Working Man's Theology- a short thought/question

Why is the church so middle class? Or is it? Why do the mainline denominations appear to be middle class in the way they "do" church? Where is the working class theology or is there one and should there be one? In my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, we have one model of church: this is a model which works very well in the rural heartland of Ireland, north and south but, with increasing alarm, is failing in the urban city.

In our city we have to deal wit people who are in constant fear of the other side; over the years we have been terrorised by the terrorists but also by the fear of being taken over. We have learnt to be loyal to our side and to mistrust anyone who is unable to give their full support to our politicians, our police and our soldiers. Our experience informs our opinions even of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the middle classes keep their distance and talk of the need to remove the peace walls but fail to understand the gulf between the classes. How come the Jesus who earned His living by the sweat of His brow and by the skill of his hands is presented as middle class, educated and a voter of the Alliance Party?

The people who live in our community have a hard time when it comes to education because going on to third level education spells a break with the community and it has led to the removal from the community anyone with a positive view of learning. Even those who could go to university, would very often prefer to get a job and stay within their walls because it is, ironically, safer there but many people fail to understand this.

Much of the social work done in this community has been patronising and been done "for" people rather than "with" them so that far from building community they further make dependents and expect the "receivers" to show their thanks. Jesus was a working man who got alongside people.

A RIVER STORY

Belfast in 2009 is still a very troubled place. Despite the changes with the end of the official violence and the decommissioning of the weapons on both sides we are more divided today than we have been for quite some time. The power-sharing executitive is loosing its credibility because the two main parties cannot get past the past. With the rise of the dissidents on the Nationalist side and the opposition on the unionist side both main parties are looking over their shoulders.

There is a little elderly lady in our congregation who is nearly doubled up with arthrites who has a less than complete view of the world: if she could stand upright she would be much taller and have a much better view of the world. In this community we have too many people walking with their faces to the ground. Here is a real prayer to pray for us-"Lord help us to walk upright".

While we are divided into our tribal divisions there are people who realy want to reach accross the divide and work for a more homogenised community but they don't know how to start and they don't see how they can do it safely. Our political leaders do not have the power or authority to lead in this direction but the church really can. We don't have to depend on votes every four or five years and we are expected to lead. I cannot see how we can make any ground unless we begin to see reconciiation taking place. While the governing powers speak of shared space we have few and to make this possible we will need safe places but how can they be created? In my commmunity we have no shared spaces, no neutral places where people from both political cultures can feel safe.

When you stand on the steps of my church building you begin to realise that we are really a church on the edge-to the front of the church lies a strong nationalist community which sees no neeed to reach accross the divide: to the rear of the church there is a strong, some would ghettoeised unionist community which finds itself on the back foot,: to the right and to the left there is a similiar story. So what do we do? How can we show the way? Can we do anything at all?

For some time I have dreamed of making better use of the space our building stands on. The history of this place tells a story of a peopople responding to the popuplation explosion of Belfast and of great industry and community spirit. Since the late sixties it has being in decline. Some of the reasons are economic and some are social and some are about comunity conflict but we should not get stuck in the rut, we need to begin to create new stories, stories that are "river stories". We need to work for a day when people will look back and tell how Belfast said goodbye to the past and hello to the future, not that the future is right just because it is the future. These new stories will only be right when they tell of people who try to work for reconciliation and a better society, when Christians work for the good of the city [Jeremiah 29].

Recently I have begun to think of creating a new community: a communty which reaches accross the divide and acts as a bridge. It is not wrong to say that this is a very dysfunctional communithy and that is why we have so many damaged people and it is also true to say that we are all dysfunctional. There are people who are considered weak and poor because society tells them they are not normal, they are slow learners and need help. Another side of the story is that they are really people who can help us and demonstrate that they really are rich and strong. Could we build a community of weak and less weak that would provide a welcome mat for everyone? I have two dogs and when I take them for a walk hardly a day goes by without somone talking to them and then to me: they are like babies who attract people because they are cute and child-like. Could we create such a community which would be safe an welcoming? Could we gather together such an intentional community? Could we start a new story? Time will tell. Do you think you would be attracted to such an exciting opportunity?

Can we make something new out of the old?

Jesus came to bring liberation and life to the full but it soon became obvious that the old traditions were difficult to fight against. He found that the vested interests refused to listen to what h ehad to say. At this time of writing I am seated in a beautiful home on the west coast of the United States, looking out on the pacific oscean and everything seems well with the world-why would itg not be? Here we have everything we could possibly want. Here we have all the monmey we could need, here we are presented, on a daily basis, with CHOICE.

Having some time to think I wonder if it is at all possible to re-create the church? It is becoming increasingly obvious that the institutional church is in trouble, numerically. I have a problem with the emergence of the new churches who have little or no accountability either within the church or with other churches. At the same time I can see how thyey have been able to do what needs to be doner to become missional. In my congtregation I have to struggle with the expectations of the traditional "come" mentality. I have to be willing to service the machinery of church and have little time to think through the necessary changes. when I see a change that needs to be made I then hve to convince those involved in the machine to agree with me.

I wish we could develop a think-tank of people to talk our way through the problems of the way we do church?I long for a community, online or in real time, where we can think and pray ouyr way to a better netwwork of like-minded people to develop new models wqith the best of tradition and the best of contemporary. Like-minded people can contact me via thbis blog or by email-I look forward to your response

The Shalom of the city

For my sins in lived in England from 1971-81. I spent many hours driving up and down the M6, the M1, and the M62. At that time it was customary to see hitch-hikers standing at the start of the motorways with cards in front of their faces and above their heads-much like you see at the airport when people are waiting for passengers they don’t know. The story is told of one man who used to be seen standing at the start of one of the major motorways very regularly with a sign which was different to all the rest which had words like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham Leeds etc but his simply read-“ANYWHERE BUT HERE!”.

There are times when we think like that-times when we would prefer to be anywhere but where we are. That was the feeling of the people of God in the days of the exile when they found themselves in the wrong city-in Babylon instead of Jerusalem –they did not want to be in the city of the oppressor but God said-“Stay here...make this your home - build houses and raise families and increase don’t decrease in number-work intentionally and joyfully for the welfare of the city-work for the SHALOM of the city for as it prospers so you will prosper.
Walter Bruggemann wrote an essay in “Theology Today” [when John Dunlop was moving house he gave me a whole batch of TT and this was one of them- He said “there is no one single or normative model of church life” He goes on to suggest that there were three distinct models in the OT and by far the most appropriate or us is the EXILIC MODEL. Rabbi Daniel Gordis [Director of the Mandel Foundations Jerusalem Fellows] describes the exile as a meantime- the time between, the great acts of God in the past and in the future-yes it was meantime in the sense of the difficulties but it was also a brief period that would not last for ever-
Bruggemann says that this was a time very like our own-

1. It was a time when Israel had to learn that she was no longer influential in public life
2. It was a time when they were under severe pressure to conform and become like those around them
3. It was a time when they had to work very hard at keeping their identity –
JI Packer concurs in “Knowing God” when he says it was a time when the people of God thought the name of God would never prosper again.

The question, in the face of the sign “ANYWHERE BUT HERE” was - were they in exile or where they sent? We need to develop the ability to see opportunity as well as problem-a group of pessimistic children were placed in a roomful of toys-their conclusion was “It’s no good. As soon as we get used they take them away. Another group of optimistic children locked in a room which was full of horse manure-their reaction was-“there must be a horse here, if there is all that manure!”
The truth is that they were there because of their rebellion and sin-they were sent into exile –that was their circumstances but it was also true that God wanted them there-he wanted them to be the light in the darkness that they were always meant to be but had failed to be-yes they were in exile but they were also sent by God-stay there, build your houses, raise your families-the reality for most of our institutional churches is that we try to do ministry from a distance-a kind of distance learning-and, surprisingly it fails-we say-Oh you could not expect the minister to live in that community-he needs to be at a certain distance-that may be true in the business world , but it is not true for the urban community, it is not true for the incarnational model of ministry that Jesus Christ followed.
If we turn to the NT we find the same situation-in 1Peter we have the same incarnational model- they too were in exile-Peter says –“this world is not your home” yet he goes on to tell them to live exlemporary lives “so that your actions will refute their prejudices’” and this will win them over. David Winter, Warden of Tyndale House says that the Christians of the diaspora also lived insecure lives- it was a time of social insecurity and discrimination against them with “sporadic outbursts of local suspicion, resentment and hostility” when believers were brought before the courts yet they too are called to seek the welfare of the city. They had a three-fold call to:
- Declare the word
- To follow and
- To bless the people
So how are we to live out our calling?

One thing is fundamental-If you do not love this city you cannot minister to it-if you do not love this place then you had better go somewhere else. That is not an uncritical love but it must be genuine-you and I need to understand that while we are living in the exile of the city that is less than perfect God has called us to be here because he has a work for us. If we do not love this city then all our efforts will come across as self-righteous and condemnatory.
The call I hear all the time is that the churches are commuter churches were the members come in their cars, go to church, lock the gates behind them and then go home until next week.
Mark Gornik in “To Live in Peace” says

“a church with an inner-city address and a myriad of programs but minimal community involvement and proportionately little local membership may be more of a mixed blessing to the community than anecdotal accounts and program surveys of congregations suggest”
The first thing that we need to do to be kingdom orientated is to be

1. PRESENT
If you, if we want to be anywhere but here then it is probably better to be anywhere but here. There are many people who have developed models of ministry which are based on intentional presence-that is “loitering with intent”. It means praying for, inviting, encouraging believers to come and live among us.
Like them we have to understand that we may be here because of circumstances-they were in exile but they were also there because God sent them-Jeremiah would say that you are here today for one reason and one reason alone-to take part in the mission of God and that is your privilege and responsibility
John Perkins the civil rights leader who was left for dead and who spoke at one of our special assemblies and was here just two years ago has developed a community project which is based upon the thee “Rs” of
- Repent
- Return and
- reconciliation-
Here he encouraged Christians to return to the city and some to come for the first time-in the 60s the late David Watson did the same in York and that dying church became alive and the late David Shepherd also lived in an intentional community in London.
At the Coleraine Conference of 190 the address given by Harvey Conn he spoke of the survivalist model and the Guerilla church but set out the case for the incarnational approach of the “church as a model home community” what we call the show house.
As we seek of the metanarrative of the bible we see the one plot line all the way through which has the characteristic of incarnation, especially with the coming Of Jesus into the world.

The task of the church today is to tell the story in our own way-to help the community to see the church really is the gift of god to the world. So many of our stories act like “rut” stories-these are the stories that keep us stuck in our traditional ways-so when we speak of shared space and shared housing we think back to the stories of division and conflict, stories that while true do little to take us forward- what we need are new stories that are more like “river” stories-they are stories that show the changing situation in life and tell of how the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is still our God today-not as the God of the Hebrews but the God of all who will trust Him.
There is really only one way to catch the swine flu and that is from another person-if you have the real thing you have to stay at home-you can’t catch it in isolation. Neither can we influence people in isolation

2. We are called to PRAY for the city

Mark Gornik says that The “urban future belongs to the intercessors”. In the BMI manual for the developing of Presbytery Mission plans it says that the process is to be “bathed in prayer and birthed in conversation” Walter Wink sys that “history belongs to the intercessors”-this is not the last resort of the desperate but the beginning of the process. Wink goes on to say “even a small number of people, firmly committed to the new inevitability on which they have fixed their imaginations can decisively affect the shape the future takes. These shapers of the future are the intercessors, who call out the future, the longed-for new present”
I do believe that the most significant and important thing we have done in the last few years has been the decision to take prayer into the community-to Dunns’ Car park and to the school and to the PSNI. As Abraham interceded for Sodom so we are to intercede for Belfast. Jesus tells the story of the friend at midnight to re-enforce that God wants to answer us more than we want to pray and also the need to persist not to force God’s hand but to show our resolution.
Public Activity

This is all about putting flesh on the bones of our presence- we are to get involved in ways that will be to the welfare of the city. In the NT it was the Christians who did the dirty work that no one else would do-they were doing the work that Mother Teresa has made her own in India.

What has happened in our cities is that the Christians have left the scene so that those who are involved in public life are the atheists and the agnostics and the nominal Christians. We need to serve the community and so we will regain the influence we once had-from the bottom up.-we need to create those river stories that will be the 29th chapter of the acts of the believers.

By so doing we will help people to become familiar again with the plot line that is the Christ-story-his-story. Don Carson reminds us of the need to re-tell the story to a generation that has little knowledge of the bible
“the fact remains that the bible, as a whole document tells a story, and , properly used, that story can serve as a metanarrative that shapes our grasp of the entire Christian faith. In my view it is increasingly important to spell this out to Christians and non-Christians alike....”
Action?
- we need to see the city as a place of redemption-a holy place because God is at work here
- we should be praying for the city and becoming strategic in that praying
- we should be calling for people to live in the city, including ministers
- we should be encouraging our members to get involved even if that means giving them time off from Congregational duties to do so

Christian

What is a good church? One of the leaders in a former church that I had an association with said that “busy people are happy people and busy churches were happy churches”. For him a good church is one which has a packed program every week. That means that the premises are used every night of the week and the members never have time to get bored or for idle hands get into trouble. In some ways that sounds right but then I remember that his family had broken up and his life at work was a disaster because he was a perfectionist in everything and had little time for the imperfections of others. Then I remember that the church is cluttered with the casualties of this kind of philosophy. The result of this is to make the church inward looking: pre-occupied with keeping the machinery of the church going to the neglect of those outside the church door. If the church of Christ is to more like Christ then the balance between being inside and outside the church building has to change. For Jesus Christ the task was to help the outsiders become insiders. The way to do that is not by providing ever more programs but by getting alongside people.
A good church is one which encourages and equips the members to be involved in the community where they live. A good church is one which has a desire to serve its community and to play the role of fellow citizens: our role is neither to sit in judgement nor to be patronising in doing things for the community, to make it a better place. Our role is to be like Jesus and to work with and not for or in the place of the community. There are lessons that we can learn and lessons we can teach. There is no distinction between the sacred and the secular: the Hebrews believed that all of life was sacred and as the new Israel we too need to have a more holistic view of life and a less truncated view of the bible and the biblical story. Yes we want to be a better church but we will not be that by staying inside the church building, we need to get out there and get our hands dirty, if need be. The sad fact is that within one year of a person becoming a Christian they, usually, loose all meaningful contact with their former friends and then we wonder why we are losing contact with people who are outside.
The latest sensation on Yourtube is the story of Christian. He was a lion. Yes a lion. In 1969 two friends saw him in Harrods in London so they bought him for the equivalent of £3,000. Christian became their pet: they took him for walks through the streets of London on a lead and he played with them in the house and went in the car for drives. Once he got too big for the home they persuaded a local Moravian minister to allow him to play in an old graveyard. The fact that Moravians don’t have headstones was a great help: they say, quite correctly, that death is the great leveller, so the markers are laid flat on the ground. But pretty soon he became too big even for that and so they had to face the fact that they would have to provide a better living arrangement: the possibilities were either the Zoo or the circus and neither of these was acceptable to them. It was then that they came into contact with George Adamson through the actors, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna the stars of Born Free. Adamson and his wife Joy were the people who had released Ailsa the lioness back into the wild in Kenya. Eventually Christian was introduced into the wild also. What is so amazing about this story is that after a year of being separated from his old friends he still recognised them when they returned to Kenya: on the film there is no hesitation once he saw who they were and the reunion is very moving.

What can we learn from this? One lesson is that the lion remembered because of the relationship that was built up between him and the two men. We cannot build relationships with people from a distance: Jesus came to be among us. When our churches learn that lesson will people not sit up and take

What next?

Can you even begin to imagine the pain of Kate Carroll? She kisses her husband, Steve, goodbye as was her custom on that morning that would change her life:or rather would be the end of it, as she later described it. When he returned it was in a wooden coffin. Here was a woman who loved her husband, and a man who loved his wife: he was her life. Why did these people decide to make their bid for "freedom" and notoriety by taking his life? Can anyone ever say, least of all the one who pressed the trigger. to them he was just another collaborator. He was a "uniform" that was all that mattered nit a husband, not a son, not a father or grandfather. He will never retire, never feel the frustrations of the credit crunch or fight for the right to choose without coercion the political identity of his country.

If this action was designed to make Gerry Adams words, "they haven't gone away, you know" come back to haunt us they succeeded. if they were intended to revitalise the lost pipe dream of the revolutionary republicanism, they failed. In the wake of the death of three defenders of the state the public, the too often silent majority, has risen up to say, "no more" , we want, we demand peace for our children and grandchildren. Like Jesus said about the poor, they will always be with us. We will, for a considerable future, have the disgruntled minority who cannot live with democratic decision. But what next? After the rallies and after the shouting is done, what can we do next to minimise the minority?

It seems to me that for Jesus Christ people were more important than political principles or political dreams. it seems to me that the answer to our situation has to be about getting on with those that we disagree with. The mistake of the dissidents is to imagine that you can force unity, you can coerce people into a United Ireland. I wonder when Ireland has ever been united? I would like to propose a way for Ireland to be truly united; when hearts are united. Put simply for all to understand that means that relations are the bedrock of real prosperity and progress and political affinity. That means that actually the way to unite people is for us to learn to be friends. we need to take hold of the big picture, we need to put our smaller political aspirations on hold with the knowledge that that journey will change us both. It is always difficult for me to disagree with my wife and I certainly would not do that in public. why so? Just because I love her and I want her to agree with me. If I really want the best for us all why can i not call a moratorium on the status of this province for a period so that we can learn to live together without agitation and the complications of nationality? There is no need to change my dreams, just put them on hold for the betterment of all or am I afraid that these dreams will not stand the test of time?

Sorry but we all need time to come together without the fire of my heritage being questioned or threatened. Why can we not just learn about each other's culture and each others sports and accept that in some things we are the same and i others different, is that so bad? I get annoyed when people can only see nationality in monochrome when it is colouful and integrate. I am unashamedly an irishman, in fact i am an Ulsterman, if not a Belfast man. yet I have also a strong feeling of belonging to these islands-I am British by birth and by upbringing. I am a Presbyterian Christian but we do not have all the answers and have made many mistakes and I have come to appreciate my catholic brothers.

Why would you not take the time to learn about your Irish/British, Protestant/Cathoic neighbour. Maybe if we really did concentrate on becoming friends we might be able to move forward in a more satisfactory way. God sent His son to die for the world, not just this part of it. In fact as we have been fighting the Christian population has moved south and east;we are only just begining to realise that the majority of Christians do not have white faces, nor do they speak English, more likely they have brown or Chinese faces and they speak a very different language as their national language-wake up and smell the coffee!

The Long, Lost relative

Foreword
This paper is written for the professors of the Bakke Graduate University in Seattle as part of an assignment for the Doctor of Ministry program, but to the “Research and Resources” committee of the Board of Mission in Ireland, of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The aim is to describe some aspects of the Orthodox model of ministry and mission and to set out some lessons we can learn. This is paper is the conclusion of extensive reading and a visit to Turkey and Romania with a group of other students, professors and Romanian Orthodox Priests. We began in Istanbul, made our way to Cappadocia and Ephesus before traveling through Bulgaria and into Romania to Bucharest and Iasi. We walked in the footsteps of Paul and saw the ancient remnants of the Church of Jesus Christ before observing and experiencing the living church in a former communist country. These are my own personal reflections. This was never intended to be a tourist trip but more of a pilgrimage and an opportunity to experience and rediscover our long lost family in the Orthodox tradition. It turned out to be a very long pilgrimage but these experiences and reflections were made with a group of people who have come to know each other better because of the many hours we spent together on the bus. We came to admire and wonder at the physical endurance of Paul who made the same journey without modern transport.
In seeking to understand this church, which has been isolated from the west since the split with Rome in 1054, we will look at its doctrine and practice. One becomes very aware of the distance between us but also the faith and practices that we share: it’s not always clear that in using familiar words we understand the same familiar things. J.I Packer reflects this line of thought when he describes the perceived distance between |Orthodoxy and traditional Evangelicalism, using the words of the ballad, ‘’It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go’’ . George Bernard Shaw said much the same when he described the usage of English on both sides of the Atlantic as ‘’a common people separated by a common language’’. The average person is not familiar with the Eastern Orthodox Church, we are not taught about it and so the assumption is made that there is little, if any, difference between the Christian and the Roman Catholic Christian. It is my contention that there are similarities as well as differences that we can learn from and even adopt to make valuable contributions to any living church for the glory of God.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank those who journeyed with me on the Orthodox Trail and those who have helped me along the way and in the process of producing this paper and pray that it will help someone somewhere on their journey through life.
Dogma, the practical theology of Orthodox Faith
Before investigating some of the beliefs of Eastern Orthodoxy we need to give some consideration as to what we understand it to mean by ‘’orthodoxy’. The literal meaning of Orthodox is that it is the right teaching or right worship, being derived from two Greek words: orthos (right) and doxa (teaching or worship). As the false teachings and divisions multiplied in early Christian times, threatening to obscure the identity and purity of the Church, the term Orthodox quite logically came to be applied to it. Hence we have then term applied to Judaism with Orthodox Jews As opposed to Reformed or liberal and orthodox Protestants in contrast to liberals. The Orthodox Church considers itself as something of a guardian of truth against all error and schism, both to protect its flock and to glorify Christ whose body the Church is. Another way of considering Orthodoxy is to think of it in the light of those churches which call themselves ‘Orthodox’ meaning those churches who belong to a loose federation of churches who split from the Latin church in 1054AD [some of them are aligned to the council of Chalcedon and others opposed] giving special honour to the see of Constantinople. They were part of the eastern flank of the Roman Empire, where Constantine had his capital. After the historic split with Rome it became detached and developed an independent identity. Today, because of mission and political decisions, there has developed a Diaspora throughout the world but especially in the United States of America.[check this definition]. We will be using the second of these understandings in this discussion.
We are what we are because of what we believe and so in studying Orthodox faith and practice we need to reflect on the theological perspectives that make her what she is. When a people are separated by thousands of years it is quite natural that they should take some time to get to know each other once they have been re-acquainted. Before our trip we spent much time in reading about the life and faith of Orthodoxy but we have also been in discussion and spent time with those involved in ministry. In seeking to get a basic understanding of the dogma of the church one of the books we read was ‘’Introducing The Orthodox Church’’ by Anthony M. Coniasis . This covered such basics as liturgy, prayer, scripture, salvation, the sacraments and the controversial areas of Mary, the saints and the use of icons. Like other churches the Orthodox see themselves as the ‘’one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’’: they consider themselves,’ as the only way, and the truth to be the guardians of that truth for over 2,000 years. For a deeper understanding of dogma we read ‘’The Experience of God’’ by Father Dumetru Staniloae . This gives, not only a deeper understanding of Orthodox faith but also a different way of understanding dogma, which in turn gives us a better understanding of the nature of this church.. For Orthodoxy, dogma is not about those rules and regulations of the faith that are rigid and fixed. In some of the English translations the ‘’Dogma’’ was omitted from the title for fear that it would be understood only in the western way. For Father Dumitri this is not about a bald exterior appeal to the magisterium but…’’to indicate the inner coherence of dogmatic truth and the significance of each dogma for the personal life of the Christian’’ He goes on to say that what is needed is a ‘’concrete theology’’. For him theology presumes a personal relationship and that makes it less theoretic and more dynamic than the normal, western Dogmatic Theology.: it’s not about placing beliefs in various boxes, it’s more about living an integral faith where each part of the faith relates to all the others.
In studying the theology of Orthodoxy we find both continuity and discontinuity with ourselves and with the early church, at least as we understand it. Unlike the western or Latin Church the Orthodox have not been subject to the Reformation nor the Renaissance and they were never influenced by the Age of Reason and governance has not been by dictate of Pope or prelates but by the collective decision of the church: the Patriarch is merely the first among equals, as is the Moderator of the General Assembly, with his brother bishops. Anthony M Coniasis writes that ‘’The holiest moment in the church service is the moment when the Church-God’s people-strengthened by preaching and sacrament-go out the church door into the world to be the Church. We don’t merely go to church; we are the Church’’ . This view is similar to the Roman Catholic practice as the priest declares at the end of the Mass, ‘’The Mass is ended, go and serve the Lord’’. The division and schism of 1054 represents the separation of the brethren and a very long period of isolation, which has been aggravated by the historical events, such as the sacking of Constantinople in the thirteenth century by the knights of the Fourth Crusade. One of our problems is that we think by using the same word s we are meaning the same thing but that is not always the case. J.I Packer makes this point in his foreword to ‘’Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism’’ when he says
A venerable British ballad [or was it Irish?] begins by declaring, ‘’It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go.’’’. Substitute for Tipperary the desired togetherness between, on the one hand, North America’s evangelical church- as the great cluster of evangelical denominations, freestanding Bible churches, and evangelical networks within the subevangelical mainline are currently called-and the western outposts of the Eastern Orthodox communion on the other, and words of the song fit with ominous exactness: indeed, ’’it’s a long way to go.

Continuity
Theology of Mary
There are apparent similarities with the Western Church in the theology of Mary and the saints but also discontinuity when we begin to unpack what the words actually mean: for the Orthodox Mary, the mother of Jesus is Theotokos, the God bearer and any icons of her are always with the child, Jesus. In Orthodoxy Mary is never alone and she is always pointing to the Son of God she is looking inwardly in contemplation. She is not holding the child. The child blesses her for her willingness to be the one who brought him into the world. In the Latin Church Mary is seen alone. In Orthodox understanding Mary gives Jesus the place of priority and honour which is in line with our reformed view. [picture of Mary here?]
Ian Bria takes this further by saying that ‘’an ecclesiology which does not include Mary the mother of Jesus is unbiblical.’’ We may have to take this as a valid criticism in that we do not give Mary the position of honour that she has in scripture as the one ‘’most highly favoured’’. Timothy Ware states that anyone who fails to honour Mary is usually someone who does not really believe in the incarnation. He tells us that the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus insisted that Mary be called Theotokus because honouring her would safeguard a right doctrine of Christ’s person. He says that ‘’anyone who thinks out the implications of that great phrase, ‘The word was made flesh’, cannot but feel a profound awe for her who was chosen as the instrument of so surpassing a mystery’’
The Communion of the Saints
Like the Roman Church Luke there is a theology of death which means that life is not defeated or interrupted by death: the Church is quick and dead, militant and triumphant.. There is little practical evidence to show that we believe in a church militant in our practice: we remain orthodox in our liturgy if not in our praxis. Some believe that we ignore the saints who have departed unless they were born in the nineteenth century and were sent out as missionaries. To some we act as if nothing of any importance happened before the Reformation if not prior to the Revivals of the nineteenth century. More familiar to us is the view that the Church is not the building rather it is the gathering in the name of Jesus and the fellowship of the saints which means that a Christian is never alone. Upon entering an Orthodox sanctuary one becomes immediately aware, we are told, of the great cloud of witnesses spoken of in the book of Hebrews: they are on the walls and on the roof and on the Iconostasis, which is viewed as a window onto heaven. To those of an evangelical and minimalist view it appears to be more of a barrier between the clergy and people. The saints are very important to any Orthodox worshipper because they are part of the triumphant church. . Just as evangelicals look with great reverence to the Old Testament patriarchs and to the missionaries of the eighteenth century so the Orthodox looks to the Patristic Fathers with veneration. In visiting the region of Turkey known as Cappadocia we were reminded of the Cappadocian Fathers and the part they played in making of the church. In our reading we were reminded of the part played by the patristic thinkers in the theological formation of John Calvin .
The Trinity
Then there are similarities with the evangelical world too. We have the world of Orthodoxy to thank for giving us a focus on the Trinitarian nature of God. All too often today we observe those Christians who pay little attention to the Fatherhood of God and give too much on Jesus [they tend to be Reformed Christians], those who give all the attention to the Spirit [charismatic or Pentecostal] and then there are those who deny the trinity altogether and we call them Unitarians, while the Orthodox are very careful to hold on to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ever three, ever one. In the Trinity we have the model for fellowship and partnership which results in service. It’s in the Trinity that we get the imperative to serve and to engage with each other. It’s in the trinity that we are reminded that ministry is all about relationships: our relationship with God, the triune God and our relationship with other human beings. We are all made in the image of God and that means we are fulfilled when we are like God, this is what the Orthodox call ‘theosis’, or the process of deification, what we prefer to call sanctification. This is what gave the Celtic Christians their relational ministry: this way of doing evangelism makes the person more important than the program and is more person-directed and less aggressive, more Christ-centred because the centre is not what we are doing but on Christ Himself. This is the approach we have taken in our church when we set up our prayer table in the community market. In this approach we allow people to come to us and request prayer rather than being direct and aggressive. As the Father relates to the Son and as the Spirit energizes the Son and makes sure the will of the Father is done so there is inter-dependence on each other, and that is how we are to relate to each other. Out of this approach we empower people rather than make them dependent, they become inter-dependent. In any community every member should have responsibilities and gifts for the benefit of the whole body.


Incarnation
This Trinitarian approach also leads on to the Incarnational approach of the Orthodox. In the incarnation the son of God came to earth as a real man, of flesh and blood. He took on our humanity, cleansed it and transformed it into a holy and glorious humanity. God became like us that we might become like Him. The flesh is important and not to be despised, rather we are to give thanks for it: the Romanian Orthodox, we soon discovered have a great facility for moving easily from the holy to the earthly, they can worship and celebrate without any difficulty. It is because of this incarnation emphasis and their trinitarianism that they thought it important to work and worship and study in the monastic settlements, so on these settlements there were sanctuaries with elaborate icon pictures along with libraries and refectories and fields to work in. In this model there is a holistic or integral approach rather than a pietistic, individualistic and private faith. The church building and the liturgy is designed to be heavenly and God –centred so that the worship becomes a drama: gospel is processed through the door of the iconostasis and the priest is dressed in his finery with the cloud of witnesses looking in the presence of the icon of the Theotokos and the pantokrator on the doom of the roof [God is panokrator or creator]. In ‘’The Liturgy after the Liturgy’’ Ion Bria makes the starting point that the word, ‘liturgy’ has its derived meaning in the words leiteros meaning public, and ergon, meaning work. He goes on to say that ‘
’the liturgy is not just a commemoration of Christ’s ministry to the world, teaching, healing, feeding the people; it is the realization, in each new context, of the history of the world, of ‘what the lord has done’ [psalm 64:8]|The faithful can see with their eyes and hear with their ears and hearts the message of the gospel in the symbolic language of Jesus…Again, this is a matter not just of visualizing the Word of God, but also of partaking the Body of Christ for the forgiveness of sins and for eternal life’’
In the participation of the people in the liturgy there is an appeal to all the senses: to sight as they see the architecture, the icons and the actions of the priest; to smell as the sweet fragrance of the incense rising up in worship; to hearing as the y hear the bells in the liturgy, as they listen to the singing, telling the story and the words of the priest and the reading of the Gospel and preaching of the word; to touch as they venerate the icons and feel the bread; and to speech as they respond in worship and as they bless themselves in the Trinitarian blessing. For Orthodoxy worship is central to life and living and does not remain in the sanctuary. How often do we need to remind ourselves, in the west, that worship is intended as our spiritual sacrifice, not to be restricted to church, not something we leave in the pews but in everything we do. If we believe in the Trinitarian God then we will follow His example of relational service. Worship is more than singing a few songs and praying a few prayers, it’s about the way we live. Music is of vital importance in the worship of Orthodoxy. In this heavenly drama that can last up to 150 minutes without seating the singing of the liturgy becomes vital. Listening to the harmony which tells the drama it is easier to attend to and remember than the spoken word. From blessing themselves to entering church the Orthodox believer remains thoroughly Trinitarian. Getting the worship right will lead to the right way to live. Like the Celtic Christians life and faith is relational rather than programmed, the ‘’Gospel Driven Church’’ becomes the ‘’Community Church’’ driven by the triune God. Many evangelicals are time driven: we have trained our people to come to worship which will fit into the lifestyle they have chosen. This may well be to do with the music of their choice or the liturgy that suits them best or even the length of the service so that once the magic hour arrives they are keeping an eye on the clock.
Worship
For Orthodoxy it’s not about the time spent in the sanctuary. There is an impulse for the faithful to be totally involved in the action of the liturgy. There is a desire to see, to enter into the holy place, to concelebrate and to take Holy Communion. It’s not a matter of time, but of moving towards the throne to praise in the presence of God. Ian Bria says that it is impossible to be uninvolved. Personally I can verify this. In a visit we made to a church in Iasi I felt caught up in the worship, by the beauty of the singing, by the spirit of worship in the place. Several times I wanted to leave but felt the tug to remain. I had no idea what was being said but that did not seem important. I was struck by the desire of the faithful to be there and to take the blessed bread with them. I was struck by the humility expressed by the women who stayed on their knees for long periods of time, blessing themselves, not in a way which seemed calculated to use the least possible amount of energy but reaching from their heads to the ground. At another church I was struck with a mixture of admiration and suspicion as I saw some women crawling on their hands and knees, blessing themselves in the name of the Triune God making their way through the icon of the virgin and child, pleading for health and healing. We in the reformed tradition remain suspicious of such practices, naming this as superstition and earning their salvation: do they not know that Christ forgives as we ask? But then I find myself asking ‘’how do we express our humility?’’ I think we would be too proud to humble ourselves .Metropolitan Anthony covers this in ‘’School for Prayer’’ saying that if we wish to pray we must start with a certainty that we are sinners in need of salvation. We need to realize that we are naturally cut off from God and that we cannot live without him. All we can offer is our longing to be changed that we may meet him. He says that ‘’prayer is really our humble ascent towards God, a moment when we turn God wards, shy of coming near, knowing that if we meet Him too soon, before His grace has had time to help us to be capable of meeting Him, it will be in judgment’’ Such real humility is not always at the top of evangelicalism
Vertical faithfulness
The Great Commission of Matthew 28 is seen as vertical faithfulness rather than horizontal persuasion. For most evangelicals the Great Commission drives them on so that ministry becomes an objective to be reached: targets are set as to how many can be reached with the message this week or this year, we seek to pack as many as possible into the church or the theatre or the tent. For Orthodoxy the target is to pass the faith on to friends and family that they may pass it on to their children and their children’s children. That seems like something Paul said in 2Timothy 2:2. For many generations now the Presbyterian Church has played lip service to this approach: the practice, on the other hand, has been less committed: we have made such demands on members to spent all their waking hours in the church that spending time with family and being in the community has become a rarity with the resulting outcome that we have become detached from the community in which we live and, worst of all, estranged from our families. We have become too individualistic and private and personal, failing to understand that our Trinitarian faith means we were intended to be the corporate body of Christ, and to have fellowship with one another, bearing one another’s burdens. In seeking to be faithful to the Great Commission we have actually become disobedient and have distorted it. Surely this command of Christ is both vertical and horizontal. There are some implications of this vertical faithfulness that local churches need to attend to.
Then there is the thorny question of the unity of the church. It was Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that the believers would be one but as the years go on then fragmentation becomes greater. In the ‘’Liturgy after the liturgy’’ we read that,
One of the issued raised by the liturgy after the liturgy is the question of Christian unity. It was Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that all the believers should be one: today we are more fragmented than ever, not just across the denominations but within them also. For may years now the Orthodox have kept the World Council of Churches together given the absence of the Roman Catholic Church. By their presence they have demonstrated a commitment to church unity. Since the early years of the infant church Christians from the east have been in the vanguard of doctrinal purity and guardianship, hence the ecumenical councils that defined the divinity and humanity of Christ an other important doctrines we now affirm. On the more local scene the division among local churches whom largely share the same core values is a real obstacle to the gospel and the cause of Christ. While we cannot merely sweep aside the differences between us we should be deliberate and intentional in the engagement we have with those with whom we disagree. In 1974 the World Council of Churches meeting in Bucharest pointed to the necessity of churches working together in communion which would reflect in history the Trinitarian existence of God Himself. It goes on to say that,
The church is meant precisely to be that. Mission, therefore, suffers and is seriously distorted or disappears whenever it is not possible to point to a community in history which reflects this Trinitarian existence of communion. This happens whenever the church is so distorted or divided that it is no longer possible to recognize it as such a communion, or whenever mission is exercised without reference to the church, but with reference simply to the individuals or the social realities of history.
This means that getting our ecclesiology wrong may well make mission impossible. We need to have a correct view of the church, not as something separate from daily life but as an integral part of life. Our worship is another way of preaching the gospel to a secular world. This was highlighted at the W.C.C meeting in Canberra in 1991which spoke of the fundamental nature of the Christian life in sacramental terms.
Every worshipping community should be a model for an inclusive community. Worship space needs to be designed so that all people are able to participate fully. A lively ministry of hospitality, welcoming all in the name of the Lord, is most important. The plea of young people for forms of worship and celebration which fit their culture must be taken seriously.
With the attitude of intentional engagement there will be opportunities to agree and to disagree and to witness to the power and love of the Trinitarian God. Hospitality means being open to the thoughts and traditions of others, it means an openness to light from any quarter with the spiritual faculty of discernment. In our working with churches outside our comfort zone we have tended to isolate ourselves and remain aloof with the danger of remaining closed to the work of the Spirit of God.
Discontinuity
Some of the difficult areas of belief and practice include icons, the place of Mary and the saints and the attitude to tradition. At the beginning we quoted the ballad, ‘’It’s a long way to Tipperary’: recalling icons, is one of those areas were the distance seem the greatest. When a westerner looks at an icon he sees something quite weird, he sees something which evokes feelings of idolatry and exaggerated, cartoon-like thoughts. When the case for icons is put forward it appears very reasonable but the problem is that observation leaves us less than satisfied. This is an important topic because in a post modern society art and music have a very important place in worship and if we can learn from that we should.
Iconology
The trouble with icons and iconology is that we can only look at it from a western point of view. For the Orthodox there are three purposes in using them: one is to create reverence in worship, the second is to instruct those who cannot read; and the third is to serve as an existential link between the worshipper and God. The point is made by the Orthodox that while the Hebrews have always rejected any visible representation of God they did not appreciate that the use of letters can do the exact same thing: for example the use of Chi-Rho and HIS stand for Christ and Jesus respectively. St Basil said that ‘’what the word transmits through the ear, that painting silently shows through the image, and by these two means, mutually, accompanying one another…we receive knowledge of one and the same thing.’’ We are to understand that the Orthodox has two gospels: the one is visual and the other is the verbal to appeal to the whole person. The idea of icon has also become more a feature in the lives of people in popular culture: the communist regime of the USSR made it their practice to display photographs of their leaders to keep people focused on the right issues and the other is contemporary use of icons which act as windows to their programs; we understand that in the Presidential election in the USA on November v4th 2008 many African Americans took pictures of their forebears with them into the voting booths with them as a way of including them in this momentous event; then we are also reminded of the iconic nature given to celebrities and the description of Jesus Christ by the Apostle Paul as an icon of God long with his call for all the faithful to be like Him.
When it comes to prayer there are important lessons for us to learn from the Orthodox Christians and some things which call for critical thought. Take a look at the list set out by Anthony Coniasis and you can only agree that here we have a treasure for us to meditate upon. Here are just a few of these gems of understanding, taken at random, to demonstrate the wealth of wisdom as to the nature of prayer:
• Prayer…uplifts and unites human beings with God [St Gregory Palamas]
• Prayer is our personal communication system with our home base
• Prayer is opening the door of our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit
• Prayer is not bargaining with God, trying to convince Him to change. It is, rather, our asking Him to change us so we see His ways and His plans more clearly
• Prayer is raising my eye to God lest I begin to think that I am the highest point in the universe.
At the heart of eastern Christianity there is mysticism, there is a call to go beyond the cognitive thought forms that we in the west have iconized . There is much here that we can agree with and much that must challenge us. Theophan the Recluse calls for the worshipper to come before God with ‘’’the mind in the heart’’ He says that we need to pray with the mind but also with the heart. He says that we must pray with the mind so that it is not merely words, but the heart has to feel what the mind is thinking. Metropolitan Anthony says that ‘’unless the prayer which you intend to offer to God is important and meaningful to you first, you will not be able to present it to the Lord’’ He sets out three types of prayer: spontaneous; short vocal prayers and ready-made prayers. Discounting the possibility of being spontaneous all the time and rejecting set prayers he talks of the need for which is rooted in conviction. He suggests learning the Psalms by heart so that they can be used, drawn up from the well whenever they are needed and of the Jesus prayer. None of the above should present us with any problems and the idea of practicing daily prayer devotion at each end of the day should encourage us all. Coniaris sets out the daily cycle as one way of putting this into practice. Where many evangelicals have difficulty is with prayer to and with the saints.

What lessons can we learn?
Having tried to tease out any family resemblance I want to try to suggest some practical lessons we can learn from our long, lost relatives. To do this we will need to set out some of the features of the family. Firstly there is the Trinitarian doctrine, which sets the context for much of what is Orthodox Theology and practice. From the fellowship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit comes the monastic communities. Since the fourth century monasticism has been organized into communities, some surviving to the present day. The monastic initiative was the response of the believers to the spiritual struggle. They went to the places that others would not go to. They took the gospel to those places where it had no gone before. When the gospel was taken to Russia monasteries appeared immediately; when the communists left Romania the monasteries began to multiply. Michael Oleska tells us that when Russia, Central Asia and Siberia were settled it was not by adventurers or frontiersmen, as in America, but by monks who went to the remotest corners of Eurasia to continue the struggle against the devil, in the world and within themselves. John Binns reminds us of the problem when discussing Eastern approaches to theology: the words used are often used by east and west but have different meanings. It is also useful to note that both sides have different ways of understanding the nature of this theology. In the east the understanding is not about an academic knowledge but of personal knowledge. Dumitru Staniloae makes the same point when he declares that dogmatics is about ‘concrete theology’…a theology of experience’’ this is not about abstract systems nor philosophical theory but the expression of personal experience and a living encounter with the divine. John Binns quotes the words of Evagrius of Pontus who described a theologian as one who prays and one who prays is a theologian. The reason for this is that theological understanding has developed in the Monasteries rather than the universities, in the rough and tumble of daily life rather than in the ivory palaces of academia. We must wonder how the increasing importance of the universities may influence the life of the church in the days ahead or if the strong link with monasticism will act as a practical bulwark. It would be a mistake to think of the eastern monasticism as remote and distanced from church and people. The fact is that from the very beginning, and we saw this in Turkey, the monasteries were tightly linked to the community. This is seen in the fact that they were centres of learning, places of hospitality and places of work. In times of economic difficulty they provided employment, places for prayer and contemplation. They had their origins in the gospel call to complete commitment and to leave family and friends. I the trinity there is a call to service and interaction. They saw themselves as ‘’white martyrs’, called, not to die, but to give up all for Christ’. John Binns reminds us that the first monks we re just ordinary people who committed themselves to live as the people around them lived. There was nothing very unusual about them. They lived in groups or alone; they ate the same food, wore the same clothes and did the same work as the people around them. Their aim was to live as an alternative communities so as to be critical friends, sometimes challenging, at other times encouraging society. It was in the monastery that people found training and education and sometimes employment. In the early days membership was flexible: monks could leave the monastery and work m in the community and community people were able to join the alternative community for a [period of time. This was an intentional community. we have to ask the question, especially in those places which are often considered God-forsaken, where are the intentional communities in our western societies? These communities were so successful at what they did that they attracted financial support from government and people with great resources. They even played a part in the national defense, making the point that all defense is not military but also spiritual. Emperor Basil II wrote: ‘what foundations are to a house and oars are to a boat, the prayers of the saints are to the Empire. Who can doubt that what the sword, the bow and military strength could not achieve, prayer alone has brought tom pass easily and splendidly’
Stemming from Monasticism we have another feature which is their servant attitude. This also stems from the emphasis on the incarnation. In the triune relationship there is the interaction and mutual service of their fellowship which explains their desire to serve. In Christ God planted Himself in our world, the tabernacle with humanity for a while. Unlike other kings he came to serve rather than be served and it is the responsibility of every Christian to do likewise: not that they speak of responsibility but rather of doing what should come naturally. In the various countries where Orthodoxy is found you will find the liturgy in the national language. You will also find a strong nationalist spirit. Sometimes the question is raise as to how the eastern European nations managed to keep their religion going. The answer to this question raises another characteristic which is that of a survival mentality: in Ireland we call it stubbornness. What that means in the Russian and Romanian context is that they choose to be with their people instead of holding on to religious purity. A pietistic view in Belfast has denuded the community of vibrant Christian witness today.
When Dumitru Staniloae was asked about the cost of surviving communism he said it was two-fold: fear and lies. The persecution was great and they had to pretend to be faithful to the atheist regime. The alternative was top resist, remain pure but be destroyed and be of no use to their people. The Romanian Patriarch during the Ceaucesu years decided to collude rather than resist and this choice was accepted by the population: when he resigned after the revolution the people persuaded him to return because they understood his decision. The same course of action was taken in Russia. The affect in Russia and Romania was to outlast communism: as in China the philosophical premise of Leninist-Marxist ideology was seen to be defeated. The premise was that eventually the success of communism would destroy the foundations of the church and that would lead to a rejection by the people. Unfortunately, for the regime, this did not work out and that was re-enforced when they turned to repression and persecution. When the communists left the church was there to pick up the pieces.
Next, we see that they are clearly intentional in their engagement, both with those they agree with and with those they disagree with. This is illustrated by their involvement in the ecumenical movement where they have held the foreground and in the way they have decided to stay in communities. Where are our intentional communities engaging with the enemy as well as with friends? We have been slow to join the discussion table. We have deserted those communities which need people to fight the spiritual battles which face them every day and that helps to explain why there is a major dislocation of church and community.
Another feature, already mentioned elsewhere, is their grounding in the saints, especially the patristics. They have a clear view of their place in history as the people of God: they are part of a long line of saints who have held true to the faith. While this history can imprison, as it tends to do with us, it can also liberate and inform. The ruins and relics in Turkey and elsewhere can give rise to hope as well as to despair as they consider the sovereign will of God
Application
Having suggested some features of our Orthodox brethren let’s spend some time in setting out how we can benefit from them. Living in a post modern world we need to consider how we can make more use of, and, appeal to the senses. The way we live and worship is very cognitive and while it is necessary for us to have strong minds as well as strong bodies we need to become more holistic in expressing our faith. While we may have difficulties in using icons as a way to focus the worshipper’s mind on Christ we may be able to use art in other ways. In our church we already have a stained glass window of Jesus but we may be able to highlight it more often using creative methods.
In thinking of the great cloud of witnesses we can include the example of the early church fathers along with the missionaries of the nineteenth century.
In thinking of mission we can take the approach of other congregations, along with our Orthodox brothers of making the worship service be the place to help people to become disciples of Christ and leave the liturgy with the understanding that the service has only begun.
Following the implications of the incarnation we need to be intentional in our approach to community. One of the strategies used by John Perkins is to call Christian people to relocate in tough urban communities. We need to attract those people who can, and will, be open to minister and live in the most difficult places, be they in the inter-faces of our cities or in the rural border areas. We can decide to make housing available in areas of acute housing shortage without giving up ministry opportunities. We could set up Intentional Christian Communities in the various areas of Urban Belfast, and why not on the Crumlin Road? In a community which is so segregated into Protestant and Catholic, Nationalist and Unionist we need models which can give example to how the two major traditions in Belfast can live together in harmony. If an experiment in integrated living is to succeed and space is to be shared we will need to create communities which have a certain degree of protection and control. Here is one suggestion or line of thought which is worth considering for our congregation and community:we could use our site to build some housing. A chaplain/warden and other necessary members of staff would be appointed. Places could be allocated with a mix of Christian and non-Christian people, young and old. A cross community aspect would be both essential and inspirational for the greater community. At the same time we could go into partnership with statutory services to build a sports hall/community hall which could also be used by the church.
This would be a renewing resource because it would get regular funding from government and it would dove-tail with the both the Vine and the other churches in the Greater Shankill Community-if it was thought appropriate we could be done with leadership coming from the shankill worship centre. We could be in partnership with the Shankill churches / or with Immanuel-there are models in the US [e.g. Redeemer Presbyterian in New York] and the Vine would play a vital part.
This would enable us to keep the present congregation going and keep a foot on this important arterial route. At the same time the outreach could go on, in parallel with the Vine and other congregations. Being intentional means that we have decided to do this rather than just let it happen. We have decided that we need to attract some Christians who will live in community to help us to model what it means to be a Christian in the urban community. Who else is going to be prepared to live in the places that even Christians have left. Living in community makes it all the more possible. If we were able to build as high as the church then we could have all the more accommodation. There would also be the possibility of extending the services in the future.
Outreach at the vine would be more likely to attract non-Church people. Alpha type courses as well as other topical services. This can only be of encouragement to the other churches and to the Vine-there is no need or desire to do what others are doing.
While the development of a worship centre’s on the Shankill Road is a laudable idea it would be even better if there were people living in community. Along with the work on the Shankill this could be an urban community, where in-service training could be received and students placed to find out the realities of urban life in Belfast.

1. We can also seek to be critical friends to both community and government. This has already begun but what we need to do, by way of intention, is to make it clear to the community which feels deserted by the church is that we are committed to and actually passionately love our communities. In the best practice of development principles we would seek to work with people rather than for them.
We could also make places of spiritual retreat available all the time: turning desert waste places into spiritual oases. We need to consider how to make our worship glimpses of heaven. Our sanctuaries should use the best of art and music and appeal to a many of the senses as is possible, given our theology and they should be as open as possible that people can make use of these sanctuaries.
We need to take biblical reality much more seriously: for them Pentecost is a continuing reality.
We should also consider the implications of vertical faithfulness in our models of ministry. As Presbyterians we speak often of the importance of family and of the responsibility of the family in passing on the faith to the next generation rather than delegating this to the local fellowship. One of the people in the UK to take this seriously has been the of Rev William Still of Gilmartin Parish Church in Aberdeen. Here the congregation is freed to work in the community as active members of the community and to minister to their families. In many of our Presbyterian congregations the expectations on the minister are very high which has tended to make people dependent rather than mature and active. I am not sure if these expectations are driven by ministers or by their congregations or by both. The effect is to increase the pressure and stress on the minister. We have forgotten that the work of ministry starts at home and when it looks outward it requires ministers who are well rounded people; people take time to think and pray and are not afraid to take creative opportunities to meet people where they are. We need to think out of the box. Too often we think, like the institutions we serve, in straight vertical lines. Too often we are overly concerned with our part of the Empire we call church when we need to take the rest of the body of Christ into consideration. We need to ask how to help one another in the spiritual battle.
In seeking to be faithful to creation we should seek to build any new plant using environmentally friendly actions. We should also be concerned with social justice issues so that we will stand up for those who are oppressed in any way.
Conclusion
In this paper I have tried to tease out the family resemblances and to look for lessons to be learnt. A church which has kept the faith for over 2,000 years, through years of persecution by Ottoman and Communist regimes is worthy of investigation, at least. I wonder how we would have fared if we had been the ones who had suffered what they have suffered?