Sent

The man tapped on my car window.  ‘Hello stranger, how are you doing?’ he asked.  Although he lives quite near, I hadn’t seen him for ages.  ‘Oh, I’m fine, thanks, how about you?’  Suddenly, he poured his heart out!  One daughter was getting divorced; another was in hiding because of an abusive husband; a third daughter had married again and moved abroad.  He himself had been suffering from depression and come close to a breakdown putting great strain on his marriage.  I felt somehow guilty that I didn’t know, and hadn’t prayed. I listened for a long time.
The last time I had seen him was two or three years before, when he had come to my door.  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said as he offered me a muddy carrier bag.  I peeked inside to find a big crab, scrabbling hopelessly, and looking dolefully up at me.  He explained that he’d found it in the Creek when he was digging bait.  I thanked him and retreated to the kitchen.  The idea of dropping a living creature into boiling water did not appeal to me at all.
I took it back to the Creek.  I thought of something Jesus once said about going into the world, and preaching the gospel to every creature.  (Mark 16 v 15) Now, you may think me a little eccentric, but as I lifted the dazed crab out of the bag, I said to it ‘You’ve been saved today!  Go and tell the others the good news that Jesus died to set us free.  God created you and he cares about you.  Be happy!  You’re alive!  Off you go!’  As the water lapped around its feet, it scuttled joyfully away with a burst of bubbles, and a new-found spurt of life!
It made me think about God’s mercy and grace towards us; we, too, are saved – for a purpose; it’s not just to make us feel safe and secure and to fill the church.  I once heard a preacher say ‘You are a tea pot!  God has filled you up with His Holy Spirit in order to pour you out again to bring life and hope and comfort to a thirsty, hurting world.’  Jesus said ‘Pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest, and ask Him to send out more workers for His fields. Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves.’  (Luke 10 v 2-3.   Life Application Study Bible)
God only asks that we be ourselves, and allow Him to live and speak through us; but, in these days of ‘political correctness,’ are we willing to tell others about Jesus and what he has done for us?
Have you heard of a man called Arthur Blessit?  God called him to lay down his prosperous career, take up his cross and follow Jesus.  That’s literally what he did. With a wooden cross over his shoulder he’s been walking for 42 years, through 318 countries, for over 39,000 miles, and when people ask him ‘Why are you doing this?’ he tells them about the One who first carried his cross to Calvary to set us free from sin and death..
One day, as he was travelling through some foreign city, hot and thirsty, he called into a bar and asked for a Coke.  As he went to pay for it, the barman said ‘Your drink has already been paid for, Sir.’ Surprised, he said ‘Who by?’  The barman pointed to an Arab sheikh.  Arthur went over to thank him.  The sheikh said ‘As soon as you walked in, I was struck by your radiance and peace!’  How can I find what you have so obviously found?’
They talked about Jesus – His death and resurrection – repentance and forgiveness of sins, and the sheikh decided to commit his life to Christ.  He was the head of an oil company, and he invited Arthur to come and meet the other Board members upstairs.  He told them how he had just met this man with the cross, and how they had prayed together, and how he had experienced the presence and peace of God for the first time.  The others had many questions, and that day Arthur led several of them, also, to Christ.
The last words of Jesus to His disciples, before He ascended into Heaven, were ‘I have been given complete authority in Heaven and on Earth; therefore go, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I’ve given you;  and be sure of this; I am with you always, even to the end of the Age.’ (Matthew 28 v 18 – 20)
It’s challenging, isn’t it? What does God want ?  Isaiah says ‘Then I heard the Lord asking “Whom should I send as a messenger to my people?  Who will go for us?”  And I said ‘Lord, I’ll go!  Send me.’ (Isaiah 6 v 8)  Life Application Study Bible)

Jane Gransden

6@6

If you are interested in issues that connect faith and all the new technology around us, come along to our 6@6 service on Sunday 23 October at St Mary’s, Upchurch, where Technology will be the theme of the service.

God’s game?

Have you ever played a computer game? If you have you are one of 100 million people in Europe who use a computer or a Playstatation or an i-phone, or some other kind of electronic device, to shoot aliens, speed round race tracks, build a civilisation or score in the Cup Final. This week, people around the world will spend 3 billion hours playing computer games. For what? Well, in part for fun (and I write as one who enjoys a good game every now and then), but perhaps there are other, less obvious, reasons.
An article in Third Way magazine suggests that it is more than fun that we find when lost in the increasingly sophisticated world of computer games – these games offer us something that the world doesn’t. They offer a world with clear boundaries, iwith clear rules and with immediate feedback. So when you play a computer game, you know what’s going on, what the rules are, and most importantly, you know how you’re doing straight away. If you shoot the right alien, or drive fast enough, you will win. If not, you lose. However sophisticated the game, the world of a computer game is understandable and reliable.
And how that contrasts with the real world – where things are rarely reliable and often seem beyond understanding. So many different people playing by different rules, for different goals. And how can we possibly know how we’re doing in life? It would be nice to be able to check our score every now and then – just to see if we’re on the right track, but we can’t. Whether it’s at work, in our family life or in our contribution to society, there is no way of really knowing whether we’re doing well or not.
So my question is, do we ever want our faith to be more like a computer game? Do we look to Christianity, or the church, or God himself, to give us an enclosed world, with clear boundaries, clear rules and immediate feedback about how we’re doing? Do we sometimes wish that our faith would make life easier, simpler and neater? Do we believe so that we can be part of a world which is separate from the messiness of our lives, where there are easy answers to difficult questions, where we can always start again when our energy runs out? Because that’s sometimes how Christianity comes across- as a safe place in a crazy world, where nothing can touch us, and where playing by the rules will give you a clear reward.
But that’s not the life that Jesus lived. He gave very few neat answers – instead he told stories. He never promised an easy life – instead he offered his followers a life of persecution and self-sacrifice. And he never said it would be easy – instead he invited us into an upside down world in which the poor were rich and the foolish wise. 
But, he did promise to be with us until the end of time, to share the Holy Spirit with us and to carry our burdens on his broad and holy shoulders.

So, are we ready to allow our faith in Jesus to lead us more fully into the messiness of life. Can we live, wholeheartedly and vulnerably, in the complexity and difficulty of our family life, our work life, our social life? Can we trust that God is alongside us as we walk into situations that have no easy answers, no obvious endings and no final score? Can we live as disciples, not gamers?

Searching

The house seemed strangely empty.  My daughter, Lizzie, had gone to Manchester for a couple of weeks.  I had expected to enjoy the peace and quiet – just me and the dogs – but I missed her and the baby, and I felt lost and unsettled.  As I cooked my solitary omelette, I noticed two paper sheep, coloured in by my granddaughter at a family service.  They’d been hearing the Bible stories of ‘The Lost Sheep’ and ‘The Prodigal Son’.  I noticed them, possibly, because, that morning I had only just read the last verse of that great long Psalm 119.  It said, ‘ I have wandered away like a lost sheep – come and find me, for I have not forgotten your commands.’

I thought about my own five children, grown up now, all baptised and confirmed, but only one is still ‘in the fold’; two of them would say they believe and occasionally pray, and of the other two, one can’t be bothered, and the other, who used to be the most ‘spiritually aware’ of all my children, seems to have turned his back on God altogether.  Nevertheless, I see in him such an aching longing for meaning, for purpose, and understanding.  He’s searching for answers in science, physics, and philosophy.  He pushes himself to extremes, whether at work, or at leisure –skiing, surfing, the occasional parachute jump or flying lesson, scuba diving;

He called in here for a quick coffee at the weekend.  ‘How are you?  What’s new?’  I asked.  Well, the latest is that he’s planning a trip to the Philippines, diving on ship wrecks, and in an underground lake in a cave system.  They will enter via a borehole, crawl through narrow, wet tunnels, and dive into the lake.  The next cave system can only be reached by a narrow, underwater entrance, which emerges into a great cavernous, cathedral – like  space. To get out, they must turn around and go back the way they came.

At the risk of sounding a bit ‘kill-joy,’ I said ‘But WHY?  What on earth makes you want to do such dangerous things?’ “I suppose it’s like pushing the boundaries of my existence,” he replied.  “It’s as though I’m on the edge of something amazing, but it’s never quite amazing enough!”

How I long for him to find Jesus – or should I say, for Jesus to find HIM, and all those others like him? My prayer is; ‘Don’t wait too long, Lord – it’s a dangerous world out there; look at Amy Winehouse, and all those young people in that Norwegian Youth Camp!  Please keep our children in the palm of your hand.  Guide their steps; send angels to protect them, even though they don’t yet acknowledge you.  Turn them around to look into your face; awaken them to your infinite love.  Amen.

I love the way scripture puts into words exactly what’s in your heart.  How about this?  ‘O Lord, you have searched me and you know me…. You are familiar with all my ways… Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn – if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.’ (Excerpts from Psalm 139 vs 1 – 10

If we don’t teach our families about God, who on earth will? “We will not hide these truths from our children, but will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord…his laws and decrees, so they might know them – even the children not yet born, that they, in turn, might teach their children, so each generation can set its’ hope anew on God.”

(Excerpts from Psalm 78 v 4 – 7)

Talking about God

There are lots of ways to think about faith – as a relationship, a journey, a set of beliefs or a way of life. Another way is to see it as a conversation -as being part of a conversation with and about God. Being a Christian means joining a 2,000 year old (and even older in some ways) conversation about how God is involved in our lives and in the life of his whole creation.

John’s gospel opens with the haunting words “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God”, and through the life brought by the Word of God, we are able to join our words with The Word, and to join the conversation brought into being by God. It is Jesus, the Word of God, who makes it possible for us to know  God and to speak about him, and we are all called to join in.

This new blog is a new way for us to be part of that conversation – 4 people from our six churches, each writing from a different perspective – will share their thoughts and reflections on faith, church and God. As they do so, anyone is invited to join in with a comment, response or further thought. Christians have been talking about how God is at work in our midst for 2,000 years now. Do join in.