Where should church be?
16/12/08 | Posted by ellen
This week the Arch Bishop of Canterbury visited a Cardiff Pub - not unusual perhaps, after all why shouldn't the head of the Church of England enjoy a pint like the rest of us - but, he wasn't there just for the beer, he had been asked by the pub church Solace at Edwards on St Mary Street, Cardiff to answer the question: “Can God mend broken Britain?”
The Temple Bar - is this the best place for church?It was reported in the South Wales Echo that The Archbishop said his answer to the question was that, yes, God can mend broken Britain “but the way he does it is through us”.
“God doesn’t step down out of the sky, shooting thunderbolts out of his fingers. He comes down at a human level and says ‘You are going to do this, I trust you’.
“That’s how God mends – through you and me.”
So, where if we are going to mend broken Britain where should the church be -
In the Pub? In the street talking to our neighbours? At the football ground? In the supermarket?
And where on earth do we start?
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We have to come out of our churches to reach people,not wait for them to come to us. We need to meet them “where they are” just as Jesus did ,for example when He spoke to the woman at the well. He didn’t invite them to come along to a meeting.
Just as society changes the church has to adapt especially in the current climate .
The Church building and the services that take place are only a minute part of God’s Kingdom - where we support one another and gain confidence in our faith as we praise him together and learn how to respond to the world. The rest of the time we need to be putting that into practise out in the world bringing hope, love and making a difference. We need to wake up to our responsibities and stop being so scared of what we think people think of us. We might just be suprised at how God will use us.
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Last comment: 03/07 at 05:51 am
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I’ve been a Christian since the early 1980’s, and I have always thought of us (and what we believe) as the exception to the rule. Getting non-Christians to engage with the idea of ‘faith’ is a matter of guerilla warfare. We have to go into their territory as there is so little reason for them to come into ours (the established church)...until, that is, they are converted.
So I think the Archbishop is absolutely right to promote the Fresh Expression concept: ‘church’ should be anywhere it is needed. “Where on Earth do we start?” - wherever we, as individuals, find God has placed us.