The first Sunday of Lent - Relationships

One of the hardest things to do is to walk into a church you don’t know. I had a Sunday off yesterday and we had a day in Durham. In the morning we went to Elvet, now half of Durham City Methodist Church. We were last there three years ago when I was on sabbatical. 

As we got out of the car, a lady said “are you coming to church?” She sounded surprised we were! How is it we’ve stopped expecting new people to join us? Then folk by the door were very welcoming and made sure we got a seat (not difficult) and had hymn books and knew there was coffee afterwards and where it was to be served. The service was led by Rev Les Nevin who led us in thinking about Jesus in the wilderness and God being our refuge in Trump world. Afterwards, folk continued to be welcoming and I had a good conversation with a younger couple about how one church on two sites works (and where it doesn’t!) and they told me they are thinking about buildings and long term they can only sustain one due to lack of personnel. That story is becoming so familiar. I hope they work it out. Would I return? Yes. Because the worship was good and the welcome was genuine. 

We always like if we are in Durham on a Sunday to get to evensong at the cathedral. I still think Durham Cathedral is the most awesome spiritual building there is. I owe it a lot as it helped me keep grounded during a bit of an existential crisis while serving in the county and dealing with a bit of a situation! I know exactly where I was sitting in January 2007 when God told me to keep going when I wanted otherwise. How many prayers of desperation have been prayed in the place over the centuries? 

The liturgy yesterday was about hope in suffering. There was an especially powerful piece the choir sang by Thomas Morley. Then I read after the service this pilgrim’s prayer: 

God of the journey,
who inspired the northern saints
to walk in your way and to bear your light;
bless us on our pilgrimage in life,
that we may find companions on the road,
learn to travel with joyful and generous hearts,
and discover your welcome at our journey’s end,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Before this break I’d been rather involved with conversations and worry about how we keep the church going administratively. I worry we are spending so much energy worrying about money at the moment and dwindling numbers of people able to take on responsibilities. We are going to do governance differently in my circuit from September with some burdens lifted from local people but we still need to work out what we can do and now what we cannot. I told two people at Elvet to try and discern what they are wanting to be when making decisions about the future. I strongly believe that while we might have to be a different shape of church, our future has to be about building relationships and being where people are. 

I sense my call in my final years of ministry will be to do more in community engagement and pilgrimage and prayer. I have no answers to where I find stewards and property secretaries in churches where people want to enjoy retirement and have grandchildren duties and sometimes aren’t well. We need to celebrate where it’s working. It’s working where people come together to find support and friendship, like coffee mornings and bereavement cafes and new expressions of worship in village halls and having focus with refurbishments and doing it ecumenically where that is life giving. It isn’t working where we are just miserable about it and it makes us ill and we’ve lost the joy. 

I look at places like Durham and Ripon cathedrals and suggest people need spaces of sanctuary and hope in what Les Nevin called Trump world today. I am writing this in one of the many Ripon cafes - the one that does the largest cup of coffee in the city! A huge friendship group of people who meet here regularly clearly has just left and another one has just come in. They are discussing last night’s Dancing on Ice final! But whatever the subject these people are finding support by being together. It was lovely coming out of the cathedral yesterday afternoon to be stopped by a group of people who asked if I was in the service at Elvet in the morning. I told them we are very drawn towards Durham. I told them my wife went to uni there and studied chemistry and natural sciences. He asked when she was there as he was a chemistry professor. He went off and happily had a conversation with her. Isn’t life better when we find companions or shared interests?  

We went to the cinema on Friday night and saw Conclave, a masterpiece of a film about the carryings on in electing a new Pope. I won’t give any spoilers here but one of the cardinals who gets frustrated at the behaviour of some of his colleagues says this “the church is what it does next.” The news this morning is all about what decisions are taken which will determine the future in a fragmented and dangerous world. People keep asking me where the church will be when I retire - whenever that will be. I don’t know but I still think we will be about. But we need to break rules, listen to people, get involved, stop being silly when people say we can’t do things, laugh more, and wait on God more and most of all remember we are a gathering and on a journey rather than having it all sorted.

Maybe what we do next is really crucial…