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Ian led worship on 24 February, supported by Mark and Amanda. Yvette brought us the Word today from Luke 6 27:38 . She continues to maintain that connection with her mum as she uses her mum’s well worn battered, bookmarked bible to preach from. It might need some sticky tape every now and then, but a battered well used bible filled with bookmarks and used by successive generations is its own silent testimony!

God’s good isn’t he, this time last week Yvette was stuck on the hard shoulder of a motorway with a broken bonnet and windscreen. Thankfully a new bonnet was found and the dartford crossing was not a problem when friends went to get the new part.

Luke was a doctor and a man of evidence. Luke gives specific instances of reference to women. Luke’s version of the sermon in the mount with four disciples but then talks to those who will listen. People had been hoping for a military messiah and what they got instead was a message of forgiveness, note how God often tells us exactly the opposite we want to hear!!

Why does Jesus tell us to love our enemies. Well it really annoys them, people are more likely to take our side and most importantly it’s what he did for us. Jesus got blamed for things he didn’t do, was denied and yet never gives up on us. He never treats us as what we actually deserve .

Martin Luther King Jr said that “darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.” Yvette reflected on what her mum used to say about people and their behaviour. “They can come up to my level cos I’m not going down to theirs”

Jesus is asking us to be different, exposing evil in a way that brings change. The Roman soldiers were mostly right handed. They would slap you on the cheek so turning the other cheek actually means you force him to treat you as an equal.

Jesus is talking to the debt ridden poor, people often sued unfairly. The person who takes everything you have is the one who looks bad here. Using the examples he does, Jesus shows how the system is corrupt and how we can change it. Breaking the cycle of insult and violence is what’s matters. But we can often be slow to be kind to ourselves.

Yvette,s husband made mistake with the car bonnet and he’s still beating himself up about it. Yet everyone else sees it as a simple mistake and nothing he needs to be worried about.

We’ve all done things to others or simply got things wrong . Thankfully God accepts us just as we are.

Think what we get back if we treat people well, if we love and we do not judge. As Christians we have a reputation for judgement at times. Mother Teresa said “The good you do today, people often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

We have the Holy Spirit inside usguiding us. It’s not instant. Think about how long the civil rights movement took in America

 

Service interrupted was the title I had for my blog of 10  February. It was more apt than I realised as I ended up missing a couple of services due to a cold.

My original service interrupted  was simply because I started to record what  Tim was preaching on and then ended up  having to leave the service to help deal with the challenges posed by some young people from the estate who were playing up. My blog was split therefore between a little of what Tim was preaching on and then what Richard Hetherington preached on later that day at the Gathering of the Baptist churches at Oxford Road.

Tim preached on 1 Corinthians chapter 15

We are ressurrectipnists we do Easter every day. So it’s ok to have crème eggs every day Tim says.

Do we need reminding about the gospel? How would we describe it? All too often it is turned into some sort of ticket for heaven. Believe what I believe and you we go to heaven. Is that really what Paul is saying here. ?

Does this mean some go to heaven and some to hell . The theme here is of resurrection and the Corinthians were having problems here. ..

They had lost the plot about what the gospel really is. They need to live according to the scriptures. They need to see the whole story. They need to understand Jesus the raised Messiah. Remember they did not have the New Testament ! Paul uses the Old Testament to point the way.

Jesus his shameful death his burial and his resurrection. That’s the message in a nutshell. On that first Easter Day he appears to all sorts of people.” And that was all I got to hear thanks to having to deal with the young people outside the church.

Fast forward to the Gathering and my second attempt to reflect the preaching I heard.

Richard talked of the commentators of the bible. Something significant and dramatic takes place. It’s life changing for Peter it reaches through the 21st century. Would we have seen this or would we have just seen a carpenter and his friends passing through and stopping to chat? Richard shared the verse from Zachariah 4:10 “ Who dares despise the day of small things…..”

Richard outlines two points,one of encouragement and one of challenge. The encouragement is the place that it happens. Can we remember the first time we heard this message. “Who do people say I am?” Peter’s reply can be added to with many other names. Caesarea Philippi was a renamed town and it was a way of saying the town was dedicated to Caesar with all the emblems of imperial power. 14 temples and shrines to all sorts of foreign gods. It was full of all the new things. And there was a mountain with a gorge with a tributary of the Jordan called the Gates of Hell. Yet Jesus took them there to ask the question. And the disciples got it.

The word of encouragement is this, the community we live in is uninterested, following odd ideas of spirituality. Never be tricked into believing that the gospel message you share does not have power with some else. What you share may change someone else’s life. Here’s the challenge when people come for baptism Richard always tells them the same story. Whatever has brought them to that point , they shouldn’t ever think that that was all there was. At the point of committing yourself, that’s the start of the challenge. Will you surrender this, if it works out it is from me, if not move on.

Richard also reflected on some of the things he struggled with. His wife came from a background where tithing teaching was familiar and routine to her. For Richard this was yet more to learn.

We all at some point ask Jesus to be Lord of our Lives. Is he still Lord of our Lives?

Richard reflected on the story of Joseph and his brothers, he shares the dreams with his brothers and they rejected it as not from God. What does it take to let Jesus be Lord of our Lives. Many people fall into the trap of only thinking that it’s God’s will if the outcome is beneficial to them. “

Richard concluded by asking us to think and reflect on the challenges you face as a church, and encouraged us to ask the question “how’s your commitment to Christ standing up?”

Amanda, Ian, Jonny and Mark provided our music for worship today.

Amanda led worship with some work with the kids and adults on being part of a team and in turn part of one body. Jonny provided the expert football advice reinforced by Josh whilst our body illustration was provided by Jess. Amanda  encouraged us all to come and enter the things we do on the diagram that symbolised the body of the church. She took us through all the different roles and  asked us to remember not to say “we are just the…” when describing our role. We’re all a key part of the body of the church.

1 Corinthians 12:12-31 was the passage preached on by Tim.

Paul has used the picture of a body . But imagine an eye with just two legs running around. Imagine an ear just flying off on its own. The church in Corinth was in a mess, full of factions all intent on following different people or ideas. Spiritual gifts were being shown but they were not being used in the right way , not for the common good as Esther showed last week. We often look at the gifts and and what applies to us and this is not helpful at all . Just ticking off a list and aspiring to other gifts. This means we’re focussed on the I and not the we. It blinds us to what others are to us. Paul urged unity, to see it is about us, about us being a part of the incredible thing that God calls the church. There were those in Corinth who spoke in tongues who were queuing up to perform. Without interpreters this was just babble. There are several different lists of spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts were granted in Exodus to decorate the temple. God equips his church for every moment in history. There are gifts now that did not exist in the Bible, such as doing the computers at the back of church. Each of us is a unique gift to the other. The churches are all different. We’re walking along a path with our brothers and sisters from Headland Baptist Church.

It may be uncomfortable. What about the other churches Holy Trinity, St. John Vianneys, the Pentecostal church. They are our partners in Christ, without these unique gifts from God we are not complete. The church is intended to be a first taste of all creation. It is difficult to work with people who are different to us. It’s a gift from God, his grace at work through difference and diversity. Paul’s claims in 12 and 13 are rooted in baptism. Baptism lets us experience the spirit of God at work. The Corinthians were using gifts for their own glory and not for what got intended . Paul writes to the people urging them to be part of one body. This image was used in the Roman world but they made it that the privileged did not have to do anything. Paul turns this around saying that the weak parts are there to be cared for and not abused. Tim was stuck on the image of an eye just running around on two legs! Paul points out the absurdity of parading gifts without love. Paul deliberately focussed on the weaker parts having a special place in the body picture that Paul is describing. Those cultural weaknesses characterise his own weaknesses. The weakness of |God is stronger than human strength. God’s power is at work in what the world sees as weakness. Paul reinforces this in his second letter. God has arranged the body giving greater importance to the weaker elements. A well functioning Christian community should release the gifts of others.

The gift of each is inseparable from the need of each. It is easier to reach out and embrace our Baptist brothers and sisters at headland. Yet we’re not so comfortable reaching out to our Anglican or Catholic brothers and sisters. Yet god made all this diversity. Paul reminds of the need for unity, paul needs to bring the letter to a close and in verse 27 he does this. In the Greek translation this starts “You” imagine Yoda saying “You, the body of Christ are!” This is a plural you in the Greek . Each one us is part of it. Whatever strengthens the community is to be sought out and welcomed. We are his body, let us live up to that calling.

On Sunday 20 January Mark Ian and Amanda provided the worship lead and music today. Mark introduced a new instrument into our worship band today. We think it was Leo’s guitar but Mark is adamant that it is a ukulele.

Esther brought the Word. She opened by saying how great it was to see Mark and the family after a week of sickness. We’ve seen people sharing their gifts today, start with an illustration of today’s Bible passage.

Esther pressed Jacob into service to help her with a bowl of Granola. She used this to reminds us we’re all different. She read out the advertising on the box with ingenious blend of exciting flavours as she went through the ingredients.

Where are we in the granola picture? We need something special and for us it is the Holy Spirit. Milk is the example she used in the Granola exercise to illustrate the spirit. We’ve all come with different gifts and worries. Esther then read fron 1 Corinthians 1:11.

This is Paul , we know him well now. It would serve us welll to remind ourselves of the encounter with God in Acts 9. Paul (as Saul) was persecuting Christians and then he met God and was blind for three days until Ananias was sent to restored his sight.

Saul was a changed man ,verse  39 talks about the impact of Paul, we may not have had a Paul moment but the passage in Corinthians reminds us this is the same spirit, the same God moving with us. Paul has a close relationship with thee church in Corinth. He visited them in his mission to Europe. He met people and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks alike to turn to Christ. He’s ministering to people God has placed there, people who were led by God to set up the church in Corinth . Many of the people who heard Paul believed and were baptised. God spoke to Paul , and told him do not be afraid keep speaking and Paul stayed for a year and a half.

Paul appeals for them to be united. C 1 v10.There was disunity going on. They were all following someone else. He reminds them where they come from. He shows them a living God! He shares the relationship he has with God.

We can have the same relationship with God. We all have the Holy Spirit in us when we proclaim Jesus is Lord. We all have gifts to share .

There are different gifts for different people. We pray for unity for this week in our country in our town, in Brexit. We need to pray this week for unity in the nation.

We celebrate our diversity, our different gifts and backgrounds. We don’t need to wonder. The focus in verse 7. The gift is given for the common good. What they are for is the common good, as we share our gifts, Ian with the music, Edris with her bible passage, the community with Filling Station.

Esther then quotes from Rowan Williams from his book Tokens of trust, which she has borrowed from Tim.

He describes a church together in active peacemaking no I without the other. God gives you a gift that only you can give. Esther shared her own recent experience of a missing bottle of Lenor conditioner. She thought her daughter may have taken it by mistake,  but when she asked her she said she hadn’t taken it. So they investigated the boot of the car and found a gap in the bottom of the car that led to the empty spare wheel well. Not only did they find the missing bottle of Lenor, they also found lots of other missing shopping items. There were lots of hidden gifts found in the car. It’s easy for our gifts to get hidden.

We should all be working to release the gifts of others, how can we help the person sitting next to us. Esther recalled the many surveys that used to go around churches in the past. She made the point that you don’t find your gifts through a survey you find them by serving.

Rowan Williams pointed out that as the needs of others change our gifts may change. Ask God to use us to benefit others.

Esther offered up her own experience as an example. She’s done a lot of children’s work in the past but has always said to God “not teenagers!”.

God had different plans for Esther’s gifts though and she is now working with teenagers at filling station and attending youth work training. We want these teenagers to fulfil their potential.

9 gifts mentioned in this particular passage. This is just about Jesus and if we have Jesus these gifts are available, prepare for them, share them. Our scripture and songs touch everyone each week. God wants us all to be healers.

It is great when we see people demonstrating their gifts and showing people the way to God. Be prepared to share. Was Jesus’s the first miracle at a social function important? He showed who God was. Jesus’s death on the cross and his powerful resurrection is through the same gift of the spirit. Tim Kellor a unique flower in his garden. All the gifts are important and we should not take them for granted or use them to dominate or exclude. Our launch event will an opportunity to share on Saturday! We hope for us all to be able to share to be stronger, to be bigger.

Esther concluded with a quote from Lynn Green of the Baptist Union of Great Britain ‘As I meet churches and leaders across Baptists Together it is very clear to me that God is at work stirring up a renewed passion for prayer and a fresh desire to work together because we long to see God’s Kingdom come in our communities and nations. Pray, deepen relationships and be part of what God is doing in these days!’