As a member of a small church, I quite enjoy attending 'big' Christian events.  It is helpful to be reminded that the church is much larger, and more diverse, than my week-to-week experience of it.  However, I do sometimes wonder quite what is going on in them and where the line between 'large scale worship' and 'Christian entertainment' should be drawn.

Last night I went with a few of my folk to the second night of a local, annual two-nighter.  It was an interesting experience but left me wondering just how 'awesome' is the God some of those 'up front' believe in.  What follows is based on what I understood to have been said - apologies to the speakers if I misheard/misquoted them.

Right at the start there were some technical difficulties with the PA system.  The worship leader, strutting around the platform announced something to the effect that 'we're not going to let the devil stop us worshipping God.'  Is our worship really dependent on functional PA?  Is it really a satanic attack if, as I suspect, there is is a bad connection somewhere or a flat battery in a radio mike?  Is God really so weak that, depsite the prayers of the organisers, and their best efforts on the day, satan can sneak in and plant gremlins in the PA?  Actually, as the evening wore on, I began to wonder if it could insetad be divine intervention, but that's another story! 

Later there was an appeal for people to seek prayer for healing.  Individuals were asked, as I heard it, to lift their hands 'nice and high so God can see.'  Poor God, so myopic that it is impossible to see quite who the hand belongs to unless it is held high and probably waved too.  Heaven forbid that the wrong person be healed!  Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with prayer for healing but I would like to think I pray to a God whose is quite capable of seeing who it is who requires this.  What a tiny God it seems we were calling upon.

I am sure that both speakers would be horrified by my understandings of what they'd said, I am sure they do believe in the omni-everything God but I was left wondering about the relationship of the size of the event/church and the perception of God we express.  Maybe it is just that in my little congregation we don't need to worry about God's eyesight or the potential for satan to sabotage the hi-tech equipment we don't have?  I like to think not.

A friend of mine who works in the defence industry rang me in my capacity as 'tame vicar' to see if I knew the date of Easter for 2006 - so I looked in my good old fashioned paper diary.  Having provided this piece of information he asked if I had the date for 2007.  Being the boring organised soul I am, I have already got a 'next year' diary so I could supply this too.  When I asked why he wanted this information he explained that a colleague was developing a work programme that ran past these dates.  After a little scrabbling on my cluttered desk, I found my ASB (good Baptist that I am, I'll nick anything useful from other traditions) and supplied dates up to 2025.  I was amused that a work programme in the defence industry depended on the vagaries of a religious festival.

I decided to have a look on the web to see what resources there were for this.  Typing 'date of Easter' into Google brought up the website of the US naval observatory where it is, seemingling, a frequently asked question!  They also provide an algorithm to calculate it, though beware after about the year 4000 it'll break down!  Try looking at aa.usno.navy/faq/docs/easter.html or aa.usno.navy/data/docs/easter.html  Hmm, intriguing.  So why is it significant to the US navy?

For a more overtly Christian site, the diocese of Ely also has a calculator which allows you to choose Julian or Gregorian calendars and to travel backwards or forwards in time.  Have fun!!

Yesterday I was reading a history of the New Connexion General Baptists which explored the emergence, growth and decline of this movement prior to the union with the Particular Baptists.

Within the discussion, the author noted the difficulty of retaining subsequent generations within the movement and it got me wondering how many direct descendents of those Baptist 'giants' Spurgeon, Clifford, Taylor, Carey, Fuller, etc. (or even non-Baptist ones such as Wesley, Doddridge, Whitefield, etc.) are still actively involved in Christian churches.  I'm sure someone out there must have a clue.

Oh, and by the way I am a first generation Baptist!  If the theories are right, it is probably the "first generation" believers who keep the church alive as subsequent generations tend not to 'become' or 'remain' Christians.  Maybe this says something about our children's work and our attitude to mission?