Saturday 26 February 2011
Ethically Challenged
Rev Dr Alcine wonders whether it is ethical to consider that attending a PCC meeting with a heavy cold, and the subsequent effects it might have in streamlining the leadership of St Geoffrey's, might actually constitute a "good thing"?
Saturday 19 February 2011
Cyclical, cynical or something else
One of the features of the wider catholic tradition is the use of a Lectionary, a fixed cycle of readings in an attempt to ensure a balanced diet of scripture over a fixed period. It's three years in the case of the Revised Common Lectionary. This has been widely adopted, having spread far beyond its Roman Catholic roots, into Anglicanism and beyond. It allows the harassed preacher to escape from his or her hobby-horse subjects, but also allows the creation of a personal library of sermons, which every three years you can bring out, dust off, adopt, adapt, improve, or ignore.
It's invaluable, there's no doubt about it. But if I repeat a sermon from three years ago, virtually verbatim, to the same congregation, what does that say about me as the preacher, and us as the church?
It could say that I am lazy, uninspired, overworked, or all three.
But it could be because what I said then still applies now. I firmly believe that there are timeless truths to our faith, just as much there is the need for change and adaptation to fit the needs of the current time.
So if I preach the same sermon to pretty much the same congregation (making allowances for those who have moved in, or on, and including that endless churn of families who appear for a few weeks or months, get what they want and move on, hiding our numerical decline), what am I saying?
Am I being too harsh if I interpret that as saying that nothing has actually changed in the last three years? Could it be that the people who benefit most might actually be the transient ones, the sparrows coming in from the darkness for a few brief moments and then flying out?
Am I being too harsh a critic of myself? Of my congregation? Or am I, by posting this here, on my anonymous blog (and, maybe, to the safely-screened readership of my Facebook friends) actually colluding with such lack of change and failure of faith? My own, and that of others?
It's invaluable, there's no doubt about it. But if I repeat a sermon from three years ago, virtually verbatim, to the same congregation, what does that say about me as the preacher, and us as the church?
It could say that I am lazy, uninspired, overworked, or all three.
But it could be because what I said then still applies now. I firmly believe that there are timeless truths to our faith, just as much there is the need for change and adaptation to fit the needs of the current time.
So if I preach the same sermon to pretty much the same congregation (making allowances for those who have moved in, or on, and including that endless churn of families who appear for a few weeks or months, get what they want and move on, hiding our numerical decline), what am I saying?
Am I being too harsh if I interpret that as saying that nothing has actually changed in the last three years? Could it be that the people who benefit most might actually be the transient ones, the sparrows coming in from the darkness for a few brief moments and then flying out?
Am I being too harsh a critic of myself? Of my congregation? Or am I, by posting this here, on my anonymous blog (and, maybe, to the safely-screened readership of my Facebook friends) actually colluding with such lack of change and failure of faith? My own, and that of others?
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