Sunday 8 December 2013

Pilrig St Paul’s Church


Sunday Worship, Second Sunday of Advent, 08 December 2013, 11am
Minister: Rev Mark Foster

Déjà vu aplenty this week, as I added yet another Church of Scotland congregation to my list. Pilrig St Paul’s happens to be my parish church, in the sense that I live in the geographical area assigned to it, although I didn’t find this out until the middle of September when my visit to Liberton Kirk prompted me to wonder about the churches on my own doorstep.

Maybe I’ve been to too many C of S churches by now, but there were echoes of other services, not least last week’s at Duddingston Kirk, as Pilrig St Paul’s’ (how many apostrophes should there be?) minister, Rev Foster, is more or less a younger version of Dr Jack – same avuncular tone, same balance of humour and seriousness, similar physique though slightly more flamboyant sartorially in his big blue dress and purple stole.

Echoes, too, of Wilson Memorial’s tiny and barely audible choir (muted echoes, I guess), as Pilrig St Paul’s boasts just four choristers, and the same demographic imbalance seen at Musselburgh Congregational Church – fifty-odd mostly elderly folk, 90 per cent of them female, and three bewildered children. The building could have held four times this number with room to spare.

The children’s address was pretty chaotic, involving an invisible time machine, its invisible keys, the symbolism of purple and clues that had been hidden around the church in Sainsburys bags – honey, hairy shirt … can you guess who it is yet? A bear? Fred Flintstone? Unfortunately, the final item, a leather belt, had been found by a diligent worshipper on arrival and handed in to lost property so it had to be brought out again to complete the puzzle, and even then none of the kids could guess. But, yes, all the grown-ups knew it was John the Baptist.

Kids out of the way at Sunday school, the sermon was about John the Baptist as an unconventional role model, unlikely to win friends or influence people. Rev Foster suggested Hallmark has missed a trick by not producing Advent cards featuring John the Baptist with “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”, or “Ye viperous brood” as the sentiment. But in a nutshell, the rantings of this lunatic preacher (John, I mean, not the Rev Foster) are a seasonal reminder that our lives need turning around.

Readings were Isaiah 11:1-10 and Matthew 3:1-12 (NIV) and hymns were from CH4. The organ is set in an ornate carved wall of pipes and pulpit, somewhat ponderous in the jaunty little advent carol but coming into its own for the more traditional hymns, but I do have to wonder why the organist passed up the opportunity to use Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen, as printed, and choose Crüger instead. Still, a chorale is a chorale and I suppose I shouldn’t complain. At least they weren’t singing praise choruses.

So I’m almost at the end of my year of churchgoing, and I ought to be asking myself if I’ve actually learnt anything. Hard to say. Nothing new or challenging today, at least. At some point soon, I will need to start gathering my thoughts and drawing some conclusions. 

12 comments:

  1. "fifty-odd mostly elderly folk, 90 per cent of them female" is probably all you need to know as it sums up the state of the church in general. Nobody is doing much better. I was doing some adding up over the weekend and I don't think there are a greater number of people attending evangelical churches in Edinburgh than there were in the early 90's. There are just fewer of them, but larger. And those enlarged ones seem to have stopped growing.

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  2. I ought to take comfort ... I'm heading towards that demographic myself, but not yet a while. Where are the forty-somethings?

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  3. Speaking as one of the 40-somethings, from my perspective I'm not going to Church on a regular basis because I've got too many questions that haven't been answered. My local church has a healthy congregation, but I've never been inside the building nor do I feel the need to.

    Maybe I should be more curious but apathy has got the better of me! I'm not generally apathetic when it comes to other aspects of my life though.

    Look forward to reading your conclusions and what you'll be doing in 2014.

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  4. Many forty-somethings live in the 'burbs avec kids - e.g. try St Mungos' large evangelical Episcopalian church meeting in Balerno High School www.stmungos.org

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  5. On the internet-there's a greater sense of community and belonging (sad but true).

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  6. After fifty churches, I have more questions than ever. Church isn't the place to find any answers, that's for sure.

    As for my 2014 ... still not sure. Watch this space!

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    1. Hi SS, mmmm.......I've seen plenty of people who have found answers in church, but I do see lots of reasons why many don't. One church 'brand' alone has enough to keep the searcher on their toes, never mind the variety pack that you've been sampling.

      I think your comment could be read as a pretty poor reflection on churches - maybe we're really not doing the things we're supposed to be doing, and even then, doing a pretty poor job of not doing them. Or, maybe it depends on whether the question(s) being asked are best answered by the journey that you've undertaken this year. What were the questions again? :)

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  7. I don't know if internet communities can really replace the need for real human contact. Even social avoidant misanthropes like me can benefit from meeting three-dimensional people occasionally.

    I hadn't considered that my urban lifestyle was inappropriate to my age group. Maybe all my contemporaries have moved to Balerno and left me behind.

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  8. Sorry, I think you misinterpreted my earlier comment - it's clearly not age inappropriate for a forty-something live in the city! That's absurd - I am one and I do! You will find me and may others in the urban churches of various styles (e.g. P&Gs, Central, Charlotte Chapel to name a representative few) but I was making the point that you will find plenty others in those suburban churches that make an attempt to meet the spiritual needs of a demographic which doesn't accept a division between their faith and their everyday life. It's about knowing and worshipping Jesus, not about where we live or about our lifestyle - urban or suburban, single or attached, with kids or without, nuclear family or not...

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    1. My response was a bit clumsy. Of course it's not age inappropriate, but the suburbs beckon ... nice bit of garden, less noise, etc. Liberton Kirk is an example of a church that reaches out to everyone in its suburban parish, whereas the city centre churches seem to think people will just come to them. In the case of P&G, Central and Charlotte Chapel, they do come, but the CofS just seems to be marking time until the next inevitable parish merger.

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    2. Understood :-) And I do agree with you about the city centre churches. I have also heard good things about Liberton Kirk...would be nice to see more with the same spirit - or should that be Spirit (?!) within and without the CofS. I must visit Liberton sometime....

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  9. I might go to Liberton again. There aren't many I've been to this year of which I'd say that, but maybe some deserve more in-depth attention in 2014.

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