A little
while ago I started to think about diversity and ‘going to church’. Lots of
people visit our church in Bacton; some of them sign the visitor’s book; some
put requests in the prayer book. Some wander round, others sit. Some are one-off
visitors, others come quite frequently. many of them sign the visitor's book and
words like 'peaceful' and 'calm' feature ever more prominently. It seems that
for many visiting a church is a spiritual event, though not expressed in the
language of Christian spirituality.
Given this, what
more could we offer them? Some suitable literature? What about a labyrinth of
some kind? Something which would offer a tour of the church (catering for those
who appreciate church history & architecture etc) and combining that with the
idea of prayer stations and different focuses for prayer. Since the church is
unattended there are some obvious security implications—anything high or even
medium tech would be susceptible to light fingers but surely we could offer
something?
I haven't
yet put this to our PCC but I have had a few preliminary thoughts. For instance,
there seem to be two main reasons why people visit the church—they either come
because they have some sort of interest in the architecture and history or they
come for the 'spiritual' experience mentioned above.
We do have a guide to the church, which needs
revision and is sitting on my computer and on my 'to do' list. Could we rewrite
the guide in such a way that would combine both historical and spiritual
elements? Could it be in the form of a tour guide of the church which offers the
choice of both or either of these elements. For instance, we have a 12th century
font, which predates the existing church building. Perhaps by the side of that
there could be a 'forgiveness station' similar to that i put together for the
'chill-out tent' mentioned on the
spirituality page?
There is already
a prayer station, in the form of a candle stand and a prayer request book, by
the pulpit. This area is used regularly and all sorts of people write prayer
requests in the book.
I have
deliberately not taken this any further because it seems to offer an opportunity
for some of the more creative people in the church to work on it together as a
collaborative project so there is nothing more to say on this at present. As
things progress (or stall) I will update this page.
