Evensong - 15 Jul 1962

‘The church that is in her house’ We have new churches built wherever Christian people live in groups, for them to meet in regular worship. But there was a time when there were no special buildings called churches. The only place where worship could be held under cover was in a house. That was so at Colossae when St. Paul wrote this letter to the Colossian Church. There, in somebody’s home in Colossae, the little company of Christians habitually gathered and worshipped. It is obvious that when they chose the house in Colossae, where the church was to meet, they must have selected one representing the best they knew in family relationships. They must have selected the house where there were devout Christians of good reputation – a home where love reigned and where there was harmony.

‘The church that is in her house’ – This phrase used by St. Paul to describe the worship of Christians who gathered regularly for worship in Christian houses has become symbolic of something permanently true in a Christian family. We desperately need to think about it today – the church that is in your house and mine.

We have seen in our experience that religion moves in different areas and organises itself around different centres.

First, there is the personal religion which we carry around with us. It is something by which we live, and is intimately connected with our personality. 2. Secondly, there is the ecclesiastical religion centred round the churches with their traditions, policies, rituals and rubrics. 3. Thirdly, there is the family religion which when it is at its best, floods a home with light and makes the relationships therein sacred and beautiful. It creates a church within a house. This evening we want to think only of this area of religious life – the family religion. Wherein lies the importance of the family religion for the life of a people? I want to place a few thoughts before you for our consideration.

It must be borne in mind that the responsibility of giving a Christian education to the children is primarily the responsibility of the parents. No doubt, the Church too has its responsibility in this matter, but the Church cannot fulfil its responsibility without the cooperation of the parents. I have known parents – regular worshippers in the church – who are careful about sending their children to Sunday School and Church Schools so that their children might get a Christian education, but they pay little or no attention to the observance of religious practices in the home. They are not careful about ordering their lives in the homes according to the Christian way of life. I am sure we realise that whatever may be the activities of the Church, they cannot be fully effective without the cooperation of the home.

Now that we have lost our Church Schools, the home has to take full responsibility for the training of its children. I think in the past parents have thrown the whole responsibility on the Church Schools and have gone on unmindful of the loss to the children by the absence of, or the poor quality of the family religion. Can it be that the ‘take over’ of our schools is a blessing in disguise, in that it brings home to the parents the importance of the home and wakes them up to a new sense of responsibility. Let our prayer be that the action of the State, which now appears to be a blow to church activities, may turn out to be a blessing to the Church in the end. It is for us to meet the situation in the right attitude, and work in such a way that what now appears to be a defect and a set-back to our work, turns out to be a victory and a triumph.

We have seen how parents who are keen to give their children a Christian training ought to consider carefully the quality of the religion in the house. Consider again another class of parents. They are Christians, but they are indifferent to religion. They have given up religious practices, perhaps they don’t go to church at all. In their earlier years they had the influence of a Christian home to shape their character and conduct, and they are living respectable lives. But they don’t feel the need for religious practices in their lives. But when their children grow up to be boys and girls they have difficulties in bringing them up. The behaviour and conduct of the children and their general outlook on life present problems for the parents. The parents realise that their children lack something which they themselves had in their youth – something stabilising and directive, that produced quality in character, and purposefulness in life. So they come to realise that what their children lack is the religious influence in their lives.

I have had parents come to me sorrow stricken, and admitting defeat in controlling and directing their children along correct lines of conduct. Almost in every case the fault was in their home life, and the neglect of religion in the home. Many parents who had been indifferent to religion and religious observances have come to realise the value of religion only after experiencing difficulties in the matter of bringing up their children. The moral life of a nation is determined by the early influences of family life on each individual, and by the standards and values accepted by each family. Parents should consider seriously whether they are giving their children at least what they received from their parents when they were boys and girls.

There is a third argument to show the importance of the family religion – in other words, ‘the church that is in the house’. We have to bear in mind that religion is something we catch rather than learn. Religion is something that is passed on from one life to another, not primarily by instruction but by example. Take for instance the teaching of Jesus about the sacredness of personality. All personality is sacred, Jesus said, whether in man or woman, king or slave, saint or sinner. The most sacred thing in the universe is personality, and it never is to be scorned or wronged, but helped. This is the most fundamental teaching of our Lord. Now, how are we going to teach a child this great truth? We can get ready a well prepared lesson with arguments all logically set out to show that personality is sacred. We can show the application of that truth in the conduct of men. How much will the child really learn that way? What a child learns about the sacredness of personality he chiefly absorbs from the way his parents live with each other, and how they deal with the household servants, with their friends, with their enemies, and with people of other races and other classes.

If you find a child to whom personality is really sacred from the way he respects persons as persons in spite of differences in colour, caste or social standing, then you can be sure that he has caught that from somebody. He has come under the strong influence of some one, who himself believes in the sacredness of personality. Religious truths are caught rather than learnt. The only religious teaching that amounts to much consists in explaining to a child the history, meaning and reasonableness of something which has already caught. Many people, when they speak of religious education, think only of the instruction in the classroom for about half an hour or three quarters of an hour two or three times a week. Instruction in the religious faith is no doubt important, but what is really the more important aspect of religious education in schools comes out of the organisation and life of the school – the ordered discipline of the school, the relationship between the teacher and the student, and the ideas and values accepted by the teachers and put forward to the students. All these which go to make up the tone of the school make a lasting impression on the young minds, and these are more important than what is actually taught in the classroom.

Now that our schools have been taken over by the State you can be sure that the children will not have the religious education they have had hitherto in our Christian schools. They may continue to have instruction in subjects relating to the Christian Faith, but that is not the whole of what we understand by the term ‘religious education’. Religion is something that has to be caught than learnt , and if that is so, the home is the best place for it. There are, no doubt, many influences brought to bear upon a child when he grows, but it is the life that the child catches in the home, that goes deepest and longest. What about the church in your house?

One last point – We have always to keep in mind the fact that in the home we are all the time teaching our children religion of some sort whether we plan to do so or not. As soon as a child is born, the home begins to exert an influence on the child for good or evil whether the parents consciously do anything or not. We cannot keep a child religiously neutral even if we wish to. When a child is born the home begins creating in him a spiritual climate, teaching him basic attitudes towards life, feelings about life, all of which inevitably enter into the very substance of any religion he will ever possess. So let us ask ourselves: What is the kind of influence we are exercising on our children in our homes? What is the quality of the church that is in my house?

Let me conclude with a reference to the Report presented by the Secretary of the Bible Society at the Annual General Meeting of the society held in D………. .In his report the Secretary referred to the importance of family prayers and Bible reading, and said that as part of the Third Jubilee Campaign of the Society, efforts were being made fro a revival of Family Prayer and Bible reading. Let me quote from the Secretary’s report: “We have commended, very specially as a part of our Third Jubilee Campaign, that all clergy and church workers should cooperate and encourage in their several areas of responsibility, the revival of Family Prayer and Bible Reading. If Christians, young and old, begin the day with the Bible rather than with the daily newspaper, we shall be able to assess the events better. God’s guidance to us through prayer and Bible Reading will also enable us to face our daily responsibilities, trials and temptations with greater faith and wisdom, courage and hope than many of us have today.

When there are growing concerns for unity in the nation and for discipline in personal living in our homes, we believe such a revival of Christian family life, will be a great source of strength both to our church and nation – for it will help in creating disciplined and stable homes without which no society can endure.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father from whom all Fatherhood in heaven and earth is named; Bless, we beseech Thee, all children, and give to their parents, and to all whose charge they may be, the Spirit of wisdom and love, so that the home in which they grow up may be to them an image of Thy Kingdom, and the care of their parents a likeness of Thy love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.