A fine line!

I had the curious experience last week of a title for a sermon that confused people! For the evening service I gave my sermon the title "Just relax! It's fine!" I did it deliberately. I wanted to find something that summed up Amos 6, but that also made people think! It was quoted back to me before the morning service as apiece of advice when I was feeling nervous, being taken at face value. Someone else came along wondering what it was all about, intrigued by the title.

"Just relax. It's fine!" On the face of it, this is an expression of peace and confidence. "Everything will turn out well; God is in His heaven and all's well with the world. Don't worry!" How good it is to have that kind of confidence in God, to be able to trust Him implicitly with every aspect of life and faith, to trust Him to be at work in His Church and for Him to have His people in His hands for our safety and well-being. I know lots of people for whom that kind of confidence is a pipe-dream, but were they to find it, what peace it would bring to their lives!

In fact, that's not what Amos 6 is about; so that's not what the sermon was about. Amos 6 is all about complacency; it is about a people who were relaxed and living a life of luxury for themselves while the poor are being down-trodden; their worship is a cause of sin; their attitudes are full of injustice; God has sent His prophet to call them to repentance and they are ignoring him, because everything is fine! Just relax; there's no need to repent! That's quite a different attitude. This is no longer a trusting confidence in God, but a blind ignoring of God and His Word.

How fine is the line between these two very different attitudes. There is not a million miles between these two contrasting views of life and faith; yet in reality they are poles apart.

When I came to Juniper Green some nine years ago, lots of people told me how great this congregation is. Despite all the history of conflict, there were people who recognised that the congregation had achieved a lot and had an enormous amount going for it. Last week , at the Kirk Session meeting, the elders heard from a number of groups doing children's work and other kids of service and they were all saying the same thing - we need more people to help with our work, new people who are willing to take on new responsibilities. There is a fine line between celebrating good things with glad confidence and then finding ourselves in a pickle of bother.

As a church, we can't sit back and bask in past glories; we have to keep pressing on for the future, so that the light of Christ continues to burn. I met someone at a wedding recently who is an elder in a Church in the city whose minister has just retired. She felt this was the death knell for their church because they would never find another minister in the current climate. She's not altogether right, but for the first time, she and her fellow-elders in a big, prosperous, comfortable Church had been shaken out of, perhaps, a sense of complacency.

"One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13,14)

Apply that to your life; apply that to your Church.

Be kinder than necessary!

The title of today's blog comes from Scripture Union's Word Live website; I use this website for my daily Bible reading at the moment; there are some written pieces, as you might expect, but also some pictures and audio clips, as well as worship songs to help us reflect on the bible passage that we've read. (http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id)

Over the last three weeks, the main UK political parties have held their party conferences, all of them aware that before the next one there will be a General Election. (The SNP conference will be held in the next two weeks, I would imagine!) So, if you've been paying attention, you might have formed an opinion, or judgement, on the relative merits of each party leader, the three main candidates for the job of Prime Minister; they are all hoping that you and I will be kind to them and vote for their party when the General Election comes around. They expect that people will make judgements about them and that they will even feature on the front pages of the newspapers and the editorial columns; indeed there are some politicians, you feel, would be disappointed not to be on the front pages.

We also make similar judgements about other people, one another. I'm constantly amazed at how scathing Christians can be of one another and how disbelieving. We form judgements of one another without really knowing all of the facts. So this quote: "Be kinder than necessary" and it goes on "for everyone is fighting some kind of battle!"

We can be very critical of people who don't come to Church as often as they once did, but do we know the struggles of their lives? Or of people who drift away from the faith and blame them for their backsliding, but do we ever stop to try to find out the reason for their drift? What struggles are they facing? You might take time to look at the comments on my last blog and see one reaction to what I said then; it might be sad and depressing to think that Christians behave in that way, but it is surely true. The General Assembly of 2008 commended a huge report on Conflict in the Church; some scoffed and said surely that's not real; but it is all too real, I'm sad to say.

The natural human instinct in our relationships with other people is the Old Testament version: "an eye for an eye" - getting our own back! Again the Word Live website: "an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind!"

"Be kinder than necessary" is not the way any bible text expresses our relationships with other people, but it surely captures the essence of the command to "love your neighbour as yourself". We're very good doing what is just necessary and no more.

So next time you are about to be critical of someone:

• a politician, a city councillor, a member of the proposed new community council - an ordinary person like you trying to do their job to the best of their ability.
• a leader of the Church, minister or elder - an ordinary person, whom God has called to be your leader and who is trying be what God wants him or her to be, to the best of his or her ability.
• a Church court (Kirk Session, presbytery, General Assembly) - made up of ordinary people like you and me, wrestling with big issues, trying to decide to the best of their ability.

Then "be kinder than necessary for everyone is fighting some kind of battle" of which you probably know nothing!

The spider's web - your network?

Saturday morning two weeks ago, I took the photo that is here. It was just inside my gate, attached to the gate and the hedge. The sun was shining through it and, well, we cheated a little by spraying it with water to make it more photogenic; you can see it better. What I hadn't realised till I started snapping away, was that the spider was in the middle of the web, having its breakfast. It's a very clever piece of construction, a spider's web; it looks so fine and fragile, as if it would be blown away by the softest zephyr, but its actually tough stuff; how many connections are there on this web? I haven't counted them, but it must be a big number. Every joint is a connection that goes in 4 directions and the joint at the bottom left of the web is connected, even remotely, to the joint at the top right.

There are all kinds of ways in which we could develop this idea, but here are 2 thoughts. First of all, we are all part of a network of other people; in fact there is a network of which we are at the centre. There are people that we know from a whole lot of different contexts: family members, friends, people at work, former school mates, people we know from Church, the people we live beside, people we meet at the school gate when collecting our children or grandchildren; and others. These people form the spider's web of which we are the centre and every person we know forms a connecting point; they may not know each other, but they connect through you. The mission challenge we face as Christians is to allow the gospel to flow along these connections, so that the people we know, from wherever we know them, find out something of Jesus from us. So often, Christians have kept their Christian network separate from all the other parts of the web, for fear that these others would contaminate our faith, but by being separate, we have prevented the flow of the gospel outwards along these connections to the other parts of our network of connections.

Secondly, I have been challenged of late to see Church more like this. People often say to me that my life must be an endless round of meetings and to some extent it is. The word 'meeting' has got so much baggage associated with it, as if these are events we have to attend and they are boring! In actual fact, a meeting is just that, a coming together of people, meeting in one place for a purpose. Church Wednesday has been running now for 3 weeks (see the website http://www.jgpc.org.uk/ for details) and we now have a meeting for prayer and another for Bible Study; using the same idea, but twisting it slightly, we have had 15 or 16 people coming together in one place to pray together and slightly more coming to meet together to study the Bible together. These are opportunities for people to meet in the same place at the same time, to do the same thing and I hope that you can see how different my second description of these events is from simply describing it as a 'meeting' that I have to attend.

Every time the Church meets, we are a network of people coming together for a common purpose. Some examples:

• A Kirk Session meeting - a group of people who come together to exercise leadership on behalf of the whole Church.


• A service of worship - the place where the Church of all ages comes together to worship God by singing together, praying together, listening together for God's word.


• A meeting of the Guild of Friendship (or any other group within the Church) - a coming together of a particular network of people who share a common interest and who want to spend time together.

Our task is to strengthen the networks of which we are a part, to treat other people (the connections) with respect and love, and to let the gospel of God's grace in Jesus flow along these connections to encourage the Christians and to expose our non-Christian friends to Jesus.

I have found this notion has almost transformed the way that I view my diary; I'm trying to remember that every entry there is an encounter in which God can be at work and in which His grace can touch me or someone else. Try it; see how you get on with your network.

We have a choice!

Have you been following the controversy created by STV? I know, there are probably several controversies created by STV, but the one I mean is this: Scottish Television has chosen to opt out of ITV1 schedules for lots of popular drama programmes. Are you a fan of The Bill? You now have to watch it on ITV4 at 11pm on Monday night because STV refuses to show it at its normal broadcast slot on ITV1. We are denied Lewis, Midsomer Murders, Kingdom and any number of other drama programmes in favour of ... Well, they say, in favour of new Scottish drama, but the reality is, in favour of old repeats and well-worn movies and documentaries. We are denied the choice!

The residents of Juniper Green and Baberton Mains are about to be given the choice - who will represent us on a brand new Community Council. There is a process already in motion to find names and nominations of people who would be willing to stand for election to the Community Council, so that we can take more of an interest our community affairs. I, for one, would hope that this new initiative will not founder for lack of support! You have the choice, now; don't lose it.

Over the next year we will be able to listen to our eminent parliamentarians at Holyrood discussing whether we should be given the choice in a referendum about independence. There are options: will it be a straight 'yes' or 'no' to independence; or will it be a multi-option vote and you can tick your preference; or will the question be so obscure that you're not entirely sure what you're voting for? Knowing government, the last is the most likely. You will be given a choice of some description.

We make choices every day: will I use the bus or the car today? Which will be more convenient? Will we have sausages or mince for tea? Most of the choices we make are not life-changing choices; they merely affect how our life will be today. Yet, we exercise choices time and time again.

Church is full of choices. Look at the comments made on my blog a couple of weeks ago and you will see that some people prefer one kind of option in worship and someone else says something else. It's not always possible to accommodate both options in one event. So we try to provide options, choices. The evening service provides an opportunity for worship that is different from the morning service; some like it, others don't; most have never tried it! Church Wednesday is an opportunity for people to pray together and study the Bible together - this is not about ticking a box to say 'we have this in our programme', but is about giving people a significant opportunity to grow in faith and to get to know other people better. Some will love it and enjoy it; others will not, I suspect; but it will be a shame if you write it off without trying it!

Moses once faced his people with a huge choice: would they love God and follow His ways, or would they ignore God and go their own way? This is a life-changing choice.

"Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life." (Deuteronomy 30:19,20)

They, you or we?

Hands up those who're glad they were not in Kenny MacAskill's shoes last week? I'm certainly glad that I didn't have to make the decision about Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Gordon Brown demonstrated his desire to keep the decision at arm's length from his desk. 'They' made that decision; it was someone else's responsibility.

Who decided that trams would be a good idea for Edinburgh? Again, we pass the buck; it was 'their' decisions and we're not even sure at times who 'they' are. All we know is that it was not our decision and is we had been in charge it would have been done differently!

Who got us into the financial mess that the world is in? We point the finger at some faceless group of individuals and blame them for the choices they made that put us into the situation in which we now find ourselves.

The people of Kilmarnock are pointing the finger at the moment at the management of Diageo for 'their' decision to remove funding from the Johnnie Walker plant in the town, except they know where to go to stick the blame.

But this becomes personal - it is 'your' decision. If you were given the chance to talk to Kenny MacAskill about his last week, we would talk to him about 'your' decision and if we think he was wrong, that becomes an accusation. "Why did you make your decision?" We know where the blame/responsibility lies and we make it obvious. It is not our responsibility, but we blame you for the way in which you exercised yours!

"We" is a group word. It says something about shared responsibility. The people of Juniper Green and Baberton Mains will have the opportunity, in the next few weeks, to exercise something of that shared responsibility for our community with the proposal to form a community council. It would be a real shame if this were to founder for a lack of support, that we are not prepared to take on some responsibility for our community.

"They", "You" or "we"? All of these are found in Church. There are lots of people who blame 'the Church' for things they don't like in the Church - it is 'their' fault, but they are never quite sure who 'they' are. I've had people talk to me about things in church and say 'you' did this or that and for them it is my responsibility or fault. The Church is meant to be a community of people who belong together and who share some sense of responsibility for the health and well-being of the Church - for church like that, the best word to use is "we".

"We" is a word that suggests we are in this together, that we share the responsibility for Church or the community, or the world. 'They' passes the buck; 'you' makes it an accusation; 'we' speaks of community and togetherness and shared responsibility. I know which I prefer!

Showstoppers - the blog!

Ooh! Ouch! It's Friday afternoon at the end of mission week. My legs are just about giving up after running about all week.

We've had a great week; here are some of the highlights:

• 48 children altogether have passed through our doors, most of them with us every day of the week.
• 30 children came to the parents' night and brought their parents along to watch and take part.
• A team of 3o people from the Church, some of them teenagers, some slightly older, have been in the hall from 9am till 12 noon every day, Monday to Friday, to make Showstoppers work. Some are old hands at this, having been part of the team for a few years now, but for others this was an entirely new experience and they have all been brilliant.
• We have told the children the stories of creation, David and Goliath, Daniel, the birth of Jesus and His death and resurrection: they have watched the stories on DVD and have taken home something each day to work on as a reminder of the story.
• We did some new things this year: the children had to build a tower with 20 plastic cups - how high could they go and still have a structure that stood up and 13 was the record; as a team challenge, we had each team draw a cartoon story-board of the story of Daniel and some of the art-work was first class - there were some brilliant lions.
• We learned some new songs that will become part of our repertoire for future use.

All in all it was a high-energy week and one that everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

We will never really know the impact of something like this. Immediately, the children had a fun week and so they go away seeing that Church is fun! They heard some fantastic Bible stories and we hope they remember them. But beyond that, we will never know what impact our work has had; we sow seeds in the hope and confidence that God will make these seeds grow into lasting fruit of faith and Christian character. Continue to water these seeds with your praying.

Here's my hope: "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. " (Isaiah 55:10,11)

Power and responsibility

Tram alert!! I'm going back to the trams for a moment. There's a newspaper report today that hints at the possibility of yet more delays because one of the companies wants to renegotiate their deal. The track-laying company seems to want more money to finish the job because they think they have the Council over a barrel. It may or may not be the case, but here is a business trying to use its muscle to get its own way at the expense of others, trying to use the power it thinks it has to its own advantage.

I heard a story recently (a true story) of a minister new to his or her charge, a first charge, and at some point in the first couple of weeks there was a conversation with the Session Clerk which went something like this. Session Clerk: "as long as you do what you are told, you'll be fine; but step out of line ...." The rest is not recorded and neither is the minister's reply, but the impression is clear. "Do what I tell you and you'll be fine; cross me and I'll make your life a misery!" Needless to say, the minister was advised to resist such an abuse of power.

On another scale altogether, the world has had to sit back and watch as Robert Mugabe has abused his political power time and time again. He has amassed a huge personal fortune that is probably squirrelled away in a Swiss bank while his people in Zimbabwe have grown poorer and poorer; inflation reached a massive 2 million per cent at some point last year; the people were suffering from a cholera epidemic because the water supply is needing huge investment; the elections were far from fairly conducted so that Mugabe could hold on to power.

These are obvious abuses of power; there are far more subtle ways of abusing power, either at home or in church or in other groups. we co-operate only as long as we get our own way; we make it clear what we want and will find only that option acceptable.

The other side of power is responsibility. None of the people in these examples would seem to have any sense of responsibility for their situations. Christians should live with a sense of responsibility:

• for the world, to pray and work for its salvation and for the growth of God's kingdom,
• for other people, to love and care for others,
• for the Church, to seek its best rather than simply to get our own way,
• for our family and people we love the best, people whom so often we take for granted,
• for our own sense of well-being.

We have to work out for ourselves in which order we put these responsibilities; Jesus lived with all of these and more; He is our model-citizen!