[This reflection by Brian Alton was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 22/Sep/2024]
A Chicago citizen once told evangelist D.L. Moody that he (the citizen) could be just as good a Christian outside a church community as inside it. In response, Moody pointed to a fireplace where coals were blazing fiercely. He removed one coal from the fire, which gradually lost its glow, until it was completely cold. The analogy drawn from this is that it is important to be together in a church community as Jesus followers, so that we don’t lose our ‘glow’. It is inevitable that one’s faith will grow cold without being among other ‘Followers of the Way’.
This has always raised questions for me. The coals in the fire remain in the fire, and the isolated coal remain isolated. It all seems rather static, rather ‘us and them’. Without an external intervention, how would that status change? How would the Christian separated from a church community get back inside?
Several years ago, my daughter’s class in school addressed the question ‘Why do penguins huddle?’ In the Antarctic winter, temperatures can drop to as low as minus 60 degrees Celsius. Emperor penguins huddle together in their hundreds to use a phenomenon called ‘social thermoregulation’, which brings the ambient temperature within the huddle up to 20 degrees C above zero, and their body temperature to about 37 degrees C.
However, there is much more to it than that; the penguins huddle in a hexagon because that is the most efficient shape for heat conservation. There is also constant movement – as the centre of the huddle is the warmest, penguins at the cooler edges are moving inwards, and penguins at the centre moving outwards, meaning the whole group benefits from the warmth of the huddle, not just those at the centre. This dynamic continues all winter, so that no penguin is left isolated, cold, and without support.
I rather like the idea of applying this model to church, so that rather than a static, homogenous group in one place, our congregation is constantly bringing people in, and at the same time moving out towards those at the margins. Neither of the above are, of course, definitive analogies, but the latter feels similar to having a ‘Whole Life Discipleship and Worship’ as the LICC promote, and we have been hearing about this month.
We heard Joshua Searle talk about ‘Church without Walls’ – incredibly six years ago now. I wonder if huddling penguins look rather similar to that?
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Last week’s reflection: What Makes a Church Beautiful? by Helen Ruffhead
Contributed by Brian Alton; © Brian Alton