Yesterday saw me preaching at a church in the circuit for the first time - nothing unusual there - but also for what will be the last time. The church in question has decided that it is no longer able to continue meeting, and so they are ceasing to worship with the final service actually being next Sunday (30th November). So I am one of the last people to have preached in the building.
This had the potential to be a difficult service, and I had been wondering quite what to say. Should I "just" do a normal Sunday Service, on the grounds that the final service is the following week? It's somewhat outside my experience too; I have not been a member of a church that has closed down, the nearest thing being when I was asked to officially be part of a Church Council that was doing that a few years ago but lacked the numbers to make it official - even then, the decision had been effectively already been made and it was rubber-stamping what was going to happen.
The Lectionary however was my friend. Last Sunday's Old Testament reading was from Ezekiel 34 and spoke about how God would gather together the scattered sheep of Judah, which had been invaded by Babylon, and bring them together under a new shepherd - "David", usually taken to mean a descendant of King David. For a church about to close, with a congregation including several who had been part of another church closure a few years back, I tried to use these words from Ezekiel to bring a message of hope: that they had not been forgotten by God, that they were OK to wonder where God was in their situation, but that God was still there and that they were part of a larger flock.
I don't know how helpful it was to everyone, but I know that at least a couple of people appreciated what was said.
What has happened to this church in some ways raises questions. It's well known as a place that offers much to the local community; many groups come in and use the premises, and in fact they are looking to keep the building going for several months to allow the groups time to find alternate places. It's a building that is obviously appreciated. However that appreciation hasn't extended enough to actually coming along, and the gradually dwindling congregation has been pressed harder and harder to keep everything going. So how do we engage with the people that come in to use the building for secular purposes? How do we encourage people to see that we're about far more than being a sort of community centre? I don't have any answers, but these and other questions certainly need to be asked.....
Monday 24 November 2008
Tuesday 18 November 2008
College Retreat
Last weekend was the Hartley Victoria College Retreat, at Parcevall Hall in Wharfedale. Off I went into what seems the middle of nowhere, for a chance to recharge the batteries a bit.
When I say the middle of nowhere - there's no mobile coverage (or very slight maybe), and it's so far into the countryside that you have a torch by your bed to use in case of a fire alarm or power cut! However it's also a beautiful setting, and with terrific food as well it's a good place to go for a retreat.
Probably the thing that I liked best though was the opportunity to do something creative for the worship on the Sunday Morning. I'd taken the camera, and took a number of photos in and around Parcevall Hall; several of us came together to arrange these into a slideshow and then speak some reflective words over the top. The result should be visible below - sorry about the lack of volume!
I can't take any credit for choosing the words - that goes to Bob, Jacqui and Jan. In order that they appear, they are:
1) A meditation by Alistair Maclean. It can be found in the Northumbria Community's Celtic Daily Prayer as one of the day of the month meditations.
2) A poem from Spoken Worship by Gerard Kelly.
3) A couple of sentences from The Cry of the Deer by David Adam.
4) A meditation from Times and Seasons, also by David Adam.
5) A passage from God at Eventide, an adaption of God Calling by Two Listeners, edited by AJ Russell.
In some ways, the fact that this was the part that I liked best is a bit of a challenge: how often do I include opportunities to create and contribute in worship? And is there anything I can do about that?
When I say the middle of nowhere - there's no mobile coverage (or very slight maybe), and it's so far into the countryside that you have a torch by your bed to use in case of a fire alarm or power cut! However it's also a beautiful setting, and with terrific food as well it's a good place to go for a retreat.
Probably the thing that I liked best though was the opportunity to do something creative for the worship on the Sunday Morning. I'd taken the camera, and took a number of photos in and around Parcevall Hall; several of us came together to arrange these into a slideshow and then speak some reflective words over the top. The result should be visible below - sorry about the lack of volume!
I can't take any credit for choosing the words - that goes to Bob, Jacqui and Jan. In order that they appear, they are:
1) A meditation by Alistair Maclean. It can be found in the Northumbria Community's Celtic Daily Prayer as one of the day of the month meditations.
2) A poem from Spoken Worship by Gerard Kelly.
3) A couple of sentences from The Cry of the Deer by David Adam.
4) A meditation from Times and Seasons, also by David Adam.
5) A passage from God at Eventide, an adaption of God Calling by Two Listeners, edited by AJ Russell.
In some ways, the fact that this was the part that I liked best is a bit of a challenge: how often do I include opportunities to create and contribute in worship? And is there anything I can do about that?
Tuesday 11 November 2008
It's all over the front page....
...you give me Road Rage" as Cerys Matthews once sang. Right now I'm calming down after a day or two of the sort of trouble that makes you wonder why it is that we devote so much time, money and effort to the automobile.
It started on Friday really, with the discovery that I had actually been driving without an MOT for a month - my own fault of course. So the car stayed on the drive while I booked it in for the test on Monday.
Come Monday Morning, and it's Houston, we have a problem. The battery is flat, and it's only after we've got into position to try a jump start that we realise that actually the battery in the other car is in the wrong place to do this. Cue much aggravation (and like the Hulk, you won't like me when I'm angry), attempts to push the car back up the drive, and phone calls. I remove the battery and stick it on to charge; late in the afternoon I put it back and it starts fine. No problem, it's having a full service as well as an MOT so it should be fine.
When the garage rings back the news is not great, with an extra bill in the hundreds which we can ill afford - but I need the car, so....
With me due to be at College for the evening we let someone else do the cooking, so on the way back home I stop off at our local Chinese (very good by the way). I climb back into the car, and will it start? Will it heck!
On the plus side, our Breakdown Recovery (with GEM) proved to be well worth it, with a nice man on a motor bike appearing to not only get me started, but pinpoint the problem as being almost certainly the battery. On the minus side, the fact that the battery leads had been so loosely put back on by the garage that they could easily be pulled off by hand, and that the garage neglected to actually check the battery anyway (despite publicising free checks on them) does not fill me with joy. I won't name them as such, but suffice to say you expect better of a major national chain. I don't intend to let this go without having words with them, and if they think that just because it says "Student Minister" on my card that I won't have a go, they have another thing coming. I don't believe God calls anyone to be a doormat!
It started on Friday really, with the discovery that I had actually been driving without an MOT for a month - my own fault of course. So the car stayed on the drive while I booked it in for the test on Monday.
Come Monday Morning, and it's Houston, we have a problem. The battery is flat, and it's only after we've got into position to try a jump start that we realise that actually the battery in the other car is in the wrong place to do this. Cue much aggravation (and like the Hulk, you won't like me when I'm angry), attempts to push the car back up the drive, and phone calls. I remove the battery and stick it on to charge; late in the afternoon I put it back and it starts fine. No problem, it's having a full service as well as an MOT so it should be fine.
When the garage rings back the news is not great, with an extra bill in the hundreds which we can ill afford - but I need the car, so....
With me due to be at College for the evening we let someone else do the cooking, so on the way back home I stop off at our local Chinese (very good by the way). I climb back into the car, and will it start? Will it heck!
On the plus side, our Breakdown Recovery (with GEM) proved to be well worth it, with a nice man on a motor bike appearing to not only get me started, but pinpoint the problem as being almost certainly the battery. On the minus side, the fact that the battery leads had been so loosely put back on by the garage that they could easily be pulled off by hand, and that the garage neglected to actually check the battery anyway (despite publicising free checks on them) does not fill me with joy. I won't name them as such, but suffice to say you expect better of a major national chain. I don't intend to let this go without having words with them, and if they think that just because it says "Student Minister" on my card that I won't have a go, they have another thing coming. I don't believe God calls anyone to be a doormat!
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