Quote for the Day

It is not so much that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world - Chris Wright, Truth with a Mission

Why go to church?

A recent Sunday I was on holiday in the north-west and went to the local Anglican church. It happened to be a first rate All Age service with a baptism, communion and some excellent theology.
The greetings reminded us that as we are drawn into God's love we are drawn into all that it good in this world. The whole service then became for me an invitation to live my life for what is good, not least in the service of others. The congregation were warm and welcoming.
I couldn't but help compare this with the car boot sale we passed on our way to church. People gathered round boots of cars waiting for buyers. What is his compared to the community experience of worship with others, whilst enjoined to serve others?
I can remember services of yesteryear when it felt cold and impersonal in church. But this was totally different.
I remember those who have said, I don't need to go to church. I worship God in my garden.
Well, the beautiful countryside of the Peak District has much that reminds of God the creator. But that week in church I knew why God had become man; true worship means touching and being touched by others. That can only happen in community focused on God.

Good Friday Walking

Today, many hundreds will be walking through Harlow Town Centre, following a large wooden cross. This year the cross will be carried by some of the leaders of churches in Harlow, symbolic of our unity in Christ

Why do we walk in witness - as so many will do so today across the world?

For one, it is anticipation of the day when the work of the cross and the resurrection will be completed - when Christ returns and all heaven and earth shall be renewed. We live in anticipation of that day, and as we do so, it brings the day nearer. Nelson Mandela lived towards the future, which enabled the future he hoped for to come.

It also brings us together in unity. I love the recent post by Bishop Nick Baines:
And here we come, I think, to the heart of Christian discipleship, once we have stripped away some of the million things we find with which to complicate it all. The nature of Christian witness is not to be found in our unanimity, but in our unity. That is to say, we are together whether we like it or not, whether we like each other or not, whether we agree with each other or not, and whether we find it comfortable or not. We simply cannot walk away from each other any more than we can walk away from Jesus.


Unity, not unanimity. The world, and we, often bemoan the church's lack of agreement. And, yes, we need to strive towards this. But it cannot be totally achieved this side of a new heaven and a new earth. Our is the unity of a family. Families are always pulling this way and that. It is an important part of family. There are often disagreements, but there can be totally unity.


Finally, we walk that the world may see Christ. A large community needs large symbols. This is self-evident in architecture. I think it is also true of witness. There is real gain in real visibility. Not a visibility for the sake of power, but so that, in the large context, Christ may really be lifted up - and so draw all to himself. Amen.

Nick Baines writes on his latest blog: "Poetry learned and absorbed now gives us a language later when we do experience the things represented in memorable and imaginative language."

This morning I had been struck by Micheal O'Siadhail's 'Hostel'

Stations of ease for the broken or frail.

A tear in an ocean. And yet that welcome

At face value, a roof and warmth, a meal.

Vague signs of angeldom.

So little, So short of grand revolution

We'll always want to dream of.

If only dreams could scoop or fill an ocean...

Thimbled gestures of a love...

These words gave me a way of praying and thinking about the day ahead. Nick Baines is right.  I realise that the meetings, planned and chance encounters of this day, all the efforts do sometimes seem like tears trying to fill an ocean. 

But Holy Week speaks of the significance of the tears. The literal tears that were wept. Then the metaphorical 'tears' trying to fill an ocean: words of bravado by Peter, a towel offered by Jesus, speaking about swords, coins, gambling... All small ways in which people rightly or wrongly tried to mould, find or make significance in the big events swarming around them.

Yet each one, each small tear, finds its place in the story that we tell, in the story that God tells us, in the Good News. Nothing is insignificant. Each act in its own way find redemption as it is caught up in God's plan, whether the players wanted it or not.

This day may all my acts, though they seem like tears compared to the ocean that is needed, be done in loving trust and confidence in the one who is the Master Story Teller and does not overlook anything.  It is very easy to be discouraged from shedding tears - literal or metaphorical - through a sense of inutility. ("What use my words or small act for this homeless man when the need is so great?"). For the story of Holy Week and Easter is the story of the Ordinary becoming Extraordinary - all in God's grace to us in Christ.