VICAR'S LETTER

17 Sundon Road     
Streatley      

January, 2005      

Dear All 

January is bracketed by two festivals.  At the start of the month comes Epiphany, when we celebrate the coming of the wise men. At the end of the month comes Candlemas, or the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, when Simeon and Anna recognise that the infant Jesus is the One whom God has sent. The two festivals share a common theme. Both are concerned with spreading Christianity to the wider world, referred to in those days as "The Gentiles." The Epiphany was the "showing forth of the Christchild to the Gentiles”. At the Presentation, Simeon hails Jesus as "the light to lighten the Gentiles."

The challenge of offering Christianity to the wider world is now one that faces us with increasing acuteness. Over the last generation, the world has become rapidly more secular. Sunday is no longer special. Whitsunday and Ascension Day have all but vanished from public consciousness. The observance of Good Friday and Easter is now largely confined to committed church members. Christmas still retains a residual hold on people's hinds, but is increasingly becoming simply a mid-winter festival in which the mid-winter blues are banished by large doses of retail therapy. Christianity is gently slipping out of the mainstream of our national life. Churchgoing, though still widespread, is becoming something of an eccentricity.

The advance of secularism poses problems for the church at every level. It challenges is to give an intelligible account of our faith. It also means that we can no longer take for granted whole areas of knowledge that were once a part of our common culture. We cannot assume a knowledge of the Bible Stories. We cannot assume any familiarity with the ways and customs of the church. We cannot assume any knowledge of the church's music beyond that which may have persisted from Infant and Junior School assemblies. We cannot assume any familiarity with traditional religious language.

One of the implications of these latter considerations is that we must now begin to restructure the church in a way that allows for a process of continuous development from Sunday School to Jacob's Ladder. It is this thought that lies behind the re-ordering of our service menu. An even bigger implication is the change of attitude that is required. When many of us were growing up, becoming a church member involved a three-stage process:

• 1. BEHAVE - learn how to behave in church,

• 2. BELIEVE - become familiar with the basic teachings of the Christian faith,

• 3. BELONG - finally be accepted as one of us.

Now that process has to be turned inside out. It must be:

• 1. BELONG - make people feel welcome and at home,

• 2. BELIEVE - introduce them to the rudiments of Christian faith and the church's ways of expressing that faith,

• 3. BEHAVE - a process that can largely be left to develop of its own accord in response to deepening faith and a growing understanding of custom.

The early church agonised over whether it should reach out to the Gentiles. Some, led initially by Peter, believed that their mission was only to the Jews. Others, led by Paul, believed that they had a world-wide mission. We have no option. A church that talks only to itself will die. At the start of this New Year we ask God to bless our efforts to begin to open our doors more widely to the world beyond.

A very happy New Year to you all.

Roger

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