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Hold the potting shed — this man has a mission

02 November 2006

 

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BISHOPS
Above: the Rt Revd Sandy Millar at his commissioning earlier this year. He is more comfortable in collar and tie (top)

Sandy Millar, the vicar who put Holy Trinity, Brompton, on the map, could have retired. Instead, he has been made a bishop (in Uganda), taken on a new parish, and is promoting mission in London. Rachel Harden talked to him

 SANDY MILLAR — or, to give him his correct title, the Rt Revd John Alexander Kirkpatrick Millar, Honorary Assistant Bishop in London diocese (for Mission) — does not stand on ceremony.

Despite being Vicar to the well-heeled congregation of Holy Trinity, Brompton (more usually known as HTB), for 20 years, co-founding the Alpha Course — now a worldwide phenomenon — and last month seeing 2000 people pack St Paul’s Cathedral for his commissioning service, he now resides in a run-down area of north London.

He answers the vicarage door himself, without a hint of staff, and offers coffee in the recently renovated and clearly used kitchen. It’s a far cry from the "very nice vicarage above the shop" in upmarket Brompton, down the road from Harrods.

Yet he sees his post as Priest-in-Charge of St Mark’s, Tollington Park — where police carry out zero-tolerance raids on local estates, and the church is firmly locked behind iron railings — as his main ministry now, along with his Alpha commitments. "Tomorrow we are off to Holloway Prison to run a course, which is very exciting."

The bishopric he takes in his stride. "I shall see what the Bishop of London [the Rt Revd Richard Chartres] wants me to do. He is away on sabbatical at the moment. Assistant bishops obviously assist the bishop, but my main role is here."

Sandy Millar, who is 67 later this year, is intelligent and eloquent (Cambridge University then ten years at the Bar before ordination).

He has not been one for hierarchy. "Even when I was practising criminal law, it was the people, not the law itself, that interested me," he says. Nor for church politics. I name a few large churches that have used the homosexuality debate to distance themselves from diocesan structures in the Church of England, something HTB and London diocese seem to have avoided.

"I couldn’t possibly comment on those. The real burning issue for the C of E is mission. That is what matters, and it is desperate the way we seem to be willing to talk about anything else. The people out there aren’t really interested in our internal little discussions. They just go round in ever-decreasing circles. A centre for bickering is not very attractive."

He is a great fan of the work of Bishop Chartres. "I think this is episcopacy at its best, when a partnership between church and diocese enables everyone to do what they do well."

The details are yet to be ironed out, but he is quick to note that his role as Bishop in Mission is very different from "appointing a bishop in someone else’s province against their will".

He admits that much was made of this at the time his appointment was announced, "and not just by the media". He was first consecrated bishop in the Church of Uganda (News, 28 October 2005) to overcome legal hurdles. "This came at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, because historically the law is against creating new bishops without a [geographical] see in the C of E, unless they are retired. So the way round it was for me to be consecrated bishop through the Anglican Church in Uganda."

Speaking before the commissioning service last month, Bishop Chartres made the situation even clearer. "Sandy will, of course, continue to respond to invitations as he does now. But to suggest (as some have done) that he might become a standard-bearer for Church of England dissidents in other dioceses is to misunderstand the man, and to misunderstand the disciplines under which bishops in our Church operate."

Mr Millar’s links with the Church in Uganda go back many years. The current Archbishop, the Most Revd Henry Orombi, trained for ordination in the UK and was sponsored by HTB. "He stayed with us, and we all got to know him well," said Mr Millar. "He even had a child who sadly died here, and the funeral was at HTB."

Sandy Millar (he prefers this to "Bishop Millar"), is married with four children and two grandchildren. His wife, Annette, is heavily involved in Alpha for Prisons. He is honest enough to admit that none of the Millar household finds life in Tollington Park preferable to Brompton. "Although I would still say you are just as likely to be mugged leaving an HTB meeting as you would be here."

Does he feel guilty about bringing the HTB machine to north London (it has funded a number of extra staff at St Mark’s, which is located at the corner of Moray Road and Tollington Park in Finsbury Park)?

"The parish had been advertised twice, and they had got no one, so of course there was this long interregnum. I am certainly not doing a younger priest out of a job."

The project is a partnership with the diocese, he emphasises. When he was still in charge at HTB, "I asked the bishop if there was a church in the diocese we could link with, not a church plant. There was a great need here at Tollington Park, so I was licensed as Priest-in-Charge by the Bishop of Stepney two-and-a-half years ago. Since then, we have done a lot together, and, of course, I am now here permanently.

"HTB has been very generous, as it is impossible to fund extra staff in an area like this, and so many things you need to help a parish tick over involve money. The assistant priest here, the Revd Pete Bellenger, went to ordination from HTB [but] always felt he could not work in such a comfortable environment. He felt called to work in a poorer part of the city."

He insists that the congregation — now well above three figures every Sunday — is local, and is just an extension of what already existed. "When we arrived we found a small but godly congregation with a range of nationalities. But they were tired and under-resourced. We are now working together."

The practice of rich parishes linking up with poorer ones, he believes, could be extended throughout the C of E, and might be one of his episcopal projects. "Life breeds life. Rather like in global terms, it seems that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer — that is my impression, anyway. The more we can encourage partnerships the better."

He is currently considering how best to be effective on local estates where vandalism, drugs, and prostitution are rife. "There are great sparks of hope and life in individuals there, but we want to work on a sustainable plan. Residents have seen every initiative come and go; there is a sort of weariness about the whole thing."

Working with other denominations is vital, something he has learnt from Alpha. "Whenever we had a conference, every denomination was represented. That was a real catalyst for me, as historically we all thought we could do it ourselves.

"I can remember a long time ago Gerald Coates saying to me that the only difference between the Anglican Church and the House Churches was that we were quietly arrogant and they were noisily arrogant. There was enough truth in that to hurt."

He comes across as quietly charming yet self-effacing, and it is perhaps this attitude that enabled him to work successfully with previous vicars of HTB, rather than feel threatened by them. "I think the not-allowed-back-in-the-parish rule is governed by the propensity for vicars to interfere."

He describes the Revd John Morris, now 97, who originally encouraged him along the ordination route, as "a great friend". He stayed on the staff when Mr Millar became Vicar.

He also maintains strong relations with the Revd Nicky Gumbel, long-term Assistant Curate and now Vicar of HTB, and points proudly to a picture of Mr Gumbel and his wife in the front row at the commissioning service. "I was very thrilled to get the succession sorted out; the C of E can be quite tricky on these things."

Surprisingly, he expresses great optimism about the future of the Church of England, but thinks that changes may be needed, putting people first rather than traditions. "The quality of young people being ordained and willing to serve God is very impressive. But there are issues around the ordination process and funding. I don’t think there is a shortage of young people willing to be ordained, if the Church can adapt. They don’t want to be ordained into a Church that looks like the early 1830s."

He recalls when he first became Vicar at HTB. "I inherited 1662 sung matins with a robed choir. I am not being rude about that — in theory there is nothing wrong — but we were losing people fast, and something had to be done."

John Wimber and the Vineyard movement were a huge influence. In the 1990s, HTB became the London centre for "the Toronto Blessing" or "Laughing Revival". Apart from the worship, the building, too, was transformed.

"In Victorian times, the church was often the most comfortable place in the community. But who wants to come now to a building with pews and stone floors? It is not very welcoming.

"I remember a previous vicar, a-few-times-removed, returning one week to see what we had done inside. I was rather nervous about his reaction, but he just threw back his arms and said: ‘It had to be.’ I feel very strongly that in church life today, you have to change. If you just want to stand still, if you preserve, you won’t get new people. The only thing that should be preserved is the gospel."

So has his constant desire for change kept him young at heart? After all, he is past the conventional retirement age. "I’ve never really thought of retiring. What would I do? I suppose I might have to when I’m 70. It’s not really been discussed."

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Life in the new parish, St Mark's Tollington Park

TOLLY2

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