By John Cole

ONE-EYED CHURCHES

Everyone belongs in this church. It feels like the very opposite of Church Number One! The minister/Vicar presides over (or is managing director of) a complex network of activities and organisations which occupy people’s energies seven days a week.

Here is a busy, friendly, exuberant social club. God hardly gets a mention except on Sundays; but even the church services can often be more like a piece of entertainment for the congregation than an offering of worship to God.

In this kind of church people’s relationship with each other is everything. The main sacrament for this lively social organisation is likely to be the coffee after the morning service!

Of course a sense of belonging, being the Body of Christ, is an important part of what is involved in being Jesus’ disciples.

It becomes absurd when the fellowship turns into a purely human activity. When this happens, the congregation itself becomes selfish. There’s no room for the individual selfishness of the catholic tradition. Instead people are only interested in enjoying each other’s company and are unlikely to be very keen either to hear what God is calling them to be or to do in the wider community or to spend much time thinking about their own personal spiritual development.

This kind of church - even when it appears to be flourishing - represents a typically liberal/free church/suburban failing.

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