Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 05/Jan/2020]

I grew up in a pretty typical Baptist church of its day. It had a raised pulpit at the front where the robed preacher spoke from, and an organist to the front right, who played quietly in the background till the service started. The atmosphere was hushed and subdued with many people sitting with their heads bowed preparing themselves to meet with God. The ‘uniform’ was suit and tie for the men, and Sunday hats for the women, and children were very much seen and not heard.

How different this is to many of our modern Sunday services, where children are encouraged to participate, and churches are filled with the hubbub of welcoming chatter. But which one is better? Have we become too free and easy, and need a good dose of awe and reverence, or should we make our services more like a cafe where our priority is to welcome the customer? I guess the answer to this question depends on who you think the service is for. Do we aim everything at the unchurched visitor, so that they feel welcomed, comfortable, and understand what is going on. Or do we aim everything at the seasoned church-goer, making the service a place of encouragement and rejuvenation for the mission field.

I think the answer is both. We want to create a Sunday service that feels like home, and where the all are able to easily access the message. However we also recognise that needn’t mean a dumbing down of our services. I remember going to The Gathering with a friend who wasn’t a Christian. That first night we went to the main meeting and found a seat at the back. The service was fun and engaging, but it was during the worship that my friend was reduced to tears. It was through the singing of songs that he was able to make an emotional connection with God for the first time.

I believe the purpose of the Sunday service is to draw people into a place of intimacy with God, believer and unbeliever alike, and if that means poetic liturgy, contemporary music, silence and lattes, then lets go for it! Everything is worth a try when it comes to bringing people to Jesus (1 Cor 9:22-23)! But most importantly, perhaps we need to come to the understanding that the Sunday service isn’t all about ‘me’. Instead it should be aimed at the ‘others’ and it’s to them that we should focus our efforts – perhaps even spending less time praying that ‘I’ will meet with God, instead looking around and praying that ‘they’ will find their time here to be an encounter with the Almighty.

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 01/Dec/2019]

I am determined to make an effort to invest more time in reading the Bible. As part of this endeavour, a few days ago I was reading Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It seemed straightforward initially. Essentially, he was concerned that there were people leading the Galatian Christians astray from the truth they had been taught. As I moved into chapter 3 however, it became a bit more difficult and by the time I got past verses 22 and 23 of the chapter, I had to admit to myself that I had no idea what that bit I just read meant. I was reading a Bible with quite a few footnotes however and they helped to explain things…. a bit.

We often, when we want people to know more about the gospel, encourage them to read their Bibles. For some like me, perhaps for many also, though we are reading the Bible in English, it can seem like a foreign language (Greek perhaps) and it doesn’t take long before we fall out of the habit of reading it. It got me thinking. How then do you get people to be able to know the truth that is between the covers of the book, from Genesis to Revelation?

As the season of advent is upon us, it makes sense that we should look to Christ for the answer. When He came to earth, it was as someone that we could all relate to. A helpless child born to a poor young couple, with lowly shepherds as the welcoming party. He worked as a carpenter and mixed with society’s rejects. You could not say that he was inaccessible. He told parables, using people’s everyday experiences to teach the truths of God. He made God known to us as our Father and he called his disciples his friends.

When Jesus was talking to the two men on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, they said “were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?” They had clearly read their scriptures, but Jesus opened their understanding.

Jesus did not come to make God less accessible, or more difficult for us to understand. He knows our limitations and for this reason, better than the footnotes in my Bible, God’s Spirit makes things clear to us in ways we can understand.

The song ‘God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform’ has a line in it as follows:
‘Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain’.
A comment from a friend, something on TV, an experience at work…, God’s Spirit uses these things to help us know and understand more about Him.

Just so you know, I did finish reading Galatians. Can’t say I have fully understood it, but I know just as the two men weren’t expecting Jesus to meet with them and reveal truths, I also don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I can’t wait to have the Lord open my understanding.

Onwards and forwards now to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians!
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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, November 2019]

Some years ago I had arrived at a crematorium to take the cremation service for a member of the church we were attending at the time. I checked the list outside the chapel and found that leading the service was “Reverend Michael Goble”. I joked about this with the crematorium administrator before the service and she replied, “Well you’re doing the work of a minister and therefore you are a reverend.”

I thought about this afterwards and agreed with her in a way. The church didn’t have a minister at that time and it fell to me to do the things that a minister would normally do, like weddings, funerals, baptisms, dedications, just because no one else felt able to do them, although neither did I! But I wasn’t sure about being called a reverend. It’s right that the person chosen by Jesus to be responsible for leading a church should be recognised by a title, e.g. “Pastor”, but I didn’t think that Jesus wanted the leaders of the first churches to be called “Reverend”, i.e. a person to be revered. I suppose that this goes back to the time when priests, then vicars and ministers, were considered to be superior to the ordinary Christians in the congregation.

I do not believe that this is true of ministers in the church, as all of us who truly believe in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour are described in the New Testament as being priests.

“You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9 NLT)

“All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a kingdom of priests for God his Father.” (Rev. 1:5-6 NLT)

That means that we are all ministers and therefore whenever we do anything large or small to serve Jesus, then we are doing the work of a minister, whether in the church, or at home or at work, or in the community. This doesn’t mean that we don’t need Martin as our leader to encourage us as we serve Jesus here, to help us grow as a church and in our Christian faith and love, and to lead us into God’s will as we become living sacrifices. But we need to support him in that work in whatever way we are able with the strength that God’s Spirit gives us. In that way in a sense we become joint ministers. We should all be doing the work of a minister, but we don’t all need to be called reverend.

“For the Son of Man will come when least expected. If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward.” (Matt. 24:44,46 NLT)

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[This meditation was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 20/Oct/2019]

With less than 24 hours before my next ‘Yours’ article was due for delivery I sat down to give a final polish to the text which had been evolving over the past couple of weeks. As I did so, a blue-tit landed on the sill outside my window, within an arm’s length of where I was sitting. The small insects that abound at this time of year make rich pickings for a variety of birds and the blue-tits have joined the feast. However, here blue-tits are the harbingers of cold weather and today’s cool 20C adds to the indications of the coming winter.

I got to thinking – what could the blue-tit see? It could not see me due to the difference in lighting on both sides of the glass. Did it see its own reflection; was that reflection a rival or a companion? What about us? When we come to God’s presence what do we expect to see? The light of God hides Him from our direct sight and we see only a reflection but maybe we think that is enough. He is, after all, made in our image – right? Do we see ourselves as others see us? Are we rivals or companions to those around us?

A little further away a woodpecker is at work. Nature’s original headbanger is looking for small insects among the branches of the walnut trees. Life for her consists of a lot of noise and effort but she persists and is eventually rewarded. Is our walk of faith becoming a headache? Maybe a meditation on the eagle in Isaiah 40 v31 will help.

On the wires outside, our resident flock of sparrows is showing off its fluffed-up winter plumage. They have made a nest in our verandah and their friendly chatter is a reminder that God provides for their needs. Sparrows have a special place in God’s heart, even being allowed to make their home at God’s altar (Ps 84 v3). But so have you – Jesus said that you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matt 10 v31)

In my story the ravens are the bad guys. They steal fruit and strike fear into other birds but they too demonstrate God’s provision “… they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.” (Luke 12 v24).

Feeling down? Remember how much more value you are than the birds
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