Finding a place to be

I heard of another church that is due to close this week. It is in a place some distance from me but a church community that I once knew and like many church closures, it seems incredible to me that this particular one is closing down. As it happens it is one of the very many Church of Scotland closures that are currently going on. The congregation in question, such as it is these days, will be invited to join with another congregation. It is a rare merger of churches which produces a church with the strengths of both congregational parties. The strong likelihood is that the resulting congregation will be less than the sum of its two parts.

My own denomination is not immune to this kind of thing. Some of our churches are very vulnerable. Some of them are coming to the end of their natural. However, our decline feels a little different to that of many churches.

Scottish Episcopalians have been here before of course. We’ve already been wiped out.

I’ve read articles recently that have been well trailed online suggesting that the Church in Wales and the Anglican Church in Canada face complete wipe out within a short number of years. Existential collapse is a real risk. Those writing the articles that I’ve been reading are firmly of the view that it is all the fault of the wicked liberals with their desire to stamp out the true faith by treating men and women alike and with their perverse notion that stability and love should be foisted on same-sex couples as a possible way of living on this earth.

Life is more complicated of course. Much more complicated and much more interesting.

When you witness these things from the perspective of a church that has already been wiped out, maybe they feel different. The Scottish Episcopal Church came within a whisker of being wiped out in the years following 1689. Politics started it. In the same way that trains stop because of the wrong kind of leaves on the line, the Scottish Episcopal Church pretty much hit the buffers because of the wrong kind of king on the throne. The organisational structure of the church died. But its spirit never did. And I want those who are in churches which face terrible demographic change over the next few years to know that. It is relatively easy to close church buildings. But the essence of a denomination is harder to kill off if it does its basic business and leads people into the presence of God.

One of the signs of organisational collapse in church structures is increasing desperation within regional and national jurisdictions.

The trouble is, desperation is not a successful mission strategy.

Few mission strategies are terribly successful to be honest, and I find myself thinking a lot about that.

Might God be telling us something in this area?

The mission strategies which seem to aim to turn every Christian into a little missionary to recruit more people into the fold seem spectacularly unsuccessful.

I think we need new and more interesting metaphors for doing all of this. If it is just about turning people into recruiting agents, I’m not sure I’m interested and from all I can see, God doesn’t seem to be all that interested either.

I think instead that Christian communities that provide the space and the resources for people to live life in all its fullness tend to be magnetic. The dominant way that faith seems to be being passed on now that Christendom (the expectation that everyone belongs to the faith already) is over, seems to be the simple force of attraction.

People are attracted to those living lives that are full of old-fashioned joys like faith, hope and love.

And people are attracted, deeply attracted, attracted more than most church folk can imagine, to places where they can find the space and the resources to simply be and find themselves loved by God. Some of that is played out in the “thin place” spirituality with which we are very familiar in Scotland. But church folk have lost the basic plot if we lose the idea that crossing the threshold of a church means something. To enter a holy place is a holy thing and there’s work to be done to tell people that the God of the mountaintop has a heart for the city and the God of the island pilgrimage is waiting for pilgrims back at home in the spaces we can find where the buzz of life is at its most exuberant. Churches have always been places where the experience of the unexpected and the uncanny can lead people to all that is holy and all that is true.

Pilgrimage may be a more useful word than mission for a lot of modern people. Conversion for a great many people seems to feel more like a walk in company to a holy place than the turning on of a light.

That’s not to say that everyone has the same experience. They don’t, and we should rejoice in those who find themselves suddenly experiencing the overwhelming and shocking love of God. But we should pray that the same love also gives them a heart to know that this won’t be the experience of everyone. It never has been in Christian history and I suspect it never will be.

Churches still have a purpose whilst they are places where people can discover the God who lurks in the world offering change for the better and good news and redemption for all.

From the perspective of a living congregation in a denomination that has been wiped almost off the face of the earth in the past, from the perspective of a city where Episcopalians were persecuted and still held fast, and from the perspective of a denomination that has more than its fair share of modern problems, I still feel remarkably and ridiculously hopeful.

It isn’t just that there’s work for us still to do. It is that there’s work for God to do in us. And God might well have some good news for those who have reason to pause in holy spaces and wonder for a while.

A distinctive glimpse of heaven managed to survive the organisational collapse that we faced in the past.

Will it survive current challenges?

Well, I wouldn’t bet against the Holy Spirit.

We’ve been here before.

 

 

The Beatitudes of Livestreaming

Blessed are they who livestream their church services
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs to share with others and they know it.

Blessed are the sick and the dying in churches which livestream
for they shall be comforted by still being able to be part of their congregations
in addition to receiving the personal and pastoral care of their friends and clergy.

Blessed are those who are meek enough to know that audio matters more than video
for they will inherit the online audience.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for life-changing worship both online and in-person
for their love of God will be counted as righteousness.

Blessed are the joyful
for their joy online will light up the world.

Blessed are the purposeful
for they will make their livestreaming easy to find and they will ensure that
no-one needs to download a hymnsheet, a liturgy book and a pdf version of the notices.

Blessed are the livestream makers
for they are counted amongst the evangelists of today.

Blessed are the congregations who rejoice in the technical and digital skills of those who are often overlooked
for they shall reap a harvest of plenty.

Blessed are those who know that their worship would be better not livestreamed yet
for they know that they need to concentrate on renewing their in-person worship first.

Blessed are you when people make snarky comments about your livestream
for they are telling you they want it to be better for the honour and the glory of the Lord our God.