Category: Religion

A Ministry Scrapbook

Regular blogging is quite difficult at present, as we get ready for our move next month. Last night I had my big circuit farewell service. Some had questioned my choice of venue, one of the ecumenical churches I have served. Why not the main church I had served, a small ordinary Methodist church? I didn’t mean to sound arrogant, but I thought that after eight years here and building up all sorts of networks there might be a lot of people who wanted to say goodbye. I thought we needed a larger venue.

I was right: I arrived twenty minutes before the service was due to start and I couldn’t get in the large car park. The whole service went brilliantly well. My sermon, which could have caused a few ruffled feathers, had an amazing response. I would estimate that about a quarter of the congregation came forward at the end to be anointed with oil.

There was a bunfight afterwards, except I never made it to the church hall even to get a cup of tea, due to the number of people wanting to speak to me. By the time I arrived home, around 9:15 pm, I was emotionally shattered. I felt the same when I woke up this morning: legs like jelly, plus a headache. (And no, it was the usual non-alcoholic Methodist communion wine.)

Some of these emotions made a bit more sense when I read the following wonderful words this morning from Nancy Beach’s beautiful book An Hour On Sunday:

‘Take a moment to mentally scroll through names and faces of people in your church. Think of someone who came to faith through your community. Now call to mind a few more people – someone who discovered spiritual gifts, someone else who found healing for family relationships, another who learned how to manage money, care for her body, or worship his Creator in new ways. Can you think of specific names? Those people, those eternal souls, are the fruit of your labor. And people are what matter most to God …

‘Every ministry is a scrapbook of faces, with new pages added every year. As we turn the pages of the scrapbook and look at each person’s eyes, we’re reminded of his or her story, of the impact of our church on that individual’s one and only life. Life change. There’s nothing more rewarding.’ (pp 254, 255)

So after eight years when I had really wondered whether what I had done here had been worth anything, when I had become painfully aware of my own failings (either true failings or those imposed by the unrealistic expectations of others) I think I’ve finally come to see that the jelly in my legs and the headache are about a realisation that I actually do have a ministry scrapbook I can take away from this place.

‘

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Blogs On The London Bombings (3)

And here is a piece from Pete Phillips that takes the thinking further in terms of the west as unholy empire. For those who have read Walsh and Keesmaat’s Colossians Remixed it may have some echoes; I think it is also well worth reading after Lawrence’s comment earlier.

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Blogs On The London Bombings (2)

I forgot an excellent post from Christianity Today, which takes an ‘Iraq plus’ interpretation. Here is an extract:

But two other factors were probably in play. Al Qaeda undoubtedly borrowed its strategy from the Madrid train bombing. There was another symmetry. Just as President Bush was absent from the U.S. capital during 9/11, so Blair was absent from the U.K. capital during (what may now be called) 7/7. Moreover, happening at the same time as the G8 summit, with Bush, Blair, and Putin present, it humiliated world leaders. The message being that they were trying to solve the world’s problems, and they can’t even solve this one. Moreover, Blair’s argument for invading and staying in Iraq-to give us security from terrorists-will look hollow as the dust settles.

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Blogs On The London Bombings

Lawrence Moore has a perceptive piece: Let’s Stop Pretending Suicide Bombers Are Cowards.

Maggi Dawn has this prayer from Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford.

Then there’s this from Tall Skinny Kiwi. I wish I shared his confidence that it was because this nation was doing the will of God. Although in some sense we are, regarding international debt. But was it really a spiritual attack in the light of the G8?

Others can only talk about people who were miraculously protected. Jonny Baker is one who was at home when he should have been in central London. Well, yes, but I’ve heard of at least one known Christian who was killed.

Are we getting over-spiritual and forgetting the timing of the day after the Olympics and the thought that the Games could be disrupted? Is it not more likely due to reasons our nation is already hated, viz a viz Iraq, etc.? Maybe we’ve over-spiritualised the atrocity.

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London

I am a Londoner. Although neither I nor any of my relatives live there any more, today’s vile news has hit me hard. My father used to take the train each morning to Liverpool Street and then a tube to Aldgate East. My sister used to commute to Edgware Road. Friends used to go through King’s Cross to work. I once went for a job interview at Tavistock Square. When I came in at lunch-time and saw the TV news, I just said, “Evil.” I wanted to say something far worse. It was certainly in my heart. Only the presence of my small children stopped me.

I wanted to wish evil things on Osama bin Laden. Like a British judge sentencing him to life, but the prison warders allowing other prisoners to inflict a tortuous, slow death upon him. I had to fight to tell myself that I believe in a better way as a Christian. What that inner fight would have been like had I lost any loved ones in the atrocities, I don’t know.

I’ve offered up the odd prayer about what I shall preach on Sunday. What words, what hope can I give? Must there also be a challenge, with the risk of causing deep offence?

Then I stopped thinking about myself. I thought about Mr Kahn, who runs our little neighbourhood sub-post office. And I prayed that no-one would take it out on him. I prayed, too, for the Sikhs who now own the former Methodist church building nearby. After 9/11 British Sikhs were attacked. I pray for their protection now.

I pray, too, for those trained to help at times of disaster. Last night I was at a District Council meeting where we lamented a lack of volunteers among ministers to be undertake Critical Incident Volunteer training in Kent. London already has people trained – thank God.

And naturally I pray for the injured and the bereaved.

But I must pray, too, for the perpetrators. Yet it’s too easy to parrot the words of Jesus, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing,” because to some extent these people do know what they’re doing.

Lord have mercy on us all.

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Wedding Vows By Mobile Phone

According to Reuters an Indian bridegroom had to take his wedding vows by mobile phone when floods preventing him reaching the location of the ceremony.

So what are the issues around technology and proximity? In the 1990s I once heard the Revd Dr Phil Meadows argue that there was little difference between communicating certain things via virtual reality and mediating them through other, older, more socially acceptable technologies such as hearing aids. (And what about spectacles?) Earlier than that, in the 1980s, when Ship Of Fools was an ordinary magazine made of paper, they reported on the case in the USA (where else?) of the Roman Catholic ‘drive-in confessional’, with the slogan, ‘Toot and tell or go to hell.’

So how close do we have to be to someone for it to be personal? Conversely, how far away do we have to be from someone to break the sense of personal connection? What barriers are acceptable, because we don’t perceive them so much a barriers as mediators? Theologically, what constitutes community and incarnation?

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Wedding Vows By Mobile Phone

According to Reuters an Indian bridegroom had to take his wedding vows by mobile phone when floods preventing him reaching the location of the ceremony.

So what are the issues around technology and proximity? In the 1990s I once heard the Revd Dr Phil Meadows argue that there was little difference between communicating certain things via virtual reality and mediating them through other, older, more socially acceptable technologies such as hearing aids. (And what about spectacles?) Earlier than that, in the 1980s, when Ship Of Fools was an ordinary magazine made of paper, they reported on the case in the USA (where else?) of the Roman Catholic ‘drive-in confessional’, with the slogan, ‘Toot and tell or go to hell.’

So how close do we have to be to someone for it to be personal? Conversely, how far away do we have to be from someone to break the sense of personal connection? What barriers are acceptable, because we don’t perceive them so much a barriers as mediators? Theologically, what constitutes community and incarnation?

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When The Occult Can’t Cope

NASA may have cheered when its ‘Deep Impact’ probe crashed into the comet the other day, but one Russian astrologer didn’t. She is suing NASA for $300 million, because it ‘altered her horoscope’. (Link here from Reuters.)

It reminds me of a true story. I used to work as a civil servant in the old Department of Health and Social Security, administering people’s National Insurance contributions. One day a self-employed woman returned her papers, saying she was closing down her business due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’. Her profession? Clairvoyant.

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When The Occult Can’t Cope

NASA may have cheered when its ‘Deep Impact’ probe crashed into the comet the other day, but one Russian astrologer didn’t. She is suing NASA for $300 million, because it ‘altered her horoscope’. (Link here from Reuters.)

It reminds me of a true story. I used to work as a civil servant in the old Department of Health and Social Security, administering people’s National Insurance contributions. One day a self-employed woman returned her papers, saying she was closing down her business due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’. Her profession? Clairvoyant.

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