It’s not easy for some of course. There are plenty of places I’ve visited in the course of writing this blog where size and layout make suitably controlled opening impossible. Take away all but a third of the seats in some churches - a couple spring to mind - and you’d be down to a capacity of about a dozen. In some cases the problem would come from trying to space people sufficiently to meet the guidelines - any of the places I’ve attended for Friday prayers must be finding this a struggle at the moment and only the guilt of adding to that problem has prevented me from trying to take a look myself.
We shouldn’t forget too that reopening has, in some parts of the country, become re-closing as spikes in cases bring about a halt to progress and even perhaps a step backwards. Nobody is taking anything for granted at the moment.
Coming out of lockdown has given many churches the opportunity to reflect on what they managed to achieve during the restrictions and closures. It has been instructive to me to see how different church approaches have produced different responses. It hasn’t all been a uniform picture of pastoral help and remote prayer; there have been some truly praiseworthy efforts and, it has to be said, some disappointing absences.One of the visits I posted last year concerned an online sermon about the three-dimensionality of a church’s function. Ideally, according to the very energetic person presenting the talk, a church would have a relationship with its congregation and with the powers above, but would also - crucially - have a strong connection with the wider (as yet non-churchgoing) community. I recall a two-dimensional cardboard Jesus coming in for a battering because of his failure to make a connection with the wider world.
Elements of that probably rather simple lesson have been abundantly on show over lockdown. Having signed up - intentionally or otherwise - to a number of mailing lists, I’ve been struck by the efforts put in by some and the apparent silence coming from others.
Collecting food, clothes and cash as well as making a point of checking up on the vulnerable members of society have all been strongly followed. The pressing need to support those grieving, those living in fear and those suffering the inevitable economic consequences of the last four months has been answered fully by most churches and places of worship. Only this week I was sent a splendid communication from the Mosque in Leamington. In response to the problems of people experiencing hardship when it comes to putting food on the table, the Mosque has produced a downloadable booklet of recipes for curries and dhals to make at home providing good food with costs as low as 9p a serving. It’s a fine demonstration of reaching out regardless of faith and I’m certain there have been plenty such examples.
Where then have been the voices from many of the churches whose emailings have been constant in trying to get me to go along and join? The knock on the door approach may have been scuppered by lockdown but the sudden drying-up of emails came as a bit of a surprise. These, typically, are the more inward-looking congregations whose purpose seems to be to cement a place in heaven for the individual without really looking much further into the world beyond - the two-dimensional folk looking to themselves first.
Now that church doors are beginning to open more fully I expect they will be back offering me a path to the promised riches waiting for me. But the modern equivalent of the question ‘What did you do in the war?’ may mean I’m even more reluctant to share time with these churches than ever.
