abbotsford.org.uk

Spiritual Audit

Came across this site when doing some research for a sermon (yup, I do research. Well, that's what I call it. Other would call it thieving).

I know I question a lot and I have lots of hang ups abut my faith and I worry all the time about the church's survival and the depth of faith/spirituality the congregation is allowed to travel etc, etc, etc. This audit opened out some stuff and allowed me to relax a little into being a human with faith and not expecting myself to be God.

I'm far more into spirituality than religion. Religion is prejudiced, controlling, legalistic. Spirituality is freeing, more of a journey and this audit parallels that. It's not perfect. It's not meant to be. But doing it (it takes as long as it takes to read it) may free up some hang-ups and let us journey and explore a little more rather than get stressed about our religion.

Let us know how you got on.

Big Day of CAOS

Community Art. It's a big subject and a new one and not many of us are particularly familiar with it. But all that will change on Saturday 2nd September.

We have organised a big morning of CAOS for everyone in the congregation and anyone else who would like to know about CAOS and Community Art. We have commuinity artists coming along, we have a showcase of talent from the community, we have information about CAOS, we have images and speakers and activities and more especially a FREE LUNCH.

It is a morning of finding out and a soft way what community art is all about. It is harmless yet may change everything.

We are hoping there will be 100 people there from the congregation. We want to invite people simply to see community art and how it has changed people and communities. We'll hear real stories and meet real people who have been affected by real problems in their community and seen real transformation because of community art.

Can it really bring about change locally?

Find out on September 2nd at 10.30am More information soon. Put it in diaries now. But you'll get your own invitation this weekend.

Eco Congregation

The latest eco-congregation newsletter has just been published from the network of green or greening congregations and we've made it into its pages. It's been great that Christine nand the eco-group have been leading us here. It is one of the groups we have that really focus life and gospel in a very real way.

But as you know the gaining of the eco-award isn't a once off and we can all settle down again. Oh no! It's just the beginning of things and the group have recently met and there are excellent plans with new ideas and ways to get really involved with the planet and think creatively about our living in this palce and being creation carers.

All the wee thoughts in the eco-news we publish bi-monthly really get you tghinking and after a while hopefully it all becomes a way of thinking. I love it. You really feel you're turning gospel principles into actions in your daily living and that's what it is all about.

So all power to your collective green elbows eco-team. You're great.

Chocolate Teapots (Aug 20)

Cheery one this week. King David has died. A power struggle ensues. Soolomon and Adonijah fight for the kingship. I'm glad Solomon won because I can't pronounce the other one's name.

Transition isn't easy. (Is that a song?)

Anyway the story is at 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14.

Thoughts?
Hymns?
A word that jumps out?

Please?

Creative Communion

Just a wee reminder there is a Contemporary Communion Service on Sunday at 6.30. We stir with intent as we gathering in the space called holy and the holy stirs with intent in us a sign and a promise of eternity. The only real practical theology the church does.

Here's a wee taste:

This bread is broken in community, and we will all break it, because this bread is about the common-life of living through the Spirit: a community given over to love.

We don’t know where it will take us, though more often than not the church has tried to control that journey, prescribing what happens at this table, holding the spirit back, containing the surprise of finding heaven in a crumb of bread and all of grace in a splash of wine, in prescribed word and deed.

But this is an unknown each time we gather, for this story is still unfolding in the world. Still the Saviour offers himself to the world in love, still the Saviour moves to the very edge of reason, still the Saviour betrays the comfort of the religious authorities by unbarring God, and showing us the distance God will go for us in love.

O that the church would hold God back. Let us untangle God from liturgy and tradition, and explore this bread’s calling and conspire with this wine’s taste by following God beyond what is expected and live in the surprising grace that God longs for us to savour.

Ceasefire in Israel

A few days ago I posted about a ceasefire petition. Tom added a piece to it from an email many of us received this morning. Here it is again:

Who knows? Your name, added to the list could be the one that makes the difference.
You know it makes sense!

Latest from website .......

Dear Friends,
As the awful civilian death toll rises above 1000 in Lebanon and Israel, people
around the world are seeking a place to voice their frustration and concern.
Over the last 4 days, 200,000 people from 148 countries have signed the
ceasefire petition. At this rate, we could soon be the largest global online
petition in history.

The pressure is working. The global outcry over this crisis has pushed the
Ambassadors to the UN Security Council to work around the clock to achieve an
immediate ceasefire.

The latest word is that the Council may be close to a final vote today or
tomorrow, but we've been this close before and negotiations have fallen apart.
We need more pressure now to close the deal.

Please forward this email on, spread the word to your friends, family and
colleagues, post a link on your blog, bring up the campaign in discussions, and
urgently encourage people around you to join this global wave of protest by
signing up at the link below:

http://www.ceasefirecampaign.org/mo/en.html

The pressure is working. Let's ratchet it up.

The next new space

Its time for Craft Daft to perform another miracle and change the worship space as we hed for autumn, harvest, remembrance and the end of the church year. So I thought, why not ask folk what has worked well in the past and what would help shape the space for creative worship.

So what has worked and what do you think would help us engage with the holy over the next few months given the special dates we have.

Also, our texts take us to Job and Ruth as two main areas of journeying in October and November. So what picture come into your mind? What questions? What colours? Textures? Any surprises or words jump out at you? Read the following textx if you wish and ask yourself the above questions.

Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Job 38:1-7, 34-41 (one of my favourite bits of the Bible)
Ruth 1:1-8
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

Any thoughts. What would make you stand still and say, "Wow, a holy place!"

Ploughshares 2000 Camp

I was up at Coulport this afternoon to support the peace camp. It was the penultimate day and the only day I could go. I wanted to support the camp but more especially Barbara who was there for some of the time. Murphy's Law came in to play and Barbara had left not 45 minutes before I arrived. But hey, I said hello and left again.

It's a bit of a scary place up there with a lot of police everywhere in vans travelling around all the time. I was quite pleased to be back in Helensburgh (!). It's just sinister and suspicious and the whole set up is designed to make you feel like that.

It is all the more focused with the inability of people who lead the world to find talking something useful yet find weapons easy. Maybe it's because I have a four year old daughter but when you see what the bombs have done in Lebanon to children and in Iraq (and so many others) anyone who accepts that as acceptable or inevitable "collateral damage" just doesn't get it. I want to camp at Coulport but also at 10 Downing Street and the White House and the Knesset and show people what this does and I want them to flinch, to pause, I want their voice to break to show me there still is an ounce of humanity left.

A Voice

How many days now have we heard that there isn a ceasefire round the corner in Palestine? But it seems no one is working on a genuinely balanced agreement. It all seems stacked one way or another. The US want one stacked heavily in favour of Israel (because maybe they are fighting the US war for them against Iran and Syria) and then others want it stacked towards Hizbullah. No one wants a level playing field so people can negotiate peace. No one wants honesty. No one wants something genuine but something that has odds stacked against one over another just to cause more pain later.

And here's another case where we are mostly helpless.

It seems very little but maybe a million people or so signing something can focus things a bit better for those in power. The Ceasefire Campaign is looking for 1 million co-sponsors to deliver their petition to the Security Council this week. Can you join them? Sign here.

Chocolate Teapots (13th August)

Okay back in the saddle after holidays but still don't know where we're going. But it's the journey my friends, it's the journey,

This coming weekend we have Ephesians 4:25-5:2 and it is all about living together as a community of faith. I wonder if you could add an 's' onto that and wonder about living together and a community of faiths. I'm thinking Israel and the US (and the UK) against the Middle East. Read a really interesting article about that in the Independent today.

The bible passage suggests that when the church doesn't shrink from addressing difficult problems, the faith community is built up and strengthened. I tend to agree. And boy, there is much to say in this world because our faith has been used to further conflict, and is the raison d'etre behind the principles of leaders controlling those conflicts. And I for one want to distance myself from an interpretation of Christianity that allows these things to seem to sit so comfortably together. That so many are comfortable with it is sickening.

Working with anger to move us beyond strong feelings and destructive behaviour is a goal of Christianity and indeed of most other faiths. But we don't get it, do we. First off we retaliate, then we negotiate.

So when have you been impressed with the voice of the church?
When have you been crushed because the church has supported what you disagree with?

And hymns and music and symbols and images for Sunday too...
What are your thoughts and what has the chruch supplied the world via hymns and ideas and symbols in order to speak to the world, through the community of faiths, to move it beyond destructive living?

Quite a small week really!