It's a Competitive Church

 

It’s A Competitive Church

A Bishop said to me not too long ago, ‘Get off Twitter for a bit, it will do you a load of good. I gave it up weeks ago and it’s been fabulous'. 

Good advice perhaps but advice I declined and maybe in hindsight I should have done as he suggested, even it was just until the events of Holy Week’ had passed.

I’ve never been the most confident of people and certainly not the most confident of priests and sadly over the last few days my confidence was wobbled by the wonderful and exuberant images from online ministries. Churches bursting at the seams, kids everywhere, flowers seemingly direct from Interflora’s finest florists in every crevice.

I of course don’t begrudge such blossom and blooms, but as old mother inadequacy radiated once more from my brain cells, I felt a mixture of dissatisfaction and sadness by our own expressions of Easter and wondering what the future holds for churches like mine and priests like me.

I don’t think my melancholy comes from a place of envy or jealousy just a place of reality and realism which hit home over the last week perhaps like never before. In recent months we've lost too many of the formidable faithful and I don't like it one bit, despite the onward destination being rather splendid, if we've played our Christian cards right.

I mean there’s nothing I’d like more than having a picture of me leading a congregation through a pile of real-life donkey dung, from a real-life donkey from a real-life donkey sanctuary but I don’t think we have one of those in Urban Burnley, we don't have many horses let alone donkeys. 

I’m sure a resident with contacts in rural criminality might have sourced me one for a smidgeon of silver across their palms but in the end we just went for a modest alternative and followed the choir on short trip around the periphery of the church singing hymns of triumphant entryism not unlike Donald Trump entering court just a few days before Holy week.

The Dawn Eucharist saw the usual struggles of sleep deprivation, liturgical confusion, candlewick repudiation that eventually led us to the altar to sing joyful hymns of celebration alongside a handful of faithful Christians who all wouldn’t miss this resurrection extravaganza for the world.

Wiping the sleep and the incense from my eyes at the Easter Breakfast at I ate two croissants and two hot cross buns because we were slightly over optimistic in our anticipated numbers and they ‘needed eating’ I managed to knock over a full glass of Bucks Fizz that wasn’t mine. I felt terribly guilty that it ruined the table cloth and broke the conversation. A stark contrast to the online pictures of celebration and success, I observed later that morning with middle class euphoria in the Southern provinces of beautiful Christian witness.

Full of the joys of Easter indulgence and during the interval between the crack of dawn Eucharist and the Parish Eucharist, I wondered back to the vicarage to watch Match of the Day highlights from the day before where I topped up on caffeine and Kellogg’s. I then headed back to church for round two of the celebrations feeling realistically overweight and significantly under the influence of Holy week fatigue.

Maybe it’s’ me, but I’ve never really liked parties and big do’s, so to say I was managing comfortably to contain my excitement was particularly accurate on this Easter Day. Of course, I went along with things, in no way underwhelmed or overwhelmed by proceedings but just present and doing what should quite rightly be expected of a parish priest and doing it to the best of my ability.

And all things being equal in the church, which of course they are not, I felt in general we did a good job, until of course I popped into my Twitter feeds shortly after lunchtime. In what I can best describe as a ‘smile off’ or, look at my massive congregation Easter picture... off, where once again I felt modest and mediocre in my ministry.

Next year I’m not looking at the Twitter Easter, although I probably will and next year I’m getting a donkey, which I probably won’t and next year I might try something completely different and not set the alarm and sleep through till lunchtime.

Seriously, next year I might take that Bishops advice and leave the competitive church to the competitive church and remind myself what we do at St Matts isn’t so bad after all and that what, we do is for Jesus and not for love hearts and likes but for something very different.

Till next time,

Alex