We thought it was important to just feed back to you some of the things said at the PCC meeting during the week where we had a very good and open discussion about the chair layout. I hope that what I am about to say is a fair reflection of the things that were said at the PCC but if there are members of the PCC here who disagree with what I say, then please make yourselves known over coffee otherwise we will be here all morning.

They fall into three categories. The first being the flexibility of this building in which we worship, the second being the character of our community, and the third being the fuzziness of the edges.

The first is the flexibility of our building. The Church Council felt that the flexibility of our Church building is a huge strength to us as a Church and that therefore to lay down any layout of the chairs as being the right layout would be detrimental to that flexibility. Even to suggest that there is a default version from which we can deviate from time to time, suggests that the default version is the best one and that anything different is but a pale shadow of that which is best. So the Church Council would not go down the road of determining the right style of layout for our chairs here but have sought to establish a group of people to work together to continue to explore the idea of chairs and their layouts and the implications that has for the ordering of worship, to iron out the issues that have arisen, and there were many issues over the last few weeks, so to iron out those issues and anticipate other issues that may arise from any particular layout that we may wish to use for any particular service or services at any point or points in the future. It was a broad point that one.

The second point is the character of this community. This was a very strong point that was made by one particular member of the Church Council and I hadn’t thought of this and I think it is fair to say that other members of the Church Council hadn’t thought of it either and for those who had not thought of it, I think it is fair to say that we accepted this point as being not only important but also true. In our discussions the point is not: Where shall we put the chairs? Where shall we have the altar or table? Where shall we put the choir? Where shall we put the servers? Shall we have the congregation facing each other or behind each other? Shall we take communion around the platform or in a circle? That is not the issue. The point is: Who are we as a Church community, as Church? Not just a Church but Church. What kind of community are we? What is important to us about our nature our character, our very being? From there, we can begin to work out where the furniture should be and the logistics of our worship. Now I have come up with this illustration. This is not PCC, this is me but I hope it works. If as your Priest, I stand in the good old traditional way with my back to you to preside at the Eucharist years ago, I am brining the people to God. That’s the role and function of the Priest. If I stand behind the altar, it would appear that I am being God to the people which is what happened in the good old BCP. So there is the Priest focusing on the altar with the people saying the penitential section I am desperately sorry for all I personally as an individual have done wrong as you lot are and then we say we are sorry. The Priest gets up, goes up the steps, turns and on behalf of God pronounces the forgiveness being God to the people. The other option which is becoming quite common in many Churches now is for the Priest just to choose a seat and to sit down amongst the people and to come with the people to God. An illustration of three ways in which the Priest can function saying three very different things just by where I am standing and which way I am looking. I think it is fair to say that pretty much every comment that has come back to us over the last four weeks has been about the small picture. I like the chairs like this, I don’t like receiving communion like that, I felt comfortable in that position and felt uncomfortable in that position. What this comment at the PCC made us all do was to think about the big picture. To focus on us as a whole and to say the layout of the Church and the logistics of our worship must reflect that which is important to us as a community because how we have got it in whatever service is saying something and so we have got to work out that it is saying what we want it to say.

The final comment is the fuzziness of the edges. This is something I shared with the Church Council during the week. Now I suspect that most people felt that I was very much in favour of the experimental layout of the chairs of being in the round. And to be honest, I think that is not an unreasonable or unfair assumption to make. Over the last few years I have been saying well look at the walls, they all point inwards and in the middle there is a kind of central bit there, it’s obvious isn’t it, we should all be in the round. Everything about the architecture of the building screams “sit in a circle”. Well after four weeks I am not so sure. I will repeat. After four weeks I am not as convinced as I had thought I would be about being in the round. There are some little issues like it is difficult for the 11:30 service because after this service we re-arrange these front few pews and chairs and create a nice space for worship down here whereas actually when it is all in the round people can sit anywhere and it is not a small gathered community anymore. There were issues at the Wednesday service when that block at the back was not big enough for everyone to sit together and the 8:00 am service is a long way away and lots of little issues but actually, more than all that, the doors are in the wrong place. Hear me out. Without emotion, imagine that this platform is not here, that the cross is not here, that this is just a blank wall and for reason of imagination only, that we put chairs around here and we were totally in the round. Now imagine that you are a young child sitting here needing the loo, an older person sitting here needing a glass of water because of a coughing fit or a parent of a baby who is screaming. There is no exit point from this part of the Church. There is no exit point on this half of the building. It is very difficult to make this work with chairs around this side I suspect. But more than that, even more than that, I have become aware that one of the great gifts, this is over the last four weeks, is that one of the great gifts of St Nicolas as a Church community is our fuzzy edges. It is hard to know who is part of this community and who isn’t. Who feels in and who doesn’t yet feel in. And if we were to talk about person A, I suspect we might say “yes they’ve been around for ages, they’re part of the place” whereas person A might say “well, mm around the edges, yes kind of”. Of person B we might say “well no I don’t think person B is quite in the community just yet” but person B might say “well yes I’m very much part of the community, part of St Nicolas., very much my place”. Some Churches, some communities, this is not just Churches, this is communities of any kind of gathering, have very hard edges. Either you are in or you are out. And if you are in everybody knows you are in, and until you are in, you’re out. My feeling is that we have very fuzzy edges. As I say some people may think they are in when we think they are out or vice versa. But that whole idea of a fuzzy edge is a double edged sword. It enables those on the outside of the community to gently slip in, to be unobtrusive for a while and that is quite a skill for a community that worships in a building with no pillars behind which to hide but fuzzy edges have a down side in that they can create a feeling of uncertainty, feelings for those who are part of the inside that the goal posts are constantly shifting, like this building is on shifting sands. We don’t know where the limits of our community are. They are no longer held and controlled by us. The rock fractures. The safe place becomes unknown. Communities with fuzzy edges can feel less secure for those on the inside but are more open to those who feel on the outside. As I say, I spoke about this at Church Council meeting during the week and then we put what I had said there about this need to know who we are before we start rearranging the furniture and a very powerful image emerged. It’s a western and there they are. The covered wagons heading out west, everything’s going fine and suddenly over the horizon the Indians come. Help! What do you do when the Indians attack the wagon train? Get into a circle. There is an argument that says we get into a circle when we feel threatened when we are under attack when we need to know who is on the inside and who isn’t. Now since the PCC meeting, during the rest of this week, when talking this through with some folks, this thought has developed. Imagine this Church without any walls. We are gathered as we are in rows like this. Anyone could slip in onto any of these rows and become part of our community without anyone really noticing. There are numerous entry points into our community. We are not in control of how people join. Imagine now how the chairs were last week with their backs to every wall around the Church. There is no way in except through those entry points that we have created. We controlled access to our community by having the chairs in a circle.

So where do we go from here? The PCC is, as I say, setting up a group to think this through and if you are interested in being part of that group keep your eye out for the notice which will go up in the next couple of weeks and we will begin to work on that at some point in the future. The PCC is asking that group to think about the big picture. What kind of Church are we? What is important to us? And how do we express that through our Church building and the way we organise our worship? The underlying question of all this is what is the purpose of Church? Why do we gather to break bread? Why is it important where we put our chairs and the logistics of the order of service. There are many answers to that but one is provided by the prayer that we shall say after communion this Sunday, Remembrance Sunday.

God of Peace, whose Son Jesus Christ proclaimed the kingdom and restored the broken to wholeness of life, look with compassion on the anguish of the world and by your healing power make whole both people and nations. Amen.