Making church attractive

Matthew 4: 12 - 23 

Simon, Andrew, James and John immediately left their nets and followed him. Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee simply had to call and these capable fishermen, who knew their trade, learned from their father's hands came straight away

For some years I was a vocations advisor for St Alban's diocese, part of a tiny team that shepherded people from initial wondering to becoming ordinands, training for the priesthood. In the way of central organisations the Church sprang up a target, that we should double the number of people going forward for training. You know the sort of thing, a strategist in Church House sees that there are many priests coming towards retirement so tells the far away churches to double the new candidates and naturally to halve their average age as well. Pressure soon fell on us, there were fewer than eight of us, so we began to think again about how people might be called.

Jumping ahead, I want to tell you that people are coming forward in greater numbers so please be encouraged. Be encouraged too by the quality of candidates. My role was to see those who were at the earliest stages of questioning. They came from all walks of life, several standing out but let me illustrate with one example. Min Min, British of Chinese heritage had excelled at Oxford, gone on to take a doctorate, joined a prestigious biochemical research centre and in between times had trained as a professional soprano. Now she was in my front room timidly sharing her sense of being tugged towards becoming a priest so that I could recommend her to others in the diocese. She knew her trade, was prepared to leave it and by the way did go on to be ordained. She left her nets.

I have to say though that her initial call was nothing to do with the vocation team. We did of course mount road shows, travel to preach in likely places, we worked to drum up interest but this is such a minor part of the story.

Returning to the shores of Galilee Jesus must have been astonishingly attractive, his just walking by ignited a spark in those fishermen who said to themselves "I want to know more about this, there is something interesting here for me, let us see.

Before the many who came to see me on my sofa, they had been attracted to church in some way. In my experience this always comes first, I have not seen a full sudden out of the blue conversion from nothing to fervent activity, even these first disciples had years of learning before understanding. 

Above all then today's church needs to be attractive. Jesus was.

For The Saxon Shore Kirsty, Rachel and James certainly have a part to play by their leadership but the attraction of All Saints Thornham will be more than that, it will be created actually by you. In your community your neighbours when meeting you will notice what you show from being a part of this place, in the way you are individually and the way we are as a congregation.

Frances and I have recently been exploring churches in Bedfordshire, concentrating of course on those with churchmanship that we prefer, and in fact on the smaller rural ones. We have landed on one where we find the congregation friendly and warm, where the village concerned seems to have a good connection, in short one that we find attractive. It is a subtle blend of sufficient attentiveness and visible relationships. This is what I would encourage you to continue to develop your way of being together so that those you meet and who live here say to themselves "I want to know more about this, there is something interesting here for me, let us see. “   Amen