St Cuthbert's, Burnley

St Cuthbert’s church in Burnley is a surprisingly pleasant construction of red brick. I hear it is evangelical in its doctrine, which makes is an increasingly rare jewel in the Church of England’s depleted coffers. It is located in a working-class district of the town with a sizeable population of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims, whereas many 'Bible churches' I know are located in posh, White areas. Although closed when I called and subject to some fairly tight security (such as locking the gates to the grounds and a section of mean-looking barbed wire), I found it a welcome feature of the Burnley townscape.

The first time I heard of it was twenty years ago when I was involved in amateur dramatics. St Cuthbert's was a regular venue for shows and musicals at which some relatively talented locals would tread the boards and repeat the old songs to the generally older audiences' delight, despite the odd duff note. So to my mind, St Cuthbert’s was all about drama.

Back in the nineties, our church youth group would enjoy offering ‘dramas’ and sketches during services. Most were designed to entertain but still had a vital spiritual point. I am no longer convinced that they should be a part of Sunday worship; I suspect that the leadership wished to indulge us teenagers and were pleased to involve us in some way. There are other, more legitimate expressions of drama in church, however. A preacher may be dramatic in his delivery, and the act of communion or baptism is surely a reenactment of spiritual truths and past events. Yet by and large, Christian worship does not need livening up, interspersing with comedy, or made more interesting. The gospel itself is the most wonderful, engaging and awe-inspiring thing one will ever hear. It needs no human razmataz or sparkle to beef it up.

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. Hebrews 1