Breadth and variety in our churches

An article for September editions of parish magazines from Archdeacon Nikki:

One of the many things I love about serving in the Diocese of Worcester is the huge variety of churches we have – large buildings, tiny ones, churches in the middle of fields, churches in the middle of road junctions in market towns, modern buildings on estates, historic listed buildings in villages, our sp0ledid cathedral ….. That’s before we even begin to think about the people meeting in them and their church tradition and worship style! We have evangelical churches, Anglo-Catholic churches, new worshipping communities, churches offering worship to God in so many wonderfully different ways.

Bishop Hugh and I reflected on this one Sunday in late July, when after a lunchtime gathering, the two of us, and Bishop Martin, were heading off to three significant gatherings all with a couple of miles of each other in urban Dudley.

Bishop Martin was at a deanery confirmation service in Christ Church, Quarry Bank, a gently growing church in the central tradition where five people from across a few deanery churches who had found faith were marking that step.  Bishop Hugh was at Top Church, one of our renewal churches. He was also confirming some new Christians, baptising others, and formally welcoming people from different denominations into the Church of England, in an intergeneration service with a contemporary worship band. Just up the road from there in St Mary’s Church, Kingswinford, one of our more Anglo-Catholic parishes, I was licensing the current Priest-in-Charge to his new role as Rector. Father Adam had taken the opportunity to showcase the parish choral tradition in this service, and he and his worship director had gathered a scratch choir of nearly fifty singers from across seven churches to joyfully sing evensong – it was glorious!

Each of these three services enabled people to connect with the God who loves them, to celebrate new life and a journey of discipleship, and to build community with fellow followers of Jesus. Throughout that day, this had also happened in other sacred spaces across the diocese. Within this breadth and variety we hope there is somewhere for everyone to find and grow in faith, somewhere they will fit in and feel at home. No one tradition or way of being church is better than the other, all are different expressions of the body of Christ, and I delight in what each has to offer. Thanks be to God!