Church Without Walls IV
CHURCH AND COMMUNITY
Sermon preached at Barclay Church, Edinburgh by Rev D. Graham Leitch
28 April 2002

Our subject this morning, as we continue to reflect upon the challenges presented in the CHURCH WITHOUT WALLS report, is CHURCH AND COMMUNITY. The issue of the relationship of God’s people to the world God so loved that He gave his only Son for, has always been important.

What IS the relationship of the church to society, of Christians to the world?

WITHDRAWAL AND INVOLVEMENT
In the earliest centuries of Christianity - really from the 3rd century onwards - a corrupted form of Christianity developed called asceticism. Its followers withdrew from society to live - at first abandoning the cities to live in rural locations. But then they went further in their attempts to avoid the cares, temptations and business of the world. They took to living in caves or rudely built huts in deserts and forests, on mountains or in other remote areas, in secluded isolation.

There they lived, separated from human company and divorced from others and contemporary society, in splendid isolation, cutting themselves off from all polluting contact with the world.

Two texts, wrenched from their contexts, provided a pretext for their WITHDRAWAL from society:

“come out from among them and be ye separate” and “ye are not of the world.”
(2 Cor 6:17; John 17:16 AV)

It is not to withdrawal but to involvement that the Christian is called. Jesus has commanded us to GO! “Go into all the world” Jesus still says, “and make disciples...” While He lived on earth, Jesus described Himself as “the Light of the World” but now He is gone (except in His people) and has told us that WE are to be its light:

“You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14 NIV) Jesus tells us.

What is it Jesus is telling us to do? We are to let the light of our good deeds“shine in the presence of others” so that the darknesses of doubt and ignorance and evil are banished and the way to God lit up.

“You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13 NIV) Jesus famously declared. As Christians we are not to opt out but to leave our stamp upon the world’s life!

This means we are to preserve its goodness. In the ancient world, without any fridges or freezers, salt’s main use was as a preservative. Christians are called to be IN the community preserving what is good and healthy and preventing moral and spiritual decay. Salt in its salt-cellar is not yet doing its job as it is meant to!

As Christians we are not to opt out but to leave our stamp upon the world’s life.

It also means we are to add flavour or spice to life, not make it duller - salt, used as a condiment, is a flavour-enhancer! When life is bitter we are to make life taste better!

Today we are thinking about CHRISTIANS AND SOCIETY and CHURCH AND COMMUNITY and the first point, which I hope is beyond question, is that it is not to WITHDRAWAL but to INVOLVEMENT that the Christian, individual believers - and “Christians-in-community” - the Church, is called.

THE EXAMPLE OF JESUS
Jesus has left us His example and commands us to follow in His steps - to relate to the world not in a religious way but in HIS way. As a contemporary author puts it:

“The Son of God did not stay in the safe immunity of heaven. He emptied himself of His glory and humbled himself to serve. He became little weak and vulnerable. He entered into our pain, our alienation and temptations. He not only proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom of God but demonstrated its arrival by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, forgiving the sinful, befriending the drop out and raising the dead. He had not come to BE served , He said, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom price for the release of others. So He allowed himself to become the victim of gross injustice in the courts, and as they crucified him he prayed for his enemies. Then, in the awful God forsaken darkness, he bore our sins in his own innocent person.”
John Stott “New issues facing Christians today” p.26

“Should not this vision” says Stott, “affect our understanding of His commission “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you...””

As Jesus entered our fallen world so God is calling us to enter into the thought worlds and the real world (the fallen worlds - the weak and broken worlds of others) to bring His power and love and Gospel there!!

And we need to do this in ways that are culturally appropriate and contemporary, in ways that resonate with 21st century people and work, in ways that ring true, that speak and show God’s truth in our 21st century world.

And every church needs to find the best and most effective ways to do this in its locality.

THE PRESENT PARISH SYSTEM UNWORKABLE
Now, when the present Church of Scotland was formed in 1929 it put all its eggs in one basket. It invested all its resources in a 19th Century mission model of ONE minister, in ONE building, in ONE parish. This pattern was universal then and it is still the norm today. Each church has its parish and each parish has its church. Each congregation has its minister and each minister his congregation.

In rural areas the parish system may still have meaning, but in the cities at the beginning of the 21st century this inherited structure is artificial and is becoming increasingly unhelpful. It is artificial because, as the report memorably puts it and I’ve already said:

“today everyone lives in a parish but nobody lives in a parish”

People live out their lives in varied networks of friendship associated with their families, work and leisure pursuits, not in the limited geographical area of a single parish area.

What was once the church’s pride is now in danger of becoming its undoing.

The present structure is artificial because in the cities the boundaries of parishes are sometimes anomalous and not infrequently nonsensical. In Tollcross - our own parish - for example, the boundaries of three different parishes converge at its centre. While in other city locations trunk roads or railway lines split the ancient parishes cutting people off from their parish church.

And it’s artificial because congregations are made up of members from many parishes while often (as is the case in our own congregation) many more people live outside the parish boundaries than within them. What was once the church’s pride is now in danger of becoming its undoing.

BUILDING FROM THE GROUND UP
If the church is to relate to contemporary society effectively it may need to abandon its present parish structure and start to build again from the ground up. A forecast shortage of 300 ministers, resulting in a quarter of the Church of Scotland’s parishes being without a minister in 5 years time is certain, in any case, to make the parish system, as presently known, unworkable in large tracts of Scotland.

“Is is the end of business as usual for the churches.”

So what ARE we to do? What SHOULD we do?

“The future lies” the report says “in sharing partnerships with neighbouring congregations of various traditions” and in what it calls “tapping in to the sector specialisms designed to connect with people in their work, leisure or crisis moments....”

We need to see an end to competitive congregationalism WITH ITS PRIDE AND PETTY JEALOUSIES

We need to see an end to competitive congregationalism with its pride and petty jealousies - often as much the fault of insecure ministers as anything else - and we need to see the growth of partnerships and co-operation with greater flexibility, courage and vision - not running an outmoded parish system but tapping in to where people are, engaging in innovative projects of evangelism and Christian care.

But HOW will it happen?

ECUMENISM - A WAY FORWARD?
It is unlikely to be result of the imposition or adoption of new structures or formal ecumenical co-operation. There is a telling quote from John Tiller’s book “The Gospel Community” cited in the Report:

“The Gospel community relates to church structures as a new building to the scaffolding which surrounds it. Reforming the structures is like reorganising the scaffolding: it may be necessary but it does not, in itself, alter the building. Creating alternative new structures is like replacing the scaffolding; it may be useful, but then it may be a waste of time..”

No! The growth of partnership and co-operation is unlikely to be result of the imposition or adoption of new structures or formal ecumenical co-operation which, over the past 50 years, has foundered on the complexities of combining different ecclesiastical traditions. It is much more likely to be the outcome of Christians in different traditions recognising one another as true brothers and sisters in Christ who, trusting Him, have the courage to trust one another and to work together in Christ and for Christ in the Scotland of tomorrow.

That this kind of change is necessary is underlined by the changes which have taken place since 1929 when all the main Presbyterian Church in Scotland joined to create the present Church of Scotland.

Ours is a new Scotland and a different Scotland.

A NEW SITUATION
A number of quotes from the report highlight the changes which have taken place in the relationship of the Church of Scotland to Scotland’s people:

“The Church has moved from being the centre of the community through a time of
being ignored and marginalised.....”

People here can remember when the church was at the centre for most people - it wasn’t just the centre for our religious life and spiritual exercises, the Church Soirees and similar activities made the church the centre of our social life too.

We may nostalgically look back to “good times” past, but these days are gone now. Television first, and then the burgeoning entertainment and leisure industries have hammered the last nail in the coffin of that kind of life and it can never be retrieved!!

“The social basis of the church has been eroded as the church has become disconnected from local community through social fragmentation and congregational isolation...”

Once the parish church was important socially as well as religiously for most people, but now it is irrelevant to many, to most under 50, and to the vast majority of those who are under 30!

Again, as the Report says:

“The cultural appropriateness of much church life is sadly out of tune with the times...”

WHAT, THEN, IS THE WAY FORWARD?!

CHURCH AND COMMUNITY THEN AND NOW
There is food for thought in exploring some of the ways the church has been present in communities in history.

The New Testament seems like a good place to begin. How different was the earliest Christians idea of the Church - the New Testament Church had NO buildings!! Moreover the most powerful and vigorous advance of Christianity, which has perhaps never since been equalled, took place in the first two centuries of Christianity - when Christianity had NO buildings!!

It is clear, then that, buildings, bricks and mortar, are NOT essential to Christian worship or Christian discipleship. The Church of Jesus Christ is made up of LIVING STONES.

The CHURCH WITHOUT WALLS report has declared that it is the opinion of the General Trustees (who hold the title to most of the Church’s properties) that the Church of Scotland “needs only 1700 of its current 2,500 buildings”

I know where they’re coming from and what they mean but, at a different level, they are wrong - because at the most fundamental level of all the church doesn’t need ANY of its buildings!!

A CRITIQUE OF BUILDINGS
In “New wine, new Wineskins” published about 30 years ago now, Howard Snyder presents a devastating critique of what he calls our “edifice complex”:

“First, church buildings are a witness to our immobility. Christians are to be a mobile people... The Gospel says “GO!” but our church buildings say “Stay”... The Gospel says ‘Seek the lost” but our churches say, ‘Let the lost seek the church...

Second, church buildings are a witness to our inflexibility... the Sunday service allows the direct participation of only a few...dictated by the sanctuary layout. Communication will be one way - dictated by the architecture and the PA system...

Third, church buildings are a witness to our lack of fellowship. Church building may be worshipful places but they are not friendly places.. they are not made for fellowship. A stranger may attend a Christian church for weeks and never encounter the warm winsome and loving fellowship that draws a person to Christ...

Fourth, church buildings are a witness to our pride... if building are to be built let them speak of God, not of middle-class bourgeois values.

Do our buildings help or hinder us in advancing the Gospel, in carrying out Gospel work?

CHURCH IN COMMUNITY V. CHURCH AND COMMUNITY
In the first centuries the Christian communities had NO buildings - WORSHIP and LIFE were one - the sacred and the secular belonged together. Life wasn't compartmentalised.

Then churches were built - and Christians gathered for worship from the community to be fed taught and built up in faith and were then sent back into the the community. Gathering to Christ was complemented by being sent for Christ....

In the first two centuries there is the CHURCH IN COMMUNITY. But once churches are erected there is THE CHURCH and THE COMMUNITY.

But then, turning to the 19th Century Scottish Church scene, something else happens. Up until then there are churches and there are communities - there is the parish and there is the church. But then, and it’s in the 19th century that this happens, there is the birth of church organisations and, to accommodate them, the arrival of CHURCH HALLS.

This may seem an innocent enough development - natural and common sense. But the erection of church halls, attached to parish churches, provided an alternative location for Christian to live out their Christian lives......to create, develop and sustain their own “community within the community!!”

Until the nineteenth century there was only ONE place for Christians to practice their discipleship - in the community, amongst the people, in the parish. But our church halls provided the opportunity for Christians to withdraw and develop their own self-contained religious and social life!

It was this fact that led me as a young minister, not long after my arrival as Minister of Barclay Church in the 1980’s, to suggest that it would perhaps be better if all our church organisations stopped meeting in the church halls and starting meeting in the community and community organisation were given priority over church organisations in the use of our halls

I don’t think the Elders and Office Bearers were ready for that idea then, but it isn't as daft as it sounds and its day may yet come!!

WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD?

There is the need to know the community and to understand how the people in the community live and how the people in the community think.

In relation to the first - understanding the people in the community and the community itself - the Report urges congregations to undertake regular community reviews and to be familiar with the age and needs of the people, the nature of the problems and the opportunities, the kinds of networks, communities and activities which exist locally.

But the issue is not just knowing how people LIVE today, it’s about understanding how people THINK today.

Today the question people ask is not “Is it true?” but “Does it work?” This has huge implications for the way we go about mission..... People don't want us to prove that the Gospel is true - they want us to show them that it works -
- that it works globally as well as personally
- that it works publicly as well as privately.

“By their fruits you will know them.”

It is when we demonstrate the relevance and the reality of faith that folk will begin to sit up and take notice.... The Gospel is less likely to embraced where it is merely heard - it is more likely to be embraced where it is also seen. The faith that will persuade unbelievers and make them Christians tomorrow will be a faith that is VISIBLE as well as AUDIBLE.

At the personal level this means integrity - it means Christians matching their words with actions - not just saying they care but proving it... being known for probity, trustworthiness, compassion. There is a hunger today for what is authentic not artificial, for what is real - including a faith that is real and a God who is real.

At the local level it will mean being committed to the particular communities in which God has set us....

“Every area of Scotland has people groups that are untouched by the church. They may be an age group that we never see around our church. They may be a social group who feel unwelcome. They may be those who find their experience of belonging and transcendence in other kinds of clubs - night clubs or football clubs.

“In the spirit of Jesus” the report says “we challenge each congregation to identify its “no go” area and go there....”

We need a different mindset with different priorities. At the moment 90% of the church’s energy and resources are invested in it’s own. It is past time for this to change!!

During its research the Commission heard from one community worker who said that she gave 70% of her time to the community and 30% of her time to the Church... “If every congregation in the land budgeted 70% of its time and efforts (and I would add money) in being IN and FOR the community, the church would begin to find her role again...”

We need a different mindset with different priorities.

At the personal level this means integrity. At the local level it means commitment to the people in the community, to the poorest in the community and to the needs of the whole community.

And at a national and international level it means Christianity with a compassionate, practical, campaigning and committed face in relation to the world’s poor, the world’s exploited, the world’s injustice and the world’s resources.

It is time for words and talk to be matched with united compassion and committed action “so that the world may believe.”

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