I return to blogging in angry mode after a few weeks’ break. The objects of my ire are the dinosaurs in church who want the church to stay the same way that it has always been.
There is a probably apocryphal story of a Church Steward who proudly proclaimed to a new Minister, “I’ve seen many changes over the years and I’ve resisted every single one of them.”
I’ve been hearing stories about church dinosaurs over the past couple of weeks. I’ve heard of a church that wants to raise a million pounds for their building, not to improve the disabled access or make their building more available for wider use by the community; but to restore it to exactly the state it was in fifty years ago! This church apparently welcomes visitors with large notices inviting them to contribute to the restoration fund.
I’ve heard of other churches with members who are resisting as vocally as they can the changes their Ministers and some lay leaders want to make. One change fiercely resisted was replacing The Methodist Hymn Book (published in 1954) with Hymns & Psalms, a book that has now actually been superseded by Singing the Faith. Another change strongly resisted was removing old, narrow and very uncomfortable old wooden pews and replacing them with comfortable seating. On a different tack members of one church strongly resisted their Minister’s intention to replace the traditional carol service with something a little more focussed on evangelism, something intended to bring the true message of the gospel to those who might only attend church once a year for a carol service! The mind boggles, it really does. I’m really only scratching the surface with these examples.
These dinosaurs seem to be looking back to an imagined ‘golden age’ of church; probably located somewhere in the 1950s, when moral standards were ‘better’, when there was a huge Sunday School full of impeccably behaved children, when ‘proper hymns’ were sung….. and so on. They imagine that if they can only take the church back in time to that era then all will be well; our churches will be full and they will be happy!
They will not be happy. If we turn back the clock in churches, if we cling to the past, using out-dated hymns full of Shakespearean English with old fashioned tunes and worshipping in a way that does not connect with our 21st century culture instead of looking to the present and the future then we will not have full churches; we will have empty churches or churches being used for purposes other than Christian worship. The loudest voices raised in horror at the closure of the churches will be the very dinosaurs whose obstinacy and refusal to change in line with the movement of the Holy Spirit brought about their demise.
Forward looking Spirit filled church leaders must be willing to stand up to these dinosaurs, albeit in a sensitive and loving Christian way. We must be loving, but we must also be firm. Church cannot be what the dinosaurs want it to be; a cost Sunday club where familiar songs are sung and comforting sermons with no challenge are preached. Churches need to be dynamic expressions of the Kingdom of God where the gospel is preached, where worship is genuine and comes from the heart and leads people towards God, where people are taught and enabled to be committed disciples of Jesus Christ: radical communities of Spirit filled followers of Jesus with a burning passion to spread the good news, radical counter-cultural communities of faith and love at the very heart of their communities always looking to follow the movement of the Holy Spirit of God where ever he leads them.
No comments:
Post a Comment