This morning, Julie started a new series entitled ‘Everyday Church’, looking today at the fundamental fact that ‘God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.‘ (1 Cor 12:18) Many of the New Testament letters were written to churches in named locations (Ephesus, Thessalonica, Corinth, Philippi and Rome, with John also writing to churches in Epehsus, Sardia, Laodicea, Pergamum, Smyrna, Sardis and Philadelphia.) Whilst we need to avoid being parochial or insular in our attitudes, understanding that God is immeasurably more than we can imagine and His church is worldwide, we also need to appreciate that ‘church is an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practise a life of resurrection.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Practise Resurrection’, P 12) We cannot avoid the fact that we are based in Goldthorpe: this is our ‘named location’ and the place where God has put us.
Some of us were born locally and are content with where we are; others have moved here for a variety of reasons; others still may feel restless and resentful of where they are. We can be like Jonah, who was called by God to go to Nineveh but who preferred to flee to Tarshish! The grass can always look greener on the other side and we feel where we are is boring, unexciting or even missing out on God. Part of being everyday church is a conviction that this is the place to which God has called us – even if we don’t understand why or even particularly like that fact! – and that He, through us, can make a difference to the place. Everyday church means having ‘a particularizing love for local things, rising out of local knowledge and local allegiance.’ (Wendell Berry, ‘Home Economics’, P 144). It means being convinced not only that this is the place to which God called us but this is the place in which God is also still at work. He goes before us, preparing the way, preparing hearts, working in situations to bring people to a knowledge of Him.
Barnsley M.B.C is currently running a project called ‘Love Where You Live’, seeking to promote volunteering in our local communities.
We need to embrace that philosophy, loving where we live and where we worship, because God is here. We must develop ‘a reverence for what is actually there instead of a contempt for what is not.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Under the Unpredictable Plant’, P 133) Ps 145 helps us to do this by reflecting on who God is and what He has done. Everyday church will involve everyday worship (Ps 145:1-2) and everyday witness (Ps 145:4) We are eager to invite others to ‘come and see what God has done, his awesome deeds for all mankind!’ (Ps 66:5) We are convinced that God has made us Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church – because we are located in Goldthorpe, because God’s Spirit is working in and through us, because we are reaching out to our community and because we are a called-out people. We believe God has good plans for us and for our community (Jer 29:11) and that He wants us to be a ‘Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings’, so that this place where we live, this community where we worship, can be transformed into a ‘well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.’ (Is 58:11-12)
As we meditate on all God does for us and on all that He is, as we witness to all He is and all He has done, as we celebrate God’s mighty works on our behalf in time and in this location, then we can be everyday church in our community, in the location where God has placed us, and others can and will come and see what God has done, for ‘there is no ideal place for us to serve God except the place He set us down.’ (Charles Spurgeon)