There are three views of our current health as a Church
Ask many and they will extol the welcome and friendship they find here.
They’d be right. We are good at welcoming newcomers as well as old friends and probably getting better at it than we were. Wesleys serves the community in a way that is the envy of many outside, meeting all sorts of social and spiritual needs. We have a packed programme of activities for old and young within the Church and flourishing room hire for community groups. Baildon is an eco-congregation. We are working well in all sorts of ways. Scan the website and feel the buzz!
But there are some with desire for far greater things.
Not all is as good as it could be, of course. Plans are afoot for providing better facilities for our Church youth (a crying need throughout Baildon as a whole). We need to do more and the needs are being addressed. That’s wider: others want deeper — we need more spirituality among our members, they say — but we are working away at that too, with such things as Cell Groups, and prayer, and Lent Courses, and eco-theology, and of course our regular worship. Others are setting their sights higher: we have a group dedicated to gazing at whole new dimensions of possibility – never mind what we do now, what more could we do in the future? and what would it take to get there? That’s bold thinking and we need to be bold in a rapidly changing world. We need to work out how to worship, serve, and reach out to others in ways that make sense to the new world coming. Wider, deeper and higher, like the shape of the cross through which Jesus became our Saviour: all these voices are quite right.
And there are others who stroke their chins thoughtfully and frown.
Look at our resources, they say. Could we afford new ventures? Indeed, we need to up our income to stay as we are! We are eating into our reserves. They talk of more financial commitment and Gift Aid. They point out that whatever symbolic shape the cross of Christ was, it was actually a huge and agonising sacrifice and our giving should be more sacrificial than it now is. We’ll have to be even more so if we plan greater things for the future. They’d be right too.
The tension is healthy!
There isn’t such a thing as a perfect church, because we can only work with imperfect people — improving over time as each of us may be. It is excellent that many are finding their needs met here: that’s as it should be. And it is good, too, that as a church we are prepared to seek the Lord’s vision for the future, however ambitious (even impossible!) it may seem in advance. But it is also essential that we have a degree of reality and restraint to keep our feet on the ground as we make our way into the rest of 2011 and beyond. The Lord alone knows the future, and we seek to follow him.
Baildon Methodist Church is also resident to the Bradford North Circuit Office.
Bradford North Circuit Website
Circuit Office Opening Hours:
Monday , Wednesday thru Friday 10:00am to 1:00pm
Tuesday, Saturday & Sunday CLOSED
Circuit Staff:
Circuit Administrator: Clair Schofield
Circuit Finance Officer: Nicola Cameron
Circuit Phone: 01274 597790
