Yesterday saw me preaching at a church in the circuit for the first time - nothing unusual there - but also for what will be the last time. The church in question has decided that it is no longer able to continue meeting, and so they are ceasing to worship with the final service actually being next Sunday (30th November). So I am one of the last people to have preached in the building.
This had the potential to be a difficult service, and I had been wondering quite what to say. Should I "just" do a normal Sunday Service, on the grounds that the final service is the following week? It's somewhat outside my experience too; I have not been a member of a church that has closed down, the nearest thing being when I was asked to officially be part of a Church Council that was doing that a few years ago but lacked the numbers to make it official - even then, the decision had been effectively already been made and it was rubber-stamping what was going to happen.
The Lectionary however was my friend. Last Sunday's Old Testament reading was from Ezekiel 34 and spoke about how God would gather together the scattered sheep of Judah, which had been invaded by Babylon, and bring them together under a new shepherd - "David", usually taken to mean a descendant of King David. For a church about to close, with a congregation including several who had been part of another church closure a few years back, I tried to use these words from Ezekiel to bring a message of hope: that they had not been forgotten by God, that they were OK to wonder where God was in their situation, but that God was still there and that they were part of a larger flock.
I don't know how helpful it was to everyone, but I know that at least a couple of people appreciated what was said.
What has happened to this church in some ways raises questions. It's well known as a place that offers much to the local community; many groups come in and use the premises, and in fact they are looking to keep the building going for several months to allow the groups time to find alternate places. It's a building that is obviously appreciated. However that appreciation hasn't extended enough to actually coming along, and the gradually dwindling congregation has been pressed harder and harder to keep everything going. So how do we engage with the people that come in to use the building for secular purposes? How do we encourage people to see that we're about far more than being a sort of community centre? I don't have any answers, but these and other questions certainly need to be asked.....
1 comment:
I think perhaps your answers are already in your writings - the people are there, meeting together and God is also there with them - perhaps something will happen to enable the groups to continue to meet - you call them secular groups but perhaps this is another yet different way of God working in people's lives. It sounds very positive to me as an outsider. Keep praying. x
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