Houston McKelvey writes in today’s Belfast News Letter. –
This week the 31st Annual Northern Ireland Milk Cup football tournament attracted teams from Britain and Ireland, and from the USA, Mexico, Chile, Japan and New Zealand.
For several years I have been a guest of the organising committee and have had an opportunity to see the mammoth task which these volunteers complete each year to provide young sporting talent with encouragement, to enrich the summer activities in several council areas, and to showcase the scenery and hospitality sector of the north coast. These men also go about their task with unfailing good humour, even when they are coping with the unexpected.
Over the years as I have got to know the individual committee members, I have met a high number who are committed members of their church, indeed their Honorary Secretary is also a church organist. Finding church members in voluntary service in sport and in other community causes and charities is not a new experience for me. I have had the privilege over many years of coming in contact with them in various elements of my ministry. And I have long since made my mind up – they are my type of Christian.
They as people, and their service, renew my faith. But they, unknowingly to them, challenge me to think about our churches’ activities and role in society.
Firstly, and may God preserve us from it, every church both as a denomination and as a local parish or congregation, can be too inclined to be inward-looking. We tend to forget in our efforts to keep up property, run events and organisations, that Jesus Christ did not come into the world to establish a church, or indeed to save Christians. Rather, he came to save the world and he had a distinct preference for the poor and the needy – no matter what the need is. He talked about Good Samaritans, about people who got out of their bed at night to help a neighbour in need, and he reacted to those who financially exploited the poor. Time and again he was criticised for talking to those whom the leaders of society deemed to be socially and religiously unacceptable.
Unfortunately, too many churches – and often those perceived as “successful” churches – are little less than comfort zones for people who do not wish to engage with the real world. A lot of what is passed off in such churches as Christian activity is no more than the self-preservation efforts of a cosy religious club. There is no vision of being a training school to enable its members individually and corporately to be the leaven in society. Instead of enabling members and the church for service beyond the church’s walls, and being the challenging voice within the discussion of our society’s agenda, the main effort in essence seems to be the provision of indulgent and sinful comfortable pews.
Where is the church in the public place today? Where are church members working to make this a better society for everyone? Where is the church’s voice being raised on behalf of those with read needs – whether medical or monetary? How much time is spent in congregational committees and vestries, in diocesan offices and church headquarters dealing with community engagement as opposed to the navel-gazing of a mutual self-preservation society?
When have you seen a church honour a member for their ministry as a fund-raiser for cancer research, or as a volunteer meals on wheels driver? When have you last seen a church highlight to politicians in local councils, Assembly or Westminster their efforts and concern about specific local issues?
Without such a critique and re-engagement, the churches will deservedly fall victim to secularism, and to the understandable indifference of an increasing number of people. Until such a time, say a prayer for those church members who engage with society personally and who through their efforts make wonderful things happen, including a football tournament where the Lord spoke to me in the Showground stand, every bit as clearly as in a cathedral.