IT was a great privilege – and a great inspiration – to be at St Edmundsbury Cathedral for the enthronement of our new bishop, the Rt Rev Nigel Stock. Some people, bishops included, don't like the word "enthronement" because it sounds too much like earthly pomp and magnificence; but, as our new bishop told us, so many people asked him: "What are you going to call your enthronement?" that he was left with very little choice.
His previous ministries have always been in the north of England, except for a spell of five years as a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and in his sermon he recalled how they love to sit in a circle in the evening, not watching television but talking
things over.
That’s a very uniting thing to do, and our worship as the Christians of Suffolk should be the same happy experience. As a Christian congregation we meet together as the Christians of a particular place, and we may be a very varied lot from very varied backgrounds; a Christian congregation should be a real cross-section of the community it represents. If it isn’t, where are you absentees and what’s wrong? That’s why, before I retired, I always wanted to call myself rector or vicar of Wherever-it-was rather than the rector or vicar of St Somebody’s Church. I didn’t want the church to be seen as a club for those who happen to like that kind of thing (even though it always makes life easier all round if we want to join in).
When I was a young priest on a new housing estate we had newcomers from all over the place, and the ones who were happiest both with the church and the community were those who settled in and accepted the place as it was – though in my turn I had to make a point of not being too eccentric or way out.
It was only some years later that I heard the story of an old-timer in the American West who was asked by an incomer: “What are the people like in this town?”
“What are they like where you come from?”
“Oh, they were lovely and friendly; but I always wanted to seek my fortune in the West, which is why I’ve come here.”
“You’ll find people are much the same here.”
Another incomer arrived and the same two questions were asked. This time the newcomer said: “They were a miserable, unfriendly lot, and I couldn’t wait to get away.”
He got the same reply: “You’ll find they’re much the same here.”
Our new bishop has shown every sign of being as friendly and cheerful as that first incomer. Let’s pray for him and show by our faith and dedication that we mean business by our Christian faith.
The full article contains 484 words and appears in Suffolk Free Press newspaper.
