Batsman Preaches Sermon

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30065, 25 February 1963, Page 10

Batsman Preaches Sermon

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Feb. 24. One of the greatest dangers. to religion, said the Rev. David Sheppard, a member of the England cricket team, when preaching at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Auckland tonight, was that it could become selfish.

The sermon was based on the fifteenth chapter of St. John, which was read by the England vice-captain, M. C. Cowdrey. Hundreds of people were unable to gain admittance to the cathedral. Many ot them heard a relay of the service in an adjoining hall. Others stood outside.

The church, he said, was not a building, an institution or just the clergy. It was a fellowship of people. Being a family, the ehuren had problems and had to learn to forgive. People who forgot what the church really was were apt not to»forgive. The Christian church had to be a family which eared. The danger from' selfishness arose, Mr Sheppard said, when people looked on the church in terms of what they could get out of it. “It isn't what you get out of it,” he said. “We all have something to give. We all have to pull our weight 'in caring for those within the church and those without.

“The Christian family must never stop short just being concerned with itself. It is the task of everyone who believes in the Lord to draw others into the Christian

family. “When we invite a friend to come into our church, are we just keen .to swell our numbers so that we appear to be a successful church?'* he asked. “Are we asking our friend to join nice, respectable people? “That was not the message of St John.' He meant us to care and .to want to share our common life with the Father and with His Son. Jesus Christ.”

It was not quite true that the congregation was the church, because some churchgoers had not really come to grips with the faith of Jesus Christ The. way to faith Uy in joining the fellowship. “We need to watch not that Christians are perfect but that they are growing better.” Mr Sheppard said. “Perfection is not possible with people.”