I've been stimulated by reading both Michael and Steve's contributions on the subject of mission. I hope that you find something of interest in what follows. Special thanks to Alan for this rather too early in the millennium deadline......

What you are about to read is a story about me and my family, though I've not asked their permission to quote their names. It's a personal view of Union Chapel with a bit of theology thrown in that seems important to me.

In his article, Stephen invited some of us newcomers to tell a story of our coming to be in Union Chapel. Our story is a down-to-earth story of folk next door. Vic (Vika, Victoria) was living in Linton House when we decided to get married, but coming to the church next door was not automatic for us. Hard to believe I know, but even Union Chapel looks odd from outside; neat and tidy, well-cared for, but that just raises the question of what it's for. To the casual passer-by, to the newcomer to the area, the church looks self-contained, not self-explanatory. No onion domes announce the presence of the sacred as they do on the new churches springing up around Kiev, where Vic is from. Even the name is mysterious; you have to know what Union Chapel is like, in order to want to get involved. But how do you get to know?

For us, several events were important. We met Eric to ask about hiring a room for our wedding reception and found ourselves talking to a thoughtful, interested minister. Then someone (was it Irene or Eileen?) entrusted Vic with a key to the back door so that she could practise the piano when the church was empty. There was clearly a group of young people that Phil could join in with. And we each found people inside who were ready to engage with us at that exciting and rather unnerving time when we had just become a new family; who suspended judgement as to what kind of people we are, and were refreshingly unconcerned about the nature of our faith. In other words, a very human warmth brought us into this community. Such warmth and genuine openness is a great quality for a church.

Belief is I suppose, the opposite of doubt. But faith is a way of life opposed to fear. And perhaps the most valuable witness of a church today is not in challenging doubt and insisting on belief, but to demonstrate that it is possible to build a courageous community which challenges fear. For example, to be an inclusive community means not drawing a line around the church. It means constantly resisting the attempt to define who is in and who is out. Being an open church (or any kind of open institution) is hard work, because our natural temptation is to make ourselves comfortable with our friends. Resisting the urge to control who comes in can feel dangerous. But it is written into the basis of being church. Domes and spires announce an open space, an attempt to institutionalise God's unconditional love. The free church tradition has tried to go about this in a different way, less built into the fabric of buildings, more into the way we relate to each other.

Other traditions have developed different ways again. I also find it difficult to be associated with some parts of the Christian church. But perhaps we don't need to spend time justifying our lack of fundamentalist belief or defining ourselves as more sophisticated than other people. In the end, perhaps that is only playing to our insecurity.

What we are above everything else is a community of faith. I recall a Dutch Catholic brother (probably that should be brother Dutch Catholic) being enormously enthused by an Indonesian book he got hold of in Merauke, where I was working as a teacher. He was working as the leader of a community development organisation and circulated photocopies of this book to all his colleagues. It was called 'Jesus before Christianity' and I remember that it made a great impression on me too as I struggled through new terms of theological Indonesian. The most liberating idea for me there in multicultural Indonesia was the author's stress on Jesus' understanding of faith, rather than the importance of faith in Jesus. To live the life of faith as individuals and as a church is to attest to the possibility of faith in the face of all the fears that surround us, and of course to do so practically in action in the way that Jesus did.

That seems like an inspiring place to stop, but it's rather too incomplete. Rhetoric is very nice, but sometimes awareness breaks in and shows up complacency and compromises. I wrote this in anger a few weeks ago, with the anger directed at myself. I thought at the time that I was addressing this question of mission.

'We left the church today, my son Phil and I, on bikes. Cycling has always signified more to me than getting around, more than exercise; to cycle, rather than get into a vehicle, is to choose to breathe the air, feel the rain, understand the effort of going faster. Not owning a car was for years part of my self-identity; it fitted with an effort to live without damaging too much, alongside trying to do something alongside people with less opportunity for such lifestyle choices.

But Phil and I left the church, and cycled to Burger King. To Burger King, where the latest offer is a super double King double triple King thing with cheese, and you can 'go large' for 30p. And we brought it home, me trying to be cheerful but failing; the food sticks in my throat, tastes like the ashes of what life should be like; I leave it for later when I'm really hungry. Not just that it is mass produced and overpackaged, but that it is so soulless, and yet so superficially appealing. I felt really sick with myself. I came upstairs, leaving Phil wondering what was wrong with me. I see myself in Seattle, and in my dream I'm not protesting peacefully. I'm smashing glass'.

Why is it that 'going large for 30p' had such an effect? I remember that wave of revulsion I felt for myself; a fear that I'll never learn to live in a way that I'm comfortable with. A church where we can acknowledge fears like that, but then leave them behind and begin again: that is a community of faith. We might even find ourselves writing songs about it.

For some people, videos of 'Jesus of Nazareth' might be useful; but as Michael suggests it is the opportunity to meet and talk that is really important. If we were to come to view our relationships with the users of the building, with neighbours, friends and work colleagues as chances to evangelise in the sense parodied by Steve, we would be doing each other a disservice. But perhaps mission is rather about finding ways of opening up ways to faith for each other - remembering that these others are never a closed group of people that we already know. We might perceive opportunities to explore the value of faith together. We will be changed, but then we had better be.

Andy Howes
Jan/Feb 2000