By: Bishop John

Bishop John — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:59:13 +0000

A great encouragement from your experiences of good pastoral ministry for us to continually engage church and society, Gospel and culture. The Tasmanian stories are very much appreciated. I enjoyed the way you yourself took up one such pastoral opportunity. Thanks, Wendy.

By: Wendy Fowler

Wendy Fowler — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:32:31 +0000

I guess it’s horses for courses but the notion of a funereal read by a retired newsreader leaves me cold. Recently a young member of my family was baptised in an Anglican Service performed by the Rev’d Canon David O Neill. The congregation consisted of family and friends, both churched and unchurched and the overwhelming view, as expressed after wards, was that “he wasn’t a bad sort of a bloke” and that what he said “made sense even to someone like me”. Surely the celebration of life, faith and family which defines the baptism of a child is best facilitated by the padre rather than the bloke who reads the 6.30 news.
When faced with the painful chore of planning my father’s funeral, for us there was no option but the Book of Common Prayer, a well loved hymn and the 121′st psalm. Certainly we chose a piece of secular music too but that was as much about our memories of Dad’s vigorous complaints about “Countdown” as anything else. Once again, for the unchurched in the congregation Rev’d Craig Arnold was classified as conducting himself in a way “Roger would have approved of”.
I know that for us who grew up in the church those traditional rituals provide comfort and certainty in difficult times and parameters for celebration at times of great joy but I have been astounded and humbled by the response, despite initial ambivalence in many instances, by others when such things are imposed and courtesy requires some level of compliance.
Further to that all the small children at Jackson’s baptism were fascinated by the candles and the notion of “shining as a light in the world…” I spent some times explaining the significance of some aspects of the liturgy to the kids but that’s OK, they were just checking what Fr David had told them was right! And in one young lady’s case that Fr Bill had done the same for her years earlier.
While not world shattering in terms of evangelism surely these rights of passage rituals/celebrations are a chance to re engage the lapsed, engage the unchurched and prick the curiosity of children… a seed planted. I think that the challange is to meet the congregation at the point they are at rather than try and impose and perhaps that is the joy of a broad church. A military Chaplin to baptize an airman’s son, a man who has worked in industry to minister to the family of an engineer who dies of asbestosis. Our challange is to maintain our diversity and to reach out without judgement. To walk beside people on THEIR journey not to impose ours on them.

Comments on: Rites of passage and pastoral opportunity

By: Bishop John

By: Wendy Fowler