abbotsford.org.uk

Economic Armageddon

I haven't a clue what's really happening in the stock market at the moment. I find it exhilerating and confusing and totally stressful. I am quite sure most of the problems could be solved if everyont just turned off their TVs and radios and never opened a newspaper. No one would know, loose confidence and just get on with life. Is that not what we're meant to do to solve the problem.

This must surely be the case when a whole country (Iceland) could be wiped out. It's incredible. The BBC even have a daily moment by moment financial crisis timetable. I'm not talking about monthly or even daily headlines but hourly headlines. It must be bad.

I go here to try and get a grasp of it each morning and then discover it's all changed by lunchtime. So in order to save the entire global economy and prevent biblical soothesayers proclaim Revelation literally true here's this weeks quiz.

If you had a pound (and it's a big if, I know) what would you rather do with it rather than put it into the stock market? Or, in other words, where would you hide it (which I know is a bit of a pointless exercise since we'd all be round digging it up)?Jesus has a story where two folk invested it and got more back (remember those days) and one dug a hole and hid it. Funny how something come back to haunt you, even Jesus. Context is clearly everything.

Safely gathered in...?

And so Harvest is completed and everyone seemed very happy this morning. lots of great comments, unexpected joy broke out in places least expected, some folk who never say anything said good things. And we filled the time and then some quite the thing. I looked at my watch at 12 noon and thought, 'how did we get here so quickly'.

I thought the band was excellent this morning. Good songs to sing and everyone joined in quite the thing.

The words from Job really were straight from Job (chapter 38) without any poetic licence. Aren't they just fantastic. One of my top five favourite passages in the Bible. Here they are again:

Were you there when I made the world?
Who decided how large it should be?
Who laid the cornerstone of the world?
In the dawn of that day the stars sang together
Who closed the gates to hold back the sea?
Have you ever ordered the dawn to seize the day
Who dug a channel for the pouring rain?
Who is the mother of ice and frost?
Who is wise enough to count the clouds and tilt them over and pour out the rain?

A good balance of actions in the statement of faith and songs along with visuals (Do you like my new projector. It's the size of your hand and not much more).

Even the Gap liked the service and indeed sang some of the songs.

It's a songs of praise next week so not quite back to normal and then its the rest of eco-month. So chocolate Teapots will appear next week sometime. For the moment we can just relish the harvest and know it isn't safely gathered in until justice is established. So that won't be soon then.

The blessing from today:

May we find heaven in the wildness of creation;
may we seek justice in bread for the world;
may we know resurrection in the sunsets of autumn;
and may we find God in the sharing of it all.

Harvest

Harvest is coming up and I haven't had a single thought about it until tonight. This is unusual. We were just talking at Craft Daft tonight (brilliant banners by the way) that this time last year we were hanging all those fabulous photos of people's favourite scene. 360 of them.

But I haven't been anywhere near being so organised. CAOS has been busy with grant applications. It's taken it's toll but it will be utterly fantastic if it is succesful.

Anyway, I digress. I'm needing some help with harvest:

Colours of the season...?
Sounds...?
Words...?
Textures...?
Smells...?
Music...?

Please feel free to be imaginative, creative, unusual, silly, daft, foolish in answering any of the above. And also please feel equally as free to answer them without being too clever, spending a lot of time trying to think of stuff, just the first things that come into your mind.

Lots of answers too would be good. Saves me having to think them up. So answer any as much as you like. Looking forward to a busy week because I'm sure there will be other things we'll need to invent togetehr as the weekend gets closer...

The Story Teller

I was out for coffee today with a good friend and we had a moment of inspiration. The church is always going on about getting people to tell "Good News Stories". It's part of Church Without Walls. People don't talk up the church. Far too often they moan (remember the moaners don't get to the Promised Land, Numbers 14) and complain about the church.

And those who do have Good News stories are reluctant or shy to tell them because the church is not good at listening nor loving new ideas. We all feel so insecure that when soeone comes along with an story about an idea then we all go into defense mode, find the problem with it rather than the celebration. We've been trained to survive rather than blossom. The whole way we define the church is through statistics. that's the only formal way the church describes it's life.

So lets have a resident story teller. Schools are having them now, hospitals too, nations indeed. We should have one to two or three in Abbotsford, folk who listen and write the stories down, the ways people help and care and celebrate and get invovled and dream and think and what they like and what inspires them and how they inspire others. These are the Good News stories.

Someone ought to be given the means and support, training and time to listen in to the story of the congregation and then somehow given the space to tell it, let people catch up with the story so far.

What it isn't is a history book like one of those books published at a centenary whcih no one reads but everyone thinks it's something we ought to have. That's a dull idea and it surfaces because we have no imagination to think of anything else. It's the living story of now, of Mrs McGinty baking for the Youth Group, of Mr Smith and how he always leaves a sweet in the pew of an old friend, of Crafts daft and the conversations we have round making the art work, of CAOS an the thoughts of the volunteers, of Talk Back and how people engage with worship, of new folk and why tey chose to attend.

So I'm looking for a story teller in residence or people to flesh out the idea further. Any thoughts...

A (bad) taste of Sunday

Here's what will be the contemporary reading for Sunday. Needs a little more work and so I look to you. Any editing will be very welcome indeed. I've tried to put our present times into apocalyptic style. It has sort of worked but anyone who can attempt to make it better please jump in.

the idea is to give a flavous of apocalyptic style to show what it can do to people who are uncertain of the times. Three readers, one for each stanza plus a wee chant sung every three verses (itself symbolic). So see what you can do. Oh, and three readers would be helpful too if there are any other there... Looking for some images to go with it too...

When everything that was thought secure
now reveals it’s insecurity
Behold, God will keep you forever and ever

When the great riches of beast
are swallowed by it’s own greed
Behold, God will keep you forever and ever

When the leaders of the time
hide their uncertainty with false confidence
Behold, God will keep you forever and ever

Chant

When black gold rises in the desert
and the mighty beast of many readies for battle
Behold, God will keep you forever and ever

When it’s terrible pride is dented
and its claws tighten round it’s prey
Behold, God will keep you forever and ever

When the sound of weeping fills the land
and nothing can silence it’s power
Behold, God will keep you forever and ever

Chant

When humanity goes back
on it’s contract with creation
Behold, God will keep you forever and ever

When the northern lands retract
and the oceans starve
Behold, God will keep you forever and ever

When the skies turn dark
and the air grows heavy with the dust of humanity
Behold, God will keep you forever and ever

Chant