AGM state of the Union report!

             I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Phil 4: 12-13

             Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord Rom 12:11

            In one sense this last year has been a consolidation of the changes that made it possible for us at Zion United Church to build and now utilize the Beacon. On the other hand although I believe contentment, especially with godliness (1 Tim 6:6), is great gain I would be disappointed if we feel that the right thing for us as church is to sit on our laurels, happy with what we’ve achieved. There is no question that the work of building the beacon has been good. People seem to love the building; certainly I suspect that our finances for rentals will show that people have been using the building. I am delighted to see the many ways that people are creatively using the spaces we have available: Crash, Knit and Knatter, Ladies Fellowship, Girls Allowed, Forgetmenot sing along, to name but a few. However the church in this country has long since had some wonderful buildings, but as we are aware the decline in the life of faith has continued unabated. Building a building, even using a building will not change that.

I remember well the moment that an elder shared the thought that we must become beacons in order to build the beacon. This is the aspect of our life that truly excites me: the dimension of faith and spiritual zeal for the kingdom of God. I know I bang on about it all the time, but I really want to be involved as a Pastor in a church where the many blessings we receive are as water off a duck’s back… ie they are being poured out and lived out in the world. Jesus himself was a radical and beautiful announcement of good news. I want to be part of that. My role is to help cajole and coax you into co-operating with God’s Holy Spirit so that you too are a living announcement that God is good and God’s love is present and alive.

            The trouble is I can’t do it. Much as I love you and pray for you, and indeed pray for my own witness, we are as the Psalmist said ‘a stubborn and rebellious generation’ (Ps 78) and we think we can work out how to live our lives on our own: we can’t. I can’t make you slow down and give time to God in prayer and quietness; I can’t make you open your eyes to see what God is doing around you, in your family and workplace. I can’t make you become aware that God’s kingdom is all around us, if only we’d learn to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile in generosity. I barely seem able to persuade myself of these things. Herding people must feel to God an awful lot like herding cats: we are independent to the bone…. Oh miaow…please will you give me my water and my food exactly when I want it!  In order for us to grow and become as beacons, lights shining in the world, a daily decision is needed: the decision of covenant and commitment. We must confess our need for God; indeed if we are to develop as disciples I honestly believe we need one another. This is the reason that I am so passionate about the work that goes on in our fellowship groups, and also why the dissertation for the Master’s Degree that I am undertaking will seek to assess whether the Inspire Bands among us (small groups of three or four who meet to encourage and challenge our walk with God) are really helping us to grow in this ‘accountable’ and beautiful discipleship. We could not have built the Beacon alone, we needed to work as a body as a church. I am also of the belief that we need one another to nurture and inspire us as disciples. This next year one of our core themes will be Shelter, with the catch phrase: ‘It is in the shelter of each other that people live.’ -Irish Proverb. Still that is for next year. For this year, thank you again for the privilege of sharing with you the sometimes bumpy journey of faith.  

Stephen

Kintsugi

Jesus Says, ‘I AM, EASTER’

May I first begin by wishing you a blessed EASTER!

I wonder have you heard of the Japanese art of kintsugi? It means ‘golden joinery.’ At a recent Rock Solid (youth group) I heard a lovely description of the way that this art almost parallels the story of Easter.  The story goes that in the 15^th Century a Japanese shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa, sent a broken tea bowl back to China to have it mended! He was unhappy with the result! To make it better an art-form developed involving adding real gold into the resin, the cracks are now not hidden; they are emphasized but made to look beautiful.  The broken pottery has been ‘born again.’

                To me this is a parable of Easter. The pot that is broken is of course humanity or our world. All sorts of efforts are made, but in truth the brokenness remains. So God decides to pour his pure gold into the wreckage of our broken world.  Of course there remain many ‘pots’ or lives or situations that remain fractured and broken. However there is now available the hope of transformation.  The pure gold which we all so desperately need is the love and forgiveness of the son of God. Everything can be made beautiful with a touch of this love. Nothing need be discarded, all things can be transformed. 

The key to understanding this story is to really appreciate just how valuable and precious the gold is.  The pure gold is poured out upon broken crockery: the Japanese shogun must have really loved his tea bowl…. And the God of Easter must truly love us.

                A final twist on the parable: if we have been restored, (ie if we have his gold in our brokenness) we are also equipped to be part of the restoration of others. Pots that have been repaired are dynamic, the gold is alive in us, indeed can become infectious from us to help others receive the healing and grace which we all need!

                So again: Happy Easter to you and those you love. May the pure gold of Jesus restore your life, so that others can see his beauty and even receive an offering of his love from you.

Stephen

Thanks for all the teachers!

A Blog from my Thought for the day on Radio Bristol 

I've realised that I am getting old, today is my last ever parents evening.  My children have had some wonderful teachers over the years; indeed I hope I am one of them, although I suspect I have taught as many bad habits as good ones!

People that teach us come in all shapes and sizes. I remember a Physics teacher who, single handed, changed my life: he didn't see me as my chemistry teacher did: ‘lazy, immature and not as clever as he thinks he is!’ My Physics teacher lit a spark in me; he saw potential neither I nor others had seen. Then there was a welcomer at my old church: Dennis. He knew everyone’s name and made every one of us feel special. Sometimes people teach us by the way they cope with things, their reactions. I remember Tony and Beth whose son, a friend of mine was murdered by two of his ‘friends’. They helped me to mourn and also showed incredible mercy towards their son’s killers and families. At the time I was losing my faith, their response showed me something incredibly deep.

Of course, as I get old, I’m supposed to be a teacher myself… trouble is I still have so much to learn. That’s why I still try to spend time with my teacher every day. Like my physics teacher his patience still lights a spark in me.

                So there’s my thought, as we approach an election where there’ll be arguments about free schools and tuition fee’s and all sorts … stop, and think of all the people who have taught you,  and find a way to say thank you, even if that means showing kindness to someone else.  

Excuses Excuses

EXCUSES EXCUSES!

Sorry my blog today  is a bit of a rant … so best start with a story!

            There’s a story told about two young brothers who’d become really hard work.  This was way back before ASBO’s and their poor Mother was struggling. When they were accused of stealing from a neighbour, she decided to act… she took them along to the church with its lovely stained glass to see the rather stern local priest. He started telling them all about Jesus. Then he asked them if they could see if they could find Jesus for themselves. One of the boys simply tore out of the church back to his Mum. Ma Ma, it wasn’t me I didn’t do it, I didn’t steal Jesus!

            I tell that story because it seems to me we also haven’t grown up, we haven’t learnt to be honest and take some blame, to take responsibility. How many more bankers are going to have to tell us it wasn’t their fault, how many more politicians claim, I’ve done nothing wrong.  And to be honest it’s no good just blaming others: I’m 50 years old, if I haven’t started influencing society for good by now, then that’s my fault. So I say it’s time we grow up, accept our faults and if you have none, then how about challenging the rest of us. We don’t live in a world where walking by on the other side, or simply observing on TV, makes us innocent. No, if racists push a black man of a train, the very least we can do is get off the train and stand with him. Better still, get of the train and offer him your place. If my colleague fiddles his expenses, or boasts about his tax dodge or works on the black market then my responsibility is to challenge him and ultimately to shop him. It’s time we started challenging ourselves and standing up for what we believe to be right. 

TRANSFORMATION or DESTRUCTION….

I can still remember the first time that I heard the second law of thermodynamics explained to me. I was sitting at the very top of a quite large lecture theatre, and I was only barely listening. Sadly this means that I have never quite accepted or indeed understood the law. (Alan, this is not an invitation for a lesson!) I took it at the time to mean that the universe was, according to physical laws, in a relentless unstoppable decline. I seem to remember that at the time I wrote a poem called Entropy to Disaster. The readers will be glad to know that said poem was written before the advent of personal computers and the like, and thus happily it is lost in the mists of time! It seemed to me to be a direct challenge to faith, with which I was struggling at the time. Nothing could get better, everything was doomed to decline.

I am still only barely conversant with this particular law, but my earlier fears were in part unfounded. I may have understood it better had I realised that nothing can re-generate itself without work and energy being offered to it. So I move onto the theme of this article, transformation. Recently a friend of mine Nick was introducing Moses and the new covenant. He used a beautiful passage from 2 Corinthians 3: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” This passage reflects on the way that Moses, when he encountered God, practically shone. But of course according to the laws mentioned above, when he was removed from the energy which is the very presence of God, such glory waned, even though it was so brilliant that a veil had to be placed over Moses’ face to cover the brilliance. Moses was transformed, and brought transformation, because the energy hidden in the burning bush was given to him, to give to others.
In essence my particular energy slant on this interaction can also illustrate something of the difference between the Old Covenant and the New. The glory of God in the Old was recorded as being tangible, but passing. People encountered God, but it did not linger. With the New Covenant something intrinsic changed. It is not that God had changed, rather our relationship or should I say our proximity has changed. According to the laws of thermodynamics, one energy or heat source can only influence another object while they remain in proximity. To illustrate this, my wonderful wood burner can only heat my lounge whilst it is a. burning and b. in my lounge! Although the Bible records that Moses encountered God on many occasions he did not have the same privilege that a Christian can have. Our transformation “into his likeness with ever increasing likeness” can continue because the energy, the love which is able to bring about our transformation, does not leave us, as it did even Moses. Because with the new covenant God’s spirit is, ‘poured out upon us’ and he ‘lives’ within us, we have the very energy source, the presence of God within us who can help us to effect this on-going, day by day transformation. (the wood burner is very much alight, and in the ‘lounge’ of our hearts!) Of course transformation is only possible when we choose to co-operate with the love of God, but the reality is we can choose at any time to respond. This is because through the work that Jesus did God’s spirit no longer simply ‘hovers’ or ‘broods’ (Gen 1) over us. As Jesus explained to Nicodemus, he can be born within us. He dwells with us and we dwell with him. Now that’s what I call central heating!
I personally think Moses was pretty blessed. But our blessing is more permanent and lasting, and it is of course in order that we may be an on-going blessing of love to others. It is because of God’s great love that all is not destined for destruction. He is even now at work within our hearts, that we might ‘reflect’ his glory. (Go on, put some more wood on the burner in your heart… that you may shine with the love and radiance of God, who lives within you.)

Stephen

Looking forward to Christ

I guess it is inevitable that we all look forward to different things at this time of year. Even though the nights are dark and wet, December seems to bring an air of expectation. The adverts, our diaries and planners all focused around the idea that something good is happening. Of course expectations and reality can be very different things. High expectation can lead to great disappointment, and so a new year often begins with a sense of drudgery or disappointment. Even Christmas itself, now so commercialized, leaves many hungry for something; even though most bellies are amply filled. Please don’t misunderstand me; I have no desire (just yet) to don my LED illuminated, Bah Humbug hat! (available on a wet November evening in Yate!) I love Christmas, I love the celebration, the food, the festival, the family and all the trappings that goes with it. I just wonder if perhaps we sometimes miss the simple beauty of Christmas when we let expectations get out of hand.
One of the great things about Christmas is that it does give a rhythm to the year as a whole. I don’t know whose idea it was to put Christmas at the darkest, wettest time of year, but I love them! [For any biblical scholars out there, we really do have no evidence that Jesus was born on Dec 25th just that it has become his ‘official’ birthday.] To have a celebration at the bleakest time of year is pure genius, and it fits so well… into the darkness comes the light. Every year needs a rhythm a routine that helps us to understand and make sense of things. Without that, there is simply chaos and disorder, each day another day, come from nowhere and leading nowhere. However add in the rhythms of Sabbath weekends and festivals and each day or month may begin to find its place.
For me I look forward to meeting Christ at Christmas. That annual reminder that something utterly beyond us touched the world in such a down to earth way is simply stunning. A mucky stable and a tired mother in a dubious marital situation struggling through a busy neighbourhood simply explode any false ideas we may have of a separation between sacred and secular. It is so ordinary and messy, and so profound: the light has touched the darkness. Every tacky Christmas light or decoration can be redeemed because they point to something so fundamental. Meeting Christ means that nothing is ordinary anymore. Every tiny act of kindness becomes an epiphany, God is in there somewhere. Although I don’t always meet Christ where I expect to at Christmas, I am rarely disappointed. The season itself seems to generate the possibility of kindness, and it comes in so many forms.
I hope you also look forward to meeting someone special this Christmas. One of the richest ideas in Christianity is that whenever we greet or welcome a stranger, or indeed a friend we may somehow be greeting or meeting Christ. Christmas suggests that God touches this world in the most ordinary of people, perhaps he may touch the world through you this Christmas
Finally I know that all your churches in Frampton and Coalpit Heath would make you very welcome if you wished to join us to celebrate Christmas, whether you want the calm of a midnight communion or the explosion of joy and laughter on Christmas day, you would be very welcome.
Stephen

Scotland votes for dependence!

A Scottish nationalist may not like my headline. But surely whatever they had voted they would remain dependant on others. Independence is a myth perpetrated by advertisers and commentators. From the cradle to the grave we are all dependant. Unless one literally becomes a hermit fisherman living on an island, relationships and dependency are guaranteed. [Indeed even the hermit is dependent on others for air quality, and fish stocks surviving!] Others feed us, pay us, serve us and heal us. We also serve and engage with others all the time. Scotland and the whole of the UK rely on others for food and trade and income. This inter-dependence is fundamental to life, it is part of the way things are, and yet we spend so much time and energy perpetrating the myth of personal identity as if we are self-sufficient.
You may ask what this has got to do with a reflection. Simple, before you imagine that you can sort yourself out, be aware that you must also give attention to your relationships. Relationships are critical to quality of life, either for good or ill. From the depth of a marriage partnership to a corner shop acquaintance all can be important. We are relational beings, not independent machines. Our health and well-being depend on others. If we are surrounded by violence and rage we will struggle to be well. If kindness and generosity knock on our door every so often we will, by and large, flourish. Thus far, I've said nothing controversial I hope, but now I ask the question where if anywhere God fits in. In the past people tended to decide whether or not they believed in God rather than considered whether they had a relationship with God. Faith was understood as mostly cerebral. To badly paraphrase Descartes's 'I think therefore I am,' we created: I believe therefore I'm in! God was a matter of creedal belief, rational ascent and joining a religion of like-minded individuals. Of course I am not decrying the mind, but whatever philosophers might imagine, it is limited. For instance relationships cannot be summed up by what we believe, or know, or even don't know about others, it is much more. In the same way my argument is, that if God exists, then we all have a relationship with him. The air we breathe the sights that thrill us, the relationships which define us, are all somehow connected. This sense of being connected is what I call spirituality. Everyone has it, and most acknowledge it. It's mysterious and it gives meaning, It's not the same as religion, but it maybe the spark which religion came from. Sadly the Christian religion got privatized or individualized somewhere back a while, but it was a myth¦ we can't be Christians on our own, we need others and we need community.
I vote to be dependent on you!