Views From the Pews – Sunday, January 26, 2025

Dear People of God

January is the month for Annual Congregational meetings, when the churches and missions review their performance of the previous year.  We look at the numbers in our ecclesiastical returns, number of members, number of celebrations of the Eucharist on Sundays and weekdays, average attendance, number baptized, confirmed, married, buried, number in Sunday School and Youth Fellowship, and importantly, the number of communion visits to sick and shut in members. We look also at the numbers in our financial returns, income and expenditure, and formulate the budget for the year ahead.  We listen to reports from the various ministries and church organizations.  It is a business meeting for the church, so we elect persons to serve on the church committee and appoint officers.

We need to be reminded that important as all of these things are, they are not the main tasks of the church.  Our collect and readings for today reminds us that proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ is the main thing that we must engage in.  Reflect for a moment on this extract from the Collect: “Give us grace to answer readily the call of our Saviour Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation…“

All of us, who have answered the call of Christ to follow him must be absolutely clear, that the primary purpose of our call is that we should follow him and become faithful proclaimers of the good news of his salvation.  I repeat for emphasis that this duty is not reserved for the appointed leaders of the church or our elected committee members. This is a task for everybody and I mean everybody.  We should all be interested in examining ourselves to see how faithful we were in fishing for people in 2024.  Confess our failure if we have come up with a failing grade, and commit ourselves from now on to be witnesses of the gospel to others for Jesus’ sake.

Contributed