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Two pictures.The first comes from Ghana where I spent the first two and half weeks of August as part of the URC's delegation to the 24th Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Imagine a convoy of 24 coaches winding their way from Accra to the Gold Coast to visit the slave castles. As we ground along, through seemingly interminable unplanned suburbs, the roads fronted by shacks which doubled as homes and businesses, and past villages which were subsistence-poor, the reality of what we have made of God's world bit home. There is enough for all in God's world, yet the income of the world’s richest 5% is 114 times higher than that of the poorest 5%. How can that be? How can it be that a secondary school teacher in Ghana earns just $100 US dollars a month, when a British teacher expects a starting salary of c. £18,000? How can it be that we allow a world to be so unequal? When we arrived, in baking heat, we saw that when our (Dutch) Reformed forbears had occupied Elmina castle, they built their chapel directly over a slave dungeon. How could that be? How could God’s people sing God’s praises whilst the cries of the enslaved and suffering tinged the air? How could a church be that dysfunctional? How could a community of people dedicated to the service of Christ the life-giver become death-dealers? The questions were agonising.
The Big Picture
The second picture comes from a debate at the Synod of Scotland on 'Catch the Vision'. One speaker suggested that if we want to discover the vision of the United Reformed Church, we need to think of one of those huge portraits that is generated from hundreds of tiny computer pixels. Imagine each local church as a pixel, and a portrait of Christ will begin to emerge.
Those two pictures are held together in Christ, for Christ is both universal and local, Lord of the universe and the Lord worshipped in each of our churches week by week. The 'Catch the vision' prayer adopted at Assembly prays that we might be '…committed to making a difference to the world's kingdoms as we live Christ's kingdom', that we might make a difference, Christ's sake. That difference has to be expressed both globally and locally, for Christ loves Accra just as much as London or Kirkwall.
We are about fashioning a church that will be committed to making a difference. So, what is happening in the process? A body without a skeleton is just a messy heap. If we are to make a difference, we need a structure to allow us to do that. Five pieces of work are addressing that question:
Those are all major pieces of work, and together they could produce dramatic change.
A heart for mission
Skeletons are essential. They hold us up and allow us to be, but they are never points of contact with the world. Hands, feet, and the four senses are the ways in which we touch the world. No amount of organisational re-engineering can make a difference in the world for Christ's sake. Only the saints of God can do that, gathered in local churches, working in networks and coalitions, The heart of 'Catch the vision..' is mission. There are probably as many styles of mission in the URC as there are pixels in our computer generated portrait, and we are only at the beginning of exploring what that might mean. As the year unfolds we hope to begin a series of conversations about spirituality and mission, to discover what energises and encourages people to make a difference for Christ's sake. We believe that plurality is creative and exciting. We want to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches, and discover ways of weaving that conversation throughout the lives of our churches.
Making a difference
That is a snapshot of where we are. It is not the complete picture, for space does not permit that. 'Making a difference' is what the whole church is about. Whether it be global in the gathering debate about trade justice, or local in work with young people, a difference is being made. Christ's kingdom is transforming the world's kingdoms, and by the grace of God we are partners in that change.
David Cornick Oct 04
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