Tag Archive for 'Community'

Reflections

Published
by
Graeme
on November 13, 2008
in Community and My Pilgrimage
. 1 Comment

The last week has been spent on our Social Placement at Faith House. It has been a great week and has left me with a lot to think about over the coming days. The challenge for the future is particularly strong and trying to put it fully into perspective is not going to be that easy.

Having said that it has certainly brought a few things to mind as I wrote my reflections in my journal. One of the main things is how poorly we tend to reflect Jesus’ way of doing things. I suppose I’ve always felt that many churches did not embrace those on the margins of our society, but having been immersed in just a fraction of their lives this last week that sense is really strong at the moment. How many churches do you know that would unhesitatingly embrace a drug-addicted prostitute into their fellowship? What about the dishevelled homeless guy?

Mahatma Gandhi is reputed to have said, “The best test of a civilised society is the way in which in treats its most vulnerable and weakest members.” For some reason I’ve never really thought too hard about those words; I’ve simply accepted them as being valid. This week though I’ve been forced into reconsidering their focus. Maybe it’s me but too often I think we see the society of which he was talking as being the society of our country, headed by the government. But I think the real society that we need to consider is much more basic than that. It’s about us and our place in society. So the phrase could be seen as being, “The way we, as the individuals who make up our society, treat the most vulnerable and weakest members of that society is the best test of our society.”

So how do we treat people? Do we go out of our way to include everyone in our corps, or do we still enjoy our little cliques that prevent the weak and vulnerable from being part of it? I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t gone out of my way that often, but this week has challenged me to think differently.

Being holy for the Church

Published
by
Graeme
on July 24, 2008
in Community, Holiness and Mission
. 0 Comments

In my post about ‘the uprising’ I included the quote:

“unless the Bride of Christ is holy, no one else in the world will meet the Lord. Without our holiness, they won’t see the Lord.”

I’ve found myself coming back to that quote a few times because I found I needed to give the thought more consideration.

The first thought I found myself having was about the make-up of the Bride of Christ. My understanding is that it is actually the Church universal, rather than the individuals that make up the Church.

However, this was followed quickly by the reality that unless the individuals are holy, then surely the Church universal can’t be! At the very least there would be implications for the local expression of the Church should the members of the congregation not be pursuing holiness. This for me is where the crunch comes!

I believe passionately that the only way to reach the lost and to fulfil the Church’s mission in the world is at the local level. And by local I don’t mean at the level of the town, but at the level of the street!

In a paper to the Incarnate conference earlier this year Geoff Ryan said that he believes:

that God cannot – or will not – present himself in a neighbourhood or a community or amongst a people, unless his people, The Church, are themselves physically present and sharing life with the community.”

This is a difficult statement and whilst on one level I agree, I disagree on another level. However, if we accept that at some level this is correct it makes sense of Olivia Munn’s quote from the book. If the Church is not fulfilling its divine appointment and mission within a particular location then how will God be seen in that place? The only way for the Church to fulfil its mission is through the actions of its individual members working both individually and co-operatively. Therefore if the people of God, both as individuals and as a community of believers are not holy then how can the light of God reach the communities they live and serve in?

When thought of like this it makes absolute sense that our individual and corporate holiness is the key to fulfilling the mission!

Faith in solitude

Published
by
Graeme
on May 27, 2008
in Community
. 0 Comments

While we were on holiday I was reading a daily reading book by Jeff Lucas which focussed on the life of King David. It is really interesting with a number of new insights into the man that David was and his life, plus it of course gave me food for thought in my own life.

One of the points that Jeff Lucas raised was that while David was on the run from Saul he called upon God for help and protection, but then he says that:

“he needed more than God to get him through these harrowing days. His emerging friendship with Jonathan…was such a tangible source of strength to him.”

This got me thinking about someone I am in regular contact since coming back to the UK. I speak to him most weeks and he very clearly has a strong faith. However, he has chosen to act out his faith outside of the Christian community. This is not because of a calling to do so but simply because he cannot find a congregation that fits in with his rather rigid view of his faith. On those occasions we touch on this area of his faith it is very clear that he expects everyone else to change their opinion to reflect his thoughts to the extent that he forces his opinion on those who come into contact with him.

This really is a great shame, because he undoubtedly has gifts that would be very valuable to a local congregation and would certainly gain from others. Instead though his thoughts are becoming more and more entrenched.

Just as David needed his very human relationship with Jonathan in order to cope with the problems that he faced in life, so we as Christians need relationships with other believers. We are made for community and its why human relationships are not only the source of such devotion and intimacy, but also why the enemy puts so much effort into trying to destroy them.

Consequently, unless called to a life of solitude by the Holy Spirit we should seek out communities of believers that we can be part of. However, it shouldn’t be on our terms but for the betterment of the community so that the kingdom of heaven is extended.

Church as God’s manifold wisdom

Published
by
Graeme
on April 28, 2008
in Community, Mission and Reading
. 0 Comments

Over the weekend I managed to finish Provocative Church and can honestly say that I have enjoyed it immensely. Not only have I enjoyed it, but it has also given me a real challenge in how to respond, especially in regard to leading my current congregation forward into mission and evangelism.

What’s particularly good is that this book emphasises the need for holy living, both as individuals and as congregations. In this respect Graham Tomlin recognises the need for the church to put the emphasis on discipleship, something that is to me fundamental if we want to see both change socially and within the church. This emphasis on the local congregation becomes even more obvious when the following is taken into account.

God wants to show off his wisdom and craft to the rest of the cosmos. God the divine artist wants to hold an exhibition of such beauty and power and wisdom that anyone who looks on, whether they come from earth or heaven, will be overcome with wonder and awe. It is to be a display of his ‘manifold’ wisdom.

Yesterday, Zoe & I took part in our very first Rogation Sunday procession. This is a traditional part of the church year which is still carried out in many parishes, around the UK at least. We went to support the band who have been processing with the congregation of a tiny Surrey village, called Peper Harow, for the last 40 years. The idea of Rogation processions is that they go round the village and ask for God’s blessing upon it, particularly through the blessing of the land and crops.

What strikes me is that yesterday the procession wasn’t going around the village praying simply that Christians would be blessed, but that the whole community would be regardless of their faith or beliefs. The only agenda was that the earth would blessed and that through this God would be glorified. Surely through this blessing asked for by the church on behalf of its community, the people who were looking on, slightly bemused in many cases, were given the opportunity to see God’s people in Peper Harow reflecting the glory of God. Many in today’s church would probably write off the ritual and ceremony as archaic and irrelevant to our post-modern world, but just for a moment yesterday we were part of God’s manifold wisdom for that small corner of His creation.

Dawn of a new day

Published
by
Graeme
on March 23, 2008
in Faith
. 0 Comments

In his book on Christian Community, “Life Together” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words:

“The Old Testament day begins at evening and ends with the going down of the sun. It is the time of expectation. The day of the New Testament church begins with the break of day and ends with the dawning light of the next morning. It is the time of fulfilment, the resurrection of the Lord. At night Christ was born, a light in the darkness; noonday turned to night when Christ suffered and died on the Cross. But in the dawn of Easter morning Christ rose in victory from the grave.”

At dawn on that first Easter morning, almost 2000 years ago, there was no hope; there was only desolation in the hearts of that handful of women who made their way to the garden tomb to anoint the body held within. It must have been a sombre and soul-destroying walk from their rented rooms to that borrowed grave.

Imagine for a moment the horror there must have been when they saw the tomb lying open. Surely it must have brought into their minds the ultimate finale to the events they had witnessed. Not only had Jesus been brutally flogged; not only had he been nailed to a cross; but now his burial place had been desecrated. How much more were they doing to have to bear?

But then, as they peered through the entrance to see the damage they feared had been done, they saw an angel; an angel who pronounced that Jesus was no longer there but had risen to life again.

This is the message that is the centre of our hope; this is the message that forms the centre of the gospel which we are called to proclaim!

This was no ordinary resurrection, if there can be such a thing. This was not the sort that we read of in the Old Testament or even like those in Jesus’ miracles. No this resurrection was unlike any ever witnessed, either before or since, for Jesus died full of our sin but rose empty of it. He took our sins to hell and then left them there so that we could stand blameless before our God.

This is the hope of this morning’s dawn; this is the hope of Easter; this is the hope of the gospel; that Jesus died and rose again, so that all who declare Jesus as Lord may not only live in eternity with him, but may also be signposts of that hope in this dark world.

My Street

Published
by
Graeme
on February 22, 2008
in Community
. 3 Comments

Last night I watched a programme on Channel 4 called My Street which was a documentary in the Cutting It series. The narrator decided to knock on the door of every house in her street and, for those who were happy to, she interviewed them on camera.

The programme was absolutely fascinating! Firstly, it was a wonderful insight into the lives of various different people, ranging from millionaires through to a young Tourette’s sufferer on benefit, from 66 different children through to a 93 year old man. Secondly, it presents a real challenge to us all.

Here was a woman who had lived in her street for 14 years and had never got to know her neighbours. It was only when she started to knock on doors that she discovered there were some real problems that some people faced; that amongst these 116 houses in her street there were people suffering from deep depression, loneliness, cancer, mental illness, to name just some.

In my street there are around 30 houses and so far I’ve had regular contact with 4 of the people. Of those I haven’t talked to is the Asian man who in the warmer weather sits out on his wall, the new mother a few doors down, and others whose faces I don’t even know! What about yours?

Remarkably unremarkable

Published
by
Graeme
on February 20, 2008
in discipleship
. 0 Comments

Finally I’m getting round to posting about the Incarnate Conference held last month. I only managed to get to 1 1/2 sessions due to other commitments but, my friend and former boss, Henrik sent me the full set of conference papers so I have been making my way through them. Anyway, enough of the background stuff, on with my thoughts.

Incarnate started with a paper by Stuart Murray-Williams with the title “How is Jesus the focus of incarnational living?” At the conclusion of this paper Murray-Williams says:

Jesus was utterly unremarkable for 90% of his life. Only in the final three years of public ministry did he become extraordinary. Nobody in Nazareth, except Mary, knew that he was anyone special. The Gospels report that his family and neighbours were taken completely by surprise when he ‘came out’ as the Son of God.

Now I understand where he is coming from in writing this as he was trying to put across the point that much of real incarnational ministry is found in the mundane routine of daily living. In this I fully agree! However, whilst Jesus’ actual life may have been largely unremarkable in the day to day stuff the way he lived it certainly wasn’t. Luke tells us in his gospel that after the events of Jerusalem when Jesus was 12, he returned to Nazareth and:

…grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.

To me this suggests that Jesus’ life may have been unremarkable in that nothing much happened that wasn’t run-of-the-mill (unless of course you give credence to some of the non-canonical gospels that are around), his life was remarkable enough that it was noticed by those who lived with him in Nazareth. They might not have realised that he was the incarnate Son of God but they saw something special in him.

This means that if we as his people want to live like him, then we must live in such a way that even in the routine, run-of-the-mill existence that is human life that is visibly different to the norm.

So in reality Jesus was remarkably unremarkable and consequently we have to live in the same way. Living like this, being immersed in the community just like Jesus was in the community in Nazareth cannot help but have an effect on those around us. Then we are able to reveal to those around us the one whose example we follow.