Well, I’ve made it through my first twenty four hours as a fully prayed-up member of a French monastic community. I was up at the crack of dawn and found the church locked and inaccessible, I was about to go back to bed when someone opened it, so I went back and another day began behind the rope.
It is a really strange feeling to observer worship from afar, struggling to catch the chanted word in a foreign language. There is very little concession made for external participants like me, even though they are intrigued that ‘un pretre anglicain d’Angleterre’ (I can't work out how to do accents int he blogo-o-sphere) should be with them and I am clearly an object of some fascination.At communion today, though, the rope was drawn back. There were about 50 other ‘normal’ worshippers with me, and the whole thing was much like an ordinary church. It felt bizarre to be welcome, somehow.
It does make me wonder about our identity in worship. To what extent is it right to separate ourselves and how far should we go to include the visitor? How far is prayer about an established community expressing itself, and how far is it about embracing those who are not yet part of the family?
My heart is with the latter, but I do wonder. Is there a place, even a need for both? I shall continue to ponder.
I could give you an essay on exclusion..... 1 minute I have one:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_how_social_networks_predict_epidemics.html
Nicholas Christakis shows this connectivity with general health, and it struck a strong cord as a health professional whom had studied sociology.
I am finding it interesting where are social standing and networks can positively or negatively affect our relationships with each other.Our connectivity affects our health behaviours, it can also affect our spiritual health.
As a Christian you end up with a need for 'fellowship' to share your faith, but what if you cannot? 'Homophily' is the need to flock together you look for similarities, and you search them out. So what if your local church does not meet your 'homophily' requirements, suffering a sense of rejection you may search for like minded individuals on web social networks... ie second life facebook etc.
People who do not find themselves within the clusters of positivity within a church specifically seek out other models of fellowship.
Interestingly though these connections we make on the internet are also tainted. Christians come from different cultures, and have expectations projected onto each other of how the other should 'be'.
A specific example some Southern US Christians were horrified that my daughter sang in a Cathedral, viewing traditional worship as 'lazy and lead by satan'. They were 'defriended' on facebook. I personally have experienced other cyber-bullying by Christians who wanted to build a closed network to enforce their roles within a cyberchurch set up called the Second Life Anglican Cathedral. These are needy people needing to have a sense of importance and belonging to the exclusion of others.
This is not of the Principality of God. We are called to share love and be hospitable. We are called to focus on being like Christ not being like what we perceive we should act like a 'church'. The building and our self perceptions become the idol of our worship and that is against the First Commandment. We must blend being local with being global and not impose anything but God.
I challenge you to look at your social networks.. do you have some 'dodgy characters', and do you have those on the margins of church life? Then AMEN you are an Evangelist.
I'm trying to be Global! The good thing about being Anglican is the liturgy when we can all read the readings and know others are thinking about them too. However, considering the OT reading for this week I think of Elijah travelling across hostile territory. (1 Kings 17:8-16) Who knows where God wants us. But we must be willing to travel. Joan
ReplyDeleteSorry I should have explained. We are ex HTR but since 2007 have lived in Worcester. After 3 years we are beginning to feel 'excepted' in this region although often Worcestershire folk can say "you should find other people from Yorkshire who live here." as if we have a language unknown to the folk of Worcester. Exclusion therefore is not confined to vagrants, blind and disabled. Joan
ReplyDeleteFascinating (both strands) - will have to do more pondering
ReplyDeleteLiturgy = the work of the people (not the work of the priest or an elite). I don't enjoy performances.
ReplyDelete