The Church as Shrine

The Church is the people. That is fundamental - though when we talk about 'church' people will often have the picture of a building in their mind. Our buildings can be a great resource, which massively enhances our mission, but equally a huge drain on our energy and resources. We do often talk about special places, sometimes describing them as 'thin' places, and I like the idea of the church as a shrine, even though the commitment some people sometimes have to the building can cause a range of problems. As with so many things, it's a question of balance. Sally Gaze explores this in "Mission-Shaped and Rural" (Church House Publishing, 2006), suggesting it may be a useful way to see how to recognise the value of some rural church buildings. She writes - p. 90 – “The idea of the church building as a shrine is extraordinarily helpful in understanding the place such buildings have in the hearts of some parishioners. Pilgrimage and sacred space have an important felt place in popular contemporary spirituality. Many church tourists report feeling that ancient church buildings are spiritual places – and that may be particularly true of remote churches. ...... A shrine is a place that a person might visit quite seldom, but has great emotional importance. People might also feel quite strongly that some changes should not be made to a shrine.” So, if nothing else, this notion may help us to understand how some see things. However, Sally Gaze doesn't want to use this as a means of weighing us down with buildings' responsibility. She remembers that God's 'house' was originally a tent - and suggests - p. 96 – “Perhaps the Church, as God’s pilgrim people of this day, also needs to learn to ‘pitch the tent’ of God’s presence and have a lighter attachment to buildings.” In the end, as already hinted, both can have their places. Ideas of shrine and pilgrimage can be very helpful, but so can those of molbility, flexibility and the church as a tent. What matters is mission and call - p. 97 – “Church communities need to be freed to discover the part of God’s mission to which each is called so that it becomes God’s mission which limits and shapes their choices about how and whether to use church buildings.”

Sharing Marbles

There's a story of two little London lads who were protesting their undying loyalty to each other. The first little boy said to the other, "Hey, Bobby, if you had a million pounds, would you give me half?" "Course I would," came the reply. "What about if you had a thousand pounds?" "I'd give you half, just the same." "What about if you had a thousand marbles?" "I'd give you half of them," replied Bobby. "What about if you had two marbles?" A moment's pause, and then a rather different response. "That's jolly well not fair. You know I've got two marbles." Principles are great - when we can keep them at arm's length, when they are pure theory. It's when we start having to put it into practice that we run into trouble. But a call that is really just a theory is not actually a call. God wants action. I like that description in Mark 6:34 – When he came ashore and saw a large crowd, his heart went out to them. His heart went out to them. That’s how we should live!

Just Mission

Tom Butler, Bishop of Southwark, in a little book co-written with his wife Barbara, entitled “Just Mission” (Mowbray, 1993) suggests four keys way in which we can, and should, engage with people. The Butlers first concept is that of presence. We just need to be present. They write: “Jesus had a mission – and the first thing he had to do to carry out his mission was to be here – he had to be in the world before he could change the world – he was born in a particular time in a particular place, and from living this particular life he changed lives at all times, everywhere. Likewise, before we can engage in mission of any sort we must ‘be there’.” Quite so! I think that sometimes we underestimate the simple fact of our presence. We have lived through a time of declining numbers at church in the mainstream denominations in the UK. That, of course, is not the overall picture – which is very different. Of course, there have been some churches telling a different story and it is also important to note that there is finally some evidence that this trend may be bottoming out. But even in our secular society it is amazing to see the extent to which people sometimes turn to the church. As someone once put it: ‘people do like a church to not go to.’ We live in a world that is loaded with information. We can easily be like the little girl who received a book on penguins from her grandmother. Her thank-you letter read: ‘Thank you for sending me the book on penguins. I now know more about penguins than I wish to know.’ Maybe so – but let us recognise the value of our just being there and the recognition others have of what we represent. The second theme needs to take us further and into doing and is, quite simply, a question of action. There are things that we need to get on with, all of us. It is very easy for us to get socialised into particular ways. Sometimes we need to consider whether God is calling us to do something different. There is the Hindu story of the tiger cub brought up with a flock of sheep, so that it grew to behave like a sheep and eat grass. One day a tiger strayed into the flock and the sheep scattered, but the tiger cub was asleep and the tiger caught it, surprised to find that it was a tiger. The tiger cub would not believe it was anything but a sheep, so the tiger took it to a pond and forced it to look at its reflection, challenging it to behave like a tiger and not like a sheep, challenging it to become what it already was. Sometimes we need a similar challenge to appropriate action. The Butlers third theme is that of proclamation. They actually call it witness. We need to tell the good news. We need to speak about God’s love. We need, as someone has said, to gossip the Gospel. If you have got some really good news, you want to share it. That’s natural. I’ve passed my driving test. I’ve passed my exam. A new baby. A new job. Whatever it is – we want to get the news around. It ought not to be any different when it’s a question of how we treat the Gospel which, of course, literally means good news. And then the Butlers’ fourth category is spirituality. It’s prayer. It’s being with God. It’s reading the Bible. It’s finding those inside resources that we need in order to do all the other things. It’s touching the hem of his garment. And maybe that means we need to be open to doing things a bit differently sometimes. A Kenyan Christian wrote to a friend having returned home after a visit to England – and made the comment: ‘The Church in England is very strange. They always start their services on time, even when the Holy Spirit hasn’t arrived!’ Now I am sure we see things differently from what is represented by that comment – but I do suspect there is something important to learn there. So let’s get on with the task that ought to be of our very essence and that we might easily describe as ‘just mission.’ Let’s recognise that just our presence makes a difference. Let’s look to do just those actions, big and small, to which God is calling us for the moment. Let’s just tell the story, in so many different ways. And let’s, first of all, look to God for the spiritual resourcing we need.

The Church Entrepreneur

I have just finished reading Andrew Mawson's "The Social Entrepreneur" (Atlantic Books, 2008). Lord (as he is now) Mawson has certainly achieved a great deal. I remember being part of a United Reformed Church team visiting Bromley-by-Bow in the relatively early days in the 80s - though even then some of the workshops were up and running and the "tent" had been created in the church. Everyone can't possibly be an Andrew Mawson - and end up with the Olympics on their doorstep - but I see a lot to learn in what he writes. He certainly says a lot of good stuff about church relating to community and I am attracted to the idea of entrepreneurship. If church is going to work, we need to be innovative. We need to relate to our local contexts. We need to engage with the issues that really matter to the local people. Mawson has a way of identifying and using talent that is just sitting there. I think there's a lot to learn.

Joining the Dance

Many images are used to describe the church - and they have helpfully different things to say. We can certainly see the church as being like a dance and, given that it is the people who are the church (not the building!) it is for us to join in that dance. As Robin Greenwood puts it: "To become skilled performers of the faith is to learn to dance Christ’s dance. Dancing may not be a frequent activity for us. Imagine being gently and laughingly cajoled into standing up and taking part in the ceilidh of the kingdom" ("Local Ministry" ed. Robin Greenwood and Caroline Pascoe, SPCK, 2006, p. 14). Let's join that dance!

Unless A Grain

John Bell points out: "If we believe in the resurrection ... we have to allow some things to die. God doesn't deal with corpses, with moribund institutions and lifeless people who linger or malinger, trying to avoid the end. God deals with bodies which die and are raised to new life" ("Wrestle and Fight and Pray", Saint Andrew Press, 1993, p. 43/4). That is an important lesson for the church. I suspect we spend too much time on resuscitation. Sometimes it is the moment to let things go. Things do come to an end - and we need to allow that to happen to make way for the new. There can be a church mentality that wants to keep things going. New things have to be added on, rather than replacing things that are finished. That leads to overload. We need to learn the lesson of the grain of wheat.

Church Play

Using images is frequently a helpful way to explain things. It is a technique often used by Jesus. The parables tell us huge amounts and the images they contain often help us to understand how we should live and what God's Kingdom, or reign, is like. Quite a few of the images mentioned in the Gospels can applied to the church. For example, the vine, light and salt all offer an indication of what the church should be like. In "Wrestle and Fight and Pray" (Saint Andrew Press, 1993) John Bell poses the question as "to which sport Christianity might be most favourably compared." Bell offers a number of suggestions: "Is it like cricket which, from the outside looks absurdly dull, but which the enthusiasts are keen to assure us is really exciting? Or is it like tennis, fairly predictable, but with the word 'love' used in public from time to time? Is it like golf, something essentially easy - putting a ball into a hole - until you see the size of the hole, the size of the ball and how far they are from each other? Is it a team game, like rugby, which needs people who are light on their feet up front and people who are very solid to prop up the rear? Or is it like snooker, something which only a few folk can play very well, but which has a vast army of armchair critics?" In the end, John Bell rejects all these suggestions and, instead, identifies wrestling as the one. The story of Jacob immediately leaps to mind, but there are many other parts of the Bible that would support this notion. Wrestling is about struggling - our faith helps us to struggle as we should. Bell is looking for a sport to describe Christianity. I would want, of course, to be clear that we should not make an exact identification between the church and Christianity - though I would hope that there are more than a few links. And this image helps me to be positive when, as is often the case, I see the church struggling.