Church

If a Sabbatical does anything to a Pastor, it de-Churches him. In a life tied up with a local community of believers it is always possible for him to incrementally mistake the Church for the message or the organisation for the essence of faith. As people, in a sense rightly and in another sense catastrophically wrongly, expect their Leaders to be the guardians of policies, politics and programmes so the normal week becomes occupied by preoccupations.

The Church as people is sacrificially loved by God. The Church as a constituted charitable organisation always stands in danger of becoming not just irrelevant to God but the enemy of His kingdom.

Perhaps the low point of my Sabbatical came when I attended Evening Prayer in the late afternoon at one of Britain's ancient Cathedrals. It was a very pleasant spring Sunday afternoon. The Cathedral had had early and mid-morning Eucharists. This was the third and only other service of the day.

The verger showed me to a seat in the choir - I wasn't expecting many attendees and neither was he. Behind me sat the Canon. A Clergywoman stood at the back togging up. Another member of the Cathedral clergy sat opposite, talking to what I took to be a key member of the Chapter who spoke of resigning over ill health.

The verger took his seat. The Clergywoman walked forward and read through the service. and the other four of us sat, stood or knelt as appropriate.

Concerning which I reflected that the whole voluntary congregation at that service appeared to be Baptist Ministers - or more specifically, me! The other four probably had to be there by rota. Though I might have felt intimidated by being clerically outnumbered I needn't have worried as they gathered afterwards to complain about some upcoming meeting and did not speak to me at all.

Does such an experience make me doubt my faith? Despair of the Church? Absolutely not. It just reminds me that the Church is living stones not ancient stones. Which is somewhat the point of the conversation below;