By Carolina Frank
Jesus loved to teach through ordinary things. Seeds. Soil. Wheat. Weeds. Everyday images that people could recognise from their own lives. In Matthew 13, He speaks about a field where good seed is planted, yet over time other growth appears among it.
Anyone who has tended a garden knows this experience. You do not always notice unwanted growth at first. It arrives gradually, almost invisibly, and blends into what is healthy and good. Churches, like gardens, are made up of human; sincere, imperfect, hopeful people trying to follow God together. And wherever people gather, there will always be moments requiring wisdom, humility, and gentle correction.
Jesus reminds us that spiritual health is not about pretending problems do not exist. It is about tending carefully to what helps love, truth, and trust grow stronger.
“Whoever has ears, let them hear.” — Matthew 13:9
The Strength in Listening Well
One of the great gifts any church can offer is the feeling of being truly heard. Most people know not to expect perfection from faith communities, but what they long for is honesty, kindness, and compassion when life becomes difficult. In conversations around safeguarding, listening matters deeply. Often the most healing words are simple phrases like: “Thank you for telling me,” or “I’m sorry you carried this alone.”
Jesus Himself spent much of His ministry listening to people others overlooked — the grieving, the isolated, the wounded, the ashamed. He created space for people to speak openly without fear.
“Carry each other’s burdens.” — Galatians 6:2
Healthy churches are not churches without challenges. They are churches willing to meet challenges with grace and courage instead of silence or discomfort.
When Small Things Are Left Untended
Most difficulties in life do not arrive all at once. More often, they begin almost imperceptibly. A misunderstanding that is never quite spoken about. A moment of hurt that is felt, but not fully named. A conversation that feels slightly too difficult to have, so it is gently set aside for another time that never really comes.
Over time, these small moments can begin to shape the emotional climate of a community. Not through intention, but through accumulation. A hesitation to speak openly here, a reluctance to ask a difficult question there. And slowly, without anyone consciously deciding it, trust can feel a little more fragile than it once was.
In the Parable of the Weeds, Jesus offers a simple but deeply human image of a field where different kinds of growth appear together. The point is not alarm, but awareness. Life, even in its best expressions, contains a mixture of what nourishes and what complicates flourishing.
In church life, these “weeds” are rarely obvious. More often, they are subtle patterns that develop over time. A preference for avoiding difficult conversations in order to keep things comfortable. A quiet instinct to soften or postpone uncomfortable truths. Or a sincere desire for harmony that, unintentionally, makes honesty feel slightly more costly than silence.
None of these arise from ill will. In fact, they often come from very understandable motivations, like a desire to protect relationships, preserve unity, or avoid unnecessary pain. Yet even good intentions, when left unexamined, can gradually narrow the space in which honest dialogue takes place.
Scripture, in its wisdom, encourages a different rhythm — one where truth and love are held together, not separated.
“Speak the truth in love.” — Ephesians 4:15
This is not a call to harshness, but to integrity. It suggests that real spiritual maturity is not found in avoiding difficult conversations, but in learning how to have them with patience, humility, and care for one another.
There is, at times, a quiet but important distinction to be made between protecting an institution’s reputation and tending to its deeper health. One is concerned with how things appear outwardly; the other is concerned with what is forming inwardly. The second is less visible, but ultimately more important, because it is what sustains trust over time.
And this is where humility becomes so central to the life of a church. Humility allows a community to say, in effect, “We are still learning.” It creates space not only for speaking, but for listening well. It makes room for reflection without defensiveness, and for growth without fear.
Seen in this light, growth is not a disruption to be managed, but a gift to be received. It is the ongoing work of becoming more truthful, more attentive, and more capable of holding both care and clarity together in the same heart.
Finding Faith Later in Life
One of the most beautiful surprises in modern church life is how many people discover faith later in life. We sometimes imagine spirituality belongs mostly to the young, but the opposite is often true. About 80% of adults over 50 say spiritual belief matters deeply to them. For many, faith arrives slowly and unexpectedly, like a letter appearing years after it was first sent.
Later life has a way of sharpening life’s deeper questions. People begin thinking more about meaning, forgiveness, family, legacy, and peace. Some who once felt distant from faith find themselves drawn toward prayer, Scripture, or the comfort of church community. Others return after many years away.
This is one reason gentle, trustworthy churches matter so much. Older (as well as younger) adults are looking for sincerity. They want communities where people can speak honestly, ask questions freely, and feel welcomed exactly as they are.
“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he.” — Isaiah 46:4
Faith is not something we outgrow; it becomes more integrated into the texture of a life well lived.
The Enduring Value of the Good Seed
It is important to remember that Jesus’ parable is ultimately hopeful. The story is not about fear of weeds, but about confidence in the good seed. Most churches are filled with acts of kindness that rarely make headlines — volunteers making tea after services, people visiting the lonely, pastors comforting grieving families, congregations praying faithfully for one another. These things matter enormously. The presence of challenges does not erase the goodness that also exists. In fact, moments of honesty and reflection can strengthen communities and deepen trust. A healthy church is not one that claims to have all the answers, but the one willing to grow in wisdom, compassion, and care.
Tending the Garden Together
The parables of Matthew 13 remind us that faith is not static. Like a garden, it requires attention, patience, and care. Some things nourish growth; other things hinder it. Wisdom lies in learning the difference.
Church safeguarding, at its heart, comes down to creating communities where people feel safe, valued, heard, and loved. And perhaps that is the deeper invitation within these parables: to become more attentive to what helps goodness grow. Because wherever truth, kindness, humility, and compassion are nurtured, good seed continues to flourish.
Lovely. Thank you, Nina.
Sorry, Carolina! Not sure how I came to call you Nina.
Thanks! A very fine point is made here. I wasted a lot of time, money and also emotional energy, on a New Wine training programme. But brutal bullying by a New Wine tutor was devastating. In retrospect, what I now remember so clearly, is how Anglican church and New Wine people declined to listen. That will be a warning sign for the future.
Stephen proof reading this would have been wise. It’s not a good fit as the paragraph that says , or implies it is important to protect the reputation of the church.
The rest just surface level .
Sorry but this article did not speak to me and seemed to be well intentioned but fluffy.
The urge to protect the institution has caused extreme distress to thousands of survivors and families . Trying to defend minimise or excuse the institutional reputational defense racket is inexcusable.
Independent inquiries into bullying or abuse are one strategy. The alternative is the status quo, of dioceses and senior clergy marking their own homework. But ‘Concluding Thoughts’ is the brief end chapter of ‘Understanding Spiritual Abuse-what it is and how to respond’ by Karen Roudkovski.
There is a wonderful quote there about a third strategy, coming from Diane Langberg. It is in the second paragraph, and affirms how change comes ‘one person at a time’. Independent safeguarding, done by barristers or judges, could be prohibitively costly on a large scale. Diocesan systems have created the sewer the Anglican Church finds itself in.
The best antidote to bishops, who recurrently bully, or cover up bullying, is wider Church member empowerment. Wider listening and dialogue has an essential value. But I can also grasp your point about endless talk being no use when bullies are terrorising people. I learnt a golden rule the hard way.
Savage Church bullies at some point always need to be confronted. This was why I was so shocked at how New Wine failed to address sadistic maltreatment of people. With New Wine it was all about anointed and infallible leaders, who did not need Anglican Church rules or national law to guide them.
Neither was the Bible binding on them. Witness evidence from 2 or 3 was inconsequential, if dealing with New Wine people who were on the prophetic hotline to God. Two parallel strands are important: forcefully challenging bullies, and the wider church membership taking charge of what is allowed to happen in a congregation.
‘A word of truth outweighs the whole world’ is an old Russian proverb loved by Solzhenitsyn. The word we need to use more often is ‘blasphemy’. A cynical and satanic contempt for biblical principles of justice underlies lots of Anglican Church bullying, and it drives away adult members in their droves. Others retain a parish link, but minimise church contributions or commitment.
Hi Richie. I read this very differently from the way you did. I think the author was saying that having the difficult conversations – e.g. challenging bad behaviour – is more important than preserving the institution’s reputation. She also says that in safeguarding it’s important to listen well and allow people to speak openly without fear. As you and I know, the institution is not good at listening well.
I’m aware of many situations in churches where people thought it was more important to keep the appearance of peace rather than to challenge destructive gossip or bullying. I’ve sometimes done it myself. I read the blog as a challenge to that attitude.
Hi Janet,
I might be super sensitive and re read the paragraph a number of times.
It still seemed to have an implication surrounding reputational defensiveness as being in some ways positive.
I was a bit harsh about the rest of the article which on re reading is positive.
Taking a read through-‘Discovering Christianity A Guide for the curious’-by ex-Archbishop Rowan Williams. It’s a superb little paperback of under 100 pages. The opening section is about open minded vision or debate being a hallmark feature of the Christian tradition. The closing of debate can certainly be a sign of evil practice by the Anglican Church hierarchy. I am astounded how Archbishop Mullally was appointed, even on the back of the Martin Sargeant foul up and the death of Fr Allan Griffin while she was Bishop of London.
I agree that this is well meaning and gives us a description of how the church could be a caring place. But there is no space for listening. Looking back at my experience of church, it was the only place where I haven’t been listened to. Not only that but there was no chance that anyone would be interested in any of my concerns.
Listening and conversation are essential if the BAH (bullying abuse harassment) problems in Anglicanism are to be resolved, and the ill-treatment of VWW (victims, witnesses, whistleblowers) ended. Today’s Daily Mail has an article on the Plymouth Brethren. It is very negative!
But do smaller sects get more readily popped under the media microscope, while our Anglican Bishops and Archbishops escape fuller scrutiny? The breaking Rev Kesh Govan case illustrates the absence of transparency still favoured by our Bishops.
The 2026 ACC global Anglican conference takes place in Belfast this summer. The Cathedral has a great £850K metal spire. Bishop David McClay, a local Belfast Bishop, is a steely fundamentalist from the GAFCON splinter group. But did McClay and his team fix up an NDA which prevents the Church of Ireland from naming a notorious child abuser cleric, Rev Dr Canon William George Neely.
I do not plan to attend any ACC events in Belfast. To light a candle at St George’s Church on Belfast’s High Street (open most weekdays), and pray for honest leadership in the global Anglican Communion to emerge seems far wiser. The absence of listening is a stark reminder, of how our denomination continues to cover up sinister and savage BAH.
I see across these responses an underlying thread of ‘Sound’ in con evo theology . In the mid 60s, i was a member of CICCU as an undergraduate at St John’s. In retrospect, the key was ‘being sound’. That meant adhering to the IVF basis of faith and also avoiding extremes, like the charismatic influence that was just beginning. David Watson at the Round Church was a great proponent of this and he had a great influence on Christian students. One of my roommates, whom I would describe as a boring middle of the road C Of E, got caught up in this and suddenly started ‘singing in tongues’ at 3am in our shared rooms! My other roommate and I went to talk to Mark Ruston, the Round Church vicar to try and understand this. He saw this phenomenon as being outside trad con evo but that we should adopt the Gamaliel approach. So the touchstone of being ‘sound’ is very much fluid. Just to say that this is an historical description and I do not want to criticise Christians who hold different views
An obsession with ‘sound doctrine’ can be a problem for intellectuals, especially when young and zealous. My instinct latterly is to see the NT promotion of ‘sound doctrine’ as referring to adherence to the central tenets of the Apostles’ creed. The ‘tongues vs. no tongues’ stuff seems far outside of this range. The dogmatists on ‘sound doctrine’, in its wider modern evangelical Anglican application, seem to find their names cropping up rather frequently in inquiry reports. An outbreak of honesty, among the senior evangelical Anglican leadership, might be very healthy. There was a time in the 1990’s when Catholics often declined to believe the scale of hidden BAH involving priests. Anglicans face the same position now. We need to get over it, and call for radical action consistent with the scale of problems which our bishops have hidden.
Page 17(Daily Mail 26.5.26) has a CoE article: ‘All is forgiven’. Not edifying!!!!!