On holiday recently I was
reading ‘Red Cloud’ – his story. ‘Red Cloud’ was a Native American (Indian) who
in the mid 1880’s led a large band of warriors from many different tribes in
battles against the ever encroaching ‘white man and his ways.’ It was in many ways the last throw of the
dice and ‘Red Cloud’ himself ended his days living as a ‘white man’ accepting the inevitable.
In the story ‘Red Cloud’
battles in particular against Colonel Carrington who had been dispatched to
guard the top end of the Bozeman Trail just south of Montana
dying.
Naturally being in such a far flung place none of the first two were in
regular supply whilst the third, the infirmary continued to expand as more
soldiers were wounded and fell victim to battles and skirmishes to say nothing
of the privations of frontier life in the mid 19th century.
So, what happens if we
translate this idea to a regular parish church?
Could we not ask and
ascertain what our strengths are, how many recruits are coming on through, how
many active soldiers do we have that we can call upon and how many are in the
infirmary?
If our churches have
rather full infirmaries, does this not tell us that what we are able to achieve
as a Garrison is going to be limited?
Therefore, no matter the
quality of the Garrison Commander, unless he/she has the active soldiers to
engage in battle, their effectiveness will be limited.
What is the answer? Well,
certainly one way is to draft in a new cohort of active soldiers. In Brighton
we have seen this work to good effect at an HTB
Church plant developed first out of St
Peter’s in the centre of Brighton and who have
recently sent another cohort of troops to Whitehawk. (Although sources tell me that Whitehawk are struggling a tad without a strong Garrison Commander.)
One of the reasons why the
Native Americans were eventually beaten back was because they were fighting
with bows and arrows against ever developing Spencer rifles, ‘the guns that
shoot twice.’
Some of the Old Guard,
some of those in our infirmaries, who do need loving and caring for, can find
change to new ways of doing things difficult to accept.
In some ways we need to
grow up alongside the infirmary new ways of being church that are more
adaptable and better suited to 21st century culture.
However there are stories
told of a completely different and unexpected outcome. Such is the story of the
Tube Station in Cornwall
All models and analogies
begin to break down at some point and this Garrison analogy is no exception.
However as it stands, it
might help to give an insight in the very practical reasons why church growth
may be difficult. There may well be too
many people in the infirmary who need loving care and not enough active
soldiers and too few recruits coming through.
To move from soldiers to
farmers and to recall Jesus’ words…
“The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are
few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His
harvest.”
