In the last couple of days I have travelled on the Elizabeth line through Central London. It’s not fully complete in that you have to make a change at Paddington, but it still shortened an 80 minute journey to 45 minutes.
The architecture and engineering are magnificent. It struck me that there are great similarities between the Elizabeth line, or Crossrail as it used to be known, and church building projects. There are various stages.
1. Initial excitement and simultaneous scepticism.
2. Division. Some people think this has to be done and will make an enormous difference to everyone’s life, others vehemently oppose it and think it is a waste of resources.
3. Delays in planning, processing, and funding.
3. The work begins positively with a blaze of publicity.
4. Delays, delays and more delays are allied with spiralling costs.
5. It opens in a piecemeal fashion
6. The experience of travelling on the new line makes a huge difference to ordinary life. When the architect has done it’s job the aesthetic and beauty aid the purpose. On the Elizabeth line, the experience of travel is profoundly better than being on the Bakerloo line!! In Church life good architecture aids you in worship, enables ministry, and ultimately shapes Church life.
7. Increases capacity and possibilities for work.
8. I expect that the next stage is we very quickly get used to it.
9. We moan when it doesn’t work.
Paul Levy 