At
Lang Lang we had a flourishing Sunday School, a teenage Bible
Study, and a large body of new converts. Actually many of the new
converts had been fed into other denominations for a profound reason.
Women who became Christians naturally wanted their husbands to find
the joy they had found in Christ. So where their husband was Roman
Catholic or Uniting Church they started going to that church in the
hope that it would be easier for him to participate. It struck me
then, and still does, as a very Christ-like attitude and so these
women had our support and blessing in doing this. Interestingly God
used this pool of Christians who had been converted through our
ministry but who were now in other churches to help us greatly later
on, but that is a story for later!
There
still remained a large body of new believers who saw themselves as
“Anglicans” who could not get past the “gatekeepers” to come
to church.
So
we, after much prayer of course, resorted to busting the blockade by
force. Not every Sunday. Just on occasions.
The
Sunday School kids wanted a means of showing their parents what
Christianity meant to them. We had our own youth concert band so
music was no problem. So for special occasions we put on “Family
Service” with a difference. Not family service to entice young
people along but family service for the young people to bring their
non-churchgoing parents to!
When
a normal Sunday congregation was 12 to 18 souls and an extra hundred
people turned up – with Sunday School kids backed by social clout
in the form of of Inez and Sue manning the door, the gatekeepers were
totally powerless. They were reduced to retreating to the vestry and
taking out their frustrations on me!
Jan,
the chief gatekeeper threatened that if the Sunday School came to
church once more she was leaving and going to the Anglican church in
the next town. That was actually threatening to put us out of
business since my salary was paid by the money they raised through
the “Ladies Guild” and its fund-raising efforts. However on the
other side it proved to be an idle threat. They did not do it.
On
reflection part of the reason for this was also the reason she was so
angry at new people not of her choosing coming into the church –
it threatened her identity which was inextricably bound up with her
status and roles in the church. Conversely she had waited decades for
her turn at Guild President and Church Warden, and was not likely to
give that up to go to another parish where she would start at the
bottom of the guild hierarchy. (to be fair she was an extremely
capable guild president, and chaired a meeting with an efficiency
that most bureaucrats could have learned much from!)
While
their hostility was very real and given vent, they did not act on it.
And I don't think they did even carry out their threats to “go to
the Bishop” at that stage. It is interesting that although they did
bad things in opposing people being converted and added to the
church, they were not bad people and they were in their own way
indispensable. More of this – and especially the role of identity
issues in church conflict later.
These
family services were a thundering success, with an instrumental band
(although usually not the full compliment) and so many voices it also
was that volume-wise.
As
I said these were different to most church's family service at that
time. The conventional wisdom was that to entice children and young
people to church you had to do a “Sesame Street” version of
church. Our young people were already believers, but had no exposure
to church services, so “church lite” or full liturgy were equally
foreign to them. Their parents on the other hand often had some past
exposure to church so expected a church service to be recognisable as
such.
So
while we had drums, trumpets, flutes, saxophones, clarinets and so
on, we sang the old hymns as well as some of Rosalie's songs. My
favourite was “Onward Christian Soldiers” to fife (flute in our
case) and drum. But all the old favourites came alive to being played
and sung with feeling.
Kids
did the readings and prayers, and often presented prepared items, but
we left the basic liturgy more or less intact.
The
fear of new people coming to church was not just at Lang Lang.
Our
other main church in this parish was at Koo-wee-rup. In many ways
they were as a congregation much more advanced in the Faith than the
congregation was at Lang Lang. However there were still serious
problems. Some will come out in the next few blogs, one I will tell
here.
This
tale comes from a parish council meeting – which had six delegates
each from Lang Lang, Koo-wee-rup and two from Balyes. I had for some
time been trying to enthuse the parish council members with my ideas
for evangelism and some of the “flavour-of-the-month” ideas of
church growth which I gleaned from books and attending church growth
conferences. Always to no avail. This time I wanted to start a
ministry in the local high school. Ross and I presented our ideas but
there was general opposition.
Then
one man from Koo-wee-rup put their opposition in a nutshell: he burst
out “But if you go into the High School, kids might want to come to
our church!” His look of shock and horror was mirrored in many
faces around the room.
None
the less, Ross and I went ahead and started a Christian group in the
high school. Week by week we went and met with kids who came to find
out about Christianity. Some of them went on to attend the Bayles
Fellowship meetings of a Sunday night.
At
Bayles we tried the opposite approach – we broke out of the church
mould!
As
an Anglican priest I had taken vows to only use the approved liturgy
in church. I know many priests did then and do now break those vows
with impunity, and at that time I had certainly stretched them, but
break them completely I would not
I
truly think my fellow clergy who
continue to throw out the baby with the bathwater by throwing off the
principles enshrined in their liturgy and centuries of
Christian experience should re-consider their
behaviour. God was really severe in Old Testament times
when Israelite leaders took oaths of
obedience – even when it was to foreign
pagan kings – and then broke their
oath. We have taken an oath to use an approved liturgy.
We cannot break that oath and pretend we are doing it for God!
However
at Bayles we had only a Sunday School hall, not an actual church. So
there I felt I could honestly hold services without using the
Anglican liturgy. Actually I now think that even if my reasoning was
correct – which in hindsight I confess is a bit doubtful –
abandoning the liturgy was in practice a big mistake. But more of
that later.
So
our young people's Bible study which met at Ross and Robyn's house
started to put on youth services in this Bayles Sunday School Hall.
We
started out as a crispy evangelical youth service. The dozen young
people from the Bible study were the nucleus of the new service. I
think it was a “one-off” and when that went well a regular
monthly event, then as it grew, fortnightly, and eventually every
Sunday night. Over time it became progressively more Pentecostal.
That was not itself a problem, but in time the church gained some
fame, then people who were already pentecostal started coming to it
and they brought their own baggage with them. That did become a big
problem!
For
now I will just sketch Bayles Fellowship at its height. It was a
“Charismatic” style service – but naively Charismatic blended
with with Evangelical passion for Biblical faithfulness and
exposition.
It
was a “team ministry” with members exercising their particular
gifts. I preached. Ross led the worship. We had a music team –
besides Ross on guitar - generally of drums, the two Johns on
trumpets (they did some amazing improvisations ), Flute and clarinet,
and sometimes saxophone. We had prayer support, and the whole team
met beforehand to spend time together in prayer.
When
I say it was naively Charismatic I mean in the good sense of
“innocent”. We didn't try to act Charismatic – it just
happened! When Ross was leading worship he would sometimes go off
into a song we had never heard before – sometimes in English,
sometimes in a strange tongue. When we had congregational praying in
tongues it was not artificially set up – as I have seen in many
places – it just happened. And most importantly it did not happen
on a regular basis. To me that suggests it really was from the Holy
Spirit as opposed to the humanly contrived version which I have seen
in other places. As I will relate later, when Bayles became “known”
among Charismatics, people came who were not content with that: they
wanted their spiritual “fix” every week! That was of course the
beginning of the end both of Bayles' innocence and eventually of its
existence.
At
is best Bayles was filled with excitement so that people who came
came back and brought their friends.
We
also broke out in many other ways – to reach as many people as
possible.
We
ran evangelistic outreach meetings – which I know is pretty
standard for churches. But my point is that we did not neglect the
tried and true methods. We had family BBQ's – again standard church
practice. We tried to reach every part of the social spectrum. For
instance Inez donated a really sweet little pipe organ to the Lang
Lang church about this time. Yes I know that the conventional wisdom
at that time was for churches that wanted growth to turn their backs
on pipe organs in favour of music groups – which often only
consisted of acoustic guitars. But my advice here is: “Don't
be so enamoured of novelties that you neglect the traditional”
We could beat most churches I've seen when it came to music groups –
we had not just acoustic guitar – everything from solo trumpet or
clarinet (which can be very effective) up to a full concert band, and
every combination in between. But God, through Inez gave us a
beautiful little pipe organ, and God used it to incredible effect
(that is mostly a story for later).
However
the organ provided two immediate benefits.
Our
regular church organist was a mighty saint of God – but also a very
frail old lady. (OK another story for later). She had struggled back
from a serious stroke to provide music for the Sunday services. We
then had a pedal-powered harmonium and the effort of playing it took
a heavy toll on her. The new little pipe organ was naturally powered
by an electric blower, then organ builder put in an extra feature
with her in mind. It had some clever circuitry between the keyboard
and the solenoids that fed air to the pipes. Flick a switch and
Florence our organist could play with her good right hand and the one
good finger of her clawed left hand and the organ played the
appropriate pedal pipes by itself! (Naturally Jan and her fellow
controllers had opposed the new organ and the diocesan hierarchy had
sent someone to try to talk Inez out of donating it – but Inez
believed God had told her that this was his way of collecting all the
offerings she had not paid over the years.)
The
organ and the contacts we had made with classical musicians while it
was being built let us do some “highbrow” outreach. We had organ
recitals and even hosted visiting opera singers - all to a packed
church. It was all great fun and great team building. A number of men
who frequented the pub came to each occasion – some because they
actually liked classical music, others so that they could help out
with things – even down to helping wash dishes.
Next
post: The Devil Strikes Back
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