The Very Rev Albert Bogle highlights how holding on to the familiar and the past can be a barrier to the future.

RECENTLY Sanctuary First, (which regular readers will know is the Church of Scotland’s online worshipping community), launched a new app for both Android and iPhone.

However it wasn’t long before friends were saying: “We can’t download it.”

The problem was they were, you might say, holding on to an old phone and old technology. Now there is nothing wrong with that, but the new app had the ability to update the old content to a new platform, thus making the content available to more people. While the app was free there was a cost involved in buying a new phone.

The new app was forcing them to make a decision: will I stick with what I know and limit the possibilities that I could encounter with a new smart phone and a new Sanctuary First app? I was discovering that people are more attached to their phones than you might think. They like the feel and touch of the familiar. They know their way around it. They are confident with the old technology. If it’s not broken why try to fix it? The problem with that thinking is, you only know what you know. But what if there is more to know?

I like watching the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. I’m always fascinated with the various objects that the public bring to the experts, in order to find out what they don’t know and to have their precious object valued. However, I think there is something deeper going on in this programme than first meets the eye. People seem to bring objects that are important to them because they help them connect with the past.

They connect them with a much-loved family member, or they want to highlight the bravery or the courage of someone they never knew but can vicariously have a connection with through the object.

At other times they bring an object because they’d love to be surprised in finding out if it is worth a fortune. I had to smile when an elderly couple brought a silk Mandarin summer court robe from the 19th century for valuation. The robe had been lying in their grandchilden’s dressing up box. At least two generations of children had played with it. The look on their faces said it all when they were told it could reach well over £200,000 at auction. Apart from being stunned at the valuation, they were unable to decide what they would do with the valuable robe. It was the throw away line that said it all. “Ah well that’s a problem we’ll leave for the next generation, but we’ll remove it from the dressing up box”

All this got me thinking. Could it be that we treat Sunday worship a bit like the Antiques Roadshow or our old mobile phone? We hold on to forms of worship and traditions and buildings, and technology, not because we particularly like them, but because they enable us to have a link with a person or a time that is long since gone.

So we use objects to try and hold on to memories and a past that in fact may well be conflicting our future and the memories we want to create for another generation.

Could it be that we treat Sunday worship a bit like the Antiques Roadshow or our old mobile phone? We hold on to forms of worship and traditions and buildings, and technology, not because we particularly like them, but because they enable us to have a link with a person or a time that is long since gone.

Could it be that we have riches untold in the dressing up box?

What I’m trying to say is, let’s be willing to make new memories of meaningful worship for a new generation, even if it means we have to go home and discover valuable lessons from the children’s dressing up box.

There are riches beyond belief at our finger tips that we could pass on to our children and grandchildren but we need to be willing to make the investment, make the transition – yes and perhaps buy a new smart phone. 

You can download the new Sanctuary First app at www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk/app