CHURCHES were yesterday urged to update their methods to meet the
needs of city dwellers.
New forms of worship and flexibility of times and venues for services
were among the suggestions put forward by Dr Ray Bakke, an American
expert on urban ministry who advises Churches around the world.
He said that much of Church thinking and practice was based on the
days when most of the population lived in rural areas. The timing of
Sunday morning services, for example, could be traced back to when most
church-goers had cows to milk early.
With a shift of population from the countryside to the cities,
Churches now had to adapt basic functions to the urban context.
''The Church needs to be a 24-hour ministry with day pastors and night
pastors,'' said Dr Bakke, who heads the Chicago-based International
Urban Associates, an organisation which acts as a consultancy for
Churches, and who has many years of experience as an inner-city
minister.
In the field of worship, for instance, he said: ''The forms we have
used in the past do not always work. We need to consider new ways of
worship, using new kinds of music and the arts, meeting at different
times of day and night, meeting in people's homes and so on.
''The Church has to get into the 'people ministry'. The old pastor
used to ask, 'What is my text'? The new pastor must also ask, 'Who is my
audience'?''
Churches were facing new challenges as city populations grew and
became increasingly multinational.
''I am convinced that the Church is the one institution that has the
credibility to create hope, meaning, and stability in all of this. The
Church, in Scotland and throughout the world, is going to be beautifully
positioned.''
Dr Bakke was speaking in Glasgow as he prepared to give the opening
address at the Scottish Urban Mission Conference, described by its
organisers as the first event of its kind in Scotland.
The week-long conference is being attended by 180 people from all over
the country who are examining how Churches should tackle the changing
nature of city life and the issues affecting urban dwellers, including
unemployment and poverty, housing and homelessness, health and family
support, and women and violence.
The inter-denominational event is sponsored by the Church of
Scotland's board of national mission and by World Mission, a Christian
relief and development agency, with support from all the major Christian
Churches in Scotland.
The Rev. Ian Moir, the Church of Scotland's national adviser for urban
priority areas, is chairing the conference.
He said another challenge was the fact that the Church itself
reflected the disparity of resources between rich and poor areas. ''The
Church needs to think sacrificially in terms of being prepared to
release more of its resources to put in properly trained people to work
in the poorer areas.
''We need to do a lot of thinking and it is going to be costly. We
talk about urban priorities -- is it just a name or do we mean
priority?''
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