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The ‘All-Age’ Church of England?

There is a buzzing in the ether at the moment about the ability or otherwise of the Church of England to attract all age groups, and the consequences for its future.

Tim Ross in The Telegraph on 12 July reported that The Revd Dr Patrick Richmond, a Synod member from Norwich, told the [York General Synod] that some projections suggested that the Church would no longer be “functionally extant” in 20 years’ time.

“The perfect storm we can see arriving fast on the horizon is the ageing congregations…The average age is 61 now, with many congregations above that…These congregations will be led by fewer and fewer stipendiary clergy … 2020 apparently is when our congregations start falling through the floor because of natural wastage, that is people dying. Another 10 years on, some extrapolations put the Church of England as no longer functionally extant at all.”

Nelson Jones in the New Statesman on 13th July cited this and added:

An ageing congregation is not necessarily a dying one…the established church has always been most popular among an older demographic… women of mature years remain the backbone of the Anglican church…Active people with time and money to spare – exactly the sort of people the church should be trying to attract. Some will find their thoughts turning towards more spiritual matters after a hectic career and family life, and thus far more responsive to the church’s message than the typical teenager, career-focused twenty-something or stressed-out parent. At the upper end of the age-range, people will be preparing for death and will be especially open to the comforts of religion.

Nelson Jones exaggerates his point, and has his tongue firmly in his cheek when he later suggests that in future the Church seek sponsorship from Saga, distressing ‘Red’ in her apples of gold blog on 14th July.

But the Church has in recent years increasingly adopted the language of marketing, as if the Church were selling some kind of soap powder that we claim washes [sins?] whiter! Robb, of the ‘Changing Worship’ blog commented on 13th July:

…there have been some unfortunate soundbytes such as the need for a “recruitment drive”. There has also been the use of business model type language to describe the impending fall or rise of the good old CofE

Not a million miles from where I live, the new vicar’s first sermon announced to the congregation that his ‘target audience’ was mothers of young children, who would bring their children and their husbands to church. Those not in his dream demographic (85% of the existing congregation, and 95% of those attending e.g. the APCM) would be catered for, eg with occasional services from the Book of Common Prayer, until they died off, hopefully leaving the Church large sums of money.

Hold on a moment! Don’t you think this is all putting the cart before the horse? Even if we admit to caring more about the Body of Christ as a whole than its current individual members, or the hive more than the bee, surely the best way of safeguarding the whole is by considering the needs of its component parts and then trying to meet them?

Many reams have been written about the differing spiritual needs that people have at different stages of their life. In Hinduism, life is believed to comprise four stages, each with its own spiritual dimension. In the first, which lasts until the age of 25, the brahmachari begins seeking enlightenment, with the help of a spiritual director (guru). At the second stage, Grihastha, which lasts until about the age of 50, people get married, have children, earn a living and accumulate wealth and property. It is not regarded as an important period for spirituality. Next comes Vanaprastha, when one’s duty as a householder comes to an end. One should renounce all physical, material and sexual pleasures, retire from social and professional life and spend one’s time in prayers. Finally, the sannyasi, or wandering ascetic, having renounced all desires, fears and hopes, duties and responsibilities, is virtually merged with God as he concentrates on attaining moksha, or release from the circle of birth and death.

Of course, Christians are not Hindus, but people are people and perhaps there is a fundamental truth about human nature here. Carl Jung, in ‘Modern Man in Search of a Soul’, wrote:

Every civilized human being, whatever his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche. Just as the human body connects us with the mammals and displays numerous relics of earlier evolutionary stages going back to even the reptilian age, so the human psyche is likewise a product of evolution which, when followed up to its origins, show countless archaic traits.

Gail Sheehy wrote her original book ‘Passages’ in 1977, but in a 2004 interview with Jon Spayde she offers a useful summary and update. She too makes the point about human spiritual development, stressing that the enquiring child, who asks ‘why?’ about everything, turns again in old age to matters eschatological.

We are, perhaps, doomed to disappointment if we concentrate on 25-50 year-olds, just at the point where, as Wordsworth said – admittedly in a different context –

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Colin Coward writes on 15th July about ‘The two halves of life’

Second-half-of-life issues are concerned with the birth of God in the soul, with the need to deepen and grow in “wisdom, age, and grace” (Luke 2.52)

But it is also a period when, as long as physical health allows, people need to be needed. The recently retired are the obvious people to shoulder most of the day to day load of physical management of our churches. Jonathan Hagger (‘Mad Priest’) commented on the apples of gold blog on 15th July:

…it would be common sense to prioritise that age group in respect of our mission. I’m not saying we ignore the youth. I just don’t think they are the answer to the Church’s need for more bums on pews. I think the over 40s are…

To state what is perhaps obvious, just because the ‘sannyasis’ among us are individually nearer to death than the 25-50 year-olds, a congregation predominantly composed of sannyasis does not in itself make the Church close to death. But equally the Church must obviously continue to target the ‘brahmacharis’, offering Christianity as an answer to the questions posed both by the young and the old.

I cannot improve on the conclusions that Will Cookson draws:

I think that we live in one of those tipping points of history where our efforts and care will tip the balance. Carrying on with business as normal will lead us into a cul-de-sac…The Anglican prayer book has as one of its statements in the Declaration of Assent about the Church of England the great phrase: ‘It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation.’ That is the mission of our church. We are called upon to keep looking at how we present the great truths of the Christian faith to each generation anew. it is not enough that these ways worked in the past. For each generation we need to find ways to make the Gospel understandable and relate-able to them.

Note The photograph is courtesy of Shutterstock, and issued under a creative commons licence.

31 comments on this post:

Erika Baker said...
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50 seems awfully old to me to be starting to ask spiritual questions. Most people I know started in their early thirties, precisely when children came along and the purpose and meaning of life became important questions, and when life was so hectic and frazzled that "is this all there is" became pressing.

But like everyone, I'm only going by my own experience and by extrapolating that, coming up with "surely, we should…." certainties that may be based on sand.

Has some proper research been done regarding when people come to faith, how and why?

17 July 2011 17:07
Jake Dell said...
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Well done! I like the templates of the stages of life borrowed from Hinduism.

Marketing, at its best, is a powerful tool that can be placed in the service of the Gospel, just as preaching (oratory) is also a useful tool. Neither are substitutes for the Gospel. One may both "preach" and "market" the Gospel faithfully.

In those cases where business-speak seems to have invaded the councils of the church it could be that we marketers (I speak as one) have been careless in exhibiting the "tricks of the trade". No good public speaker announces that he is (following Aristotle) about to attempt to persuade his audience using the "forensic" or "epideictic" genre. He simply goes about the business of being convincing.

Likewise any marketer-priest who announces out the outset who his target audience is letting too much of his craft show. If he decides on his message and crafts his appeal appropriately his target audience will respond.

I believe that there is one message that we Christians are comissioned to tell the world. At the same time I believe that we can produce, package, format and distribute that message in nearly as many ways as there are people on this earth.

17 July 2011 17:10
Jake Dell said...
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@Erika – the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church (for which I work here in New York) has done some research on "new-comer" analysis. I will look into seeing how we might share that.

17 July 2011 17:17
Red said...
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Really interesting post, and thanks for the mention. I agree with the Hindu model in that we require something different at diffreent stages of life, but to effectively write off the 25-50 age bracket seems strange. It's probably when people are the most open, questioning, and moving in lots of different circles too. Like Erika most people I know started to really question spirituality after having kids so that would be the ideal age for people to have somewhere relevant to come and ask those questions. (which sadly is not at present most of the CofE).
Love the Will Cookson quote too – must look him up.
redx

17 July 2011 17:34
Lay Anglicana said...
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Thank-you,Jake,for your kind words. Re-reading my section about marketing, I do think it was a little facile, for which I apologise. As you hint, the first thing that the apostles did was to market the gospel; it is just not the word we usually use.

There is a sort of continuum, isn't there, in this kind of 'marketing'. A man who lives in our village is a a shepherd, a man of only basic education, who is a natural preacher. He would be taken aback if I told him he was marketing the gospel, and yet that is what he is doing.
At the other extreme, you and the 'digital disciples' and users of social media are using the tools available to the 21st century -to 'produce, package, format and distribute'- which my shepherd friend was, in his own way, also doing.

Like Erika, I would be very interested in the research that has been done on newcomer analysis.

17 July 2011 17:35
Lay Anglicana said...
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Oh dear, Red (and Erika)
I really wasn't attempting to write off the 25-50 year-old generation (how could I, when they are the 'masters of the universe'?).
It is just that in my (admittedly limited experience of a small Hampshire village), this age group are very elusive as far as the church goes.
That is not to say they may not privately be deeply spiritual people, but they rarely seem to express this by attending church services.
Thank-you for reading and commenting. You are certainly proof that there are some 25-50 year olds who are deeply spiritual!

17 July 2011 17:41
Perpetua said...
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Thanks for this interesting overview, Laura. I was 30 myself when I came to faith and was confirmed, but it wasn't because I'd been targeted, but because I was searching. The church I attended back then had a lot of 30-40-somethings, as well as plenty of older people, but even then (35 years ago) virtually none in their late teens and 20s. Just too busy with education and work, but more receptive later when married and with children.

17 July 2011 17:44
UKViewer said...
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Sam Norton posted on his blog today http://bit.ly/qH6wO4. It's a powerful post and is giving me much food for thought.

It's relevant to this discussion as well.

He says:

"At General Synod we hear that by 2020 the Church will be dead (good analysis of underlying trajectory here, the Synod story contains all sorts of assumptions). We have lots of schemes and ideas and we run around chasing our tails because we have lost sight of the one thing needful. We're in a complete funk about sexuality – whether it's homosexuality or the gender of the episcopate – a subject on which Jesus said very little. We forget this, because we're not sat at his feet. When we do respond to promptings of the Spirit we don't follow through on them. I believe that the Church of England is living through a period of chastisement – that we are being pruned in order that we might become more fruitful – but I am less and less confident that the established CofE is a part of the fruitful future (whereas I AM convinced that Anglican theology is part of that future)."

Just wondering how the church can continue to ignore or fail to listen to the powerful testimonies on this and other blog's, such as Sam's that are for me, 'The Holy Spirit, Screaming at us to be heard'. When will we listen?

17 July 2011 17:46
Lay Anglicana said...
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Thank-you, Perpetua. Not because you were targeted, but because you were searching. I must say, this is another group that worries me – do we do enough to welcome people in at the stage when they are searching? It obviously worked for you, though! My concern is that the usual All-Age/Family service may not be intellectually challenging enough to attract this group, and a service of Holy Communion is by definition for the already committed. I do think this is one area where a service of the word – perhaps monthly? – can act as a starting point.

17 July 2011 18:08
Perpetua said...
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Sigh…. Blogger hiccoughed and I lost my response. Let's see if I can remember what I wrote.

Laura, I agree with most of what you say, but must differ from you about the Eucharist being by definition for the already committed. I am, I think, naturally catholic in my spirituality, though I come from a Nonconformist background, so my experience obviously won't be true for everyone.

However, in the early days of my searching, the very first service I attended (after not having been to church other than for rites of passage since my early teens) was a quiet evening communion with only a handful in the congregation and I was totally overwhelmed and moved by it. Of course I didn't communicate, but I didn't feel excluded in the slightest, just touched and almost awed by the atmosphere of reverence and a deep sense of mystery. I was nearly 29 at the time, so still technically young 🙂

That was the first step on a journey which eventually took me to ordination at the age of 42.

17 July 2011 19:49
Lay Anglicana said...
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Thank-you for bothering to do it all over again, Perpetua. I know how frustating this can be – sorry!

What you write about being overwhelmed by attendance at a service of Eucharist is very moving. Once again, I am delighted to be proved wrong.

The Church is lucky that you continued on this journey.

17 July 2011 20:07
Lay Anglicana said...
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Sorry UKViewer for delay – my turn to do supper.

Thank-you for the link to Sam Norton's Elizaphanian blog, which as you say adds another piece of the jigsaw.

I think, as many have said, the Church is in a state of flux. This is potentially exciting, as good may come out of it – perhaps it is indeed the work of the Holy Spirit? On the other hand, it is also extremely unsettling.

17 July 2011 20:10
Erika Baker said...
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One of the questions that interest me is the background of people who search for faith in their 30-50s.
I had grown up in church and when I finally came back to it, I had a reasonable expectation that I would find there what I was looking for.
I certainly would not have walked into a Hindu temple or a Buddhist meeting, but church felt like a home-coming, something with a definite possibility.

If we do not concentrate on children now, where will the searching adults of tomorrow go?

17 July 2011 20:45
Lay Anglicana said...
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Hello again, Erika.

Absolutely, I definitely want us to concentrate on children ('brahmacharis'), who with any luck might, as the vicar suggested, bring their parents with them.

One of the odder ideas that has circulated in recent years is that children should be brought up with no religious background, so that they can 'make up their own minds' when they are adults. But with no grounding or formation at all, it is difficult, I would think, to come to it completely cold.

Actually, I don't want to concentrate on any age group at the expense of others. My ideal would be the image in the photograph, with both younger and older also accepted. The Church has occasionally talked as if it were desirable to reach 'the youth' and ignore the rest, but may not have done it that much in practice.

17 July 2011 20:56
willcookson said...
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Thanks for the quote!
I do think that the church is in an interesting time. Many more clergy are no longer prepared to put up with genteel decline and I see many clergy in my area from different backgrounds looking to see where they can reach out with the love of Christ in their context. When we do that then we also often find different strengths that we have. In our church it is mainly young families – 40% of our congregation is under 18. Some of my neighbours have a different profile – for me that is one of the strengths of the Church of England.

17 July 2011 21:09
Lay Anglicana said...
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Thank-you for taking the time to comment, Will.

40% under 18 – that is amazing! And unrecognisable as the same institution as the one that I am seeing from where I sit. No wonder that a one-size-fits-all solution cannot possibly work.

The move to shift governance (if that is the appropriate word in this context) down to deanery rather than diocesan level may be helpful here, as it should allow for more individually tailored forms of mission and worship, with clergy (and from my point of view, laity) having a greater say?

Things do seem to be stirring…

17 July 2011 21:17
Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold) said...
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The sociology of religion work we did in a council estate showed that the older generation did not increase in religiosity, but that religiosity was reducing down the age scale and that remained as it got older. In other words there was a transition to less involvement. It is about loss of communal memory, and no hook. I've just sent out and had ignored publicity material for this last Sunday's service. It deals in categories that are no longer understood beyond the anoraks and involved. Twenty years ago it would have made a splash but now no one cares. The church world is sectarian or nothing.

18 July 2011 02:51
Lay Anglicana said...
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Thank-you for this, Adrian. You have obviously been much closer to the coal face than I have, doing surveys and so on, whereas I admit I have started from empirical experience of two adjoining benefices in a remote part of north-west Hampshire, which it seems from the responses to this post are far from representative of the Church of England as a whole.
To start with the part of your comment I find easiest to understand:'the church world is sectarian or nothing'. Absolutely, and I suspect it has always been so. In our small village of 750 people, at the time of the religious census -in 1851?- apart from the church there were the Primitive Methodists and the Congregationalists. There were also several 'freethinkers' who met in a barn. All religions are subject to fissiparous tendencies (except presumably the Baha'i?) and I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.
'Loss of communal memory, and no hook' I find harder to absorb. Does the first part mean that, because society is more fluid and flexible than it was, there are fewer stable groups? But I'm not sure why in itself that would mean lower church attendance? I know that there was strong peer pressure to attend church, like 'all respectable people', and this has obviously disappeared.
Now the hook – does this mean that because fewer people are brought up as Christians there are fewer who will respond to publicity materials for a service, such as yours? In our village there is a degree of apathy: a significant proportion of those who do not subscribe to the parish magazine probably do not bother to read it online either – there seems to be a lack of interest in community events as a whole.
I had assumed it was Wordsworth's 'getting and spending' thing…

18 July 2011 06:27
Erika Baker said...
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Maybe there was only ever a certain percentage of people with a genuine faith, even when it was socially required to attend church. So there may not be a decline in people with faith but simply a decline in people who go to church.

The problem remains – how do we speak to the genuine seekers who do not have a church background and who would no more turn to the church in a crisis than I would turn to a mosque or a spiritualist meeting?

18 July 2011 06:50
Lay Anglicana said...
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Thank-you, Erika. I was going to leave you with the last word, but the Revd George Pitcher has just tugged my sleeve and pointed out that he got in with a piece in yesterday's Express: see http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/259366/Church-must-engage-us-all

"…Well thanks. I feel quite chipper and your statistics take no account of the fact that an ageing congregation isn’t the same as a dying congregation, particularly with the baby-boomer bulge.

You’re always stating the obvious: older people come to church, when they’ve developed a mature world view, have confronted and grown comfortable with their own mortality and have time and money to do so, free of child rearing. Meanwhile, younger people have other priorities. Who knew?

You could have knocked me down with an order of service. The beaming, bright and shiny evangelicals who want to sort out this demographic for us always propose the same solution.

We must organise a “drive” to attract young people (stick up posters saying Jesus was a bit like a rock star or a Cuban revolutionary).

Put a drum kit by the altar and young people will think you’re fab. Let’s all sing soppy songs with our hands in the air because that makes youngsters weep and we can pass that off as the Holy Spirit entering them.

The truth is that most young people, the ones who didn’t grow up listening to their parents’ old Simon and Garfunkel LPs, find all that toe-curlingly cheesy.

They avoid Church simply because (they think) the Church has nothing to say to them. I’m not offering a charter for complacency. I’m saying, first, don’t knock the oldies because they’ve worked out what’s going on in life and, second, the way to reach the younger generations isn’t by trendy vicars “getting down with the kids”, it’s about addressing what they need…"

18 July 2011 09:25
Erika Baker said...
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Laura, I don't want the last word! but I want to say again, that it's not about "addressing what they need…" if that need is determined without anyone actually talking to "them" about what that might be.

As long as we on the inside talk ABOUT them on the outside and not TO them, we won't get anywhere.
And it's hugely frustrating and patronising – says someone who feels herself in precisely that "talked about" position in terms of the lgbt question in the church.

18 July 2011 10:17
willcookson said...
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I'm afraid that George's article isn't up to his normal standard.

Most evangelicals that I know don't want a "drive" to gain new members. They want to look at various ways of engaging with people. A "drive" is non-relational and is totally not what we aim for at our church. Some don't get this but a lot do. This means I am not particularly worried about the form but I am VERY interested in caring for people – whether they stay and join or not.

The real problem for the church (all parts of the spectrum) is that all too often the gathering is around the form of service or other "mechanistic" tasks. People find it far easier to take on a task than involve themselves in other peoples lives and risk being vulnerable themselves.

I'm afraid George and his vision of church or that put forward in "For the Parish" (may I be allowed to link to my review of it? – http://wp.me/p177De-E8) seriously miss all too easily that the key to seeing the church grow is building real relationships.

When relationships are put at the centre (and of course the relationship to God supremely but there is a sense in which we are mediating that) then you find that people of all ages are interested and want to be involved.

18 July 2011 12:00
Lay Anglicana said...
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Thank-you for responding to the George Pitcher article – in the circumstances I expect he was feeling a little cross about life and the Church so I suppose that might explain the tone of it.

I admit to having no personal experience of Fresh Expressions, though the Oxford diocese course on Mission and Evangelism which I attended last autumn devoted one session to it. I enjoyed the review on your blog, and your discussion with Edward Green, but do not really feel I can add anything useful to that discussion.
Other than, of course, to say that the proof of the pudding is surely in the eating! If your planted church has been going for 20 years, has a congregation of 400, with 40% under 18, I would say we do not need further evidence to see that you must be doing something right!

18 July 2011 15:40
Lay Anglicana said...
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Ah yes, Erika, "talk TO people, not ABOUT them". It is interesting, isn't it, that there seems to be an overlap with Will's point:
"People find it far easier to take on a task than involve themselves in other peoples' lives and risk being vulnerable themselves."
There does seem to be a general reluctance to engage with other people here…

18 July 2011 15:47
Fr David Cloake said...
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You know my thoughts 🙂

18 July 2011 22:15
Lay Anglicana said...
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Father David: Very Delphic, but that has to be the shortest sermon on record!

19 July 2011 07:12
Revsimmy said...
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Oo. Where to begin?

I don’t think the comparison with the Hindu model stands up in the Christian context, since it sees human life and its place in the cosmos very differently. For us, the physical and the spiritual are closely intertwined (cf. the Incarnation), and therefore there is far more to Christian faith than simply preparation for a good death (or “fire insurance”, if you want to put it crudely). As Christian Aid put it a few years ago: “We believe in life before death.”

The Kingdom of God is concerned with the whole of life. We therefore need to be thinking about how we can encourage those who are presently involved in business, politics, education etc. etc. to demonstrate the values of God’s Kingdom in those spheres. This means engagement with those who work in these areas and helping them to apply these values in their work (the 25-60s). It means helping those with families of whatever age to apply those values in family life too. And it means demonstrating the relevance of a relationship with God through Jesus to contemporary life and culture.

Research shows, I understand, that engaging with fathers tends to be more successful in bringing along the rest of the family than engaging primarily with mothers.

I get so narked abpout Daily Mail-like disparagement of “trendy vicars getting down with the kids.” Yes, it can sometimes be extremely cringeworthy and patronising. But it can also be an acknowledgement that perhaps, just perhaps, young people and their culture have a place in the life, worship, witness (and leadership?) of God’s church.

19 July 2011 13:03
Lay Anglicana said...
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Hello, Revsimmy, thank-you for commenting. I sympathise – where to begin indeed?
I think I will start from the part I feel surest of my ground, and that is Hinduism. I would have thought that the bits you pick out are in fact areas we we do coincide: Hinduism certainly believes in the close intertwining of physical and spiritual and Vishnu is believed to have had 9 incarnations (avatars) including Rama, Krishna and Buddha. I think you could also argue that Kalki, his tenth incarnation, who is to come at the end of the present age of decline, has echoes of the Second Coming. Hindus also believe in life before death since good behaviour in this world will secure their future in the next life.
But there are many areas in which Christianity and Hinduism do differ, of course, and I am not holding out their view of man’s spiritual development through his life as a religious ideal, but as a description of man’s innate tendencies.
I agree that it must be the aim of the Church to reach the 25-60s; I am simply noting that at present this does not seem to be a demographic with which the CofE has a high degree of success, either for the reasons I suggest or for others. Families are also of course important (I suggest that the children might bring their parents).
However, I do deplore the attitude of a verger who told me my husband and I need not bother to attend the monthly ‘family service’ since it was meant for those with young families. No other service was offered that day and we had been perfectly happy to attend, regarding ourselves and the rest of the congregation as part of the Body of Christ.
As far as children in church are concerned, my attitude possibly goes further than yours in believing in ministry by children and not just to children (see http://layanglicana.blogspot.com/2011/06/to-train-lay-worship-leaders-do-we-need.html)

19 July 2011 21:54
Revsimmy said...
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Thanks for your response, Laura. I don’t think I have much more to say about the Hindu stages of life aspect.

I would have been extremely annoyed if our verger had said that to anyone coming to one of our services. To me, while we might have young families in mind when we plan “Family Services”, the “Family” is the “Church Family” in all its generations. While some older people may not find it to their taste, that’s no reason why those who are happy to attend should be put off.

I think ministry by children is no bad thing, though that needs defining somewhat. I don’t go along with those churches (mainly in the Southern US) that seem to hang on the words of child preachers who appear to regurgitate what they have heard from older preachers – including aping their style. But our children are members of the church by their baptism and should be learning to take their place in the Body of Christ.

20 July 2011 17:53
Lay Anglicana said...
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Thank-you for continuing the conversation, RevSimmy.

I agree that the thought of child-preachers sounds pretty wince-making! I feel this all the more strongly since I (and other ‘lay worship leaders’) are not allowed to preach on the (I suppose reasonable but possibly over-cautious) grounds that I might preach heresy and lead the congregation astray!

You may be pleased to hear that the ‘family service’ has been re-named the ‘all-age service’ just to make it crystal clear that all are indeed welcome.

For some reason (summer?) we have had a rush of baptisms in our village church. Even if we do not know the parents, these are joyful occasions thanks in particular to the little touches by our vicar, who makes a point of lining up parents, godparents and infant by the chancel steps and introducing them to the congregation before the service begins; the mother takes the baby up and down the aisle for us to welcome them individually and so on.

Now all we have to do is to consolidate and build on this feeling of renewal.

20 July 2011 20:19
Ernest said...
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I think that family services and all age services are labels which are used to soften the fact that you are attending worship. Intrinsically it is an act of worship, sharing in community. The labels speak of inclusiveness where a ‘Service of the Word’ might be a turn off for those who wouldn’t have a clue what it means.

It seems to me that the church, rather like the military is fond of obscure titles, which, if I were a cynic, (which I am not) might be considered to deter people from coming.

What I believe is that we have virtually abandoned using titles for services such as Evensong in favour of Evening Prayer etc, when in fact they are two different types of a similar service, one being the Book of Common Prayer and the Other Common Worship.

Even those two terms confuse. Even when a Catholic, I had heard of The Book of Common Prayer, even if I had never seen it or used it. Why don’t we just call it (whatever version is used) The Prayer Book, which would be understood in any version of English, or even more prosaic, The Missal, which although regarded as a Catholic term, actually enjoys use in the Anglican Communion, with various Anglican Missal’s out there.

26 July 2011 18:26

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