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Chocolate Teapots

A good service to day in my opinion. That's because I didn;'t do a think. I felt encouraged rather than abused after worship which is a good thing.

And Tom won this weeks prize for the tree as his idea decorated it. Can't remember what the prize was going to be but I'll think of something fabulous.

Prizes are still available for the following weeks.

Next weeks passage is continuing on from today at Mark 1:21-28.

Does anything jump out at you, a word, a phrase, an act?
If the passage was a colour, what colour would it be?
If it made the sound of an animal, what animal would it be?
If it was represented by food, what food does this passage suggest?

"Is this what they're teaching ministers now in university? What is the world coming to?"

And the tree...

Mucky Paws

The latest Mucky Paws has just been sent out. This is a wee monthly collection of stuff from Abbotsford, liturgies, prayers, contemporary readings, communion stuff that people have asked for. It's sent to Australia, Norway, the US, Canada, Austria, South Africa, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Wales and even Scotland. It's free and this is the first of Volume 3. You can subscribe to it by emailing me (address at the bottom of one of these columns).

It started because people used to ask for a copy of a prayer or a contemporary reading. Eventually it has grown to over 100 folk round the world receiving a copy (They all ask frist, promise). It's good if you miss something on a Sunday morning. Once you've read it, you realise you missed nothing!

Communion Discussion

A fair discussion tonight about bread and wine. Don't know how to sum it up, if that is at all possible but I think what came out of it was that we need to talk more about communion, look at all the symbols and the practice a little more and give ourselves time just to explore all that.

One good practical suggestion is to produce Duffer leaflets (already suggested here earlier on somewhere) on communion for guests. So what areas and what practices need to be explained more? What would you appreciate in a leaflet that was there to guide you through a service you had never been at or one you had been at all your life?

A good number of thoughts tonight and laterly the dicussion was pulled rolund to thinking what it meant to be a Eucharistic community, how to let what we believed about the bread and wine shape the community we are. But that is such a big question we just unfolded it a little. I think we should set aside Lent as a time to do more preperation about bread and wine, and think of it in community and as a picture/image/tool of community.

That should be a fabulous discussion and in my head I'm thinking how to play with that one. What areas ought we look at? How should we handle the symbols? How can we open up the experience of God in bread and wine rather than crush it?

Thank goodness Lent is six weeks long. I think we'll fill it quite easily.

Beyond Belief

I advertised this on Sunday but there is a website with more information about the event and where tickets can be purchased.

Wed 15 Feb Bearsden Baptist Church, 14 Roman Road, Bearsden, Glasgow - Glasgow Christian Aid office 0141 221 7475 e-mail: [email protected]

Beyond Belief: A taste of real life from the West Bank

Beyond Belief is a dynamic, reflective, multi media presentation based upon the lives of ordinary people living in extraordinary circumstances in the West Bank. Written and produced by singer songwriter Martin John Nicholls of Christian Aid, Beyond Belief uses powerful, personal stories, searing images and sensitive original songs to convey the struggles and the hopes of those who live under Israeli occupation and with the threat of violent reprisals.

“They say there are three sides to every story in the Middle East. Opinions and loyalties are deeply entrenched and buried under years of pain and conflict, so to excavate the whole truth is a painstaking and delicate task. The media shows us one side: military incursions, fanaticism and violent reprisals. Beyond Belief unveils the stories that are seldom heard, those of ordinary, peace loving people struggling to survive. Beyond Belief is a collection of postcards from the edge, daring us to walk a few steps into the wilderness, in the footsteps of the prophets and to feel what life is like for those on both sides who pray for peace and work for justice in the land we still dare to call Holy…” says Martin.

Performed live by Martin and a team of talented musicians and readers, the road show highlights the tensions, fears and frustrations of those on both sides of the divide. In their own words they describe how they wrestle with the impact of curfews, checkpoints, land confiscation, illegal settlements, closure barricades, suicide bombers and the new “Security Wall”.

The show is dedicated to Christian Aid partner, Nader Abu Amsha, Director of the YMCA in Beit Sahour (The Shepherd’s Field near Bethlehem). Nader is a Palestinian Christian who has been arrested and held without charge a number of times as a result of his courageous, compassionate work with young people who have been scarred emotionally and physically by the conflict.

Do this in remembrance

Just having a thought (I'm about to do some stuff for the Task Group on Communion for the Church). I'm thinking about communion and the narrative of the Institution - the bit that tells the story of the Last Supper as Paul speaks of it handed on to him (1 Corinthians 11).

Jesus meals with others (and he ate a lot getting a reputation as a glutton and a drunkard) were always socio-political. It always involved a radical inclusion of the outcast. Think of any meal Jesus ate and it was probably with a tax collector or sinner, as the Good Book so gently puts it. When Jesus says "do this in remembrance of me" how much does the politics of his table fellowship in other places come in to the understanding of what he says here? If it does, and why shouldn't it, then it means sharing this bread and wine with all those who do not fit in elsewhere which means this is a sign of freedom and liberation, radical inclusion and a new world order. The meals Jesus had, as well as the Last Supper, were inclusive meals that were visual promises of the Realm to come. Do you get more political than that?

And so there was Sunday

A healthy mixture of pancakes, fish and creativity. Jonah's a good story. lots going on. The tree became seaweed with fish swimming through it, and Jonah was well caught hold of.

What I did discover today was how well the Sunday School taught the story. My daughter (4 years old) visited the Gap (13-19 years old). Guess who was teaching who the story? So golden starfish to the teachers and rotten seaweed to the minister.

Next week the passage is Mark 1:21-28. The big questions is, what do you do with the tree. There will be a prize this time for suggestions that are used.

Jonah

Creator,

our footprints mark the edge of things,
places of hesitation,
our minds turning a choice
charged more with emotion than logic
(as all of love is).

Creator,

that voice filled with names,
so familiar with this between space,
haunts our souls with the needs of heaven,
and pleads with us to turn towards a new danger
(as all of love is).

Creator,

we balance between shore and sand,
each offering its own threat:
a sea filled with regret and troubled disappointment,
against a journey forged with risk
(as all of love is).

Creator,

now is the moment to chose
in the turning of this new morning light,
to let shadow fall as guide or as disciple.
And as the land changes,
may we find our shoes soon filled with the dust of a new danger
(as all of love is).

So be it

Bookends

Okay, last months book didn't seem to be tghe most popular. Can anyone tell me what the ending was about? Did I miss something because in some great symbolic imagery or was it just as you read it? I enjoyed reading it but didn't get the ending. I think I was in the minority in the enjoyment department.

Anyway, this month we journey to Afghanistan to fly kites in the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

Bread and whatzit

The communion discussion continues this Thursday. We'll start with a look at the different parts of the liturgy, you know: Great Thanksgiving, Institution, Epiclesis, Fraction - all those common words we use everyday and wonder what happens when we do different things with them, remove the words or not bother with them at all. What makes a communion, communion? What do you have to have to make it so?

Thoughts to whet all our appetites?

Oh, and there are some photos of the tree from the last couple of weeks as a free gift in the hope hundreds of people will arrive at the communion discussion.

Chocolate Teapots

Name a story in the bible that has a fish in it?

Well, that's what we're looking at, only we miss out the fish bit. So you've had your chips as far as that's concerned.

Jonah is a bit of a cool prophet. Read the story and find out why. From memory, it's only 4 chapters or something like that.

But the other reason he's quite cool it that he's the only prophet called to visit a city outside Israel. It's a great story about God's universalism even though God is red hot with fury. So God needs to chill a bit.

So what on earth do we do with the tree for this week?
What would you say if you were in the city of Nineveh?
Why is God so concerned about a city outside heaven's traditional duristriction? There isn't oil there, is there...?
And how do you save face when you back down from red hot judgement to cool mercy as God does?

Any thoughts?
Don't run away.
Or will I just send a big fish your way...