Rules are Rules

So as we get closer to my licencing as a Lay Minister in September, we get to the point of making sure all the boxes are ticked, i’s dotted, and t’s crossed. In the last couple of weeks I have received my certificate to confirm I had passed the Leadership Safeguarding Course. Box ticked. Then a few weeks ago I received an email to say the diocese needed a copy of my baptism / confirmation certificates. Two years on from when I started this journey and now I get asked for documents. Wow. Well I have reached the young age of 55 and I was baptised as a baby at about 6 months old, both my parents have passed away and neither myself nor my sisters know where the certificate may be. I have not been confirmed. I grew up not attending Church, and as many of you will know I became a Christian while at University. While at University I went through a full immersion baptism. All good so I thought. Unfortunately, the rules of the Church of England require a Baptism Certificate (which I cannot find, and my Church in Preston has closed and no-one knows where the records may be) and to be Confirmed. So last week as a fix I had to sign an affidavit to say I had been baptised as an adult and on Sunday I was Confirmed by the Bishop of Selby.

I write this not as a grumble but really to emphasise the need to live a Christian life abiding by the rules. It is true to say that Jesus came to free us from the law but not to be lawless. Mark 12:30-31 tells us

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Therefore following Christ requires you to fit within the rules, however these are intended not as disabling constraints but rather as enabling constraints, boundaries which allow us to live life to the full, but which are designed to help us to live and love and care for one another.

For much of my 30 years as a Christian I have worshipped in a C of E church but always considered myself a Christian rather than an Anglican. I have over the years got used to the C of E ways, some of which I get and some bemuse me. The last two years has taught me a lot about the rules of the Church of England and to a large extent has helped me to understand why!

So, to finish this thought for the week, I reflect on that need to follow the rules, to follow Jesus and to listen to and for that calling.

Alan