Come, set our hearts ablaze with hope!
Rend Collective’s song ‘Build Your Kingdom Here’ (listen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbdJXKqVgtg) is, like the psalms originally were, a prayer set to music. It is a cry to God to do a whole host of things including powerful demonstrations of His ability to change situations. It’s a recognition that we need God to bring light into darkness, hope into despair, and that only He can heal our streets and land and change the atmosphere of hopelessness and helplessness which seem so prevalent.
The phrase ‘Come, set our hearts ablaze with hope/ Like wildfire in our very souls‘ captures an urgency and potential which form the basis of so many prayers. We need the fire of the Holy Spirit burning within God’s people if we are to make an impact on our community. The song makes the startling proclamation, ‘We are Your church, and we are the hope on earth’, truth from a spiritual perspective which must be embraced if we are to see God’s kingdom come in earth as it is in heaven, for the church is God’s plan of proclamation to the world. The church, for all its present imperfections, is God’s idea!
A few years ago, I started thinking about wall art as a way of proclaiming truth as well as creating beauty, and the desire to use the church car park wall was born in my heart. The wall was broken down and to spend money on such a project was impossible. I knew first hand how expensive such things could be, as in 2021 I was involved with the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival‘s community art project to paint the brick wall at Goldthorpe Railway Embankment. The brick wall had to be rendered to give a smooth surface for painting; paints and an artist who can translate ideas into reality cost money. I left my desires for street art with God and waited.
I sometimes think life is like a jigsaw puzzle. My Dad loved doing jigsaws and had a jigsaw mat on which he could leave his jigsaws while he worked intermittently on them. He would do a few pieces each day and then move on. It seems like this is how God has worked on this project. First, the Market Tap moved in next door and repaired the wall. I talked with a variety of people who have been involved in street art and was encouraged by them. Then there was the possibility of funding from Pride of Place in late 2023 which could pay for the wall rendering and for an artist to complete the painting. We sent in the application and waited.
The funding was supposed to be spent by March 2024, and we heard nothing. That piece of the jigsaw remained out, not yet fitted into place. We waited. The project was not forgotten, but it was not completed (or even started, if I’m honest.) Yet I still had an inner conviction that the message would be on this wall at some point. I just didn’t know when.
Then, quite unexpectedly, we had an email saying the funding had been granted if we still wanted to go ahead with the project, and suddenly there was a flurry of activity. The plasterers we had had visit us last year were contacted again and D. G. Sykes came to render the wall. We talked with artists about our ideas and apponted Jayde Marie Bell to do the painting. Once again, we marvelled at God’s provision and timing.
Now, as the new school year starts and the arts’ festival looms again (happening on Saturday 28 September at Astrea Academy Dearne), the painting on this wall mural is about to start. It’s hugely exciting and daunting, all at the same time. To be involved, however periperhally, in God’s miracles always leaves me filled with awe.
“Come, set our hearts ablaze with hope
Like wildfire in our very souls.“
Prayers – and songs – are powerful. Come, pray this prayer with us and see what God will do as He builds His kingdom here.
Who Am I?
Tonight in our ‘Little Big Church’ service, we looked at the question of ‘Who Am I?’ We played games guessing the identity of hidden characters on screen before watching a video of Casting Crowns’ song ‘Who Am I?’ There, we are reminded that our identity ultimately is found in God: ‘You’ve told me who I am: I am Yours.’
In life, we may have different identities, known to different people in different capacities (daughter or son, wife or husband, mother or father, grandparent, worker, friend and so on), but our fundamental identity lies in being created in God’s image and being loved by Him. Knowing that we belong to God and can be born again into His family (John 1:12) brings security and peace to our lives.
Praying For The New Term
Tonight, at the start of our service, we prayed for the children present who will be going to school – some for the first time, others to new classes – and prayed for the schools in our area and the schools associated with church member’s families. Schools need our prayers! We prayed for staff and students alike, and prayed especially that love and truth will be at the foundation of all that is taught.
Schooldays can be the happiest days of our life, but they can also be difficult times. Bullying, anxiety and relationship problems can be prevalent; there are many pressures, not all related to academic achievement. Our board naming schools and children is a reminder to us all to pray continually for young people and for our community, not simply at the start of a new school year.
Please pray for:
- Goldthorpe Primary Academy, Sacred Heart RC Primary School and Highgate Primary Academy in Goldthorpe
- Gooseacre Primary Academy, The Hill Primary Academy and the Robert Ogden School in Thurnscoe
- Heathergarth, Lacewood and Carrfield schools in Bolton-on-Dearne
- Secondary schools (Astrea Academy Dearne in Goldthorpe, Saint Pius X and Wath Academy in Wath-on-Dearne) and Netherwood in Wombwell
Please pray for the children we know in schools locally.
The Power of Testimony
This morning Dave spoke from John 4:39-42 about the power of personal testimony. In meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus chose to engage with someone whom Jews traditionally did not regard highly. Samaritans were in some respects at odds with Jews, and women were not highly regarded by men at this period, but Jesus took the time to speak with her, to accept her and to understand her. This led to a change in the woman’s attitudes, for this stranger, whilst not condoning her lifestyle, clearly was not rejecting her or looking down on her.
The woman was so struck by her meeting with Jesus that she went back to all in her town and testified about this man. Her curiosity and passion about this encounter clearly aroused the curiosity in other people, for they too came to see what all the fuss was about. We too are called to be evangelists, but so often feel we cannot do this. All we are asked to do, in reality, is to tell our story to others, to speak about what God has done. ‘Come and see someone who has changed my life’ is at the heart of every Christian testimony.
This is all that evangelism is – simply telling others what God has done for us. Many people came to faith as a result of this woman’s testimony, and the same can be true for us too.
Why Christmas Matters In August
It’s 117 days to Christmas and already some shops have Christmas items for sale. Most of us groan at the notion of Christmas being thrust at us in August. It feels, somehow, wrong.
People like me who love to plan ahead are secretly quite pleased to have access to Christmas items all year round (it spreads the cost and facilitates planning – I live in a world where my head is six months ahead of the calendar date most of the time!) But over recent years I have come to appreciate the all-year-round message of Christmas more and more and do not object to frequent reminders.
Christmas, to me, is all about Jesus, and the name ‘Immanuel’ is one we remember especially at that time. Christmas remembers, and celebrates, ‘God with us’, God in human form, God taking on flesh and dwelling among us.
And the truth is, I need Jesus in August. I need Him in March. I need Him every day of the year. I’m living in ‘the messy middle’ of the story, when the world’s not all as it should be and I can’t always see a way out of trouble. I need, therefore, the reassurance that God is with us, not simply on special occasion days in dark December but also on 30th August, which isn’t a special date in my calendar. He’s there in the everyday and the mundane. He’s there in the ordinary. He’s there in the mess.
So whilst you may not be thrilled at seeing Christmas goods in shops, whilst you may balk about thinking about Christmas yet, don’t push Jesus out of the everyday. We need Immanuel every single day of our lives.
The Power of Story
Every Thursday in term-time I take my youngest granddaughter to the Lil’ Beatz dance class run by the Clayton School Of Dance & Performing Art’s at The Play House & Cafe Thurnscoe. Music and movement are so important to children’s development, and she is now beginning to join in all the actions and understand the songs that are sung to her.
One song tells the story of various nursery rhymes and the chorus starts, ‘I’ll tell you a story’, promising to take us on adventures to new worlds. That is what stories do. At this age, we go to the Caribbean car wash with pompoms to clean our imaginary cars and we swim like fish in our imaginary ocean. We row our imaginary boats past crocodiles and beep the horn on our imaginary buses. I don’t know about my granddaughter, but it’s welcome therapy for me!
This is because we all need stories in our lives. We need daily reminders that story is at the heart of life. Somehow we adults believe that stories are just for children and that we have outgrown them. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I relish my weekly dose of reality framed in the medium of dancing story.
The Bible is a large, sprawling story made up of 66 books. Northrop Frye comments that ‘the entrie Bible is enclosed in a narrative framework’, and I agree. It can be easy to forget that when bogged down in Levitical laws or genealogies of unprounouncable names in Chronicles, but the Bible contains the basic elements of all good stories:
1. a beginning and an ending
2. a catastrophe that has marred the original design and separates us from our good end
3. a plot of salvation, of rescue
4. developing characters who reflect our human nature and show us what God can do with people
5. meaning, significance (life is not simply random.)
This brings not only reassurance but reality to our everyday lives. We know all about beginnings and endings (we celebrate births and remember deaths). We know all about the messy middle (sorrow, pain, tragedy). We yearn for the happy endings and daily watch growth and development around us. Deep down, we love the personal touch.
The Bible tells us the whole story of humanity, which can’t be told, it declares, without reference to God. Let the Bible’s story bring as much joy to you as my weekly foray into Lil’Beatz’s world does. Let story shape your week.