Summer is nearly over and as September begings to be glimpsed over the horizon, things start stirring again in Dibley.
Our courtship with D+1 resumes in September with a joint meeting of all our members - the concept of 'open church meetings' has yet to reach this corner of the world, which may or may not be a good thing. Towards the end of September we will gather at 'D+2' and their minister will chair our discussions. It seems a good next step, no decision making, just an open forum to share conversation and raise issues for debate.
One of my deacons, on being told of the date, revealed that summer is to be equated with amnesia, as he saw this is a totally new initiative, not something we'd agreed to back in June! In an email he shared his views on the whole thing and then suggested that if we did consider a merger we should have 'a trial period first before committing to it.' I am suitably shocked - a deacon proposing that we (the churches) should live together without being in a covenant relationship. What is the world coming to!
Whilst I can, at one level, see his point, I can't help feeling that the marriage analogy holds even in this aspect - at some point we have to decide 'yes' or 'no' just as a courting couple move from courtship to commitment. Churches take a very dim view of couples who cohabit prior to marriage (i.e. who enter a 'trial period' to see if it'll work). Most of our angst seems to be over what takes place in the bedroom, but we are never entirely happy when an engaged couple move into a house even days before the marriage ceremony because we feel it's 'not quite right'. I can't help feeling that a similar caution should exist with church congregations -since we are ultimately talking about human relationships, albeit of a different nature. I am not quite sure what might constitute the ecclesial equivalent of pre-nuptial sex - we claim communion is one of our most intimate expressions of faith yet gladly 'commune around' so to speak. Perhaps the concerns of my deacon are more akin to discovering that your partner leaves the top off the toothpaste, wet towels on the bathroom floor and the loo seat up/down!
If living together is about seeing if the irritations and tensions are too great to make life-long commitment sustainable (i.e. not about sex, which let's face it does not need a shared home) then maybe my deacon has a point - but this may have implications for our attitudes to couples who do likewise. Similarly, if we are of the view that a couple must eventually decide to marry (or not) without a trial run, surely we should be consistent in our potential ecclesial marriage? It seems to me that at some point, both we and D+1 will need to make some important decisions. First an 'engagement' or "betrothal" where we begin to work out the details of what marriage might mean: where we might live, what shape our new family will take, etc. Then a 'marriage' when (if) we decide to go for it: the point at which we say, we'll never know until we do it, we're both committed to making this work so let's go for it.
I am fairly confident that if a cohabiting couple arrived at my church several eyebrows would be raised, and people would feel that if they were committed they really ought to marry. I am also fairly confident that we would be less ready to take the plunge with D+1. I am not entirely sure how good the parallels are, but I do wonder how much we operate different standards (and please, gentle, reader, no lectures on sexual ethics, I am merely thinking about the concepts of commitment, covenant and risk taking that apply to all 'troth' relationships).
But don't get too excited, we are still in a very formal, well behaved courtship as yet, so no need to worry that we might do something to raise the ecclesial eyebrows just yet!