Saturday 21 July 2012

Church - Rearranging the deckchairs - 2

One of the interesting discussions I found myself engaged in this week surrounded the issue of young people. One of the amazing successes was the image of St Paul's actually being filled with eighteen to thirty year olds such that they didn't all fit for a commissioning service! (Hallelujah or what?)

Again I have heard a number of people explaining how we need to get involved with the younger part of our society and evangelise them at source (i.e. schools, colleges, leisure and the like) but I have a question with this, and it is this:

If we catch fish how will we clean them and what do we think we will be bringing them back to?

It is superb that we are going to target particular people groups but that's not a new thing now is it?

It is excellent that we are coming up with multimedia, flashing lights, relevant music and conversation but again that's what the coffee bars of the fifties did and where are those from that generation?

Telling is easy and inculturation (I hear the mumbled words of Paulo Freire and notice, once again, the cover of 'Pedagogy' as it calls me to delve inside once more) essential. Understand the language of the people group and using their language translate the Gospel truths from where we own them to a place where they receive them.

And when we win them, what do we bring them back to? A place where cultures clash or co-exist uneasily (and perhaps by those who were there first, unwanted)? We need to change our language and become wonderfully different to those places and people around us. I think a quote (from 'Pedagogy) that I had on my wall when doing some postgrad stuff back in the nineties might suffice here:

“The multitude is always in the wrong.”

So come one people - let's be different and do it the way we used to in the first century and present the values, standards and attitudes that make us a wonderful minority and our faith a wondrous minority sport - and keep doing it until the pool is fished up and the nets need no more mending because the fisherman and the Carpenter are reunited around a table to feast and sing Hallels.

Praise to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who builds the Church, holds it in His hand and empowers it through His Spirit.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

quote... 'One of the amazing successes was the image of St Paul's actually being filled with eighteen to thirty year olds such that they didn't all fit for a commissioning service! (Hallelujah or what?)'

that happened just before christmas Too.. i think they called themselves 'OCCUPY'... But the O so wise Church, Took out a legal injunction to get them removed.. then realised it was a bad move, so retracted the attempt, played it quiet with the usual Main Stream Media help, sacked a couple of their own clergy for 'realling see'ing ' what the message and warnings were about in the Book.
then stood back while they let the police and banks, ;o) ... evict them from acting out their DEMOCRATIC AND HUMAN RIGHT TO PROTEST... OUTSIDE A CHURCH BUILT FOR THE PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE...
ON PUBLIC PROPERTY... Evicted by the Privately Owned CIty Of London.
with the silent approval of the Clergy.. and you all scratch your heads wondering why the church is crumbling? jesus would be ashamed
at what this franchise has become.
Hypocracy is my word for the day ;o)

Peace and Love be with you Vic, x
(verify 'VERYREE' lol divine isnt it? VERY REEL at least... lol

im not sure if i need your help or you need mine... ;o) lol. but i see you are a good person, and i see how you are bound and restricted like all good men ;o)

Vic Van Den Bergh said...

Actually - as much as I was upset at the OLSX debacle I have heard that many were hedonists, anti-Christian and of the mindset that doesn't quite excite me as much as the 18 - 30 year old who were set on the Gospel.

Like you I think the St Paul's situation was wrong for so many reasons and at so many levels but that is done and all we can do is, hopefully, learn from it.

thanks for the comments.