Truro Diocesan Assembly
March 10th
Canon Stephen Dawes
Reflection - Opening Session
2007 is the 300th Anniversary of the birth of that great Anglican/Methodist hymn-writer, Charles Wesley, and I want to offer a line from one of his hymns, as my reflection at the beginning of our gathering. The verse is this,
To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfil;
O may it all my powers engage,
To do my Master's will,
and the key line is the first - 'to serve the present age'. The call to do that is the essence of Bishop Bill's paper, and facing up to the urgency of doing that is what today is all about - 'to serve the present age'.
There is much to celebrate here today, diocesan finances in much better shape, Umzimvubu and increasing numbers of vocations to ordained and authorised ministries to name but three: but the present age is a new age, and it's becoming an increasingly difficult and uncomfortable age for the Church - there are worrying Church/State tensions, the media are increasingly hostile, more people than ever are declaring themselves to have no religion and to want to have nothing to do with any either, and Richard Dawkins is winning hearts and minds. It is becoming clear that the State no longer owes the Church a living, and that we can no longer presume on simply being here as part of the fabric of society. 'May you never live in interesting times' is, allegedly, a Chinese blessing, and there is no doubt that that is precisely where we now find ourselves living, even in Cornwall.
How to live, in the name of Christ and as the Body of Christ, in these 'interesting' times and how, in the name of Christ and as the Body of Christ, 'to serve the present age' is the big, pressing and urgent question to which we have got to find some answers. With God we can, and for God we must.
Reflection - Closing Session
We've had a very interesting day. We've seen something of the vitality of the diocese; of the ways in which we are 'serving the present age'; of the way in which, with God, the MU can, the Youth Synod can, Andrew and his team can and Illogan can, especially at teatime; we have seen that 'with God we can'
But today is about more than us here being encouraged, though I hope we all have been encouraged. But if it's just that we've had a good time, then that's not enough.
The big thing that Bishop Bill has been trying to get across to us is that the world we live in - not just the big world but our ordinary, everyday, local world too - has changed beyond recognition in recent years. Our world no longer understands us - the Church, 'the People of God' - or what we are about. Much of it no longer cares about us, about religion or about God; and none of these good things we have celebrated here today matter much to them at all.
So our new and urgent task, and 'urgent' is the word, is to get all our churches, our groups and our organisations, thinking hard about how to connect or reconnect with that changed world where we are, and to build bridges across that great and growing gap between 'them' and 'us'.
And that's where each of us come in who have been here today. We must grasp what this task is and how urgent it is, and we must take this sense of urgency back to our churches, groups and organisations, and help them to grasp it too and then to work out what they must do to connect, or reconnect, and 'to serve this present age'.
To help us to do that we have today's rich experience, Bishop Bill's yellow book and the Prayer and Questions card as tools for the task. Please take it seriously when it says as the first of the three commitments - 'Will you commit yourself to sharing these questions and issues with your PCCs and your congregations'.
Our urgent calling is to serve the present age, as messengers and as messages, with God before us, and God behind us. With God we can; for God we must.
10/3/07