One of the joys of this job is being able to hold a mirror up to a congregation and help it to see how much it has changed/grown/developed since the last time I visited. And then join in the celebrations .. before (naturally!) raising the stakes for the coming year. Congratulations balanced by challenge so as to avoid complacency.
Today the congregation of St Augustine’s Dumbarton engaged in just such a process of taking stock and looking forwards, naming both the joys and the stumbling blocks with engaging openness. It did so with its customary warm hospitality and winning eccentricity/zanyness. And all preceded by a Mothering Sunday Eucharist that managed to combine stately worship - beautifully presided over by the Rector – with appropriate informality and the joyous singing of modern music; transcend
ence and immanence in the one Liturgy …. with no clashing.
While the rest of us talked about ‘welcome’ and ‘integration’, about new ways of connecting with the Hall-user groups, about reaching ‘new populations’ and helping the ‘warm fringe’ to feel fully participant - while we talked, Brogan and Jamie-Lee quite independently drew a rainbow which said it all really: ‘wherever you see a rainbow, remember that God is love’ . That, pinned up in the Hall where so many different community groups come each week, will probably do more to engage with people than any number of bright ideas from the MDO.
They showed it to us at ten minutes to four; as in pastoral visiting, it’s just as you’re leaving that the gems emerge.
How wonderful and inspiring our young people are. A resource not to be under-estimated.