I’ve just watched David Miliband’s speech launching his bid to be Labour leader.  He seems like a good guy.  He said all the right things.  Hope, justice, equality…  But I wasn’t inspired.

Sometimes inspiration is as much how you say it as what you say.

I’m sitting thinking about a sermon for Sunday.  It’s Pentecost, one of those Sundays which is hugely important to the church.  It’s also one of those festivals which comes around every year and has had every angle of it preached on over the years.

I want to say the right things… but I also want people to be inspired.

So, in my usual Monday practice I went looking for inspiration in my usual places.

I found it on Roddy Hamilton’s site:

When those who trust love no longer wait for someone else to fix the problem of the church,

when faith is too important to hand it over to leaders to sort out,

when justice leaves behind those who think she is but a subset of the church’s work rather than the whole thing,

when followers give up on those who procrastinate about inclusion,

when diversity becomes an invite to a table of bread broken safely among people wearing their hidden truths across their foreheads,

when communion is a feast served by non-ordained women, children and men who know heaven won’t implode in doing so,

when the doctrine makers use marker pens to write ‘sorry’ over half their words,

when creeds are written in questions rather than in statements,

when dandelions become the plant of choice breaking out just where the ground has been cleansed against it,

then it is Pentecost.

Hope, justice, equality… but sometimes how you say it is just as important.

Thanks for inspiring me Roddy.

Some very gifted people I know have been working on a lectionary based all age worship resource with a Scottish flavour.

It’s called Spill The Beans and you can download the pilot materials which cover the period from Easter to Pentecost and give them a try.

Download Spill The Beans and remember to let them know what you think!

The radio was on the other night as we ate dinner. It was classical music. Nothing startling or demanding. Sonic wallpaper if you like. The stuff that you don’t notice…

… until it stops.

Dead air is usually radio’s worst nightmare. In this case though we noticed the silence much more than we had noticed the music.

I wonder if church is like that?

We seem so keen to fill every available space with words, music, prayers…

… perhaps we need some dead air, some silence that people will notice.

Did you grow up in a Christian home?

How do you know?

Those were two of the questions which were posed by Lucy Moore during Messy Church training on Saturday.

The assembled throng laughed nervously and made jokes about growing up in a bungalow and how they had never asked their house if it had accepted Jesus as its Lord and Saviour before confronting the fact that this is a hard question.

I grew up in a house with two Christian parents.  I went to church every week and Boys’ Brigade.  But that didn’t make it a ‘Christian home’.  Did it?  We prayed each night before bed.  Did that make it a Christian home?  My dad became a minister.  Did that make it a Christian home?

The question and answers led to an interesting discussion asking:

‘How do we model faith at home?’

So, I’m asking you:

Did you grow up in a Christian home?

How do you know?

And as an extra bonus question:

Would your kids (or future kids) give the same answer as you?

In his great post ‘After Haiti: What to say, sing or show in church‘ Andrew Jones (aka Tall Skinny Kiwi) gives a great summary of some words, images and music that could have been used following the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

He points to some powerful and moving stuff but it led me to a question…

Do we avoid the dark side of faith in our worship?

The Bible has some rich resources for times of hardship and suffering.  Lamentations, Psalms, Job… all full of pain but honest and real and full of faith.

Do we weep in worship?

And if not, why not?

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Photo: Shereen M

I wonder if our impatience comes because we consume rather than create?

If we never plant a seed how can we appreciate the time it takes the plant to root and to sprout and to grow and bear fruit?

If we never build anything how can we appreciate the time it takes to plan, to lay foundations, to build?

If we never wait on anything how can we know the joy of fulfilment?  How can we ever know when something has arrived?  How can we know that things have changed?

Photo by Thomas Mathie

The Something Beautiful podcast gets all reflective for Advent.

We’ve roped in our better halves to bring you words crafted by a variety of  talented people, including Jonny Baker and Roddy Hamilton, and music from So Elated, Adeline and others.  We’ve borrowed it all and arranged it in a neatly wrapped giftbox for you.

We encourage you to stop, to listen and to wait, pondering Advent and what is to come.