Seeking faith and speaking words I never thought I'd say

As it's that time of year when Methodists join with other local churches in an Annual Covenant Service, let's explore what it's about.

First an interesting observation:
‘We observe that in some places significant numbers of members absent themselves from the Covenant Service believing it to set a higher standard for discipleship than that which permitted them to become members.'
Philip Drake

The Introduction
‘Christ has many services to be done:
some are easy, others are difficult;
some bring honour, others bring reproach;
some are suitable to our natural inclinations and material interests,
others are contrary to both.’

The Covenant Prayer
I am no longer my own but yours.

Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;

put me to doing, put me to suffering;

let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,

exalted for you, or brought low for you;

let me be full, let me be empty,

let me have all things, let me have nothing:

I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours.

The Covenant Service is acknowledged to be one of the jewels in the Methodist liturgical crown. The enthronement service for the present Archbishop of Canterbury used it at a solemn moment of the liturgy. It was adapted from earlier traditions and introduced into Methodist worship by John Wesley as a means of regularly reaffirming our commitment as disciples and followers of Jesus. Yet it is now felt by many to be too difficult and too intense.

It's clear that this affirmation is a serious one that embraces the whole of our life, in all its parts. Most people find it quite tough to say, and really mean it. In our culture we tend to prize our ability to make decisions and choose our own path in life. It can feel very hard to give that up. But this prayer is like a love poem. It is about surrendering to God in love and joy.

The service, which is full of the assurance of God’s love for us, in whose power alone we are able to undertake such promises, includes a profound meditation on how we can discern what is being asked of us. It is clear that the ‘many services’ Christ may ask of us could involve social reproach or financial hardship. But there is a beautiful balance, which suggests the possibility that our calling will include undertaking activities that we enjoy and that will bring us prosperity and honour. It is impossible to rule out hardship. It is about genuinely offering ourselves – ‘no longer our own but yours’. It is the giving up of our own powerbase and right to choose which is so hard.

People have resisted the phrase ‘put me to suffering’, as if God deliberately willed us to experience pain. However, the word simply means the opposite of ‘doing’; it is the state of waiting or passivity, of ‘being done to’ in some way, and parallels the next phrase, being ‘employed’ or ‘laid aside’. The desire for control, power and choice is a very strongly encouraged stance in our society, and it is not surprising that we resist truly offering God our willingness to let both activity and passivity be ‘for you’. However, to believe that God cannot be served except in active ‘doing’ will lead us to marginalise those whose calling is now to lay things down, or who do indeed have to endure suffering in the modern sense. The revised version of the prayer clarifies the point by referring to ‘all that I do, and in all that I may endure.’ *

The Covenant Prayer (revised)
I am no longer my own but yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things,

wherever you may place me,

in all that I do, and in all that I may endure;

when there is work for me and when there is none;

when I am troubled and when I am at peace.

Your will be donewhen I am valued and when I am disregarded;

when I find fulfilment and when it is lacking;

when I have all things, and when I have nothing.

I willingly offer all I have and am to serve you,as and where you choose.
Glorious and blessèd God,Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

you are mine and I am yours.

May it be so for ever.

Title of this blog is ‘Seeking faith and speaking words I never thought I'd say’...

Song lyrics from Prince of Egypt featuring the original version of 'When you believe'..... Leon Jackson's recent number one.

Try this link:

http://www.thelyricarchive.com/lyrics/whenyoubelieve.shtml

* edited version of extract from Methodist Conference Report 'Time to Talk of God'

Thirteenth Night

The tinsel and flashing lights are gone. Welcome to 2008, blog readers !
I reckon there’s a challenging year ahead for the Joyces:

Driving Lessons begin when our youngest turns 17 shortly. Recollections of the previous three learning to drive (before and after passing tests) bring a smile (or was it a grimace?) to the old phizzog.

Also we’re destined to be grandparents for the 4th time in May.
A boy or a girl? They have chosen to wait until he/she arrives to find out. Wisely….daughter in law’s close relatives have produced 9 boys and 0 girls so far….so no pressure !

Our parents continue to thrive. We’re fairly unusual in our age-group as we’ve still got all four….in their 70s, 80s and 90s. Will they all survive 2008, and stay healthy? It will be a miracle if they all do.

…and that’s just family life.

…work, church and community activities would occupy a few sheets of A4, so let’s not go there today !

Last night a small group of us meditated upon that ancient hymn, ‘Be Thou my vision’ *
The last two lines in one translation read:

‘Christ of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my vision, thou ruler of all’

That says it all for me.
How about you?

*http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/b/b021.html

Hope of the world, Mary's Child

Before we leave Christmas behind may I share with you this picture, which I introduced to our new Men's group just before Christmas.
I was reading about this statue in a book 'Nativities and Passions, by a contemplative writer Martin Smith, and found this picture on the net. Smith was on retreat at Burford Priory just outside Oxford. Every day he prayed in the chapel before this statue of the Madonna and Child. After returning home, a few days later he took out the photo of the statue: and looking again at the child Jesus facing out towards the viewer, his arms spread out with the back of his wrists against his mother’s shoulders..... for the first time he sees what the artist was attempting to show. The naked child Jesus has taken the form that he will take when they nail him naked to the cross. And so he writes:
"If there is any image of the mother and child to stay with, this must be the one. We can linger with this image because it tells the truth, and only the truth can set us free.
It is an open secret that the innermost experience of many at Christmas is soreness of heart, soreness at the bitter sufferings of the world. A quick fix of Yuletide cheer and a day’s hilarity, and then there is the morning after the night before. The mystery fixed in this statue of Mary and her child is not the quick fix. Mary asks us to take a long look at her baby, his arms stretched out on the cross of her body. Look, she tells us, this is God coming into the world to keep us company in the worse that can befall us. This is love in crucified companionship coming to bear the world’s pain in pierced hands."
The statue forces us to connect Christmas with the mature Christ, to connect Crib and Cross, to realise that they are both made of the same wood. And it is only when we do this that the remarkable story of shepherds and stars, wise men and donkeys can become a story with the power to save, a story with the power to address real human need.... this is a story about the world’s healing.... about God’s desire to reach out and bring home the lost....about HOPE for a world that has little of it.

As Christians, this treasure, this Good News is ours to share. Let's do so in 2008.

Happy New Year to you all!

liverpool nativity

Did you see Liverpool Nativity?....absolutely superb in every way. I often think, 'How would Jesus have been born into our culture?' This gritty, down to earth performance portrayed that concept brilliantly:

At a time when the traditional nativity play is reported to be under threat of extinction in our schools, there is something deliciously subversive about the city of Liverpool choosing to inaugurate its year as the European Capital of Culture with its own, unique take on the story of Jesus' birth.
Last Sunday's Liverpool Nativity was a contemporary retelling of the old, old story on a grand scale. Famous Merseyside faces joined together with relatively unknown local actors and members of the Liverpudlian public to tell a tale of an asylum-seeking Joseph and his café-worker girlfriend, Mary, struggling against oppressive local government to bring God's Son into the world.
Like so many traditional nativity plays, this one was not without humour. It was, however, refreshingly free from the sentimentality that routinely smothers all trace of the true wonder of Christmas in more traditional productions. There was no place here for 'Away in a Manger' with its incarnation-defying 'little Lord Jesus' who wakes without a whimper in response to the lowing of inconsiderate cattle.
In fact, there was no place in the Liverpool Nativity for any of the carols and songs you'd normally expect to hear in a nativity play. Instead - and this was a central feature of the production - the story was interpreted through the popular music of various Liverpudlian bands, such as Echo & the Bunnymen, the La's, the Zutons and, of course, the Beatles.
Naturally, this meant that each song was being used for a purpose other than that for which it was composed. John Lennon did not write 'Beautiful Boy' as a description of the newborn Christ-child, for example - but nonetheless in this new context that was what his lyrics became.
Maybe some purist fans of these bands will regard such borrowing as akin to blasphemy, but isn't the choice of music for the Liverpool Nativity a creative attempt to celebrate Jesus' birth in song? In this regard, it is entirely faithful to the account of his birth in Luke's Gospel, where key characters - Mary, Zechariah, the angels, Simeon - just can't help but burst into song in response to what God has done.
May God give each of us the imagination during this festive season to discern and declare the significance of seemingly ordinary words and events in the light of the timeless, awesome truth that is the real meaning of Christmas!
Nigel Hopper (LICC)

I'd like to record a thankyou to the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, (who so often write the sort of articles I wish I could) for permitting me to reproduce their writings. May the Lord prosper your work!

To all readers of my blog.....a very Happy Christmas. May Jesus be born in you. 'This is love indeed--we did not love God, but He loved us and sent His Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins..' 1 John 4:10

What are you waiting for?: An Advent reflection

Read these when you have a quiet moment:

" It was the first week of Advent 2005. I was living as part of the Urban Seed residential community in the heart of central Melbourne.
I attended the Amnesty International Candlelight Vigil at the Alexandra Gardens for the condemned Australian Van Nguyen. Having acted as a drug mule in order to pay the debts of his brother, he had been captured and sentenced to death in Singapore. Over three years the case had sparked the usual polarised debate about the death penalty. Having exhausted official appeals and in spite of pleas for clemency, he was to be executed the next morning by the Singaporean Government.
I carried with me to the vigil a heavy wooden cross. The Credo Cross was built by a member of our community the day we heard that one of our close friends, a key volunteer at our open lunch for disadvantaged people, had been found dead from a drug overdose in a laneway close to our home. As most from our households gathered and mourned in silence that day, all that could be heard from our apartments was the sound of banging from the fire escape as the commemorative cross was constructed..
Since that time, it has become an icon for our community, a symbol to cling to, a trusted companion when the pain of the world falls upon us like a hammer. We use it regularly during our prayers and worship gatherings, at weddings and at funerals. We take it with us when we attend the various protests and vigils that regularly take place in the centre of the city.
And so it was with me this night. I held it for Van. The vigil was quiet but moving. We lit our candles and made our prayers for a stay of execution and for the life and souls of the condemned, the condemners and ourselves. At its conclusion I headed home.
Carrying the cross upon my shoulder, I was walking past Flinders Street Station when a group of people carrying a video camera thrust a microphone in my face.
"What does Christmas mean to you?" they asked
I supposed that they must have been Christians, looking for "vox pop" responses, perhaps for some sort of Christmas presentation.
"What does Christmas mean to you?"
"Well…" I started, a little surprised by the interruption. (It can be hard to think on your feet, especially when you’re carrying a cross through a crowded city!)
"You might notice I’m carrying a cross." I continued…. "You see, I am a Christian and it is because of this that I’ve been to the vigil for Van Nguyen, who is to be executed tomorrow."
I spoke of my opposition to the death penalty. I spoke of how Jesus was also victim of a state execution but that through his example of non-violent love he showed a way of life that triumphs over death. That this demonstrated that sometimes power could be weak and that what seems weak can be the most powerful force in the world. "And so", I concluded, "I guess I believe in a world of grace, not the cold, hard, hand of the law."
"Errr OK!"…..the interviewer looked a little confused. "That’s good; but what would you say Christmas means to you?"
There we both stood.
Waiting…
Me, with a cross upon my shoulder, waiting for him to comprehend.
Him, with a camera on his, waiting for an answer he wanted to hear.
Waiting…
It’s Advent again…..what are you waiting for? "
by Kate Allen and Marcus Curnow (Urban Seed, 2005)



Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for.
We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus.
We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the Ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory.
We are always waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God’s footsteps.
Waiting for God is an active, alert -- yes, joyful -- waiting.
As we wait we remember him for whom we are waiting, and as we remember him we create a community ready to welcome him when he comes.
Henri Nouwen,
In Joyful Hope: Meditations for Advent

The golden compass

The furore surrounding 'The Golden Compass' continues:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article2999647.ece
I haven't seen it yet (I have read the books), but trying to get people to stay away because they might abandon their faith or conclude that God is dead, is not the answer.
As suggested in LICC's excellent article below, everyone should go and see it, and if that results in them reading the books so be it. Like the Da Vinci Code, His Dark Materials trilogy is fiction. It is only the gullible who are taken in by them without asking questions.
So, go and see the film, and let's start conversations.....
.

Anyone who has seen The Golden Compass in the last few days without having read the novel it's based on may well feel bemused by all the fuss being made about it in certain quarters. Although it has been accused of 'selling atheism to kids', it seems innocuous enough. The principal problem with the film, in my opinion, is that the story has been mangled to the point of being nearly incomprehensible.
So, why have emails been circulating warning of the danger posed by this Christmas blockbuster and calling for a boycott of it? The answer is that this is the first of a trilogy, His Dark Materials, and the story becomes increasingly uncomfortable for Christians. In Philip Pullman's books, what begins as a struggle against an oppressive, totalitarian - and religious - regime escalates into full-scale rebellion against God himself.
The film's director, Chris Weitz, admits that they made compromises in filming the first book, toning down controversial religious aspects. Although he insists that the success of The Golden Compass will allow him to stay faithful to the subsequent books, he dismisses as 'ridiculous' suggestions that there is an atheist agenda.
Pullman himself is indignant about all the fuss, and calls his accusers 'nitwits'. He has often spoken of his atheism and his disdain for religion, but protests that he's just trying to tell a story that raises questions. Questions such as 'Is there a God?' and 'What is our purpose?', he says - questions that are central to His Dark Materials - are the 'most important of all'. Inevitably, he has a particular take on them; but such questions are fundamental and we shouldn't be afraid of asking them, or considering someone else's answers - even when they are profoundly different from our own.
Knee-jerk reactions, scaremongering and intemperate words benefit nobody and reflect poorly on the church. They simply confirm Pullman and others in their prejudice against us. If we are confident in the truth of the gospel, we should listen carefully to others' perspectives and respond positively where we can, critically where we must, and always in a way that is characterised by grace.
Pullman writes brilliant fiction with a strong moral core. Millions have read his books and millions more will see the films. Let's grasp the opportunity, engage with them seriously and make the most of openings to discuss these most crucial of questions.
Tony Watkins LICC

The task before you is never greater than the power behind you!

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks!
Lots of activity; many ups and downs:
Having returned from the bereavement course in London I then had to prepare for and deliver an All age worship on Sunday morning ( a sheer delight)
…followed by two days in the office as my assistant was on holiday
…then Games Club where we are working with a large group of mainly unchurched kids to produce ‘Cinderella’ in the New Year (going well)
…followed by newly established Men’s group (great fellowship)
…speaking to the Womens Fellowship about what a Community Chaplain is (will someone please tell me)
…then meeting 48 Year 7s at the Church on a RE trip (pop, crisps and Mr Bean. Then they asked me loads of questions. It was great!)
…then away down South to babysit our 3 young grandchildren for the weekend (such fun…they are a laugh a minute!)
….394 shoeboxes loaded and transported to Grimsby (what a vital work this is, bringing joy to kids at Christmas..see picture above and http://www.samaritanspurse.uk.com/occ/index.asp)
….our Community Carol Concert with me in the band (fantastic—not me, I mean networking with all these folk in the community)
…. Games Club and Men’s meeting again
…. Christmas Lunch at Church, apron and all !
…and for most of this week my assistant has been off sick so I’ve been running the office.
....and I've probably forgotten several things.

My wife has been every bit as engaged as me, often involved in the same things.
So, when will we get the Christmas shopping done? When will I get the tree up? Fix the wash basin tap?
Who knows, but we’ll get there.

In all of this frenetic activity I still get some biking in to keep in trim, and most important of all, still somehow find time to ‘Wait upon the Lord’, though not as much time as I would like.

Judith reminded me of this word from Isaiah 40 (thanks Judithhttp://www.wilmslow-worker.blogspot.com/)

"Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint."

When necessary we can, in God’s strength, walk, run or soar… and as I reflect on these past days I have indeed been ‘on eagle’s wings’. Not that everything has gone perfectly, far from it.
But it is supremely true that the LIMITLESS resources of the Holy Spirit are at work in and through us if we will just say ‘Yes’(http://pauseforprayer.stblogs.com/finding-god/special-prayers/)

PS Finally got the tap fixed and the tree up at the weekend!

Experiencing loss

Last Thursday I went to London on a one-day Bereavement Course run by CRUSE.

…..An exceptionally useful and enlightening day, and I hope that I will be able to use what I have learned for the benefit of others. But it was also of help to me I have to say. None of us go through life without some experience of painful loss….the hardest to bear is invariably the loss of a loved one, but there are lots of other things that can happen to us which bring about dramatic changes in our daily lives.
Recently, the Lincoln Branch of Norwich Union (formerly General Accident where I had started work in 1970) closed. I went over to meet former colleagues, and effectively say goodbye to them all at once! I had continued to do business, with people who had worked with me back then, for most of 37 years. Now it feels so strange to have ‘lost’ them, a kind of mini-bereavement.
People retiring, moving house, friends who go away all experience loss. Sometimes we call it by another name; such as ‘homesickness’, but there is no denying that, as with a death of someone close to us, we need enough time (and time is no measure) to come to terms with it…..a process where we may be going round a spiral, up and down, until there is a return to ‘normality’….things will never be quite the same, but we have learned to get on with life.

On the bereavement course there was an interesting variety of people, three prison officers, three crematorium workers, a solicitor, an infant school counsellor, a helpline operative for carers, and others. I was the only church worker there (I have a feeling that there were one or two ‘hidden lights’ there, though, because I could see it in their faces). The trainer often asked me for a view on issues….that was a challenge! One of the trainees raised a point about an individual who had been bereaved some months before and was clearly being far too demanding on her. I held my counsel while the others investigated further and discussed around the table. Finally, I was asked for my view. I said ‘Say to this person… "What makes you think that the whole world revolves around you?"’ …that caused great amusement. On reflection the circumstances where it would be right to say something like that are, I would suggest, quite rare. WWJD? I have since questioned myself "Did I really say that?….surely I would never say that to a bereaved person!". But I had started the day by asking God to give me the right words to say in all circumstances, so however risky the strategy I trust it must have been the right one. I should like to have been there to see the outcome....
Words can heal or hurt, encourage or undermine. To verbally go 'on the attack' is not something we should ever do lightly. Jesus did it on a number of occasions, but always to jolt people into recognising their folly (as with his friend Peter...'Get behind me satan!'Mark8v33.....but he didn't then dump Peter. On the contrary he continued to encourage and challenge him). Just occasionally we all need a sharp word of warning; 'Look out!' 'Stop there!' 'Be careful!', don't we?.....to keep us alert or to bring us back to our senses.

How about some comments?

link to CRUSE:
http://www.crusebereavementcare.org.uk/about_bereavement.htm

What's your ideal Christian community?

Rarely have I read anything that ticks as many boxes for me as this. The challenge is in the last line.... Am I prepared to give everything to try and make it happen?
Impossible? When we say 'Yes' to God, the impossible happens... Luke 1 v 37

"I want to be part of a community that I love and that loves me. A place where
we get past the polite niceness, beyond the pretence and the masks, and get
really irritated with each other. And then stick at it and stick together.

I want to be part of something that is marked by its welcome, its hospitality and
its inclusiveness. A place with fuzzy edges, where no one decides who belongs
and is ‘in’ or ‘out’. I want to be part of a group of people who are obsessed with
Jesus, rather than Christianity. A place that is passionately focussed on Jesus
and learning to live as followers of his way in real life today. A place where
we’re becoming more like Jesus as we learn the ancient spiritual disciplines and
work together to make them part of our lives.

I want to belong to a community where I can be myself, warts and all.
A place that, on the one hand will accept me as I am right now, but on the other
hand will provoke and inspire me to become more of what I could be. A place
where my brokenness, fears and habits are part of the process. A place where
we hold on to the ‘ideal’ but also celebrate the ‘real’.

I want to be part of something that treats people like adults. A place that values
everyone’s experience and perspective. A place where people are motivated by
love rather than guilt. I want to be part of a community that is both of our culture,
so that it connects with the language, images, music and experiences of
everyday life; but one that also goes against the grain of our culture because we
serve one another, live sacrificially and cross boundaries of class, age and colour.

A place that makes the difference in the things that feel too big for us as individuals.
Whether that’s the hassle my kids will get when they can’t wear designer
trainers or the impotence I feel in the face of ethical and environmental
issues.

A place that makes us yearn for justice and beauty. A place that equips us for
life in the worlds we live in, and gives us the fire we need to change them.
An oasis in the desert......but at the same time..... a desert in the oasis.....a place that makes us more thirsty for Jesus and His kingdom.

Of course my dream is impossibly idealistic, but I’ve decided that even if we
never get there, I want to give everything to trying."

Richard White. ( Leadership Link. Cell UK)

You can do it!

Anita Roddick once said:
“If you ever think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve never been to bed with a mosquito.”