Seven Facts of Life

By John Cole

Seven Facts of Life

1A Question of Numbers

Church attendance statistics are misleading

2An Illusion of Success

Suburban models of success are illusory - even in suburbia!

3"The Old Order Passeth"

Inherited patterns of church life, gathered or parochial, are no longer appropriate

4Ancient Monuments

A church that is only used for Sunday services is redundant

5City of God

In an urban society the Church has ‘been here before’

6A Tide of Thought

When the good ship ‘Christendom’ has sunk and the future is uncertain, people need lifeboats not a passenger liner

7One Way Traffic

Our capacity to make connections is through God's energising, not our achievement

Quote
from Gibson Winter describing the highly suburbanised church scene in America. More than a generation later, and despite the legalities of the Church of England’s parochial system, the signs are that many local churches in this country are in much the same plight - often for no better reason than the need to survive financially:

"Men and women today look to the local congregation as a haven from conflict and tension. Clergymen view their work as the maintenance of harmonious relationships within the flock; the frictionless machine is the ideal image of the congregation.

(Yet) the creation of such harmonious enclaves is an indication of the utter dislocation of the Church in our society. The Church is intended to be a suffering body in the world showing forth the Lord’s death until He come. This body is called to bear within itself the sufferings imposed upon it by a ministry of reconciliation within the broken communication of the world. The work of the clergyman is not to spare the ministering fellowship from internal suffering by diverting it from its ministry."

‘The New Creation as Metropolis - a design for the Church’s task in an urban world’ - published by the Macmillan Company New York, 1963.

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