July/August Ministry Musings
Each of our villages has a church. Even people who do not go there regularly are familiar with it, and many will go at some time for baptisms, weddings, funerals, school services or community events. Yardley Gobion’s very successful Festival Week took as its theme “Our house in the middle of our street”, but several of the events took place in “God’s house in the middle of our street.”
Whenever I welcome people to a church I take pains to remind them it is their church. Even if they do not regularly go, it is there for them. We are building a community. At its centre there is the regular congregation, loyal and working hard to keep their local church open; beyond that there are rings like a target. There are those who use the church regularly, who attend social events or children’s activities there. Others may come at Christmas or Easter. Some come in, look around and sign the visitors’ book. But whatever your connection, please know that you are welcome.
The late Pope Francis said that whatever else we may be, we are all first and foremost children of God. In a world in which increasingly debate has given way to shouting matches, in which people are cancelled for holding different views, remembering that the person we are arguing with is also a child of God is a good start to maintaining peace and holding communities together.
Covid did a lot of damage to our sense of community and it has taken a long time to recover. In some ways we still haven’t. For example, some parents couldn’t have the baptisms they wanted, so they put them off. It is never too late! We can baptise people at any age, so please get in touch if that applies to you.
I love village life. Who would not want to live here? Who would not want to be part of a community? And that is what our churches offer too – the chance to be accepted and loved, just as Our Lord accepts and loves us.
Graham Brack