All Saints' Church, Helmsley

The Church of All Saints' at Helmsley in North Yorkshire I called at last month. Although it boasts two original Norman arches and even a hogback tomb from the Saxon period, the bulk of the building is nineteenth century, with the Victorians enthusiastically demolishing real medieval features in order to replace them with Victorian ones which looked medieval. One wishes that they had not bothered. We may feel gratitude that they left alone the chancel arch and the main, south doorway. Curiously, many of the walls are covered in paintings. These are not original, like those at Pickering, but ‘modern’, nineteenth-century replicas. Somehow, they reminded me of pages from a comic book, but I may be offering a disservice. It is perfectly possible, of course, that real medieval paintings survived under the Elizabethan whitewashes upon the older walls which they demolished. We shall never know.

Although Helmsley’s church is likely taller and wider than the older lady it was pleased to replace, that which is older is invariably more interesting. I would have preferred to have entered Helmsley’s original church than its current one. We who run Christian congregations and lead worship should subject what we do to the light and scrutiny of God’s word. Are there things we do simply because we think it is good or because God’s word requires it or encourages it? I seldom tell children’s stories at Salem Chapel. This is not because they are wrong, nor even unhelpful, but they are not demanded by God’s word. In fact, they are a Victorian invention which served well, and often continue to well serve younger hearers. Neither do we have that intermission which Anglicans call ‘the Peace’ during which they shake hands with the folk sitting around. Nothing wrong with it, but I would rather that happen before and after worship. Should we always offer teaching in the morning but a gospel presentation in the evening like the Brethren and classical Pentecostals insist upon? Why? It is not wrong to ask these questions but we should try to answer them in the light of scripture rather than mere preference or tradition. Let us seek continual reformation, a returning to the New Testament church with its simplicity and apostolic purity.

Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Jeremiah 6:16

A D