Virtual Methodist

Found myself in the embarrassing position on Saturday of noticing that our esteemed President, Heather Morris, had put this dialogue of mine on her facebook page... It shouldn't have been a surprise given that I had sent it to her a couple of weeks ago for her to use in whatever way she saw fit under the banner of her theme for the year "A People Invited to Follow..." But when I later shared the post I linked it to another dialogue which simply takes some of the invitations of Jesus from different gospels and stitches them together. I'm not very original in my writing... And actually I had forgotten that it is for that very reason that I HADN'T published what follows on my blog, or indeed on Seed Resources where I send most of my stuff... It is actually based on a much longer piece by John L. Bell & Graham Maule of the Iona Community/Wild Goose Worship Group, the very first of their "Eh Jesus... Yes, Peter?" dialogues. My problem was that I di...

No Psalm for Sunday this week (and no Saturday Supplement again either... sorry but I've just been too busy to collate the backlog of weblinks)... instead I offer this reblog based on the theme of discipleship... We're currently exploring what is meant by our President Heather Morris's theme for the year "A People Invited to Follow..." This is as good a place as any to start... Reader 1:        As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee , he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  Reader 2:        "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." Reader 1:        At once they left their nets and followed him. Reader 2:        As they were walking along the road, a man said to Jesus, Reader 1:    ...

Yesterday was a day for confession in church... First I confessed that I had actually managed to turn up without the full text for my sermon, through uploading the wrong file to my Kindle, then I confessed that watching The Apprentice is one of my guilty secrets... It is, as someone with a better turn of phrase than me, merely Big Brother with an MBA but I do enjoy watching Lord Sugar choose which of what is always an unlikely bunch of misfits, will partner with him in a new business venture… It has to be said that I wouldn’t partner with many of them in running a sweetshop… but maybe Lord Sugar sees something in them that I don’t… But reflecting on the gospel reading yesterday morning the same could also be said of those the Lord Jesus chose to partner with him in the proclamation of the Gospel as his apostles... Those who were to carry on the family "business" after he was gone. Thankfully he didn’t and doesn’t choose his apprentices using the same criteria or method...

The theme of our recent Irish Methodist conference and for our new President Rev. Dr. Heather Morris was "A People Invited to Follow..." With that in mind here is a dramatised reading I put together for another conference event 9 years ago, which we are using as  a call to worship this morning:  Reader 1:        As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee , he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  Reader 2:        "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." Reader 1:        At once they left their nets and followed him. Reader 2:        As they were walking along the road, a man said to Jesus, Reader 1:        "I will follow you wherever you go." Reader 2:  ...

For years I have argued that there is a fundamental psychological and indeed spiritual difference between leading worship and preaching that often becomes blurred in the one-man-band (and its' usually a man) ministry practised in most western protestant churches... If we use Kierkegaard's parable of worship as theatre, a worship leader should not, as is often be the case, the lead performer in the drama (a point which many would be rock-star contemporary worship leaders could do with learning), but are merely prompters to the main actors, the congregation, performing for an audience of one... God himself. But something different is happening with preaching as historically understood... the orientation of the "drama" changes... the preacher becomes the mouthpiece of God... I'm not being arrogant here... the theory goes that by the power of the Holy Spirit, the reading of scripture and its exposition allows us to hear God's mind... Sometimes that may be cl...

Just finished a service at my church that was both our Education Sunday Service, where we pray for the schools in our area (including the pupils who are about to embark on the iniquitous and seemingly unending 11+ tests in the month ahead) and a baptism service...  It seemed like a good combination at the time, but as it turned out I had some difficult things to say, off the back of today's lectionary reading from Mark 10: 46-52 where Bartimaeus (whose name means Son of the Unclean one) encounters this Rabbi from Nazareth... Anyway, I won't go into the details of what I had to say except that it was largely around our reluctance to move on, to truly follow Jesus, and learn from him as our teacher or rabbi. But then I came home to find this piece by Kim Fabricius over on Connexions , where he concludes... Over 25 years ago I bought a book. I revisit it so often that the pages are falling out. It’s called "What Prevents Christian Adults from Learning." There is,...

We continue to look at the new creation that is to be found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus using Genesis 1: 9-13, John 1: 35-42 and John 12: 20-27. Opening Liturgy And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land", and the gathered waters he called "seas". And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning the third day. Genesis 1:9-13 (ANIV) Readings The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he s...

"dust you are and to dust you will return." Genesis 3:19 (ANIV) There's cheery! But those are the words that are used at "ashing" ceremonies the world over this Ash Wednesday. Words that have shaped Christian funeral liturgies: "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust" Traditionally that is finished off saying: "in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life" or words to that effect, or, if for whatever reason, the officiant is hedging their bets they will, instead, say something like: "commending them to the grace and mercy of our heavenly Father God." I reflected last year on the "dustiness" of our existence , following a particularly moving scattering of ashes one morning... It contrasted with another burial of ashes later that same day, which was conducted in the pouring rain, with little sense or expectation of life beyond this one... In the first the deceased and th...

Thirty years ago this very day, I made one of the key decisions of my life. At the last night of the "Alan Walker Crusade to the 80's" in the Grosvenor Hall, Belfast I made the conscious decision to follow Jesus... I was born again... converted... saved... whatever term you want to use for it... It wasn't particularly dramatic (certainly not on a par with that of St. Paul, as depicted here by Michaelangelo, or with many of those who do the circuit of churches and conferences telling the story of their conversions) and actually it was only one waypoint on the routemap of my journey of faith... The issue of what direction I should go had been bubbling within me for almost a year, and was based upon years of attending church... and it was followed by a number of key decisions and changes of direction... But I have no doubt that it was probably the most significant life-changing decision of my life... Whilst I was probably not as reluctant a convert as C.S. Lewis claims t...

I don’t actually watch much TV at the moment, apart from the occasional snippet of "Bargain Hunt" or "Doctors" while eating my lunch (daytime TV... designed to drive people back to work), although I and all the other members of this household can't wait for Dr. Who to return this Easter. But late Monday night after I’ve got home from playing football, I switch on to watch my current guilty pleasure. Glee… the hit show about an American high school show choir or Glee club… Yes it’s corny, saccharine and crammed full of stereotypes… but it is very well done… and I say it loud and proud "I am a Gleek!" However, it has recieved a certain amount of criticism recently as being anti-Christian … Certainly much of what goes on would not be what I would recommend for teenagers (such as boosting club funds by holding a bake-sale of cup-cakes augmented with weed), although it is no worse, and a lot better than most TV programmes these days. So far as I can see the...

Do you tweet? Are you one of the “twitterati”? I’m fairly au fait with technology… I blog and I’m known to frequent a certain social networking site, but I haven’t yet entered the weird and wonderful world of twitter. But if you are a twit or a twitterer or whatever the appropriate term is, who do you follow? And why? Many people follow stars... not celestial bodies as the Magi did, but celebrities (although tabloids would be happy to tell us that many of those celebrities have "celestial bodies"!) But last week the results of a poll were published by Prospect magazine revealing which figure from history would be most likely followed, had technology permitted… The result was that Sir Winston Churchill came top, followed by Jesus and then Darwin. David Goodhart, the editor of the magazine suggests: “Churchill and Jesus both specialised in brief, memorable phrases — so both ‘we will fight them on the beaches’ and ‘blessed are the meek’ are messages perfect for the Twitter ge...

Just a quick post to partially redress the balance regarding the retreat last week. I stand by all that I said about one strand of the event... It was appalling. But that happens sometimes... You book speakers with an international reputation, brief them appropriately, and they then don't come up with the goods... And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, except take them off your list of recommendations for anyone else. As for the rest of the event, it was extremely well organised and worthwhile, although personally I think it is something that we should do every 3 years, rather than bi-annually as it has been recently... The speakers and seminars are an important element, but probably more important is just the time spent sharing with colleagues, especially now that our annual conference in June is shorter, more condensed and business-like. But to refer to the other main speaker at the event, Bishop Graham Cray of Maidstone, as I said in a comment after my previous pos...

Every week that I have been here in Grand Rapids at 4 o'clock on a Tuesday I have attended an AA group for Methodist pastors. Actually that is not true, and is actually disrespectful to both AA groups and this particular group of fellow pastors, but it is the only analogy I can use for those who have never participated in such a group. An initiative of the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship and inspired by the original classes and bands of Wesleyan Methodism, Covenant Accountability Groups for disciples exist in various forms across the US. Each has a formal agreed covenant which they repeat at the beginning of each meeting. I tried to memorise the covenant of this group, but failed miserably, (except for where it says that they have the form and seek the power of religion, a reversal of Wesley's classic fear), but here are a few other examples. In the meeting each member formally checks in and shares their joys and concerns, ranging across their spiritual, mental ...