There is an
important point in a host-guest relationship when the guest takes up residence.
We do not have to welcome them anymore (we can swap the china cup and saucer
for a mug) and, indeed, they probably are welcoming new people at this stage. They
are no longer a stranger or visitor, but a familiar face and friend. In fact, they are not ‘they’ but ‘us’ – if
we let them. The struggle is whether we allow them to be involved
meaningfully in our church and community.
Do we see it as our church or as God’s
church? Is the church our building or the people who are here today? Since the host holds the power, it is
a choice. To say ‘yes’ will entail levels of uncertainty, change and ambiguity.
To say ‘no’ is to dismiss Jesus. If the response is a ‘yes’, it is at this
point that all kinds of things can open up and be revealed.
People will often begin to see that
most of what happens in a church on a Sunday is cultural – the way people dress, the time we
start, how we greet one another, the style of worship, how a collection is
taken up, how long the service lasts, how or if people respond verbally to a
sermon, what people do when it is finished.
Newcomers
often ask the ‘stupid question’ – Why do you do that? Since culture is mostly
our underlying values and ‘the way we do things around here’, most of our
practices are habitual (traditional/customary), and we do them because that is
what we do. It is only if these basic assumptions are questioned that we
ourselves might engage with the question and wonder why we have to do ‘it’ that
way.
Sometimes
there are good reasons for doing it that way, sometimes there were good
reasons, but they no longer apply, and sometimes there is no good reason at all
and maybe we ought to stop doing that. More often than not nothing will be
noticed, questioned, challenged or changed unless fresh eyes observe and raise
the issue – How will we respond?
In one church,
a decision was made to start taking up the offering collection in a new way.
Instead of sending baskets back and forth down the pews, the congregation was
asked to bring their offering up to the front. This change was made simply
because a number of new people who had been coming to the church were
accustomed to doing it that way. Both ways are equally valid activities for
taking up a collection. The change was a
way to honour and validate the ‘new crowd’ and to do something in a way that
was customary to them.
Was changing
the way the collection was taken an easy thing to do in the church? Why should
we have to change when we have been doing it this way for years? What is wrong
with using the baskets? How come they do not have to adapt to the way we do
things? Why do I have to get up and walk to the front?
The main
answer to these questions, I suppose, was that it does not matter how we take
up the collection and we certainly can continue to do it the way we have here;
however, if we change, it will affirm
those who have become part of us and may make them feel more a part of the
community. It may also help us to see that what is much more important than
any of our habits, cultural values or particular identity is our shared
Christian identity and values – we are, all of us, children of God called to
love and serve.
- Contributed by Dr. Scott Boldt, Reconciliation Officer at the Edegehill Reconciliation Programme, Belfast
