West View Baptist Church, Hartlepool

A family friendly church in the town of Hartlepool

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Salt and Light and the Bride of Christ

Amanda, Ian and Abbey led today’s service. Songs today were “We will go”, “We are marching in the light of God”, “Did you feel the mountains tremble?”, “Mighty to save”, “Revelation song”, “Purify my heart”, “Amazing grace” and “Therefore the redeemed of the Lord” Scriptures today included Titus 2 11-15, Revelations 19 1-10, and Isiah 25 1-12

Bride of Christ

Young Church today has as its theme Salt and Light, Matthew 5-13 to 16, and the children were encourage to make salt drawing and light sculptures whilst we explored the topics,

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Book Review: Called or Collared

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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?

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Sunday 8 January 2023

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.

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Church to Re-Open from 9th May 2021

We are pleased to announce that we will be starting up Sunday church services again. We feel that now restrictions have eased it seems appropriate to try to meet again in person, doing so in a way that keeps people safe.

Here is what we have planned…

Services to Re-start from 9th May

We will be returning with a short service on Sundays from Sunday 9th May 2021, at our usual time of 10:30am. This will be about 30-40min long.

We will will need to continue to adhere to Baptist Union and Government guidelines as we did in the autumn. This currently includes:

1. Sit only with those from your own household, maintaining 2m social distancing from other households.

2. Face masks MUST be worn when inside the building at all times, unless you are under 11 years of age or you are unable to do so because of a physical or mental illness or impairment, or disability.

3. Follow the one way system that will be in place. You will be directed to enter the building via the fire exit to the right of the building and leave through the main entrance.

4. Leave the building promptly at the end of the service. However, it is permitted to gather in smaller groups of 6 outdoors after the service, providing you maintain social distance.

5. Be willing for us to hold details of your attendance for the Government’s Track & Trace system.

6. Generally follow advice, signs and instructions from those leading/supervising so that together we ensure a safe experience for all. 

We will no longer be live-streaming on YouTube

We will no longer be able to broadcast the service on YouTube. For those not yet able to attend in person we would instead direct people to other content online or join us on a Thursday on zoom.

Children & Young Church

We encourage children that wish to, to attend but must do so with their own household and stay with their household throughout the service. It will be the parents/guardians responsibility to manage this. We do appreciate this is quite hard and anticipate that those with younger children may not be quite ready to return yet for this reason.

However, the service will only be short, and we will try to keep content all-age appropriate.

Thursdays on Zoom will Continue

The Thursday meet-up on zoom will continue at 7:30pm and will continue for the foreseeable future.

See http://wvbc-org-uk.preview-domain.com/together for details.

Church will be different to our ‘normal’ experience , as there will continue to be many constraints on how and what we are able to do.  For example, currently it is not possible to sing together in church.  

Things will change in the coming months so any plans we may make now will always be subject to change based on the latest guidance and current situation. 

We ask for your continued prayers as we journey together in the coming months, and look forward to seeing you soon whether that be online or in person.

We wish you every blessing in Christ