1984 to vote on the proposal to establish an LEP.  It was agreed that a majority of 75% in each church was essential if the scheme was to go ahead.  "I remember being in the Lady Chapel waiting for the votes," says Joan Macnab.  "St John's - yes.  The Free Church - yes.  St Leonard's - they were the last to come through - we were so dismayed that it should be the Church of England church that said No".  They had actually said yes but only by 60%, not by the 75% that was needed.  The LEP could not, therefore, go ahead.  The Newsheet tried to put forward a positive interpretation.  "Though disappointing and frustrating for those who worked so hard over many months," it said, "the result shows how opinion on the unity issue has shifted dramatically in recent years.  That is a positive and encouraging outcome of the vote which we should remember as we continue to build on what has been achieved already."

But Philip Woodhead, in his statement to the congregation, made a more accurate prediction.  He spoke of a flood-tide for unity approaching Amersham and said: "We have the opportunity to take it; if we fail it may be many years before we see another."  Much had been invested in a far-sighted and visionary proposal.  When it collapsed people could not reasonably be expected simply to pick themselves up and devise an alternative.  Christian unity in Amersham and Chesham Bois has, since then, been put on hold.  The existing joint activities have continued.  Joint evening services are held, but they attract only very small congregations.  Some people are actively opposed to moving on to a new stage of unity, fearing we would lose more than we would gain.  For most unity is simply not a high priority.  But Philip Woodhead was surely right when he said:  "The longer division goes on, the more difficult it is to reverse. ... To accept this division is sinful; to proclaim that nothing can be done about it belittles the power of the Holy Spirit - and is blasphemous."  Perhaps, before too long, unity will once again be moved to the top of the agenda.

When the new church was consecrated in September 1966 people felt a sense of delight and achievement.  Ten years of dreaming and planning, and several months of bitter dispute, had finally resulted in a building of which they felt proud.  But the euphoria didn't last long.

"If it hadn't been for all that trouble," says Jane Norris, "that building wouldn't have been put up as it is now.  If we'd had more time we'd have thought it out more clearly.  Of course, it had to be put up as soon as possible."  One problem that was immediately apparent was that you simply couldn't hear what was said.  The sound went straight up into the tower (which had been built because of a desire to dominate the town visually, although in fact many people fail to notice the church).  And the congregation was divided between the nave and the two transepts and you felt remote from the people sitting in the other two sections.

Problems with the construction, too, soon became obvious.  The underfloor heating caused the floor to crack and by 1970 the tower had started to leak.  "For weeks and weeks and weeks," says Brian Griffiths, "the sanctuary was full of scaffolding and we went in and out of it."

For some, there was only one answer - knock it down and start again.  But others, who had worked for so long to create a building which, with its large, well-lit sanctuary, was in many ways ideal, were certain that the teething problems could be overcome.  Experts were called in to advise on the acoustics; but the solutions they proposed were expensive and there was no guarantee that they would prove totally effective.  "We hoped," said churchwarden Paul Newby at the 1976 annual meeting, "to sweep the problems of the cracking floor under a carpet but we could not afford the carpet."

As people started to think more deeply, in working parties, day conferences and parish weekends, about the purpose of St Michael's, they saw another problem.  The building was under-used - most of it for just an hour or two on Sunday mornings - and the rooms available for use by the local community were at the back and hard for the first-time visitor to find.  The vestries, designed just for Sunday use, were being used by Alcoholics Anonymous and later by Cruse and other organisations, but they were hidden from the street and not designed for these new purposes, which had proved so valuable.

The Archdeacon of Buckingham suggested that the best solution to the problems would be one drawn up jointly by the churches of Amersham-on-the-Hill.  Their various buildings, so close to one another, ought to be complementary rather than in competition.  But the failure to establish a Local Ecumenical Project in 1984 meant that St Michael's was once again on its own.  Surely, it was felt, better use could be made of the existing space.  Two small offices were built in the south transept gallery; but any larger project, like putting the altar in the north transept and turning the nave into a coffee bar, would involve raising a lot of money and would leave a building that still wasn't right.  Even if it could be done, it would be a second best solution.

Gradually, with enthusiasm or reluctance, with joy or sadness, people returned to the idea of demolishing the church.  Michael Darvill told the 1988 annual meeting that the cost of carrying out the deferred maintenance work on the building, together with making the proposed alterations, would be likely to cost £250,000.  Much of the money for a complete redevelopment, however, would be generated by selling the hall and the vicarage and by creating new shop units on Sycamore Road.  Brian Griffiths told the meeting that this wasn't the main reason for choosing the more radical scheme, though raising such a large sum would obviously be difficult.  The main concern was to promote the mission of the church.  "We believe that the Monday to Saturday activities are the ones that people in the high street should know about," he said.

Gradually the design of a new Christian Centre emerged.  The front door led straight into a large and welcoming coffee bar.  There were church offices, a bookshop, a hall and a small chapel for private prayer on the ground floor.  Above, there were meeting rooms and the main worship area, designed to seat 200 for normal use but expandable for special occasions.  People would sit in a semi- circle round a large sanctuary, creating a sense of intimacy.  It all added up to a visionary scheme, expressing a new and exciting concept of what St Michael's might become.

And it looked as though the sale of part of the site would not only pay for its construction but provide money to run it as well.  One after another developers came and drew their plans and did their sums and suggested that they would be putting forward attractive proposals.  And, then, one after another they stepped back from the brink.  The consumer boom of the 1980s was over and they realised that the sums just wouldn't add up.  "We are all aware of the dramatic change in the economy over the past few months," wrote PCC secretary Ian Scott in a letter, dated November 10 1989, to everyone on the electoral roll.  "Interest rates have soared and, with the decrease in retail sales in the high street, retail shop and other property prices have fallen ... Despite our plans being well advanced, the PCC have reluctantly decided that it is not possible to proceed with the redevelopment at this time. ... Quite simply the funds that would be generated by the disposal of a part of the site would not be sufficient to cover the cost of building the proposed new St Michael's Church."  Over the next few months there were still flashes of interest, times of renewed hope, but in fact the visionary project was dead.

But the problem of the building remains and the cost of deferred maintenance rises.  Sooner rather than later a new scheme will have to be devised, even if it can't be completely self-financing.

In the late 1960s the new St Michael's Conventional District was a growing congregation in a growing town.  In September 1968 the PCC was told that the average number of weekly communicants had reached 162.  But Brian Griffiths guessed that there were something like 4,500 baptised Anglicans living in the parish.  St Michael's had a responsibility to them, too, and it was becoming obvious that Brian needed full-time help. 

The first curate, who arrived in September 1970, was Noel Whale, a young Australian, who was born in a fishing village in Victoria and who had been working in the passport office at the Australian High Commission before beginning his ordination training.  During his three years in Amersham he launched the St Michael's Youth Group, helped by, among others, Heather Davies, who is still the Group's leader. 

The Youth Group was a social outlet for younger members of St Michael's but it was never just for them; there was no requirement of church attendance.  It aimed to introduce religious concepts to young people who had had little or no contact with any church.  Religion can't be taught; it has to grow out of one's own experience of life.  It was the varied life of the Group, and above all the care of its members for one another, that provided the foundation from which faith might grow.

Such an approach is, of course, in line with that of St Michael's itself.  It has, however, meant that members of the congregation have sometimes seen the Youth Group as something entirely separate, valuable no doubt but quite distinct from the life of the rest of St Michael's.  That's perhaps inevitable but some recent events have demonstrated just how central a part of St Michael's the Youth Group in fact is.  In particular the Harvest Festival service in 1993, challenging, moving and very funny, was presented by members of the Youth Group with remarkable self-confidence; and the response of the congregation as a whole was enthusiastic.

Noel Whale was succeeded as curate by Robert Wright and he, in turn, by Derek McCullough.  But when Derek left in 1978 it was recognised that the national shortage of clergy made it unlikely that St Michael's would be allocated curates in the future.  Help was still needed, however, though possibly in different ways.  Two in particular were identified.  There was a need for someone to support mothers of young children - this promised to build up links with families bringing children for baptism.  And there was a need for someone to work with people suffering stress, or from mental illness, many of whom knocked on the vicarage door.  The sale of the curate's house provided an income with which to pay two part-time community workers to develop work in these two areas.

These imaginative proposals were worked out over a period of about two years.  They made an important statement about the way in which St Michael's understood its priorities.  It existed for the wider community, and for those in need, not just for itself.

In 1983 Roma Howe-Guest became the worker with people under stress.  During the more than 10 years that she has been at St Michael's she has, she wrote in the Newsletter in July 1993, worked "through the whole gamut of human suffering, from simple transitory anxieties and depression to mental illness and severe personality disorders."  Inevitably, her work is confidential and she has had, she says, to keep "a very low profile" but her contribution to St Michael's has been immense.

A joint course with St Mary's, Chesham, led by Jim Cotter and Margaret Hall, on pastoral leadership, gave birth to a personal growth group led by Roma and to the Pastoral Care Team.  Training was offered and networks of support arranged.  But, says Judy Redpath, the first leader of the Team, "the need is changed now.  It needs some kind of focus, but it doesn't need a team, it needs the whole congregation to get involved in being responsible for people they know, in a much more general way.  The idea of a team has changed but there is still a need for a small group of people being aware of what's going on."

More recently June Faulkner has come to St Michael's as full-time parish worker for a two year period, with the specific task of working with those on the fringe of the church.  But the vicar and the other paid workers, important as they are, are not St Michael's.  From the start of Brian Griffiths' ministry in Amersham, says the special 100th edition of the Newsheet in 1973, "the emphasis was on the place of the laity in the life of the church.  If one were asked for a key word to sum this up it would be partnership - the partnership between priests and laity to carry out the mission of the church.  Undoubtedly it would have been easier...to have adopted the traditional role of priest as the shepherd of his flock, which would have left him in control and enabled him to make all the decisions."  Instead he challenged the congregation "to relate the relevance - or irrelevance - of our worship and other church activities to the world around us".

Gradually a management structure emerged, with six departments to cover all the activities of the church.  Three of these departments were responsible for the actual work, the other three provided the essential support.  The supportive departments were Finance, Administration and Buildings.  The working departments were Pastoral Care, Worship and what came to be known as the Foreign Office, the department which brings together those who represent St Michael's on outside bodies and which has a particular responsibility for ensuring that the congregation is kept aware of the problems of poverty, in the Third World and in our own inner cities.

This structure was clear and logical but there were problems.  A voluntary organisation is not a company.  Defining the jobs that need to be done is one thing, filling them with appropriate volunteers is quite another.  And the demands made by some of the jobs seemed to be too great.    "It's easy for church to completely take over your life," says Judy Redpath.  "It's difficult to give your loyalty and yet to allow space for your other interests."  But the departmental structure, whatever its limitations, has brought clarity to the different roles that need to be filled and has demonstrated the reality of the growing partnership between priest and laity.

The PCC and the churchwardens co-ordinate the work of the six departments.  Since 1979 St Michael's has had four churchwardens, instead of the usual two.  A central team of four people is seen to be necessary.  At the same time it was decided that the term of office of wardens would be limited to four years.  Each person serves two years as a deputy and two years as a churchwarden.

The church is a partnership, not only between priests and laity but also between women and men.  That seems obvious today but it wasn't so obvious 30 years ago, when it was assumed that men made the decisions and women supported them in the background.  Looking back Judy Redpath sees the disbanding of the Mother's Union as a very significant step, though it caused "quite a rumpus" at the time.  "You can see how right it was, because now women are involved in everything.  That's why Brian wanted study groups, not just women's groups, wanted us to be men and women together."

In 1976 St Michael's had its first woman churchwarden - Sheila Marsden.  This didn't seem like a radical statement, just a natural progression, and she was, she says, "accepted very well by people".  But accepting women as chalice bearers was more of a challenge.  Sheila was once again one of the first.  "One woman came to me afterwards and said:  'I was very worried about it but it's perfectly alright.'  That was really nice.  She was one of the people who was a died-in-the-wool Anglo-Catholic but she accepted things as they came along."

But if St Michael's exists for others rather than for itself, if its task is to serve everyone in the parish, then people have to know that it exists and have some idea what it stands for.  Recently, therefore, a succession of leaflets, three or four a year, have been delivered to every house in the parish.  Some have advertised specific special events; others have simply painted a picture of some aspect of St Michael's.  It's probably too soon to say what they have achieved.  They certainly haven't brought a flood of new members - nobody thought they would.  But the evidence suggests that people in the area are more aware of St Michael's and so more likely to contact us at a time of crisis or difficulty.  Certainly it has helped us to define just what it is that we want to say about ourselves and we are learning how to say it without the use of religious jargon.

"Whenever the family gets together," says Barbara Baer, "someone always says: 'Do you remember the lawnmower?'"  That my own first  Whit Sunday at St Michael's.  Brian brought a lawnmower into church to make the point that, just as the mower wouldn't work without petrol, so we can't work without the Holy Spirit.  He invited the children into the sanctuary for the sermon.  And then he said: "You're all a bit nervous, aren't you?  Let's go outside and have a breath of fresh air."  And he marched them through the church and out of the door.  And then he brought them in again and talked about the breath of life.  "He was always doing things to shock us," says Joan Macnab, "saying to himself: 'I'll get some reaction from you whatever way I can.'"

But it wasn't just about shocking people.  When Brian arrived in Amersham he was "already concerned that liturgy was antiquated and remote from people".  And he used his imagination to create special acts of worship that are still remembered years later - the dedication of the church, the creation of the new parish, the celebration of his own 40 years as a priest.  Times of great sadness, too, like the memorial service for Ellen Motion, which managed to articulate our grief, and our thankfulness for her life, with extraordinary power.  "Think of the special services we've had," says Joan Macnab.  "You've gone away thinking, 'I'm sorry that's over.  It was so good'.  We've had so many of them."  And Barbara Baer adds:  "He's managed to discard the trappings and yet keep ritual and order". 

One of Brian's greatest gifts to St Michael's has been his ability to create occasions that were new and challenging and yet also, in a sense, within the catholic tradition of worship.  Immense care went into every detail.  The introduction of the Peace, says Sheila Marsden, "was quite sensitively done.  I remember the Bishop coming and talking about this and initiating it, being very positive about it and giving the Peace to the people in front."  The Peace has become an important part of our normal worship, with much movement and noise.  And then Brian introduced us, on the big Festivals, to the concept of a silent Peace.  We stand in silence, hands linked throughout the church, before going forward for Communion.  It's a very different experience but just as profound.

But he has also allowed and encouraged others to develop and use their own imaginative gifts.  There were open air Good Friday performances and a production of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, both involving members of other local churches.  There have been special Easter and Christmas services put together by small groups within the congregation.  And many remember the visit of Elizabeth Twistington-Higgins in 1982.

Liz was trained as a ballet dancer.  She was on her first West End engagement when she developed polio.  From then on she, who expressed herself most fully through movement, could move nothing but her head.  She taught herself to paint, holding the brush in her mouth, and her paintings, many of them of dancers, were full of the movement she had lost.  And then she began to dance again through the Chelmsford Dancers, whom she trained and for whom she created ballets which were acts of worship.  They danced in churches, abbeys and cathedrals throughout Britain.  One of the ballets began to the poignant music of Elgar's Ave Verum and then moved straight into Vivaldi's Gloria.  Like Liz's own life story it was an expression of the theme of death and resurrection which is central to Christianity.

It was appropriate, therefore, that it was on Holy Saturday, for the lighting of the Paschal Candle, that the Chelmsford Dancers came to St Michael's.  "Wasn't that lovely," says Jane Norris.  "Everyone who went said: 'Aren't they beautiful?'".  Joan Macnab is another who remembers that evening vividly.  There was concern beforehand about dancing in church and about the fact that tickets were to be sold to cover the costs.  "But they came.  The place was packed.  That was lovely.  Wasn't it marvellous?"

In 1992 St Michael's adopted a Vision Statement (the full text of which appears on the back cover of this book).  We committed ourselves in that Statement to "creating a growing awareness of God".  That happens in many different ways but one of them is certainly these imaginative, creative special events.

I write this when we are preparing for Brian Griffiths' retirement in 1995.  St Michael's will, for the first time since 1964, be looking for a new vicar.  With the prospect of that change looming ever closer it's not surprising if we sometimes feel, in Sheila Marsden's words, "a bit in the doldrums".  "We know something's going to end very soon," she says, "and we're not quite ready to begin the new phase.  We're going to miss Brian and we don't know what the future's going to hold.  It's difficult to maintain momentum right to the end of a phase unless there's a goal in sight.  We've got to be very sure of what we want to retain, what's special to us, because it could easily slip away."

Some of the answers - the partnership between priest and laity, between women and men, the imaginative approach to worship, the emphasis on training courses - emerge from our history.  But it seems to me that there's another, even more important, answer.

St Michael's cannot easily be defined by what we believe nor, despite the comments of our critics, by what we don't believe.  It's much more a matter of our attitude to belief, a recognition that we are all at different stages on a journey, that we all need to use different words to express what's most important to us.  "Brian is able to say: 'If you don't believe it, you don't have to say it'", says Barbara Baer.

Perhaps the key word in the St Michael's Vision Statement is the word 'open'.  We are trying, and it isn't easy, to be open to new truth and to find new ways of expressing old truth.  We try to remember that for many the old stories of a stable and an empty tomb are precious but also to recognise that those same stories prevent others from grasping the deep truths they are supposed to convey.  We recognise that a faith that's real is one you've discovered for yourself out of your own experience of life, not one you have simply inherited.  So some of us are quite 'orthodox' in our beliefs, others might well be called very 'radical', doubting even whether it makes much sense today to describe Jesus as "the only son of God".  But all of us are trying to work out what we believe, what it is that expresses the meaning of life for us.  The words that are right for some of us will be meaningless to others of us; and we'll use different words at different times in our lives.

This openness is both liberating and uncomfortable.  It is, says David Redpath, "our great strength and also in a sense our great weakness.  The fact that we're allowed to question is great but it does present us with a problem.  We haven't a clear message."  We have no neat package of dogmas to give people, only the challenge to work out for yourself what it is that you're prepared to place your trust in.

God is a mystery far beyond anything which we can understand or express.  Just occasionally there seems to be a break in the clouds through which we catch a momentary glimpse of something we can't really put into words.  In the Bible, particularly in the life and teachings of Jesus, there are signposts pointing towards the mystery, but they are only signposts.  We must beware of the temptation to reduce God to a formula, to something simple which we can grasp.

St Michael's, then, is above all a place where we are encouraged to explore and, in Judy Redpath's words, "a place where these sorts of things are being sought by other people."  Brian Griffiths, throughout his ministry in Amersham, hasn't simply encouraged others to explore; he has had the courage to share with us his own exploration.  For some St Michael's is too radical; for others it is too orthodox.  Yet it is essential that both the radical and the orthodox feel welcomed and valued because it is through our relationships with each other that we learn most truly about God.

It is encouraging, then, that so many people have said to me in different ways that they felt welcomed when they first came to St Michael's and that it's because of their friendships that they stay.  And Barbara Baer adds:  "The other thing that I'd like to stress about St Michael's is their acceptance of Ralph (her husband, a Jew).  He's been completely accepted from the word go and always made to feel welcome."

The Vision Statement talks about creating a community, a place where you can be yourself, where you don't have to put on an act or pretend, a place where feelings are seen to be as important as thoughts and ideas.  We aren't there yet, indeed we never will be completely, but it's the aspiration which we keep before us.  It demands that we don't pretend to agreements that don't actually exist and that we accept, even welcome, disagreement because it's from that that we can learn.  When it comes to feelings, and religion is largely about feelings, that isn't easy.  And so we have to accept our failures, too, without trying to apportion blame.

But religion isn't just about our own spiritual growth.  It isn't just about the creation of a St Michael's community.  What we learn at St Michael's, if it's real, has lessons for the wider communities of which we are also part.  We are not called to come apart from the world but to transform the world.  That's why the Pastoral Care Department and the Foreign Office are central to our life together.  But taking seriously the needs of our neighbours, the squalor of the inner cities and the poverty of the Third World isn't just about personal charity.  It may sometimes include a call to enter the messy, divisive world of politics.  And, like most Christians, we usually shy away from that.

I am moving beyond the things which we know we must retain towards areas where I think we may need to change, towards things that are missing from our life.  Despite the emphasis on the importance of feelings in our discussion groups, the main Sunday worship at St Michael's appeals to the brain more than to the heart.  It stimulates and challenges the mind but it doesn't always touch the emotions.  The stimulus to the mind is essential; it's why St Michael's appeals to us so much.  Yet sometimes we forget, in words from The Cloud of Unknowing: "By love God may be caught and held, by thinking never."  In much of our Sunday worship, when we are at our most traditional as well as when we are at our most radical, there are simply too many words.  Yet God is "a still, small voice".  It's in silence that we find the love which may catch and hold him.

And so the silences in our worship and, even more, the regular times of meditation have become very important.  "It's really something I'd like to see more energy put into," says Margi Schutte, "in terms of days, and trying to bring other people to us."  If you're going to come close to God you have to find that deep stillness within yourself, a silence in which you seem to be outside time.  This "silence in the mind", as the poet R S Thomas calls it, brings you "within listening distance of the silence we call God".

There are times when we seem to have moved very far from our roots as an Anglo-Catholic parish but this emphasis on meditation suggests that there are elements of that tradition still very much alive in us.  But looking back we can see how much we have changed.  We are very different from the St Michael's of the 1920s and the 1950s, from the St Michael's which built the present church in the 1960s, from the St Michael's which accepted the liturgical changes of the 1970s, and from the St Michael's which tried, though sadly without success, to make significant ecumenical advances, and to create a new Christian Centre, during the 1980s. 

We cannot know what we shall be like in ten years time, what new challenges we shall be facing, but we do know that, if we are true to our tradition, we will be very different from the St Michael's of today.  As we prepare to say thank-you to Brian Griffiths for all the remarkable gifts which he has brought to us over 30 years, and to welcome his successor, we know that, however much we may at times resist it, change is the only constant.  We can never stand still.  "There is no stopping place in this life", said Meister Eckhart.  We must "be ready at all times for the gifts of God, and always for new ones."  It's our willingness to support each other in facing that challenge that makes us St Michael's.

Published by St Michael's Church 1994

This page was last modified Friday, 13 August 2004 15:25