Week of Christian Unity: Witness through hospitality

At the heart of the Christian gospel is God’s desire to come and make his home with each one of us………but He will not force himself upon us – rather he waits to be asked in…..

How welcoming are we, not just to others, but also to God? Time and time again we see in the scriptures, where Jesus is hospitable to those whom society and his own tradition shun – women, the lepers, the ‘sinner’. Often the hero of his parables are those same people……the good Samaritan is the most famous.

Jesus also asks us, in what way are we different? It is easy to be hospitable to those we like and those we are impressed by…but what about those who are ‘messy’, those that irritate and those who are not (to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher) ‘one of us’. This is what marks us out as different from the world….

Week of Christian Unity: Witness through suffering

I begin this reflection with an apology – the plan was to offer a daily reflection this week but unfortunately my computer had first a virus and then a corrupted RAM.

This Year’s Week of Christian Unity takes up the theme of witnessing and today in particular, we think of witnessing through suffering. For so many, it is the inexplicable suffering of the innocent which is the barrier to many when thinking about God and how a God could allow such suffering. The situation is well summed up by the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti.

Christians believe that a new world order is coming when there will be no suffering – indeed, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Christians are called to work towards that day by embodying in our life what God’s kingdom rule looks like – we are a foretaste. However, that new world order is only possible because God came to us in Jesus Christ and became fully part of the world….and its suffering. He above all, did not deserve to die, but he challenged the ways of the world and the powers of the world which resulted in his earthly suffering and death. He embodied what God’s kingdom rule was like – it showed up, rather like a spirit level, how the world is not as straight as we think it is.

In the same way, many of us know Christians who, in their suffering, have been truly Christ-like. Indeed, it is through the suffering of my Aunt struggling with breast cancer that I came to faith. Even more, it was through my Mother’s suffering that her faith took a real rootedness that forever transformed her and others.

We are called to be faithful……being a Christian in this world guarantees suffering at some level – it is how we respond to it, that Christ can be most evidently displayed.

Luke 24:25-27 (Contemporary English Version)

25Then Jesus asked the two disciples, “Why can’t you understand? How can you be so slow to believe all that the prophets said? 26Didn’t you know that the Messiah would have to suffer before he was given his glory?” 27Jesus then explained everything written about himself in the Scriptures, beginning with the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets”

Your church…your say….

All those who worship regularly at St Columba or are committed to its development are welcome to a special meeting of the church family this Sunday, 10th January after our main 10.00 am service.

We welcome Laurence Gamlin from the Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS) who will preach at the service and facilitate our time together afterwards.

We will be focussing on our history and our values and how these will shape our future together and establish our priorities. This is a REALLY important meeting, please come along!

Changes to our main Sunday service

Just a quick note to let you know of some changes which will take effect from the first Sunday in December and will be reviewed again in the Summer 2010.

Our start time moves from 9.30am to 10.00am. We shall also be replacing our weekly Holy Communion with a more varied set of services. However, on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month, and when it is a special celebration e.g. a Saint’s day, we shall still be having Communion.

The 8am service of Holy Communion is completely unaffected by these changes.

The Great South Run and Team Cochrane

Just to say that Dan, Tim and I will be running the Great South Run this weekend – the boys run on the Saturday (Junior Event) and I run on the main Great South Run on Sunday.

I won’t make a great time, but its for two worthy causes – the local Basics Bank and the Stroke Association. If you are feeing generous then why not sponsor us? You can go online to do so and raise money for the Stroke Association or you can send money via the Parish Office, West Street, FAREHAM PO16 0EL. Cheques should be made payable to ‘Holy Trinity w St Columba PCC’ and we will make sure all the money is distributed to the charities.

Leaving the nest …. to do a great work

I am currently at the New Wine Summer conference in muddy Shepton Mallet. I went to an excellent seminar on Tuesday about connecting with the poor – a key theme there was a bible study on Nehemiah and the fact he knew the poor intimately by name. An obvious challenge to me and the rest of St Columba church family.

A phrase from Nehemiah 6:3 has been hanging around ‘I am doing a great work’ and I feel that this is what God is saying about the tasks before St Columba.

New opportunities are opening up before us – unprecedented in their scope but we seem to lack the people to help us. Increasingly a number of local Christians have suggested that we should challenge other local churches to prayerfully seek members of their congregations to come and join the new work at St Columba…

This tied in with something Mark Melluish said last night in a moving testimony about his son’s near fatal accident three months ago. A mother eagle starts to dismantle the nest when the eaglets are ready to fly – making it uncomfortable to stay before pushing them out.

My wife and I wondered if anyone was feeling that divine discomfort? If we had 5 married couples plus others who came and committed themselves to this work, it would transform us and them!

New Partnership with Henry Cort Community College

On the last day of Henry Cort’s summer term, I met with Phil Munday (College Principal) and Malcolm Brand (Vice-Chair of Governors) and together we signed a document which means that Henry Cort has ‘affiliated status’ with the Church of England.

St Columba Church will have a very particular role to play in the life of Henry Cort – helping staff and students to understand the nature of faith and how that can be applied to everyday life. The resources of the Diocese of Portsmouth will also be made available to Henry Cort.

We want to help people grow physically, emotionally, intellectually and….spiritually. Today’s ‘post modern’ students understand they are spiritual beings and so we hope a creative dialogue can begin….

It is exciting the only schools to have a formal relationship with the Church of England are both at our end of the parish – Oak Meadow C of E (Controlled) Primary School and now Henry Cort. The challenge is simply this – we have been given these God-given opportunities – will we devote our best resources to doing the best we can for these children and young adults?

Thinking about buildings…

Those familiar with St Columba Church knows that for some years now we have been thinking and praying about redeveloping our present site. Recently, we have had the benefit of working with Leigh Rampton, who has a lot of experience in partnership working. We had an interesting church meeting today which again asks some fairly searching questions…we were also delighted to have Mrs Main-Millar and Mrs Lightfoot from Oak Meadow Primary School (more of that in a separate post).

We need to be clear whether or not we need to have a building. If we are only about services on a Sunday, then there is a strong argument for saying ‘no’ because we could use a local school to meet in.

But, if we have a vision about contributing to the life of the local community…..to be at the heart of it and serving local people, then there seems a good case. The challenge though is to let that community and neighbourhood shape what we do as a church…and that includes the building location and design.

Talking of design, Leigh happened to share one option which we were all really intrigued by……using sea containers! I kid you not!! We are keen to have an eco-build (do any of you know of any good new builds that are eco friendly?) and this country has a major surplus of sea containers near to us on the south coast. It seems I cannot upload pictures just now, but when I do I would be interested in comments…..

Hill Park Baptist Church

I was delighted to spend some of the morning at Hill Park Baptist Church, which meets in their building just beside the Co-op. I was very warmly welcomed by Brian, their Pastor, and the congregation.

They, like us, are planning to rebuild and redevelop their facility and it was really encouraging to see how our strategies will complement each other and not conflict. For example, we are increasingly convinced that we need to work with Oak Meadow Primary School and for their part, the Baptist Church are focussing on KS3 and above.

There was a real sense that we could work together – Hill Park Christians working together would be a powerful sign of the work of the Spirit, as we celebrate Pentecost.

Come Holy Spirit, Come!

The problem with church on Sundays….

Regular readers of this blog will know that we are wrestling with how church should be, if it is faithful to the gospel (‘good news’).

In our household, yesterday offered an interesting contrast – I had three services, including our very own Gary Snape’s licensing at Whiteley, just down the road….in addition to our Annual Parochial Church Council meeting. In other words, I was very busy with church stuff and had little time for anything else!

My wife had to take one of our children to a party and had to leave church early. That morning, between going to the allotment, chatting to parents at the party…she ended up having several significant conversations. This was probably more than she would have had at church – and it was with people outside of church. Missionally speaking, she was building relationships with people who are dechurched (have given up on church) and/or unchurched (never had real contact with the church). Had she been at church, she would not have had those conversations.

Now, you may already have done the maths but I must admit, one of the things I hadn’t thought about was church taking people away from mission – it seems a contradiction in terms! However, watching kids play football on a Sunday morning, is a great time to have conversations with people – there is little else to do. At the allotment I know that lots of conversations happen and certainly that is my experience of going to the gym. This is the network society we hear so much about – people’s identity is not geographically based but network based.

I am more and more convinced that we need to be the church for every day of the week, not just Sundays – and our service programmes should reflect that.

Don’t get me wrong, I still want to celebrate Sundays and keep them special but I also know that 2/3rds of Fareham people are not around on Sundays. Surely that reality must count for something and shape what we do?

Also, we need to encourage people to not feel guilty if they are sporty or work on a Sunday, but rather offer a place where they can still belong at other times and some, by the grace of God, will discover Jesus for themselves….

Any thoughts out there?