Crossroads magazine August 2003
Summer time - and the living is not so easy. The fish may not be jumping here but the temperature is high and the numbers in our congregation have certainly fallen as the exodus from the heat has gathered pace. This phenomenon of smaller congregations in the summer is a new experience for me, this being our first summer in Malta; if anything, the opposite was the case in our previous appointment in Cornwall where summer congregations were more likely to increase. I can’t help feeling that there’s a parable of the wider church in these fluctuations - ups and downs of fortune have always been a feature of the church’s life. At some times the church has been apparently riding high, with large congregations and a lot of influence in society and at other times, as perhaps now, the church has been unfashionable and rejected by many in wider society.