….and we’re back – with a challenge!

And we’re back folks, with apologies for the break in transmission. (I could tell you all the reasons life has been busy but this isn’t a personal blog and you can find out all that and what I had for breakfast by friending me on facebook )

Well, it’s officially been three months since the last post – I know that because it is now February and then it was November…We have had three River gatherings so far and each one has been unique – unique in style and in company. We’ve had a picnic in the rain under the shelter of the Stiggants Reserve stage, we’ve had beautiful sunshine and picnics with little ones running amok up and down the church ramps. We’ve had carols outdoors and a traditional Anglican baptism. We’ve had coconut pie and strong coffee (there are parents there, after all). And each time there have been new faces as well as familiar ones – and I haven’t even gotten to speak to every “gatherer” yet, which is kinda great, actually!

We haven’t gotten everything right, I know that. We haven’t been able to be everything to everybody – and some haven’t found what they’ve been looking for, and haven’t been back…. at least, not yet, right? Trying to work out how to bless kids of primary school age and high school age and toddlers and those who aren’t parents and those who are is hard and I wish it were easier every time.

But my biggest fear is always – will people come? Not because I desire to be validated (well maybe – hang on, this isn’t supposed to be a personal blog – and going down this path is kinda making me want to vomit) but because church is about people! Not about large groups, certainly, and not about increasing numbers (although we have had that, praise God), but about enough people for there to be a sense of community, a sense of welcome, a sense of ease in being able to share or to keep back as much as you need or want to, and to grow in that. Exactly how many people that takes is simply up to God, and will be different each time.

Yes, one of the main points of true church “services” – if not the main point in this age of podcast sermons, well-stocked Christian bookstores and Bible reading apps – is to gather in the presence of God as community. The Greek word translated church in the New Testament is generally ekklesia – which means gathering or “called out assembly”. There has to be people gathered together to make church – people whom God will work through to meet our needs as well as people we can encourage in faith and people we can walk alongside in doing the work of navigating this weird world whilst remaining anchored to Christ in a life-giving, reality-embracing and somehow-tangible way. And there’s got to be people for fun and laughs and noise (kids calling out “cake” in the middle of the sermon, for example) and ridiculousness – which is all part of it too!

The real problem is, we meet on the second Sunday of the month – which presents more hurdles in the first half of the year (I would love to say I realised this when I said “just go to print with those dates”) than are inherent in simply starting a new thing. It falls on Labour Day weekend, Easter Sunday, Mothers’ Day, and, in all probability, the Queen’s Birthday weekend (yep, just checked). Given that the vision of this monthly service is to make it easier for people to be part of a regular community, this presents a challenge and a half!

So – what to do?

Well, we could change the date, but I like the fact the 2nd gets Easter Sunday – best day of the year, really, and absolute necessity for a Christ-seeking gathering, in my books! – and I’m already planning some stuff to bless the mums who come along after mothers’ day lunches or brunches or before mothers’ day dinners. I also think its important for our relying on God and our sense of stability in the wider community to just pick a date and go with it – we can’t anticipate who will be sitting around on the long weekend, for example, and really want to be in a place where they can dwell with God’s Spirit.

More excitingly, though, this date issue is stirring us to ADD more gatherings – which is sooner than we anticipated, but possibly this is God’s thing too! We are very keen to get more music into the place – maybe a few casual intimate gigs by bands that we know (or that you know?) on other Sunday afternoons (The River Sessions?) – and definitely a few BBQs and casual Bible studies with tea and coffee on the floor of the church (well, the tea and coffee will be in cups, and we will be on the floor…) These will need to be advertised ad hoc and will require some more commitment than we really wanted to ask of those who have been checking things out so far – but I actually think God has already prepared a few families and individuals for that!

Beyond programming and dates though, the consistent challenge for those who are dipping their toes in this River thing as it is in its infancy is really twofold -

1) when we gather together, to really be present and welcoming with those who come, even where we also need welcoming and being present with (ouch, not such a good use of the preposition there) and allow them to be as they need to be, no matter whether there’s only us and them there, or whether there are 50 others hanging around. Being community no matter the numbers.

2) to see whether we can creatively organise our time and our commitments to be intentional about “gathering” – for our own blessing and for others’. Maybe we can consider what we already love doing and who we love doing it with and how that and they can become part of spiritual community building with The River as a bit of a locus.

I’d love your thoughts and ideas – but I know it’s a pain to comment on this thing when you need to log in – so feel free to find “The River (St Stephen’s Warrandyte)” on facebook and comment there, if you like, so that others can engage too.

And come along this Sunday, 12th February, at 3pm – 5 Stiggant St Warrandyte – for a chance to meld the deep ancient Scripture with the beauty of the Warrandyte bush – as we interact with Psalm 19 and take a walk to the river…

xo

(Be)Come Thirsty

It’s the eve of the first River service – and I wanted to share with you some of the passages we’re going to dive into tomorrow afternoon. I think we’ll do them as discussions, but I’m open to seeing how things gel…

[As an aside, it's a new experience, launching something without any sense of control about who will be there and how they'll act, react and interact... (will they make a pact? what if we get hijacked? sorry...) I think it's gotta be a good thing though - it feels like we are being swept along in God's current a little more... of course, we're always in God's current, but feeling like we are is probably good for the soul]

We’re looking at John 7:37-39 (and the surrounding verses). If you can’t join us, perhaps you can meditate on these words, even as you read this blog in a spare moment between your many many responsibilities and to-do list items…

John 7: 37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

I am one of those people who are so suggestible when it comes to thirst. I read/listen to/watch a bit of Agatha Christie and other classic mysteries (Sayers, Marsh, Conan Doyle, that sort of thing) and every time they mention having a cup of tea in their civilised way, I’m suddenly just dying for one. For me, even just looking at this picture of a glass of water makes me want to go get one. So, when Jesus Christ says to me, that he is drink for my soul, I need to check myself – am I feeling soul thirsty? I should be. If Miss Marple having tea at the vicarage makes me put the kettle on, when I read John 7 I should have a deep longing to be near Jesus, to know him, to listen to him, to be nourished by him, to spend time with him, to “drink” from Him.

But do I? And if I don’t, why not?

Is it because I am so well watered by Christ that I simply hear these words in the midst of the act of drinking and say yes, I know, Lord, and I thank you that my soul is replete in you?

Or is it because I have filled my soul, my life, my mind and emotions up with so many other things that I can’t feel thirsty, have even lost the ability to thirst for what is true drink? Is my spiritual tummy full of dirty water with dodgy bits that are going to make me sick or fizzy bubbly with no nutritional value that will make me malnourished despite being fuller figured, that I just have no appetite for the pure living water of Christ?

Tomorrow we’re going to unpack those two pictures in some chatting time and see if we can ground the metaphors in reality… (I’d love you to join us if you’re able, or join in with a comment on fb or if you can be bothered signing in to wordpress)

We’re also going to think about how to get thirsty again.

The prophet Isaiah (Chapter 55) wrote these words from the Lord to us and I think they may give us some clues in getting our soul thirst back and having it quenched by Jesus.

¹ “Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
² Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
³ Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.

I’m still working it out and mulling it over, but I think there’s some stuff about the soul being designed to thirst for and be quenched by grace – free, unearned, unpaid for, undeservedly lavished upon, grace. When we try and earn our drinks from God, we start to burn our taste buds away, and fill up our stomach with rocks of pride, self-sufficiency, resentment, and hopelessness…

I think there’s some stuff about actually needing to come to God, to make a decision of the will, to turn aside from our routines, to set the soul in a Godward direction. Jesus only condition for being able to drink was that we thirst, but having fulfilled that condition, we must access his nourishment by coming to him.

I think there’s stuff about listening to God, hearing his words, as a key way we “drink”. And I think His trustworthiness in His promises is probably what will actually satisfy our souls, that is, the glass of water is a glass of promises kept in history and in the spiritual realms in the present… (Boy I hope God brings someone who can pray for me that I might understand what this really means).

We might have a look at Psalm 42 and Isaiah 58 too – depending on where God takes us by His Spirit in our conversations and prayers.

If you can come along, please do. It’s at 3pm, 5 Stiggant St, Warrandyte. There are muffins and cakes and slices already baked. There are kids toys ready to be played with. There are songs practised and prayers prayed. And the Bible is open and we need your heart there to share insights and wisdom and doubts and questions and honesty.

Drop me a line on ststephenswarrandyte@gmail.com for any more info.

Naaman washes in The River – part two

The story so far (from 2 Kings 5) is that Naaman, the commander of the King of Aram’s army, has leprosy, and his slave girl sends word that he should go and see the prophet in Israel to be healed. Following protocol, Naaman gets a letter from his king to Israel’s king, and makes his way there to request the healing. On receiving Naaman and the letter of commendation and request, Israel’s king is horrified. He – rightly – knows he can’t provide such a thing but – wrongly – doesn’t refer Naaman on to the prophet, but sees the whole thing as a way of picking a fight. The prophet steps in and invites Naaman to come to him.

But this is where the story now gets particularly interesting to me. Instead of doing something spooky, which Elisha is certainly not opposed to doing in other circumstances, he doesn’t even come out to meet Naaman, but just tells him that if he wants to healed, he ought to go and wash in the river…

Ah, the river for healing… so many dots to connect, so many bows to draw for a church gathering called The River…. Well, not quite as we might expect. You see, one of the most extraordinary things about the river in the story of Naaman’s healing is that it is so ordinary. It is singularly unimpressive – at least compared to the rivers of Damascus according to Naaman – (2 Kings 5:12) – and so “unmagical” or “unsupernatural” (errm, that would be “natural” I guess) that Naaman feels humiliated by the command and refuses to do it – even though he is guaranteed healing through it.

The thing is, as the “too ordinary” and “too easy” avenue of healing, the river required Naaman to completely humble himself under the command of God as part of the healing process. You can tell his pride is coming under God’s gracious attack, because he is angry and rages at what is required (I can often see that in my own angry times) – not because it is too hard, but because it doesn’t recognise Naaman’s importance, it doesn’t prove that he is worthy of God and God’s prophet doing something “miraculous” on his behalf, it doesn’t make a show out of grace.

The river in 2 Kings 5 shows us that, beyond his leprosy, the greater healing Naaman needs is the healing of his self-importance, self-sufficiency and self-worship. He needs to know himself as he truly is in relation to the God of the universe – the God who, as the entirety of this passage teaches us, is not simply the national God of Israel, but the One True God who is in control of the victory of all armies, including Aram’s (5:1 – ponder the middle sentence for a while, it’s kinda mind blowing), of physical health, of life and death (5:7), and of the whole world (5:15).

So, only in coming to the point of accepting the humbling, even humiliating, command of God, Naaman receives physical and spiritual healing…

2 Kings 5:14 So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

The gracious promise of God and the great power of God was proven in Naaman’s complete physical restoration, and having received the grace of both healing and humility, he responds with an amazing statement of faith and worship.

15 Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.”

I imagine Naaman singing now at the top of his voice:

“I believe that You’re my healer,
I believe, You are all I need.

I believe that You’re my portion,
I believe…

Wait, do you recognise the song?

A young Australian pastor called Mike Guglielmucci wrote it some years back and not only did his church Planet Shakers love it, Mike came and did a performance of it for the annual Hillsong Live album in 2008. That particular performance was the talk of the Christian town, because Mike sang those words with an oxygen tank in place. Each sentiment meant so much – as Mike was battling life-threatening cancer.

Except he wasn’t. Not long after the CD was released, it came out that he was not sick with cancer, he was sick with an addiction to pornography and, clearly, an addiction to untruth about himself and his relationship to God. This scandal was the culmination of significant psychological, relational and spiritual brokenness that had consumed his life and made him lie to his family, his church and the nation.

Well, the Hillsong CD was quickly withdrawn from sale and another printed. And yet, I have two more recent CDs from separate artists in the US that contain covers of Guglielmucci’s song Healer, released after the scandal was well known. Every time I hear them, I wonder – should we be singing this song? How can such hypocrisy behind the lyrics make them useful for worship?

And yet I think that the song and its situation does indeed speak to us of God the Healer – and maybe Naaman would have understood it better than most. From what I observed through the media, Mike Guglielmucci was completely humiliated, and the consequences of his sin brought terrible shame on himself and the church in Australian society. That is not good. That is not healing. But the fact that his brokenness finally became known, that Mike was laid bare, that he had to strip off and wade into the humiliating waters of the truth, have probably meant that true healing could actually begin to take place in his life and the life of those around him. Painful healing, but healing nonetheless. God did that. We know, because God brings what is in the dark into the light. Through that scandal, he brought Mike – and perhaps others facing similar issues – to the banks of the river where the truth could set them free, if they accepted His word.

Now I don’t know whether Guglielmucci has done all that the word of God has asked of him and whether he is still in the process of working with God for healing – has he washed seven times for completeness, will that take the rest of his life, and should I really be making such an allegory out of this text? Should I even be talking about the humiliation of someone else when there are so many areas of my own life that require me to humble myself before God and forsake my terrible hidden pride?

Probably not. But I want my own soul to know that to be humbled under God’s mighty hand is the beginning of Him lifting me up. I want to be healed of my self-sufficiency, my self-importance, my self-worship. And I pray that God would give us all – and especially whatever new community and gathering God creates at St Stephen’s The River – the grace and strength to live in the light and to be less concerned about our image as individuals and as a congregation than we are concerned to be known and to know ourselves as we truly are in relation to the God of the universe – in His might, His grace, His goodness and His power.

And I pray that our times together at The River – be it ever so ordinary – will see us experience both physical and spiritual healing as we humble ourselves under the word of God.

Naaman washes in The River – part one

The story of Naaman from 2 Kings 5 has been cropping up in my life surprisingly often this year, so it gets a two part treatment.

It’s one of the vignettes in Phoebe’s children’s Bible, the wonderful Jesus Storybook Bible, of which we’re in our third read through. The title given to the story by Sally Lloyd-Jones there is “A little servant girl and the proud general” and the focus, which had never really struck me before, is the incredible grace shown by the slave girl…

“Now there was a little slave girl who worked for Namaan and she knew someone who could help him. But there was a problem; Namaan was her enemy. Not long before, Namaan had led an army raid on her home in Israel. He had killed her whole family, carried her off to Syria, and made her into his slave. Every night she cried herself to sleep – she had lost everything. Why would she, of all people, want to help Namaan? Didn’t she hate him and want to hurt him back? Didn’t she want to make him pay for the wrong he’d done?” That’s what you would expect, but instead of hating him, she loved him. Instead of hurting him back, she forgave him. “I want Naaman to get well,” she said to her mistress. “There’s a man in Israel called Elisha who can heal him.”

So, before we even get to the healing in The River, we see a most powerful example of truly gracious living – a “type” [teaching picture] of God in Christ, yes, but also a picture of humble, winsome, generous, self-sacrificing followers of Jesus, turning the other cheek and giving their last penny without resentment or developing a moral superiority complex (can you imagine!? i’m pretty sure I can misapply Paul’s words from Phil. 3:12 to myself here )

Contrast this with Elisha’s servant Gehazi at the end of the story, who seeks to get something out of the healing encounter. He was the one constantly living in the presence of “the man of God”, and yet he, not the slave girl who was living in an hostile and ungodly culture (see 2 Kings 5:18), was the one to live for himself – and reap the consequences (I “google image” searched leprosy – not something to do at dinner time).

I just find that graciousness so attractive, and possibly because it’s not just niceness or, what’s the word, philanthropic? – it’s full of confidence and deeply rooted in God’s saving action.

Think what a risk she took to tell Naaman that he could, indeed, would be helped and healed by the prophet of her God (2 Kings 5:3). What would have happened to her had not God given such grace to Naaman? What would have happened if Elisha had decided it was his day off from serving God’s purposes? And yet she knew the God of Israel, the God of the whole world, and she had confidence in His ability and His goodness.

Furthermore, this sort of graciousness firmly believes that pointing people toward the living God is the best gift we can give. It longs to do good to our fellow human being, yes, and it knows that true God has God in the middle of the it.

So, my prayers for myself, and all of us, let alone those whom God calls to be part of The River gathering and community – is for gracious living that comes not from the pages of a magazine or BHG on a Friday night (not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Jerry and George would say – or not always, anyway ) – but living that can enrich the lives of others with the healing and wholeness of the living God, even when those others are in complete disjunction with us, not of our beliefs, or who have even harmed us.

Yikes. I’ve certainly not attained all this – but may I press on…

P.S. I’m aware that there are some prior rivers to cross in the Book of Joshua (hilarious) which technically comes before this if one is doing a chronological look at The River in Scripture. We’ll get there friends – it’s just that Naaman just wouldn’t stop knocking at the door…

The River flowing from Eden

Genesis 2:10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.

The first river we see in Scripture flows out of Eden. It’s a beautiful symbol of God nourishing His creation and of life and vitality finding its foundation in God’s good garden, a space where He walked with His children day by day, and where His image was gloriously presented to all the cosmos through His image bearers, the man and the woman, as they lived in right relationship with Him.

(This image is from georgesjournal.net – I don’t know where he got it from, and being the scifi fan I am it looks to me like it should have two red moons in the sky or something, but it’s still a lush and evocative picture of the play of water in the first garden… and I choose to believe that it’s not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil she’s eating from here – but just something right and delicious… mmm, food… anyway, back to the Bible )

But more than a symbol, it seems that the river is described in Genesis to give the reader a sense of the location of this first garden.

¹¹ The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin^[d] and onyx are also there.) ¹³ The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.^{[e] 14} The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The presence of the river defines the place of the Eden garden, this beautiful place of new life. Even today we know the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and it’s likely that the other two rivers were somewhere further east of these two.

For me, although we can’t see “the garden” or its one river today, there is a lesson for us in how we see the word of God in Genesis 2:10-14 and in The [first] River – that, in the midst of all the rich symbolism of the creation account in Genesis, there was a sense of historical, geographical “groundedness” – metaphor and theology and places and things and pictures and teaching all sit together with ease and intelligence. It is not only rich and beautiful, explaining so much of our human experience and our relationship with God through narrative and symbol, but also shows that God’s truth in His word is not abstracted from what Eugene Peterson calls our “sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life” – the garden had a place and it was marked by a river.

I pray that The River gathering and community might be marked by a willingness to dig deep into the rich symbolism of Scripture and be excited and changed by it, all the while having our anchors sunk into its “realness” – historically and geographically and more – so that we might have a deep confidence to walk again with the God who walked in that garden, out of which that river flowed.

Would you join me?

Why “The River”?

We start today a series of posts about the name “The River” – why we felt that it would be a great way of describing what this new gathering is all about.

Firstly, Warrandyte the place is all about The River – the Yarra River, that is. It’s an amazing spot for people and pets to walk, swim (we and our beagles enjoyed it on a super hot day a few years ago), picnic and kayak (dogs don’t usually join in that activity, but I wouldn’t say it’s never happened) and it marks the area with a distinctive Australian beauty. People come to visit and come to live – because of the river. It attracts and refreshes. It changes throughout the year but it’s always there – and people come to receive different things at different times. It cools the air when it’s too hot and it makes the coldest day crisply beautiful.

Recently, with the significant rain we’ve had this year, the Yarra has been looking amazingly full up this way. This photo by Louis Milkovits gives you some idea! As I drive over the bridge from Research into Warrandyte each Sunday morning to lead the traditional service at St Stephen’s church, I look over and see the river flowing fast and almost bursting its banks – and I pray that for St Stephen’s. I pray that God’s grace, love and truth would flow fast and full in our lives, and would burst the banks of the gathered community into the wider communities of our lives…

So, The River – it’s Warrandyte and it’s a place of natural, attractive, refreshing beauty. Let’s be that in this new gathering by God’s abundant flowing power…

The River Gathering at St Stephen’s Warrandyte

It begins…

Well, it has actually been “beginning” in our minds and, I think, in the plans of God for some time! As soon as Phil and I arrived at St Stephen’s Warrandyte for me to be locum priest, we felt it would be a wonderful spot for a refreshing afternoon service to gather those who know they want to worship the living God but maybe haven’t always known how to get started or how to get motivated or how to get regular at it or how to let it make a difference in their life… or many other “how to”s!

There are stacks of opportunities in our great city to gather to worship God but that doesn’t mean we’re energised to get there and get involved, nor do we always come away refreshed with the truth of God from His word. We are praying that The River will be a place of refreshing our souls with grace and truth, renewing our faith in God who lives and reigns, repenting of our apathy in a life of love and worship, and restoring hope to our friends, family, community and world.

These are the things I know I need – maybe you need them too.

We’re starting this thing off on Sunday 13th November 2011 at 3pm at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, 5 Stiggant St, Warrandyte. It’ll be kid friendly, youth friendly, adult friendly… just friendly really. It’s going to be once a month to begin with. There’ll be food afterwards. Good music, beautiful setting, realistic chats, wriggly kids, meaningful communion, teaching that dives deeper into the Word of God, and prayer that will be honest and effective in God’s good grace. If God brings people gifted in ministering healing and one to one prayer and prophecy, we’ll do that too. If He brings people full of hospitality and service, we’ll eat at each others’ homes during the month and make meals for each other when we need it. And if He brings people who love to get out there and make a difference – you know we’re all going to get swept into that flood!

Next post tomorrow – “Why The River?” See you then!