Dear Friends,
One of my greatest childhood heroes was the cricketer Keith Miller (he was an Australian but I forgave him) and a former World War Two fighter pilot. He was once asked how he handled pressure on the cricket field. He replied that 'pressure is a Messerschmitt up your ****. Playing cricket is not'. To him life was about priorities.
In the recent past two controversial issues have come to the surface. The first has been the proposed decision by the Church of England to spend £100 million in reparation for past evils of the slave trade. The other has been whether the Anglican Church may or may not marry same sex couples in church, something that is threatening to tear it apart. They are two of many areas of controversy on both spiritual and moral grounds, ones where strongly felt opinions are rightly felt and expressed.
Far be it for me to be controversial lest it causes offence. But here I return to Mr Miller's famous words and apply them to such issues; instead of looking at them in isolation we need to look at the whole picture, seeing them in the light of the teaching of Our Lord and also of the vision we have of what the Church exists to be and to do.
What might be our priorities? First to be a community for worship and prayer –not just in the context of coming to church but also aspiring to living true Christian lives. The Church is people, not buildings; we are the Church who meet in our churches. We meet to worship, and both there and in prayer we bring the needs and aspirations of those around us to God.
Secondly, we are here to serve, to give and not to take. This goes clean contrary to the materialism and self-centredness of the world as a whole. We represent an alternative world with an alternative vision of the world, with different values, a different focal point, with the future more important than the present. We are IN the world but not OF the world.
Third we are here to care. There is so much suffering in the world today. Not just the great tragedies such as the recent earthquake in Syria but the running sore of world poverty. Not just well recorded tragedies that hit the headlines but those who are sick, lonely, disabled, bereaved. I love those words of John Donne: 'Any man's death diminishes me because I am a part of mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls – it tolls for thee'.
Fourth, we are to draw others to believe as we believe. I know that the whole idea of so-called evangelism is out of date now and some see it almost as dangerous. But Christianity is not some kind of a woolly belief in a God of some sort, coming to church now and again and trying to live a decent life. Christianity is a way of life and it changes existence into living to the full. The Church is a living organization that exists for other people and in our own lives we must show that it works in practical terms.
You may think of other fundamental purposes for what the Church exists to do and to be; like another hero of mine (Winnie the Pooh) I am a bear of very little brain. But as we consider these matters that hit the headlines we need to think of them in terms of whether they will strengthen the vision, work and worship of the Church today. It is all about priorities, about the wider picture – not in isolation.
Something to ponder for Lent this month perhaps?
With very best wishes,
Paul Lanham
display of flower arrangement representing Inns of England. 
