IT WAS INTERESTING this past Monday to hear and read of the divide that emerged from the pews of the Anglican Church this past week after Rev. David Yarde spoke out on the Back To Church Sunday.
The priest told his congregation at 9:30 a.m. Mass at Christ Church Parish Church that the universal Anglican Church appeared to be slowly dying.
The Barbados church can’t be said to be at death’s door; but its attendance is certainly falling.
“Whether we believe it or not,” Rev. Yarde said, “many of our ‘faithful’ congregation members have already gone, and others are in the departure lounge awaiting exit.”
In a stinging assessment, the priest went further to suggest that the church’s leaders were inflexible and unwilling to change and that many believed themselves to be CEOs instead of spiritual leaders.
Continuing with his assessment, Rev. Yarde said there were too many cliques within the church and that the feeling of unity was simply missing.
These words appeared to cut like a knife and they drew an immediate response from his boss The Bishop of Barbados, who went on the defensive.
Dr John Holder took to the airwaves to offer a firm assurance that the Anglican Church was far from dying. In fact, he said that in his estimation it was alive and well.
We are not about to dismiss Rev. Yarde’s assessment of things, even though we are inclined for our own sake to follow the words of His Lordship.
But with attendance at church services in Barbados slowly dwindling over the years, the question still needs to be asked: why could the once faithful be leaving?
We believe now is as good a time as any for the church as a whole to engage in some much needed introspection.
One other question that needs to be asked is: why are “persons choosing which Sunday, or which hour on a Sunday” they will worship? And is it, as the bishop says, merely because they have been doing it “for a long time”? And should we be comfortable with that?
It is this slippage into slumber that has seen the clergy in Britain and other parts of Europe missing the eventual demise of many of their churches.
As evidenced by the less than stirring response to last Sunday’s Back To Church drive of the traditional institutions of worship in this country, the challenge is not so much getting people into church as it is having them “return to that which nurtured us as a people”.
Church leaders and followers alike need to get around and about – away from their comfort zone.
The vibrant church is critical to a gentle and just society. Equally crucial is an understanding of British scholar C.S. Lewis’ dictum: “The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of. Our attention would have been on God.”