Church - Rearranging the deckchairs - 3

'We have a gospel to proclaim
Good news for men in all the earth;
The gospel of a Saviour’s name:
We sing His glory, tell His worth."

I wonder how many of us have sung this hymn? Edward Burns words are sound and the music old and this is another area that I find we are addressing, or at least discussing, greatly as the angle between floor and the leve seas increase! Not only that but we are now concerned with the 'when' of church attendance too; adding to this the mixed economy of traditional and fresh expression of being church for good measure.

Here are a few things we need to be thinking of:

Some churches (people and building) are not the right targets for drums guitars and modern music.
In fact, some places cry out for a cessation of the 'modern is good' and a focus upon the English Church choral music and even a bash with the Book of Common Prayer (1662). But this is, to many of my colleagues, a return to the past days and the source of decline. I suggest that we tell that to the members of the Prayer Book Society and the many who travel to places where the music of organ and choir draws them.

All church buildings are right for multiple congregations. It is not wrong to cater for the BCP people as the day start (and perhaps with evensnog, ends too!) and to move on to a Common Worship generation, fitting somewhere between beginning and end contemporary music and the Gospel being preached in another way too! The many that I meet who rend their garments (but sadly rarely their hearts) over the fact that the congregations 'don't meet' and work at 'getting them to worship together' always appear to forget that they will, but it might just have to be when they all stand before the throne!

Not everyone can come to church on a Sunday (we will have to discuss what 'church' and 'Church' are sometime) so we open our doors when they can. It isn not rocket science. If someone wants something and (because of work, life or something else) can only seek it out during certain times then the venue that caters for that need will find itself graced by their presence. We had a man who, due to work schedules, could only do church on a Wednesday and so we started a Wednesday Communion service at a time he could do. Sadly I think he came once, but the response to the need generated something that others have benefitted from!

Flexibility is the key. We need to be doing church when people can make it. This is not bowing to consumer pressure, it is providing the ability to come together when people can come together.

My biggest problem (and I'm sure you can see that I have many) is the fact that the answer is always 'yes'. When people ask for a service or want something from the Church I have (99% of the time) that one answer (and then I work out how it's going to happen). Our doors are open and we engage with, and work for, the community. The object is that we have the Church outside the building that many think bears the same name and the community (AKA 'not the Church') inside it.

Now I know some have taken me to task for this thought but the reality is that the building is the community's and the church (the people) are the Lord's. We get so precious about our buildings and how (and who) they are used but at the end of the day our job is, quite simply, to worship God and to bless what God is doing in the lives of the 'not the Church' people and, having made them aware of the fact that God is active and engaged in their lives, to bring them into Church so they can invite others into the building.

We are in the position we are in because we have failed to teach and act in the Biblical truths of:

Evangelism - Worship - Prayer - Discipleship - Tithing - Teaching

We have failed to live outside the culture in which we find ourselves and have embraced it at every turn in a false hope of being 'popular' and this mess of popularist pottage has brought us to where we are.

We do not condemn, for this is the work of him against who we contend, but we do not bless that which God does not bless either. God does not just want us to be happy because we do what pleases us but want us to be happy because we seek to be obedient and find happiness where it is rightfully to be found - in Him, living as He commands.

This is all so simple and yet we look to more reports, strategies and plans rather than grasp the nettle and be as Church should be.

Happy Sunday - May God bless you and yours and may our lives shine with His love, mercy and truth.

pax