abbotsford.org.uk

Brad the Zombie

Brad Pitt is in Glasgow making a zombie film (as you do - why did he pick Glasgow?) I'm getting stopped by hundreds of people for an autograph who think I'm him!!

Have humans always been taken in by people who are famous for being famous, and why are so many screen entertainers so hugely well off? Is it more to do with us than them? Surely it's not just a pretty face or that they can act (a bit), but more about our human sense of imagination and how valuable it is to how we engage with life.

Which makes me wonder about why we are so reluctant or bad as using our imagination so freely in worship and in designing our church life. We tend to lay down the same patterns generation after generation but the places where the imagination is rife, don't seem to do that. And if the areas where our imagination is so richly invested in (films, theatre etc) show us something about the basic needs of being fully human, then why do we feel the church isn't creative and imaginative? I know it is in many, many pockets, but the institution isn't. Too many Zombies ruling to roost?

Is everyone still there?

Just wondering if we've lost anyone yet to the rapture. And at the end of the day and no one has been taken away can I make an invitation to those who thought they might have been?

Now that you've blown a hole in your own kind of 'Christianity', please consider rethinking your theology and idea of faith and more towards a more progressive model of who and what God is, because quite clearly, once again, God has been shown not to be the kibnd who does end of the world scenarios.

Perhaps handing Christianity over to the aethiests as just another sitcom, but focus on what Jesus shaped and longed for, a world that sought equality, justice and life. It's not as sexy perhaps, nor would it make the best holywood blockbuster, but it's real and thats the difference between a progressive faith and one that focuses on judgements and raptures: it's real.

So if anyone is still here at the end of today, please think about rethinking your theology and give Christianity some integrity and rebuild the trust people ought to have of what sharing the faith of Jesus is about and moves us towards: justice, peace and compassion.

I'm glad the world isn't going to end today because I long for it to be a yet much better, loving place and as Christians we can stand against that or we can stand for it.

Planck in your eye

The new Planck space telescope has just made a massive discovery of something even more massive than the discovery itself.

As a human race we've just sumbled across some of the largest structures we have ever seen in our universe. These are galaxy clusters, 169 of them. "The clusters contain up to a hundred galaxies, and each galaxy has a billion stars," said Dr Nabila Aghanim of the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in Orsay, France.

Does God get further away each time we dosciver something like this? Or in some beautifully wondrous way does God come closer? Or perhaps becasue human are able to hold two contradicting ideas at the one time, God does both?

I hope we never get a sense that we are too small in this expanding universe. Few in number and bundled on a tiny planet out on the edge of the Milky Way (a bit new complared to these galaxy clusters) but the ability we have (if we lived to our full potential) in terms of justice and love and grace is huge.

Just as horizon shifting as Planck's galaxies.

Greenbelt

It is the big Greenbelt weekend. We're off tomorrow evening and going to take in the fabulous hotch-potch of John Bell, Richard Rohr, Maggie Dawn, Kester Brewin, The Rev, Mark Yaconelli, Peter Tatchell and a whole lot of others.

This is church, full stop. This is community, engagement, challenging, questioning, laughing, culture, art, ideas, discussion, music, music, music, friends, books, creativity. As I said: church. I only go once a year.

The thing with the programme that was on the other night about the Church of Scotland being around only till 2033 is that of course that isn't true. The institution may only last that long but church (see definition above) will always be there because the things the church does (the following of Jesus bit of church) makes us human: caring, justice, humanity, welcoming etc. and all you need to do these things is a big field with 20,000 of your closest friends celebrating at a festival together. Obviously you don't even need these things. You don't need much. Church doesn't need much. Let's be that kind of church.

God

This is part of a letter from Bishop Jack Spong.  I hope I haven't taken it out of context. You have to subscribe for the whole letter and I haven't but you can here if you wish.

"In the depth of my self-conscious humanity, I confront the essence of life, which has now transformed the way I think about God. I no longer see God as a supernatural being able and ready to come to my aid, but as the source of life flowing through the universe, present in every living cell, every plant, every animal, but coming to self-consciousness only in human beings. If God is experienced as the source of life, then the only way to worship God is by living fully and, the more fully I live, the more this God, this source of life, becomes visible. I now see God as the source of love that is also in every living thing. Love is the power that enhances life and it is present in plants that turn their leaves to the sun, in the birds that feed their young in the nest, in the cat that licks the fur of its kittens, but this instinctual life-giving power comes to self-consciousness only in human beings. If God is experienced as the source of love, then the only way I can worship God is by loving wastefully, and the more wastefully I love, the more I make God visible. Finally, I now experience God not as a being, but as the ground of all being, which means that if God is identified with being, the only way I can worship God is to have the courage to be all that I can be. The more I am myself the more I make God visible. That is when I am forced to acknowledge that living is not about the quantity of days, but about the quality of life."