Growing the rural Church

Yesterday I set off a little earlier than normal to go to worship at a church in a rural environment.  It is many years now since I last regularly led worship in the country chapels in the Skipton and Grassington Circuit so I was keen to see how rural ministry was shaping up to the changing times.

While I could not in all honesty say the church was well filled - it most certainly was not - the welcome was very warm - well you can hardly creep unnoticed into a small chapel and while I probably sat in someone's regular pew no one said anything or communicated it in any other way!

Led by one of my colleagues I knew we were in for a good service, but it immediately became clear that this was going to be a service with a difference - a new member was to be confirmed.  Now it has to be said that this too infrequently happens, so it was a great encouragement especially as the confirmee was a young man in his 20's.  This is also one of real privelidges of Ministry in the  Methodist Church because we actually preside at the Confirmation; we don't have to step aside for a Bishop as do our Anglican colleagues.  As a total aside, it did cross my mind how, in the renewed commitment that our Conference has just made to move towards visible unity with the Church of England, how this issue will be handled!

As the service continued towards the Confirmation, with all the words reminding us about what our faith means to us and demands of us, my colleague then invited myself and a retired Minister who was also in the congregation to join him at the front.  We were then asked to jointly Confirm this new member - now that was a totally unexpected but really apprecaited privilege.  It made a very good point - people are not Confirmed into membership of one congregation, nor just of the Methodist Church, but into the worldwide Christian Church!

The sermon slot was based on two great New Testament passages reminding us about what it means to be a Christian in a community of Faith and, being an all-age service (the Sunday School stayed in), the sermon slot unpacked the readings in a very accessible and visual manner which engaged everyone by demanding ideas and responses through looking at what it meant to 'belong'.

At the end of the service I felt there was hope for growth in the church in the rural community and privileged to have been asked to be a part in the service.