Return of War

This morning I arrived at the church for our prayer meeting prior to the Sunday morning service to find a police cordon round the church building; there had been a report from a member of the public to say that there was a suspicious car parked about 50 yards from the church. For about a hour it looked like church would have to be cancelled and we would have to try to get the word out to the congregation but then someone had the idea of setting up in the local school, which is just across the street. So a small group of people went to the school and started to set up some chairs so that, at least those who did turn up would have somewhere to go. To make matters worse we were having a few guests from L'arch, Belfast to talk to us about their ministry.

People in this part of Belfast are extremely resilient and don't tend to get too excited when these things happen. Even after 10 years of peace an action by the dissident IRA, if that is who did this, is not enough to surprise or frighten them. Since the foundation of the church in 1867 there have been many difficult times: the early years where years of expansion in Belfast with thousands of people coming up from the country to find jobs in the new Linen industry, but then there was the first world war and the rise in Irish Nationalism, this was followed by the years following the great depression and then the second world War. Then in the early 60s and 70s there was the industrial competition from the far east which led to the downfall of the linen industry followed by the heavy engineering and the ship building which once led the world [the fact that the Titanic was built in Belfast simply serves to remind us that it was ok when it left Belfast!!!]. Then we had the Troubles which lasted 30 years [we could call this the Thirty years war]and led to the break up of relationships and destroyed the industrial and social landscape of our beloved land.

You could say that this part of our city has known only heartache and trouble and it is certainly the part of the island that had witnessed more murders and violence than any other part and yet it is still standing: wounded, yes but still standing. It is truly amazing and certainly more than a little disturbing that we remain undisturbed by the threat of a bomb. And at this moment of writing I would even lay a wager, if I did such things, that it will hardly be reported at all.

What should our response be? What should the world be doing? What should the middle class parts of Northern Ireland be doing by way of response? In the past the government of the United Kingdom simply dug in the hells and sent in the troops to "keep the peace". while churches like ours have had windows blown in by bombs and had the congregation terrorised and while we have witnessed the destruction of a community little by way of positive and constructive action has been taken. Money has been spent in millions but what really needs to be done has remained undone because it is too costly. What needs to be done is that we need to send in a need breed of troops. We need seriously minded Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, to settle in the hard places like ours to help us to make our churches soft places. We need followers of Jesus Christ to take up opportunities to build "intentional communities" of peace and harmony but those who can do this have preferred to remain aloof and keep their distance.

We need to declare war on evil and on the one who lies behind that evil-we need to fight against evil with truth and peace. Not with the conventional weapons of deadly warfare but with ploughshares. Are there people "out there" who would take up the challenge to resist evil and to resist the evil one with the "full armour of God".

In the end we did get to worship together. At about 10.30am the police cordon was lifted and we were allowed to enter the building. we did hear from our friends at l'arch who told us stories of how the weak and the marginalised have defeated the strong and how those on the margins of society have been brought into the centre. My congregation is on the edge of life in Belfast; we have many social, economic and educational needs and now we sit on the inter-face between protestant and catholic communities but our dream is to see this place become an attractive place to live where there are no longer two separate communities divided by the walls of war but one community of people who have worked their way through our differences and have learnt how to live with them and how to disagree in an agreeable way. We want the God of heaven, the God of the bible to send in His troops to win the war and to liberate the community. Someone reading this blog could be among those troops.