What about the building?

In response to my earlier post "In defence of the Parish System" many, both on the blog and via other media, pointed out to me that what I was really celebrating was the opportunity to offer pastoral care -and the role of the church building in enabling and focussing that. 

Of course you are right...but oh, church buildings are represent so much complexity.

This year sees the 150th birthday of one of my churches, and the 175th of the other...

And of course there is much to celebrate as we look as those beloved buildings, and imagine all those faithful worshippers who filled the pews before us.

Of course, there's always the possibility that they were as beset with doubts and questions - and felt as dwarfed by the building of valley church (designed to seat 500, til they thankfull removed the gallery, bringing it down to a mere 300) - as their contemporary counterparts.

But somehow as we remember our predecessors in faith, they seem to acquire a patina of holiness that may actually have only tenuous roots in reality. 

We won't know the truth...and we don't actually need to.

All we know is that they kept those buildings weather proof, were, it seems, generous with both time and money (think of the number of commemorative gifts in any average English parish church!) - and handed on the buildings to the next generation, and the next....til they reached us.

Yes, there IS something to celebrate.

But there is, also, something to lament.

Neither congregation that I serve is huge or wealthy - and that, of course, means that taking our part in handing on the building in good repair can feel rather overwhelming.

Then there's the added bonus or burden of the particular artistic and architectural merit of Church on the Hill - which attracts visitors from far and wide and means that we really do have to take our responsibilities particularly seriously.

It's a lovely building, with amazing glass - but that in itself demands so much of our time and attention that it can be hard to hang on to the knowledge that the building exists to enable encounters with God.

The extraordinary fund-raising efforts, the welcome extended to endless parties of visitors, the beauty of the flower arrangements - all are pointless if we lose sight of that basic truth.

The church building exists for worship.

Full stop.

If caring for our buildings hinders our primary calling as Church - to love and serve God with all that is in us, and in loving and serving God to love and serve our neighbour - then we are in serious trouble.

If we can find money to maintain our building but not to give to those in need...

Well, you know all that.

So do I....but it's a constant challenge.

I want to celebrate these two church buildings as a symbol of God's presence in our community...

but I want to be able, too, to recognise God's presence in the lives of those who meet there week by week.

If I can't, if others can't - then, for all their beauty and all their heritage, those buildings are just a waste of space.

Let's pray that this year we can rightly celebrate the Church and the church both up hill and down dale.

Sometimes on Sundays?

Part 2 (Sunday evening)

Then just when you might be wondering whether Sunday church, or indeed church as institution has any future at all, you get a day like today which was everything I love...

It began with the unlikely pleasure of an 8.30 BCP Eucharist at church on the hill. I'm not a morning person, and though I love C17 literature, the Book of Common Prayer is rarely my preferred vehicle for worship - but today it was just right. Since my predecessor departed (well over 2 years ago) church on the hill has gone without a morning service on the 1st Sunday of the month to enable us to time the All Age Communion in the valley at a happier hour for families who would really rather spend their Sunday morning in pyjamas. The theory was that congregation from the hill would come down to join those in the valley, but they are a group that likes their worship calm and ordered for the most part - and while All Age Communion is many things, most of them positive, calm and ordered are nowhere on the scene. So, from today the hill folk have a Sunday morning service every week..and I have to say that a said BCP service works a treat there. We gathered in the choir, and just worshipped without fuss or anxiety...and it was lovely. One of the happiest experiences I've had in that church since my arrival. Now to work out what it was that enabled genuine community there this morning, and how to transfer it to the Parish Communion, where God squeezes in as best God can.

Down in the valley, we had the baptism of three children from a rather lovely family who have become regulars over the past few months. E attends Valley Church School, and her little sister is at the playgroup that meets in our church hall, so I really do know them quite well...which made proceedings stress free and enjoyable for everyone. When I asked if they wanted to be baptised, the answer was a squeal of excitement and a pretty convincing hug...but though their baptism was a joy, it wasn't the absolute high spot of my morning. That came courtesy of H, for whom I conducted a naming ceremony in accordance with his father's African traditions, when he was just a week old. That was almost 6 months ago now, and today when his parents brought him up the altar rail for a blessing, his response to my post-scripted reminder
"Jesus loves you very much, you know" was a smile of such piercing beauty that I basked in its blessing for the rest of the morning.

Good conversations over coffee (it's so lovely not to have to charge out the door for the 11.00 on the hill once a month at least) and I even had time to go for a walk in the church-yard, where I had a long and God filled conversation with someone tending a grave. Suspect that loitering in the churchyard ought to be a non negotiable part of my timetable - though it's hard to decide what else I don't do, in order to fit it in.

This afternoon was very church-filled too,as a new colleague was licensed to a well-to-do neighbouring parish, which prides itself on well conducted catholic worship very much in the mould of St M's, Ch K (one influential priest served both congregations in turn, so it's not altogether surprising). FabBishop was joined by +Mary, from our new link diocese of El Camino Real in California, and great was the joyful ceremonial. It was good to revisit a licensing service one year on from my own and to remember again the truth in the Bishop's words, spoken after he has invited the new priest to "receive the cure of souls that is both yours and mine".
"Receive it confidently
Serve Christ joyfully.
Put your trust in God.
He is faithful."

So much evidence of that today - I wouldn't have missed it for anything. In no hurry to abandon Sunday church after all...though still considering how to foster genuine community.

Sometimes on Sundays?

Part 1 (written on Saturday morning)
It's two weeks now since my post Easter break, and I have to say the May Day bank holiday hasnt come a moment too soon...It may be the after-effects of The Arm (still here, still encased in its adjustable cast, but definitely getting stronger: I can now change into 4th gear, to add to my original selection of 1st/3rd/5th & the all too necessary reverse) but I'm definitely much wearier than normal at the moment, and spent Friday's day off doing almost nothing, without a whiff of frustration.This is a busy weekend, with lots happening in both churches plus the licensing of a new colleague nearby on Sunday afternoon & some other bits besides, and though I know I'll love it all when I get to it, at the moment the prospect is more daunting than alluring.
So I'm looking back to Low Sunday with a touch of nostalgia. That was the Day When I Didn't Go To Church, in some shape or form - for probably the first time (other than rare sick days) in something like 15 years.

It was really rather startling how spacious the day was, how much could be achieved when huge slices of time were not committed to church, and so a conversation began (on the site beginning with F) about whether we'd encounter more of God without the strictures of professional religion;
how we might find space to form meaningful community & really explore faith; whether carrying the responsibilty for a community's worship so interrupts our own experience of worship that those in ministry really need another way to pray...
Caroline Too pointed out the limitations of a community which encouraged you to focus above all on the back of the neck of the person in front of you, and I thought of the other places where we sit in tidy rows.
Church as theatre (a place to be entertained)?
Church as airplane (a means of travel - but does that make us passengers)?
Certainly neither of those models would be encouraging.

I'm passionate about community - which is one reason why the Eucharist is so utterly central for me.
It's there that the mish-mash of bruised and broken individuals is transformed, becoming the body of Christ, there that we find our real identity, there that we are blessed to become a blessing.
So for "Sunday church" to work, it needs above all to create real community...something that represents a mixture of all sorts and conditions, - not just a body of the like-minded middle-class, with all their vowels in the proper place. In some places, of course, that can be a challenge.

Healing wounded history

was the theme of a remarkable diocesan day on Saturday. I went along with rather limited expectations. For reasons that I shan't go into I'm currently a member of the small "Diocesan Healing Group" but have found the few meetings I've been able to attend less than hugely engaging. Saturday was the swan song of the current leader of the group and just two weeks ago we had seriously considered cancelling it altogether, as somehow publicity did not seem to be working and bookings were distinctly slack. However, we'd had to cancel the day when it was planned a year ago, and it seemed just plain wrong to disappoint those who were hoping for another chance to hear the main speaker so we took a collective deep breath and decided to go ahead.
That was so obviously the right decision!

Saturday was warm and sunny, the best kind of spring morning - which was just as well, as the registration queue stretched from the church porch into the churchyard but people were in very good heart as I made my way along the line, sorting out name labels to speed up the process inside. From nowhere well over 100 people had appeared (our target to break even financially was, iirc, 75) and all were in good heart.
When the first session started I discovered why. Russ Parker is simply terrific.
His theme, healing communities by hearing their stories, was completely and utterly perfect for my current situation, as I try to learn the reality of my new parishes. Its message was a glorious escape route from the pessimism that insists "History repeats itself. Has to. Nobody listens." His suggestion that the churches should become the "new acoustic communities", where stories are heard, valued and offered for redemption, chimed with Isaiah 50
"He teaches me to listen, so that I might have the word that refreshes the weary."
It seems to me that there are so many weary people around these parts, each carrying a live legacy that confirms that "all history is a current event".
Of course, we were reminded, we cannot change the past - but if we hear well, we can ensure that our response (as individuals and as a church) is appropriate.
We were reminded, too, that in serving our communities we cannot stand outside their story...The past is part of the present reality, and these people, their story, their wounds and their joys are now mine, part of what I can bring to God. The joys are important too, because what is not celebrated shrinks and dies...

I attended his first workshop session too, and felt a wave of recognition when he described the experience of the priest in the parish as often that of an actor in a play someone else has written, a play whose lines and moves we can't quite grasp. Expectations are shaped by the past experience of the community, so we need to read its history in order to help to reclaim it and to seek its redemption.
Even those mostly closely bound by it may not be aware of the story they carry, but healing can come when the story is recognised and owned.
To illustrate, Russ told us the story of a mining town, founded by the forcible transplantation of the workforce from their home county, hundreds of miles away, by a Victorian industrialist who put people second to progress. His workers were offered a stark choice...move or be unemployed. No third way was presented.
In common with most of the captains of the industrial revolution, having established his pit and built housing for his workers, the owner of the mine then built a church - and brought in a priest to serve it...not a local man...not in any sense "one of their own."
The relationship between congregation and clergy continued to be distant and strained through the decades that followed, no matter who was called to serve in that place (barring one "home grown" priest, who was remembered with respect and affection for long after his death) until, while Russ was serving there, he heard and grasped the history of the place. Then, one Sunday morning he was inspired to apologise from the pulpit for the church's collusion in the founding of a community based on exploitation and greed. As the congregation realised that their past was being honoured, they experienced the sort of healing that can change everything - and indeed everything changed.

We were invited to re-read the greetings to the churches in the opening chapters of Revelation, to see there the recognition of the story of each community and to consider what the Spirit might say to the angels of our churches. My two parishes both date from the nineteenth century, but were founded in such different circumstances that it is no surprise that difference seems built into their DNA.
To consider the story of their beginnings has certainly helped me to make sense of what I am learning about their current realities as I begin to look for God's way forward.