A church that does you good...

I found this cartoon from Asbo Jesus. I find it funny but also very sad because it can be so true.
I long for a church that heals, that walks alongside, that is compassionate, suffering with people, that doesn't judge or make inappropriate comments, that doesn't say you are okay then you find out you've been stabbed in the back. I long for a church that accepts without reserve.

Today I led folk in thinking about the Methodist emphasis on the priority of God's love, that all are welcome and all are accepted in the ethos of my denomination. I passionately believe we need to rediscover that basic principle of what we are about. I am sorry when I keep hearing stories of people stressed by church, made unwell by church and staying away from church because of unchristian behaviour they experience from people who should know better!

I remain in the church to change the church. Someone told me this morning to never stop being me and never stop saying what needs to be said, even though it can bring horrid stuff to me personally. I read Luke 4 verses 16 to 21 this morning, Jesus manifesto of Kingdom values in the synagogue in Nazareth. The faithful there received his words and were so angry they tried to hurl him over a cliff. That hasn't happened to me - yet!

I discovered this "mission statement" in a church I visited recently. I like it:

Our mission is to proclaim the love of God and share the good news of Jesus Christ with all people.

Our vision is to grow in faith: to worship, pray and learn,  to care for one another, to offer support and encouragement. 

Our aim is to serve others; to be a good neighbour in the community,  to challenge injustice,  to use our resources wisely.

That to me is what a church is for. That is how we become relevant again. Being there, being open, feeling people’s pain and joy, and not being frightened to get our hands dirty for others, rather than beating up others who aren't like us or challenge us.  People this morning loved the fact we sang some Wesley hymns. 

If we are really to celebrate Wesley and his story, then a real celebration of him and what God hath wrought would be to emulate his talent for reaching out to ordinary people in practical demonstrations of Christianity. Sounds simple, doesn't it? 

Christian Aid - not a week a year only

I did assembly on Friday afternoon at our local school. As I walked in the school, I sensed something was not quite right. The Headteacher pulled a face at me when I asked her how she was and I noticed her summoning children one by one into her office.

At the assembly, she went onto the stage and gave the whole school what for. There had clearly been an “incident” and she had spent all day investigating it. She said “you have let me down, where’s your respect for one another? If you see it, you say so!”

If you see it, you say so! I get inspiration from the strangest place… It made me think about our responsibilities in the world as part of a global community.

If we see it, we need to say so, voicing the wrong, sharing the hurt of the world with others and then doing something about it so it doesn’t happen again. Monday morning at that school they hope will bring a new start as someone somewhere shares what might have happened and the issue can begin to be resolved – whatever it is!

If you see it, you say so!

I wonder though whether because we live in an era where the news is “in your face” we take the injustice and suffering and the cry for help in the world less seriously. We can get news weary. We can get used to scenes of distress, even when we are warned “this report has some things some people might find distressing.” Is it easier to ignore the situation, keep quiet, seeing it but not talking about it, hoping it will go away?   

Jesus tells us to love our neighbour and so on - but what if I don't want to do that because my own life is so complicated today?

If you see it, you say so!

What if I can’t be bothered to say so? What if it is easier to keep my head down, because the need for aid might be messy? Do I allow the pain to continue, the injustice to continue because we are too wrapped up in what might happen to us if I stand up and am counted? 

It is easy to ignore the world’s pain, to say it has nothing to do with us, there is nothing to say. We see it, but we say nothing, so the negative things continue because we didn’t intervene. 

At the beginning of Christian Aid Week, I think we all can justify our failure to give aid, but sometimes we betray the Christ who suffers for the world and all his teachings which are all about giving help where help is needed. Jesus gets involved with Christian Aid every day. I believe the God we worship and Jesus shows is one of mercy, infinite grace, compassion and care, and who chooses to enter the difficult places and transform them.

The world is not right yet, but we don’t bury our head in the sand, or hide in fear for speaking out, we believe that we can make a better world, beginning here, and praying and giving for other parts of the world we will perhaps never visit. If you see it, you say so. I love what Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “Don’t give up, don’t be discouraged, I’ve read the end of the book. We win!”             

If you see it, you say so.

We see the world as it is as we watch the news and so on today, but we also see the possibilities that bringing Jesus’ love into that world can bring.

How can we really keep quiet, or do nothing? 

A changing landscape...?

I have just returned from a four day visit to Manchester and to the Ashton under Lyne Circuit, where I was stationed as a probationer minister in 1997.
Last Monday, I had two very interesting walks which helped me reflect on the important things we are when we say we are "church" in today's society.
I walked in the morning along Park Road in Dukinfield, where I had a little church called Tame Valley Methodist Church. It served in its heyday an industrial area, chiefly of mills. The church was nowhere to be seen having been closed in 2008 and then demolished because it was unsafe due to asbestos.
In its day, it was a place full of activity, spiritual and social, no it has been, unless you know its story, erased from history. It might have never been there. My picture above, shows what it looked like when it stood.
I met some friends from the church for coffee on Monday morning. I watched the closing service of the church on a video with them. I watched them cry as the Superintendent said words of de-consecration and the video went on to show folk dismantling important things that were inside the church that had always been there. The minister said on the video, they were no longer a church. It was very sad.
However, Marie, the steward there, when she spoke said, "the building might have given up, but we haven't!" It was good to learn that four years on from closure, they still meet as a group of folk from that place in her home, for prayer and bible study. A church building unsafe and then demolished, a people doing church together in a differently, caring for one another pastorally, and still learning together with regular visits from their minister in the place the building served. Being church with no building...
When life changes and things that were always there are no longer there and you have to watch them change, it is painful. This area has not only lost both its church buildings (there was also a small Anglican mission along the road) but also most of its employment, the mills having long closed. But I saw hope in the story of a little fellowship still meeting - and regularly praying for their community.



Later on Monday, I went and stayed for a night in Manchester City Centre. I trained for ministry in Manchester and greatly enjoyed living in the city. We were in college the Saturday in 1996 the IRA bomb exploded in Manchester, and caused widespread damage, although miraculously, killing no one. The city has changed especially round the Cathedral and Exchange Square beyond recognition. There are new buildings, new projects, and there was a confidence that things had to be rebuilt, because the people were stronger than the hatred of a few, that buildings could go, but people's resilience and strength to keep going were more important than them, even if some of them had been there for a long time. I rediscovered this postbox on Monday evening. This postbox was undamaged around absolute chaos. It has been put back where it was as a sign that in the end we keep going, despite hardship and confusion. It was interesting to see in the visitor information centre off Piccadilly Gardens, the aftermath of a campaign called #ilovemcr where people came together after last year's riots to say in the end we are better than horrible things that happen, we will keep going.

These ramblings really are trying to say that in the end, buildings and circumstances may cause us pain and leave us bereft when they fall, but we can move on beyond them. Sometimes I think today's church needs to learn this simple truth, when we are spending so much energy on them.

As the hymn says, tower and temple may fall to dust.... but that is not the end. Even though leaving a building or familar landscapes can be really hard.

At that closing service I sent a message with this prayer by Bruce Prewer from "Jesus, our Future":

Give your people the will, loving God, to close down some churches with the same faith and vision with which we open them. Let us give thanks for all precious memories, but do not permit us to live in them. Inspire us to move on gratefully and graciously, to worship and witness in new places and in new ways. And may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing.

I like that prayer a lot.

Easter Footprints

Amazingly, my Easter message came this afternoon after sitting here for an hour thinking...
I have been struck by a paragraph in the Lent course some of us did this year. The writer of the material talked about the Early Church, and how the first Christians started the rumour of a loving God revealed in Jesus Christ by the way they were, often counter cultural to society around them. To a world which prized brute strength and exploitation, they offered love and service. And he says “Before we can pass on the good news, we must live the good news, by responding to each day with gratitude and generosity. If the church on the corner is to communicate good news, it must first BE good news.”

I know in my churches some people are worried that people aren’t coming to church anymore.  I know some people are worried that we don’t seem to be attracting new people to church. But I believe Christians have and need to be good news where they are, every day. Being good news can make a difference, perhaps to just one person today as Jesus was to a weeping, desolate Mary in the Easter Gospel. 

A man on the radio on Friday lunchtime as I was driving home from my service said he believes we are living in an age of unrest and deep spiritual questions. People are weeping because life is hard and they are searching for answers, and for God – they just aren’t looking for him inside the church, some through bad experiences inside church, but others frightened by us, and others needing us to go to them where they are. That’s why so many of our ministers are now in chaplaincy posts, at work, in places of leisure, that’s why part of my time each week is spent having conversations with people nowhere near a church building, but still doing the work of our church. How sad people don’t think people who are Christians or go to church will have anything to say to their world. We need to BE good news.     

              

I’ve always been drawn to a quote of Gerard Manley Hopkins who uses Easter as a verb, something to do. “Let him Easter in us” he once wrote. See good news and then be good news. If there is no good news in our local church community, and all we do is moan, and wallow that nothing is good, like it used to be, life won’t be much fun and we won’t be attractive. 

I have been sitting here thinking about Mary. It is not wrong to weep. It is not wrong to say life stinks. It is not wrong to question where God might be. Mary stayed in the discomfort of that place. If we do the same, in his time, and often unexpectedly a God we cannot imagine comes and introduces us to new possibilities. Because he knows us, names us, calls us to see that we live a valued life he also gives us power to see that what we are is linked into the centre of his reality, that nothing can separate us from his love.

When you’re tired, and you lack inspiration for the sermon and you desparately want it finished on Good Friday afternoon so you can have Saturday off, it is always a wonder to me that God points me when I’m struggling to the good news of a resource. Somehow I was led into my files and an Easter letter from Rev John Walker in a church magazine from ages ago. John was my Superintendent at home from 1988 to 1994 and I worked with him as his lay worker for three years. He was a deeply honest preacher, his sermons were often raw and real. He had a gift to say to his congregation listening to him it is okay to tell God how you feel. I’m going to let him end my thoughts on transforming weeping into laughter, and desparation and bad news into good and us struggling into being good news around us right here:

“If we were each to draw a graph to depict the course of our lives to date, the line would have peaks at when we felt confident and happy, and low points when we felt in the depths. Some people mistakenly associate God with the high spots only. Really he is with us at every point and turn, even when our depression makes it difficult for us to believe in him or feel him to be present. His power at work inside us can help us turn the corner. Belief in the resurrection makes us expect and look for turning points in our lives, but they sometimes come after what seemed to be the point of no return.”      

On Easter Sunday we declare that ‘Christ has risen!’ We celebrate joyfully that the God who created us knows us, and meets us.It is like that old "Footprints" poem, Jesus was always there in the walk on the sand.  

God meets us where we’re weeping for our deprived and depraved self. Like Mary Magdalene discovered, he meets us in the place where all hope is lost and all seems destroyed. It’s at that point that God is restored from the grave to make all things new. 

The edge of Holy Week: sunsets and sunrises

I am almost finished in my preparation for worship for Holy Week, just a Maundy Thursday supper, a sermon for Good Friday and an Easter Sunday service to write, somewhere in the busyness of this coming week. This week not only will bring church services but also two funerals and two pastoral visits which need to be done this week because people are struggling. We also have a big day personally as we go to see our future home in Hastings again, which is exciting, yet a reminder we are soon on the move which is a bit scary!


I guess I am reminded in all this activity that Holy Week is all about Jesus entering the busyness of the real world. In a week, he feels the acclaim and rejection of people, he goes through every human emotion possible, he suffers and dies, and he gives us hope that negativity is not the end of the matter. Part of what I still feel called to do is to share with people that in the craziness of life, and yes, even in the craziness of the Church, there is always hope. The Christian story has to face hard things, even death, in order to celebrate new life. At two funerals this week, I shall preach the Gospel. My pastoral tutor taught me years ago always to preach the Gospel at a funeral and I have never forgotten his advice.


I enter Holy Week which is always a tremendous privilege to lead people through, remembering the good news that there is nothing we face, where Jesus has not been first. I have a crucifix in my hall in the manse. Some Methodists find this difficult, but I need it there to know that my God suffers with me and transforms that suffering. Easter Sunday is a wonderful celebration. Jesus had to rise from something, and it was from the worst that another person could do to you in his day. To see Jesus on the cross is a constant challenge to me to help those who struggle and a constant source of peace to me that he is somehow there ahead of me especially at times when I struggle with stuff.


I took this picture of the sun while I was on Holy Island. It is setting above the hills. We were just coming out of Evening Prayer at about 6pm from the Parish Church and felt a tremendous sense of peace as we just watched the view in wonder. I guess that Holy Week while hard is a comfort, in that there is nothing in life or death that can separate me from God's love. Tomorrow, it being All Fools Day, I am thinking about Jesus being a holy fool, using some of an essay I read a few days ago. The author writes: " I believe in the hopeful, comic spirit that stays one step ahead of the darkness reaching out to swallow it – or is reborn out of the darkness when it chances to be swallowed. I believe in the unexpected, sometimes preposterous spirit of grace breaking into the times of darkness in our lives.” And he concludes thinking about the hard work, the pain, but the determination to journey the right way, even if it is madness:“The divine dances in our lives and something  new comes into being."


What does this week mean for me? Well, we were sent this reading some time back which one of our friends used going through a hard time. Perhaps this is why this week should be kept by all Christians properly. My picture is of a sunset which brought peace. This is all about a sunrise, and is about Easter morning.  I love the picture I've put below. It is sunrise on Easter morning last year on the Downs above Storrington, another time of real peace.  

"When I cannot see the end of things. When the darkness shines brighter than the sun. When the wound will not be healed. When I can see no answer to my questions. Fill me with knowing you are there, for me.

You are the first to weep over shattered lives. The wounded healer who mends broken hearts. The first to die and rise. The holy victim who shouts through the silence, “It is finished!”

When I am blinded by the power of present things, fix my eyes on you, the battered God of the cross. And break the power of my painful days, with reminders of new and better days, still to come. Your resurrection sunrise, for me. Amen."        

Dying and rising

Some random thoughts about dying and rising reflecting on this week's lectionary:

I’ve been thinking this week about Saint Aidan. Saint Aidan brought Christianity around the year 634 to Lindisfarne, Holy Island, where I was on retreat last week. The English in the north were described as “an ungovernable people, and of an obstinate and barbarous temperament.” No one wanted to go and share with these people and it was Aidan at a conference who offered to go. Just like that he seems to have been consecrated bishop and sent out to preach on the island. We learn that although he didn’t want to be there, he knew a large group of people had a real hunger for God. He was not like a normal bishop who rode a horse, he walked around meeting people where they are, at their own level. He shared a message that God loved and accepted everyone.

It is often I think being led somewhere difficult, we find the resources within us to be the person we are meant to be. To die to the world means being different, being put out, not behaving like others do, being Jesus where we are, even when that puts us out. I was reminded yesterday of two quotes of Mother Theresa, who said, “I know that God will not give me anything I can’t handle, I just wish that he didn’t trust me so much.” (Ever had that inner struggle?) But she also said, “I have found the paradox that if I love until love hurts, then there is no hurt, only more love.”

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground…   

Then maybe we need to think about dying to self, falling in order to rise, dying to the sin that separates us from God, the need for a new heart. Sometimes we simply need to say we need to stop behaving so atrociously and seek a new beginning as people. We get it wrong. We don’t take responsibility for when we get it wrong. Part of our faith is the need to say to God we’ve made a mess, and God reaching out to us and saying we can start again. I think there is a need for some of our ways to fall in life, in order for new fruit to grow. Perhaps we need to show some regret about words we have said, mistakes we have made, wrong decisions, hurt we have caused. Part of what we do when we come to worship is to say sorry, and when we do and really mean it and show we can move on, God comes to us and gives us a new heart and new spirit. Jesus calls us to be selfless and open to being renewed to his agenda  but sometimes we aren’t really that committed to take that seriously. But I believe in the end we shall only grow as a Church if people notice there is a difference in us and we show some regret when self becomes dominant in us. We need a constant commitment to community and to the other. Otherwise, all that will happen is that we will be permanently unhappy. 

Unless a grain of wheat should fall into the ground and die…

And maybe this dying to self, the seed falling and dying in order to bring new life is really healthy. Sometimes when things die, we think it is the end of everything. When a cause finishes, we assume we have failed. I think in today’s church where people have more commitments outside, and less time to be here, we cannot sustain everything we once did.

But actually letting some things go, can lead to new beginnings in different ways. Let me give you an example:

My church at Ashington closed in October 2010. We now have a house group there. We sold the church to a lady who is opening a nursery in a few weeks. On Friday I spent an hour looking at what she has done to the building and to the grounds. It really is lovely, especially a lovely play area outside. She has asked me to be the “local vicar” and go in for specials to share with them when they do God. In many ways, this is a parable I think of dying and rising. We still have a presence and an influence in Ashington. We couldn’t maintain what we had. Without it dying, new life would not have been able to rise. Sometimes we need to let things die, in order to have space to breathe and live healthily.

We need to be people prepared to give, to go to a cross, to die to self in order to enjoy amazing new life. We follow a Jesus who does this, and we are called Christians after him.

I find Jean Vanier's words from The Broken Body a challenge as Holy Week gets nearer... 

This road is not always an easy road to follow. There will be times of discouragement and anger; there will be many setbacks, times of ups and downs, times of doubt. But little by little if you are well accompanied on the journey you will begin to see the light in the darkness, you will drink the water, which springs from arid land.

Reflecting on clearing our Temples

There is nothing like a good clear out at home. We keep far too much “stuff”! It is therapeutic to have a tidy up. There are periods when my study is a mess, piles of paper everywhere. It feels good when I make the effort to do some sorting and then I feel in control. What about spiritual spring cleaning and the priorities of the church today?  

Jesus was angry with a place of prayer and worship being overtaken with commercial activity and financial reward and profit being more important than God – a danger for us today where we need to fund raise, but fund raise for what? But there is more to this cleaning up of the Temple in John’s Gospel than in other Gospels where this story appears. It is right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in John, and it says well actually you don’t need the Temple you need me. To defile worship of me to neglect prayer to me, is to desecrate me. Put me first. We must note John’s Gospel is all about us reflecting on who Jesus is, primarily, it is a commentary on him rather than a series of events. To destroy the Temple for orthodox Jews was blasphemy, no wonder Jesus went to a cross. But they failed to understand that worship of God can never be dependent on physical properties alone, but on Jesus’ love and life in the believer. One commentary I read this week says, “if these are absent when we engage in worship, we talk to ourselves rather than communicate with God.”

We must note also that John wrote his Gospel after the Temple had indeed been destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, that event was huge in the Jewish calendar, and with no Temple the people had to completely rethink their spiritual life. Imagine coming to a place of worship since birth and suddenly it was no more. What would you do? Methodism today has too many buildings, our headquarters are saying, some of them are in the wrong place, and are not doing very much, but if you’ve been to a church which closed, that is hard, and to have your church criticised by someone, or ruined from within sometimes, is really painful. The General Secretary of our church, Martyn Atkins, was at Ministerial Synod in Canterbury with us on Wednesday. He said the aim of our church over the next few years is to say less “I belong to that church” and more “I am a disciple of Christ.” Perhaps buildings will become less important and perhaps we will be church where people are, more. I don’t know. It is a frightening yet also exciting time to be a Christian.

I wonder reflecting on this passage, and most of the passages in Lent are really hard – what do we need to clear out in order to be better Christians? Are there things we need to stop doing? What in our lives needs a good scrub and a good deep clean in order for us to feel better? Jesus simply today asks us to think and maybe reassess what is important.