Today, the last Sunday of the year, I chose to focus in church on angels and the fact that angels appear in the Christmas story, announce something about to happen, clear off and leave humanity to work out how to respond. We had an amazing service this morning - I thought few would be there, we had 51!
I took this picture on my walk in Hastings this afternoon. It is taken from "Bottle Alley" and is looking out to sea. You can't see what is beyond the horizon, but it looks bright and positive. From the safety of the shelter, we are invited to look and dream and see possibilities. We might not see all the detail but we have a future, a direction we are told will be okay. I end the year having managed to make up Superintendency as I go along, without anyone noticing (!) and I have six churches full of possibility as we prepare for 2015. In church 1 we are suddenly engaging with families and children and plan to open our doors for open house every Thursday morning from February; in church 2 we are about to host a hosted Post Office service for the village which will bring new opportunities for conversation with people who live around us; in church 3 we continue to build on young people's work and we are starting serious reflection about how we will be church as our building fails us; in church 4 we are planning to put in glass doors to enable us to be more open to our tourist context and in partnership with other churches we have opened a Food Bank and will launch Street Pastors in the Spring; in church 5 we have seen a sudden new confidence and we are developing work beginning Messy Church and new house groups and receiving new people into membership in May and we are seeing our coffee morning on a Friday grow and in church 6, we are seeing Messy Church and Cafe Worship grow dramatically we are almost full up as our building is small. All of these initiatives have come from people seeing possibilities and going for them. It seems to me the Christmas story is about journeying. The shepherds went, not knowing every detail, but they still went. They didn't discuss it for long, they went quickly. This morning in worship I felt a confidence in people that maybe 2015 might be a special year for us all as we believe in God's call and in our own ability to travel. We need to look out to sea, to the bright sky and believe...
God of new beginnings and bright skies, help me to be like the shepherds of old on the hills of Bethlehem. When I am confronted with good news, with divine activity or told to believe a bit and go for it, help me to trust and to try. As a little card I have somewhere says "with God, there is nothing he and I cannot do together." Thank you for the last couple of years of travelling where we have discovered some foundations. Help us to be expectant and to journey on in confidence. Amen,
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