I am not sure if I should post this in blogland, where the whole world can read it, risking the possibility that the good people of Dibley and District will find it and misunderstand it.  I have debated deleting it or permanently saving it as a draft.  But then if we only post good stuff we become complicit in a culture that denies the reality of the negative, so, with apologies to any who find it and offended, here it is. 

Last night our diaconate and the diaconate of D+1 met to talk about 'next steps' in our disucssions, following on from the meeting in September.  Our folk had worked hard, and even got our members to discuss and agree some proprosals for a way forward, which we tabled.  All D+1 wanted to talk about was buildings.  This for them is the most important, most urgent topic.  All our talk about mission, about vision, even about God's guiding and Christ's mind was of less important than the bricks and mortar.

I'll be polite, I'll say I was disappointed.  I felt we were accused of rushing them to make impossible decisions (we asked that eachchurch formally commit to a merger process and, as part of that, for a commitment to agree to decide within the ~12 months that might take to work through, what they would do with their building as part of a merger).  I felt that there really was no common understanding of why we were engaged this process and that our friends really wanted to carry on as they are, knowing that within a matter of years they'll almost all be dead.  I came away discouraged and cynical - and unsettled and uncertain.  Indeed I was so wound up I literally bit a hole in my tongue while eating a chocolate biscuit by way of consolation!

When, oh when, will people get their heads around the fact that a church is NOT a building. Grrrr!

(Well, I feel marginally better now - blogging as catharthis?!)