UK #11: Two Different Churches in York

After Edinburgh, I headed south, back to England.  My destination was the ancient city of York.  York is strategically placed where two rivers meet.  The Romans built a fort here in 71AD.  Constantine was in York when his father died, and he was crowned emperor in York.  

Ruins of a tower of the Roman city

In the 600s, the Pope sent a bishop to York, Britain's second bishop.  During the next several hundred years, Christianity grew and many churches were built in York.  Then the Vikings invaded and settled in York.  Eventually the surrounding Anglo-Saxon kings defeated the Vikings, but then 1066 came, and Britain was defeated by William the Conqueror.  By 1070, William appointed a Norman Archbishop of York, who began to build a large church.  In the middle ages, they used the Norman foundations of the church to build the York Minster over the course of 250 years.  They also started St. Mary's Abbey with French monks.  This was dissolved by Henry VIII when he split with the Roman Catholic Church. 

Me (at a strange angle) with the ruins of the abbey church behind me

 York has a long and interesting history with many interesting historic sites, with the most magnificent being the York Minster.

York Minster

The York Minster is BEAUTIFUL.  Words can't describe it. My point-and-shoot camera was pretty inadequate, too.  The building was built in phases over hundreds of years--generations of craftsmen spent parts of their life working on this building.  Their goal was to bring heaven to earth in this building.  While we don't know exactly what heaven will be like, I think that we last least get a glimpse in a building like this.

Interior of York Minster

The York Minster is still a working church. The tour guide said that their Sunday Services are still fairly well attended and they have programs for children.  They also have daily services.  I wasn't in York on a Sunday, so I went to a weekday Evensong service, which comes at the end of the work day.  Much of it is sung by the Minster choir. It is a liturgical service of prayers and sung and spoken scripture.  York Minster is an Anglo-Catholic Church of England church, which basically means they are as close to Roman Catholic practice as you get on the Protestant continuum. 

At the service I attended, there were plenty of tourists, who were very obvious because they weren't following the order of service by closely (one of the people in front of me gave me a strange look when started to say the creed).  But there were also people who belonged.  Mothers with kids in school uniforms carrying instrument cases like they were on their way to or from lessons.  The worship and the prayers were very heartfelt.  It was a very formal setting, which gave a sense that this is true and important, but it was also living.  God is here.  And God has been caring for his church for centuries.

York is a city full of churches.  These days, there are plenty of empty ones that aren't used as churches any more.  But right next to the Minster is a smaller church that is in active, thriving use.  It is called St. Michael Le Belfrey.  It is also a Church of England, but from the evangelical/revival stream, more like St. Mary's in Poole.  In fact, it was an early leader in this movement of church revitalization in the 1960s and 70s.  The story of those days is told by the pastor at that time, David Watson, in the book You Are My God (out of print, but I read it from the Calvin library).

St. Michael Le Belfrey Sign

Today they are still a vibrant church with a number of different services.  I went to their Wednesday noontime service.  Because it is winter, it was held in their church hall, not the church building itself.  It was about 50 people, mostly retired folks, it seemed.  It was a simple service--a song, a prayer, scripture reading, and teaching sermon.  There was a lunch after the service.  It was obvious people knew and cared for each other.

One thing that struck me was that the leaders made sure to explain things as we went.  They didn't assume that everyone had been Christians their whole life.  And the gentlemen that sat next to me, that I was able to chat with for a few minutes said he had only been a Christian a year and a half.  He said he is still learning new things all the time.  Thinking about this, it is probably more welcoming for someone who is a bit older when they consider Christianity to come into a place where people don't assume you know things because you have been a Christian all your life.  I think this is a challenge for us in the CRC and West Michigan in particular, because the vast majority of people in our churches 60+ have been Christians all their lives and probably went through Christian schools.  They are fairly well-educated in Christianity.  How do we make space for their colleagues and neighbors who didn't grow up in the church or left it long ago?  

In most of the evangelistic/renewal churches I have visited, there is careful attention to making sure things are explained so people with less church background can join in.  Even simple things, like after announcing that the reading is from the book of James, saying "that's near the end of the New Testament" to help people locate it in their Bibles.  When I attended Monroe Community Church, a CRC church plant at that time, the pastors were pretty conscious of this.  They always introduced themselves when they got up and introduced the way we did things.  Sure, those of us who were regulars didn't need to be told that we could get up and get a Bible from the table by the pole, but it made space for the visitors among us.  In a way, it says that our borders are open, we,re prepared to welcome new people in.  It seems that many established churches are less conscious of this--we just do what we do.  I think that we have things to learn from the British church about how to present Christianity and the church to people without any background in it, and that number is rapidly increasing in our society.