May 2003

The Christian Church is in decline or so we are led to believe. British statistics show a sharp decline in church going over the last 50 years. On the other hand, a recent survey shows that a large proportion of Britons still regard themselves as Christian.

What does all this mean? Has the Church, as an institution, lost the confidence of the people it reckons to serve? Has it lost the ability to communicate the Gospel with which it was entrusted by Christ before his ascension into heaven?

One problem the Church has in the 21st century is the inability to live up to preconceived expectations. Two or three generations have been brought up with TV as an integral part of life. The old fogies among us may complain about the quality of many TV programmes and their content but that's not, I believe, the significant factor which affects the Church.

TV by its very nature is a professional, slick and technically precise operation. What you see is the product of hours of rehearsal, technical skill and editing. The Church in its worship week by week can't hope to compete.

What we get in a church service or an act of worship is us. Yes, us as the hymn puts it: "Just as we are," raw and unrehearsed. OK, we may've done it that way a few hundred times before but today's generation demands and expects variety, innovation, professionalism and technical slickness which is what they experience on TV.

The Church can't hope to compete and neither should it try. The Church isn't TV, a West End play or a Hollywood blockbuster. It's ordinary people - and we're all ordinary before God, and yet we're all special and precious - offering our best to God in worship where the word "worship" means giving to God what we think he's worth - everything - in the best way we can.

Before the Ascension of Jesus into heaven his disciples are set a task: Repentance and forgiveness of sins are to be proclaimed in my name to all nations... You are witnesses of these things." They have to go out and preach the Word not only by the words they use but accompanying those words with events and actions: deeds.

Their inspiration is Jesus himself. After his resurrection we find Jesus still instructing his disciples about the Kingdom of God and backing up what he's saying with many demonstrations. It's as though he's fine tuning his teaching in the light of their experience of his risen self.

But now the time has come for the disciples to try it out for themselves. The Ascension celebrates that moment. It must've been something like learning to ride a bike.

The disciples stand staring up at the sky as though the sky is going to be the scene for future action. They have to be reminded that the action is going to continue on earth and that they're the ones now responsible for it. Their reassurance comes from the Holy Spirit who empowers them.

"See, I am sending upon you what my father promised..." (Acts 1:7, 8). Christ came to call sinners, not the righteous, and inevitably the prevailing sin will be our failure to live out the gospel we proclaim. We're always on the road of transformation.

We can never claim to have arrived. When the disciples trusted and were open to the Holy Spirit, they just didn't find the right words. They also found they had power beyond their imagining.

We can never assume such power. That would be to fall into the trap of the modern media and advertising, mistaking slick wrapping for reality. We must follow the disciples, just as we are, in our trust and openness to the spirit in our worship and our lives, and the gifts and the power will be given as promised.

Alan Hayday