pools drying up

There was a better-than-expected attendance today at the thanksgiving service I led at the crematorium. That, at least, was the view of the niece, the next of kin, of the lady who'd died. She hadn't expected that many.

I think it was probably the volume of neighbours who swelled the numbers present. They were out in force.

The lady had lived in the family home in that street for close on sixty years. And a lot of the folk who live nearby have been there quite a time as well. Most of them knew her, and most of them helped her out when need arose - and when she herself permitted it; which wasn't always, she was a pretty independent lady.

It made me aware once again that an older generation is now slowly dying out.

In the life of the congregation it's something I'm hugely conscious of. This older generation were able and willing to give themselves gladly to all sorts of different tasks which required attention.

But there aren't so many available now to take their place. Far more are out in employment now. And those who are working are often now working impossible hours.

Family life makes massive demands as well, of course; there are all sorts of great opportunities which children can have. All sorts of different places to go, all manner of different things for them to do. It's time-consuming stuff (and cash-consuming, too, I suppose - which can make the need to be working more pressing still).

And there's a lot of voluntary work out there in the wider community in which folk are rightly involved. Like looking after their neighbours. Things like that, and a host of other more organised, charity work.

End result is simply this - the pool of folk on whom the church can draw for all the different projects, tasks and commendable activities we'd like to do is shrinking fast.

It's a different sort of 'climate change' which is now seeing these pools of willing volunteers dry up. The social 'climate' is changing fast.

There are, I think, a number of major issues we need to be challenged about and address, as we recognise the rapidly changing 'climate' of our culture and society today. I don't have definitive answers. But I'm aware, I hope, of the issues.

The first has to do with lifestyle. The lifestyle of comfortable affluence which our society pursues is something we must question as we seek to serve our Lord. I'm wondering if at least some of the added demands upon our time and on our energies are related to, if not actually bound up with, the lifestyle expectations which we've gradually come to adopt.

Expectations which often derive, I suspect, far more from the values of a largely secular society than from the tenets of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Or am I being unfair in suggesting that?

Then there's the issue of commitment. There is, I think, an observable drift from the notions of commitment which our forbears generally had.

We prefer today to keep our options open. Our commitment is therefore the looser and more tentative. We don't want to box ourselves into a corner, as it were, in case we get a better offer down the line.

A better job, or a bigger adventure, or a more attractive partner, or a greater who knows what might come along in a few months' time - and, well, we wouldn't want to miss whatever it was, would we? So we're not prepared to make such firm, or long commitments.

We'll live with one another. But not get married. I mean, it is just possible someone even better might come along.

That sort of thinking can subtly get carried across to our notions of serving the Lord. We'll countenance perhaps a 3-month stint of service in some place abroad through the summer months; or a whole long gap year, it may be (whatever our age or stage in life).

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with either of these. But I notice that these sort of Christian commitments are far more common-place (and far more appealing) than a life-long commitment to serving Christ in some hard, demanding place.

In this regard, insofar as my way-too-general observations are valid at all, we've again allowed our perspective to be informed more by the values our culture affirms than the values of the gospel. Or is that me being unfair once more?

As I say, I'm asking questions more than pointing fingers.

There's an issue, too, in relation to the view we have of ministry. Programmes and projects are not the same as ministry. Or at least not necessarily.

The pastoral exhortations in the letters of Paul, for instance, have far more to do with our conduct and manner at home and at work, and the way we relate to our family and colleagues and leaders and peers, than with any sort of 'programmes' which the church may run.

It's the former which constitute ministry. It's there - in the workplace, the home and the neighbourhood - it's there that our costly commitment to Christ is given expression each day. At least, that's its primary expression surely.

Or is that being too simplistic?

As a pastor and teacher my task is to equip my fellow believers ('the saints') for the work of ministry.

I need to be clear what it is I'm equipping them for. And they in their turn must be clear that that crucial work of ministry (at home, at work, in the street in which they live, etc) is, in the Lord, their work.

And of course, a God-given privilege, too.