Consider
scripture, there is no divide “The Enlightenment” and future
generations have created the myth about a secular and non –
secular world.
How damaging
that is. We know we do not need to go to a church building to pray,
yet we constantly compartmentalise on the basis of modernity. The
secular / non secular dos/ and don't s might have worked for a
generation but scripture calls for a more radical reformed “reform!”.
The result of
this secular divide is the thought that God is no longer required;
based on the modernity of the church it is no wonder.
The emerging
church folks, have noted that the church needs to be wholly working
in the community and certainly not seen as a non secular group of
people. Their worship is less scripted with beginnings and ends and
more of a flow of what was happening before “formal worship”.
However we are
in this post modern post Christianity era where people are
discovering mysticism and spirituality. All the more the Church can
bring God to the spiritual seeking community who are not in this
generation stuck in a dual format of thinking of secular and
non-secular. The
work in the Highlands could grow if a long term commitment could be
made by the Union. When churches are joining and constricting under
Synod instructions at the disapproval of the members an opportunity
to promote the “local church - Baptistic” could well have success
once more.
I
appreciate we cannot fund 27 Baptist missionaries in the Highlands
like in the past but there is a need to have a presence and to
support Christians who wish to worship and be an evangelical witness
North of Perth.
Apart
for the extensive work of the Perth Christian Centre there are a few
itinerant ministries.
Despite
the challenges of the North and the Presbyterian culture, there can
be new pockets of witness, like Dingwall, where I had a vision for a
church way back in 1982,- but the work does need commitment.
