Darren wrote:
I'm just having some grief moments after watching the church make a lot of decisions based on economic rational thinking which i see as not wanting to live the whole martyrdom life. I can't help but think that we've lost the urgency, we think we need to make sure that there’s a church for our children, we've lost hope that the kingdom is at hand.
Our predecessors didn’t worry about the church dying, it was all or nothing, whilst we're always trying to find new ways of prolonging our life rather than bringing the kingdom.
Yes, I'm angsty at the moment, I'll get over it... maybe
Now that’s what I’d like to see - some more angsty moments in the church (the sexuality debate and promises of “blood on the floor at Assembly” not withstanding).
My experience is of Australian congregations that are “mostly old folks, with a few in middle age, and a couple of young mums”, so the most angsty moments are likely to be when the Arnotts Family Assorted run out during the after worship tea time. Yes, I know that congregations of “old folks” also can be full of energy and filled with an urgent need to reach out – but that’s not been my experience. Rather, it’s been of congregations and of church councils worrying themselves sick over the lack of money and so holding on with grim determination to the assets of the congregation, in the hope that someone will see a way forward and that things can go back to being the way they were in some glorious past golden age.
Yes, Darren you have a point – several in fact.
The point that I seemed to have missed in the whole Bandy debate is just what it is that Bandy sees as growing. What’s his end point? Is it to be more of the same? If the decline of the church is arrested, will we end up back in that “glorious golden age” with the congregations and the offering bowls overflowing - that is, business as it used to be?
Or did I miss something in Bandy’s books, and we need a fundamental rethink of what it is to be Church, to be the Body of Christ on Earth?
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Stephen Webb Media Officer Communications Unit NSW Synod, Uniting Church in Australia Box A2178, Sydney South, NSW 1235, Australia email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +61 2 8267 4308; Mobile: 0423 259 945; Fax: 9267 4716; Web: nsw.uca.org.au/cu/ & insights.uca.org.au/ ------------------ The Communications Unit publishes the monthly magazine Insights, conducts public relations for the NSW Synod of the Uniting Church, and provides a variety of communications services. These include writing, editing, web consultation and development, desktop publishing and graphic design, public relations and advertising. For a consultation or free estimate on your project call the Communications Unit at (02) 8267 4307.
