Strangers are friends not yet made...

I have guests at the moment, not people I knew personally beforehand. I have more than enough physical space in the church owned house.

What is hospitality? Sharing the bread we have, actually I get back a lot too, my overgrown garden mown, others sharing the cooking... 

But there is the balance - keeping safe, as a woman alone welcoming the stranger is a serious matter, not to be done without care.

And yet -
I think back to all the times I have lived with people not of my choosing, and often strangers. From university flat allocation to when I arranged a 6 month unpaid 'job' in a church in Australia in exchange for bed and board.  Actually since I was 18 I have only lived alone for 5 years, and with 4 years back at parents that leaves over a decade living with people I didn't choose, people who were strangers at first. Of course some of that was with a locked personal room but I also remember the times that people welcomed me into their homes.  Ok I may have come with references, a student on a placement etc, but I was still a stranger.

And those who care about my wellbeing now were glad of the welcome I recieved in other places. Is there inconsistency there? Not really because then they worried about me going into a stranger's place, now they worry about the strangers coming to my place.  Sometimes those who love you are simply born to worry.

But if by welcoming others I can pass on the grace and hospitality that I have been shown by strangers then that chain of grace can carry on.

Whilst being wise to real risks we must still dare to care.

Building a new loom?

I have been bemoaning the struggle to get out of our boxed in thinking as churches, even when we try to be different it still ends up box shaped, despite the decorations that try and pretend otherwise.

In talking to a friend earlier today about these frustrations she reached for a little booklet someone had lent her only a few days before, and what she read out was so spot on that I share it here with you....

From a small booklet printed 1988 called 'In Simplicity of Prayer' by Sister Mary Clare SLG

"We must try to understand the meaning of the age in which we are called to bear witness.
We must accept the fact that this is an age in which the cloth is being unwoven.
It is therefore no good trying to patch.
We must rather set up the loom on which coming generations may weave new cloth according to the pattern God provides."
 

So no wonder I am frustrated with my darning needle, and yet so far from seeing what the new pattern is - first a new loom has to be set up, different weft and weave.

Still would like the set up instructions....

And then God butted in....

A lot in my recent posts comes from very real tensions about how church is and how it needs to adapt to really scratch spiritual itches today. However there is also an element of personal angst about what it is to be a minister, to be me, in the midst of these tensions and frustrations. And as someone with depression battles from day to day to various degrees, is what I am doing worth the fight to get out of bed in the morning?

Tuesday on my day off the mood really got tough, and on the way back from the shop I went over to the parish church to pray. (It is open and isn’t full of reminders of issues and things to be done like in my own chapel). On the way out I met people looking for the vicar, basically looking for help. Real life issues.  Today, I have been involved in a range of situations whereby I as minister, or just as me, have been able to do something to support people. A taste of what this is actually about.

And ok so the questions about Sunday services, and what is an authentic way of learning and growing in faith together are still there and are biggies.  But today I have felt useful and doing ministry is a good antidote to the frustrations.

Beware what you ask for – you may find yourself in ‘interesting times’  

Losing faith in sundays - part 2: If not that then what?

Thanks for the feedback on my last post.  The logical question to ask is ‘if not that then what?’

When you look at different churches, styles and traditions of gathered worship, they are largely variations on a theme. Modern contemporary music, well aged hymns or great choral works, set liturgy or the preacher’s extempore prayers.... They are still essentially the same offering of sit, stand and listen, and I am equally frustrated by them all. It doesn’t scratch where I spiritually itch, and as a minister, supposed to help others scratch their itches, I feel I am not serving as I should, or could.

Consider the person who loves food, in all its richness and variety, and lives off nutritionally limited basics. Or the trained chef who finds themselves frustrated by the tiny budget or kitchen that means they dish up food that is so much less than it could be.

The problem is that I have always eaten this way, this is what I grew up with. I look through the window and dream of something more, but am so conditioned that I struggle to see what that looks like. 

I think that is the difficulty for all who dare to think differently – how quickly the radical idea drifts back to the norm. Does that suggest that maybe thousands of years of worldwide tradition have it right? Who am I to assume I know better?  Yet feedback from just the tiny group reading my last post shows I am not alone within the church, and the decline in most churches around us suggests that in this corner of the world at least plenty of others vote with their feet.

So if not that then what? I don’t know.  And some will enjoy the basic diet – my Dad doesn’t want any of these ‘modern’ or ‘foreign’ foods, he wants the familiar meat and 2 veg, bangers and mash etc. As a minister serving up traditional church for those who want it, who enjoy it, is important whatever my own tastes, but what of those who want to explore more spices and flavours to there faith?

Losing faith...

It has been creeping up on me for a very long time, but you try and ignore those niggling doubts, to get on with life and deny the cloud on the horizon. But it has been looming ever closer, and I have to face up to my loss of faith.

Not a loss of faith in God, but a loss of faith in what I do each Sunday in church. If I were not the one up the front would I want to go to traditional church? Personally I don't feel drawn into God's presence by the usual services, and I find myself wondering if everyone else feels the same?

Maybe it is the effect of being the minister, of services being work rather than personal worship. Or maybe I am merely embracing what it is to be part of my generation -  not relating to a being 'talked at' culture.

I don't want to preach, I want to debate, to explore together. My training may mean that I have read more books, or heard of other ideas, that I can share - but not that I have the answers or am the definitive voice of the pulpit that others might want me to be.

I look at what I do and say on a Sunday morning and recognise that despite my efforts, and the integrity of all who make it happen week by week, it isn't going to make any sense to those who were not brought up in this strange world.

But I do have faith that faith is still relevant, that there are spiritual questions that can find a peace in Christ.  But how do I make sense of that, or offer spaces to ask the questions and encounter God, when tied into the 'stand and sit, sing someone else's words and listen to someone else's ideas of what God says' way of being church?

Is this a God given discomfort to provoke me to action, or just me going through a cynical stage? The latter would be easier, it doesn't ask me to live as stranger both to the church as we know it as well as to the wider world. Easier than the uncharted waters.

Collecting the homework in...

Otherwise known as autumn church council season.  All groups have to be accountable, and this is the time of year that methodist churches do their administrative homework - accounts, reports on property, forms for this and that.

We generally have church councils twice a year, and the autumn ones are dominated by the admin. As minister and chair of the meetings I feel like a teacher in front of a class asking them in turn to present their homework to be marked and to sum it up to the rest of the class.

And now, after the meetings, I am left to work through the pile of homework, check for any omissions, any signatures missing, etc before sending the forms on to the relevant people.

On a soggy wet night, and in areas that have had recent flood worries, it is hard to get the meeting beyond that homework mode (as we contemplate when the drive home might change into a swim and short meeting). It is necessary, it is important that we fulfil our accountability,  but it is not my favourite thing and by the end of the month I will be glad to have it all over with.

Let the little children come unto me....

Today I babysat.  Far from a regular occurance and definitely a learning curve for me (coming in from the garden to wash mucky hands don't forget the mucky shoes!!  Redecorated kitchen and hall floors!)

Tomorrow's reading for church includes the bit about Jesus telling his mates off for trying to shoo away the children. They thought they were doing good, the bloke needed a rest not being pestered by kids after all. But Jesus showed that there must always be room to welcome the children.

But would today's children dare to approach? The desperate search for April Jones in Machynlleth this week is a reminder that even small communities are not immune from danger to children and others. A session for church workers on issues of safeguarding children and vulnerable adults reinforced the issue for me this week.

I recall my father's regular response to requests to extend our freedom 'It's not that we don't trust you, but there are other people out there....'  I don't recall ever having a clear sense of what the 'other people' may do but absorbed a general wariness about the dangers of the Big Wide World - in my case confirmed by the school bullies who showed that people 'out there' were a threat. How do we make a welcome but ensure safety, that is where training is so important.  Not just for today's children but also for those who as children didn't speak but are still affected by a corrupt welcome and pretend care.

So to today, babysitting - enabling the family to deal with an emergency situation. What does making a child welcome include? A dash through the downstairs removing obvious hazards, being ready to change my agenda for the day (although managed to do the things needed to be done).  The key thing is that for the time she was here my focus needed to be on her needs and care, getting my tasks done was a bonus.

So in the church, welcoming children of all ages means looking out for the things that might get in their way, recognising that they are there and adapting our ways of doing things to fit around them.  Not that we shape everything around them, I still need to do some grown up jobs, but I needed new ways of doing them that recognised I was not home alone today.

No-one can become a parent, or take on the care of a child without drastic changes to the way things used to be - if the churches what to welcome the little children then we too must accept the changes that they bring with them.  That includes children by age and those who are new to church life, whatever their stage in life.

Will we be the disciples - trying to avoid disruption; or like Jesus ready to welcome even when tired and weary, because these are important valuable people?