Friday 24th November 2006
I approached Paul Bond's book Open for You, somewhat unenthusiastically, in spite of its attractive cover, thinking, “Not another book to add to the plethora of stuff put out recently to help us make more of our church buildings; what more can possibly be written about it?” How wrong could I have been?! OPEN FOR YOU
The clue lies in its sub-title “The Church, the Visitor and the Gospel”. This book unashamedly aims to use the tool of our historic church buildings to connect with Christian faith - and is full of good ideas of how to do this.
The style is easy and accessible. Many pages have line drawings which use humour to punch home the issues, realities, challenges and opportunities which our churches are facing today.
There are useful questions at the end of each chapter to draw people into purposeful reflection and then into planning. They have clearly come from a person of wide experience. Until recently Paul served as one of the ministers in the team of the eight rural parishes which make up the Ray Valley benefice. He was also working as the National Liaison officer of the Churches Tourism Association.
His thorough research has yielded eleven pages of resources which are attractively laid out and grouped for easy reference. Roman Catholic, Free Church and the full spectrum within Anglicanism are all represented and resources for children and young people are also included.
An otherwise splendid handbook, packed with useful ideas and which can be dipped into anywhere, has within it just one small blemish for me - an almost throw-away remark towards the end of the book in the section which is exploring contemporary spirituality. He writes “the vague spirituality of an eastern shrine”, even taking account of the context in which he uses it, seems to indicate a lack of understanding of the richness and depth of eastern spirituality at a time when there is such need for increasing inter-faith understanding. The challenge is ours - both to educate ourselves if we share a vagueness about the spirituality of the other world faiths, and also to see to it that visitors to our churches are not left with similar vagueness. There is a very useful section with suggestions of how to write short explanations on card or leaflet about the main church furnishings and why they are there.
A long section of further ideas, towards the end of the book, is cleverly contrived to sum up what has been explored in greater detail earlier on while producing further “How to do it” material. If this book provokes in you the response “We could do that…or else, that wouldn't work! (So long as it isn't all “that wouldn't work”!) it will have begun to do its job.
Canon Barbara Doubtfire focuses the Quiet Spaces Still Places project within the diocese. The project aims to stimulate the prayerful dimension of our church buildings and to encourage the contemporary seeker in the spiritual journey.
PAUL BOND
SCM Canterbury Press
£14.99
ordering information