Tuesday, June 2, 2009

What Every Minister Wants!

Don’t believe them for a second! And I am not talking about politicians. Actually talking about ministers, pastors, priests call them what you will. For each is looking for the ‘Holy Grail’ By that I mean the way to fill their church, sunday by sunday, with attentively worshipful people – preferably those that can be labelled ‘youth’. But, no matter how we try, a formula that keeps on working escapes us. The outcome is that unless you have a very strong faith and personality in this result driven world you feel a failure. Worse still, its easy to blame God for his seeming indifference to his Son’s body on earth.

However, very recently I bought a copy of the The Message and in it I read:

Is anyone listening and believing a word of it? 
The point is: Before we trust, you  have to listen.
But unless Christ’s Word is preached,
 there is nothing to listen to.

Here then is the clue perhaps that like the hunt for the mythical Grail, we are targetting ourselves on a mirage. Rather, we should put to one side the single mind search for ‘full churches’ and just be Christ’s voice whether we are being listened too or not. Becuase if Godly believers  do not keep on filling the spiritual void – someone else will!


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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Over the weekend there was fascinating vintage car programme by Penelope Keith. In it she retraced the steps, or tracks of the first woman to drive from London to Liverpool. This Edwardian ‘motorina’ braved cold, dusty road and puncture from horse shoe nails to make the journey in a shade over 10 hours. Her courage may have been boosted however by her carrying a loaded revolver to protect her honour.  


 

But the programme also revealed the true reason for the formation of the Automobile Association. Nowadays they employ the knights of the road that bail us out when what’s under the bonnet goes wrong. But back before the First World War, the AA employed boys as ‘scouts’ to wave a flag any car bearing a membership badge to warn of police speed traps ahead. Therefore, their advert claimed the cost of membership could easily be recouped from the avoidance of only one speeding fine!

 

Well, today we are trying all sort of new things in worship – music, drama, and graphics.  Yet deep down we are not all sure whether they will stand the test of time. Could they all in the end appear as gimmicky, antiquated and quaint as boys with flags?

 

Possibly – probably – we just don’t know. Yet my own church has standing in its sanctuary an old harmonium. This was the first organ to be introduced in the then Free Church of Scotland. And it was not installed before a ‘sare ficht’ was won with their church powers-that-were. But today that instrument stands testament to the central place of instrumental music in most congregations’ worship.

 

 Put simply we cannot know what we are introducing today to communicate God’s word better will work or not. But that doesn’t stop us trying.

 

 

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