‘Have you found a church yet?’ It’s a question I get asked a lot by church people I meet from time to time, either from my old parishes or elsewhere locally. Well, no. That probably has something to do with the fact that we are not looking for a congregation to join, having been strongly advised against settling on one in the first 6 months- a year. Yet I haven’t been skulking at home, nor have I become a ‘blue domer’ (Look it up!) , even though I have joined ‘Walking Church’ on a few occasions. A previous post ‘The church in the cinema’ describes a visit to the local charismatic church to which we have returned on several occasions. My wife and I have also both been to local Anglican churches, for whose faithful ministry, from 8 am to Christmas Midnight we are grateful.
Yet I in particular have had misgivings about my experience. Here , I am not talking the quality of the liturgy and the preaching. It must be trying to have a Parish Priest of 36 years’ experience in the congregation, saying to himself ‘why is he/she doing that/ including that/ missing that out? I wouldn’t do it that way.’ I’m not really speaking about the clergy or church leaders at all. I’m talking about the warmth of the welcome from the people. I have, to say the least, been underwhelmed by the welcome I’ve received as a stranger in the congregation. There may, of course, be good reasons for this. Some may say, ‘that’s Rev Hugh Wright , he’s just dropping in, seems to know his way about etc, we needn’t concern ourselves with him.’ Occasionally people greet me by name. Yet most do not and frankly don’t seem that interested. With the exception of ‘The Peace’ where everyone is instructed to greet their neighbour, I have received little by way of greeting or questioning as I have entered or left the pews, or been invited to stay for coffee afterwards (Where it is served at all, which is by no means universal). Where I was urged to stay for coffee and given the priority service customarily reserved for strangers, I found this clearly resented by one person in the queue. The most instructive thing has been to watch people’s eyes. Generally, before or after worship, they’re scanning the distant view, lighting up when they see friends and fellow congregants, rather than the stranger who has sidled into the pew next to them. The effect is somewhat cold.
This was quite a salutary experience, a chance maybe to see church through the eyes of many who enter our buildings. Now in one sense I am not surprised. I have spent my entire ministry encouraging people to welcome newcomers and occasionally taking congregations to task on the matter when they don’t. I’d like to think that most newcomers to all my churches would have been warmly welcomed and asked at least one question about themselves, though I can’t be sure about that. Yet I am sad. Bishop Michael Marshall once said, ‘after the worship, comes the service’, which is a bit clever-clogs, but what he’s saying is this. ‘What you do and whom you speak to after the worship is as much a service to God as what you do during it.’ That message has yet to be learned in many quarters, it would seem.
Some of my older readers may remember a song from the 60s by the Mamas and the Papas, called ‘California Dreamin’ , perfect for this time of year.
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey,
I’ve been for a walk
On a winter’s day.
I’d be safe and warm
If I was in LA
California dreamin’
On such a winter’s day.
This is a ‘mood song’ par excellence. As Gordon Mursell comments (Praying in Exile 2005 p27) ‘The song catches the mood prevailing among young Americans in the 1960s, of rootlessness and nostalgia.’ For 70 somethings throughout the Western World it conjures up a picture of a sun drenched promised land of love and music dreamed of in their youth from places far away and without the access to jet travel enjoyed by today’s generation. Yet how many, I wonder, think about the second verse?’
Stopped into a church
I passed along the way.
Well, I got down on my knees
And I pretend to pray.
You know the preacher likes the cold:
He knows I’m gonna stay:
‘You know the preacher likes the cold.’ This was the experience of many young people in the 60s and many others today, which is a great pity, for a church should be a place of warmth. Many churches up and down the country today are opening their doors as ‘warm spaces’ to the community, both physically, in these days of fuel and food poverty, and emotionally. In one of my last churches this became very popular (and still is I’m told) well into the summer when you might expect attendance to drop off. It became clear that the greatest warmth sought after by our visitors was not physical but the warmth of human companionship and welcome. Through that, we prayed that people might stay and even feel their hearts ‘strangely warmed’ by God’s touch, as did the young John Wesley.
For, although the writer of ‘California Dreamin’ might have stayed in his cold church, as will I despite these experiences, many of his and my contemporaries did not and have continued since to drift away. Some of them found a warmth in music that they never found in church. Recently, having endured a rather cold experience in church on a Sunday morning I attended the Ventnor Guitar Club Open Mic in the evening, where some of us (mainly over 60s) gathered to perform the songs we’d been practising over the last month and hear solo spots by individuals. We remembered our friend W (see last post) who had died; we cheered when one of our members of 11 years standing sang on his own for the first time; we admired the voice of a newcomer to our ranks, and sang along to well known songs. Though the weather was awful, the atmosphere inside was warm and welcoming. I couldn’t help reflecting on the contrast with the morning. Why couldn’t church be like that?
A church should be a portal, an entry point into God, where the human heart meets the heart of God and people find a warmth of welcome that mirrors the welcome offered to all by the Almighty. I pray that this would become a reality.
Hugh's Views 