Our church and our future, thoughts on what really matters?

My simple hope for the future of our Church is that we embrace our humanity more fully, before we embark on any more striving. I know, first -hand, how hard this is, how painful, what self-revelation can do to us. But we reveal each other to each other, we don't stand in front of a mirror saying 'who are you'? we make complete berks of ourselves and get love in return.
I arrived as a stranger and was warmly welcomed to make myself at home,, even as the quivering wreck I was. I have been so affected by one person's decision to embrace me as a friend he had not yet made, that I have been moved to do the same to all the strangers I have welcomed at the door. His decsion was to accept me as I was. The man in question is our Rector, a flawed human being by his own admission, and all the better for it. I trust his wisdom. He made a wise decision when he accepted me as I was, though it has often, I am sure felt like an idiot's choice.
If all we do as we ponder our future is to prevent each other from trying too hard I will be happy. There is nothing worse than an over-anxious host. We must feel comfortable saying 'you know where the kettle is', help yourself to milk. This is certainly a much harder thing for me than making the perfect cup of Darjeeling and offering it to someone on a tray with a linen cloth. But I have learned that I am not here to impress. None of us are. The more impressive we are, the more alienating we become. I recently discovered a Church with an 'objective' to have 'spirit-filled children'. This saddened me, because we are all Spirit-filled children by definition. This is my greatest discovery and this is all that we need to understand as we consider our mission for the future. Our neighbours, strangers and friends are God's spirit-filled children, and so we don't need to be perfect we need to be embraced through an open door as we are.

I'm not so far removed from my old self to be unaffected by lack of consideration or mean-spiritedness or poor quality. I am keen to stress I don't think of 'not trying too hard' as the same thing as 'not trying', or 'not bothering'. What I point towards is the art of simplicity and authenticity. If we write or paint or sing or play self-consciously, and by that I mean deliberately and with deep regard for how we are being percieved we lack integrity. We become performing seals rather than human beings expressing the beauty of our humanity. My prayer for our Church is that our instincts are good, our responses charitable and warm because we are comfortable in our own skin. We must be in touch with our frailty. We are not, as I had always assumed, another corporate institution. We are corporate only in as much as we consider ourselves one body and responsible for one another. We are not corporate in the 21st century capitalist sense, so overly structured and monitored and protected as to become sterile, performance-based, strategy-led, soulless institutions. We are so entirely not called to this distrustful premise. We do not have to prove anything other than that we are what we say we are, we are what we are, we do practice what we preach. That God is love and that we love because he told us to and because he loved us first. We must understand that not trying too hard is an art in itself. A lavish set for a play is rarely as effective as a pared down set devoid of distraction from its message. Ask any chef they will tell you that simplicity is the key, and quality, ask any designer, any artist, any teacher. The same message will reach you again and again: keep it simple and keep the quality. If it were that easy to do so we would all be doing it and no one would need to tell us. The fact is it is hard and we don't do it. We distract from our own simple message when we strive. Striving in its contemporary sense as concerned with performance is not compatible with our Gospel. St Paul has been interpreted, I have always thought, as someone commanding us to strive. This is fine if we know what we are striving for. Performance-related statistics? I don't think so, I really don't. Striving for simple, authentic, genuine commitment to live a life of love sounds much more likely. I think he would be gutted if he thought we had started striving to have spirit-filled children. He thought it was obvious that striving was for a purpose concerned with our Good News, that we are all spirit-filled children. Striving in itself is not ever good news. I know this, for I have lived it.
So as we consider our Church I pray that we can hold on to the simple truth that God is at work in our lives in ways that we can hardly percieve. The simple truth that we are human and God is God. The simple truth that God is love and that everything we do and say flows from this conviction. It is loving to offer quality of welcome of preaching of training and so on, it is loving to do things well in the service of God and others. It is not loving to try so hard to achieve and alter ourselves and our community so that we forget who we are: Spirit-filled children of a loving God