West View Baptist Church, Hartlepool
A family friendly church in the town of Hartlepool
The answer to that question is no, But it came up as part of our discussions in Young Church when we asked people to model people or places from the Bible……We had Mary and Joseph, the Nativity, a dove and many more characters straight from our children’s imaginations.
Enjoy their Bible models.
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“Called or Collared” written by Francis Dewar. The version I have is the second edition published in 2000. It is a book that envisages its target audience being those who may be considering ordination in the Church of England. But it is a book that seeks to explore, a much wider theme, that of responding to the calling of God.
It opens with a quote from John Powell’s “Through Seasons of the Heart”
“There is an old Christian tradition that God sends each person into the world with a special message to deliver, a special song to sing for others, with a special act of love to bestow. No one else can speak my message, sing my song or offer my act of love. These are entrusted only to me.”
Dewar goes on to highlight 3 different sets of circumstance where the words calling or vocation are used. The first is the general sense of being called to be a Christian, a calling to everyone. The second is of a call to a role such as to be part of the clergy although this can also be more general in terms of a role at work. This is not a calling for everyone. The third is that of a person’s unique and personal vocation. This is something felt from within, an urging or prompting and again this can be for everyone.
Some of the language in the book particularly around clergy from diverse backgrounds now shows its age in terms of how far language, terminology and attitudes have moved in the last two decades of the Anglican tradition although sadly some of the underpinning issues Dewar seeks to address are still causing problems.
Dewar’s underpinning premise in this book is that God calls everyone to a self giving task in all stages of their lives.
Dewar shines a light on the very tough process that potential ordinands go through when being considered for these positions. Unlike a Baptist church, the clergy in an Anglican church cannot be voted out. It is therefore important that these leaders are chosen with care and that they possess the right qualities for leadership. This is why the emphasis is on other people to judge these qualities rather than just the potential candidate.
Dewar highlights the Moses position “ Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets” interpreting this as longing for the day when every Christian lives out their personal response to God’s calling.
The book contains some interesting opportunities for self-reflection and study including a section on the Exodus where you are asked to identify the pharaoh characters in your life or the times when you face Egypt or red sea moments. As always various recent god moments end up linking together. I was lucky enough to attend the recent induction of Fiona, Graham and Maire at Headland Baptist Church. Linda Donaldson shared some reflections on changing landscapes in our lives but she also firmly drew out the fact that not only were the three ministers a gift to the local community but each and everyone in that church that day were also a gift and brought their own gifts to use for God’s work. Francis Dewar shares that our gifts are not bolt ons or additions but that the gift is us, each and everyone and our unique gifts that God calls into action. But knowing your gifts is only a part of the journey, you need to find what you are called to do with those gifts.
Dewar urges us to dream dreams for others and explore whether you have a personal calling to action. Make sure it is God that calls and not your own ego or vanity prompting you. Examine and reflect on the calling stories in the Bible. Many of the people God calls are unsuitable, in society’s eyes, unwilling to take on the role and unsure of their own abilities. There is hope and a role for us all when we consider the wide variety of tasks that God called people to in the Bible, Mary called to be the mother of God, Peter and Andrew to be fishers of men, Paul to preach to the Gentiles, Zacchaeus to provide hospitality to Jesus, Samuel to anoit one of Jesse’s sons as king, Jeremiah and Isaiah to be God’s voice to the people.
A thought provoking book with a lot of useful exercises and scripture to reflect and consider. I’ll close with some questions. Do you know your gifts? Have you found your role? Is God calling you? Have you answered that call?
Happy New Year and welcome to our first service of the year
God’s covenant and promises and the criticism trap
Amanda, Ian and Abbey led worship today. Songs this week were “I speak Jesus”, “Holy Water”, “God’s Great Dancefloor”, “Spirit of God, Unseen as the wind”, “God of Wonders”, “Thankful”, “Graves to Gardens” and “Holy of Holies”
Matty brought us some thoughts and reflections from his week. He had found it particularly difficult to highlight what message he wanted to share. He eventually decided to speak around Numbers 12:11 “Please my Lord I ask you not to hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed”. In this passage we see the result of falling into criticising others, and Matty reflected on the times when he has been critical of others and outlined a situation in his life where he had heard the result of someone being criticised by others when simply attempting to do the best job that they were capable of.
Despite his own reflections on this topic, he still found himself in discussions with a fellow dog walker about recent actions of the council. It is all too easy to be drawn to the criticism trap.
Amanda brought us the word today and gave us a tour of the seven covenants made by God,
A covenant is an agreement between two parties to work towards a common goal and normally sets out roles, responsibilities and consequences when the agreement is broken.
She started with the Adamic covenant which was a general covenant instructing Adam and eve not to eat from the tree of good and evil. Not following the covenenant led to consequences, death and the pain of childbirth etc. If we are disobedient the vine will be pruned.
Another covenant promise was given to Noah, that God would not use floods to drown man again. The rainbow was left as a sign of that promise.
Covenants were also made to the twelve tribes of Israel and within our communion service Amanda used 12 pieces of unleavened bread to signify the tribes.
Finally Amanda also drew people’s attention to the covenant promises given to the people of West View Baptist Church. They pre date her time at West View yet we can all see how folks from West View have spread out across the world to share the good news of God’s work and promises.
Ian led worship on 23 February supported by Amanda Amy and Mark. Very powerful service with Ian sharing some of the issues he deals with and his reliance on God to lead him.
Amanda asked people to recall those moments when your Mam takes you by the hand . You don’t where you going, you just have to trust she knows what she is doing. The disciples had that experience on the mountaintop, going into the unknown but with moments of terror.
Matthew 16:13 Jesus asked who do people say the son is. Peter had declared Jesus to be the son of the living god, Peter could not understand that Jesus was to die, Peter was a tough diamond, maybe he’d have been from West View or the Manor if he’d been born in Hartlepool. Jesus rebuked Peter saying that it was foretold. By Elijah. Amanda then read Matthew 17 where Peter offers to put up the three tents for Elijah, Moses and Jesus. God speaks and tells of his love for his son. Again they are told not to tell anyone.
Six days passed since Peter had declared Jesus to be the son of the the living god. Why did Jesus takes these disciples up the mountain. Maybe it’s because they were the strongest, and they needed to be prepared for what was to come.
Amanda wondered what was going through the disciples mind when they were preparing to go . Why do we climb a mountain? Where are we going, what do we need What’s the weather going to be like?
Amanda reminded the church of the trip to Keswick that her and I did after we got married. She shared how I prepared with hiking sticks and a bag that weighed a ton. I needed a pack horse. But I wanted to take everything I thought we might need.
Imagine the scene, did they walk together or did they follow Jesus and maybe like me grumble all the way up!
They met with Moses and Elijah. And they were in the presence of God. We’d be flat on our faces as well . Peter did. He was before God and terrified . They were direct witnesses to the care of the Father for his Son.
Don’t be afraid, get up I am with you is the message Jesus shares.
We need the same space for contemplation and conversation with God. We need our mountaintop with God.
As we head into Lent Fasting and praying brings us before God. Amanda shared that she had affirmation. of this but reminded people that even if yiu can’t do a full fast you can do a Daniel fast , rather than giving up all food Daniel asked for vegetables only . God fulfilled Daniels statement.
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When your at the top of the mountain you see gods splendour . Amanda climbed a stepladder to illustrate the point. She shared her journey up Roseberry Topping with her Mam. She then shared the fact that you have to come down the mountain. She followed her Mam down the rocky side of the mountain. It was scary and it was difficult but they got down. Falls and trips may feel inevitable but if we keep our eyes fixed on Him he’ll take us down safely. Maybe that’s why Jesus took the three disciples , he needed to give them strength for when they got frightened and ran away , denied Jesus before he rose again.
We ended with a time of quiet reflecting on our own needs.
On 16 February 2020 Tim and Amanda led worship.
1 Corinthians 3 1-9
Tim reflected on the film Big where the lead character Josh is great at the invention of toys but no good at the relationship stuff as he’s not adult enough to understand.
The Corinthians seem to have been stuck in the past. At the beginning of this very long letter Paul touched on the old leaders of the various factions of the church. Paul has been criticising the outside world but then he starts talking about them in v13 of Chapter 2. They probably thought they were included. But now Paul’s is taking about them and me.. they’re using the world’s ways of scoring points . They don’t realise how the Gospel of the Cross has brought about a new creation. They’re acting like little children and it’s now Paul telling them that it is time to grow up. This should resonate with us. Churches can distracted by the past hurts, past leaders or simply doing things the way we have already done things.
We need to be shaped by the wisdom of the cross. Paul in verse 6 puts it into perspective…. But god… Paul’s favourite phrase.God was giving the growth. Without god all this is fruitless. Everything we do needs to be defined by this idea. God will be at work in everything we do. What an encouragement. But if we’re doing things to be better than the church down the road we will fail. We don’t have to be the superchurch or the best religious deal on the high street. We simply need to be a cross shaped church! Our calling is to plant the seeds, not to guess where god goes with them. We plant gods seeds of compassion and mercy.
We are God’s co-workers. Planting seeds, watering with compassion and love and then leaving the growth and the glory to God. We are in God’s field, God’s building along with all the other churches in the area. None of this belongs to us, to a particular denomination. The church is called to see that God is the one bringing the growth. This challenge but also encouragement! Tim said that the preaching doesn’t depend on him. Filling Station might be challenging and we might struggle to see the difference we make . Yet we get thanks like on Friday when someone put their order in but then also wrote a note if thanks at the bottom. Let God grow and nurture the seeds we plant.