By John Cole

Look around you

"Have you not got a saying: Four months and then the harvest? Well I tell you: Look around you, look at the fields: already they are white, ready for harvest!" (John 4:35}

Once upon a time the most important building at the heart of every community was its local church. Today the building may still be standing, but the special relationship between church and community has all but gone.

There are memories of it at royal jubilees or times of great national crisis. The church then seems to be the obvious place where people can mark their grief or delight.

In many smaller villages the building is still a pride and joy ~ and almost everywhere there are still people who identify strongly with ‘their’ church at the centre of their locality. But not a majority.

Once upon a time the Vicar was the ‘parson’. the personal focus around whom community life gathered. The tradition continues in a few places. Elsewhere it is history - simply because the unified local community no longer exists.

Links between the church and its locality do remain - and we will come to see that a sense of the church’s ‘local’ness is vital. But how does it all work out? How ‘local’ is your local church?

In this Chapter:

Stage One - Knowing where you are

Stage Two - Learning from geography

Stage Three - Learning from history

Stage Four - Learning from people

To sum up