I am just not going to get a post I am working on finished this week. So, why not point you in the direction of a finished post, a challenging post, an inspiring post, a very Anglican post?
Mark Clavier writes here on "Formed for Faithfulness: Recovering the Anglican Way of Life."
Thanks, +Peter, for Mark Clavier’s very thoughtful post. It puts me in mind of a book by Eugene Peterson that I am searching for: ‘A Long Obedience in the Same Direction’.
ReplyDeleteI read this morning of Peter’s brave declaration that he would never disown Jesus, ‘And all the disciples said the same’! Some humility and self-awareness needed for us all.
Happy New Year, +Peter! Thanks for sharing the article, it's a good read although not being "Anglican" I feel a slight sense of alienation. I wondered how much of that UK content applies in our NZ context (or, what perhaps doesn't?). I wonder what stood out for you?
ReplyDelete"Ministry can begin to feel less like building up the Body of Christ and more like keeping an ageing body on life-support."
That was interesting to me. I guess as an outsider I find Anglicanism off-putting because Anglicans seem fixated on what is "Anglican", and being "Anglican". Maybe some of the forms of being "Anglican" are now out-dated and maintaining some things unnecessarily actually *might* constitute sustaining "an ageing body on life-support"!
So I wonder if it's time to remove the "life-support" and focus much more on building up the Body of Christ. I'm imagining something less "Anglican" and more friendly to non-Anglicans. I've not gone to an Anglican service yet where I've managed to find the right place in the right book (or document) to fully follow and participate in a Sunday service. To add insult to injury I get the feeling Anglicans are dismissive about such struggles!
Hello Elizabeth
ReplyDeleteA constant challenge in the Anglican church is momentum from people within it, perhaps having spent a significant and very formative portion of their lives in another denomination, to make the Anglican church something more like the Baptist or Pentecostal or Catholic or ... etc church they are comfortable with. Therefore I think it reasonable and even urgent that Anglicans spend some time and effort on working on what makes us distinctive. There is, also, the significant question of what it means to be Anglican in an ever changing world (a kind of question I see Baptists, Pentecostals, Catholics etc also asking of their own churches).
That is a different question to the question of whether Anglican churches are doing their best to ensure that Anglican worship is accessible to all who turn up to any given service ... and there is no great justification these days (e.g. with large screens and laptops relatively affordable; photocopiers very reliable etc) for the verbal content of our services not to be seamlessly presented to the congregation rather than relying on a prayer book and several bookmarks and switching back and forth from that page to this page and back again!
Thanks +Peter. I was taken by surprise re the "constant challenge" sentence - I had no idea. I take your point. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteA cousin is visiting and expressed a wish to attend the local Anglican Cathedral. I offered to go with him and was intrigued what it would feel like after many months away.
ReplyDeleteThe longer version (it is long) of my experience is on my blog:
https://www.tumblingages.co.nz/blog-2/a-brief-return-to-traditional-modern-christianity
I didn't have a great experience. Yes, I am a convinced Quaker. But I don't believe it is God's will for all Christians to be Quakers.
There is an intimacy I encounter in reading the NZ Book of Prayer, an intimacy with scripture and tradition, an appreciation for the beauty of the English language and both its limit and capacity for taking us to the place where our spirit meets God's, and a generosity in allowing each person the freedom for encountering God in their own time and space, which, for me at least, represents the very best of Anglicanism. And then there are those aspects I find so hard to get past - its stiffness, formality, its costume and hierarchy, and, above all, being drowned in words.
I think pointing to formation as a focus (as opposed to statistics/numbers or the needed work in keeping a parish operational) is a refreshing take, albeit I am well aware of the struggle to keep churches going that often deflects people’s reserves away from the main game. As +Peter will know this is the case in my own Church, however, in it all God still works.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be my default position, however, that when God works it is not to do with particular ways of worship whether it be liturgy or how prayers are said or what songs are sung. As I have come to see it through my journey (acknowledging others have had their own journey) at the core of seeing a church ‘alive’ whether it be small or large seems to me indexed to the heart attitude of those there towards God.
I really don’t ask myself what it means to be an Anglican, only what it means to be a Christian in this day and age, although all the churches I have been a part of have been Anglican. In the Anglican tradition I value most the emphasis on scripture and having communion regularly. I did grow up in the Anglican Church never knowing what the gifts of the spirit were and how they operated within the context of a church and/or our personal lives. I didn’t begin to read the Bible for myself until after I had attended an Alpha course in my mid-late 20s. I am comfortable in nearly every service I attend of different denominations so long as the content is biblically sound - actually if I have a desire to receive personal prayer I will intentionally visit a different church as that is a part of the services where I am at present.
One thing I have observed is that people in congregations are reluctant to talk about their faith to other people in their lives or offer prayer etc. I suspect this is because many people in NZ who are in the older demographic formed their faith when most of the population was considered ‘christian’ so it was simply not ‘a thing’ to do so, within society it was more about which denomination you belonged to rather than whether or not you were a christian. Even now a person down the street will talk to me about ‘our church’ and they attend once a year. I had to navigate sharing things of faith when I owned my own faith as an adult. My generation and younger often have a negative attitude towards Christianity, so simply saying when I was asked by people at work on a Monday morning what I did in the weekend, saying that I went to church was my act of being brave. Incrementally I have got braver!!
I refuse to be drawn into ‘competitions’ with Christians I am friend regarding how ‘we’ do this better or what constitutes the right way to do church, unless it’s a wider conversion regarding theological differences, because I think it’s a bit like the early Christian’s arguing whether to follow Apollos or Paul or… etc and Christ is not divided; if the hearts of those leading a church are genuinely worship in spirit and in truth, in whatsoever they do then I believe God will work through them.