Church Without Walls III
FRIENDSHIP AND FAITH
Sermon preached at Barclay Church, Edinburgh by Rev D. Graham Leitch
21 April 2002

What kind of Church are we? I don’t mean what kind of congregation are we, but what kind of Church is the Church of Scotland?

WHAT KIND OF CHURCH?
There are a number of answers to that question. It is REFORMED. That is, it’s a church which holds to the principles of the Reformation and adheres to Scripture as its fundamental rule. It is PRESBYTERIAN. That is, it is ruled by Elders. The minister is the preaching and teaching Elder. Congregations are governed by Elders, and groups of churches in a locality by Presbyteries. It is one of many denominations - Episcopalian, Baptist, Free, Roman Catholic - in Scotland.

But of, course, as its history, its place as the established Church and its name suggest, it is more than one of many denominations in Scotland. It is “THE Church of Scotland” - the national Church.

Every square inch of Scotland’s land is churched - because it has its parish church! But 95% of Scotland’s people are unchurched (as far as the Church of Scotland goes) because less than 5% of the population is now in a Church of Scotland congregation on Sundays.

We have already slept through too many changes, wakening up too late and playing catch-up!!

THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND
When all the main Presbyterian Churches in Scotland reunited in 1929 to form the present Church of Scotland, a constitution was drawn up which defined the Church’s reformed nature, relationship to the Bible and standards of faith, and laid down its form of Church Government.

But is also spelt out the Church of Scotland's purpose thus:

“As a national church, representative of the Christian faith of the Scottish people, it acknowledges its distinctive call and duty to bring the ordinances of religion to the people in every parish of Scotland through a territorial ministry.”

It is this that the Church of Scotland has continued to endeavour to do - but times have changed.

The assumptions which lie behind this understanding of the church’s task no longer hold. And it is no use pretending they do. If the CHURCH WITHOUT WALLS wakens the National Church up to this fact it’s not a moment too soon.

We have already slept through too many changes, wakening up too late and playing catch-up!!

To understand where we are right now the CHURCH WITHOUT WALLS report invites us to consider and reflect upon the assumptions behind this historic statement of the Church of Scotland’s purpose. Doing this brings into sharper focus for us the need for the Church of Scotland to change as it faces the challenges ahead.

1.
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH OF THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE

There is the assumption that the Christian Faith is the “Christian Faith of the Scottish people.” There is no need to evangelise Scotland! Why? Because Scotland is a Christian nation! But it is no longer so. Scotland today is multicultural and has welcomed Scots of other faiths.

But that’s not all! The accelerating pace of secularisation over the past 40 years has has altered the religious face of Scotland more than many amongst the dwindling minorities who retain a church allegiance have yet recognised.

The religious faith which once provided the seedbed of the nation’s culture has been replaced by a new and altogether different philosophy.

2.
REPRESENTATIVE OF SCOTLAND’S FAITH

There is the assumption that the Church of Scotland is “representative of the Christian Faith of the Scottish people” and, indeed, though not explicit in its constitutional purpose, that the Church, through its annual Assembly on the Mound (and the Church and Nation Committee annual pronouncements occasionally still reflect this fact) speaks for Scotland.

But today this can no longer be the case. Scotland today has its own Parliament - paradoxically meeting the the General Assembly’s Hall - to speak for the nation.

It is no longer the voice of the people and must find a new role as God’s voice to the people. As the report says:

“The context is now overtly missionary with the collapse of the Christendom canopy”

And, of course, it can no longer take its supremacy as the Church of Scotland for granted. It is now merely one of many representatives of the Christian faith amongst Scotland’s people.

Christian Scotland today is more than the Church of Scotland.

3.
THE ORDINANCES OF RELIGION

The third thing to notice about this historic statement of the Church of Scotland’s purpose is that what it calls “the ordinances of religion” - that is, public worship, the Sacraments and services of religion - are to be brought to the people of Scotland.

For too long the church’s emphasis on maintaining “the ordinances of religion” has tended to do two things:
. to emphasise the maintenance of the form of religion at all costs, sometimes without sufficient emphasis on its living realities. The bottom line has been maintaining public worship in the face of diminishing numbers so that, in parts of Scotland, the traditional Church of Scotland service is maintained though the number attending is in single figures.

. but the other thing that the emphasis on the ordinances of religion has done has been to emphasise Christian nurture at the expense of Christian evangelism This was understandable in the Christian Scotland of a century ago - it is no longer defensible in the unfaith of contemporary Scotland.

It is not the ordinances of religion that 21st Century Scotland needs offered - it is the Gospel and the Christian alternative to the secular way. As the report says:

“The context is now overtly missionary with the collapse of the Christendom canopy”

4.
A TERRITORIAL MINISTRY

One of the most significant emphases in the 1929 Constitution of the Church of Scotland is on what is called a “territorial ministry” - that is, the parish system which divides up the entire country into parishes, each with its church. In the 1920’s, at a time of social stability and cohesion, this made sense. Most people lived in the same area all their lives. Many people lived and died in the same parish The extends family was the norm.

The church has had a pride in its territorial ministry and it has, in the past, been one of the great strengths of the Church of Scotland. But today the parish system may be more of a strait jacket than a servant of the Gospel.

It isn’t that competitiveness is as common as co-operation and that, with the unions and readjustments of the past fifty years, a spirit of defensiveness and fear - a neurosis - has infected many churches.

It IS that!! But, more importantly, as the Report memorably states,“Society is such today that everybody lives in a parish but nobody lives in a parish.”

The parish system has served Scotland well. But is it today more of a strait-jacket than a servant of the Gospel? And do we not need to be more adventurous, to take more risks, to plant the church anew in cultural contexts which are utterly unchurched - to think less of geographical parishes and more of cultural parishes!!

To do this will take courage vision - and because of the institutional and legal problems involved, a great deal of hard work - but it IS necessary - vital to the future of our church.

5.
A NATIONAL SPIRITUAL HEALTH SERVICE

Next there is the assumption that the people are Christians and that we offer a national spiritual health service on demand. The result is what the report calls “a deep frustration and cynicism” among office bearers who still speak of people not being “Kirk hungry”.

“They lost their appetite a long time ago for church. But there are many signs of a spiritual quest that is passing our doors. The changed situation is an opportunity not a threat. Often people feel ill-equipped to meet that challenge, which requires a capacity for deep listening, a new spirituality and a focus on Christian discipleship rather than church membership. In times past, faith has been passed from one generation to another. Today that ‘chain of memory’ has been broken. People are mobile, families are fragmented and society is less stable....”

We need to be a a new kind of Church - still faithful to God obedient to Christ and still guided by the Word - but different, to meet today’s challenges and minister to tomorrow’s adults.

What Scotland needs today is not a national spiritual health service but a Lazarus-like resurrection!!

6.
THE NATIONAL CHURCH

The final emphasis that we need to consider is that the Church of Scotland has in the past assumed and claimed the right to be known as the National Church.

But, as the report suggests, if it continues to assume that it exists by legal right and by claims of social influence it will betray Scotland’s people and, in betraying them, betray Christ for its thirty pieces of silver.

It is back to the the same thing -

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”

It is back to the same thing - the one thing and the great thing - to the most necessary thing - losing ourselves to find ourselves - dying in order to live!!

FRIENDSHIP AND FAITH - PART 2

I called the title of today’s service “Friendship and Faith” because one of the pleas of CHURCH WITHOUT WALLS report is to see that the church isn’t about programmes but about people. It isn’t about maintaining religion but about building relationships. The way the Report puts it is to say that

“the calling of the Church is relational rather than institutional.”

NOT SERVANTS BUT FRIENDS
For me, this is expressed effectively in Jesus words (which are, interestingly, to be found in a passage in which one of the main thrusts is “bearing fruit” or, as we might say, being effective):

“I no longer call you SERVANTS...instead I have called you FRIENDS.” (John 15:15)

The servant relationship is one based on activity and doing, the friends relationship is based upon love and acceptance.

The supreme and unequalled relationship, of course, is the relationship with God that is ours through faith in Jesus Christ. The church needs to recover and give priority to that relationship:

“God has shown us how much He loves us - it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us... we were God’s enemies but He made us His friends through the death of His Son....now... we are God’s friends!!” (Romans 5:8, 10 GNB)

That relationship is supreme and unique. But friendship should be at the heart of the church’s whole life. From our friendship with God should flow real and deep friendships with each other and committed, caring and loving friendships with others for the sake of the Gospel.

OUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH EACH OTHER
Take our relationships with each other. Life is so busy and folk are under so much pressure - there’s so much to do that there’s little time simply to BE. There is already so much pressure upon people’s lives - life’s busy enough and it isn’t helpful when the church appears to be adding more pressure and making life busier still.

With so much to do in so many churches and (sadly) ever fewer to do it, those who are at the heart of the church’s life can soon find themselves rushed off their feet and exhausted - facing the dangers of spiritual burn-out.

The report recommends that congregations have a sabbatical. - take time to stop and think “What’s it all about”; time to reflect and pray; time to rediscover one another - to make friends with one another and with God.

“Set people free to meet as friends without an agenda. Offer spaces for retreat, reflection and prayer at home or a a retreat centre. Plan times for the leadership to step back from the routine and rediscover the grace of God”

Our friendships with one another matter. “This is my command” says Jesus, “Love one another.”

Our friendships with one another matter because God both commands us to love and invites us into a relationship of love. Our friendships with one another matter because, as Paul says, love “builds up” - love is a strengthening thing.

WE MUST REDISCOVER THE LOST ART OF CHRISTIAN FRIENDSHIP

Transforming the church into an open, accepting, loving community matters, because people today are searching and hungry for authentic community!!

“We must rediscover”, the CHURCH WITHOUT WALLS report says “the lost art of Christian friendship”

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS
The church that will attract and retain members in the future will not be the church with good programmes but the church with good relationships, offering a fellowship that open, real and deep with one another, with Christ and with God.

Now too often the structures of the church suffocate its life and strangle its freedom. They make it harder, not easier, for the stranger, the enquirer and the new member to access our faith and fellowship. The church needs to change - it needs create space for fellowship to grow.Too many churches do little to encourage relationships. In some churches the newcomer is ignored. In others the stranger feels unwelcome, cold-shouldered or frozen out.

I am using my language carefully - I did not say was unwelcome, cold shouldered or frozen out - a lot of it may be unconscious rather than deliberate - but that’s how it feels.

I have nothing but praise and feel proud (if that’s allowed) of the welcome given to the stranger in our own congregation. To read the visitors book is to discover how many feel accepted and warmly welcomed here. We are a FRIENDLY church.

Yet initial welcome must matched by warmth of acceptance and ease of integration - barriers must be dismantled, obstacles identified and removed and contemporary “ways in” to the friendship, faith and fellowship of Christ’s Church provided.

This is unlikely, in the future, to be through public acts of worship like our church services - though worship is central to the church’s life - it is more likely to be through small groups, whether the focus is on discovering the faith, growing in faith or putting faith into practice.

The report relates how a research project of the German Institute of Church Development conducted one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted of growing churches - more than a thousand in all - across the world. It discovered that the one factor which stood out among all the others was

“the multiplication of small groups.”

In contemporary culture there is a hunger for “belonging” which the Church of Jesus Christ can meet in Jesus’ name and, through meeting, introduce others to His way.

The successful church of the future will be the one that has the courage and vision and faith to give growing true and deep friendship - with God, with our fellow-members and with others - the priority it deserves.

MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE COMMUNITY
But one final word about being a FRIENDLY Church - and it links in with next week’s theme which is Church and Community.

Through the Church Life Team and the Church Welcome programme it launched a couple of years ago, our church has addressed the challenge of being a FRIENDLY Church. But hitherto we have defined a friendly church as “one that is welcoming to the stranger who enters its doors.”

The CHURCH WITHOUT WALLS Report puts a new spin on the idea of being a friendly church - relating the term not to members of the community coming into the church but to members of the faith going into the community:

“We recommend” the Report says “that the church recovers the lost art of Christian friendship. This lost art is NOT about being a friendly church, but being a church that makes friends beyond “those that salute you.””

making friends beyond those that salute you

Not the friendship that waits with open doors, but the friendship that reaches out in the power of grace and in Jesus’ name with outstretched arms to the communities in which the churches are set.

Jesus calls us to COME TO HIM and to GO FOR HIM - in the name of His Father’s love - to be a friendly church - not in here in the building, but out there, where our friendships, in the networks of association that make up our everyday life, can tell for Christ!

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