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!