The human story is messy, and moves two steps forward and one step back.
This story is about heritage, which includes history, but heritage looks more to the future than the past. This story includes more than what was going on between the walls of St. Paul’s building. Like the Bible, it sets the story of God’s activity in the events of the world at the time.
This model fits the contemporary situation because technology and the news media makes national and international events part of our ordinary lives. Because our lives in the modern world are filled with a cacophony of events, our church lives are lived in the context of such events more than was true in preceding generations. National and political trends are very much the context of our local church lives because we do not shed the awareness of the impact of such events on our lives when we walk through the church doors. We bring all of these issues and concerns with us, whether they are formally acknowledged or not.
This story of St. Paul’s is entirely my reflection as a pastor who has been involved in the various denominational issues of our time all my life, some seventy years at this writing. I am an ordinary pastor who has been involved with historic American churches that have reflected the American culture of the world that I have known. I do so because it is not only a common story, but an important story, and people will recognize it. The specific details about St. Paul’s will speak to the people of St. Paul’s, and the general tenor or flow of the story will be familiar to church people everywhere.