Tuesday 27 September 2016

When You're Not Growing in Your Church

I regret to let Beaker Folk know that Smilmir and Jezborough are no longer worshipping with us.

They've written me a very nice letter in which they tell me they don't think they're "growing" in our fellowship. Which I do take some exception to. Thanks to Bernie's highly nutritious repertoire of roadkill three meals a day, Jezborough in particular has been growing steadily since the day they joined the Community.

They do have some specific complaints. Apparently the sermons aren't challenging or Biblical enough. Well, yeah. I mean if the sermons are Biblical and challenging, the rest of the congregation walks out. What's an Archdruid supposed to do?

I guess we could split the sermons into two streams: "Biblical and Challenging" and "Folksy and Comforting." But then where would we stop? We'd have to have "Intellectual" and "Barely Sentient" study groups. "Devout" and "Sanctified Gossip" prayer groups. And "Needy" and "Non-needy" fellowship groups. Actually, scrub that. We'll just stick with "Needy".

Anyway. Smilmir and Jedborough leave with our blessing. And a reminder that, under the terms of Beaker membership, their direct debit will continue to be due each month for the next six months.

1 comment :

  1. That's been my complaint since I joined the church.

    I was 5'7' when I joined and I was promised growth. Now, 8 years later and 8 years older I'm actually 5'6', what is that about.

    Church shrinking me - the Vicar says that your bones in the spine settle as you grow older - it's natural? But I question this, she is always telling us that we can Grow in Christ and we should strive to develop a closer relationship with him - I challenged her to prove that Christ got taller as he got older, but she told me that I'm being a litteralist - I had to look that up and couldn't find it anywhere in the bible?

    I'm wondering if the line about growth is a con - and the renewal and reform stuff is about the senior church lot getting loads of dosh to follow their pet projects, and not about helping the likes of me to grow?

    I will be speaking to my General Synod rep about this.

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