Community Spirit
Berrie norton
Galatians 6:2 ~ ‘Help to carry each other’s burdens, for if you do, in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ’.
When Eldon set out the topics for this year’s parish magazine, I’ll bet he had no idea how prescient this one would be.
We talk a lot in the church about ‘our community’, whether that is our wider Anglican communion, our whole parish community, or that of our individual three churches. We like to think that our church is a focus for the wider village community – although, in reality, that might not be as true as we would like it to be. We live disparate lives: Sundays are, for many, just another day to be filled with children’s activities, shopping, days out – all the ephemera of our daily lives. Our fast-paced, 24/7 life doesn’t leave much room for even knowing who your immediate neighbours are, much less fostering wider community networks.
Coronavirus, therefore, has offered us – in the midst of its chaos, despair and tragedy - a chance to rediscover ourselves in the context of where we live and who we live with. Our world has shrunk to our homes and its nearest environs, and that’s scary. But God is moving within us, and the green shoots of His presence are everywhere to be seen. I was amazed at the speed with which our local NextDoor app mobilised to identify those who might need help. A Woking CoronaVirus Facebook group was up and running within 48 hours. Someone in our road dug out the email list from our Harry’n’Meghan Street Party and wrote to us all to see if anyone was stuck at home, and whether anyone would be happy to help out.
The word ‘community’ comes from an Old French word which means, roughly, ‘reinforced from its source’. Isn’t that lovely? In other words, the more we come together, the more we reinforce our desire to grow together, and in this terrible time of uncertainty and anxiety, that is exactly what we are seeing. The majority of people are reaching out to help, and as they do so, it seems that they are drawing back just as much from their helping as the recipients are from their proffered kindnesses.
Of course, there will always be those who plough a different furrow: the stockpilers, the people having parties and barbecues on the beach, or the people who are selling 85p hand sanitisers for ten times that and more. Maybe they are simply scared, and don’t have the benefit of a community to belong to, to sustain them. The Bible has good advice for them, too – Exodus 12:4. If a family is too small to eat a whole animal, let them share with another family in the neighbourhood. Divide the animal according to the size of each family and how much they can eat.
With the churches closed (and I’m truly not sure of the benefits of that), we as the body of the Church have a real chance to become a core part of this, up and down the country. I have seen daily communications from the Shah Jahan mosque in Woking, reaching out to those in need quickly and with practical help. Churches of all denominations are stepping up and organising aid. As a church, we are so used (especially those of us of a pre-Sunday trading, pre-online generation) to gathering together as called by Jesus, to meet in his name. Maybe now we have to think differently – rather than melding together and praying out for the community, we have to do as we are bid at the end of the Eucharist: ‘Our worship is over, our service begins’, and reach further for Jesus, as our mission statement says.
Our local mission is strong and well-rooted, with teams of Street Angels, Pastoral Assistants, charity support and other, regular, support structures. In this context, the Evangelism Team and the Local Community Support Fund is already weaving the web of connections which might mean that our local friends may feel able to reach out to the Church at this time for practical, physical or moral support, because they have already met our wonderful kind team on their doorsteps. They won’t be asking for help from strangers, but from people they have met and know.
There are some of us in the ‘shielded’ category who cannot at the moment get in our cars, or into our shoes, and go out to offer help on the doorstep. However, John Milton said, ‘They also serve, who only stand and wait’. Those who physically cannot go out can still offer online support, a listening ear, ringing round others in a similar situation and, above all, praying for God’s love and healing for all.
As I write, I am assuming that our VE Day community event will be cancelled and maybe the Flower Show, too. I think the greatest challenge for us all, going forward, whether indoors or outside, is to bring simple Christian service front and centre into the lives of our local community, so that by the time of the NEXT event – be it the Flower Show, the Shepherd’s Market or the Crib Service – our village is greeting each other with smiles of recognition, word of thanks and perhaps, even, those small green shoots of new lives in God.
-Berrie Norton