Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 September 2011 20:10:42
On Friday I was getting some work done on my lap-top as I travelled down for my weekend with TOH; writing a sermon and planning my order of service. Then, when I'd finished that I got out the paper version of the thesis to go through and make some last minute amendments to. The title page proclaimed that the subject of my research was "The Experiences of Single Parents Within Evangelical Churches". This proved an interesting experience because I realised that as the people sitting beside me and then the guy opposite caught site of what I was working on I was getting that sort of sideways glance which is normally reserved for people wearing dog collars. They were clearly putting two and two together and coming up with five. Upon standing up and making for the door at Milton Keynes I heard it commented upon in tones which were sort of gently mocking that they'd been sitting with a vicar. All a bit strange, but also quite funny bearing in mind I am defo not a vicar.
This I realise could be an ongoing problem for me as a local preacher though. I like writing sermons on trains or in coffee shops or bars, after having done my initial research with the books at home. I find working in an environment with people coming and going about their everyday business helps me focus on the sermon and the fact it has to be accessible to ordinary people.
Now there might be a downside to this in that I often get terribly missiological in my application, but you know I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing...if it's done in an appropriate way.
This week I was using Nehemiah 8 as my base, having discovered that sometimes you can go with what makes sense to you rather than what the lectionary says. This passage talks about Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites teaching the post-exilic community about their heritage and also about the way worship is sometimes about partying and festivals but not about collective guilt trips. I find it one of the most exciting passages in the bible, after the story of Hagar and Ishmael - another one of those old testament passages which I think just has so much to say to the modern audience.
We in the church are like the Levites in this passage, we have a heritage and a knowledge of the bible to not just pass on but also to explain to people. Within this festival and celebration has a great role to play......that's exciting and cool.
Within the UK there is currently alot of focus on preparing for the Olympics with the More Than Gold initative. However, we also have another really exciting opportunity for mission next year with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. This is going to be an opportunity to think back on the past and also to party with people. There is no doubt that this time will provide us with people thinking back and talking about "how it used to be" and "what's been lost" - we have something to offer in terms of part of what built that value system but also a way of explaining in how it has a relevance within the (late) modern world. We also have something to offer in terms of being a community that has a bible which encourages people to enjoy good food and sweet drink and ensure those who don't have enough also get to share in this. In short we have a biblical mandate to help people party within community. I want to suggest that we need to start planning for this now, as well as for how we will help our communities celebrate the Olympics.
In doing this we need to find out what others in our communities are doing and work out how we can tie in with this and what we can learn from them/ how we can serve them without us getting tied in with an agenda which looks less at quantitative growth of our congregations afterwards and more at supporting the qualitative growth of our communities and those within them.
Um, I realise you got a bit of the sermon and then some more which isn't going in...I would apologise but I'm getting really excited by the bible at the moment and what it has to give us in our contemporary world. After a long time struggling with quasi-post-evangelical angst I am realising that evangelism is often actually something completely different than what it instutionally has become known as in many ways. For me evangelism is simply about sharing God's love and the message of the gospel with a world which has as much to teach us about what this means in practice as we have to share with them.