A few weeks ago now I was reflecting about church and had an image in my mind of an orange. All my life I have been involved in church life trying to make it as juicy as possible – helping to make the worship relevant or contemporary, being involved in social programs, modernising our buildings, updating our use of technology, learning about leading services and preaching, trying to run vibrant house groups. It has been a good journey and I know that God has blessed many of our efforts and ideas. At times we have felt inspired.

The aim of all this commitment and endeavour has been to help make the inside of the orange (the church) as juicy as possible, as attractive as possible, as meaningful as possible and our hope has been that in doing so we would attract more people to join us on the inside of the orange, form a living relationship with God/Jesus and join church. We have prayed about this, sung about this and worked for this with all our effort.

All this has placed me right at the centre of the orange (the church) and I have been ordained as one of it’s ‘ministers’ or ‘priests’ and now, with responsibility for my own ‘church’ I have set about trying to make this particular orange as juicy as it can be here in Twerton.

This has been good and important. And not wanting to devalue any of this effort, or anyone else’s commitment, I now believe that God is wanting us to completely rethink what it means to be the church.

For years ‘church’ has been a building, a service, a program provider or an institution. From here on we need to see it as a people on a mission. For years ‘church’ has been something we went to, attended or helped to make. From now on we need to see it as something we belong to and participate in. The change is from seeing church as a club to seeing it as a team. Just as a football club is something people organise, watch, contribute to and maintain and a football team is something you belong to and participate in, we need to see church as a team where everyone is involved in working towards a goal.

What we need to do is turn this orange inside out. For years the juice has been kept and maintained on the inside of our church buildings, our church services and our church programs. From now on we need to open up the orange and get the juice on the outside – into people’s lives, our workplaces and our neighbourhoods.

This is a completely new way of seeing church and will require us to give up our old ideas and practices and systems. ‘Minister’ will no longer be a title given to just one or two but instead owned by everyone. ‘Disciple’ will no longer be something the super keen sign up for but will be the normal Christian life. ‘Worship’ will no longer be something we go to for an hour but a life lived in adoration to God and in response to his love. ‘Mission’ will no longer be something cringey that only the bravest and craziest of us do but the very foundation of our community life together.

And it is to this mission that we will begin to invite others to join us in. It is to this life that we will now invite people to commit to. It is to this ‘order’ that we will invite people to shape their life around. Instead of asking people to come to church we will be asking if they want to participate in the life we are living, centred on Jesus, focused on blessing our neighbourhood, and oriented around seeing the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

It is time to get the juice out, to step outside our church buildings and structures and services and to give ourselves away to people in need around us. And by our love for one another, for our neighbours and for our God perhaps at last many will again know us to be ‘Jesus’ disciples’ rather than just people ‘who go to church’.

Undoubtedly it will mean a few of the things we currently cherish will fall away or be less highly prioritised. So be it. May God help us as we start to peel away the skin and open ourselves to the reality of people’s life, letting go of our desire to be a church on that meets together and becoming a church that meets the needs of others.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there is the kingdom of heaven.

Until next year!  Richard

1 Timothy 6:12:

We live in world at war.

How does this battle effect us?
How do we live in this war zone?
How do we engage the powers?
How do we stand firm in the face of attack?
How do we discern what’s behind it all and make sense of what’s going on?

These and other important questions need answering and over the next few months we are going to see if we can unpack the truth about the battle we find ourselves living our lives in.  There is a fight going on.  The question is whether we are fighting the ‘good’ one or not.

Join us on Sunday mornings as we explore these themes together and as we seek strength, resources and courage to re-join the fight each week.

I mentioned briefly on Sunday a few ideas for helping us to engage with the amazing story of this week and thought I might put some of them on the website as I wasn’t the most articulate at that point…

Like many of us (most of us?) I need help to dig deep into the Easter story and making it personal to me, alive… Getting together with others who want to explore the themes with me or to chat about them always helps and that is why we are having a few specific meetings this week looking at the story together. On Thursday night we are looking at the last supper and the events just after that… on Friday morning at 10am we are going to focus on the walk to the cross and the death of Jesus… and on Sunday we are going to celebrate the resurrection together as a family with breakfast between the two services at 10.30. Come ready to listen, to reflect, to pray, to pray, to give thanks, to explore… On a lighter note I imagine, Clare and others are going to open up Rose Cottage on Easter evening, from 5pm, for a bring and share supper : )

Check out the services at other churches too that might connect – Bath Abbey are putting on some beautiful services around music that some are thinking of going to, such as St Matthew’s passion on Wednesday night…

As well as gathering as a big group how about getting together with one or two others and having an ‘Easter Chat’ or something like that – a time to discuss with a couple of others the impact of Jesus death and resurrection on your lives and to pray together rooting it’s benefits in your lives. Tory and I have been using a daily prayer Tory found, written by John Eldredge, which we are loving. If you haven’t picked up a copy over the last few weeks, then you can download it from the website here

If you want to read something online try these short daily readings from beliefnet

Or how about giving up a few minutes to reflect using this haunting flash narration of Jesus’ passion and death with illustrations and quotes… here

There are loads of other resources online, so enjoy searching out good ones… and if you find any that help, send me the link : )

Others of us might like to use art or music to express something, and others still might find it helpful to write a letter to God or to do some other kind of written reflection…

Over all, the aim is not to do a whole load of religious or spiritual stuff – it is simply to find a way of helping yourself to reconnect with this truest of all stories that changes our world and our lives.

Live it. Pray it. Love it.

Have a great week
Rich

As we journey together as a church family we want to encourage each other with stories of what we see God doing in our lives.  Simple stories, simply told. Real. Authentic.

To help us in all this we are going to make sure that each week we hear from each other when we meet.  So come ready to share your stories.  Get used to looking out for the workings of God and listen out for what the Spirit is saying to us as a family being shaped into the life of Jesus.

It was also such great fun all joining in together knowing that it was making a difference, even if only in a small way.

Thanks to everyone who helped out and joine in!

Saturday 23rd January
The Rec House
Cake Sale
Coffee, Tea, Bacon Butties
Newspapers to read

Come ready to give

It’s worth a try!

Check out the blog here each day and journey with Richard as he tries to let God shape his preparations for Christmas once again.

Although Christianity has been around for 2000 years the church is constantly being converted and renewed. All churches are different and you may be wondering what this one is like.

It’s not an easy question to answer.

Our church is a very varied group of people who are devoted to Jesus and who are committed to loving God and to loving our neighbours. Most churches organise themselves around their shared services or times of worship. We are increasingly trying to organise ourselves around being involved in God’s good purposes for the world.

This means that instead of being a church that is gathered to worship on Sundays we are a church that is sent out to make a difference in the world everyday of our lives.

Because we are all different characters, and have different interests and gifts, we join in with different things together. Some of us are trying to make a difference through connecting with young people through creative arts – dance, music, drama, art, etc. Others are enjoying being a community that serves our local community through a cafe and community centre on the High Street. Others again are trying to make a difference each week by helping out people with practical needs such as gardening or DIY. Others again are more focussed on the needs of older people.

All of us feel involved and all of us are doing our bit.

None of us feel we have life completely licked, but we are learning to trust God for everything good in life. When suffering comes, as it always does, we not only have each other but we are finding that God is with us too, sometimes healing us and at other times enabling other good things to come out of bad. He is faithful.

As Christians we are obviously focussing our lives on Jesus’ teaching and we believe that he is alive today, leading us, filling us, changing us and making us new.

We are also part of the Anglican Church (or Church of England) and this means that we are part of a worldwide community. We find that spiritual disciplines help us to ’stay on track’ and so we regularly pray together, break bread together (communion), celebrate together, eat together, play together, worship together, learn together and rest together. Other disciplines shape our lives too, such as serving, giving, silence, solitude, and confession and over time, if you joined us, you might notice us doing these things.

The main thing that motivates us is the love of God. Having experienced this for ourselves we want to share it with others.

If you want to find out more about us, come along and join us in living life together under Jesus’ direction…
Richard