We can't go on meeting like this!

In these days when ordained ministers are getting thinner on the ground, the churches of all denominations are encouraging congregations more and more to 'do it themselves'. It is presented in idealistic terms as 'unlocking the hidden talents' of the congregation, or 'whole body worship'. The reality is usually less exciting. Members of the congregation are coerced into taking a reading or a prayer, or getting together in a group to plan a service. Individuals may be urged to get some training and become lay preachers. But, let's face it, many people need a lot of persuading to take part in servives, and even if they consent they do it very nervously, convinced that they can't do it like a 'proper' minister.

What's the answer? To let churches close if they haven't got a trained, ordained minister? To leave them to book anybody, no matter how ignorant or eccentric, who thinks they can preach? This is a problem in some of the smaller Nonconformist chapels, where the question of who leads worship is not regulated by the wider church.

But hang on a minute: what is it we are doing? Why is there this mindset that assumes that in order to worship God we have to 'have a service', and in order to have a service we need someone to 'take' it? It's a mindset that has been nurtured in the churches for generations: the Quakers, and perhaps to some extent the charismatics, are the only ones who have escaped it.

The problem is that, in encouraging lay participation, we are assuming that lay people will learn to do the sort of things ministers do: the ministers are their role model. To lead worship, you have to 'know how' to pray the way ministers do, and preach a sermon the way ministers do. But surely if our faith is real to us we will express it in our way, not someone else's. Somehow we have to break down this clergy-centred mindset and begin to see worship simply as believers, and seekers as well, getting together to celebrate, explore and reinforce their faith and to find the ways in which they can practise it in the world. This could mean forgetting about 'Orders of Service', dispensing with preachers - and with organists for that matter - and just meeting. The clergy must learn that they have their own place, and that lay people have their place alongside them as lay people, not as second-class clergy.

Would it Make any Difference?

As I was shaking hands with people in the vestibule after taking a service recently, an elderly man picked up on something I had said in the sermon and expressed his conviction that quite soon now the scientists would discover that there is definitely a God. As it wasn’t quite the right time to start a deep discussion about theories of science and religion, and I didn’t want to appear dismissive of a thought that was evidently important to him, I simply smiled in a non-committal sort of way.


I may be wrong, but I don’t personally think such a discovery will ever be made. To explain why would need a lot more time and a deep theological discussion. My feeling is that faith and science are two different ways of looking at the same world. There are hints of a connection between them, but their criteria of “evidence” and “proof” are different. Faith is a way of looking at everything, including science, but it can never expect to be proved by science.

What disturbed me more was what the man said next: “They’ll be flocking into the chapels then!” Somehow that seemed even m ore unimaginable than his first statement! Even if the existence of God became an absolute certainty, I cannot believe that thousands of people would suddenly want to come and fill the pews of our Victorian churches and chapels to sing hymns and listen to someone preaching to them from a pulpit. Again, I may be wrong . . .

Even without the “proof” there are already signs of a revival of spirituality. People are eager to talk about the meaning of life and the universe. They meet together to practise meditation, alternative healing, life coaching, personal development and so on, and to discuss religion and issues of peace and justice – all looking for something more than conventional values, materialism and consumer culture. But, apart from some Christian fundamentalists, they are not flocking to church.

For me, as a Christian minister now fairly long in the tooth and still stuck in traditional ways to some extent, this is a disturbing thought. What is it about our way of “doing church” that makes it irrelevant to the real spiritual quest going on today? And why do I think it would still be irrelevant to most people even if they had absolute proof that there is a God?

The Eucharist as an Act of Defiance

A recent experience of an Easter breakfast that included Communion prompted me to think about the implications of Christian worship.

When the early Christians said 'Jesus is Lord' and called him 'King of kings' and 'Son of God' they were making a political statement. Those were titles that belonged to the Roman Emperor. It wasn't just pious religious language, it was an act of defiance: Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord, King and Son of God. Of course, they didn't take up arms against the Empire. Instead, they undermined the Empire and its values by living according to the kingdom values of Jesus.

We today live under an empire that is no less powerful and no less cruel than that of the Romans. It is not headed by one particular person, but it has its firm laws that seem impossible to resist. It is the empire of global capitalism. Whenever we try to change anything, we are told that we can't get away from 'the economy' or 'the political realities'. Global capitalism tells us what reality is, no matter what we think the will of God is. And it is a cruel empire. It kills millions of people by malnutrition; it destroys communities; it robs farmers of their land; it locks people up in dangerous, unhealthy factories; it cripples people with debt; it robs children of the chance to grow into the human beings they can be; it inflicts stress and mental illness on the rich and the poor; and it destroys the planet itself.

When we say 'Jesus is Lord' today, it doesn't seem to make any difference. We say it in a context of religion, and it seems quite harmless. Perhaps part of our problem is that there is no one person against whom this statement can be directed. It is the big companies we all have a stake in, the media that shape our thinking, the democratic process that is so often enslaved to superficiality and selfishness - in fact, it is the system as a whole that is the cruel, dictatorial empire, not one ruler.

Which brings me back to the Communion. Not just in our ascriptions of praise to Jesus, but in this central act of the Church, if we take it seriously, we are defying the worldwide empire. It is 'Eucharist', i.e., thanksgiving, enjoying God's gifts not as something we have earned but as free gifts for all to enjoy. It is 'Communion', i.e., sharing, in a world where individual greed, competition and profit-making are the ruling principles. We are telling the world: sharing is what life in God's world is really about.

Of course, to do this we have to make it real. Perhaps we can start by making the Communion a real meal. Why are church suppers and 'bring and share' events never connected with the Eucharist? We can also make it real by making our church fellowship fully inclusive. Jesus sat down and ate with all manner of people. What a powerful witness it would be if we did the same. The tragedy is that the Eucharist has become the very place where we practise the most discrimination: we argue about who is entitled to receive Communion!! Let those of us who are in churches that practise a more open communion make it more open still, a feast free for all, a foretaste of the kingdom of God on earth, a liberated zone where differences of class, culture and wealth have no place, where the empire of the world is undermined.