abbotsford.org.uk

A furnace of faith

We're doing the firey furnace this week. There's a fabulous line I had missed up to now: When the three friends are about to face the furnace they say: God will save us, but even if God doesn't, we still won't bow down to you.

That's faith in what God stands for, what God means, a faith in the possibility rather than in the physical existence of someone. I'm quite certain God would prefer us believing in the meaning of the word and its transformative power rather than in God God-self which doesn't change anything.

So we're going to give people a word cloud (wordle) of all the things we stand for: faith sharing, truth, grace, forgiveness etc and for them to circle the words that people have found the world thinks we're fools for trusting them and as a symbol of that we'll ask everyone to crush up their sheets.

We'll collect them in during singing and put them all in a big pan of fire (paper flames). At the end of the service we'll invite folk to come to the fire and take their crumpled sheets out but they will have all changed (secretly during a hymn) to a word cloud similar to Mother Theressa's: hope anyway, journey anyway, believe anyway, trust anyway etc.

We'll still do the belief thing because we believe in the possibility of love's transforming energy. Hope is a weird thing: it tends to make what seems inevitable, less so.

Another tile in the wall

Yesterday we unveiled a mosaic CAOS (our community arts project) worked on with young folk over the last few months along with Tullochan Trust. It was a good wee afternoon where the provost and others were there, and quite right that they were too.

CAOS has been doing extremely well. It has been very busy and we've been working with children, adults, women, people with mental health issues, have built a team of 21 volunteers from the local community, and done an incredible amount of work in our first year with all sort of things. In the last 10 weeks we had over a 1000 contacts with people. That's a 1000 opportunities to care and refocus and support people.

Anyway, more about that later. The mosaic is fabulous. We took the young people down to the Titan Crane and around Clydebank and they took photographs. One photo was take through the window of a bus and came out all squiggly. It looked fabulous so we turned it into this mosaic. Ta-da... Brilliant.

Hello from the Abbotsford Angels

The Abbotsford Angels met tonight for the first time to talk about upping the anti with the congregation in trying to get people back and how we make our community a place people want to return to after baptism and weddings etc. So here's where we got to.

August: personal invitation to those who have lost the habit for one reason or another to try the faith community for four weeks in September, to get back into the habit again.

September: Offer buddies for those folk which will be very low key but just a face that will invite them back the following week and keep their place. They will also be given a bag of sweets!

For the four Sunday's in September we'll begin with communion and each Sunday offer the typical stuff we do but a different insight each week so folk get a broad idea of what we are about with lead-ins the previous weeks about why they could come back.

During September there will also be a number of social events and other church activities that people can tap into: a quiz night, Big Sing, Discussion, Supper night etc.

October: The first Sunday will be a dedication day with all the organisations there: lots of people with food afterwards and an exhibition with lots of stalls from different groups illustrating what we are all about and lots of CAOS stuff which is our community arts project and is doing brilliantly.

The following Sunday will be harvest so lots of activity then too which begins eco month. The idea is that if we start in September then there is a rolling stone of events all the way up to Christmas with communion, dedication, harvest, Remembrance, Advent and then all the Christmas stuff.

We'll do a few press releases for the local press to get some publicity hopefully in the local paper and we'll put together welcome packs with the magazine, welcome leaflet, schedule of events, contacts, regular events, and importantly a list of all the questions we don't know the answer to about God, faith and church so people know we are on a journey and exploration.

Also we'll highlight a new project we're launching on Sunday so we have a broad example of the different things we are involved with locally and globally and our revamped talent scheme to get people playing to their gifts from tablet making to gardening and everything in between.

And you know, even if no one comes along then it will still be a good idea to do, it will change us, we will have invested in the whole theology of welcoming people and we've still got a whole host of other ideas to bring life, enthusiasm and renewal to this particular wee faith community that intends to stick around.

Watch this space.

Abbotsford Angels

Inviting folk for a wee coffee tomorrow evening (7.30) in the church where we are going to start thinking about either extinction or renewal for us as a church. Lots of wee ideas that might build up to a big idea that gets vision going again and enthusiasm and busyness which themselves breed vision, enthusiasm and busyness.

So it's self selecting, open to all, to come along and think through ideas and volunteer to do stuff that will get things going again and renew our purpose and intent.

And all those who come along will become Abbotsford Angels. Come often enough you get a halo and if you volunteer for something you get wings. We better do all that before we're told angels don't exist.

So it's a bit of a renewal or bust party. See you there.

Chocolate Teapots (August 1st 2010)

We're still off lectionary and will be until October, but I we were on lectionary, without hesitation I'd opt for Hosea 11:1-11. Best passage in the Bible hands down.

If you want to know anything about redemption, this is it. If you want to know anything about salvation, this is it. If you want to know anything about God, this is it. In fact this is the entire story of love. 

There is so much snash and battles fought about Jesus and the cross and atonement and ransom and substitution etc, etc, etc. Throw them away. Just read Hosea 11:1-11 and tear up the rest. This whole idea about God needing a substitute... God's never needed a substitute. God's grace just turns God towards us continually. God can do nothing else. No judgment, no hell, no unforgivable sin, no substitution, no nothing. Just love. Or if the church has believed these things so strongly that they have come into existence, God's ignoring them.

There's so much snash about a whole lot of things in our doctrine. Throw them all away and just read Hosea 11:1-11. To paraphrase: "I ought to build a great big powerful theology about human sin and how its the end for them if the sinner doesn't turn, but no matter how much I try, my heart will not let me do it. I'm God not a human. I don't need reason and explanation and rationale. Love just turns human-ward, creation-ward, and can't help itself," says God.

And whatever Jesus did on the cross it wasn't dying in our place. It was the full example of Hosea 11:1-11. No matter what you do I cannot turn away from you. My love for you is too strong.

Now, for God's sake, let's get rid of the snash and live and believe and trust this heart of the gospel that unreasonably, continually turns us in love neighbour-wards.

And if ever an Amen was needed, this is it.

AMEN!

For the love that will turn

Wait now, Hosea,
listen to the message.
It is a sign:
Love will turn towards you.
It always does.

This is the promise.

Wait for love
and love will soon say:
I will not turn against you
Even as I should
I will not do it
My heart will not let me
My love for you is too strong.

This is the promise

Love will always turn towards you, Hosea.
It can do nothing else.
Even as the people turn away
And throws stones at your God
and sand in the divine's face
Love will always turn towards you

The harlot is loved as much now
as she ever was
She is a child of God
Now.
Wrongdoing,
unfulfilled living,
brokenness
does not expel you from the realm of love
Nothing does.

This is the promise
Fulfilled.

All show

Have you seen the amount of media coverage of the Prime Minister's visit to the US? Not so much about what is being discussed behind closed doors but about how it is being perceived: is it a sit down meeting, is it in the Oval Office, will there be stuff on the White House lawn, what counts as a snub and what as bosom buddies etc. How the UK stands alongside the US is perceived is far more important that what is discussed (BP and Lockerbie. apart). Obviously. It's politics. It's never about content but staging. But then the words of Cameron's on TV about being the junior partner.

We're so puppy like when we have someone more powerful standing beside us. We lose our sense of who we are, our confidence in our own integrity, our belief in ourselves, forgetting we have something valuable to share and give and offer. But those who seek power never want to be seen upsetting those more powerful (though that power is only in terms of size and economy). The Bible can be read in many different but many who read it choose to seek a different kind of power.

The Bible always has plenty to say about what power mounts to and what it does to people. Part of me sees what the Bible is talking about in this weeks puppy walking with the US. We have a faith tradition that goes back many thousands of years. A tradition that has focused on building stronger and healthier communities rather than individual salvation, a tradition that seeks out compassion and justice for the outsider and the marginalised, a tradition that dreams of a kind of community that moves out to become the first to offer grace to those who have been refused grace by those prejudiced, frightened and who want revenge.

People of the way are never less powerful when they live like that. They are always more powerful when they adopt confidence and trust (would that be perhaps faith?) when they refuse to bow down to power-seekers, pharisees, revenge-seekers, stage-managers who need things to be seen to be done (Lockerbie, BP), and lets go the need to have a relationship based on the perception of that relationship rather than on justice and compassion itself.

Standing Stones

I like standing stones. Went to a number of stone circles in Arran today. There were three tall standing stones. It was as if it was a point in time where generation after generation have fond a place where all the layers of the universe are stapled together, thin enough to know whatever is sacred becomes tangible.

The bit I've never confessed before is that I like standing stones and I like imagining worship there. I like the thinness of it, the unpredictability, the feeling of doing something a bit heretical where what is ancient is met in what is contemporary. It's as if we take the first of creation (the stones) and mark our place in the story of time and imagination and story.

Is that 'un-christian'? Certainly it isn't meant to be pagan but honours the story of faith, and places that story in something god-make (a circle of stones) rather than human made (a brick church). You see, you can't compare them, can you?

Perhaps this year we may dare and worship in an ancient way what is truly ancient: the story of God within a standing circle. Perhaps we could make our own circle that pulls from the past what we need to know today. Even create a contemporary circle of faith today: of justice, of renewal, or story. I can see it now: a stone inscribed with images from the stories we need today that makes sense of the world for us and gives it meaning and promise. Any takers to find a way to do that?

Chocolate Teapots (25th July)

Luke 11:1-13

Ahhh! The prayer thing. Such a big issue about what prayer actually is and what it does etc. Books and books and then some more books have been written on it. Who prays in faith? Who prays for others? Who prays through Jesus? Who prays sincerely? Who prays for God's Realm?

That last one is the one that makes the difference surely? When we pray it's not an alternative to going to the doctor. Plenty of people have stories of healing. I know that. But that doesn't compute with my experience of God. But to pray for the feeding of my neighbour, for the transformation of my enemy, for the coming of justice and for the way of righteousness means I place myself in the firing line of being called a neighbour-lover, and enemy-lover, and justice-lover and a righteousness-lover. Words don't do that, however. Does my life also make that clear, because that is the real way of praying: owning up to my living that what I speak of in my faith becomes the prayer of my life, enfleshing the prayer, finding that I am helping my neighbour at the dead of midnight because I can and want to for the good of the universe. Jesus didn't often pray for the healing of people but for the whole realm of God to transform the world through what we do. I'd ban the words we use in church and call prayer unless they take us into the place and purpose and means of being the kingdom.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he wasn't offering some liturgical piece for people to use to better themselves but a means to change the kind of relationships we have in the world.

Chocolate Teapots (25th July)

Luke 11:1-13

Ahhh! The prayer thing. Such a big issue about what prayer actually is and what it does etc. Books and books and then some more books have been written on it. Who prays in faith? Who prays for others? Who prays through Jesus? Who prays sincerely? Who prays for God's Realm?

That last one is the one that makes the difference surely? When we pray it's not an alternative to going to the doctor. Plenty of people have stories of healing. I know that. But that doesn't compute with my experience of God. But to pray for the feeding of my neighbour, for the transformation of my enemy, for the coming of justice and for the way of righteousness means I place myself in the firing line of being called a neighbour-lover, and enemy-lover, and justice-lover and a righteousness-lover. Words don't do that, however. Does my life also make that clear, because that is the real way of praying: owning up to my living that what I speak of in my faith becomes the prayer of my life, enfleshing the prayer, finding that I am helping my neighbour at the dead of midnight because I can and want to for the good of the universe. Jesus didn't often pray for the healing of people but for the whole realm of God to transform the world through what we do. I'd ban the words we use in church and call prayer unless they take us into the place and purpose and means of being the kingdom.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he wasn't offering some liturgical piece for people to use to better themselves but a means to change the kind of relationships we have in the world.