It’s amazing how often you only notice how good something is when it goes wrong.
Yesterday was an interesting day. We had a ring on the doorbell at about 8.00am, just as I was about to leave to go to church. It was someone who had been called out by our next door neighbours because there was a drain blockage. Would we mind, he asked, if he looked at our drains. Lifting up the cover on the drain on our drive, and the one on the other neighbour’s drive, revealed that the blockage was actually under our property, which he duly cleared. But it seemed that the blockage had been caused not by us but by a young family putting unsuitable baby waste down the drains. The blockage had backed the water in the drains all the way up to the end of the close in which we live, affecting not just us and our neighbours, but half a dozen other homes as well. I hope that the drain doesn’t get blocked up again, and that our neighbours find a more suitable way of getting rid of their baby waste.
And then, on the way home from our morning service, I found a couple of people on one of the roads on the estate the church is based taking photographs of a pothole. Potholes have been appearing all over the place over recent weeks because of the cold weather, and they are becoming an increasing hazard. But I’m sure that the pothole that this couple were taking photographs of was large enough to host the World Diving Championships; disappear into it and you might never be seen again.
I hope that the potholes that have appeared our way are soon mended.
We rely on our roads, and on our drains, and we only notice them when, in one way or another, they fail. So I want to say thank you this morning for roads and for drains, for gas and electricity and water, and all the good things I normally enjoy and take for granted.
In the first few months of this year we are going to be considering the subject of the church in both our morning and our evening services.
In our morning services we are going to be looking at the character, life and ministry of Jesus. This might sound odd, thinking about the church by looking at Jesus, but it is my hope that as we focus on Christ we will discover a fresh calling to be the body of Christ in the world today. I began the series this morning by looking at Matthew 16 with Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and with Jesus then shaping what that meant by talking about his suffering and challenging his followers to take up their own cross as they follow him.
In our evening services we are going to be focussing on the church in Corinth, as we consider Paul’s letters to the Christians there. We’re not going to be going through the letters verse by verse, or chapter by chapter. Rather, we are going to study 1 and 2 Corinthians thematically, looking at some of the themes and issues raised in these letters. This evening’s sermon was a basic introduction to the series, as we considered Paul’s arrival in Corinth.
Thanks to a suggestion made in the CPAS book, ‘Making the most of Christmas 2′, everyone who came to church yesterday was handed a piece of straw as they went home, to put on their Christmas tree. The straw was to remind them of the humble beginning of the life of Jesus, the Saviour of the World, and also that he is able to take us, transform us, and use us in his service.
I was delighted with the way that everyone took this to heart, and their eagerness to take some straw home to use as part of their Christmas decorations.
On Wednesday and Thursday of this week I was privileged to be invited to watch the Nativity Play that the Nursery School who use our premises puts on – two different casts telling the same story. Following the performance I get to say a few words, and then invite the families present to join us for some of our services over the Christmas period.
As I say to them each year, the Nursery School Nativity kicks off my Christmas. It’s a real joy to watch these little children retell the story of the Nativity in a very simple way. And it’s a joy that they remain reasonably scriptural in their production – we don’t get snowflakes, or chickens, or reindeer! (Last year, though, there was an unscripted appearance of one of the lads with a policeman’s helmet)!
Each year there are funny moments that remain with me. This year, in one of the performances, the donkey who accompanied Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem insisted on sitting in between Mary and Joseph when they were shown to the stable by the innkeeper. No doubt the poor lad was confused; after all, his name was Joseph!
All in all, a good event, and an opportunity to connect with some of the families who use our premises.
We have all seen in the news recently various items concerning highly paid sportsmen who will stop at nothing to win: footballers who dive to get a penalty awarded to them, or a rugby player who pretends he’s been injured, at the command of his coach, so that he can be substituted for another player. I suppose that the money that is involved in sport leads to the must win at any price mentality that seems to be prevalent in many sports nowadays.
I am competitive when it comes to playing games, but I hope that I would never cheat in order to win. However, recently I have been reflecting more generally on whether my Christian faith comes through in the way that I play games. How important is winning to me? Do I play in what I might call an ethical way?
Let me give you a light-hearted example. Over the last week or two I’ve been playing FarmVille. FarmVille is a game which can be found through Facebook where you are responsible for developing a farm. As you make progress and gain experience you are able to grow a bigger selection of crops and purchase better equipment. You can interact with Facebook friends who also play FarmVille, sending each other gifts and helping in small tasks around the farm.
But the aim of the game is to maximise profits and move up quickly through the various levels of experience. And so the temptation is to farm your land very intensively: your livestock is squeezed into as small a space as possible, and every inch of your farm must be utilised effectively.
I’ve decided, though, that I don’t want to play the game that way. I want to leave space between my crops. I want my animals to have space to move around in. In short, I have decided that I want to farm ethically, even if it is only a game. I may not be as profitable a farmer as some, but that’s fine by me. I’d rather play the game according to my Christian principles!
If you are on Facebook and play FarmVille, do come and be my neighbour, and hold me accountable if I start being too concerned about making a profit!
One of my Anglican friends, Phil Ritchie, who works for the Diocese of Chelmsford, has recently posted this article on the subject of retirement and old age. Well worth a read!
We had a good local ministers’ fraternal yesterday, though I wish we could drop the use of the word ‘fraternal’.
I felt a little like the odd one out, being the only non-Anglican in the group. But it was great to spend time with the new rector, and I’m glad to report that his soup is up to the usual high standard expected by fraternal members.
And I’m glad that it seems we’re going to focus more on mission in the months to come. That’s good news!
Are church buildings assets or millstones? That’s a question I’ve been prompted to ask because the subject has cropped up recently in conversations I’ve had with various people, and in a couple of news articles I’ve read today.
I’ve heard of a parish church reasonably local to me where the parishioners have been told that the parish can’t afford to heat the church over winter, and so please could they wrap up warm when they come to services. It seems to me that here is a church that is not going to give a particularly warm welcome, literally, over the Christmas period.
Then I was pointed to a news article where a couple who owned property next to their local church were being required, because of some ancient law, to cough up some £230,000 for the repair of the church building. I feel sorry for the church with buildings that require that amount spent on them to keep them serviceable. But it seems Draconian to require the church’s neighbours to foot the bill, all because of some law hundreds of years old.
I’m grateful, where I minister, that we have a great suite of modern premises, used extensively by the community. But having seen our heating bills rise astronomically over the past year or so, and after having to pay a large bill running into tens of thousands of pounds to repair part of our roof, there are some who are saying that the church building is in danger of becoming a millstone around our necks.
It’s great to have a place for worship, for church activities, and for the community to share in. But, looking to the future, we constantly need to be aware of what we saddle generations to come with. Our prosperity might become their ruin.
