A
Conversation on the Need for New Ways of being Church
For the benefit of
any who come in at this point the story so far is ….
Simon
posted an article on this topic on facebook…
I replied
that it was like moving deck chairs on a sinking ship – churches
first needed to return to lively faith in Jesus.
Simon
replied that we should get off the ship.
Touche! When
I thought about it I had got off the ship … or rather they had cast
me adrift on a longboat - glad to be rid of a tiresome priest!
My thoughts:
OK I stopped going
to the local Anglican churches because I always came home so angry
that they were preaching UNbelief! Then I started going to my younger
daughter Jenny's church, which is a local congregation of a
micro-denomination. They have members of the congregation preach –
and they do preach the true gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ and
obedience to His commands. But I have to admit that I do miss the
liturgy, and I do miss the old hymns (well the better ones anyway)
So yes I did get off
the ship, and that is is one solution that works, but is it the only
solution, or indeed one that works for everyone?
Now my great grand
parents on one side were converted through the Methodist preachers
who were the human agents of a revival that swept the country in the
late 1800's. Then my grandparents were converted by Seventh Day
Adventist evangelists. We were all brought up in that church but all
ended up Anglicans.
My point is that
every generation needs to be converted afresh. And although the SDA's
may be doing fine as a church for all I know, the Methodist church
has gone from being on the forefront of the work of the Gospel to
being a rotting spiritual corpse in just three generations!
So taking to the
lifeboats may be a practical solution – but one still has to watch
that they in turn don't spring a leak.
My own thoughts
about the Anglican church are that it is spiritually like Israel in
the time of Ahab and Jezebel. There are still faithful ministers and
people – just as God told Elijah that there were “seven thousand
in Israel that have not bowed the knee to Baal”. But when the
revival we pray for comes, by and large the new believers need to be
nurtured away from it – and away from most mainline denominations – likely
in house-churches, or internet link-ups, or other means of utilising
modern technology. (So I guess I am now agreeing with the
writer of that article about the usefulness of technology and of new
ways of being church !!!)
But the ancient
foundations of the Anglican church are sound. It may be better to get
rid of the rubbish and repair it rather than build a new
“institution” - and institutions are just a sociological
necessity for maintaining important activities among humans. Because
as the Methodists illustrate one can put a lot of energy into a new
institutional church for it to all turn to dust in just a few
generations!
My expectation is
that once the new believers in the revival have grown strong in the
Faith, they can flood back to (in this instance) the Anglican
churches and join the faithful few who have hunkered down there in clearing out the
rubbish – maybe converting the apostates – and making it into a
faithful church … at least for their generation!
I'd be interested in
any thoughts on this.
