Christianity from the 43 bus: 3. Dress Smart

Continuing a Christian journey on London's no 43 bus! (for others in the series click on the 43 bus tab)

Into Muswell Hill the 43 bus passes the Church which I work in, but we'll ignore that and look at the next church building it passes.

For sure it looks like a church building, albeit one whose flint-clad walls might more appropriately belong in a Scottish seaside town.  This is, however, not entirely fanciful as it was built to be Muswell Hill Presbyterian Church, representing Scotland's major ecclesiastical form.

It is a restaurant (and its Sunday School rooms now apartments).  This indignity must be put in the context that apparently, for several earlier years before my time here, it was a Harngey Council storage area.  Or to put it another way, a junk yard.

In between it was a pub-restaurant and for a while we held midweek Bible studies in one corner of it.  This felt like a nice resumption of its original purpose.  I find closed churches a constant irritant so you can imagine how often this one negatively impacts me!

In its current iteration it has a fascinating warning on its entrance:

We kindly ask all our guests to honour a smart casual dress code or dress to impress

Mmm.  In fairness, the Presbyterian door steward of former years likely held a similar view or perhaps more severe.  Nevertheless I have yet to see a church that places such a notice on its doors (well, head coverings for women) - and I hope I never will.  The Gospel is for everyone.

Christianity from the 43 bus: 2. St Peter-le-Poer

This is the second blog on our journey on the 43 bus from Friern Barnet to London Bridge.

The automated voice intones that we are approaching St. Peter's Church.

This is surprisingly prophetic for a TFL recorded voice, because until very recently this was, in fact, St Peter-le-poer Church (which is harder to say). Now the former high church with its Solemn Mass has merged with Grace Church, its evangelical Fresh Expressions tenant, so it has adopted the simpler new name that uncannily TFL had prophesied on the adjoining bus stop.

If, unwarily, you were to assume that a Parish Church is an unchanging pivot in a fast-changing landscape the above paragraph is disarming.  But not as disarming as this church's actual story.

Granted the stone is hard to read, but it tells the story of a City of London Church which was demolished early in the 20th Century.  You can read about it clicking here.

Poer has very many meanings in various languages, some best not dwelt upon.  But in this case it simply is a variant of 'poor'.  This could refer to monks in poverty vows or to the nearby slums.  If the latter, the name ended as ironic for the City parish became fabulously wealthy, today housing office spaces that would rival the cost of almost anywhere on the planet.

And that is not all.  The original church from towards a thousand years ago was itself rebuilt and, then rebuilt again and resited to what is now Old Broad Street.

All of which makes me think, as the 43 bus heads down toward Moorgate (barely a stone's throw from Old Broad Street) that few if any passengers realise that the church they are passing has already done the same journey the other way!

Induction

So many people kindly travelled to my Induction today.  Many, many thanks to them and those kind enough to write their greetings and promise their prayers.  Here's the statement I read:

 

My calling to Christian ministry in its dedicated full-time form came when I was working for NatWest Bank.  I was at the Keswick Convention in the Lake District, a large annual gathering of people seeking to know God better.  Following that clear sense of call the first role I enquired about was in administration for a medical facility in Bangladesh.  I was told it would be a good idea to go to a Christian training college first. 

So I left my home in North London and went to BTI in Glasgow, the furthest I’d ever travelled up to then! I wondered what far-flung place or places in the world my commitment to follow Jesus might take me.  I wonder where then I’d have guessed I’d be called to in 2014?  To what obscure desert, mountain range, city ghetto or jungle valley?

What I wouldn’t have expected was to be just 2¾ miles away from my then home in Finchley and be here in Muswell Hill.  Not only that, but I have been called to Pastor a Church that I occasionally attended when I lived up the road.  In the event, I used to travel twice as far as this from Finchley commuting each day to work in Central London.  It is, I suppose, a reminder that the adventure of Christian service is not to see the world but to change the part of it the Lord calls us to serve in. 

When the opportunity arose to explore a call to this Church I was excited by the opportunity to work for God in our capital city.  Through our multi-national congregation and the church’s long history of support for missions we will yet touch many parts of the earth in the years ahead even though we don’t visit them.

At the same time our Church offers the privilege of ministry in a real local community.  In our years of local church ministry Diane and I have enjoyed immersing ourselves in genuine community.  We have felt very kindly welcomed to Muswell Hill and we look forward to doing good here in the name of Jesus Christ bringing comfort and challenge in the Good News of the Gospel.

I am especially grateful to be called to Pastor a Church which was founded, to quote its original Trust, holding ‘the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Sole Authority of the Holy Scriptures and that interpretation of them usually called Evangelical’.  These are the roots from which, by the grace of God, we will seek to bear fruit in this community for his glory.   

Together as Pastor and people we do not appear to amount to very much in a great city.  But as Pastor and people with the Spirit of God and the Word of God and the Love of God I believe that in the unfolding years we will make a real difference.