Merry Christmas

'Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord'

Merry Christmas everyone !

Our next meeting is in the Roebuck on the 4th January 7.30 for 8pm.

Carols at the Roebuck

All are welcome to join us for Christmas carol singing in the Roebuck this Friday.

Please bring a friend or 4 to worship and share the Christmas story.

For details of the other Christmas services see the main St Marks website :http://www.stmarksutley.org.uk/

The Perfect Gift

Take a break from the shopping for those all important presents, the mountains of food, the stress and the madness that can sometimes take over at this time of year.....and join us in the Roebuck this Friday as the true meaning of Christmas is retold.

Bob, in his unique style, will be leading the story telling.

Jesus.....the perfect gift.

No meeting this week

Just a reminder that we are not meeting in the Roebuck this week (7th December)

Bob and Barbara have kindly invited us to theirs for Christmas fun, food and fellowship!

Speaking of Angels

Spirits....guardians....messengers....soldiers......???

Do they really have wings ?

Are they men, women or cute chubby babies ?

Cherubim, seraphim, archangels, whats the difference ?

Do they watch over us ?

Do angels play harps and float on fluffy clouds ?

This week Simon is starting the Christmas story, which begins with a visit from one of these mysterious beings.

The end of the beginning

Derek will be leading the service this week to bring an end to our stories from Genesis.
As we reflect on the past few weeks of story telling and debate, what have we learned ?

For me, the Bible is the most amazing book ever. I know that's somewhat of an understatement. I have discovered new meanings, depth and 'wholeness', never before seen.
I have wondered if this is because I have fellow Christians to tell me what it means, people of greater intellect than me and I question whether it is possible to over analyse it.
So I pray that God will put us on the right track and give us the eyes and ears and words to study the Bible according to His will.

A prophetic connection ?

On Friday we began to discuss possible parallels between Joseph (son of Jacob) and Jesus.

Here's some more food for thought http://dutyisours.com/jsummary.htm

Are these coincidences or a sign of things to come ?

This week we find out what happens when Joseph's brothers turn up in Egypt.

Any dream will do

I close my eyes, drew back the curtains haaaaa.......
This Friday I will be retelling one of the most well known parts of the Bible about Joseph - the dreamer...only he wasn't really a dreamer was he, he interpreted other peoples dreams.

Has anyone here had any dreams that they can attribute as messages from God ?

The butler and the baker

Thankyou Robert for your creative intepretation of Genesis 39 last week.

We left the story where Joseph is in prison (having been wrongly accused of trying it on with Potiphar's wife ). Interesting how the truth in stories like this is often doubted.

This week Barbara will be retelling the next instalment........

...with mixed fortunes ahead for a butler and a baker.

We will also be sharing communion.

Later start

We have decided to start our meeting a bit later on, starting this Friday (19th Oct)
so instead of 7 for 7.30pm we will now be meeting at 7.30 for an 8pm start.

So don't turn up at 7pm and think we have abandoned you !

This week Robert is going to tell us what Joseph got up to with Potiphars wife.

Uncomfortable reading

This week Rod will be retelling Chapter 38 of Genesis. A tale of deception, family honour ( can you see a theme emerging here ? ) and prostitution.
It's a story that makes most of us uncomfortable and one not often mentioned in sermons.
Is it because the story is explicit in nature or perhaps because it tells of cultural traditions that do not seem relevant to us today ?

No meeting this week

Don't forget we are not meeting on Friday this week (28th ).

Instead we will be going to Edith & Shirley's baptism at the 10.30am Sunday service.

Another version of Genesis

http://www.thebricktestament.com/genesis/

This has had me in stitches. Just my sort of humour.
Julie
x

Family honour

The Friday Service is all about stories, personal and bible stories, all connecting us with God.
Some stories are happy, some sad, some have heroes, some villans and some have a moral tale or a meaningful message.
Last Friday was a difficult one. Simon retold the story of two brothers being peacefully reunited, then members of the same family commiting mass murder, borne out of anger and seeking revenge for the rape of their sister. (Genesis 34)
A strange story...no heroes, no happy ending.
What is the message here ?

Blessings

On Friday I felt privileged to share my interpretation of Jacob's wrestle with God (Genesis chapter 32) with our group and blessed by my encounter with an unusual visitor, who joined us this week.

A 75 year old man from Southern India, who had come to the UK for the first time to see family and decided to join our fellowship. What he said was amazing and I think we all felt blessed with his presence.

He kindly agreed to answer our questions in the hotseat and his responses were humble and inspiring.

In answer to a challenging and perhaps provocative question, he simply said that

'He stands in Christ and without him he is nothing'.

Wow.

He was also encouraging of our style and said that 'our stories are how we bring God to others.'

I am actually finding it quite difficult to find words to explain how I feel about Friday night , except to thank God for his rich blessings.

Homecoming

So we left the story on Friday with Jacob and his family camped up in tents having made some peace with Laban.

Jacob's story continues this week with a very strange encounter.

A clever trick ?

Simon retold more of Jacobs story on Friday and this brought up an interesting question.

In Gen 30:37-43 we learned how Jacob stripped the bark from branches and arranged them in such a way before the watering troughs of the sheep, that they somehow brought about the mating and subsequent birth of speckled & spotted sheep from a herd of plain coloured ones.

So the question is raised about Jacobs actions. Did he use some sort of conjuring, superstition or old wives tale ?

What do you think?

The one

Last week the story being retold was that of Esau & Jacob and it finished where Jacob is sent away to his uncle.

Amazing how despite the families weaknesses, lies and deception, God is there.

In this weeks story we continue with Jacobs story, his passion for one woman and his relationships with several.

What can we learn from this ?

What does the bible have to say about being married to the wrong person ?

Sibling rivalry

Continuing with the book of Genesis .....this week with a story about parental favouritism, blessings, deals, deception and a family being torn apart.

Soulmates ?

What a strange world the Old Testament seems at times.

Last week we thought about God asking someone to sacrifice their child. This week it's someone finding a bride for their son (not their daughter, mind you - how odd...).

Does this really have much to say to us in our modern world where we marry the person we 'fall in love' with?

Gday !

This Friday we will have visitors joining us, Glen and Ruth Powell from Australia.

'Ruth is the Director of NCLS Research, an organisation that conducts research into the church and the wider community. (www.ncls.org.au) They have just completed the 2006 National Church Life Survey, which surveyed 400 000 church attenders and 9000 leaders. Her current research project focuses on innovation (or fresh expressions) in church life. This project involves research analysis, as well as gathering stories from practitioners involved in new initiatives. Ruth is a founding member of Glebe Cafe Church, an innovative ministry in the inner city of Sydney.

Glen is the New Congregations consultant with the Uniting Church Board of Mission (a Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational amalgamation )
www.nsw.uca.org.au/bom/NEW).
He has a brief to help establish new congregations and faith communities, missional and emerging churches and leaders at both a grassroots and policy level. Like Ruth, Glen is also a founding member of Glebe Cafe Church, with ongoing involvement'

Then came the flood

Thankyou Rod for sharing the story of Noah and the flood on Friday.

Your cardboard model was very interesting and not what I really imagined the ark to look like.

This guy from Hollands gone a bit further : http://www.arkvannoach.com/language/en/index.htm

Unfortunately a very topical subject given the dreadful flooding that has affected many people in this country these past few weeks.

This is triggering much debate on climate change again. You might be interested in this campaign from the Christian Ecology Link. http://www.operationnoah.org/

Beginning

Thankyou Simon for re-telling the creation story on Friday.

The perfect starting place for our new venture.

We will continue with Genesis this week, and Rod has kindly volunteered to be the storyteller.

Please share your thoughts on here.

Church in a pub

Well we did it. Thankyou to everyone who came along for our first Friday Service in the pub.
Hope you all enjoyed it....we made an impression on one patron in particular so lets hope our numbers will increase in the coming weeks.

Lovely to meet Nigel too and I hope being in the 'hotseat' wasn't too traumatic.
If you want to know more about him and his impression of Friday night have a look here:
http://nigelwright.typepad.com/nigel_wright/2007/07/church-in-a-pub.html
He explains it all much more eloquently than I could.

Next week we will meet in theRoebuck again so please join us if you can.
Simon will be sharing his chosen bible story and if you are happy to share your personal stories, you can be grilled in the hotseat too.

Off we go....

... so this Friday we are meeting in the Roebuck.

Same time 7 for 7.30pm. To share stories from the bible, enjoy time together and meet other people.

Please pray that God will bless us.

The Next Move .....

Exciting and challenging times are ahead of us.

Our congregation has decided to have meetings in places other than our church building...next Friday we will gather at St Marks but the following week we will be in the pub.

Can we really worship God and meet the community and missional aspects of being church in this way ?

Think church

This is your chance to be really creative about The Friday Service. Ignoring any constraints we may have at present let us know what your dreams are for our group.

Let the ideas flow and grow !

As we've been learning , remember to balance both mission and community. We are Gods people so let Him be at the heart of us.

Missionary Church

....and more notes from Derek.

Ch 5 : Graham Cray: Focusing church life on a theology of mission“Christendom is over.” p62“The task is not to combine theology with social analysis and come out with an ideal church from scratch. The task is to engage gospel (and church) as we now know it, with culture as it has become, to answer the question: where do we go from here?” .”

p62He gives some key thoughts on Mission-shaped church (based on the report, which he chaired) A Missionary Church is Focused on the Trinity p64“The same gospel which wins us as worshippers calls us as missionaries.”“[We have..] the maintenance of a religious environment which also requires people to change their culture to become Christians! This situation can no longer be acceptable in the Church of England.”“Both worship and mission are ultimately for God and not for ourselves.”“.. There will be a greater emphasis on the Church as a movement, and as a community of disciples, and less on church as an institution...”A Missionary Church is incarnational p65“The tension between relevance and syncretism lies at the heart of the relationship between the Church and the world.”“No serious attempt at inculturation by the Church of England can begin with afixed view of the outward form of the local church.”“...we, for whom Christ laid down His life, may well have to lay down much that is loved and familiar, and not wrong in itself, to reach those who are far from God.” (Italics mine)“When so called “traditional” are out of touch with the people around them, the problem is not that they are irrelevant, but that they are not incarnational.”

“We are not left alone in this task. An incarnational church seeks to be responsive to the activity of the Spirit in its community. Just as the Spirit prepared the way for the coming of Christ, so we may expect God the Spirit to prepare the way for us..”

A Missionary Church is transformational p68 A Missionary Church is makes disciples p70“The embarrassment about evangelism, which still impedes far too many in theChurch of England, needs to be overcome. Even in secular terms, people expect agarage to offer them cars and a clothing shop to offer them clothes. Why then would they not expect a church to offer them Christ?”“We inhabit an individualistic consumer culture.”“Evangelism without discipleship borders dangerously on hypocrisy.”A Missionary Church is relational p72“Believers do not so much as “go” to church as “be” church.”

Shopping for church cont.......

More notes from Derek to consider :

'Evangelical churches are beating the trend. “For significant numbers of people these churches offer firm boundaries, clear guidance and considerable support -effective protection from vicissitudes of life. (They run the risk, of course,of the corresponding negative attributes; more than other types of churches they can become both excluding and exclusive.)” p 43 (my reflection: consumerist,safe, secure and comfortable)She adds: softer charismatic churches appear in particular to appeal to late modern populations. But so do cathedral churches, which are generally growing.“What, then, is the common feature in these very different stories? It is, I think, the experience of “feel good” factor, whether this be expressed in charismatic worship, in the Alpha weekend, in the tranquillity of cathedral evensong or in a special cathedral occasion. The point is that we feel something; we experience the sacred, the set apart. The purely cerebral is less appealing.” '

No church on 1st June

Just a quick note to say there is NO service at church this Friday 1st June.
Apologies to anyone who turns up and doesn't see this message until afterwards.

Shopping for Church ?

The next instalment from Dereks notes ..........

'Ch 3: Grace Davie: From obligation to consumption: Understanding the patterns of religion in Northern Europe“... the reduction in church activity in Western Europe forms part of a profound change in the nature of social life; it is not, in contrast, an unequivocal indicator of religious indifference.”

p 35“Vicarious religion” popular in Northern Europe, especially Nordic countries(!) P36 Reflections on the “vicarious” aspects and the way people turned to church during the mourning of Diana and the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham.

P 39“[There is a possible (European) mutation] taking the form of a gradual shiftaway from religion as a form of obligation and towards an increasing emphasis on consumption. In other words, what until moderately recently was imposed (with all the negative connotations of the word), or inherited (a rather more positive spin) becomes instead a matter of personal choice. I go to church (or another religious organisation) because I want to, maybe for a short period or maybe for longer, to fulfill a particular rather than a general need in my life, and where I will continue my attachment as long as it provides what I want, but I have no obligation to attend in the first place or continue if I don’t want to.” '

What are your thoughts ?

Over the next few days I will be posting extracts from the notes Derek made whilst on sabbatical.

Please post your comments.

Heres the first instalment.

Extracts from "The Future of The Parish System" ed Steve Croft:-

Chapter 2 Sarah Savage: “On The Analyst’s Couch: Psychological perspectives oncongregations and clergy“Church buildings describe a hierarchically arranged universe in which the laitytake up their allotted place.... People quickly intuit who has power in anygiven group, and modify their behaviour accordingly.”

“Clergy are expected to be nice. This softens the impact of hierarchy whilepreserving it. The norm of Christian niceness is ubiquitous, despite the picturethe Gospels paint of Jesus as an assertive, sometimes acerbic personality whoreadily confronted people in order to pursue their spiritual welfare.” p22

The unspoken requirements of clergy: (p27)

1. I must be successful in everything I do

2. Everyone must accept me

3. Everyone must love me.

4. If I make a mistake I am a total failure

5. If I disagree with someone they won’t like me

6. My value as a person depends on how other people view me

Savage reflects: “Clergy may feel they need to be “God” to their flock. Yet,surprisingly, attempting to meet all pastoral needs (an impossible task) is noteven what most people are looking for, according to Francis and Richter’sresearch into why people leave churches. ‘A factor of least importance forchurch leavers was the lack of professional clergy pastoral care. What peoplewere often looking for and not finding, is church as a caring community.’”

Reality TV Church

http://emergingchurch.info/editorial/april07.htm

What do you think of this ?

More catching up...

...with Derek's tales from his sabbatical this Friday.

What are your thoughts on how other churches (like the ones Derek visited) operate?

Heres a link to a couple of websites.

http://www.moot.uk.net/

http://www.gracechurchhackney.org.uk

Please keep praying for our church and let us share what God is saying.

I forgot to ask Him.

I spent a couple of hours looking for a good picture for this weeks post, but was getting nowhere, when I eventually realised that it might be worth asking God to help me, the next page that came up was this picture.

How true it is.

It made me laugh so I thought I'd share it.

Anyway this week we will be sharing our passions for the Friday service and hopefully Derek will continue to tell us more tales from his sabbatical.

I pray that God will guide and equip us for His purpose for our congregation.

United Celebration

There will be no Friday Service this week as its St Marks United Celebration at Greenhead School on Sunday 13th May at 10am.

Food...

....and fellowship is what this Friday is about.

Fish and chips being the order of the evening.

Please join us at 7 for 7.30pm.

Ps Welcome back Derek !

Should we bother ?

Given that the earth is temporary and dying (2 Peter 3:10,12) and the curse of sin means that both man and creation groan with labour pains (Romans 8:22) ............ Should we or can we do anything to change things ?

Come on Friday to find out.

'God saw that it was good'

Does He still think so ?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth............... He gave us dominion over it.......instructed us to multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

This Friday we are starting a new theme looking at environmental issues and examining the Christian role of stewardship.
This week its film night and we will be watching 'An Inconvenient Truth'.
Do join us at 7 for 7.30pm.

Did you get the Message ?

Good Friday Night

This week its our Friday Night Easter service.

Please join us for food, live music, quiet contemplation and noisy celebration.

Let us worship Him and give Him praise. The King of Kings.

Save Us !

' Hosanna ! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord ! ' (Mark 11:9)

This Friday we will focus on the meaning of Palm Sunday for us as individuals. What is the significance of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, then ........and now ?

Poverty continued...

Last Friday Comic relief on the television really highlighted to millions of us that we live in a world where there is much poverty and injustice.

Jesus told his disciples ' The poor will always be among you' (Matt 26:11)

Did God intend a world of oppression, disease, starvation and misery ?

Are we to simply tolerate this as the way things are ?

Poverty

Over 11 million people live in a low income household in the UK.

More than 4 million adults received less than the minimum wage for working in 2006.

Adults in the poorest of our society are twice as likely to develop mental illness.

Children from manual social backgrounds are 1 and half times more likely to die as infants than those from other backgrounds.

A third of homes in England where classed as non-decent in 2004.

(taken from http://www.poverty.org.uk/summary/key%20facts.shtml)

This Friday John Long is going to talk to us about Christians Against Poverty

http://www.capuk.org/

A National Debt Counselling service which offers hope and solutions to people in financial difficulty.

Food n Fellowship

Its Food and Fellowship night again this Friday. My, how the weeks pass on !
We will be doing a bit of preparation for this months topic which is 'Poverty', and looking forward to our Easter services.

Join us at 7 for 7.30pm.

Paid in Full.....

....Once For All.

This Friday we wind up the topic of Sacrifice and celebrate communion.

Congratulations.....

......Simon,Rose and Edie on the birth of Shirley.

Much love to you all from everyone at the Friday Service.

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is a concept frequently used in the Bible. From the laws of the Old Testament regarding animal sacrifices, burnt offerings etc to that in the New Testament of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.

As Lent approaches we may consider 'giving up' something or doing something extra as an act of self sacrifice.

Is sacrifice a punishment... a penalty for sin ?

Does God desire sacrifice and suffering ?

What does Paul mean in Romans 12:1 when he says ' Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him' ?

Back Online !

After weeks of being computer less I am now back to update the blog.
Sorry for the blip.

Last Friday despite the snow (which kept me indoors ) Bob showed the BBC Drama 'Born Equal' which is likely to create much debate and discussion this Friday 16th.

Join us as we consider the issues it raised and what the Bible says.

Julie

Pizza Night

This Friday we start our new topic 'Sacrifice' with food .

Hmmm not the fatted calf.....its pizza....or should we do without ?

Receiving Grace

Was the gift of Grace a sudden 'Road to Damascus' life changing experience for you... or perhaps it has had a more subtle effect .......whatever your story please join us on Friday to share your experiences and communion.

Emerging Questions

Now Derek is away from office seems like a good time to ask..........
...Does the Church need clergy ?

What really is Gods Eternal Purpose ?

Is Christ our Head and are we allowing Him to indwell in us ?

http://ptmin.org/fullyemerge.htm

Discuss.


PS We meet this Friday to discuss last weeks film Babettes feast.

Farewell......

......to Derek for the next 3 months. Hope you enjoy your sabbatical and come back refreshed and renewed with Gods vision.

Babettes Feast

Friday nights are often used by us to consider how Gods word is expressed through modern art and media.

So in true Friday service style, next week (12th) we will be watching the film 'Babettes feast' and the following week we will have the opportunity to discuss what it means to us.

Gods grace is His giving of Himself (Jesus' death on the cross) for us. His ultimate expression of love, with no strings attached.....no obligation on our part...but is this true...doesn't God expect us to do something with this gift ?