Letter from Clare

BBC Radio 4 exhibited some mock horror on the Today programme recently when they ran an article about vicars getting their sermons off the Internet.  I hold up my hand, I use the Internet, not necessarily to lift whole sermons, but certainly to get ideas and to share in people’s wisdom and knowledge.  There is nothing new in that, those who preach have for centuries attempted to read widely, to keep abreast of scholarship, news, novels and in the last century films.  The Internet is merely the latest way of doing it. 

I’m a recent convert to the Internet, and like all converts have a certain zeal and enthusiasm for my new-found discovery.  I came “on line” as a result of the “Suffolk Online Project”, sadly not available in Cretingham and Ashfield, but very much alive in Earl Soham, where “ free” computers have been made available to members of the local community, as part of a research project to look at the application and impact of the “internet revolution” in local communities.  I remember when I signed up, being slightly horrified at the suggestion that “my” sermons might be made available online, to people who were not able to get to church.  Horrified, because I don’t count preaching as one of my gifts or strengths, but more so, because I felt, at the time it was another good excuse for not coming to church.  Part of me still feels that way, coming to church is not just about hearing a sermon, and it is about being part of the Christian community and sharing in fellowship and friendship, as well as sharing in the Word and sacrament.  But part of me has changed too, in that I acknowledge that the Church has to use all forms of communication to share the Word of God, and it cant retreat into a ghetto, divorced from the reality of the world, it needs to be immersed in the world and to use all forms and means of communicating the Gospel, the good news. 

After the events of Easter, Christ met with his disciples and commissioned them, to go out into all the world and to make disciples of all nations.  The Christian community is commissioned with the same task of making Christ known in each and every generation.  The Christian Gospel does not change, but our ways of proclaiming and living it do, some of them may feel alien to us, but we need to be open to all the new avenues and opportunities that come our way, so the Internet is here to stay, well at least for the meantime, till the next thing comes along.

Clare Sanders