Wednesday 8 October 2014

Last night was my last PCC meeting.

This is an unusual place to be.

When we moved to Heyford Park Chapel we took a full year of meeting with both churches, transitioning between them and adapting to the new situations we found ourselves in. The change was a seamless ramp of activity. This time it's like getting ready to emigrate, as some other friends are doing with their transition back to Africa, with a clear and absolute break point.

We talked about Christmas: the meal, the possibilities for services. There's a sense of relief that this year I'm not the one responsible for organising everything, and that I won't have to go searching for suitable music, sort catering or write a Christmas message. That sort of thing was always do-able, but always a pressure too - I'm not happy being the centre of attention like that.

It's not like we're stepping off into the unknown, yet in a way we are. Churches change, as do people, and we have all been through quite a bit separately.

While we were meeting a couple of the guys that used to be part of the music and worship side at the chapel were getting together in the main hall, singing and playing and sounding good. I'd love it if, by my stepping away, other people were able and encouraged to step up & take my place with God organising it, instead of it just being my contingency plans.

Roll on November.

p.s. I wonder if many of us from the community church we're returning to have been through a period of training in ways that we simply could not have been trained if we'd stayed put? There's others, friends, who have also been to other churches, worked with them or run around a little in a wilderness for a while, then returned.

2 comments:

  1. Carol Hill2:08 pm

    I honestly can't ever see myself going back, or wanting to. I was always a bad fit - theologically. I loved some of the people there (still do) but increasingly felt uncomfortable, held back, out-of-place, out-of-touch, damaged... dying by degrees... I guess it is just a case of finding that place of ideal planting, with the right amount of shade/sunshine, appropriate feeding, appropriate care and nurturing and pruning and appropriate differing seasons ...

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  2. I couldn't imagine you there any more either Carol. You're on a very different trajectory than you could be as part of a salt & light church, and I can see that the CoE is a much happier fit for you.

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