I am pleased to note the many new and emerging expressions of Christian faith and community. I like the ancient ways and paths too, but something is happening, some of it disturbing, mysterious. I think some of it must be - of God. Leaning into the still-thin but warming February sunlight, our kitchen African violets remind me as I muse that although not long ago they may have been mere slips and cuttings, they have now grown to be healthy, green, soon-flowering plants.
Not every cutting set in water will grow white whisker roots to be newly planted in rich soil, or poor, to find there purchase in humus black and brown. Some slips will rot, wither, die; others flourish into new, living, perhaps quite different, expressions of the ancient flower.
Thousands there be, believers who do not 'go to church' Sunday by Sunday any more. The narthex does not see them nor the pew or cushion feel their weight. They do not think, you see, they can any longer, with integrity prop up dying expressions and no longer relevant modes of the local ministry incarnation (or god) of wood and stone. Idol mawl of buildings, non-enabling governance structures, limit and restraints of shrinking budgets and irrelevant constitutional fetters will hold them back no longer, they vow.
So the church, with expressions ancient and true - and ways of Faith, Community and Service new - perhaps not yet found - will we try, in clay failing, some thriving. In new expressions, new manifestations, new ways of being - worship, love and service, the Church will live, the Kingdom come: though churches die - or never take root.
