Rooted, Built Up And Established
Sermon
Alison (Paul's wife), Norman (Steer) our Reader from here at Starston, and I recently attended an Alpha Conference at Holy Trinity Church, in Brompton, London. Holy Trinity was the church which devised the Alpha course many years ago, and has seen it flourish and spread like wildfire, so that Alpha is now running not only in thousands of churches across the UK, but also in more than 150 countries worldwide.
As its name implies, Alpha is a start, a beginning. It's a course which introduces the basics of Christianity to people who are right outside the church. These may be disillusioned former churchgoers who have fallen away from worship because it failed to satisfy their needs, or perhaps because they somehow carry a load of guilt which they can't handle in church. Or they may never have set foot in church in their lives, and may come from families where even their grandparents never attended church. They may be atheists who quite definitely don't believe in God, or agnostics who aren't sure what to believe, or muddled Christians who have been frightened off church by tales of a terrifying God who wreaks vengeance on wrongdoers, or New Age worshippers who worship all sorts of strange gods. Or they may be any manner of people between and across these categories.
The point is, Alpha is aimed entirely at non-churchgoers, although local Christians are invited (and indeed, essential) to help run the course and more than anything, to offer a warm and friendly welcome to these tentative newcomers.
Alpha is the first course I've come across which sets out the basics of Christianity in a way which seems to be acceptable to all branches of Christianity. The training course in London had people from many different countries (and even offered simultaneous translations into other languages) and from many different churches. It was truly ecumenical, and a very good experience. The leaders were at pains to point out that after the basic Alpha course, different churches would be expected to add their own “branding”, to teach their own particular denominational philosophy to the newcomers.
Many thousands of people worldwide have discovered God for themselves through Alpha, and these new Christians bring a freshness and excitement and simplicity of belief which can often be lacking in churches where the congregation have been established Christians for many years. I'm reminded of Jesus' dictum that “unless you receive the kingdom of God like a little child, you cannot enter it.” (Mark 10:15) The enthusiasm and eagerness for God and the things of God, and the ease with which these new (and often young) Christians pray, is utterly childlike and very attractive.
Very often it's those who have no church background whatsoever who receive the gospel most easily. Others, who attended church as children or who have had some other contact with Christianity, sometimes find it more difficult to get rid of the often erroneous prejudices and beliefs which they've carried for a long time.
Perhaps because of long and deeply held beliefs, the local church can encounter difficulty when these new Christians begin to take part in worship. For another feature of Alpha is that it builds bridges between the initial basic course and the local church, and towards the end of the ten-week course, Alpha participants are encouraged to attend their local church.
This can be a shock to the system both for the Alpha participants, and for the local church! The worship on Alpha tends to be free, spontaneous and informal, and often uses instruments such as guitars and keyboards. The worship in church is often much more formal. Many churches only use an organ to accompany singing and many of the hymns sung in church were written at least two centuries ago. In the words of St Paul from today's reading, the problem for the local church is how to root, build up and establish new Christians in the faith, abounding in thanksgiving, without crushing the Spirit out of them or forcing them to conform to types of worship which they probably regard as coming from the Stone Age.
At the same time, why should Christians who are already well rooted, built up and established in the faith, be forced to endure what they probably regard as superficial worship with no depth, when their worship has stood the test of generations and they love it deeply.
It's tempting never to tackle this seemingly insoluble problem, and simply to provide separate worship for the two groups. But the danger of that approach is that the new Christians may continue to be fed on “milk” and never really grow any roots at all, while the established Christians remain in a well-worn rut which is comfortable but which rarely challenges. And the Church becomes yet more fragmented, with everybody willing only to follow their own particular style.
Perhaps St Paul has the answer. In today's reading he warns the new Christians at Colossae to “see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, .... and not according to Christ.” Christ must take first place in any church, no matter how upset people may be if their human tradition has to change a little. We can only reach our own full potential through Christ, for he gives us fullness and completeness of life. And listening to, responding to, communing with Christ, must take precedence over any other church activity, no matter how worthy.
In today's gospel reading, the disciples implored Jesus to teach them how to pray. Somehow or other they just couldn't get into prayer quite as he could. They expected him to wave a magic wand and hey presto! Their prayers would suddenly become as effective as Jesus' prayers. But of course, he didn't do that. He started them off with a very simple prayer, the Lord's Prayer, which contained the seeds they needed, and it was up to them to encourage and allow those seeds to grow. It was up to them to give the time and space and energy to prayer to enable their prayers to become deeper, to become rooted and built up and established in the faith.
We need to welcome new Christians. We need to make them feel at home in our churches. But we also need to give them the right environment to allow their faith to deepen. We need to gently wean them, to begin to offer them meat instead of milk and to encourage them to become rooted, built up and established in the faith.
We're going to run Alpha courses across our Benefice in the Autumn, when the television series finishes. And in the end, perhaps all of us, newcomers and old stagers alike, will need to be generous with each other. We need to reach out across the barriers of tradition and styles of worship, and be willing to give a little to accommodate each other. And above all we need to remember that Christ died for all of us. As St Paul said in today's reading, he nailed our differences to the cross. And if he could do that for us, maybe we too could nail our differences to the cross, for him.
As its name implies, Alpha is a start, a beginning. It's a course which introduces the basics of Christianity to people who are right outside the church. These may be disillusioned former churchgoers who have fallen away from worship because it failed to satisfy their needs, or perhaps because they somehow carry a load of guilt which they can't handle in church. Or they may never have set foot in church in their lives, and may come from families where even their grandparents never attended church. They may be atheists who quite definitely don't believe in God, or agnostics who aren't sure what to believe, or muddled Christians who have been frightened off church by tales of a terrifying God who wreaks vengeance on wrongdoers, or New Age worshippers who worship all sorts of strange gods. Or they may be any manner of people between and across these categories.
The point is, Alpha is aimed entirely at non-churchgoers, although local Christians are invited (and indeed, essential) to help run the course and more than anything, to offer a warm and friendly welcome to these tentative newcomers.
Alpha is the first course I've come across which sets out the basics of Christianity in a way which seems to be acceptable to all branches of Christianity. The training course in London had people from many different countries (and even offered simultaneous translations into other languages) and from many different churches. It was truly ecumenical, and a very good experience. The leaders were at pains to point out that after the basic Alpha course, different churches would be expected to add their own “branding”, to teach their own particular denominational philosophy to the newcomers.
Many thousands of people worldwide have discovered God for themselves through Alpha, and these new Christians bring a freshness and excitement and simplicity of belief which can often be lacking in churches where the congregation have been established Christians for many years. I'm reminded of Jesus' dictum that “unless you receive the kingdom of God like a little child, you cannot enter it.” (Mark 10:15) The enthusiasm and eagerness for God and the things of God, and the ease with which these new (and often young) Christians pray, is utterly childlike and very attractive.
Very often it's those who have no church background whatsoever who receive the gospel most easily. Others, who attended church as children or who have had some other contact with Christianity, sometimes find it more difficult to get rid of the often erroneous prejudices and beliefs which they've carried for a long time.
Perhaps because of long and deeply held beliefs, the local church can encounter difficulty when these new Christians begin to take part in worship. For another feature of Alpha is that it builds bridges between the initial basic course and the local church, and towards the end of the ten-week course, Alpha participants are encouraged to attend their local church.
This can be a shock to the system both for the Alpha participants, and for the local church! The worship on Alpha tends to be free, spontaneous and informal, and often uses instruments such as guitars and keyboards. The worship in church is often much more formal. Many churches only use an organ to accompany singing and many of the hymns sung in church were written at least two centuries ago. In the words of St Paul from today's reading, the problem for the local church is how to root, build up and establish new Christians in the faith, abounding in thanksgiving, without crushing the Spirit out of them or forcing them to conform to types of worship which they probably regard as coming from the Stone Age.
At the same time, why should Christians who are already well rooted, built up and established in the faith, be forced to endure what they probably regard as superficial worship with no depth, when their worship has stood the test of generations and they love it deeply.
It's tempting never to tackle this seemingly insoluble problem, and simply to provide separate worship for the two groups. But the danger of that approach is that the new Christians may continue to be fed on “milk” and never really grow any roots at all, while the established Christians remain in a well-worn rut which is comfortable but which rarely challenges. And the Church becomes yet more fragmented, with everybody willing only to follow their own particular style.
Perhaps St Paul has the answer. In today's reading he warns the new Christians at Colossae to “see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, .... and not according to Christ.” Christ must take first place in any church, no matter how upset people may be if their human tradition has to change a little. We can only reach our own full potential through Christ, for he gives us fullness and completeness of life. And listening to, responding to, communing with Christ, must take precedence over any other church activity, no matter how worthy.
In today's gospel reading, the disciples implored Jesus to teach them how to pray. Somehow or other they just couldn't get into prayer quite as he could. They expected him to wave a magic wand and hey presto! Their prayers would suddenly become as effective as Jesus' prayers. But of course, he didn't do that. He started them off with a very simple prayer, the Lord's Prayer, which contained the seeds they needed, and it was up to them to encourage and allow those seeds to grow. It was up to them to give the time and space and energy to prayer to enable their prayers to become deeper, to become rooted and built up and established in the faith.
We need to welcome new Christians. We need to make them feel at home in our churches. But we also need to give them the right environment to allow their faith to deepen. We need to gently wean them, to begin to offer them meat instead of milk and to encourage them to become rooted, built up and established in the faith.
We're going to run Alpha courses across our Benefice in the Autumn, when the television series finishes. And in the end, perhaps all of us, newcomers and old stagers alike, will need to be generous with each other. We need to reach out across the barriers of tradition and styles of worship, and be willing to give a little to accommodate each other. And above all we need to remember that Christ died for all of us. As St Paul said in today's reading, he nailed our differences to the cross. And if he could do that for us, maybe we too could nail our differences to the cross, for him.
