Bible Based

“It’s a big book, full of big stories with big characters. They have big ideas (not least about themselves) and make big mistakes. It’s about God, and greed, and grace; about life, lust, laughter and loneliness. It’s about birth, beginnings and betrayal; about siblings, squabbles and sex; about power and prayer and prison and passion. And that’s only Genesis. The Bible itself, with Genesis as its majestic overture, is a huge, sprawling book.” So writes Tom Wright, making a comment on the Bible as 'the book God breathed' ("Simply Christian", SPCK, 2006, p. 148). The Bible is certainly crucial to Church, demonstrated for Reformed Christians in the centrality of the Word, and its preaching. Wright wants to stress the Bible as a source of energy for doing the work and the will of God. I think that is spot on - and how helpful to know where to go looking for some of the energy we need to do whatever it is that God is calling us to do for the moment. Armed with that energy, how can we help but be effective churches?

Groups and their Advantages

In the Church we tend to put an emphasis on inclusivity, and rightly so. The Church is for everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, regardless of background, culture, education, interests and all the rests of it. God welcomes all. I love the concept of All-Age Worship, even though it is sometimes difficult to do it effectively. I am convinced it should be part of church life. But do we need to learn to put specialisms alongside the all-embracing concept? There is definitely a place for the "catch-all", but I am convinced that there is also an important place for targeting. Women's groups have long been an important part of the life of many churches. Men's groups have tended to be less prominent, but have also played an important role. These days I see targeting interest groups as a halpful way of focussed engagement. For instance, I have been involved in Book Groups and a Film Group where, on a monthly (usually) basis we have met to either discuss a very varied range of books or watch and discuss a film. It's amazing what comes up!

Open Table

A very simple - but effective - initiative that I have heard of more than once recently is something I have heard named as 'Open Table' or 'TableTalk'. It is simply getting together round a table, with some refreshment, to talk. The refreshments could be pretty well anything - coffee and cake, soup and bread, whatever. The talk needs, at most, a light hand in direction. It is a chance to talk about anything and everything - and that tends to lead to all sorts of interesting places. The whole point is to be there at a regular time, whether it is weekly or monthly, and encourage others to come and join you.

The Carpenter's Arms

One of the good ideas for engaging with the local community that I have heard of happening in more than one place recently is an initiative known as 'The Carpenter's Arms', or something similar. The concept is to strike a deal with a local pub or restaurant - which gets renamed for the night, 'The Carpenter's Arms'. Choose one of the quiet nights of the week - perhaps Monday or Tuesday - and come to an agreement that you'll get them a full house if they will lay on a three course meal at a reasonable price. Agree the menu, then get inviting people. Everyone then meets fpr a good night out and, at one or two strategic moments, some discussion ideas can be fed in, perhaps having being left lying on pieces of card on the tables.

Worship as God's Initiative

"When we worship, God is the main actor. .... Worship is one of the main tools in God's workshop. It is God's gift, which God uses to refashion us in the divine image and to end our alienation" ("A Culture of Peace", Alan Kreider, Eleanor Kreider, and Paulus Widjaja, Good Books, 2005, p. 111). There are various things that we might regard as pretty critical to the life of a church, but we can certainly agree that a church cannot exist without worship. Indeed, though we may want to put other things alongside it, we would surely always identify worship as at the centre of church life. We are inclined to think of worship as something that we do. It is certainly something in which we have the opportunity to participate - but we do well remember that it is God who makes it possible, it is God who makes it happen.

God's Perspective

In his book "Exclusion and Embrace" (Abingdon Press, 1996), Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf comments on how God's truth emerges - "We enlarge our thinking by letting the voices and perspectives of others, espcially those with whom we may be in conflict, resonate within ourselves, by allowing them help us see them, as well as ourselves, from their perspective, and if needed, readjust our perspectives as we take into account their perspective." Though it is obvious, this question of seeing things from others' perspectives is always going to be difficult, not least when we are trying to grasp that God's perspective is likely to be different from ours. For example, we would be likely to think that the church could do with less conflict whilst, in all probability, the church could really do with more conflict. The issue is not conflict of itself, but how we tackle it and whether we allow it to be a growing point. We will never be fully aware of all the aspects of God's bigger picture - but at least we can recognise that it exists!

Culture of Peace

"When Jesus talks about the Church, he says nothing about structure, governances, or style of worship. But he does talk about a community that is reconciling and reconciled. For Jesus, the Church is communities of his disciples who are being disciplined into communities of peace" ("A Culture of Peace", Alan Kreider, Eleanor Kreider, and Paulus Widjaja, Good Books, 2005, p. 68) We are so good at trying to define Church by all sorts of methodologies, most of which limit it needelessly. We need to learn that all that is needed by way of definition is that which is far more fundamnental, namely peace and reconciliation. The Church is not, fundamentally, about particular ways of doing things - but it is about making a real difference in the very essence of how life happens. "The Church is called to be a culture shaped by God whom we worship and by the story that we hear and tell .... we have an exciting destiny - to become not a moral majority .. but a prophetic minority" (ibid. p. 58).