Jesus' People

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Steven Croft. Jesus' People

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Jesus’ People

1 Finding the compass

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The failure story also makes us close our eyes to the very good things happening in the Church in the present. We are blind to them because these good things do not fit the script that everything is in decline and going to the dogs and it’s all our (or someone else’s) fault. I’ve often felt when talking with some people about all the good things happening in fresh expressions of church that some groups will not take them on board. New growth and new hope in the British Church simply can’t happen (according to their worldview). The story of the established Church in particular has to be a tragedy with a bad ending despite the evidence of their eyes and ears. It’s more important to their own identity to preserve the frame of this tragic story than to recognize the truth of growth and renewal before their very eyes. Eeyore is alive and well in many congregations, synods and pressure groups. In the last of the Narnia stories, C. S. Lewis paints a compelling picture of a group of dwarves who are admitted to the great banquet at the end of time but they can neither see nor taste the good things because of their own cynicism and despair. It’s not hard to find similar groups in the councils of the Church. But they need to be challenged.

But the main and final reason why I do not believe the failure story is that it is simply much too Church-centred. We have lived in the last hundred years through massive change in our society, which has embraced two world wars, a seismic shift in Europe’s place in the world order, immense technological change, economic shifts that still surprise us, political change and counterchange, philosophical and cultural revolutions. The Church has been part of all of this change but it has not been a leading instrument. It is these different levels of change in the culture that have led to the immense shifts in the relationship between Church and society. To argue that the Church is primarily to blame for this shift is, quite simply, to give the Church too important a place in the scheme of things. Like the disciples we find ourselves in a storm. It would be foolish indeed to see that storm as caused by our own actions.

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