The Lakes Group
1st Tuesday each month at Christ Church 10:30 am– 12 noon
Meeting Information
We meet on the 1st Tuesday of each month at 10 am for coffee. Our meeting starts at 10:30 am in the quiet room on the first floor.
The themes range around our church and Christianity "in the public square" i.e current affairs (a wider term than politics). An invitation is sent a couple of weeks before the meeting by email and many people answer with ideas in advance. After the meeting a summary of the discussion is circulated.
No formal membership is required and attendance is not restricted to members of Christ Church.
You are welcome to call David Booth (07902222170) with any queries.
Lakes group meeting 4th July 2023.
Today we discussed why the great majority of our members and adherents are “full of years.” In biblical times that would be seen as a sign of wisdom and to be envied. But to youngsters who enter the church for the first time and see nobody who is less than 50 years older than they are. It is a place where they will not meet friends or kindred spirits or even the Christianity they seek.
We are of course an advantage to our church. We provide it with financial support, we attend fairly regularly and (by taking more than 2 jobs each) we fill the offices. We are not challenging and we are friendly.
But that is not what younger people expect. They do not see in us the challenges that Jesus presented or the action he took. In particular they are keenly aware of the injustices in society and do not hear the voice of the Church raised against them. Are we, our ministers and our buildings an expense which is holding us back? The URC in Surrey and Sussex has reduced from 16 to 4 ministers over the last 30 years or so and our buildings are expensive to maintain and underused. The successful evangelical churches hire their worship buildings (e.g. school halls) on Sundays and meet in smaller groups in houses for other meetings. Many have lay pastors, paid and unpaid together with the leaders described in Corinthians 12 and the faith, hope and love of Corinthians 13.
They think the church dodges the large issues before society in favour of a quiet life and have not seen the church on a public march. This is a mistaken view. The Government has been publicly warned that, after public funding, voluntary Christian action by church members is by far the most frequent source of public welfare of food and shelter and without the crisis would be huge. But if our all age service has become an old age service we have to rethink what, when and how we do it and whether we would be put out if anyone else did it.
In fact the JPIT (joint public issues team) of the Methodist, URC and Baptist Churches) regularly briefs parliament on current political and social issues but their worth sees very little publicity from our pulpit or magazine table.
This group would welcome that challenge but what of the other 130 or so in the church?
We have no meeting in August but we shall be back on the first Tuesday in September discussing what limits should be placed on free speech
David Booth.
Click on the link below to access a copy of a recent paper from the Methodist, URC, Baptist and Church of Scotland Joint Public Issues team covering matters of urgent interest, which we would like all members and adherents to read and consider whether it has their broad support.
https://jpit.uk/from-recovery-to-flourishing