What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Christmas Day Sermon 2012

    Many of you will be aware that I recently have returned from a big sabbatical trip to churches in Canada and the United States.

    I was there to learn and reflect and grow and I did that by making contact with the most interesting folk I could find in church life on the other side of the North Atlantic.

    Inevitably I spent quite a lot of time poking around churches over there and coming from this cathedral, I was interested in what cathedrals over there were up to.

    Which is how I found myself in the National Cathedral in Washington DC just a day or two after the American Election in November.

    It is a mighty building. Far bigger than we are but when I saw it, it was not looking its best. Still recovering from an earthquake which wobbled all its stonework, they have netting strung all across the nave to catch falling fragments. So you stand in this enormous church unable to look up and appreciate the great spaces.

    Unable to look up, instead I went down. For underneath the nave is a maze of twisty passages which lead (more…)

4 responses to “Counting our many blessings – Scottish Episcopal Statistics”

  1. robin webster Avatar
    robin webster

    I wonder if the church has thought sufficiently about making it possible for someone who is in a 9-5 job and perhaps is out of town on weekends to attend church? Should early evening weekday services, or early morning ones not be more in evidence?

    Reply
    1. Kelvin Avatar
      Kelvin

      There are churches which have early morning services – if I’m honest I know of none that is terribly well patronised by people who are heading out of town for the weekend.

      The question has certainly come up before as to whether it would be possible to establish a regular congregation in a city like Glasgow which met for a main weekly service at a time different to Sunday morning. (There are one or two services like this in the City of London, I think).

      St Mary’s tried for a time to use the 5-7 pm weeknight slot for events and services. This had been dropping off before I came here and it was hard to see a way forward for those slots. Good things came out of the experiment but it is interesting that the ones which continued and took on on a life of their own were not liturgical. The poetry group, for example, came from this time.

      I’m aware of a city centre church in Edinburgh which has just started to have a Saturday vigil mass like many Roman Catholic churches have. That doesn’t answer the question about people going out of town for the weekend but it is interesting that they are experimenting with that at the current time.

      Reply
      1. Jo Avatar
        Jo

        I do recall a church adjacent to a large factory that managed to hold a lunchtime communion service on a weekday. Only really works if everyone takes their lunch break, and has it at the same time, of course.

        On the wider point there are those of us who would be regular attenders at Episcopalian services were it logistically feasible. I would certainly consider myself an Episcopalian even though it would take a 28 hour round trip to enable me to attend on a Sunday. I can’t imagine there are more than a few dozen folk in that situation nationwide, of course.

        Reply
        1. Kelvin Avatar
          Kelvin

          Thanks Jo – I’m aware of a number of people who regard themselves as members of St Mary’s who can’t physically get here for reasons of geography. I’ve been trying to think through what might be done to make such links stronger for a while.

          Reply

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