Thoughts From The Cottage
Dear Friends
At the end of May I went on my pre-retirement course. Some of it was useful and helpful, some of it was interesting, some of it was a waste of time but all in all it set me thinking. Retirement is still two years away but if I’m not careful it will catch up on me suddenly. The changes at CfR with the sale of Barnes Close means that my current ministry will end not as a gradual rundown but by being involved in some exciting pieces of work. More of that will be unveiled in the Autumn.
Meanwhile thinking about my retirement may give some pointers to help us now. I am not tied to retiring to any area of the country, I do not have a wife or children to consider. Please don’t be offended but I am certain that I will not remain in this area and I will not pop back to visit people or take funerals and other services. It’s not that I don’t like Rubery in general and you in particular rather I must give my successor space and after, what will be nineteen years, I will need a new sphere in which to serve God. I am not retiring from service to God but from stipendiary ministry.
When I retire I want to live in a town or city with good rail links and have a bus or tram stop, shops, pub, medical facilities and a park within walking distance. In addition, I want to be close to a growing, welcoming church where I will feel comfortable. The church will have lively worship, sound Biblical teaching and preaching, evangelical ethos, a range of social activities and an all-age congregation. It would be a real bonus if that church could use me in some way. For only the second time in my life I will be looking for a church to be a member of. The other occasion was in 1980 when we moved to Bolton. Prior to then I was a member of the church I was born into, since then I have been a member of churches with whom I was ministering. I have concluded that the church is more important than the geographical area. So how do I identify a church?
It is in this search to identify a suitable church that I may be able to learn things that will help us as we grow now. I have already listed some of the things that make a church attractive to newcomers. The other areas are around welcome and relationships. Welcome can be such a difficult thing. Many churches are good at greeting newcomers but what happens after that. How do they seat newcomers? Is the worship easy to follow and participate in? Do people chat to you over coffee afterwards or are they in their own groups? Are personal, verbal invitations given to church midweek activities, both spiritual and social? On the question of relationships, do people arrive early enough to meet and greet each other and to be ready for worship before it starts? Do people appear to engage with worship and with each other or do they sit in their own space? Do the majority stay for fellowship over coffee? Is attendance at prayer meetings, Bible studies, fellowship groups and church meetings a good proportion of the congregation? Are Sunday morning conversations about church business or are they relational? The answer determines the outlook of the church and its likelihood to grow,
Ian
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