Having moved into a small, rural community and blindly stomped into church with my size 12s I can appreciate the warning as you took it and as it was no doubt intended!
I think for those of us who have moved around a lot in our lives and are a long way from our formative experiences of church we have to take time and care to understand those whose faith is rooted deeply in the place and community where it was originally nurtured. It is easy to come in from outside and say "these pews are lovely but if we take some of them out we could..." and be absolutely correct in your assessment and yet still deeply upset some lifelong congregants. Ask me how I know .
I can't see why it would be 'impossible', @Hugal unless one or the other were making unrealistic demands. Good for you for juggling both.
As you are living in Wales you'll have no doubt heard stories of the Welsh Revival of 1904-05, many of them highly romanticised.
One of the 'shadow-sides' to that was that many promising sports-people (mostly lads at that time of course) were deterred from excelling in their chosen sport lest it interfere with their attendance at prayer meetings and the like.
For all the 'hwyl' and excitement of revivalist fervour the net result longer term - and I'm simplifying things here in order to make a point - was that subsequent generations of young people (the 1904/05 Revival was primarily a young persons' movement), put their energies into Labour Party politics or the Eisteddfodau or Welsh Nationalism or ...
Why? Because revivalist Christianity can narrow the horizons and resent time spent on anything else - whether it be ballroom dancing, sport, the arts, social or political action or ...
Ok, things have moved on and evangelicals these days are involved with the world beyond church or chapel.
I daresay, though, that you'll have come across people who think your interest and skill in ballroom dancing is fine, provided it has some kind of churchy or 'outreach' dimension to it.
It may well have, which is fine, but I'd suggest of course that it would be worth doing for its own sake irrespective of whether there was any churchy or missional element attached.
Not Wales but in my village we had one of the first Methodist JPs and he was a big Liberal. He was sad because one of his sons became a Liberal political agent in the early 20th century but had little time for religion, and the other became a Methodist lay preacher but was an out and out socialist - as he saw it both his sons had grown away from him in one respect or the other.
His Liberal agent son pointed out he ought in fact to be pleased, because one was doing his Methodism properly, and the other his Liberal politics….
Well aye ... the 'non-conformist conscience' and all that.
Some of my late wife's ancestors were pretty full-on Methodists in Yorkshire but later generations were liberal-leaning bohemian middle class types with little or no connection with chapel.
Some of my Dad's ancestors were Baptist ministers but the next generation were all atheists or strongly agnostic.
I can understand the alarm / misgivings of some of that late Victorian and Edwardian generation of non-conformist, but I think they must share some of the 'blame' for their own decline - although there were wider societal and cultural forces at work of course.
On the more liberal side they effectively segued neatly into secularism. On the more conservative side theologically they either hunkered down into a narrow pietism or a dead-end fundamentalism. By its very nature, revivalism burns itself out.
My mum's parents were Methodists - her paternal grandfather was a Welsh speaking Methodist who nonetheless was shipped off to Shetland with his young bride, where my great aunt (now 100) was born. My grandfather followed him into the ministry and was sent to the Bahamas (with his bride-to-be following later) as a missionary. I only recently discovered that his break with Methodism happened there because of the segregation of white and black congregations, and the refusal of the white congregation to countenance having worship led by a black minister. Considering this was the mid 1950s (when my other grandfather was busily enforcing housing segregation as a tory estate agent in Bristol) I'm rather impressed by his decision to not only abandon the church of his youth but to almost immediately ship off to Nova Scotia to be ordained by the Anglicans.
Having moved into a small, rural community and blindly stomped into church with my size 12s I can appreciate the warning as you took it and as it was no doubt intended!
I think for those of us who have moved around a lot in our lives and are a long way from our formative experiences of church we have to take time and care to understand those whose faith is rooted deeply in the place and community where it was originally nurtured. It is easy to come in from outside and say "these pews are lovely but if we take some of them out we could..." and be absolutely correct in your assessment and yet still deeply upset some lifelong congregants. Ask me how I know .
Yes. On the one hand, you have the new church that says, "Welcome, we're delighted to have you join us! We're all very friendly so long as you don't try to change anything at all. Ever. "
On the other hand, you have the new church where people rush up to greet you with a gleam in their eye and say, "You've got a lovely clear voice for reading aloud, haven't you? I bet you are good at flower arrangements! Care to jump in and help with the washing up? You've arrived in answer to prayer, let me tell you. We have a gap on the parish council...we need a Committed Fundraiser... any book-keeping experience?"
Having moved into a small, rural community and blindly stomped into church with my size 12s I can appreciate the warning as you took it and as it was no doubt intended!
I think for those of us who have moved around a lot in our lives and are a long way from our formative experiences of church we have to take time and care to understand those whose faith is rooted deeply in the place and community where it was originally nurtured. It is easy to come in from outside and say "these pews are lovely but if we take some of them out we could..." and be absolutely correct in your assessment and yet still deeply upset some lifelong congregants. Ask me how I know .
Yes. On the one hand, you have the new church that says, "Welcome, we're delighted to have you join us! We're all very friendly so long as you don't try to change anything at all. Ever. "
On the other hand, you have the new church where people rush up to greet you with a gleam in their eye and say, "You've got a lovely clear voice for reading aloud, haven't you? I bet you are good at flower arrangements! Care to jump in and help with the washing up? You've arrived in answer to prayer, let me tell you. We have a gap on the parish council...we need a Committed Fundraiser... any book-keeping experience?"
Having moved into a small, rural community and blindly stomped into church with my size 12s I can appreciate the warning as you took it and as it was no doubt intended!
I think for those of us who have moved around a lot in our lives and are a long way from our formative experiences of church we have to take time and care to understand those whose faith is rooted deeply in the place and community where it was originally nurtured. It is easy to come in from outside and say "these pews are lovely but if we take some of them out we could..." and be absolutely correct in your assessment and yet still deeply upset some lifelong congregants. Ask me how I know .
Yes. On the one hand, you have the new church that says, "Welcome, we're delighted to have you join us! We're all very friendly so long as you don't try to change anything at all. Ever. "
On the other hand, you have the new church where people rush up to greet you with a gleam in their eye and say, "You've got a lovely clear voice for reading aloud, haven't you? I bet you are good at flower arrangements! Care to jump in and help with the washing up? You've arrived in answer to prayer, let me tell you. We have a gap on the parish council...we need a Committed Fundraiser... any book-keeping experience?"
In my last church I got recruited for the Vestry (PCC equivalent) within a year or so of arriving; I resisted at first, having been there before! But my late husband urged me to take it on - and a year later to take on the role of Secretary when asked - because he thought I'd be able to work wonders in bringing the church into the 21st century. Two years later he realised what I had predicted was true and was begging me to leave the church!
Having moved into a small, rural community and blindly stomped into church with my size 12s I can appreciate the warning as you took it and as it was no doubt intended!
I think for those of us who have moved around a lot in our lives and are a long way from our formative experiences of church we have to take time and care to understand those whose faith is rooted deeply in the place and community where it was originally nurtured. It is easy to come in from outside and say "these pews are lovely but if we take some of them out we could..." and be absolutely correct in your assessment and yet still deeply upset some lifelong congregants. Ask me how I know .
Yes. On the one hand, you have the new church that says, "Welcome, we're delighted to have you join us! We're all very friendly so long as you don't try to change anything at all. Ever. "
On the other hand, you have the new church where people rush up to greet you with a gleam in their eye and say, "You've got a lovely clear voice for reading aloud, haven't you? I bet you are good at flower arrangements! Care to jump in and help with the washing up? You've arrived in answer to prayer, let me tell you. We have a gap on the parish council...we need a Committed Fundraiser... any book-keeping experience?"
Such an interesting thread and I' may be oversharing here. We'be been members of our local Anglican churches (2) for 40+years. Most of those years have been happy and we've (hopefully) contributed to the life of the church.
We almost left in our mid-20's due to parish split over whether to sell or restore building. In the end the decision was to restore and revisit the idea of how we steward our assets. Not connected, probably cyclical, parish began to grow with a good mix of kids and adults. That parish appears to be still flourishing.
Relocation interstate the year I turned 30. We joined our geographically local church as there were little girls and that was wonderful for our 2 year old daughter. This community has been very important in our life and members assisted daughter by being referees for her first proper job and her post-uni job. Daughter has not attended church since mid-teens but the community support still remains and we are grateful for that.
Community supported us greatly during son's lengthy illness. That was so appreciated, the prayers the meals, the support of all kinds including but not limited to financial. This still means a lot to us and we returned to Parish life very bruised and battered after 7 years.
We remained in the Parish for a further 8 years, but essentially we were lost. We had changed irreversibly and I think that was either invisible or too uncomfortable for the other members to deal with. These days I am in contact with 2 other members, one whose child had a similar illness to our own. The second member being one that we invited to our home when they also relocated to our current city. We had never been close to them, but their child experienced ill health and has ongoing disability, I think the three of us connect over our similar life experiences and struggles. The latter member often describes being sad or depressed and in some way I think church contributes to that in having leadership that's always "up". Sometimes I think we are discouraged to have real feelings.
I attended up until covid, husband stopped a couple of years prior. He had lost his "place" and had no real friends among the male congregants. After a year of online services I stopped as I think I felt like a phoney attending and I wanted to truthfully acknowledge how tired I was. We'd always run around and done Parish stuff, often getting up early to get stuff done and now I'm just really tired and want to listen to my body and just rest and recover.
I think our return after 9 months interstate for son's care was greeted as, Oh good you're back now, that's over. I don't think it will really ever be over for us. I am still conscious of how close to the edge of the cliff our kid came in terms of dying and even though a survivor of 22 years from childhood cancer, they have many late effects of treatment. Our Oncologist did warn us he would be tied to the hospital for the rest of his life, had he survived, but I don't think I really understood what that would mean, or how unable to respond the rest of government services would be. Everything is a battle, health, school, post school study, disability services. I think most people (including the church) live in a world where if you don't need services, you think everything is fine (I include myself in this). I don't expect church to support us, but a bit of sidelines cheering would be appreciated.
I am not saying I'll never return to church (certainly not until better vaccines are available), I'm grateful that the current Minister has committed to online services permanently, but at the moment it's not a place for me
Thank you for sharing, @Cheery Gardener . There's a challenge for all of us there in how we can be open to hearing and supporting people with their struggles while not appearing to crowbar our way into people's lives.
I was once involved in a church where the people who looked after pastoral care were both GPs. Lovely people with hearts of gold. But if you shared a problem with them, you often came away with 10 suggestions of how to fix it. And ended up feeling like a problem, not a person.
I suspect lots of people with a genuine desire to help and support are like this. Easier to feel you have ‘done something’. Remember Job’s friends?
I can sympathise with a lot of that - having cared for my late husband with first mental and later physical illnesses for several years. There are very few people who really understand how draining and isolating this can be. Sometimes you don't want someone to 'fix it all' or offer solutions, just to be there with a sympathetic smile and a few kind words is all you need to keep you going. But so many people just don't know how to handle it - they are afraid of saying the wrong thing, or interfering... or getting dragged into more than they had bargained for.
Thanks to all for your kind words, yes at times it's isolating, but the thing that really gets me is the constantly having to do the job of about 3 people. Thinking about drug interactions or unsuitability, having to quiz Drs because they don't explain things clearly or take short cuts. The whole system that has to be navigated and interrogated to get best results and it really makes my brain so tired.
Cheery son just started new med, so when he complained of nausea and dizziness yesterday, first thought was maybe blood pressure and dehydration as a hot day. I am not a Dr or a nurse, so just gave him drinks and took his blood pressure, which I thought was low, but maybe cardiologist wants it to be low. Aargh. Anyway Dr appointment is booked for Tuesday to check in with GP. Managing a person with complex health is difficult, but we do the best we can!!
For Cheery husband the questions to be asked don't seem to be intuitive and I have to constantly remind him that our person is relying on us to get the best results and that is a cause of tension at times. Anyway, onwards and upwards and I'm looking forward to seeing one of my church friends this Friday. Coffee with a friend is always welcome!!
Cheery son just started new med, so when he complained of nausea and dizziness yesterday, first thought was maybe blood pressure and dehydration as a hot day. I am not a Dr or a nurse, so just gave him drinks and took his blood pressure, which I thought was low, but maybe cardiologist wants it to be low. Aargh. Anyway Dr appointment is booked for Tuesday to check in with GP. Managing a person with complex health is difficult, but we do the best we can!!
If I can give a bit of not-really-medical advice, keep a diary. Write everything that happened - which meds he took, when. When/what did he eat. And how was his mood, how was he feeling, and so on.
Write it longhand - don't just allocate scores out of 10, because scores are bad at measuring slow / long-term changes.
This was helpful for us, trying to optimize meds for our son, because we could actually tell the doctor with some authority what seemed better and worse and why, without the danger of false recollection and rose-tinted spectacles.
Thanks LC, yes we do keep a diary and now that there are smartphones, if there were to be such a thing as a seizure, it would be recorded to show at appointments. I'll never forget one chat with a nurse in local hospital.
She said nurses nearly always believe patients and their carers and doctors sometimes do not. I do note that some carers are abusive to their charges, but her statement certainly resonated with my own experience of being minimised with very serious events flowing on from that.
Creating and maintaining a community takes effort. We are generally very poor at keeping in touch with those stop coming to church. It is also good PR to send a postcard to those who have been married or baptised on their anniversary. Above all, there can be no excuse for moaning behind someone's back.
Duly noted Achilles, I'm looking forward to catching up with a parish elder and good friend at the end of the week. As well as general catchup I am sure there will be opportunities for honesty and I'm looking forward to both very much.
I do love the idea of the postcards thing. I think keeping in touch is very important. Whether it be baptisms, or funerals or even just a we're thinking of you during lockdowns, I think it's important. I made a point of phoning those in my circle and texting them too, perhaps that's another very easy way to stay in touch. It doesn't have to be a lot!
I imagine at our place that the individual groups that people were engaged with looked out for one another during lockdown. Not being affiliated with any, I decided to share snaps from my garden with friends from the congregation that I had previously walked with weekly in our attempts to keep fit.
Some people seemed to enjoy them and responded, others did not. However, knowing that they have their own life challenges, I just wanted them to know they were being thought of, even if we could not get together.
Comments
Oh God this.
Well aye ... the 'non-conformist conscience' and all that.
Some of my late wife's ancestors were pretty full-on Methodists in Yorkshire but later generations were liberal-leaning bohemian middle class types with little or no connection with chapel.
Some of my Dad's ancestors were Baptist ministers but the next generation were all atheists or strongly agnostic.
I can understand the alarm / misgivings of some of that late Victorian and Edwardian generation of non-conformist, but I think they must share some of the 'blame' for their own decline - although there were wider societal and cultural forces at work of course.
On the more liberal side they effectively segued neatly into secularism. On the more conservative side theologically they either hunkered down into a narrow pietism or a dead-end fundamentalism. By its very nature, revivalism burns itself out.
Yes. On the one hand, you have the new church that says, "Welcome, we're delighted to have you join us! We're all very friendly so long as you don't try to change anything at all. Ever. "
On the other hand, you have the new church where people rush up to greet you with a gleam in their eye and say, "You've got a lovely clear voice for reading aloud, haven't you? I bet you are good at flower arrangements! Care to jump in and help with the washing up? You've arrived in answer to prayer, let me tell you. We have a gap on the parish council...we need a Committed Fundraiser... any book-keeping experience?"
you've missed option 3, both hands at once.
😁
*glares in treasurer*
We almost left in our mid-20's due to parish split over whether to sell or restore building. In the end the decision was to restore and revisit the idea of how we steward our assets. Not connected, probably cyclical, parish began to grow with a good mix of kids and adults. That parish appears to be still flourishing.
Relocation interstate the year I turned 30. We joined our geographically local church as there were little girls and that was wonderful for our 2 year old daughter. This community has been very important in our life and members assisted daughter by being referees for her first proper job and her post-uni job. Daughter has not attended church since mid-teens but the community support still remains and we are grateful for that.
Community supported us greatly during son's lengthy illness. That was so appreciated, the prayers the meals, the support of all kinds including but not limited to financial. This still means a lot to us and we returned to Parish life very bruised and battered after 7 years.
We remained in the Parish for a further 8 years, but essentially we were lost. We had changed irreversibly and I think that was either invisible or too uncomfortable for the other members to deal with. These days I am in contact with 2 other members, one whose child had a similar illness to our own. The second member being one that we invited to our home when they also relocated to our current city. We had never been close to them, but their child experienced ill health and has ongoing disability, I think the three of us connect over our similar life experiences and struggles. The latter member often describes being sad or depressed and in some way I think church contributes to that in having leadership that's always "up". Sometimes I think we are discouraged to have real feelings.
I attended up until covid, husband stopped a couple of years prior. He had lost his "place" and had no real friends among the male congregants. After a year of online services I stopped as I think I felt like a phoney attending and I wanted to truthfully acknowledge how tired I was. We'd always run around and done Parish stuff, often getting up early to get stuff done and now I'm just really tired and want to listen to my body and just rest and recover.
I think our return after 9 months interstate for son's care was greeted as, Oh good you're back now, that's over. I don't think it will really ever be over for us. I am still conscious of how close to the edge of the cliff our kid came in terms of dying and even though a survivor of 22 years from childhood cancer, they have many late effects of treatment. Our Oncologist did warn us he would be tied to the hospital for the rest of his life, had he survived, but I don't think I really understood what that would mean, or how unable to respond the rest of government services would be. Everything is a battle, health, school, post school study, disability services. I think most people (including the church) live in a world where if you don't need services, you think everything is fine (I include myself in this). I don't expect church to support us, but a bit of sidelines cheering would be appreciated.
I am not saying I'll never return to church (certainly not until better vaccines are available), I'm grateful that the current Minister has committed to online services permanently, but at the moment it's not a place for me
I was once involved in a church where the people who looked after pastoral care were both GPs. Lovely people with hearts of gold. But if you shared a problem with them, you often came away with 10 suggestions of how to fix it. And ended up feeling like a problem, not a person.
I suspect lots of people with a genuine desire to help and support are like this. Easier to feel you have ‘done something’. Remember Job’s friends?
Cheery son just started new med, so when he complained of nausea and dizziness yesterday, first thought was maybe blood pressure and dehydration as a hot day. I am not a Dr or a nurse, so just gave him drinks and took his blood pressure, which I thought was low, but maybe cardiologist wants it to be low. Aargh. Anyway Dr appointment is booked for Tuesday to check in with GP. Managing a person with complex health is difficult, but we do the best we can!!
For Cheery husband the questions to be asked don't seem to be intuitive and I have to constantly remind him that our person is relying on us to get the best results and that is a cause of tension at times. Anyway, onwards and upwards and I'm looking forward to seeing one of my church friends this Friday. Coffee with a friend is always welcome!!
If I can give a bit of not-really-medical advice, keep a diary. Write everything that happened - which meds he took, when. When/what did he eat. And how was his mood, how was he feeling, and so on.
Write it longhand - don't just allocate scores out of 10, because scores are bad at measuring slow / long-term changes.
This was helpful for us, trying to optimize meds for our son, because we could actually tell the doctor with some authority what seemed better and worse and why, without the danger of false recollection and rose-tinted spectacles.
She said nurses nearly always believe patients and their carers and doctors sometimes do not. I do note that some carers are abusive to their charges, but her statement certainly resonated with my own experience of being minimised with very serious events flowing on from that.
I do love the idea of the postcards thing. I think keeping in touch is very important. Whether it be baptisms, or funerals or even just a we're thinking of you during lockdowns, I think it's important. I made a point of phoning those in my circle and texting them too, perhaps that's another very easy way to stay in touch. It doesn't have to be a lot!
Were we talking about the Body of Christ or what?
Some people seemed to enjoy them and responded, others did not. However, knowing that they have their own life challenges, I just wanted them to know they were being thought of, even if we could not get together.
Whether anyone else did similar, I've not heard.