The remnant turns to rock to roll away the stone and flourish ......
We are always open to change, chance and challenge ......
Exploring new ways of being or becoming church ........
Give us a Tent and God's Tent is pitched and folk are invited ......
Give us a Forest (wood, spinney) and we build a Chapel and a Woodland Sunday School ........
Sometimes we call this new way's of being church, sometimes we call it repossessing the empty space that we used to know as Church.
It is a fact that over the Fifty years since my Ordination I seem to have lost at least three generations, that is three generations who might, once, have attended Christian Worship on a Sunday and who now don't. I try not to take it personally.
I always hope that we haven't lost them permanently and that their absence is temporary but it does beg the question of the value of the remnant in the Bible simply because it seems the remnant is what we have become.
There is some consolation to be had in the words of Isaiah, (46:3-4)
Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, You who have been borne by me from birth And have been carried from the womb; Even to your old age I will be the same, And even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; And I will bear you and deliver you ......
Meanwhile it seems there are churches full to the brim and overflowing, with young people queueing to join and take part in the services they hold, it might even be that Isaiah was right?
That it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea.
But not so far!
So far it seems that Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath and the Islands remain unmoved.
Or maybe they join new churches for the music? Christian Rock Bands flourish and Christian Rock music is designed like rock music for dancing so like David maybe we should dance before the Lord a bit more often? After all if God is a rock, a solid foundation then S/he is an immovable, unshakable.faithful, fortress? Or is that a different kind of rock?
Dr Peter Brierley is a church statistician who in 2010 identified 340 Christian Denominations in the UK representing something like 11% of the population down from 33% in 1900.
There is some offsetting of the decline in mainstream church attendance by an increase in Free churches, Pentecostal Churches and New Churches but the overall decline continues with little evidence that younger churches and congregations are in fact attracting the lost generations.
I remain sceptical of the claims of some independent churches which sound more like lines from a Graham Kendrick hymn than sober fact reflecting the actual numbers involved there's not too much evidence of multitudes or even 4/5,000's gathering for loaves and fishes even when equipped with the Wetherspoon's app.
In fact in England the 5.4 million churchgoers identified in in 2013 is expected to decline to 2.53 million within the next five years roughly 4.3% of the population.
All the major denominations will be affected by this process of attrition with only Pentecostal, Evangelical and Charismatic churches appearing to resist the trend.
Clergy are getting older, congregations are declining with an overall decrease measured at 65% meaning that there is still residual growth being reported but with little supporting evidence.
The majority of people will define themselves in a phrase that has become a routine response on social dating sites: Spiritual but not religious.
It is also true that as the former Bishop of London once claimed in a sermon:
The problem today is not that people don't believe, it is that they will believe anything.
Nevertheless Christianity has a massive world wide significance. Globally a remnant we might be, but across the world the size of the remnant is 2.3 Billion so we will be around for some time yet, the challenge is linking the 2.3 Billion with the majority who find the challenges of main stream Christianity easy to resist.
Despite the 30,000 searches made about Christianity each month on Google the number of searches made locally in the parish church or by knocking on a Vicarage door or by dropping in to hear a Sermon or share the Eucharistic experience remain in the significantly low two's and three's each month, even in a Cathedral Close.
Social media remains a key tool in 2018 there were 2.46 Billion social media users a figure that is rising exponentially so the remnant can so position itself in relation to the light that it can cast a much larger shadow.
Proclamation, challenge, advertising: sharing a thought for the day, publishing a sermon that has started a debate, a mission statement, a family film night, a pot luck supper or a family bbq or even the time of gathering for worship.
So we hope that Isaiah has it right, if we continue to talk the talk, if we continue to walk the walk then the parade may yet become a procession, a pilgrimage upon which we will be joined with others taking comfort from the words of Isaiah:
I am going to save My people from the land of the east and from the land of the west; and I will bring them back and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God in truth and righteousness.
Exploring new ways of being or becoming church ........
Give us a Tent and God's Tent is pitched and folk are invited ......
Give us a Forest (wood, spinney) and we build a Chapel and a Woodland Sunday School ........
Sometimes we call this new way's of being church, sometimes we call it repossessing the empty space that we used to know as Church.
It is a fact that over the Fifty years since my Ordination I seem to have lost at least three generations, that is three generations who might, once, have attended Christian Worship on a Sunday and who now don't. I try not to take it personally.
I always hope that we haven't lost them permanently and that their absence is temporary but it does beg the question of the value of the remnant in the Bible simply because it seems the remnant is what we have become.
There is some consolation to be had in the words of Isaiah, (46:3-4)
Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, You who have been borne by me from birth And have been carried from the womb; Even to your old age I will be the same, And even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; And I will bear you and deliver you ......
Meanwhile it seems there are churches full to the brim and overflowing, with young people queueing to join and take part in the services they hold, it might even be that Isaiah was right?
That it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea.
But not so far!
So far it seems that Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath and the Islands remain unmoved.
Or maybe they join new churches for the music? Christian Rock Bands flourish and Christian Rock music is designed like rock music for dancing so like David maybe we should dance before the Lord a bit more often? After all if God is a rock, a solid foundation then S/he is an immovable, unshakable.faithful, fortress? Or is that a different kind of rock?
Dr Peter Brierley is a church statistician who in 2010 identified 340 Christian Denominations in the UK representing something like 11% of the population down from 33% in 1900.
There is some offsetting of the decline in mainstream church attendance by an increase in Free churches, Pentecostal Churches and New Churches but the overall decline continues with little evidence that younger churches and congregations are in fact attracting the lost generations.
I remain sceptical of the claims of some independent churches which sound more like lines from a Graham Kendrick hymn than sober fact reflecting the actual numbers involved there's not too much evidence of multitudes or even 4/5,000's gathering for loaves and fishes even when equipped with the Wetherspoon's app.
In fact in England the 5.4 million churchgoers identified in in 2013 is expected to decline to 2.53 million within the next five years roughly 4.3% of the population.
All the major denominations will be affected by this process of attrition with only Pentecostal, Evangelical and Charismatic churches appearing to resist the trend.
Clergy are getting older, congregations are declining with an overall decrease measured at 65% meaning that there is still residual growth being reported but with little supporting evidence.
The majority of people will define themselves in a phrase that has become a routine response on social dating sites: Spiritual but not religious.
It is also true that as the former Bishop of London once claimed in a sermon:
The problem today is not that people don't believe, it is that they will believe anything.
Nevertheless Christianity has a massive world wide significance. Globally a remnant we might be, but across the world the size of the remnant is 2.3 Billion so we will be around for some time yet, the challenge is linking the 2.3 Billion with the majority who find the challenges of main stream Christianity easy to resist.
Despite the 30,000 searches made about Christianity each month on Google the number of searches made locally in the parish church or by knocking on a Vicarage door or by dropping in to hear a Sermon or share the Eucharistic experience remain in the significantly low two's and three's each month, even in a Cathedral Close.
Social media remains a key tool in 2018 there were 2.46 Billion social media users a figure that is rising exponentially so the remnant can so position itself in relation to the light that it can cast a much larger shadow.
Proclamation, challenge, advertising: sharing a thought for the day, publishing a sermon that has started a debate, a mission statement, a family film night, a pot luck supper or a family bbq or even the time of gathering for worship.
So we hope that Isaiah has it right, if we continue to talk the talk, if we continue to walk the walk then the parade may yet become a procession, a pilgrimage upon which we will be joined with others taking comfort from the words of Isaiah:
I am going to save My people from the land of the east and from the land of the west; and I will bring them back and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God in truth and righteousness.
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