ST. MATTHEW'S ANGLICAN PARISH, BIABOU ST. VINCENT

Archdeaconry of St. Vincent and The Grenadines recently held our servers festival at st. James Parish Church, Layou.  I was a beautiful day as clergy and servers came together.  However the festival would have given many the oppertunity to reflect on the Anglican Church in its present state. I received an email from Sunior Joseph that was forwarded to a number of us and i found it to be very interesting.  I believe that Anglicans should get a chance to hear what Sunior  had to say.  so there it goes....................

"We can't afford to let our guard down. There is a challenge for all of us to take up our cross and follow Christ.  The road ahead may not be easy, but with God as our Leader we will make it through. Be Prepared!

It may seem that as Anglicans we are losing the battle. We sit by and watch our people especially our young people migrate to other religious denominations and what do we do. 

 

I think it’s high time that we as Christians, as Anglicans, strengthen our back bone and get up and face the challenge that is ahead of us.  We need to strengthen our faith and be more dedicated in order for us to achieve our goal. We have become too relaxed in our Pews, it’s now time for us to take up the sword and prepare to take our people back from the grip of the adversary.  We can’t afford to sit back and wonder what’s going on, it’s time for us to reach out and do our part.

 

I left the Anglican Church when I was in my early teen years to worship with a Pentecostal religion all because at that time everything seemed greener there.  The singing was good, the music was great, the crowd was there and I was able to play an active role.  Youth Meetings, Bible Studies and Prayer Meetings were interesting and everything seemed to be the best, when I compared it to attending the Anglican Church.  Being in the Anglican Church back then made me fall asleep, I looked at it as being very boring, so my sister and I would have pretended that we were asleep when our Mother would want us to get ready for Church, and as soon as she left the house we were up and about.  However the time came when the same thing I ran away from started happening in the congregation that I fellowshipped with, so I started slacking off from Church.

 

The whole point in all this is that after I left the Church, it was as if no one cared.  Apart from my parents who always did their best to get me back, I was left to do whatever I wanted. I stayed in that Church until one Sunday my father invited me to play music with him at Holy Cross, I didn’t want to go, because I feared what the other Members would think, but my love for music and knowing that I can help to make a difference made me take up his offer and so it was that I rejoined the Anglican church about two years after I had completed college. 

 

As a young person I still found it boring because we as young people weren’t recognized by the older folks, it’s as if we were stumbling blocks to them, they always found some way to get at us.  Eventually I was invited to join the Youth Group and I can remember wanting to leave soon after, because they were a couple Members from St. Mary’s who didn’t appreciate me being there because I had left the church and went to worship elsewhere, so they wanted me to go back where I came from.  However, that didn’t get to me, I remained humble.  That is another thing that happens with some of our Members, when someone leaves and return instead of making them feel welcome, we look at them as if they had committed a crime.  So instead of trying to bring others to our fold, some of us drive them away and it’s time we reverse that situation.  Well I can go on and on here but I must come to an end.