The Church of St. John in Hurst Green, England

I'm spending this week visiting the vicar and rural parish of St. John the Evangelist Church in Hurst Green, England. I believe there may also be a couple of excellent village pubs nearby. Anyway, last night David Butlin, vicar of St. John's and a friend of mine of the last 20 years, had arranged for an evening presentation at which I would discuss the PC(USA) and American church life in general, and they'd ask any questions they had, and we'd all learn a little something or maybe just have a nice evening. I expected 2 to show up, and actually thought that may have been doubly optimistic. (August is the universally recognized "down time" in the Church of England when everyone goes on holiday and most of the regular schedule is suspended.) We would start at 7:30 and not go past 9:00; I was sure 8:30 would be more than adequate.

In the event, 17 showed up, extremely curious and insightful people, and at 9:15 we finally had to just rein the whole thing in and call it a night. We had an absolutely fabulous time with lively and respectful discussion and lots of very good questions. The similarities in our churches vastly outweigh the differences, but among the most noteworthy differences is the impact in America of the separation of church and state. The American churches have the burden of providing Christian Education, whereas R.E. (Religious Education) is compulsory in British schools. The limited number of hours in a week that an American has to learn discipleship was noted, by me.

Also, the Church of England is a parish system, meaning that every square foot of English soil is under the care of a local parish. In other words the people of the local Church of England (Anglican) church are charged with the "care of souls" within its parish's geographical boundary. None of the other denominations carry exactly that burden; they look after their own people (and presumably do some local mission outreach, as we do). But regardless of the beliefs or practices of the 7,000 people in this parish, this church is charged with caring for them all.

There are of course lots of other differences and similarities worth exploring, which bear on the meaning of discipleship, but aspects of this conversation in particular occupied much of our evening.

Also, David drives a 1977 MG.