Islamic communities ask Bishop to pray to Jesus on their behalf

“We live in two worlds”. That is what my friends representing the many faith communities in our diocese said to me when we gathered together late in 2005. The two worlds were the public world of the media and the local world of the communities in which they are set. The media, they said, portrayed our multi-faith and multi-cultural world as a problem. The local community got on with good neighbourly life. We do have quite a problem, at all sorts of levels, shaping the culture of opinion from the immediate experience of living as neighbours. 

We certainly have the problem in our church. You would think from the way we are perceived nationally and the way we sometimes talk at that level that the Church was about to fall apart.  Yet, when one encounters the church in the local community, we find people of different life experience and even opinion forming vital Christian communities of mutual affection. I am enormously impressed with the life of our churches in this diocese.

But let us stretch our minds a little further. Returning to my meeting with friends of other faiths what happens when you come together in mutual respect and with a desire to learn? Sitting down with some of the leaders of Islamic communities from London they asked me to pray to Jesus for them. So we prayed together and they prayed for us. That is challenging for people who have some profound differences of belief to seek to share in prayer. Neither of us were expecting the other to change our beliefs or our opinions. We simply, as people who share a common humanity and who believe in God, wanted to affirm our neighbourly life in this special way. 

That experience stretches our faith and how we speak about it.  It leaves one with questions and things to work through. Just the sort of experience to effect growth and development in the Christian journey of following Jesus. 

We have talked a great deal about how we can grow as a ‘learning church’. I think a church that learns is a church that will grow. A learning church will take the Bible seriously – taking the experiences of living in the world today to the story of Scripture and seeking God’s wisdom there. A learning church will live close to the borders of faith looking out into the world of the many cultures of our time and discovering what God might be up to out there. A learning church listens to its members and seeks to help one another to grow together in the life of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. 

As you can see, some of the experiences which I am privileged to have in my ministry, drives me back to find fresh resources in Christ for the challenges that face me. It  is demanding for sure.  But it brings energy and life. As, in the coming weeks, we get ready for the great cycle of Lent, Passiontide and Easter, let us pray that God will give the Church energy and life.

Bishop John

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