I was at St Paul's Church, Great Baddow, on Sunday.  I was made really welcome and learnt a ot - especially at "fun church" at 9.30 - expect to see some of Jo's ideas in use at St Michael's over the coming months!

Click here for Armstrong and Miller's version.

If I learn Esperanto, or Welsh, or Serbo-Croat and can jabber fluently until the cows come home -
wherever they’ve been -
or can talk backwards or in hieroglyphics, or even in genuine angelic lingo,
if I haven’t got love, I might as well sound like the National Kazoo Orchestra played through a blender.
Or a Seventies prog rock band at the wrong speed.

If I can be the fount of all wisdom,
covering everything from knowing the whereabouts of the car keys at all times to accurately predicting the stock exchange,
the 2.15 at Kempton
and whether the chemists round the corner opens late tonight,
but don’t have a loving bone in my body,
I am worth diddlysquat.

Even if I am
more brainy than Stephen Fry,
more hunky than George Clooney and
more peaceful and centred than a barrow full of Dalai Lamas.

Even if I give my entire month’s salary in exchange for a copy of The Big Issue, hand over my house to asylum-seekers
and give up my body for medical research -
while I’m still using it -
if it’s not done with love,
I am no more than a pimple on the backside of humanity.

Love hangs around, and doesn’t mind waiting for the postman.
Or your other half in the bathroom.
Love does good stuff for people without needing to be noticed.
Or kissed.
Love doesn’t sit there skulking because next door’s built an extension.
Or gone to Mauritius.
It’s not into showing off the new car, or saying ‘come round for a meal’ when really you just want to show off number one son’s trophies.
It doesn’t preen.
It doesn’t count among its hobbies road rage,
swearing at the milkman or badmouthing the in-laws.
It’s not bothered with looking after number one.
Love doesn’t fly off the handle at the least excuse, or go looking for fights.
It doesn’t dig up grudges, find axes to grind
or keep an extensive logbook of the times you got it wrong and don’t you forget it.

Love doesn’t side with the bad guys
or count lies as an endearing characteristic of modern day relationships.
It’s more keen on keeping the good things safe than Yale, Chubb and Churchill Insurance.

Love is extremely big on giving you the benefit of the doubt,
taking you at your word
And making you feel you’re better than you actually are.
Love saves small slivers of hope
And builds them into gigantic, monumental mountains of excitement about tomorrow.

Even when life suggests you have as much chance of living long and prospering as a whelk has of winning the Nobel Prize,
love … never … gives … up



                                                                                                                                                                                                      Russ Bravo

Here's a sermon I preached in 2005.

Well, now you know who the new Vicar will be - it's me. Which gives me great joy, because it means I can stay in Galleywood for a while. I plan to lose most of my hair here.

And my agenda? Having already been Galleywood's Associate Vicar for a year, I'd have no excuse for not being able to map out a general vision - though to flesh it out will require input from the whole community including you.   It just so happens that our Bible passage this morning is Luke 16.19-31 - the story of a rich man (who goes to hell) and a poor man (who is caught up into Abraham's company). This story suggests the three planks of my vision for Galleywood.

 

Life Beyond Death

Firstly, the Vision for Galleywood is about life beyond death. We don't learn a great deal about heaven and hell from this parable (after all, it's a story, and I can't believe Jesus wanted us to believe people in hell literally have conversations with the People of God). My own hope is for a new world in which we roam free with resurrection bodies, not being eternally cuddled by Abraham. But the story does make it clear that there is life after death, and that the choices we make in this life will make a difference to what will happen in the next. And Abraham says at the end of the story that we have been given in the Bible all the information we need to be able to make those choices rightly.

So (to quote the mission statement) part of my vision for the church in Galleywood is that we should challenge Galleywood with God's Word, in all sorts of creative and unexpected ways. Galleywood may love it or hate it (mostly I hope it'll love it!), but it will notice we're here. For nearly a year now, I've been praying daily what I call the 350 prayer - that by the time I leave 350 Galleywood people will be worshipping God with us.  That doesn't necessarily mean they'll be in church every Sunday - in fact, some of the expressions of church we may need might not happen on Sunday at all, and in my experience even our present members aren't here every week, and I'm extremely comfortable with that!  But it's 350 people who know that they BELONG in some active way. 350 is only 5% of the population, but it's enough to ensure that the rest of the village hears the story and has a chance to be a part of the People of God who will live forever in God's new world. Whatever changes need to happen in order to make us effective in this way, I for one will not shrink from making them.

 

Life Before Death

But secondly, the Vision for Galleywood is about life before death. Jesus' purpose in telling the parable is clear - not to get us speculating about heaven and hell, but to get the rich to do something for the poor; and better still, to get the rich to treat the poor as people with value who deserve respect. Well, we're all richer than someone and poorer than someone else, so we all have a part to play in that story; we all have someone that treats us like dirt and won't even throw us their leftovers, as it were, and we may well have someone that we treat with disrespect and indifference. This has to change. In the words of our mission statement, we are called to demonstrate Christ's love for the world by who we are and what we do.

God so loved Galleywood that he gave it the parish church of St Michael and All Angels. I would hope that, in practical ways, Galleywood will be a better place because we're here.

 

Walls come tumbling down

And thirdly, the Vision for Galleywood is about divisions being broken down. In the story of the rich man and the poor man, 'division' comes up twice. Once it is a gate which the rich man puts up to separate himself from the poor man; and once it is a chasm by which God separates the two men after death. The point is clear - God hates it when we divide ourselves from one another. God hates it when the church keeps aloof from the village, when the old are divided from the young, when people who love to worship with guitars are divided from people who prefer organs, when the (relative) rich and the (relative) poor don't mix. And, in the words of the third part of our mission statement, he calls us to live as God's family.

We live in a world where there are more and more divisions - so the church is probably the only place where the unity God longs for can be displayed. What does this mean? Well, something more radical than the occasional joint service! It will take a whole change of attitude, for all of us. It will take humility. And it will take the power of God.

At the going
down of the sun
and in the morning
we do our best
to remember them,
from comic books
and photographs
and films with Jack Hawkins.

At the rising
of the moon
and in the evening,
black and white
memories slip away
like soldiers that

stop

                               writing

                                                                                   home.

Steve Turner.

An excellent remembrance service yesterday - thank you to all those involved.  We somehow fitted 305 people into the building (I think a record for a Sunday service in my time, and perhaps for many years - though I'm expecting someone to say "It was like that all the time when Alan Willett was Vicar!).  Major General Porter was an engaging interviewee and a fine preacher - he got the tone exactly right.  And it was good to spend time with him, and with his wife Marianne, at lunch.  Our musicians (including live bugler!) were outstanding, and I had nothing but positive comments after the service (including from non-regulars who much preferrred the musical style this year).  The prayer activity was brilliant - just the right blend of fun and seriousness.  Thank you to Caroline, Stephanie, Scouts and team for being so creative.

And a great evening service, with the bereaved from the last year coming to remember their loved ones.  The churchyard blazed with candles in the night, the Christmas tree is full of tags with the names of those we love but see no longer, and a lot of bulbs were planted in memory of a lot of people.  From their comments, it seems that people appreciated the sermon too

An appeal: this is 2010 and I already have more information than I can absorb.

Burn my heart.  Burn it like Jesus did for the disciples on the road.

Don't tell me what to do: the life will spring forth from within

if my heart is burned,

and if my heart isn't burned

I won't have either the inclination or the will-power

to do what you so rightly urge on me:

tell me a story that will grab my affections

and make me believe I can do it.

Burn my heart.  Burn it the way Jesus did,

not by systematics and propositions, not by theology,

but by telling a story, telling THE story.

Start with Moses and all the prophets,

go on with the Gospels, the Epistles, the lot,

burn my heart by telling me the story attractively,

with artistry, clarity and boldness.

If you do it well you will open a whole new world for me,

a world that exists on a different script.

Tell me a story than can burn my heart.

 

Tell me a story, because I'm a story too.

We're all stories, and we tell stories,

like the people in the novel who exist

by telling the stories about themselves;

if anyone committed a crime the others would just

stop telling stories about her and she would

cease to                                                           exist.

But I've been telling my story, and living my story,

on a script that isn't good enough:

it isn't good enough because it no longer explains the way I feel,

it isn't good enough because it no longer satisfies my longings,

it isn't good enough because when I wake in the night it just doesn't feel right.

So tell me a story I can fit my story into,

let it begin with Chapter I:

Someone who's loved me from the beginning, and a beautiful world.

Let it continue with Chapter II:

tell me about God and his people, the ups and downs,

the love and the heart-ache:

I don't need the dates and the Sitz-in-Leben, I need my heart burned

as you open it to me on the way.

Let Chapter III tell me that this God loved me so much

he didn't turn his back on me,

though he would have had a right to do so,

but he came and was a part of my world, and loved me to the full,

and died for me,

but lives forever.

You can tell me how his New Community took root at the beginning of Chapter IV,

if you like, and church history footnotes would be great,

but leave the rest of that chapter as blank pages,

it will be a place for me to slot my story into the Story,

because I'm a story too.

And let Chapter V be something rousing,

not just a happy ending but a glorious one

with angels and dragons and victory over death,

and a new creation

where the long winter will be over and the spring will come

and the thalidomide babies will dance for joy

and there will be no more tears.

Tell me a story, because I'm a story too.

You wouldn't believe the difference your story can make.

Bit by bit (one sermon won't do it!) I'll abandon the old script,

and start seeing the world -- and living in it -- as if it was the new world your story's creating -

or rather I'll start changing this tired old world so that it's just a little like God's new world.

After you tell the story in your sermon, let's tell it again in a prayer, and bread and wine,

and as you break the bread I may recognise Jesus,

and say 'Of course!  Jesus has been here --didn't my heart burn within me,

as he opened the Scriptures to me on the way?'

 

O, and one last thing.  I don't like people who tell big stories.

So if you are going to tell this one -

and I so, so need you to tell it-

make sure you prove the message is not oppressive

by giving me the option of crucifying the messenger.

You.

The substance of my sermon this morning, giving an account of the year so far, is here.   I linked it to a verse from Psalm 95: "today, if you hear God's voice, do not harden your hearts".

Galleywood is part of Chelmsford South Deanery, which unites 21 churches from Boreham and Widford to South Woodham Ferrers and Ramsden Bellhouse.  Here's a document that talks about the deanery's vision for itself and for means of organisation - it's of particular relevance to us at the moment because we are looking at what other local churches we should be in "alliance" with.

A Vision for Equipping Full-time Christians

to Serve and to Tell

 

Chelmsford South Deanery: Towards an Integrated Deanery Vision and Plan for Deployment of Ministry, November 2010

 

A Deanery Vision Group has been meeting for almost a year now.  They have worked hard, looking at the context of decreased numbers of stipendiary clergy, the tasks delegated to the deanery, the biblical basis for collaborative ministry, and the way various other deaneries and dioceses are facing the present moment[1].  The deanery standing committee have affirmed the convictions of the Vision Group, and sent them out to all PCCs for discussion; at the deanery synod held on 7 October 2010 they were affirmed by an overwhelming majority.

 

 

1.  A Vision for Every Member

 It is clear to us that Chelmsford South deanery is going to lose 2 stipendiary (paid) priests in the next 6 years, leaving a total of 10.5 stipendiaries, and that this “loss” is actually a great opportunity to help us to develop the leaders (lay and ordained) that God desires for us: leaders looking to God for power to equip every member to serve South Chelmsford and to tell of God’s love.  

 

We believe that God gives his people the gifts they need.  Our eyes and hearts have particularly been drawn to Ephesians 4; we believe that God will provide the ministry gifts of

- Visionary Leaders,

- Prophets to speak truth to power,

- Evangelists to spread the good news,

- Pastors to care and include all, and

- Teachers to make sure young and old alike develop into the likeness of Christ. 

Our synod in spring 2010 showed what a range of gifted individuals we already value within the deanery, including readers, pastoral assistants and evangelists, but also those recognised by our local churches and commissioned to minister under supervision.  Our “deanery roadshow” is rolling out across the deanery with the aim of encouraging vocation in the broadest sense possible.

 

Every member needs to be empowered to live in his or her community, family, social groups and workplace as a full-time Christian, serving his or her community and telling of God’s love.

 

Every member also needs to be part of an intimate Christian group, whether a formal group or a set of friends.  Smaller parish churches already constitute this intimate group.

2.  A Vision for Pastoral Communities

Every member also needs to be part of a larger group in which the fullness of the ministry gifts listed above are put into practice.   We call this larger group a pastoral community.  A pastoral community is a dynamic grouping of smaller communities; it is served by a collaborative team of ministers, paid and voluntary, clergy and lay, licensed and unlicensed, whose focus is to equip every member to serve South Chelmsford and tell of God’s love.  Its legal status is not the overriding factor, but its fitness for purpose.   It is the effective unit for mission and ministry[2].  A large parish church (no doubt made up of a network of friendships and small groups, formal or informal) might be a pastoral community in its own right; a small parish church would need to join together with other churches to enjoy the fullness of the ministry gifts God gives in a pastoral community.   

 

Every pastoral community should contain at least one stipendiary, but we are relaxed about pastoral units being of different sizes.  A one-stipendiary pastoral community would contain approx 180-200 regular members[3] (ie 10% of the deanery total).  A two-stipendiary pastoral community would contain approx 360-400 regular members; a three-stipendiary pastoral community would contain approx 540-600 regular members.   We are very supportive of pastoral communities working closely with ecumenical partners.    Between now and 2016, several of the pastoral communities may have more stipendiaries than this section envisages; but the aim is to reduce to this level gradually by 2016.  Within the pastoral community, each congregation/parish will need its own “parson”; this person need not necessarily be stipendiary, and indeed may not even be ordained, but will be the public “face” of the church to the locality and the focus of ministry.  In a pastoral community, no one church and no one incumbent, be they stipendiary or self-supporting, is preeminent (though presumably a chairperson for pastoral community meetings will be appointed); all incumbents – paid or unpaid – will have the same status and rights.

 

Obviously, there has to be room for a certain amount of flexibility with all this, especially in the case of parishes with a large population.  Special circumstances will be dealt with case by case.

 

 

 

3.  A Vision for Sovereign Parishes

However, when it comes to determining the borders of the pastoral communities, we do not believe that the standing committee should be leaning over a map with a ruler, in the manner of the Great Powers partitioning Africa.  Pastoral communities are not a replacement for parishes, they are simply a tool to help parishes help each other.  We believe that every parish (PCC) needs to make its own decision about which parishes to be grouped with – obviously, all the parishes in a pastoral community would need to be in agreement!  We believe that the key judgement to be made is whether a pastoral community is cohesive in its values, though some may also be close in geography.

 

The next step is for parishes to establish “flat pastoral communities” – in other words,

pastoral communities in which parishes are retained as at present, and agree to cooperate and share ministry as appropriate.  No formal reorganisation or change in parish share will be necessary.  A “tool-kit” has been sent to each parish, to help them provide a “mini-profile” that will assist in the creation of the pastoral communities.   The pastoral communities will be formed early in 2011, and at this point a spreadsheet will be prepared that will supersede previous deanery plans.

 

No clergyperson can be compelled to follow this proposed scheme – nor would we wish it to be entered into reluctantly.  We would ask that deanery clergy freely choose to include responsibilities to the pastoral community in their job descriptions.  Where possible, we would hope that Readers and other accredited ministers would work in a flexible way to meet needs, and they will be included in the new deanery plan.

 

 

 

 

4.  A Vision for the Deanery Itself

In the context of God’s desire to shower us with blessing; in the context of full-time Christians, pastoral communities and sovereign parishes; and in the context of God’s love for a world that he calls us to serve and tell of his love, we are clear about the function of the deanery itself.  We express it in twenty words:

 

“We look to God for power

to equip every member

to serve South Chelmsford

and to tell of God’s love.”

 

We are only too glad for our synods, roadshows and subgroups to be scrutinised with this vision in mind to see if we are living up to God’s call.