Thought from the Vicarage
What do you think of when you see a Church building or walk
into one?
What do church buildings say to us, or perhaps more
important, say to the wider community and to the non Christian?
Some years ago a Chaplain to the Forces said that in attempting to make some
kind of religious contact with new recruits, he had found that the most
useful line of approach was to ask if they had ever seen a church. They
might know virtually nothing else about the Christian faith but at least
they were likely to have seen a church at some time. What did they imagine
that this building was? What was it for? What did people do inside it? For
vast numbers of people to-day the building which they see may be their only
remaining link with the Christian tradition.
When I was training for the ministry I spent some time with a priest who had
ministered in south London, and one day he took me and his newly ordained
curate to visit his old parish. On our way out of Waterloo Station we stood
for a moment on the Embankment, not far from the Royal Festival Hall, and
looking across the River Thames, he asked us what we could see. We looked at
the buildings, prominent among them the Palace of Westminster, the city of
London and the dome of St. Paul's.
The point he wanted to make is that all of these represented power,
political, economic and religious. All too often, our church buildings may
be seen as representing the power and wealth of the church, suggesting that
we may have forgotten the example our Lord has given us, coming not to be
served but to serve, and that the building is there for the whole of the
community.
The Kairos Buildings process will start soon in our Deanery. This is
the Bishop's initiative to help us think strategically and creatively about
how to use our church buildings more effectively: to deepen the spiritual
lives of worshippers and visitors, to serve the local community more
effectively and to find solutions to the problems of maintenance.
The Rev. David Heatley - Rector and Vicar of Hawkley and Benefice -
Hampshire
July 2008 from the Village Magazine with thanks
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