I am feeling more than a little raw, I have been to yet another meeting where I have been challenged about the difficulty of the changes that are facing the church. Again there is a harking back to the glory days when everyone held different values, the Sunday Schools were full and all was well. Nice people came to church, nice people filled the pews and their nice children were well dressed and well behaved, because people knew what values were....
Today I am burying those nice people, and on the whole their children are nowhere to be seen, when I do meet them their stories are mixed, some look back at Sunday School days with fondness, others look back almost angrily....
Hardly any of them consider that the Church has anything relevant to say to them today, and though many have a belief in God they do not find the same meaning in Church that their parents did...
I cannot ciriticise them for this for there are many signs that what we are trying to maintain today is not a vibrant living vessel of faith but a crusty and dry hymn singing club...
....but there are many signs of life and glimmers of hope withing, people are beginning to respond to the call to do different...
...and so of course there is a backlash from those who want to maintain the monument and prevent the movement...
...I know I am not alone amongst those who are called to minister into this place of tension, but I have to say that it is an uncomfortable and thankless place to be. To speak the word of God into these places can be tough, again and again I found myself captivated by the challenge of the gospels and the fire of the prophets, I must speak thse words and expond their message for they burn within me, and when expounded they are as popular now as they were when they were fist spoken. Some receivie them gladly, but many run like scalded cats from the light they shed upon our condition...
...I say our condition because I am speaking of the condition of the western church, we are entrenched in too many places within our traditions and comforts, we scratch our heads at our state but few can see how we got here... those who can, and those who long to move on speak truth and are never popular for speaking it...but it would be a lie to run away...
I'm not sure why it always goes downhill Why broken cisterns never could stay filled I've spent ten years singing gravity away But the water keeps on falling from the sky
And here tonight while the stars are blacking out With every hope and dream I've ever had in doubt I've spent ten years trying to sing these doubts away But the water keeps on falling from my eyes
And heaven knows ... heaven knows I tried to find a cure for the pain Oh my Lord, to suffer like You do It would be a lie to run away
So blood is fire pulsing through our veins We're either riders or fools behind the reins I've spent ten years trying to sing it all away But the water keeps on falling from my tries
And heaven knows ... heaven knows I tried to find a cure for the pain Oh my Lord, to suffer like You do It would be a lie to run away A lie to run It would be a lie It would be a lie to run away
It keeps on falling It keeps on falling It keeps on falling It keeps on falling The water keeps on falling from my eyes
And heaven knows ... heaven knows I tried to find a cure for the pain Oh my Lord, to suffer like You do It would be a lie to run away It would be a lie to run away It would be a lie to run away
This post started off as an account of this mornings service at Sherburn in Elmet Methodist Church, but following various reflections and conversations on facebook it has grown and changed... (apologies if it is a bit disjointed; I've written it in stages- so please bear with me if you dare read it, and accept my apologies for repetition!)
Let me start when I intended to both begin and end; this Sunday I led my 6th Covenant Service of the year, it is always a privelege to lead Covenant Services and I value their place in our tradition and recognise them as a gift to the wider church.
When it came to the sermon I based my sermon mostly on John 15: 1-10, again looking at the need for spiritual pruning not only in our individual lives but in the life of the church. Last week I used the same text and spoke to a church in a very different place to the one I addressed today.
Sherburn is a medium sized active church with lots of new growth and bags of potential. BUT (and this is no secret for I preached it), it needs to be careful of becoming complacent. It is currently the second largest congregation in the Circuit and has recently had an influx of new members. While one or two of the new members are truly new members most are not, most have come from other smaller Chapels, Chapels that have recently taken the difficult decision to close.
Over the last few weeks different members have told me how wonderful it is to see the church full again (there were 60+ this morning), and spoken of how we will be OK for a while. My response (again no secret) is that it is not OK to be OK! If we were to really reflect on where we stand it would be very sobering.
The church today needs to submit/yeild itself to the pruning of the Holy Gardener, for too long it has struggled to maintain now fruitless branches, insisting that because they once bore fruit that they must be maintained. Maintaining those branches has saped our energies, and if we insist on maintaining them they WILL kill us!
In many ways this is the story of God's people throughout history, again and again the theme of the remnant brought back and restored is played out, we can read that story right through the Old Testament. But I don't beleive this was God's plan, not is it his plan that we be reduced to a remnant (though we are drawing amazingly close to that position). The reason for the exile and diminishment of the people of God was disobedience, the people chose their own ways over God's ways!
Today (and everyday) that choice is laid before us again; part of the discipline of discipleship is to be alert to the call and challenge brought to us by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. God is active in his church today! God wants the church to respond to his call. Another thing I have heard a few times recently, knowing I am moving in August has been rather a grumpy- "well I hope the new minsiter will listen to what WE want!" I hope she won't, I hope she will try to listen to the whisper of the Spirit through the activities and voices of the church and community and in the still small voice that comes when we are at prayer- I suspect she will because I have met her!
My message then was not comfortable, but I hope it offered hope, for there is hope, God is calling us to grow in a new way, and we are seeing signs of new growth, but in order to enable that growth there will need to be some tough pruning, we cannot sustain both.
Following the sermon I prayed and then while we listened to Tenth Avenue North's "By your side" I offered the congregation a chance to receive a blessing through annointing with oil. As I marked each forhead with oil I prayed a simple blessing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that each one would be given grace and strength in the tasks they were called to. You could have knocked me down with a feather when the entire congregation responded. In a sense the blessing was given in the same way that baptism is offered in the Methodist Church, before the promises are made as a sign of God's prevenient grace! The congregation were responding to God's grace by offering themselves to him and receiving his strength for the task, when we prayed the Covenant prayer together there were more than a few tears.
So how about the facebook conversations- they centered around my posting of fellow blogger Dave Faulkener's post on Mark Driscoll/ Mars Hill and when discipline becomes control. The conversation that sprang up was on the need for discipline in discipleship but how it needs to be tempered with grace. The consensus was that many folk especially young folk crave strict boundaries so there is a certain appeal in tough discipline, but that maturity in discipleship calls for the healthy development of the fruit of self control in balance with the other spiritual fruits (Galatians 5). We mused on how the church has failed to offer discipline in discipleship, that the call to holiness has become unpopular, it seems we prefer to make folk comfortable. I wonder if this tendency towards a soft undemanding discipleship has caused many folk to simply walk away, for the Gospel when softened to be palatable looses its teeth and therfore its appeal! We need a radical Gospel, a Gospel that calls us to make a difference to be salt and light in out communities, a Gospel that demands much of us and offers a real alternative!
The new growth we are beginning to see needs nurturing and training, the people who are responding in different ways will need discipling, and one thing is clear the church growth in the 21st century is going to look very different to the growth we saw 50 years ago. In time the time will come when the new growth needs tending and pruning; the challenge is to allow that to happen, to be willing for change within the change, not to repeat the same mistakes that have caused the diminished and confidence poor congregations that so often are the mark of our denomination, and while I recognise this is not the case everywhere we must be willing to see things as they are, to rise to the challenge for the season for growth is upon us!
Over the last few weeks I have been asked by several folk about my work in the Mind Body Spirit Fairs and Spirit of Life Exhibitions, and also in the wider spiritually awake but not necessarily God seeking culture...
Rather than repeating myself over and over I will post some links to what I have already said, and yes I do think this stuff is mostly still relevant, but as you will see even from these posts how we respond is important:
I have written loads more-including reflections on events on town fairs, but I will end with this link- Spiritual Hunger and worship....
"When you come looking for me, you'll find me. "Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed." God's Decree" (Jeremiah 29:13)
If you want to know more leave a comment, I'll get back to you :-)
My blogging friend Peaecbang had this as her Facebook status today:
"I think most ministers have grieving to do. Among other things, we bury a lot of our favorite people over a period of time...... What surprised me was that I had unresolved, unfelt grief about the ways that the church is changing, even as I have been an enthusiastic proponent and student of change..."
I too am an enthusiastic proponent of change, but that does not make change easy, nor does it make the proponents of change hard hearted; in fact I would dare to say that unless we can feel the pain of change then perhaps we should not advocate it!
Take removing pews as an example, most people would acknowledge that worship in the 21st Century needs (on the whole) a more flexible setting than pews can afford us, it is sensible to remove them. In our village setting this is not an issue for many folk, especially the younger ones, of the folk who have moved in, but for one or two those pews are placeholders of memories, and certainly in one small Chapel I have worked with it explains why the congregation sit in seemingly daft places- they spread themselves around the building and are reluctant to move and sit together because in their memories there are others seated around the building.In another Chapel the organ needs replacing, but the memories of organists now long dead mean that it is painful for some members to let go.
I am becoming more and more convinced that we need to tell our stories, to actively remember people, events and past glories, not as an excuse to prevent change but as a conduit to change. I return to the need for lament, we must lament the loss of key members, the loss of Sunday Schools and Eistedfords in order that we can embrace the new. Messy Church is not a Sunday School replacement and never will be, it is different, times HAVE changed we must not fool ourselves...
On Sunday as I have told in my previous post I told members of one of my Chapels of the need for radical change, the need to cease worship in their building, it is draining life from them; as I did so I wept, and I believe that somehow God gave me the gift of experiencing some of the grief that WILL be felt as we move towards such a drastic change. This change will need to be handled sensitively and carefully if it is to result in new life and growth...
I am currently pondering, with the aid of the congregation, the need for our stories to be collected and collated with pictures and personal anecdotes, not as I have said to glorify the past, but to celebrate it and to form a part of the foundation for our story- a local continuation of the book of Acts if you like. We base our lives in the stories of the Bible, which is for large chunks historical accounts of the journeys of the people of God, out local stories are no less relevant...
This morning I lead the annual Covenant Service for one of my smaller Chapels, when it came to the sermon I felt that I had to tackle the possibility of closure and it was painful. Now I didn't suddenly drop this on folk, it came about through prayer and conversations and reflecting together, but it had to be voiced and to saying nothing in worship but to simply put this on the Church Council Agenda seemed wrong!
Over many years this Chapel has been facing the same question, but eighteen months ago we decided to give it one last try with a project so big that it was beyond our natural capacity. In a sense we were throwing ourselves on God's mercy and grace; and God has been with us. The little fellowship gained a renewed sense of community, a renewed sense of hope, and a stronger confidence in God.....
...but at Church Council in February we will be voting on whether to close. Now when I say close I am talking about cessation of worship in the building, for the building is the thing that is sapping our life and strength. The church is not the building, and although the building has served the church well in generations past it does not do so any longer, in fact it is currently hindering the congregation and therefore the mission of the church.
We all know in our heads that the culture has changed, but when it comes to emotional attachments to places, maybe especially places of worship the reality and the nostalgia within us can clash violently. The word failure is then likely to be bandied around, but I think this is wrong, the building has served the church well, it is filled with memories of Sunday School Anniversaries and Harvest Festivals, of Christmas Concerts and Flower Festivals...
...but the community surrounding us has changed and in order to be a success in the future it is time to move on; taking the illustration of the vine from John 15 (a traditional Covenant text) I spoke of our need for pruning, we are worn out by trying to sustain something that is no longer fruitful or useful.
The Chapel members will probably move to a larger Chapel nearby, but I hope to encourage them to maintain a praying worshipping presence in their community, for while there is a trhiving Anglican Church I can understand their need to continue to do something together.If we had not tried to do something new together then I think that people would simply have drifted away, but as it is the success has not come in maintaining the building but by building the people together. That success would become endangered if we were to keep slogging away trying to maintain the deadwood of a crumbling edifice....
Now the Church Council may decide to try to keep on keeping on as they are, but I hope they won't I hope they will see their past successes, and their current position not as polar opposites but as evidence of Gods work to be celebrated. The new may look very different, but if we insist on clinging to the old then we will die. BUT, and it is a big BUT, I do not beleive that this is failure, this is being, or could be being active participants in transformation, not the end, but a new beginning:
24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. (John 12)
“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!
Just love how this part of today's lectionary reading from Isaiah shows the strength and the compassion and gentleness of our God all rolled up in one:
10 Yes, the Sovereign LORD is coming in power. He will rule with a powerful arm. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes. 11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in his arms, holding them close to his heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.
My letter to Mark Driscoll- I have up until now stayed silent on the subject- but this Blog post made me see red!
The full interview between Justin Brierly and Mark and Grace Driscoll can be heard here.
Dear Mark Driscoll,
I am a woman and a minister, in fact I have pastoral charge for 5 different Chapels! We do not have huge membership numbers but then we are based in small rural communities in the UK. That does not make us weak!
In the larger of the 5 Chapels 55% of the membership is male! That is unusual in rural England, but it is also true, they are godly men who love and serve God in a variety of ways. They range in age from 15 to 92, bringing to our fellowship the vibrancy of youth and the wisdom of years. They are not weak, nor are they macho misogynists, they respect and value the women in the congregation and they respect and value one another. Our Leadership team is a 50-50 split of men and women, we work and pray together , and we are seeing positive new growth taking place. Families are coming to join us, men, women and children, and we are welcoming them...
One young man has joined us in recent months and to our delight he has joined in fully with the life and work of the church, he is willing to help at Messy Church, assisting children with craft work and helping in any way he can. He is a beautiful role model for the children, and I see Jesus reflected in him as he welcomes the children.
Issues about sex and needs for sexual counselling are rare! It seems that my congregations are not fixated on things like pornography and masturbation in the way that you are. If a man were to approach me with a problem of this kind then I would ask one of my male colleagues to talk with him in exactly the same way that they would ask for my help should a woman approach them with problems of that nature. Your seeming assertion that all men need help in this way makes me wonder about your picture of manhood and question what kind of man you thought that Jesus was.
I make that last statement because I do not see a macho Jesus reflected in the Gospels, I see a Jesus who treated all with dignity! He was not afraid to let his tears be seen (think about his tears of Jerusalem and over Lazarus!). Yes he was challenging and forthright, but that was always tempered with love and grace and with a gentleness that I do not hear from your writing, or your preaching and speaking.
Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with everything you say, but when it comes to women, especially women in ministry you have a really large blind spot. The fruits of the ministry of many godly women that I know and work with are evident for all to see! My suggestion to you is that you return to the Gospels re read them and ask yourself whether your ministry is modeled on the ministry of Jesus, for I suspect you will find it is not.
Oh and by the way, my gifts do not lie in baking or flower arranging, I am a preacher and an evangelist, and the last time I gave an appeal a number of people responded, and yes some of them were men!
May God bless you in your life and work.
Sally
A photo taken at my ordination at Liverpool Cathedral- and yes I wore dangly earrings and kitten heels!
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