abbotsford.org.uk

Sunday Taster

(Metronome ticking)

Not for the well known
but for the unknown
not for the famous
but the forgotten
not for the well named
but the unnamed

Jesus has time (Stop metronome)

Pause

(Start metronome again)

Not for the included
but the excluded
not for the religious
but for the hopeful
not for the inner circle
but for the outer circle

Jesus has time (Stop metronome)

those of us
seeking healing
seeking hope
seeking life
Jesus has time for us
even as the world doesn’t

(Start metronome again)

Not for those who do know
but those who need to know
the unbounded and unlimited
love and compassion
generosity and grace of God

Jesus has time…

(Let metronome tick for a short while then stop)

Baptismal Liturgy

How do you write a Baptismal Liturgy on-line? Never done that before. So here's the first part which is open to all edits and thoughts and additions. We'll look at the other parts tomorrow. The story of Sunday is Jesus stilling the storm.

This is someone we know who is being baptised. What words of faith do we wish to give her? What promises from our own experience do we wish to offer? What words of God do we wish to speak through the water?

Preamble:

Here is the sign of belonging
in every storm
where everyone born
is given a promise
a name
and a place to belong

This water, rought or still, while the same as any other water
is also God’s claim on us
God’s welcome of us
where there is nothing in all the universe that can separate us
from God’s love

So in Baptism we remember this everlasting grasp of love
given to N_______ today
and that reminds us of God’s love for each of us
Calling us through
transforming us within
and transfiguring the world
where God dwells
among us and through us
and travels with us in every storm

Let us pray:

God
In a world of water
You take water and we are born through it

Jesus
You were baptised just as we are
And said you were the living water
that we need never thirst again

Spirit
Your waters bore the world in her creation
and bear us too

We bring N_______ to the very edge of heaven today
Holding her/him on the brink of eternity
Making her/him your newest follower in the realm of love
Amen

So please, please do add, edit, subtract, question this liturgy so far. Anything at all. It's not mine, but words of the community to this newest of followers. It's is all our words. Let's get our paws mucky with liturgy and love.

On the Lake

This needs work. Especially the last line. So chip in please. It's for Sunday, perhaps. It would be really great to write the liturgy together. Let's do that. We have a baptism on Sunday of someone in the Sunday School. Maybe we could create the liturgy together, lovingly, as a community, for one of our own. We'll start tomorrow. For today...

On the lake,
the blue-green of the day,
became ghostly white at sundown.

The breeze,
   foam filled,
swarmed in the air.

Wave and water clashed,
tangling together with a passion born of long waiting
now unlocking the hidden storm
simmering for too long a while:
   mustard weed, the image of the divine realm?;
   speaking of the kingdom as a riddle?;
   questioning family ties before the reign of God?;

The storm has been brewing for days now
but just as quickly as it arrived,
   it went,
   with a word from The Word,
and we knew we did not yet have faith enough
   to borrow,
   just a whisper,
   of the expectation of God.

A work in progress (for Sunday)

Here's the contemporary reading for Sunday but it isn't finished yet. Wondered if anyone would like to help edit it and suggest the setting: actions, staging, props etc that we might use. Why should the work all be down to one person! This idea has been stolen from Halfway to Heaven which is a fabulous website of intelligent and thoughtful stuff for anyone who takes their brain with them to church.

Voice 1    There is building

Voice 2    And there is growing

Voice 1    You build a house

Voice 2    While you grow a garden

Voice 1    You can’t grow a house

Voice 2    And you can’t build a garden

Both    Though some people try

Voice 1    You build something if you want it to have structure with straight lines and right angles. You build something if you want it to be sturdy and solid.

Voice 2    And you grow something that you want to have life, vibrancy. You grow something if you want to watch it develop and change and mature.

Voice 1    You don’t build a child, you grow a child

Voice 2    You don’t grow a car you build a car

Voice 1    You don’t build a field, you grow a field

Voice 2    You don’t grow a computer, you build a computer

Voice 1    You don’t build a garden, you build a house

Voice 2    You don’t grow a building, you grow a garden

All    But some think otherwise

Voice 1    If you want something to be exactly as you want it to be, without error or initiative then you build it. But it won’t ever love you back.

Voice 2    But if you want something to change with experience, to mature and evolve, you grow it, in the hope it may love you back

Voice 1    Building

Voice 2    And growing

Both    Are two different things

Voice 1    But what about the church?

Voice 2    Yes, what about the community of God?

Voice 1    Built?

Voice 2    Or grown?

Voice 1    If you build it then it will be an image of yourself. There will be no space for evolving. It won’t be alive.

Voice 2    But if you grow it then it has essence and experience and maturity and, yes, life.

Voice 1    But there is one problem with growing something you don’t get from building something. If you grow something there is a change it may become something else, it may choose to transform itself, it may respond to things and be effected by them, it may grow away from you, or closer to you. If you grow something then you don’t always have control over it. It can become wild. In fact the chances are you’ll loose control over it and it will have a life of its own.

Voice 2    And you see that as a problem?

Voice 1    It is much easier and safer to design a building, or a child, or a family, or the DNA of an unborn infant.

Voice 2    But there is more passion and love in letting something grow

Voice 1    Built things have history

Voice 2    Grown things have hope

Voice 1    Do you build a church

Voice 2    Or grow a church

Voice 1    Some people don’t know the difference

Voice 2    But the result makes a world of difference

Table

This is an open table

there are no words needed
     only longing for love
no creeds to be answered
     only a need for God
no orthodoxy to be approved
     only the pursuit of justice
no perfect life looked for
     only the humility of the sinner
no faith to be proved
     only the desire for more
no doctrine to be examined
     only hunger to be filled

This is an open table
and each of us is invited
by our host himself:
Jesus Christ

Trinity

This is a little earlier than expected. Usually this blog entry is normally light-hearted, but this arrived today in a coffee shop late afternoon where I was working while waiting for my daughter to finish her swimming lesson.

Voice 1:
Older than the past;
Newer than the future;
More present than now;
Come creator and open your table to us.

Voice 2:
Word within all words;
Silence within all silence;
Touch within all touch;
Come Saviour and break bread with us.

Voice 3:
Setter of table;
Baker of bread;
Spiller of wine;
Come Spirit and be the sharing of grace among us.

Voice 1:
When we have used up our words;
When images are over-familiar;
When we explain rather than inspire;
Come Holy God and reveal to us a new face.

Voice 2:
You are the Question;
and the Questioner;
and the Questioning;
Come Light In The Darkness, and reform our ideas.

Voice 3:
God the maker;
God the breaker;
God the shaker;
Come Sacred Trinity and let us worship you.

On the eve of Pentecost

A call, a veni spiritus, an invocation:

Spirit… spirit… spirit… spirit…

The crunch of word
the splash of light
the run of water

Spirit… spirit… spirit… spirit…

The breaking of word
the flow of light
the rush of water

Spirit… spirit… spirit… spirit…

Come Spirit
scoundrel of grace
invade and infect us
with goosebumps and justice

Come Spirit
spark in the chaos
and unstop our ears
to the song in creation

Come Spirit
rascal of heaven
bring us to the edge
of all things created

Come Spirit of grace
Come Spirit of life
Come Spirit of creation

Come now… now… now… now

Pentecost Statement

This Pentecost statement has been put together by the Sundau School. We did a wee dicsussion with them about pentecost words following the telling of the story and they gave us a list of feelings and emotions and thoughts and wow words. We turned it into a statement. Everything in italic is their words.

We believe in the spirit:
we believe she is extraordinary,
and wonderful,
she is unknown,
and mysterious,
she is the energy of God.

We believe in the spirit:
we believe she is always whirling,
always spirited,
she is powerful,
and intense,
she is the celebration of God.

We believe in the spirit:
who is magnificent
and amazing,
exciting
and bright,
she is the power of God.

In the confusion we believe the spirit brings hope;
in the tension we believe the spirit brings discovery;
in the apprehension we believe the spirit brings excitement.

We believe in the spirit:
who is the fantastic,
happy,
joyful,
golden,
allelujah of God.

Hint for Sunday

A call to worship based on John 15:9-17

servant, no!
friend, yes!
looser, no!
lover, yes!
slave, no!
companion, yes!

such is God’s naming of us.

conditional, no!
unconditional, yes!
partly, no!
fully, yes!
contractual, no!
unquestioning, yes!

such is God’s loving of us.

love only those who love you back: no!
love one another as I love you: yes!

such is God’s call to us.

Come now:
named,
loved,
and called
to be community
against all that divides
that we may be complete
in joy
in love
in God

give discord our ‘no’,
and God our ‘yes’.

Root & Branch Review

A taster for Sunday.

It’s about root and branch review
growing and pruning
O how that hurts

For we don’t want our bit to be pruned
our ideas
our traditions
our thoughts

A root and branch review
where the pruning is as much about growth
as it is about making us fit for the future
aware of who we are to be
shaping us for what we are called to become
but o how that hurts
when what is familiar becomes what is cut away

A root and branch review

Vintner God
renew us
prune us
and dare us
to cut back
re-graft
think through
who we are going to be
as a church
a faith community
the people of God

Vintner God
may we bear fruit called love
grapes full of justice
a harvest of grace and compassion
and in bearing such fruit
redeem your church
and renew ourselves

A root and branch review
that fears not, the pruning
and longs for the future
But O how that will hurt

Yet, so be it
Amen