Friendship

I did assembly this morning at a lovely little junior school near one of my churches. They are having assemblies on friendship this term. I took in Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore and we had a lovely time.

I spotted this poem on their prayer board (it is a church school) and I thought it was very powerful so I wanted to share it. It's called "If one day"

If one day you feel like crying, call me...
I don't promise that I will make you laugh.
But I can cry with you.

If one day you want to run away, don't be afraid to call me.
I don't promise to ask you to stop, but I can run with you.

If one day you don't want to listen to anyone, call me...
I promise to be there for you.
And I promise to be very quiet.

But if one day you call me and there is no answer,
Come fast to see me, perhaps I need you.

A model of community that some churches might do well to follow?  

Laughter and Memories

I had my first visit to church number three in my pastoral charge in my new Circuit today. It was Harvest and there was a lunch and "entertainment" afterwards. I really enjoyed being there with them. We had a time of fun together and belly aching laughter. It culminated in a lady getting an old Pam Ayres book of poems out of her handbag and reading "Pam Ayres And The Embarrassing Incident With The Parrot."  

There was much hilarity in the room but I think people wondered why their new minister was nearly under the table crying. When I was very young, at the church I grew up in, Folly Methodist in Wheathampstead, we used to have "entertainment"after Harvest like they did today. I used to read Pam Ayres poems out of the same book the lady used today. The parrot poem has the line "get off you little buggers" in it. I remember my Dad (or perhaps my Mum telling my Dad to do it) putting a sticky label over the last word of that sentence and altering it to perishers! I haven't heard that poem read for years. When I recovered, my senior steward said, "I think we are learning lots about our new minister today!"

It is good to laugh - I am glad to be part of churches that laugh. It is so refreshing. If we can't laugh together we are in serious strife. Pam Ayres is a genius. I follow her on Twitter and she is hilarious on that - @ayrespam if you're interested. I might have to save some pennies to see her on tour next month - she is near here in Crawley. I reproduce the parrot poem below in case anyone doesn't know it. Hearing it today being read by an elderly lady and watching people collapse in laughter and collapse with more laughter watching my reaction to it has been the highlight of my day. Thank you Pam Ayres, and thank you St Helens Methodist Church!

At the Cotswold Wild Life Park, In the merry month of May, I paid the man the money, And went in to spend the day, Straightway to the Pets Corner, I turned my eager feet, To go and see the rabbits, And give them something to eat. As I approached the hutches, I was alarmed to see, A crowd of little yobbos, 'Ollerin' with glee, I crept up close behind them And weighed the scene up quick, And saw them poke the rabbits Poke them! . . with a stick! 'Get off you little buggers!" I shouted in their ear, 'Don't you poke them rabbits, That's not why they are here." I must have really scared them, In seconds they were gone, And feelin' I had done some good, I carried on along. Till up beside the Parrots Cage, I stood to view the scene, They was lovely parrots, Beautiful blue and green, In and out the nestbox, They was really having fun, Squawking out and flying about, All except for one. One poor old puffed-up parrot, Clung grimly to his perch, And as the wind blew frontwards, Backwards he would lurch, One foot up in his feathers, Abandoned by the rest, He sat there, plainly dying, His head upon his chest. Well, I walked on down the pathway And I stroked a nanny goat, But the thought of parrots dyin' Brought a lump into me throat, I could no longer stand it, And to the office I fled, Politely I began: 'Scuse me, Your parrot's nearly dead." So me and a curator, In urgent leaps and bounds, With a bottle of Parrot Cure, Dashed across the grounds, The dust flew up around us, As we reached the Parrots Pen, And the curator he turned to me Saying 'Which one is it then?" You know what I am going to say, He was not there at all, At least, not where I left him, No, he flit from wall to wall, As brightly as a button, Did he squawk and jump and leap, The curator was very kind, Saying, "I expect he was asleep." But I was humiliated, As I stood before the wire, The curator went back, To put his feet up by the fire, So I let the parrot settle, And after a short search, I found the stick the yobbos had, And poked him off his perch.

         

What to say...

We have been enjoying settling into life in Hastings over the past few weeks. Today is September 1st, the beginning of a new church year in our denomination. Tomorrow, I lead worship in a church I know very little about, apart from the fact their choir sing an introit, the Lord's Prayer, an anthem and the doxology!

What do you say to a congregation who will come out to suss out the new minister, perhaps in expectation, but also in fear of change?

First I think I will want to say we need to be ourselves. We cannot do what we cannot do, but we have potential within us. The Paralympics are full of stories of achievement, courage, hope, the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. In the Opening Ceremony, the story was about enlightenment, where part of the Tempest was used. Prospero leads his daughter Miranda on a journey of discovery. At the end, he says to her "go, be yourself." We are called to be us. No one else is called to sing our song, as Edwina Gateley puts it in the wonderful "Called to Become" - we are not called in Christian terms to compete, but to be distinctive using our own gifts.

Second, I think I will want to say we need to be authentic. I am aware so many people are leaving the church in 2012 through disillusionment that Christians should behave in the way they see them behave, bullying, power issues, unwillingness to change, not accepting new contributions, clinging to tradition unhealthily. We need to remember why we do what we do. I went to a lovely service last Sunday in a village Parish Church where the lay reader after endless notices said, "right, let's get on with what we are really here for!" Are we open as a people? Can people see Jesus through us? Or is there something in the way?

Finally, I think I will want to say we need to embrace what is around us. At my Welcome Service on Monday we will sing a hymn I've chosen by the New Zealand hymn writer Shirley Murray:

"Community of Christ, look past the Church's door and see the refugee, the hungry and the poor. Take hands with the oppressed, the jobless in your street, take towel and water, that you wash your neighbour's feet."

We are called to respond to the need that is in our community. We are not to be a place where we have no clue about real life because we are stuck in a undated church culture that has no resources to respond because life has moved on quickly. I remember little children in my last church looking in wonder at a cassette player. I didn't win the "can I please have a CD player in church" argument with my folk! I am challenged by tomorrow's epistle from James concerning true religion: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world." You've got to be in the world though!

Tomorrow's service is in the lovely Sussex town of Rye. I've been reading the history of the Methodist cause there. John Wesley when opening a preaching house there in 1789 wrote this:
"Such a congregation I never saw at Rye before, and their behaviour was as remarkable as their number; which, added to the peaceable, loving spirit they are now in, gives reason to hope there will be such a work here as has not been heretofore." I shall remind the small congregation there tomorrow that 223 years after those words were written, they are now God's people there, and there is still work to do together.

Tomorrow will be strange, but also exciting for me. I hope some folk who come out in the morning to meet their new minister, might go away helped and encouraged by a reminder of some basics. We shall see!