Using things around us to speak of God...

It has been a long couple of days but good ones. I've been doing some reflecting on using culture and stuff around us to help people understand God a bit more.  

This morning I was privileged to do two school assemblies. I have rediscovered in this appointment how much fun they can be. At Guestling School this morning I was asked to explore humility. We talked about whether we feel important, some children did, others did not, "because I am not the Queen" said one. We then thought about famous people and whether they are important. I suggested they name a famous person and we might discuss them. Jessie J was who the children wanted to talk about. They suggested she is a good role model, a good singer, nice, she "turns her chair round and praises people" and is smiley. I did cause a bit of a riot when I said she "had her head shaved off for Comic Relief"! We then thought about famous people feeling TOO important. I talked with the children about Luis Suarez and Sunday's appalling biting of another player. We explored how humility is thinking less about yourself and more about the other. I was told afterwards by a teacher they now "got humility" whereas before it had been "too difficult" to understand when vicars have been in and used long words. "Not many ministers would be able to discuss Jessie J with seven year olds" she laughed! A bit later at Rye Primary School, I was asked to speak with the children about anger. I used the Suarez episode again. We explored how violent anger is wrong and we explored what would happen to me if church members who annoyed me were suddenly bitten by me. Liverpool supporters in the hall did not think what he did was right. Both assemblies were powerful theological times. I am sorry older people inside churches still insist children in schools are not exploring God. There is more deep theology and discussion about life done in school halls than in church really. What does this say about churches?

Tonight, I've facilitated a meeting to try and get some house groups up and running across the Methodist churches of Hastings and St Leonards. We are hoping to start some groups in September. I told the meeting another story from last night to highlight the need to know how to engage with real life to stand a chance of sharing God properly with anyone. 

I met a couple wanting to get married a year in October in our little St Helens Church. 

They said "we didn't know you could get married in that church, we thought you could only get married in a proper church."

I asked what they thought a proper church might be! The answer was one with gravestones in it. 

We then went on to have another deep theological discussion about death. The lady could not go in a church with a graveyard because it was spooky and reminded her of her mother's funeral, the last time she went in a church. We spent a good half hour thinking about death and hope and life. It was very good to reflect with that couple about something that had clearly been bothering them for ages. I shared with the group tonight we have to be prepared to meet people where they are, and begin from where they are, if we are to be relevant for them. A negative feeling about gravestones, Jessie J, angry sore losers on the football pitch can all be used to start conversation about spiritual things. I reflect that this is exactly what Jesus did, he took the things around him and told stories about them, he knew about his own popular culture, he knew what people were talking about and he started engagement by meeting people where they were. So often the Church gets it wrong by wanting people to start where the Church wants them to be - that is not how to go about it today. 

I wonder what ordinary things or people around me might be used to start conversation tomorrow?   

                

I am the vicar, I am

This has been doing the rounds out there, worth sharing. 

I  am the vicar, I am.

I am the pastor, the carer, the listener

the one with the time to drop everything and

I also understand global politics and immigration and

I am the one who knows about Afghanistan

and cares about ‘our boys’

and I care about speed-humps

graffiti

litter

and the positioning of zebra crossings near schools.

I am passionate about school assemblies

council meetings

mums and toddlers and also

I am good at one-to-one and small groups and

I listen and empathise and at the same time

I am the one who plans and strategizes and

I am the one who understands budgets and decides if we can buy any staples

or replace the heating system.

I am the vicar, I am.

I am the quiet reflective prayer and

I am the speaker, the enthuser, the motivator, the learned teacher and

I can engage a room of 10, 50, 300 people with no problem because

I am the one who relates particularly well to children

older people

the middle-aged

the jobless

the employed

the doctors

teenagers and

I am the one who is always one step ahead and

I am the one who is endearingly disorganised.

I am the vicar, I am.

I care passionately about church politics

I care passionately about domestic abuse

I care passionately about the plight of Anglo Catholics

women priests

gay clergy

evangelicals and

I listen to the pope

the archbishop and

Rob Bell.

I am up-to-date with theological developments.

I understand the history of the reformation

the armed forces

the war

the government

the deanery

the Jewish background of Jesus and

I care about the excluded and

I manage my admin and

I know how to access children’s services.

I am the vicar, I am.

I am the one in whom trust is placed

I am the one in whom grumbles are placed

I am the one who is always talking to everyone else

I am the one who models worship

marriage

family

gardening

conversation

baking

prayer

listening

talking

planning.

I often get it wrong.

I am the one who has to keep my doubts under wraps and

I am also the one who is vulnerable and

dependable

stable

trustworthy.

I am the one who chairs meetings

I am the one who manages group discussions

I am the manager of an organisation that employs only me

I am the volunteer co-ordinator

the opinion co-ordinator

the trespasser on the territory of people who have been around a lot longer than me

and will be there after me.

I understand the heating system

the financial system

the rota system.

I love committees.

I drink tea with older people

And coffee with younger people

I listen to stories of bus routes and hospital visits and

I believe in transforming our community through the power of Jesus.

I am the one who is very tired.

I am the one who hates wearing dresses but still smiles

and would love to be muddy all the time.

I am the one who only works one day a week.

I am the one who loves this job.

I am the one who is making it up as I go along.

I am the one who would not swap this for anything.

I am the vicar, I am.

(From the Blog of Kevin. )

I just don't get it...

I am using this in the morning reflecting on questions, wrong answers and Thomas not getting it about Jesus being alive. I've had a day of it really being made to feel stupid by people being officious making me feel I don't matter. My questions, my enquiries were met with incredulity and I didn't like their attitude!

RANT OVER!

I love Father Ted, the wonderful comedy about three priests on Craggy Island. I love especially Father Dougal, who is a little slow… A conversation with a Bishop goes like this:

“ So Father, do you ever have any doubts about the religious life? Is your faith ever tested?”

“Tested?”

“Yes, anything you’ve been worried about, any doubts you’ve been having about any aspects of faith, anything like that?”

“Well, yes, you know the way God made us all, right? And he’s looking at us from heaven and everything? And then his Son came down from heaven and saved everyone and all that?”

“Yes.”

“And when we die we’re all going to go to heaven?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“That’s the bit I’ve trouble believing in!!”   

You don’t have to have it all sorted. But you have to know the basics. No wonder in another episode Father Ted turns to Father Dougal and says “How did you get into the church? Collect twelve crisp packets and become a priest?”

  

What are those things we have to know? You have to know Jesus in your heart, Thomas knew him there, that’s why it hurt.

But Jesus sticks with him and encourages the questions. To be a Christian you have to know God loves you and Jesus died for you, and Jesus lives with you, resting on that certainty, questions have a place, our faith is a journey. We will never “know it all”! 

Thomas was honest enough to air his problems and he was led to a greater awareness and commitment.  Early Methodism, remember, flourished largely because of the class meeting, the small groups, where people got support and studied the Scriptures and cared for each other, and pondered what God was doing in their lives.

I believe in such groups, and I have tried to get my churches wherever I’ve served, to rediscover them, groups that people can go to to explore the Bible and discover the excitement of discerning what God has to say today, to have discussion and debate on what the words mean and how we should live. By sharing in this way, we grow together. Thomas teaches us not to be frightened of probing into the great questions of our faith.

The resurrection power of God is beyond our understanding, his power is incomprehensible. How can we ever completely understand it? 

In a book called The Easter God, by the late Bishop John V Taylor, he has this powerful picture of Thomas looking at Jesus’ wounds and an image of him at peace having seen.

  

Bishop Taylor comments that the wounds still being there is the supreme victory we celebrate at Easter – the victory of God’s persistence in love, that even in raw pain, in the things of life we think are not reconcilable with his way, there is victory, an eternal commitment never to switch off love – Thomas wanted to be sure of it – and I don’t blame him for that.

So, I wish our Church had more Thomas’s in its company, people who live in the real world, and who aren’t afraid to grapple with finding faith in the middle of real life, rather than shying away from issues and acting like the world outside can be forgotten. We live in a challenging environment! But this is the Easter truth, even when we have doubts, Jesus invites us to confess him as Thomas did, and he will lead us forward in faith if we will trust him. Come, see and believe he says, and you will find peace, joy and strength. In your doubts, you can trust me, when all else is shaken… even when silly people at the other end of the phone make you despair, or you don't get it!!  

In so much as you do it to the least of these...

Holy Week and Easter was a draining, busy, emotional time for me this year. Circumstances meant I clocked up twelve services in the week, including five on Easter Sunday. But the marathon was as well as tiring, very uplifting.

I missed my Lenten pilgrimage to Holy Island very much this year. I couldn't go for a variety of reasons. I find it a "thin" place and I manage there to sort my life out a bit, it is just God, his wondrous creation, fellow companions on the journey resting there, and me. Oh well, next year. I've been thinking about those pilgrims walking there over Easter, carrying the cross across the sands at low tide. What difference does belief, a crucified God, a God of hope make in a messy, broken world? Why follow at all?

Easter this year for me has been and continues to be about an incarnational God meeting people right where they are. The Church can only be credible if she understands and cares every day about people right where they are.

Several points on my Holy Week journey brought this home as I meditated with others about the nature of God in Christ we follow and learn about in this season:

• The little girl after an assembly about sadness wanting to talk to me about Grandad being poorly with a heart attack. The vicar for her might understand how she was sad.
• The spirituality group in Rye we've started doing a deep theological study on Psalm 22 feeling freed with the thought that it is okay to question God and shout at God, as God was there himself on the cross. 
• The power of foot washing, enactment of the Last Supper and stripping of the altar on Maundy Thursday and doing this treated as an equal partner in an Anglican church, on the night Christ prayed we might all be one. It felt like we were. 
• Being cold and suffering walking behind a cross on Good Friday, in the middle of a busy High Street. 
• The joy of little children searching for chocolate eggs on Easter morning, and a church sharing communion round a breakfast table were very powerful occasions. 

A God who throughout gives me just a little bit of hope in some of my own personal darkness at the moment. The message of Easter is that the darkness can be transformed from within, not some magic trick or nice words underplaying the pain of the darkness or pretending it isn't there "you'll soon get over it" but walking with us in that horrible place.

It is very easy for us to live Easter one week a year, but I think we have to live it every day, if we really believe the message of God is possible transformation of the awful. This week I have listened to stories about the "bedroom tax" locally, where housing associations are knocking walls down to turn two bedroom flats into one bedroom ones to help people; I have listened to stories about people crying out in desperation financially needing help with being able to exist, let alone live; I have listened to stories of people once in a good job, or a stable relationship, suddenly finding themselves in a very different place, unable to cope, needing not just a companion on the journey but a companion who will stay with them on the journey and make a difference. I watched people this afternoon queuing in the council offices here in Hastings, a queue of frustration and despair. I overheard a man in the bank drawing out some money who said that money will keep a roof over his head for a month "and that has to be something, doesn't it?"

My stories from Holy Week remind me of the need to listen to people, the need to remember God suffers with us, to do some dirty theology, some foot washing, some self-sacrifice, to be out where people are, and to be open that God might surprise us through the pain.

Perhaps these words sum up these random thoughts:
I want to quote from John Bell "Jesus Wants To Save Christians" - he talks about Holy Week and Jesus descending into the world and this descending, being with, being the task of any genuine Christian community:
"He comes into Jerusalem on a donkey, not a horse, with children, not soldiers, weeping, humble. And he dies, naked, bleeding, thirsty, alone. Maybe that's what he means when he says "do this in remembrance of me" - the "do this" part is our lives. Opening ourselves up to the mystery of resurrection, open for the liberation of others, allowing our bodies to be broken and our blood to be poured, discovering our Eucharist. Listening. And going. Because when we do this in remembrance of him, the world will never be the same, we will never be the same."

I always think I cannot do very much, the problems are too big. But I guess I keep going thinking that if my life can help one person somewhere, God is at work through me. My prayer is that someone also might be that person for me when I need it!
   



  

Believing in the sun even when it is not shining

I think one of the most powerful things someone said to me preparing for Christmas was when listening to a choir singing "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" and that line that goes "from now on your troubles will be out of sight." She turned to me and said "We do sing a lot of rubbish at this time of year."

Today here in Hastings is a foggy, damp, miserable day. Facebook is full of people expressing "got to go back to work" negativity. The news is full of fiscal cliffs and Prime Ministers telling me we are going the right way and yes, there will be cuts and it will hurt but we are in this together and it is the fault of the last administration etc etc, and as every January, rail fares have risen so it is a bit gloomy out there. "From now on your troubles will be out of sight"? I don't think so.

But I am mad enough to believe in hope still, I think. There is still enough goodness, people who share their light, a belief that the misery won't last in me to keep going. January's reality feels hard today. I feel crap today. I've just been sharing with someone not in a good place. They cannot believe at the moment. I felt my role there with them was just to listen, not to judge and certainly not to give them Christian platitudes that what they are going through is God's plan. I don't believe that rubbish anyway.

I was deeply moved by the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury's words in a documentary shown last night. A deeply honest man, not always understood by the Church, bore his soul as he shared some of what the last ten years in office have done to him. He saw his role as a priest to work out a response to what is going on around us, that doesn't always make you popular, he suggested, and sometimes, like Thomas A Becket of old, it got you killed in the past. But he said something I have been thinking about all day, and it is this:
"What is it that makes it possible to make a stand for the Kingdom of God?"  Why do I do this job when sometimes it is so hard? Why keep going when the Church is its own worst enemy? Where do the resources come from to be authentic as a Christian in a world of doubt, fog, an inability to believe and full of bad news people can't cope with?

I have no easy answers, but like one day the sun will shine here in Hastings again (picture is of sun over Eastbourne viewed through Hastings pier) I believe in the goodness of God being there in the midst of things I don't understand. That's the whole point of the incarnation. God doesn't come to nicey nice perfection and sugar coated fluffiness, he comes into the middle of life, that's the point of the story people wrote down to get God's way across.

I am glad if "from now on your troubles will be out of sight" - I am really pleased for you.
My reality is nothing really has changed the second day of the New Year and most people are still struggling on working out how to cope with life. All I could do with the person I was with this afternoon was be there and say it is okay to feel like you feel, and to listen and care, no more than that. Sometimes we say too much and that being there will help far more than empty words.

Perhaps today in the cold and damp i accept there are times I can't do anything and if I feel miserable it is okay spiritually to feel miserable. And then I offer that God who holds us in the cold and damp and dark and anger and frustration and times people want to really kick off, to those I meet. Like those words on a wall of a concentration camp in the Second World War, I believe in the sun even when it is not shining, I believe in God even though I feel him not.

 


   

Go placidly...

I haven't blogged for several months, no reason really, I guess it is something I always meant to get round to but never really managed it. It is a fowl wet windy day here today so I have some space to write. 

I don't like New Year's Eve. I think it is an over hyped day when people think that past midnight their problems will be over and life will be better as the 1st of January dawns. I've never got why people want to stand outside in the cold, get drunk, and "see it in" - perhaps I am old and boring. But on a more positive note, perhaps it is a day to reflect on the year that has passed, and think about the things I can control in the year ahead. 

I am hopeless at resolutions, but this year perhaps I need to take more time to be. Someone said to me on Christmas morning "you have worked so hard" and I give the impression I rush about, even though I know I do less in a day than I used to and I am better at looking after myself than I used to be. A long period of illness at the end of 2011 taught me many lessons. 

I have this wonderful Max Ehrmann quote hanging in my study. It is a painting by my Dad presented to my great Auntie Ede on completion of 60 years as a Sunday School teacher in the little chapel I grew up in. It is also known as Desiderata, Latin for, I think, "things desired as essential." 

I am not good at noise (apart from turning up the music loud when I want to sing along to pop music. Pick of the Pops on a Saturday afternoon is a gift and protected time for me, even if I catch it later on the i-player) but I am not good at noise - parties, large crowds, commotion and chaos. 

I am not good at haste either, I like to procrastinate. I will always put off to tomorrow what I needn't do today, especially things I don't want to do at all. 

But perhaps not being good at either of these things isn't a disaster. I think if I had any advice for my churches I care for it would be to slow down. "Success" isn't measured by how much stuff we do, how busy we are to the point of burnout and disillusionment, it is measured by the quality of our activity, the depth of our life together, how much joy and fulfilment there is in being and doing what we do well. Perhaps doing less noise and less haste, I need to set smaller goals, have less on my to do list every day, then I will actually achieve more because I will feel better about myself. I want my four lovely churches as we begin a process of review in a few years to do less things well, rather than a lot of things half heartedly. None of us should feel permanently tired trying to do the impossible. The Jesus I read about calls us into life, not into a perpetual state of knackered-ness! (My spell checker underlines that word in red but I want to keep it there because it is a good word.)

What am I intending to about finding peace this year?

I think I am going to have a shorter list each day of things I need to do.

I will stick to having time at the beginning of my day to do devotions. I am a member of the Methodist Sacramental Fellowship and their daily office is superb - and I am hopeless at doing it. 

I will take longer over breakfast - that means getting out of bed earlier!!

I will spend longer with my wife and with my friends. They are all a gift to me and I forget that so easily. I have times booked to see friends in my diary already through the year and that feels good. 

I am seeing a spiritual director this year - I've finally got round to finding one!

I will explore a local retreat centre, and I will go on retreat in Lent. A blog I posted earlier from Stephen Cherry whose writing I really enjoy, suggests having those sort of things in your diary and also holidays and to be able to look forward to them is vital. 

I will write more liturgies and bible studies as both refresh me. 

When I have meetings in London, I will take time after the meeting to enjoy being in London. I love walking through the streets and being there. Central London above ground is much more interesting than under ground. I don't need to rush home. 

I will attend things this year that have nothing to do with the Methodist Church. I will do this! (I never want to become one of those people who can only talk about the Methodist Church.)

I will continue to make all four of my churches feel valued by not giving them the impression I have no time for them and need to rush off from them to something else. My diary needs space in it. I am getting better at this. 

I will laugh more and fret less. And I will try and cope with life's complexity calmly rather than witter on negatively winding myself and those around me, up. 

I will take advice given to me the other month when faced with a problem - count to ten before responding, and don't write an e-mail straight back when you receive one. Things written in haste can cause great damage.  

And what about silence? I enjoy silence. I love quiet days. I am quite happy in my own space. Perhaps churches need to shut up more and listen to God. I think I am a good listener. Not every space needs to be filled with words. Perhaps all of us just need to breathe.

My favourite bible verse is this one from the little read prophet Zephaniah:

"The Lord will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you with his love" (3: 17)

If we don't take in this year, how will we be fulfilled as people? 

Of course, all of my ideas above may well be broken by January 3rd, but it is good to start positive. I hope people who need to go out and party tonight have a good time. I might be sad and listen to Tony Blackburn for three hours on Radio 2, or I might go to bed. But however we mark or don't mark the turn of the year, all of us hope that we will be better people in the one to come. I think a good way to start is looking after ourselves!

     

  

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?