We are all brothers & Sisters in the Lord

Appreciating each other

We were recently invited to, and attended, a family christening. My granddaughter, Emily, was being “splashed” and welcomed into the family of God. We went, of course, but not without some misgivings about the whole thing. I mean, we are Pentecostal and believe in baptism by immersion when you are old enough to take that decision for yourself. We don’t “christen” our children, we simply bless them and receive them into our church family.

The family began to arrive in the church car park and we proceeded, en masse, to flood the church with an extra 40-odd people – and we were just one family of three present that day. Our family is a garrulous family – not unlike a flock of starlings – all chattering at once. It didn’t go un-noticed when the vicar stood up and asked us very politely to shut up and put our cameras away til after the service. In our church we don’t particularly worry about either a bit of noise or a camera.

Ah but the differences didn’t really start to show until we started the service for real. This was an Anglican church with all their traditions and foibles. The choir filed in just in front of the clergy team. They held the Word high, above their heads – literally, and processed it (as in a procession) to the middle of the church. Everyone present faced the Gospel while it was read and then it was processed back to the altar table once again. There was a rich vein of fine old well practiced tradition running through the entire service. Yet we realised that, although we were very different in our traditions, there was still a wonderful feeling of God’s presence all the time. There was perhaps a reverence as much for the tradition as for the presence of God.

When it came to the actual christening, all the promises were made and then the vicar spoke of the christening as a step to satisfy our wishes as adults in welcoming children into the family of God. This was explained as the first step prior to them being of age to make the decision for themselves later in life – they call it confirmation, we call it baptism by full emersion but it amounts to exactly the same thing really. I was surprised by the similarity of thinking as much as I was delighted by the traditional ways of doing everything. The only difference that made a difference to us, really, is that in the Anglican Communion, there is no room for manoeuvre in their services. It is all laid down in their service books and is, or seems to be, exactly the same each week. Even their prayers are all written down for them – there is no space for extemporé prayer or worship at all.

So, at the end and when all is said and done, the denominations are so very different in their worship, their meetings/services, and in their traditions. BUT, as we found this weekend, people are still people, and when they gather together to praise the Lord, it doesn’t really matter one tiny little jot how they do it. God looks at their hearts not at their traditions. God filled that church this Sunday just as much as I expect He filled our very different church. So they do things differently – so what? We loved that service with all its idiosyncrasies just as much as we would have loved our own way of dedicating a child in our tradition.

Lord forgive us making such a play on our differences and help us to concentrate more on our similarities. We all love the Lord – what a wonderful place to start.  I am sure they would find our services just as confusing as we found theirs, but at the end of the day, we were all just worshipping the same God, the same Jesus, and the same Holy Spirit.

You know - I think God’s church, the Bride of Christ, is in better shape than we all think it is. That comforts me more than I thought possible before 10;00 last Sunday morning. By 12;00 I had changed my mind quite a lot.