Thought for the Week: Love nurtures
Janet Scott reflects on an ecumenical trip to India
You are my friends if you do what I command you… This is what I command you: Love one another. John 15:14 and 17
Quakers do not often have the chance to preach sermons but this was my text last year for the Sunday of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I was in the diocese of Vellore, Church of South India, and ecumenism was the theme for all churches in the diocese. I was there as part of a group from Cambridgeshire Ecumenical Council, which has a link with the diocese. Ten of us were visiting to renew the covenant between us, a covenant that aims to build relationships through prayer, support and mutual learning. It is part of the way in which relationships between churches of the developed and the developing world are changing.
Vellore is in Tamil Nadu and away from the usual tourist areas. Its fort was occupied by the British during the Raj and still contains the only English medium church in the diocese. The town is proud that it was the earliest to seek independence through the Sepoy mutiny of 1806. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there were many missions and missionaries in the area, mostly building hospitals and schools as well as churches. Names like Scudder, Arcot and Voorhees are still attached to institutions they founded. With Indian independence, the founding of the Church of South India brought together Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists into one united church, which took over many of the mission institutions and began to run them, as well as starting new social projects.
The change from being a mission recipient to a mission partner is long and difficult. The diocese still relies heavily on funding from overseas for some of its projects. This is not only from the historic sources; churches in South Korea are taking an interest in funding, especially the building of new churches. We have not seen our role as financial, though we do give small sums to provide scholarships to enable young people from the poorest homes to receive training, mostly as nurses, midwives or teachers. We try to encourage the church in its mission to the poorest of the poor.
We also want to encourage the church to use its own resources. We were delighted when visiting some new hostels for boys attached to schools serving rural areas to see that these had been funded by a rich church in the diocese. We now see new projects reusing old resources where there is dynamic leadership, often from women. Younger people coming into positions of influence are beginning to think about what to do with institutions that have had a useful life but are no longer needed in their old form. It is a delicate balance to talk about our own experience of similar problems without sounding as if we are trying to direct what should be done.
Love nurtures and supports: love also challenges, and we try to support and challenge our own small part of the Church of South India to be what God calls it to be. We also have to realise that there is a challenge back for us too. Why are our churches not growing? How do we reach out to the poorest of our own poor?
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