Last night the family service rather unoriginally took the theme of the Jubilee!

We had a variety of Jubilee prizes on offer:

We had a game called ‘Pin the Crown on the Queen’, using amazing resources painstakingly produced by a friend of mine (thanks, Sam!)

We also had a Jubilee Quiz, featuring questions about the Queen’s 60 year reign:

Despite the puzzled looks, this was the winning team, scoring an impressive 22/25 (though the other team did point out, rather unflatteringly perhaps, that this was not surprising given the average age of the team!)

We sang the children’s song ‘Love is the flag flying high’ and waved flags during this, remembering the King of Kings as well as the British Queen!

The children continued the royal theme by making crowns, ably helped by Tony. (Thanks to all these amazing creative people!)


Even our youngest member was in on the act!

After the service, we had refreshments on the Jubilee theme:

For all those away on holiday, you missed a royal treat!

Garry preached from Romans 12:1-2 this morning, focussing on the ‘renewing of our minds’. God wants all of us, every part of our live, and that obviously includes our minds – that faculty of perceiving and understanding, our capacity for reasoning and thinking. Jesus reminded His disciples that the greatest commandment was to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Matt 12:29-30); both our feelings (emotions) and thoughts are to be used in our love for and service of God.

The way we think develops over time and the world influences the way we think in ways that can, at times, be difficult to discern. Our cultures, families, friends and the media all influence the way we think. There are different ways of learning things, but often life is lived from procedural memory: we have done something so many times (eg riding a bike or driving a car) that it has become ‘automatic’ and we no longer think about it the way we used to when we were learning how to do that thing. Procedures can be helpful in establishing the correct way to do things (eg the ‘standard operating procedures’ necessary to operate certain kinds of engineering equipment, for example), but we have to recognise that the world has made its mark on us, rather like the mark made on a tile by a tiler, so that when pressure is applied, the tile cracks according to the line made on it. If we are not careful, the world, with its sin-filled thinking (see Romans 7:23), influences and shapes our thinking and consequently our behaviour. When the pressure comes, we ‘crack’ according to the world’s way of thinking, instead of responding in the way that God wants us to respond.

We need to get out of this groove and allow God to fill in the cracks so that we can follow God’s reasoning and God’s thinking. God has to reveal to us where our thoughts and ways are wrong (see Ps 139:23-24) and we are cleansed by the Word (see Eph 5:25-27) so that we can recognise the faulty thought patterns and understand that there is an alternative way to live. This brings with it the challenge to live in ways the world perceives as failure or weakness, being willing to lay aside our rights and embrace an alternative method of living, where love, forgiveness and meekness are the path to the crown of life.

Last night in our study on James, we looked at the way that the rich and the poor were treating Communion (see 1 Corinthians 11:17-22). Paul found nothing to commend in the selfishness of the rich who brought plenty to the love feast, but equally took plenty!

It’s always good to focus on what we are really doing when we take Communion and ponder the sacrifice Christ has made for us. Here are two very different songs on the same theme:

Matt Redman’s ‘Remembrance’:
‘Remembrance’, Matt Redman

Charlie Hall’s ‘Mystery’:
‘Mystery’, Charlie Hall
‘Sweet Jesus Christ, my sanity.
Sweet Jesus Christ, my clarity…
Bread of heaven, broken for me…
Christ has died
Christ is risen
Christ will come again.’

I am currently reading a book by Eugene Peterson (no surprise there, huh?!) called ‘Subversive Spirituality’. I read it a little bit at a time (unlike my normal method of reading, which is to devour a book hungrily in one sitting, aiming for the world speed reading record at the same time!), partly in the same way that you might linger over a meal you are really enjoying, not wanting the experience to end, partly because I have to ‘chew on’ the things he writes about in order to fully digest them.

Reading Eugene Peterson for me is like putting on a pair of new shoes and finding they are so comfortable that it feels like you have been wearing them forever. (That, incidentally, is not something that happens very often to me. Buying new shoes is normally one of the most stressful things I do, an event forced on me when the previous pair of comfortable old slipppers literally fall to pieces and I notice holes in the soles and get damp feet! I am no Imelda Marcos, but rather a loyal lover of the most comfortable footwear I can find and am loathe to change it once I’ve found it!) I find that he articulates things I have been musing about for a long time in such a way that I smile with a sense of real familiarity. ‘So that’s how it is! Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to say!’ The words themselves may be new to me, but the ease and comfort with which the words penetrate my soul indicate that I have been walking along this path for some time.

Today’s moment of recognition came as I read the following:
“Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It is essentially laziness. It is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing. It is filling our time with our own actions instead of paying attention to God’s actions. It is taking charge.” (Eugene Peterson, ‘Subversive Spirituality’ P 237).

I suspect I will be digesting this thought for some time. I have spent the week chipping away at a jobs’ list that is alarming in length and full of ‘urgent’ and ‘important’ things that ‘must’ be done. I have long wrestled with this differentiation between ‘urgent’ and ‘important’, between what I must necessarily do as part of the everyday routines and the things that are necessary to my spiritual growth and how to recognise the difference between the two and how to balance the two.

A long time ago my son asked me why I worked so hard. He was too young to have heard of the Protestant work ethic and I think he was somewhat surprised by my answer. I said that I worked so hard because I was fundamentally lazy.

This is the first time I have ever seen anyone else equate busyness with laziness. The two are normally viewed as opposites. I don’t see them as opposites. To have the two things linked together by someone else is like putting my feet into those new shoes and finding they fit perfectly. I do recognise in myself a desire to be in control, and work (even work imposed on us by others, where we have to do things that perhaps we don’t want to do or deem important ourselves) can easily fuel this desire. The reason that ‘filling our time with our own actions’ can seem such a virtuous thing to do is that it puts us in the driving seat. We are in charge.

That is why I believe busyness can be an enemy of spirituality. I believe it fuels the ego and leaves us more interested in what we can do than in what God is doing. It fuels our self-importance and leads us to think we can get by without God.

So I have deliberately and intentionally sat here with a cup of coffee typing this rather than rushing to start the jobs’ list (which ironically continues to grow, even when I cross off all the things I have managed to do this week!) I believe I need to attend to my spiritual life and slow down long enough to listen to God and find out what He is saying and doing. That was the secret of Jesus’s success: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19) If Jesus Himself had to rely on His Father and could do nothing by Himself, I certainly cannot hope to grow spiritually while I am busy doing my own thing, being in charge. And funnily enough, Jesus also said that if we put Him first, all the things that we worry about will fall into place (Matthew 6:33). So I think it’s worth taking time out of our busyness to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from Him.

Dave continued the Bible study on James last night, looking at James 1:9-12. This discussion on the brother in humble circumstances and the rich must not be taken out of the context of James’s words on enduring through trials and persevering in times of testing. Whether we consider material wealth (or lack of it) or spiritual wealth (or lack of it) to be the main points of discussion here, James reinforces the topsy-turvy teaching of Jesus, that humility always has to precede exaltation and that we need to keep the ‘long vision’ in view if we are not to become discouraged. Asaph certainly knew all about the dangers of looking at the rich and envying them (see Psalm 73.) The answer to those nagging doubts is to enter the sanctuary and look not only at who God is but at the sure and certain justice of God. As the Parable of the Rich Fool illustrates (Luke 12:13-21) and as James reiterates, wealth is transitory (“the rich will fade away even while they go about their business”), but those who learn perseverance will ultimately receive the crown of life (James 1:12).

It’s not always easy to keep perspective and James was writing to Christians who were undoubtedly suffering great hardship. But, as Paul reminds us in Romans 8, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Rom 8:18) That is the fuel that keeps us persevering through all the trials James talks about in chapter 1.

God has given all kinds of gifts to the church. You can read about these in Romans 12 and in 1 Corinthians 12. Mingled with all the spectacular gifts (of healings, prophecies, words of wisdom and discernment of spirits, for example) are others which seem, frankly, more mundane. Paul says “God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.” (1 Cor 12:28) Every time I read this passage, I am struck by the way ‘helping’ comes right after miracles and gifts of healing!

Helping is not often perceived as being ‘all that special’. Perhaps it’s because we often help others out of our strengths that we don’t think very much about it. If I can help someone to do something, maybe that’s because I can do that thing and so it doesn’t really seem very unusual to me. But helping someone, when viewed from the other side, is so very precious. If you have ever been on the receiving end of help, you know that it really does indeed make all the difference!

Helping in practical ways that are borne out of a prayerful desire to serve God with all that we are and all that we have is something that blesses God’s heart, because it actually reflects His character. Over the past few months, church members have been bringing tinned food and clothing to church, working with the Salvation Army and other local churches to serve the poor and needy in the area in practical ways. John tells us “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:17-18) We’ve been trying to live out those verses by helping others.

Last week, Captain Adrian Lee came to collect the latest batch of stuff we’ve collected.

When you look at the amount of things that have been given in just a month, it’s amazing.

We are immensely grateful: to Mark and Debbie for having the courage to step out in faith and urge us to continue helping the poor, rather than viewing it as an ‘occasional’ ministry; to Chris and Adrian for working with the Salvation Army in Goldthorpe and for being willing to allow us to be involved in this work; to our local church leadership for being willing to take up new challenges and provide new opportunities for helping; to members of the Methodist Church at Great Houghton who have joined in so enthusiastically with this project; to every church member for being willing to give up a little of what they have to meet the needs of those who have nothing. All those helped are local families known personally to Chris and Adrian.

I’m quite certain that most of those involved in this ministry don’t really think they are doing anything very special. They are helping others in ways that seem ‘obvious’ to them. I’m equally certain that those on the receiving end of the ministry view it very differently, as a lifeline and a real blessing.

Jesus said, “If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” (Matt 10:42) Giving a tin of beans or a packet of soup may seem to us to be that ‘cup of cold water’: nothing very special, certainly nothing very spiritual. But when we offer those in need something that they need with love in our hearts, then we are reflecting the generosity and kindness of God and that must always be a good thing!