Spirituality encountered more effectively outside institutional church
-13/5/04
George Lings, the Church Armyís Director of Research, has challenged Christians this week to acknowledge that many encounter Jesus and spirituality more effectively outside than inside the structures of traditional church.
Introducing the mission and church planting seminar at the 20th Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown Park, Esher - the largest event of its kind in Europe, Lings claimed that the recent debate [0] in the Church of England about new ways of being and doing church has raised the profile about fresh expressions of church, but more should be done to demonstrate the range of what contemporary church is.
Lings outlined that for too many church is, ì an invisible relic of the past- institutionalised, irrelevant and inadequate, and based on a model of society that no long applies: for too long we have tried to span this divide by trying to get people coming in to us rather than being what they need where they are.î
ìForty percent of adults in England and Wales have left the church in their lifetimeî, explains Lings.
ìThat is an extraordinary volume of water to lose out of the church bath. It looks distinctly careless. Yet, half of this de-churched group is open to return, if we find them and get our act together. Our call is to engage with a society moving away from - and out of touch with - church.î
The Bishop of Dorchester, Rt Revd Colin Fletcher, added that ìemerging church has to be more strongly relational and rooted at the centre of communities if it is to be mission-shaped for the people who need it.î
Earlier in the conference, Church Armyís Chief Secretary, Philip Johanson, had set the theme for future church by warning the church against waiting in vain for young people to return to the fold.
In his keynote address Johanson introduced the theme of future church and pleaded that the church needed to recognise the need for fresh expressions of church in a modern context.
Johanson claimed that ìEmerging church must be shaped by the mission content of today and not as churchgoers might prefer it to be. We must listen to the people- the 60% who consider themselves as not connected with the church.î
The address provided an honest and frank assessment of why traditional Sunday worship is seen by many as outdated and irrelevant and yet the interest in spirituality, new-age faith and the occult has never been greater.
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