- Do you have a decent church website?
- Is it up to date?
- Is it responsive – ie does it work on mobile phones?
- Does your own online profile feature your ideas and hopes and dreams other than a desire for people to turn up to church?
- Do you know what you are doing with twitter and facebook?
- Who could you learn more about social media from?
- Do you have a compelling reason why people should come to your church other than where it is or what denomination it belongs to?
- Can everyone in the church tell you in one sentence what that compelling reason is?
- What is your beginners’ course like?
- What comes after the beginners’ course?
- Do people like the preaching?
- Do people enjoy the music?
- Have you dealt with conflicts from the past?
- Are the people friendly?
- Do you have any new groups starting soon?
- Do you talk about making the world a better place?
- How will people experience joy if they come to your congregation?
- If someone from your past turned up unexpectedly at worship how would it make you feel?
- How do you identify newcomers and what do you offer them?
- What problems will arise if you do grow and how will you deal with them?
- Do claims that you welcome everyone stop you working at welcoming those who traditionally find it hard to find a home in church?
- Do you use language that is inclusive of everyone?
- How do you know?
- Is there any identifiable group of people that you can’t explicitly say are welcome because of how an individual or group in the congregation will react?
- Do you want to grow or not?
3 responses to “Power needs to be baptised by love”
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A very good and thought-provoking sermon. I’ve always thought of the Ethiopian eunuch as a man of great power and authority, and of great learning and devotion too, which points me to your third interpretation. But what startles me about the story – partly because of my thinking of the eunuch as someone of great power and authority compared to Philip, and partly because of a tendency on my part to be dogma-bound – is the sheer simplicity of how Philip welcomes him into the Church.
There is no complicated initiation process. There are no doctrinal tests. The eunuch sees water, and asks Philip in a businesslike way if there’s any reason why he shouldn’t be baptised. Philip’s answer couldn’t be more direct and straightforward: “If you believe with all your heart, you may be baptised.” And the eunuch’s response couldn’t be more direct and straightforward either: no lengthy creed, no question and answer interrogation, but simply, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
No doubt the eunuch continued his studies after his baptism, being that sort of man. But in a complicated world and (sometimes) a complicated Church I often turn to this passage for reassurance that it needn’t always be so.
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Thank you, Father Kelvin. What a lovely and refreshing new insight into the identity and provenance of the ethiopian Eunuch! Philip’s acceptance and Baptism of the Eunuch reflects the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19:122, where he speaks of 3 types of eunuch; made so by others (the Ethiopian, castrati); those who become so for the sake of the Kingdom (monks, nuns, celibate clergy);
and then, of course; those so ‘from their mother’s womb’ (intrinsic Gays).
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Really profound. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
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