Roddy Hamilton has moved church to Bearsden: New Kilpatrick recently so his invaluable Chocolate Teapots and bits and pieces of inspired words for worship, Mucky Paws, are now housed at Listening to the Stones.  Always worth a visit.

Yesterday I wrote about running alone and how parkrun might give people like the chance to ‘run alone together’ (as Leo said in his comment).

John Orr took the thought and expanded it to church. I like when that happens. His question was ‘How can we create opportunities for people to join in without having to join up?’. I think that’s a great question and it strikes to the very heart of some of the conversations the church (almost all of them) is having.

I join in without joining up every day. I use Twitter and Facebook (and sometimes Google+ but it seems a bit too much like joining up) to see what my friends are up to. Sometimes I see that they are where I am and we arrange to have coffee. Sometimes we don’t. There is no pressure.

Today I’ve been attending the New York Times Schools for Tomorrow conference in New York… from my desk in Hamilton, Scotland. I’ve talked with people about the issues being discussed on Twitter and Facebook and over dinner with my wife. I’ll take some of those thoughts to ICC next Tuesday and share them with my class.

I don’t have to sign up for anything.

I didn’t have to pay anything.

No-one asked anything of me.

I was free to take part as much or as little as I wanted to.

When I ran the Great Scottish Run I eventually took my earphone out of one ear. I like music when I run, but felt like I was missing something of the experience. My iPhone doesn’t cheer you on like the people lining the streets did, it just told me I was running too slow. Music is great but doesn’t give you water or hose you down. My iPhone doesn’t reach out a hand for a hi-5 or take your photo or hug you and say ‘Well done’ even though you are soaking with sweat.

Running a race is about running alone together.

But so is life.

We seek out places where other people are. Beaches, parks, cinemas, shops and churches. We don’t need to speak to people when we are there but there are few feelings as unnerving as when you leave your house and don’t see a single living soul for 10 minutes. At times of tragedy and celebration people feel a need to join together, often with complete strangers.

I was at a church that had lunch after the service because it was a special Sunday, a celebration. I heard an elderly lady say that ‘This is great. It’s so much better than going home to eat alone.’

A sandwich lunch is an opportunity to be alone together. It costs nothing to do. People bring their own and you can sit in the corner if you like or speak to people if you want to.

Church services are a chance to be alone together. You can sit, not interact much and go home. But there is a sense of an underlying pressure to Join Up, not just Join In.

There are lots of issues that people coalesce around. Jubilee 2000 and the Make Poverty History campaign are great examples. I believe in that. Hold a protest and I’ll join in. It doesn’t matter that we disagree about other things, we agree about this so let’s work together.

Community is a good thing. Being connected to each other is important.

My wife has gone out to meet her friends. I’m pouring our my thoughts to a computer, alone. We are both building community.

I’m just doing it Alone, Together with you.

There’s a tension in youth work between process and product.

We talk more and more about ‘outcomes’ and ‘results’ and ‘objectives’ which are all about the product, the end result.  We are more and more scared of process because it’s hard to measure and define.

It’s easy to make Easter all about the product.  But if we do then we miss the benefits of the process.

Process is all about how you get there.

Process is all about what you learn along the way.

Process is about travelling.

Lent is a process time.

Don’t rush ahead to the end.

Value the journey.

On Sunday I preached on Jeremiah 31: 27-34.  I think that had I not listened to Rob Bell’s sermon podcast on Ezekiel 18 I’d have preached about something else… but the idea of ‘sour grapes’ and ‘paying for the sins of our fathers’ got me.

‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’

I wonder how often we think that we are trapped by the past?  And by the past I don’t even mean our past, I mean the past that has been handed down to us.

That’s certainly how the Israelites in exile in Babylon felt.  They are slaves, born into a brutal life of work and punishment in a strange land… and it wasn’t even their fault.  It was their ancestors who had strayed, their ancestors who forgot how to live, their ancestors who cause this to happen and there is nothing they can do about it.

We do what the did all the time… blame the parents.

In some ways we know that parenting has a huge effect on how children view the world but that can only be part of the story.  At some point we grow into adults and take responsibility for our own lives.  Or we spend the rest of our days being controlled and dominated by our past, or the past that was passed on to us by our ancestors.

It happens in life and in church.

I wonder if our teeth are on edge because our parents ate sour grapes?

I think they might be.

Look at all the stuff we have inherited.  Buildings, forms of worship, patterns of meeting, words, symbols and songs.

But what if they don’t work in this place and in this time?  Do we simply blame our ancestors?  Do we put up with clenched teeth?

Or does there come a time when we must move on?

“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

It seems that Jeremiah was telling the people that they will be judged on what they have done and that the sins of their fathers are not their problem.

So, perhaps it’s time to move on.  Time to build something new.  Time to stop blaming our ancestors for their bad choice in fruit…

The Mission and Discipleship Council of the Church of Scotland invites you to the beautiful Paisley Abbey to explore ways of doing worship that celebrates and nourishes our whole life together as well as engage people who are not connected with us.

Main Speaker: Doug Gay, lecturer in Practical Theology at Glasgow University

There will be five different themes explored in the workshops, each with morning and afternoon options.

Prayer
11:30am Growing our own inner life in worship
13:30pm Helping others to grow their inner life in worship

Singing
11:30am Singing out in worship
13:30pm Helping others sing out in worship

Inclusion
11:30am Including adults with learning disabilities in worship
13:30pm Worship in priority areas

Working Together
11:30am Hub Church – working with other churches in your area to develop worship
13:30pm Annandale and Eskdale Worship Resourcing Network – Local people resourcing one another.

Children and families
11:30am Messy Church Worship and what has been happening in Helensburgh
13:30pm Born Contemplative – quiet forms of prayer for children

Other Details
The day will start at 10:00am with tea and coffee, with our main speaker at 10:30am. Lunch will be provided for
all participants. We will end the day with some “Weaving Worship” a form of inclusive worship that ties up all the
threads of life and faith. The day will finish at 4:00pm

How to get to the Abbey
Paisley Abbey is situated in Paisley Town Centre and directions can be found on their website: www.paisleyabbey.org.uk
The nearest train station is Paisley Gilmour Street.

How to register
For registration and enquiries, please contact:
Anna Reid
Senior Administrator
Faith Expression Team.
Tel: 0131 225 5722 ext 359
Email: areid [at] cofscotland [dot] org [dot] uk
Online booking: www.madstuff.biz

Cost
£15 per person

Weaving Worship Leaflet

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!