I’ve seen my church grow, change, survive and thrive over the last sixteen years, but recently I've seen how fragile our identity has become when different backgrounds form and push different expectations of church and service styles. When those expectations clash with other leaders and congregation members, it splits the Church’s direction.
Preaching is a good example. People connect with different sermon styles. Some prefer expository preaching, which explains a passage in its original context. Others respond to pastoral or conversational preaching, which uses questions and reflection. Some enjoy narrative or testimonial preaching, while others prefer topical or biblical‑theology sermons that trace themes across Scripture. Visual or object‑based preaching helps some people grasp ideas more easily.
My style is a blend of expository and pastoral preaching, shaped by mini‑exegesis, narrative, and occasional visual illustrations. I begin with the text, explore its background, and offer clear application with focused takeaway points. A style I learnt through college assignments. One colleague leans toward inductive, conversational preaching, using questions and personal experience to guide reflection. Two others preach a more academic‑topical and biblical‑theology style, drawing on multiple passages, outside authors, and liturgical themes. Their sermons often attempt expository depth but rely heavily on cross‑referencing and personal interpretation, which naturally requires more time.
Mine and my colleague’s style fits a ten‑minute sermon, while the academic and biblical-theology approach needs twenty minutes to explore deeper teaching. Younger and modern congregations often prefer shorter, focused sermons, while older or more traditional members prefer longer and deeper preaching.
Our church has always had a clear identity, even when it reopened under our curate. She accepted everyone who came in, whether they were wearing their Sunday‑best with high church expectations or wore casual clothes and wanted contemporary services. Our church is a mix. It’s casual, child-friendly, with short sermons and modern worship, and maintains all key traditions that are recognisably church, but doesn’t follow Catholic‑style liturgy, multiple Scripture passages, traditional clothing, or classic hymns.
This year has shown me how easily that identity can slip when the team isn’t aligned. Our Curate was there from the start. She retired when Simon arrived, came back to officiate when he left, and a local priest guided us before moving to a different parish last year. Without a guiding priest, those with different preferences have tried to shape what they want, leading to different preaching, worship, and service styles in our leadership. None of them are wrong, but they don’t merge comfortably. The congregation feels the tension. They moan about sermon lengths, understanding what a preacher has said, being bored, feeling lectured by an old fashioned school teacher, or that songs have gone backwards to 1980s styles. We've even lost a handful young families because of it.
Various styles exist across the Church of England to create a beautiful patchwork identity under one organisation. Every church, while holding faith in God, following Jesus, and sharing the life of the church into the world, expresses faith differently. There are high traditional churches, modern casual services, conservative and liberal beliefs, and even fresh expressions like Messy Church, Skater Church, or Forest Church. Understanding these styles and where they fit within that patchwork is a key feature of the Carousel Conversations that is looked for in a person before ordination.
Understanding helps people follow a thread between weeks, months, and years, creating a community of faith around where people are, a space that begins with encounter, relationship, and context, not with inherited structures, traditions, or feeling like they’ve stepped into a different church each Sunday.
Holding that thread is difficult. I want to honour the vision we’ve carried for years, protect the identity, keep things accessible for everyone, whether new or experienced, make sure preaching helps people understand Scripture rather than feel lost in it, and recognise that identity can change and grow. This is important. Leadership needs awareness of what your congregation and community needs. Without reflective awareness, we could force an old identity to stay and miss active growth in front of us, and stop the church moving forward. It’s also not about changing the style immediately. A forced and quick style change clashes against the existing identity, loses congregation members, and misses what the community needs, which has happened for centuries throughout church history. These things matter to me.
Leadership isn’t a straight line. It’s a group of people with different experiences, training, and ideas of what church should look like and can then apply their strengths to serve their community. When styles clash, the work becomes heavier. Time and energy is spent holding things together and carrying tension than moving the church forward.
I’ve felt that recently and it’s been frustrating. I want to lead well, stay humble and aware, and honour the people who stepped up when we needed them, even if their style doesn’t match the direction we’re going in.
Leadership is about staying steady when everything feels stretched. It’s choosing patience, not frustration. It’s trusting that God is shaping us, even through a messy process. It’s about holding and carrying a church while protecting and guiding it.
I don’t have all the answers. I am still halfway through the ordination process. I’m still learning how to lead while the team is misaligned, grieving, muddling through, and surviving gauging how to speak truth without causing harm, sympathetically shining a light on issues, and balancing being assertive and combative when it’s necessary.
For now, I’m choosing to stay steady, trust the process, and believe that opportunities to challenge it will occur. Churches grow through tension and peace. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s shaping us. It’s shaping me.
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