The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

As many of our friends know, my wife and I returned home at the very end of March from a privileged and celebratory ship’s cruise round the world. If I were a travel writer, I could regale you with details of the various ports which we visited, of the appalling British [yes, British] obesity displayed by sunworshippers on the decks, of the life-changing experience of sailing over vast, and seemingly empty, oceans, and of much more besides. But I am not a travel writer and the purpose of this note is quite other.
At the cruise’s beginning in Southampton a Christians Together Group on the ship was founded by an Australian couple. At first, I understand, it comprised five or six people, but by the time that we joined the ship in San Francisco it had grown to well over thirty, a number which it largely maintained throughout, while the personnel changed through disembarkations and fresh embarkations at certain ports.

God’s work is often unseen and this group was to a large extent also unseen but none the less remarkable for that. Astonishingly, it comprised Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Pentecostalists, Roman Catholics, Salvationists and United Reform Church [Australia] members. Meetings of the Group were held for some 40 minutes every morning while the ship was at sea. We prayed together, we heard Bible readings together, we talked openly together, and discussed relevant matters together, also describing the activity of our home churches, It became a “tradition” that when praying the Lord’s Prayer or ending, as we did, each meeting with the Grace, we should do the same holding hands as we sat in a circle. We all, I believe, felt ourselves to be, and were, one in Christ.

Many in the group said that its existence was like icing on the cake which was the cruise. The icing was improved by the facts that, first, on the day before Easter, a Roman Catholic Chaplain [who with an Anglican Chaplain joined the ship because of the significance of the particular weekend] celebrated a Mass for Roman Catholics in which the Anglican Chaplain participated and secondly the Anglican Chaplain celebrated a Holy Communion on Easter Monday at which the Roman Catholic priest both received the sacrament from the Anglican Chaplain and administered the chalice to all who were present [some 70 people]. There was a general reaction that “this is how it should be”.
As each and every denomination of Christ’s Church struggles with and within the secularism of the age, I hope and believe that the group, that Mass, and that Holy Communion are but a symbol or image of what the church in the future will be, a church giving thanks for the work of each denomination in the past, but realising that the time of separation of its parts is indeed a thing of the past. Individually and as communities we Christians have the responsibility of a mission, given by our Lord, to “make disciples of all nations”. That mission has been weakened, at least in the West, by separation, but will flower afresh as both in belief and action we act as those who are truly Christian Together.
The Church is, like a ship, set in a vast ocean, but an ocean of humanity. It is set on a course directed by the Master; will we, will I, give that direction over to the Master, who alone has sufficient knowledge or expertise to conquer the winds and tides of life?

Those of us on ‘our’ ship were much encouraged in our hope through our experiences afloat.
Derek Spottiswoode