Let's close half our buildings!

Another conversation this week saw one of those present make the statement, "Let's close half of our church buildings!" They went on to explain how the CofE footed the bill for more historic and protected buildings than any other body and hw we should give them to the local communities as heritage centres and museums, art galleries and whatever else they could be used for.

"The time has come to take the Church back to the houses," he cried. "We don't need buildings and all the trappings of being settled that tie us down and make us ineffective. Let's go back to meeting in homes and being the Church where it is to be found."

"Oh No," thought I, "Not another one!"

But indeed it was and we were treated to a masterclass in how Church should be done (and this is the second of those this week for I was also regaled with a lecture on blank canvases and how they [the lecturer, priest and saviour of the faith] were the paints that would bring an incarnate and intoning presence to the lost!!!).

The Church should just abandon their building and withdraw to places where low-cost, high-efficiency Church could be engaged with. No need for all the old Common Prayer stuff or even Common Worship for each would be Church as they understood it to be for their community. There were no difficult places or tough areas, no needs to great and no problem too small. Church had to return to the days of Acts and be seen in the temples of today's society sharing God's love and His word.

Got to be honest and say that I must be losing it for by ten minutes I would normally have started playing with this newly-minted minister of hope, grace and uncontainable renewal. But I didn't and as the lecture unfolded I understood that behind the theology speak and the technical terms the Emperor was as naked as I (and probably just as scared about it).

Love, Prayer, Love and more love is the key. Love those around you and make them important and the opportunity to bless what God is doing (even though they don't recognise what's happening as being God yet) becomes a reality. It takes years to get them across the threshold and even then the work is only just engaged.

Our buildings are lighthouses amidst the rock and storms of life. They offer us the opportunity to be the curator of the local memories and custodians of the histories of our communities. The give us a place for the community to use and a safe haven for us to worship our God. They provide a place of sanctuary and a drain on our resources. But we need them.

We just need to make them fit for purpose or, as I recall +Willesden doing, go to the council and tell them that the wonderful listed building is theirs as it needs loadsa money spent on it and, being listed, loadsa other stuff too.

Let's forget the high sounding theological words and silly ideas that we could live effectively for anyone other than ourselves (and believe me, I am aware of many 'house churches' who exist as cosy little worshipping and self-serving groups with little (or no) impact on their communities and the lost. House church is a part of the whole and without the whole is often the recipe for ineffective, self-serving (and often smug, self-righteous, almost sect-like) expressions of Church.

Paul got it so right when he talks of a whole body and each member being connected to the other - Kingdom thinking in the church and across the Church - and buildings aren't the threat to this.

The Christians in Acts met in the central place in Jerusalem for the worship of God - nothing's changed today, so make the building central, not redundant (and treasure our Cathedrals - they are not a threat to the local parishes but a resource and a joy).

Pax