the task for deanery pastoral committees facing changes moving forward together finding god’s way...
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The Task for Deanery Pastoral
Committees
Facing Changes
Moving Forward Together
Finding God’s way for us
Moving Forward Together
Change is not always preventable
Change can have a major impact
Dunwich: in Middle Ages, a major Suffolk port. It had 9 church buildings. Coast has encroached.Photograph, taken 1905, is of last church building. Today just some of the graveyard remains.
The world and the landscape changes
Moving Forward Together
People used to live round here
but not many live here any more
Populations shift for lots of reasons
Moving forward together
The successful bear
knows both
where to fish
and when to fish
and risks getting wet in order to succeed.
Making sense of the changing context is vital.
Jesus calls us to read the signs of our times.
A Story of RebirthThe Benefice of Watlington
(1993)• Three Churches:
– Watlington– Pyrton– Shirburn
• The Benefice of Icknield (2003)
• Four Churches– Watlington– Pyrton– Britwell Salome– Swyncombe
St Mary’s Pyrton• 1993 had a congregation
of 15• church was damp and
cold no young people• 2003 had congregation of
50• church is warm and
bright and welcoming• outreach concentrated on
monthly “village service”
2600 years ago595 BCE - God’s promises revealed through
Monarchy in the line of David
Temple
Land promised to God’s people
595 BCE - Threat from Babylonians
Threat to Royal Line
Threat to Temple
Threat to land-owners and leaders
2600 years ago
This would be the end of the world as Israel knew it
It would suggest God had been conquered
No other option conceivable.
Exile - “how can we sing our songs in a strange land?” Pain and doubt would be worst for those most devout and most committed.
The answer was not in their time but ..
2600 years ago - 60 yrs
Out of the ruins of the Temple Came the synagogue
and a re-evaluation of the value of “sacred place”
As a result of exileCame Jewish communities around the
world, later used by first Christian missionaries
The end of monarchyBrought a sharper critique of
kingship and power
Revitalis
ed relig
ion
Renewed discovery of
God
Reorganised ways of
living
2005 Manchester? How would we feel if / when our place of worship is threatened by outside forces beyond our control?
? How does this affect our view of God?•How do we recognise the pain of loss - more acute
for some who have been nourished in the “lost”
structures - but also trust God for the future which
is not clear at all?
•How do we contemplate the possibility of a
radically different future?
Discerning God today
Jeremiah called on the people not to resist •but to see God in the process of ending / destruction:e.g. Jer 28 - and the altercation with Hananiah•to believe that God would restore in his time; •to accommodate to living in Babylon and seek its peace(Jer 29). He was called a traitor and worse.
St Paul calls us to stand firm and resist (Eph 6)
How do we discern when to “stand firm” and when standing firm is resisting God’s future?How do we decide between Jeremiah and Hananiah?
Implicit TheologiesThe shrinking of church membership in recent years might be partially explained by:
1. God is judging the church for its complacency and short-comings
2. God is judging the nation for its sin and shortcomings; this will therefore be a time of “drought” for the churches till spiritual hunger returns
3. The church is now fairly irrelevant to “ordinary” people’s lives, and so they are no longer interested in being a part of it
4. People have become trapped in consumerism and individualism so the self-sacrificial, corporate call of the Church is definitely counter-cultural
5. If people were to pray more and call on God, then we would see revival on a wide scale, like we see growth in some churches now.
6. If the church were to return to being faithful, rather than trying to be trendy, then we would see modest growth and increased respect
Can we have hope for the church? Do we have hope? What and when?
Which of these do you respond to and which do you resist?
Gracious God,
who has created a changing world, and who suffered for its redemption;
You have given us the freedoms and abilities to effect change and to suffer from change.
Give us that sense of the wind of your Spirit that we may hear the groaning within Creation;
Give us the faith that believes that you can raise the dead, and that death is not the end.
Grant us to know you in your hidden-ness, and to trust you for an uncertain future
For the Kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and for ever, AMEN