Ordination

Last Sunday, the day after I'd thankfully managed to pass my Ph.D viva, I attended my brother-in-law's ordination service at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. It was highly interesting, but perhaps more interesting was the reactions of most of my family, who are not Christian. Unsurprisingly, the 2-hour, 28-page-service-sheet, service was boring to some, and the modern hymns somewhat distasteful to others, but the remarkably short, little-over-10-minute sermon, was deemed fine.

Perhaps not surprisingly, my parents didn't agree with my statement that it was well too short, and that it hardly fulfilled the purpose it ought to have done. With a load of non-Christians in the congregation, what better an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel, that each non-Christian in that cathedral needed to hear? None of that though. My dad claimed he already knew the Christian message, and I think that sums up most people in this country who are not Christian. They think they know it all. But they don't want to actually hear what it's all about, hence why they don't think it a problem that the Gospel was not proclaimed in this service.

I find it a real shame that the Church of England, who ought to be at the forefront of bringing the nation more up to speed on the Gospel, simply don't bother when the opportunity is theirs.