Expensive Church Expectations

At the Annual Parish Church Meeting on Sunday I was explaining how the Parish Share is going up this year by £6,000 to £42,000. This news was met with the usual grumbling and suspicion of the Diocese, and fear that “they” will squander it on unwise investments. I tried to explain the difference between the Church Commissioners of the 1980s and the Diocese of today, but I suspect that further efforts will be required.

A bit later on I was casting the vision for going out to make disciples and explaining that I wanted to spend more time with the 9,000 people in my parish who don’t come to church, rather than spending all my energy being chaplain to the 150 who do attend. I made the point that one implication of this would be that we have fewer communion services. This resulted in some grumbling. After all, who pays for the vicar?

An analogy came to mind. Some of the first class passengers on the Titanic feel that “their” officer should attend more of the formal dinners (Holy Communions) instead of hob-nobbing with the third class passengers on the lower decks. What they don’t seem to realise is that the third class passengers are not on the lower decks … they are freezing to death in the water.

We need more people to get into the lifeboats on rescue missions. We need to have a generous attitude towards those who are not on board. We need to lose our self-centred pre-occupation with getting what we want out of church.

Oh Lord! Please transform our hearts so that we love those who are perishing more than we love ourselves.