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minister's blog: February 2009 - everything changes

Dear Friends

Recently I had the privilege of conducting the funeral of a lady who had reached the grand old age of 100 years. During her service we focussed on the fact that in her life she had seen so many advances in science, in technology, and medicine.  She had seen the development of cars, of flight, of space exploration; she had marvelled at computers, the internet, mobile phones.  She has eaten food cooked using a microwave oven.  In her life-time women were given the vote, one even became Prime Minister, and an African American was elected as President of the United States.

The world is not a static place, every day new advances are being made, everything changes, and it doesn’t take 100 years to notice.  In recent days we’ve seen massive leaps in our understanding of the world, and in communication, which in our perception makes the world a much smaller place.

Change is everywhere.  I look in the mirror and I see that I am not the same as I was when I was younger.  I consider my attitudes, and see that I think of many things differently to those attitudes I had when I was a teenager.  In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says “When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child; now that I am a man, I have no more use for childish ways.” (v11, GNB).

Many people still practise the faith they gained when they were learning about Jesus in Sunday-school, their knowledge of the Bible and understanding of God has never grown, never matured.  Many church members don’t really know what the Church is about, or what are its core beliefs. 

These people are happy to belong; mostly happy to attend worship fairly regularly; happy to make use of the church when family events require: however they want the Church to be the same as it was when they were growing up.  Unfortunately that isn’t possible – it must be different because we ourselves are different – our lifestyle, work, and leisure patterns have altered, in this televisual age our attention spans have shortened and our priorites have changed.

As a Christian teenager in the 1970s I was quite happy to sit through two services a Sunday and listen to forty-minute sermons.  I attended Youth Fellowship after the evening service, and went to the midweek bible study and prayer meeting as well as spending many other evenings in and around the church.  How many of us, whether teenagers or adults, would be prepared to do all these things now?

The Church of Scotland, in recent years, has been trying to meet the needs of today’s generations.  In 2001 the General Assembly published the Church Without Walls report, and currently its Panel on Review and Reform has been seeking to convince the Church of the need for change from the top down.  At last year’s General Assembly the Church accepted a report from the Ministries Council looking at what’s called Emerging Church, encouraging us to think of doing Church in different ways.

Some three years ago, our Congregation set out to look at itself and consider its priorities for the future.  As a result some thirteen priorities and goals were set, and a group of people were given the task of encouraging us to meet these.  To date just over half of these have been worked on, with less than a quarter completed.

Now we are taking the time to refocus our thoughts on the future for Clackmannan Church.  So, on Saturday 7^th February we are being given the chance to revisit some of the things we considered to be important in the life of the Church and its mission. 

Under the auspices of our Congregational Development Group we will be holding a Congregational Gathering in the Church Hall from 10am till 1pm. This Gathering is open to ALL members of the Congregation and residents in Clackmannan. We will hear from our guest speaker, the Revd Albert Bogle of Bo’ness; we will be asked a number of important questions regarding how we can encourage people into a living relationship with Jesus in this post-modern society; and we will attempt to set new priorities for our mission in the next few years. 

The world is not static, it is continually changing.  We live in exciting times.  The Church, as the people of God, if it is to remain alive, must change too.  If you live nearby come and tell us how!

May God be with you.

©Clackmannan Parish Church of Scotland, April 2009