Dear friends,
Channel four are currently screening their modern adaptation of the James Herriot story “All creatures great and small” I loved reading the books, more than once and whilst I loved the original BBC story screened from 1978-1990 starring Christopher Timothy, I love the new series. I often find that when we have had such a successful, and memorable story, the newer version doesn’t live up to the former, but I love what Channel four are giving us. Unfortunately, I know the Yorkshire Dales just a bit too well and I happen to know that when the characters are at the front of Skeldale house in the programme, they are in the market place of the picturesque little town of Grassington in Wharfedale, yet when they leave the back of the house, they are in the beautiful village of Arncliffe in Littondale, some eight miles away, the village that was the original home to the new 1972 ITV series “Emmerdale Farm” back in the days when the programme charted the lives of “typical Dales folk” a million miles away from the twenty-first century soap opera.
The actor David Jason was interviewed on The One Show (I think) and he commented that in opinion television companies had lost the plot. He stated that he believed that the whole point of programming was to entertain people, and he found life depressing enough without wanting to turn on his TV and be even more depressed. We had a retired minister in Church when I was a lad, and Arthur would boom out in his deep voluminous voice “amen” if he agreed with something said in a sermon, and when David Jason said what he said in that interview, I felt like shouting “amen” at the top of my voice. Programmes like Doc Martin, in its final series at the moment are daft, and farfetched, but they make me laugh, and best of all, I love seeing the scenery around Port Isaac in north Cornwall, I soak up my hour of pure entertainment each week, and All Creatures Great and Small has the same effect on me, it makes me smile, I love the characters, I love the humour, I love the old cars, and very much like the original books of James Herriot, I love the stories, set in a part of the country I know intimately. I enjoy identifying the roads they are driving on and the farms they visit, because I have been there!
All these thoughts get me thinking about Church. At the end of this month, I am going home and will be preaching on Sunday 30th October at Calverley Methodist Church, the Church I attended as a child. I am looking forward to setting foot inside the building again, I was there in 2012 for their 140th anniversary, and again in 2017 for their 145th and you don’t need to be a genius to figure out that I will be there at the end of this month to celebrate with them the 150th anniversary of the Church. The building alone will bring back precious memories for me, but more than anything, I am looking forward to seeing the people and I anticipate the experience of looking around the building and seeing the places where people I have loved dearly sat, the majority of who are now in glory. In much the same way as with the TV schedulers, I feel that this Church has lost its way though.
Fifty years ago, when I was an impressionable teenager, full of great enthusiasm for the gospel message, some of the people I anticipate meeting in three weeks’ time were the ones who drove young people away from the Church, they are lovely, good Christian folk and I love them dearly and am so looking forward to meeting them, they are in their eighties and nineties now and sadly I know that when they are gone, there will be no Church left, it breaks my heart! Maybe if fifty years ago they had been a little more flexible, the Church could be thriving today, but rather than being the open, welcoming Church they always professed to be, they were the gate keepers and over the years, I have seen a steady stream of people pack it in, and go elsewhere, or worse still go nowhere at all.
This is a depressing message if I’m not careful, but those people who I am looking forward to meeting again, taught me that it doesn’t have to be this way. I always try to be flexible with other people and I have learned that the art to having a Church that is lively, gospel based and filled with the Spirit, is to be a part of a praying Church, who listens to God’s calling, listens to the heart of the Church, backs down when we can see a better forward, and continues to get excited by the gospel message. God is doing amazing things among us, let us not be the gatekeepers, but let us be the ones who are true to our faith and to the calling of God.
With best wishes.
Derek
