Anniversaries (August/September 2022)
Dear Friends
Anniversaries are on my mind. As I write this it is exactly two years since we loaded the last of our belongings into the lorry and car and drove to Bristol. A new chapter was beginning for us as a family and for us as congregations and as a pastorate together. Plenty has happened and there is much to celebrate and give thanks for. It has been a somewhat stifled start to my ministry, but I think we have done stunning things together already. We have added to the already wonderful story of both churches, playing our parts together as the world has moved along and life has thrown much at us. Ministers tend to come and go, whilst many in congregations sustain the life of the Church with their steady faithfulness across decades. For all of this, I give thanks.
October will see us celebrate another important anniversary as we look back to the moment in 1972 when the URC was born. Many of you were part of that story too. You will have shared in the debates and discussions in what had been Congregational and Presbyterian churches in the late 1960s and as the 1970s dawned. Some will have been aware of the sometimes heated debate in the House of Commons on the evening of 21st June, 1972, which led to the passing of the United Reformed Church Act, an essential legal step to allow the previously separate denominations and their assets to come together. Although few, perhaps, will have been listening live at 2:00am on 22nd when MPs formally and finally voted!
Fifty years is a longer life than many expected the URC to have. That sounds strange even as I write it. But the vision of the late 1960s and into the 1970s was of a global movement towards greater unity amongst previously divided churches. The URC was envisaged as a temporary denomination; a tabernacle along the road to greater unions that could bring in others across the UK such as the Methodists and Anglicans. Many Christians felt and saw the hand of God at work as barriers fell and unity blossomed. The 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh gave powerful impetus to ecumenism as missionaries from across the world asked why, as the gospel was shared, ancient divisions and separate denominations had to be shared too? This conference alone played a major role in the creation, amidst the rubble of the Second World War, of the World Council of Churches. 1925 saw the creation of the United Church of Canada (Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist).
1929 saw ecumenical discussions begin in northern India, leading to the creation of the Church of North India in 1970 (Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Baptist, Brethren, Churches of Christ). Christians don’t always act quickly! In 1947 the Church of South India came into being (Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican). 1957 saw the birth of the United Church of Christ, USA (Congregational, Reformed, Lutheran, Anabaptist). The URC was another part of this global, ecumenical, mosaic.
Things didn’t unfold as many hoped and dreamed. Wider union did come, as the Reformed Association of the Churches of Christ and, later, the Scottish Congregational churches joined the URC. But organic unions of separate denominations fell out of favour and we have had to adjust to still being here fifty years on. We’ve had to adjust to plenty of other things too. We’re much smaller now than we were in 1972, as are all of the mainstream historic denominations across the UK. We’re older in terms of the average age across our congregations. We’ve far fewer ministers and many of our churches no longer regularly welcome children and young people to worship. There’s no shortage of stuff here to lament and feel sad about.
But set alongside that the other stuff. Set alongside that the beautiful reality that we know and love one another, are meeting and making new friends (you welcomed me and Jenny after all!). Set alongside that the ways in which we connect with the community on our doorsteps and across the world. Set alongside that the passion we have for justice and for caring for creation amidst the climate emergency. Set alongside that the countless ways in which care is real amongst us and, through us, into a hurting world. Set alongside that the deep wells of faith that feed us day by day, the prayers we offer as witness to the hope we hold in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Set alongside that the ways we open scripture, let God speak, and shape our lives around the Lord’s table.
I have always remembered a word my father said when he was a small part of the journey that shaped the URC: “The URC is only ever a little part of God’s Church. But it is the part that I know and love best.”
For the URC, and for all of us together in it, thanks be to God!
Yours in Christ,
Neil