back to the past

The curiously named "Back to Church Sunday" will be held on September 13, and it was quite heartening to see that driving up Unley Road this morning a huge banner was being put up stretching across the road advertising the fact.


The single mosty frequent comment from church people is that they don't like the name. And perhaps its subtitle "come as you are" is a happier concatenation of ideas.
I have some mixed feeling about it. Theer are after all a lot of people who don't come to church who did come ten, twenty, thirty years ago. We sometimes talk about these people as though they stopped coming to church yesterday. When I came here I was told that E was 'the hall booking lady'. As far as I could tell she had moved out of the parish some years before, but still continued with her mundane task. There are many curiosities like this
I have long felt that we are misguided if we think that trying to encourage those who no longer come is the best way to go, many of those people for example have stopped comign to church by choice not be accident. It is part of the way we don't take responsibility for what happens in our churches. How many times have I sat in a discussion about outreach and evangelism only to hear it turn to blaming those who don't come for their failure to respond.
Any way, we are accepting this opportunity for what it is. It may allow some people to join us for worship on 13th September (contact me if you would like to)

And I am sorry for all those who still feel hurt by events of the past, or the cliquish nature of the church, or who just think church has lost the (Christian) plot.

You are welcome. And just come as you are!