THOUSANDS OF ANGLICANS raised their voices in unison as they joined with their church leaders in celebrating the Last Sunday after the Epiphany.
Drawn from every church parish on the island, the faithful were gathered in the Gymnasium of the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex for the annual Diocesan Service yesterday.
They were told by the visiting Suffragan Bishop of Kingston, Jamaica, the Right Reverend Robert Thompson, that the entire world was preoccupied with security and the church itself wasn’t immune from that preoccupation.
“This is understandable because everybody wants to be safe and yet we are not helpless victims,” he said.
He added that “notwithstanding the warm feelings that well up in our souls as we sing our favourite hymns and we experience the personal change that accompanies those warm feelings, we must be quick to point out that the place of worship can easily become a place of escape.
“It can become that place where, in a manner of speaking, we bury our heads in the sand,” Thompson said.
The Suffragan Bishop further said the Anglican Church must become a “listening church” if it wanted to meet the needs of the public.
“The church cannot be a missionary church unless it is a learning church and to be a learning [church] that speaks the truth about the Gospel we must listen,” he said.
The service was attended by the various groups within the Anglican church and a number of young people attended and also participated in the event.
The Anglicans, like many others in the Christian community, will next have a big observance midweek, when they observe Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten season. (HLE)
