Church in a Tent

It is something like 20 years since I visited Bromley-by-Bow United Reformed Church with its imaginative worship area, including a tent. A large piece of canvas (something like a sail) was mounted above the area used for worship to create some kind of feeling of being in a tent. The point was that the church needs to be mobile, ready to be on the move. As the Israelites of Moses' day carried with them a tent that accompanied them around the wilderness and allowed them the provision of a mobile focus for God's presence and their worship, so we need to allow for change, and even transformation, within the church. Society is not static, and neither should the church be. The Bromley-by-Bow "tent" offered an imaginative way in which an important theological truth could be demonstrated very visually. Church buildings may be static for many years, but the church is the people - and that means there is a constant element of change. We need to be ready to pitch our tent wherever God asks us to - for the moment. Joy Dine wrote a hymn on this theme, the last verse of which says: "When we set up camp and settle to avoid love's risk and pain you disturb complacent comfort pull the tent pegs up again; keep us travelling in the knowledge you are always at our side. Give us courage for the journey Christ our goal and Christ our guide."