Blessed are the flexible? by Revd. Trevor Jamison

24/03/2010 by idavidsonblog.

Jesus never said, “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not snap”, though I sometimes wish that he had done so. Nor, in the interests of balanced reporting, did Jesus ever say, “Woe unto you who are infinitely flexible for you lack backbone” but it might sometimes be a good warning to receive. How do we find the right balance in being a church in the early twenty-first century? When I was a child the prospect of the twenty-first century was the stuff of science fiction, though now we are here I don’t think that the twenty-first century church feels particularly futuristic. Of course congregations have changed. After hundreds of years of congregational life I don’t suppose anyone thinks everything will be just the same or wants us to be doing everything the way they did it in seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth centuries (though some of us may harbour a nostalgic desire to return to church as we knew it in the mid-twentieth century). In our own lifetimes our congregations have changed and developed, which is good news as most things that don’t are lifeless. So, for example, we worship using different hymnbooks than those from even twenty years ago and although many of the hymns we sing came from long before that others are of a distinctly more recent vintage. These days, as we worship we sit on padded seats rather than wooden pews and our hearing is aided by a sound system that those who first formed the congregation could not even have dreamed about. One strain upon us is that although we have changed and are developing as a congregation that rate of change seems slow in comparison to the rate of change in the rest of the world in which we live; technological change like air travel, computers and the internet; social change in the variety of family structures; religious change, with churches, ours included, much less prominent in the life of our society. It is important that as a church we get the balance right in responding to the changes in the part of the world where we live so that we are still relevant to that place and to the people who live there; people with  whom we can share our faith, hopefully in language that makes sense to them as well as us. Getting the balance right is not easy. One thoughtful worshipper in a URC congregation that I know observed that most of the sermons he heard week by week from a variety of preachers fell into one of two types: TYPE 1. The world has changed radically but this congregation has not. Therefore, in order to be faithful to Christ, we must change the way we do everything in the life of the church so as to more relevantly share the Gospel with others. 

Or TYPE 2. The world has changed radically but this congregation has not. Therefore, in order to be faithful to Christ, we must resist the temptation to change anything in the life of the church so that we continue to distinctively demonstrate the Gospel to others.  (He tells me that my sermons are harder to categorise which I hope is meant as a compliment.) In a congregation it is never easy to discern where we should try to position ourselves between these two extremes, seeking change or maintaining continuity. The answer will vary according to the particular situation. Also, as with any group of people, what seems right to one person may not seem like such a good idea to another. We need to be in an ongoing conversation about how we stay true to our faith; worship in a way that makes sense to us and our experiences yet speaks to others who have not been socialised into the particular (and peculiar?) ways our congregation works. This offers us all an opportunity and possibly a challenge. We have the opportunity to play a significant part simply by turning up to worship: never underestimate how much you can contribute by encouraging others by your presence.  And the challenge is to offer a genuine welcome to any visitors, so that they know there is a Christian congregation here that will welcome them should they come again or ever wish to become part of its ongoing life.

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