Well that's funerals, school assemblies and other stuff done for today so it must be time for a further muse, cup of tea and preparation for the evening's agenda of CofE excitement and mayhem. So back to the spiritual, theological and practical considerations regarding advertising in, and of, the Church.
Don't tell anyone but . . . ! This is one of the great british traditions, the 'well kept secret'. I have to own up and say that I am as guilty as many of the others I meet when it comes to this. There is something quintessentially British in this approach to doing things. If we do it well we tend not to 'blow our own trumpets', but this is the root of all folly in that if we are doing something worthwhile then others might just like to be involved, blessed, part of the proceedings and the like. Let them know!
Equally of course if we're doing something that is woeful and embarrassing, it's always worth publicising ti anyway, after all they might not be blessed but it will certainly give those who come along a bit of a laugh (see Rupert bear Prayer Book as an example!).
Here, for instance, I find myself in a place which offers as part of the worship: Taizé communions, healing services, reflective prayer, meditations (Ignatian and other styles), Common Worship services, Compline, Fresh Expressions (in various formats) and more besides. When we started we kept it very much 'in house', being afraid that doing the stuff and telling others might look like sheep stealing. What we found was that slowly, word go out and people from other places, and no places, started to make a particular service theirs. Those who had spiritual homes used our services to augment the offering of the own place of worship and those who had no home did so; Perhaps only for say, Taizé services, but at least they were meeting with other Christians and they were being fed. The moral here is not to be afraid of telling people what you're putting on.
Trying to look like you're not! There is a church a short drive away that meets in a building as wonderful as ours isn't! Ours (click the link at the top right hand side to see it) is a great venue for modern stuff and does pretty well as an informal and personal sacred space. It might be a struggle to put on a full choral service and the procession, even if we walked really slowly would be over in seconds. The other place though, is a very different kettle of banana chips in that it looks like it was built for the full English choral tradition stuff. Now there is a reason for this and it's simple. This is the reality.
Now, when I was a kid, I saved up some money and sent off to a place in the United States for a 'real' Submarine as advertised in a DC Comic (think it was a Superman one). I waited and waited for the lorry to arrive and a few years later (well it felt like that - I was only about nine) a large envelope attached to a tube about six foot long and about three inches in diameter arrived. Inside were rolls of printed stuff which looked like the inside of a submarine. There were tow for the top and left and right hand sides. The instructions told me how to create a tube out of hardboard and then how to paste the 'inside a submarine' wallpaper so that I had my own 'real life' submarine.
This is one of the things churches often do - they sell what it isn't and try to palm off (a 'palmer' being someone who sold dodgy religious artefacts - like palms and other stuff from the Holy Land) their pig's ear as a silk purse.
If you have a congregation or a venue that cannot carry off a full choral rendition of whatever, not a problem - do what fits the building, the theology and the fellowship and be honest about it! One of the biggest problems is that if we try to sell our church off as what it's not, you might just have blown the only chance you'll ever get with that prospective punter (sorry, I meant believer) and you might not of just stopped them coming to your church but might have blown their chance of meeting with Jesus. Now isn't this an encouragement to get you being honest, decent and legal (as the trading standards adverts used to say)?
Here's another couple of considerations for you. It's as big a sin to get people through the door on false pretences as it is to not have them come because you've kept it quiet.
Are you proclaiming the Gospel and making your fellowship's presence known?
No comments:
Post a Comment