Ministry in this strange new land
Mark Ireland writes: Last night in my role every bit archdeacon I inducted a new Vicar to his new Lancashire parishes backside airtight doors. Instead of a packed church of congregation, community and friends from previous parishes, at that place were just iii churchwardens, the priest's spouse, the patron and the bishop – all sitting spaced every bit far apart as possible in a cavernous space filled with empty pews. In this setting the traditional identify in the service where the priest rings the bell to tell the parish they have a new priest took on extra significance. In fact the priest rang the bell and then vigorously that he broke the bell-rope!
We are living in disorienting days. As churches we have always worked hard to overcome social isolation, to overcome loneliness, to bring communities together. Now we must encourage people to continue apart, and not to come to worship except in the smallest of groups.
There is a profound sense of exile in all this, and so information technology is that we can plow to the Scriptures for strength, every bit the Israelites, with their profound sense of identify and of the centrality of the Temple, had to piece of work out how to worship when the temple had been destroyed and they were distanced and isolated from all that was familiar. 'How could we sing the Lord's song in a strange state?' asks the Psalmist (137.4).
Daniel, as an exile living in Babylon, gives united states an interesting glimpse of how the dwelling house became the identify of prayer and worship for those who could no longer go to the temple. In Daniel 6.10 we read how Daniel 'continued to become to his house, which had windows in its upper room open towards Jerusalem, and to get downwardly on his knees iii times a mean solar day to pray to his God and praise him, just every bit he had done previously.' We have much we can learn from our Jewish friends today, for whom the home and the family meal table is as much a identify of worship and prayer as the synagogue.
One encouraging thing nosotros know about the exile in the Old Testament is that it was a time of profound spiritual renewal. Information technology was the time when God'south people went back to their founding stories, it was the fourth dimension when much of the OT every bit we currently have it took final shape. When somewhen they returned to the Promised Land they lived differently. They left behind the worship of idols and returned single-heartedly to worship God, but in a different way.
My prayer for each local church is that we may use this time of exile to rethink how we are church for a new generation. The world is changing faster than we always knew. Naturalists tell us that the survival of any species depends on its ability to adapt and change more chop-chop than the environment around it. The same is true of that living organism which is the Church of God. If we simply focus our hopes for after corona on restarting everything the way it was before, the painful experience of exile will accept been wasted.
In that strange induction service last night I decided to record parts of the service on my phone to share for those who couldn't be there. Having posted terminal night the recording of the bishop's sermon and the institution itself on the diocesan FB folio, I was surprised to discover this morning that the video had already been viewed 450 times – by more people than would otherwise have been in church. I am already pondering what we can learn from this for the hereafter after the virus.
And then in these disorienting times let us ask God to requite us grace to live hopefully in this time of exile, to listen for his vocalisation, that we might in due time return from exile a changed people, set to do church building differently, that we might reach a changed community with the unchanging Gospel of Christ.
And as we mind for the voice of God, what might he take to say to usa virtually the world equally well every bit virtually the church? In particular about our care for creation?
The grounding of flights, slow-down in the economy and the closing of factories is, strangely, giving a profound remainder to the globe. Later on decades in which we take over-produced, over-consumed, over exploited the earth, and failed to concur whatever effective means to reduce our carbon output, suddenly alter is existence forced upon us. Rest for the earth is a constant refrain in the Former Testament, as the nation is allowable to give the land rest every seventh year and every jubilee. This current crisis is an opportunity for us to hear the weep of the earth, and with it God's call to live gently upon the earth, and to reduce our consumption, and then that the earth might flourish for time to come generations until the Lord returns.
Suddenly many of us find huge amounts of unexpected fourth dimension in our diaries, equally events, meetings and holidays are cancelled. The Volume of Hebrews speaks of a sabbath residue for the people of God – 'There remains then a Sabbath-rest for the people of God…let us therefore make every effort to enter into that rest…' (6.9, 11)
How will we use the time that we of a sudden have? It will be easy to make full it with fret and worry, and to give in to loneliness and fearfulness. Instead, as Christians how tin can we 'brand every try to enter into God's rest', to brand these new spaces a sabbath in the biblical sense – a time for rest, a time for relationship, a time for God? We demand time and stillness to hear God more than ever when everything around us is so uncertain.
We hear much at nowadays near being guided by the science. Science has many answers merely it does not provide us with a moral code. As regime goes into survival-mode we need to affirm loudly that the test of how Christian a social club is how exercise we intendance for the near vulnerable, not how do we protect the near productive. Jesus' whole ministry shows his care for the poor the marginalised and those whom society did not value.
One small example is the local foodbank. The ministry building of foodbanks will be more and more important in the days ahead, and yet there have been signs of donations dropping as people hold onto things for their ain needs. 1 of the heartening things I am hearing from local clergy though is the creativity of many churches that are outset to program for how to feed hungry children when schoolhouse is cancelled adjacent week, and how to establish contact with vulnerable elderly who must self-isolate for their own condom.
I was at a free church recently where the government minister concluded the service with this dismissal: 'The worship is over, the service begins.' For u.s.a. in the Church building of England, the Church for England, the worship is over, but the service begins.
Mark Ireland is Archdeacon of Blackburn in the Diocese of Blackburn.
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