Emerging groups
Local focussed activity will bring
a closer fellowship that should be promoting the positiveness of the
Gospel and Church as a body of Christ. Many denominations need to be
in dialogue with their office bearers and members to persuade them to
be active in their locality, trying out new ways and activities to
accommodate the church in their area and culture. It will surely be
different, for the Church in Caithness, Glasgow, Stornoway or
Dunbar.
There is a need to lay down
prejudices from the pastors, ministers and leaders to show brotherly
concern among the churches for the sake of the kingdom. Perth
Christian Centre's, Monthly leaders meetings in Inverness is a step
in the right direction.
The aspects of “Renovare”, focus
prayerfully and intelligently on supporting the Church. Their
encompassing work has a contemplative form of which will be mentioned
later. In the meantime it is encouraging to see work in the Americas
and now in Europe (Renovare Britain and Ireland) that embraces a
wide spectrum of practises in a spiritual manner. “The Spiritual
Formation” is at the heart of the work. This work will grow in the
following years.
The way forward is spirit filled
work across Churches and communities engaging both Christians and
those with no present faith. The church has not learned the lessons
of the 19th century that Christians need to be involved in community
life.
In Scotland and the rest of the UK
there is a gap, which has arisen during the past two generations, of
no real involvement in the community (there are some exceptions) plus
the change in culture. The culture change is one that needs address.
We have less and less social/nominal
Christians going to church which clears the way for a genuine work of
the spirit. People are less interested in turning out to be seen as a
community figure head. Added to this we have a culture quite
different from America. In the UK the post-modern era requires a
different form of Evangelism!
For
church to work in this new age its not simply a lesson of four laws,
a template, a plan. In fact internationally the emerging church is
looking at how to be the community first rather then look at plans.
The tee shirts in America that say
“Don't go to church” and on the back say “Be the
church” says something very profound - its not just going to
meetings its giving over to God.
There is a danger here that
meetings, agendas, time allocated work, compartmentalised church
life, in turn this creates a church and non-church divide, this so
called secular and non-secular arena. Again rather than a subculture
that acknowledges the God spots in the week and all else is
“worldly”,how about a culture that has input from practising
Christians in the community. Elizabeth Fry's influence on community
came from her community life driven by her personal faith.
There were times of revival to touch
Caithness in the Church’s history. Perhaps most notably was that of
the 1920s when the ministry in singing and preaching of Jock Troupe,
of the Salvation Army, saw churches, including Wick Baptist Church,
and places like the Braehead and Market Square in Wick, packed out.
It cannot be denied that the Church as a whole in this country has
declined in numbers since those days but many believe there are signs
of change.[Wick Baptist ]
Going back to the 1830's, and the
Ten Year Conflict, this maybe a large concluding step, the result of
underlying movement from the Irving, Erskine, Campbell revisit of
Scriptures and the New Testament church? In these years in question
there was a change in Society, a moving away from old style thinking
and doctrine. This gave a fresh opportunity for Godly things that may
have been curtailed in the Calvinistic straight-jacket.
