Opening Doors and Opening Hearts

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Mark Greene discovers the power of badges and titles to open hearts in surprising places.

I’m in a car on my way to Whitworth with a friend. We stop at a crossroads in Rochdale. There on the far side of the road stands The Cemetery Hotel, sombre in its black and gold paint. Given that it’s right across the road from a cemetery, I’m sure the locals don’t give the name a second thought, but to an outsider like me, it has a macabre ring to it, the kind of place you check into, but never check out of, like the motel in Psycho. Who, apart from a vampire, would fancy a night at a Cemetery Hotel, particularly a Cemetery Hotel that is located on the Bury Rd? They probably promise you the longest night’s sleep you’ll ever have. And don’t have a breakfast menu.

The people who named it were thinking ‘Make it easy to find’. I’m thinking Count Dracula. Interesting how people interpret things differently.

Which takes me back a couple of weeks to Monday morning at about 8.45. I’m on my way to work and I’ve stopped off at the supermarket to pick up a couple of things. I’m standing by the check-out, saying ‘hi’, paying and packing. Then the checkout lady asks me what my badge stands for. I glance to my coat lapel. I’d forgotten I was wearing it. It’s about an inch and a quarter in diameter. It’s red with a white star and the letters ‘FTCW’ on it.

I hesitate.

It ought to have been an easy question to answer since:

a)    I did actually dream up the idea of the badge in the first place

b)    I could still remember what the letters stood for.

Still, the truth is, that if I’d known I had it on my coat lapel, I’d have probably taken it off. It was never intended to be worn in supermarkets or out in ‘the world’ at all, though I know people who do. No, the badge was intended for more overtly Christian contexts – conferences, church halls, cathedrals – places where you’re likely to meet Christians who might be intrigued to find out what FTCW stands for and will usually be somewhat surprised (pleasantly) and encouraged (positively) to discover that they are, yes, they are an FTCW themselves. Because FTCW stands for full-time Christian worker.

And, of course, everyone who is a Christian is an FTCW, everyone who is a Christian is a minister and everyone who is a Christian is a missionary. In reality, there is no such thing as a part-time Christian worker since everything we do in whatever context, we do for Christ. However, very sadly and very damagingly, the term ‘full-time Christian worker’ is usually applied only to those who are in church-paid employment. And that can make the rest of us feel that we are second-class citizens and that God’s work is something they do all the time and we don’t do very much at all.

All of which seems to me to be a smidgen too much to get across at the supermarket checkout, between paying and packing and saying ‘bye’.  I realise that I’d never before had to explain the term to someone who might not be a Christian. And I’m struggling. Anyway, I say something like, “It means ‘full-time Christian worker’ and that means wherever you are, whatever you’re doing you’re doing it for Christ.” “Does that mean you’re available to talk to people?” The woman asks.

I hesitate again.

That’s not what I intended at all but, on the other hand, shouldn’t it mean that? But there again she may be thinking I’m a pastor or a chaplain with time to meet with her to discuss who knows what. And I’m not a pastor or a chaplain. And frankly I don’t feel I have much time to stop and talk, as I scurry down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, feeling increasingly less like the Samaritan and more like the Levite or the scribe.

“Well, I’m certainly happy to pray for you,” I say, as you do, or at least I have sometimes, when I’m trying to close off a conversation, and not knowing quite how, and catch myself using the assurance of prayer as a piece of punctuation. It makes me shudder to realise it. “Please do”, she replies. And it’s clear she means it. So clear, that, though I have now turned to leave, I turn back and ask her name. “Annette,” she smiles. And I did pray for her, regretting I didn’t ask her more, regretting that I haven’t been back to the supermarket, wondering if I could have handled it better, working out how to handle it better next time, but trusting that God would use the prayers anyway.

That encounter has lingered in my mind these last two weeks. Yes, it was Annette’s openness and the fact that she so wanted to be prayed for that she was prepared to voice the request to a stranger. But more than that, I pondered the significance of her response to the badge. She took it seriously, as if it were a sign of some official role, like a dog collar, or a judge’s wig. The badge perhaps rendered me safe, as children feel safe going up to a policeman they’ve never met, even though they’ve been told not to talk to strangers.

Was there a lesson to be learned from the badge?   

And then last week, after I’d passed the Cemetery Hotel, I found myself in Whitworth with Simon Macaulay. Simon is a Christian friend who is the owner of a company called Anglo-Felt which does exactly what it says in the name, makes felt products. The company has grown to about 47 employees and I’d met four members of their management team at a seminar a few years ago. Three of them aren’t church-goers but one of them said to me then, “You know all that stuff you were talking about in that seminar, we do all that.” And I discovered that indeed they do.

This time I discovered that they also have a company chaplain. And have had for five years. I was, I confess, surprised. It is after all a small company. And though lots of football clubs, big factories and malls have chaplains, and though there is an explosion of chaplains in the US, I wasn’t aware of too many small businesses with chaplains. I was also intrigued. I’ve never been quite certain about the presence of chaplains in workplaces. Isn’t that a bygone solution for a bygone age? Does it really have any relevance for today’s world? And does it not disempower the Christians who are there, making it more likely that people will go to the chaplain rather than the people they know?  And might the presence of a chaplain make the Christians feel that their workplace isn’t a context for them to minister in – after all that’s what the chaplain does?

Anglo-Felt’s chaplain is a Baptist Minister called Ron Phillips and he has been coming every two weeks for five years. Before he came, two of the senior management team hadn’t wanted him to come at all – ministers would be stern, unapproachable and would try to convert people. But Simon encouraged them to just give it a try.

For Simon, the rationale grew from the realisation that the people who worked for him had all kinds of issues that were not best dealt with by line managers or personnel, issues that were either too personal or that might create the wrong kind of relationship between boss and subordinate, but issues nevertheless that needed dealing with. Still, I push it a bit and asked June, the Commercial Director, “It’s not your responsibility if someone’s drinking a bottle of vodka a day. It’s not your responsibility if they can’t make it into work regularly, so why bother? Why not just fire them? There’s plenty of people who need work.”  Again, June isn’t a churchgoer but you can see the concern for others in her warm eyes and feel the compassion in her determined tone, “We think it is our responsibility. There’s no community anymore and no one takes any responsibility for anyone else. Someone’s got to.” Amen anybody?
 
And so Ron came in with the title of chaplain. And for a couple of hours on a Wednesday wandered round the factory and talked to people who wanted to talk to him. He’s now 65 but he’s had such an impact on the people in the factory that when they heard that he was retiring to Leeds they told the management that they’d have to get him to keep on coming back. Indeed, Mike, the very Operations Director who’d been set against the chaplain’s appointment, told me, “He’s helped lots of people. And he’s helped me.” Pastors are real people, at least some of them are. Maybe we need to ensure they get out more. What an impact they have when they do.

Ron had a metaphorical badge. A badge called ‘chaplain’. It didn’t force anyone to talk to him but it made it easier for them to do so, to cut to the chase quickly. When you go to the doctor, you don’t usually talk about Eastenders, Gordon Brown’s performance or the last episode of Spooks, you expect to talk about your health. And so the presence of a chaplain allows people to get straight to the point. And you’re safe. The chaplain is not your boss, your rival or your subordinate. It’s a role that can work powerfully and synergistically in tandem with the ministry of Christians already in the workplace who can in turn do things that the chaplain never can.

Of course, I’m not saying that we all should start wearing fish pins, though there’s nothing wrong with that. A fish pin, after all, only clarifies our allegiance, it does not adequately put boundaries on the role that we might appropriately play in someone else’s life.

Clearly, some Christians do acquire such a trustworthy, pastoral reputation that they become quasi-chaplains. Indeed, a secondary school teacher friend of mine was told by her agnostic headteacher, “You’re our chaplain”. Still, for those of us who may never have either such a role or a ‘professional’ title I wonder what, apart from all that we already may be doing as an FTCW, minister and missionary, we might do.

Firstly, we might assume that people need and appreciate prayer and offer it more proactively. Secondly, we might encourage our pastors to get out into the community more and, thirdly, we might think about suggesting our workplace gets a chaplain.

As for me, I’m working on a new badge, something to wear on my coat that the many people I’m wedged among in the tube or walk past along the street might find helpful, something to lift their eyes beyond themselves and up to God. I’m thinking of red, about 1 and a quarter inches in diameter with a white Celtic cross in the middle and the letters PRAY on it.  I suppose it’s not very likely that many people will stop and talk to me about it, but maybe it’s a smidgen more likely that they’ll think about talking to the One who’s always got time to listen and a heart to help.


This article was first published in Christianity magazine and is reproduced by kind permission.