I was sitting in the barbers - you know the one? Just down at Old Field circus. I think it was the second time I had been to that barbers since I moved in, but the first time that particular girl had cut my hair. And we get chatting about the music they are playing in that salon (I think it was Heart), and she tells me all about the staff Christmas party they are going to that night, because, well, if something fun’s happening, you like to chat about it don’t you. And then she sees my dog collar , and she asks me which church I am from, and then she says…
But before we get to that, let me tell you a story about a little boy. The little boy comes out of Sunday School looking very disappointed. “What’s the matter darling?” his dad asks him. So the boy explained: "We were taught to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations," he said, "but we just sat." (1)
That little boy had understood what our Gospel reading today was all about. In our Gospel reading we hear about Andrew and Philip becoming Christians. Andrew has already been hanging out with John the Baptist, Philip as far as we can tell had no particular religious background. Indeed his parents were clearly so lax in their Jewish faith that they called him by a Greek name rather than a biblical one. But when these two young men meet Jesus, the effect on them is the same. They realise they have met somebody special - As Andrew puts it “we have found the messiah”. So what is the first thing both Andrew and Philip do on meeting Jesus?
Do they think - I must spend time with Jesus because I have got so much to learn from him, and then perhaps in a few years time I can train to be a Pharisee?
naaah…
Do they think - Oh this is SO IMPORTANT - perhaps the two of us should get together and form a committee to work out the implications of what it means to be a Christians, not forgetting risk assessments and health and safety?
naah
what is the first thing both Andrew and Philip do on meeting Jesus?
[take answers]
The first thing they both did is to tell someone about Jesus.
Andrew “first found his brother Simon and said to him “we have found the Messiah”... He brought Simon to Jesus…”
Philip goes and finds his friend Nathaniel - “Philip said to him, “Come and See.”
As a new vicar at St Barnabas, it is great to see new people here in church. It says something about this church - this is a church where new people are constantly coming. Anyway without embarrassing them too much, or saying whether they are here today or not, a few weeks after I arrived, there is one particular new family in church. There’s three of them. The next week they come back. The week after that they come back again, but this time there’s four of them. They hadn’t been to church before, they start coming, and I don’t know what words they use, but there is something about this God thing, this Jesus thing, that they like, so they say to the fourth member of the family, “you got to try this:Come and see”.
I told you how Heart was playing when I was in the Barbers down the road, well I also tend to listen to Heart in the car when I am taking Henry to school in the morning. Henry is rather partial to a bit of “Heart breakfast with Jamie and Emma”. at the beginning of the new year - many folk will have tried out some new diet or new exercise programme. And it being January, there is lots of talk about fitness programmes and diets and so on. Jamie tells us about how he is going to the gym and Emma Bunton tells us about the dance fitness videos she is trying. And people phone. I guess lots of people have been trying these things since January. If it didn’t work, you probably keep quiet about it. But if it works for you, you tell everyone about it “I have just been trying out this amazing new diet” - I have lost five stone. So people phone in and say to Emma “you got to try “ ...what was it, i think it was the “three minute belly buster workout” or another one - I think it was a 45 minute one called “agony”.
If we find something that is good for us, if we find something that makes a difference for us, it’s natural for us to tell other people about it - which brings me back to sitting in that Barbers. The girl has spotted my dog collar and she asks me which church I come from . “St Barnabas - just down the road”. “Are you the church with the giant figures outside?” The thing that really impressed her about us as a church is that we are the church that wanted to tell people about the Christmas story. we didn’t keep our nativity figures hidden inside the church, but we shared our story outside where people could see it. She started talking about the animals we have had in the past and all the other ways we as a church have been telling other people about our church.
Just an aside - but this got me thinking in a conversation with Carolyn. Now this might be totally impractical and totally impossible, - but what if next year, instead of starting the wise men off in church, we started them off say in Old Field Circus, and each day in December we got them to move from one garden to the next along the Fairway until they reached the church? Here is a way of involving the local community even more in sharing the Christmas story with them. Now of course this might not be possible or practical, but if it is...
This church has impressed me a lot in how willing you are to share your faith with other people. Just before Christmas we had the leaflets to give out about our Christmas services. before the little cards had even been printed we had more sign up to deliver them and we had to find some extra roads because we had so many volunteers ready to deliver them.
or take our church website. I got a telling off by our Area Dean because our’s is not the best website in the world. Admittedly he did say his is pretty bad too. You know - we’ve got pages that say “under construction” and some of our links don’t work, and all the things one isn’t meant to have on a website. But there is one absolutely brilliant thing on our website -There’s a very personal quote - “Stanley, builder, husband and dad of two” writes
“The sermons and worship at St Barnabas helps me forget about
the wounds of the past, strengthens my being for the struggles
of the present and empowers me for the unspoken anxieties
of the future.”
As far as I am aware, there is only one Stanley in our church - so well done Stanley! but actually it’s about more than one person, because like Andrew and like Philip this church has got an attitude of saying “Come and see”.
Sadly not every church is the same. There was some research done in 2002 (2). It interviewed 300,000 worshipers in 2,200 churches, representing 8 denominations. It found that sadly that 54% of of those surveyed said they had not invited anyone to church in the past year. But it also found that ¾ of those churchgoers reported they came to church the 1st time because someone invited them. I don’t know about you, but I first came to faith because someone said to me “Come and see!”, and I kept coming because of the welcome I then received when I came.
Three quarters of church goers start going to church because someone says something along the lines of “why don’t you try it” or something similar. Now of course everyone expects vicars to say that sort of thing, but I didn’t come to faith because a vicar invited me, I came to faith because a guy just a couple of years older than me at school said “come and see” - and indeed the statistics say the same thing. The majority of people across the nation start coming to church not because a vicar invited them but because a friend or a relative invited them - just like Andrew inviting his brother Peter or Philip inviting his mate Nathaniel.
Matthew Parris, a self confessed Atheist who writes in the Times, wrote a few years ago
’The New Testament offers a picture of God, who does not sound at all vague.
He has sent His Son to earth. He has distinct plans for each of us personally and can communicate directly with us.
We are capable of forming a direct relationship, individually with Him, and are commanded to try.
We are told that this can be done only through his son. And we are offered the prospect of eternal life – an afterlife in happy, blissful or glorious circumstances if we live this life in a certain manner.
Friends, if I believed that, or even a tenth of that, how could I care which version of the prayer book is used? I would drop my job, sell my house, throw away all my possessions, leave my acquaintances and set out into the world burning with desire to know more and, when I had found more, to act upon it and tell others.
Far from being puzzled that the Mormons and Adventists should knock on the door, I am unable to understand how anyone who believed that (which) is written in the Bible could choose to spend their waking hours in any other endeavour.’ (3)
If 75% of people start coming to church because a friend or relative invite them, imagine how many people could start coming here if we each invited just a few more people? It might be the old lady next door who doesn’t get out much and you say “would you like me to drive you to church”, it might be the family with very boisterous kids and you say “I think your kids would really enjoy our Sunday School”, It might be the mum with the new baby and we say “have you thought of getting her christened”, it might be someone going through a really tough time and you say “can I pray for you?”
Sometimes we fear we have to know all sorts of complicated answers to any questions anyone might throw at us before we can share our faith. The great Mediaeval Theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote some of the longest books of theology ever written. You might think he would espouse such an approach, but when asked he said simply “To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them” or as Philip would put it “come and see”
What really impresses me about this church is that this is a place that says “come and see” -so lets see if in 2015 we can do this even more than before.
Amen
(1) from a sermon by Pastor Tim Zingale on this Site
(2) (Pentecostal Evangel, June 23, 2002, pg 11) quoted in a sermon on this site by Jeff Strite
(3) quoted in a sermon by Martin Daley on this site
