Getting into the community

Oddly, despite episodes in hospital and other distractions, I have become more involved in my local community here in the Leigh area than anywhere else I have lived.

It has long been my aim to contribute to my local community. There is great value in meeting people outside of church circles and interacting with them.

This is distinct from the duty Christians feel to introduce outsiders to Christ. True, we would not wish to deny to others the great benefits the Lord Jesus Christ has given to us. If only those others knew it, it is a matter of eternal life and death for them. I frequently accuse myself of not guiding more people into conversation about their spiritual state. My excuse is that it is counter-productive to foist such discussions on people uninvited. When the Bible says, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2), that means be ready whether it is convenient to you or not – not the other person! We are not to harass people. But that can be an easy get-out, and there are all too many times when I could have shared the gospel without offence or inconvenience and didn’t.

But whether I get to talk to non-churchgoers about their souls or not, it seems good for a pastor to be an active citizen in his community. This was near impossible when I was minister of multiple churches scattered around different communities. I shared myself around seven churches in Cornwall, where I began my ministry, and as many as eleven in Banbury, with a hospital chaplaincy on top. But towards the end of my time in Aylesbury (only six churches there!) I became impressed with the work of the local CRUSE branch which offered counselling support to those locally who were bereaved. When I moved into independency in 1998, with only church to look after, I contacted a bereavement support organisation local to the Kidderminster area and became a volunteer worker with them. In Worcester I trained to do budget coaching for those who had financial problems.

In my current neck of the woods, things have taken a different turn again. I have joined up with my local Lowton East Neighbourhood Development Forum (www.lendf.co.uk) which meets monthly to discuss matters of concern to local residents. It has been an education and a joy. I’ve met lots more people through it, received their support in time of illness and hopefully given a little back. This must never be allowed to encroach on my duties at church, but it adds depth to my connection with the place where I live.

Some churches have little or no interaction with their local community. Others have been so bound up with it for many generations past that they have almost lost their distinctive Christian character. Our task is to be in the world, but in such a way that the world wants to ask, “What makes you so special?”

Shouting something about forgiveness

As I look back on our church's week of outreach early last month, I feel it was well worth doing. Simply viewed from our standpoint, it was a blessing to have something to aim for during those rather empty summer weeks when most of the church's regular midweek activities come to a standstill. It was also encouraging to see how many from the church got actively involved. Not everybody could come along, of course; some could do no more than support us with their prayers. But many used their gifts of hospitality as we opened the church for different events, and a surprising number even willingly engaged in the scary activity of meeting the great unchurched public in the centre of town.

Where possible, in street outreach, you get people to talk. Some might think that all the talking is meant to be done by Christians who have something to tell everybody else. We know all the answers, you might think, and nobody else can tell us anything. But in fact it is a rare privilege to stand and listen to what others outside the church are saying and thinking.

One one occasion, as we stood out on the street in Leigh trying to engage people in conversation, a lady passed by who shouted something about forgiveness. We may never know what prompted her to do that. Within a few seconds she had passed by, and the contact was gone. It led me to think about an incident that happened some years ago which showed how little people understand about forgiveness.

It was a sordid situation where a man at a church I was minister of at the time began an affair with a woman from a neighbouring church. His wife tried desperately to keep the marriage together. She found it unhelpful that some of us, however lovingly, called a spade a spade. What the man was doing was wrong - it was no good saying anything different. But the wife's constant and reproachful demand to us was, "You must forgive - you must forgive".

For many, forgiveness is cheap, a thing to be handed out like sweets from a slot machine. Regardless of the offence against God and against people, they reckon we should excuse it, shrug our shoulders and carry on.

When Jesus Christ on the cross cried "Father, forgive", God was pouring into that act of forgiveness not only His feelings, but His very flesh and blood. For Him, every human sin is not just "one of those things", but a slap in the face, a whip on the back, a nail through the wrist.

The Sunday after the outreach, I tried to show that God's forgiveness calls forth one of the great exclamation marks in the Bible. In Romans 5:7-9 the apostle Paul exclaims, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!"

May there be many more times in the future when as a church we listen carefully to those outside and treasure their stories. May God then give us openings to explain to them the cost and the benefit of God's forgiving love.