Merredin Uniting Church

It was the 34th Anniversary of the Uniting Church in Australia last Wednesday. Without a doubt this was a milestone achievement in the life of God’s Church and it has had positive reverberations around the world. It was certainly a model for the Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa which has tried for many years to forge a similar union with the Anglican, Methodist and Congregational Churches. While this has still not yet materialized the four denominations have an agreement that every new congregation established will be a United congregation of all four partners. Two branches of the Presbyterian Church (The Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of South Africa) did unite in 1997 to become the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa using the UCA Basis of Union as its model.

As we will see from the Scriptures today, God does seek a union of His people. He delights when we are together under the Lordship of Christ rather than separated by forms of government or minor doctrinal differences. One of things which I have really appreciated about the Uniting Church, and particularly the congregations in our Parish, is the way in which we do seek to work with other denominations for the cause of Christ. Undoubtedly we still have a long way to go but as long as Christ is our centre we are journeying in the right direction.

I will be away for most of this week at the Fresh Expressions Conference in Perth and will be bringing Luke Williams back with me on Friday. He will spend two weeks with us gaining insight into the rural ministry and hopefully bringing with him new insights (fresh expressions!) for doing church in this setting.

Connected to this is our Parish Planning Day on Saturday July 16th. I hope that everyone across the Parish will try to make it. It will be a morning only “ideas” session. We are trying to avoid setting an agenda in the hope that each person will come along, having prayerfully considered how we could “do church better” in our context. This by no means implies that we must change everything, or even anything.

It is instead an opportunity for us to put our communal head together as we think through ways in which we might truly be the church which Jesus wants us to be. If I were to summarise His expectation it would be that we honor Him (Love God), live relationally with one another (loving our neighbour) and reach out to the world with the Good News. There are many ways in which we could do that and I hope that we will look beyond the “doing” into the “being”. Eugene Peterson says that one of the problems with the ministry is that we see our work like the lines of a triangle – preaching, teaching and administration – the “doing” stuff. However, the shape of the triangle is determined not by the lines but by the angles – and the angles are prayer, Scripture and spiritual direction. We should focus on the angles! Instead we focus on the worship services, group meetings and finances. Of course there is an interconnectedness between the lines and the angles but it is the angles which give shape to the triangle.

Could I ask you to begin to think along these lines for the July 16th Planning Day? How can we best love God, love one another and reach out to the world? How can we bring our hearts to do what God wants?

In the service this morning we will be welcoming Elaine VanZwam into membership. Elaine has worshipped with us for quite a while and has connected with a number of people in the congregation – especially with Gerhard Seymour! She has a background in the Grace Communion International (formerly the Worldwide Church of God). Grace Communion had a new beginning in the 1990’s when the leaders rejected the teaching of Herbert Armstrong and embraced the New Testament teachings and were accepted into mainline Christianity. It was a traumatic time in which tens of thousands of members left. But those who remained (a remnant) accepted the doctrine of the Trinity and were baptised in Name of the Triune God. There is no Grace Communion in Merredin and Elaine has felt very comfortable in this congregation. She has now decided to officially join up.

(Further good news is that Gerhard and Elaine have also decided to marry in September).

We are hosting the Merredin United in Prayer meeting this Thursday at 7pm. It would be great if you could come along.

Today is Trinity Sunday and Kevin will be addressing the Tri-unity of our God this morning. This is such a difficult subject: we want to be able to define everything and everyone according to our terms and within our worldview. God is beyond that – how do you ever define that which was before anything else, through whom everything else came into being and has its existence? Quite clearly we have to move into the realm of faith, to believe without necessarily understanding. And faith itself is a difficult concept anyway. I can say that I believe in myself, but really what I am saying is that I know the limits of my capabilities. Believing in God is more than that – I cannot even begin to comprehend the limits of God’s capability; if there are any limits to Him. Perhaps its better to say that in my limited understanding I must believe that there is a Creator, or Originator, or Father of everything. That which He created has limits but He Himself must be beyond any limitations. What I do know about Him is that there is a historically proven record that He has been revealed in Jesus Christ – the second person of the Trinity. Jesus’ Message is one which has impacted our reality in most amazing ways. Not only did He live that Message but He gave His life so that the Message could not be misunderstood. The Message tells of God’s amazing love towards us and for us. It is a Message which says that while we have failed to live in a loving relationship with God and each other, He has not turned against us. Instead He has revealed the way of His love for us and His intention to continue to love us until we grasp fully that He has no limits, either in His control over the destiny of absolutely everything or in His absolute love for us.

Coming to faith for each one of us begins as a tentative step into embracing that love and an attempt to understand something about what our purpose might be. Ultimately humankind was uniquely created for relationship with God and with one another. Whether we believe that or not, it is the driving force of our whole being – it draws us into marriage, into families and into friendships. We don’t always do too well in our relationships but very, very few people want to stop having relationships. If our relationships fail, it is usually because someone in the relationship becomes more driven by self than by love and concern for others. Jesus showed us the other way. He showed that relationships can be healed when someone, even the hurting one, is prepared to put self aside in favor of restoring the relationship.

We hurt God by our sin – it is a rejection of His ways. Nonetheless He came in Jesus and laid down His life so that the sin might be washed away and the relationship between us and God could be restored. And more than that! He gave us His Spirit so that we could be empowered to continue to know His love, to be reminded continually of the way of grace and to continually be offered an opportunity to begin again in our relationship with God and with each other. This is the Gospel and it is brought to us by the Triune God.

Today is the Feast of Pentecost. For the Jews it was a Harvest Celebration – Israel being in the Northern Hemisphere! It was a time when farmers had finished the harvest and came into town (Jerusalem) to celebrate and to bring their tithe offerings to the Temple.

For Christians it has become the birthday of the Church for this is also the celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A hundred and twenty believers were gathered in the Upper Room wondering what was going to happen next. Jesus had been crucified; then they had met Him in the resurrection and they had farewelled Him on Ascension Day, just 10 days previously. I guess they were feeling pretty much alone and seeking comfort for each other in prayer as tens of thousands of farmers began to gather in the town below them. The crowd were celebrating but they were themselves unsure about whether they should go out and join them or continue to wait in the Upper Room as Jesus had instructed them.

And then came the sound of a mighty wind and tongues of fire came down, separating and settling on each of them individually. Can you imagine what that must have been like? They had waited for this – well, for something at least … they were not quite sure what. Jesus had said that they should wait for the promise of the Father, whatever that meant. This was it! And then they burst forth into song and prayer in languages which they did not even know, praising and glorifying God – hearts full of thanksgiving, now certain that they were being launched on an adventure which would take them to the ends of the earth with the good news about Jesus, hope for mankind and a wonderful eternal destiny.

This was the day the church was born – empowered by the Holy Spirit for generations to come, the church would become the Body of Christ on the earth – moulding lives, healing the sick, giving purpose and direction to every human being on the planet. Commissioned and empowered by the Holy Spirit there would be no stopping the spread of this good news.

Over the ages, the testimony of the church has waxed and waned, but it has never died. The mark of Christ and the teaching of the good news is to be seen everywhere, we cannot get away from it. It might well be that less than a third of the world’s population claim to be Christian but that is still at least twice as many as Islam and three times more than there are atheists or Hindus. But more than that, the moral standards of the modern world are founded on the teaching of Jesus and have been adopted by cultures, religions and governments everywhere, even if they don’t acknowledge Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

How did this happen? How did the teaching of Christ become so entrenched in our world? It started on the Day of Pentecost, when the first Christians were endued with power from on high, when they received the Holy Spirit, the Promise of the Father. Jesus had spoken of this, told the first believers to wait for it and when the Holy Spirit came down and filled them they took hold of the Promise with the whole fibre of their being. No power, no government, no threat or disgrace would hold them back. They died for what they believed and they went to the ends of the earth to proclaim Jesus: His message, His death and resurrection and the salvation of all mankind.

What has happened now? It seems that the church merely ticks over, there are little spurts of fire here and there but by and large the embers are cold. Or are they? Perhaps its only in our neck of the woods. China has 90 million Christians on fire for God. Almost every person in South Korea is a believer. The African Church is flourishing.

Someone once said that there are three generations in the world – the grandparents who believe the Bible and practice its morality. Then the parent generation who have turned away from the Bible and from church but who still hold on to the morality even if they don’t really know why. Then there is the child generation who, without even a tenuous link to Biblical teaching have even dumped the morality and their lives have become anarchistic and empty. But praise God that out of the emptiness the world finds the foundation in God again. I believe that we are at such a point in the affluent nations again today – here in Australia, in England and in Europe we are beginning to see signs of renewal as people seek a new Pentecost, a new infilling of the Holy Spirit which is the Promise of the Father.

Let today be a day of new beginnings too – a harvest day in your life. Ask the Father to fill you with the Holy Spirit, to build your faith and power to live the life of Christ to the utmost.

We had a great weekend in Perth, despite my ongoing cold. The First Third Conference on Saturday was really interesting. The “Growing Apostles” approach to which we were introduced is about developing a Discipleship lifestyle within the framework of existing church activities using the seven “soul food groups”. These are:

1. God and I – enjoying a personal intimate relationship with God,

2. Hanging out – cultivating healthy & authentic relationships,

3. Serving Others – using gifts and abilities in a life of sacrificial service,

4. Doing Church – belonging to and participating in a community of faith,

5. Living Life – being sustained, recharged and empowered by the Holy Spirit,

6. On a mission – actively engaging in mission,

7. Who I am – developing a Christ-like character.

The presentations on the day were a bit too fast and furious with little time for reflection but as I have read through the Manual which we were given I have been quite encouraged. Its all pretty obvious stuff but most churches approach these elements in a fairly random kind of way whereas the idea here is to create an integrated plan of action that permeates across age levels and individual interests within the congregation. It might be a very important contributor to our planning day on July 16th.

I will be attending the “Fresh Expressions” Conference with Dave Male as part of the Rural Ministries Network on June 28-30. The Conference is about new ways of doing church in the contemporary culture which is no longer church oriented. This too, could be an exciting input for our planning day. (Dave Male is an Anglican minister in England who launched the Net Church within the Anglican Communion. The whole concept is to create a “net” or fresh expression of church which would be attractive to people who have lost connection with Jesus and the church).

In another development, Christian sociologists who are looking into the future of the church are saying that five features will come to the fore in the church in coming decades.

The places where we gather will become smaller – there is a growing search for intimacy and fellowship rather than anonymity.

The church will be launched into real mission – a move away from “events-based” ministry into seeking biblical justice.

The church will return to its ancient roots – more gatherings, more Scripture, more worship, more prayer and more honoring of sacraments.

The church will talk more about really important issues – stewardship of money and healthy biblical sexuality. (The Bible talks more about these two things than anything else!)

The church will return to wonder and awe – back to sound theology and the embracing of the mysterious and risky nature of God.

I honestly believe that we are entering into another Reformation (500 years after the the last one – almost to the day). To a cynical world, the church is being treated as an ancient and unnecessary relic; but in the church, the remnant of believers are beginning to re-find their purpose. Confronting our beliefs has caused us to re-examine ourselves, God and the world. For those who are prepared to endure, this re-discovery is opening new doors and creating a new understanding of the Kingdom of God, the ministry of Jesus and the purpose for which we were created. I am very excited, and so should you be. Amen and Amen!

There have been many positive reports from the weekend with the Perth Theological Hall and the talks were really quite inspiring. For me the two stand-out items were Prof Alex Jensen’s presentation on the Images of Salvation and Dr Nancy Ault’s presentation on Congregational Spirituality. The Images of Salvation talk highlighted the change that has taken place over the years on the understanding of the ministry of Jesus. Dr Jensen used the novel approach of art images to illustrate his point. In the early church and until the Middle Ages, the Cross was seldom used as a symbol. Instead, Jesus was shown victorious with His hands outstretched, head up and the serpent under His feet. The focus was on resurrection, victory over Satan and the Lordship of Jesus. From the Middle Ages, the images changed. Now Jesus was sad, mortally wounded and suffering for our sin. It was called the “penal substitution model” where Jesus has paid the penalty for our sin and His appeal to us is “please don’t sin any more, look how I have already suffered for you.” The more modern image is seen in Holman Hunt’s “Light of the World” painting where Jesus stands at the door and knocks waiting for us to let Him into our hearts. The shift is to the patient Jesus who will not force Himself on us, but having done all that was necessary, waits for us to let Him in. I found this fascinating because I have used all these images myself over the years. In the early days of ministry, I was fiercely evangelistic and pushing “penal substitution model”. Later on, I found the modern “pastoral model” to be more useful in encouraging people to invite Jesus into their hearts but in recent years I have become much more focussed on the Kingdom image – Jesus has done it, He has the victory, He reigns as Lord and those who choose to follow Him, live in His Kingdom in the here and now. I suppose we all have some kind of an image of salvation and it has a significant impact on our behavior and spirituality.

In responding to Dr Ault’s questions about our preferences in all kinds of different situations, it was quite clear that as a congregation we mostly have the same kind of “heart” spirituality – we have a clear image of God and are much affected by our emotions in worship and the expressions of our spirituality – We love to sing. A few have a “head” spirituality – loving sermons, Bible studies, theological reading etc while there does not seem to be too much interest in the “Mystical” or on the “Social Justice” side of spirituality. As Dr Ault said – we are firmly Methodist with a sprinkling of Presbyterians. What was interesting though were the suggestions she gave for enhancing and balancing our present spirituality. Basically these are:

1. Experiment with musical expression. Have an informal service using only praise music and instruments other than the organ.
2. Arrange a time for people to briefly tell their faith stories to the group: how they were introduced to their faith, how it has affected their life, and how it has influenced recent events.
3. Leave the pulpit or lectern to deliver the sermon; speak at floor level, near the people.
4. Share meals together; go for picnics as a congregation.
5. Encourage casual wear to services.

We do all of these things already. Another option is to grow towards our opposite quadrant ie towards the Social Justice inclination. This is a little (a lot!) more difficult in terms of the model because it is not simply Social Justice in the everyday moral sense, but rather in an impassioned focus and single minded dedication to a cause. It is about the regeneration of society and a strong desire to rectify the wrongs of the world.

In a letter from Dr Geoffrey Lilburne, he said, “We thank the Merredin congregation for its warmth and hospitality – including the welcome dinner by candlelight and the tickets to the theatre. The participants’ readiness to engage in the discussions was refreshing, pointing to us in the Faculty the areas which congregations are concerned about. Based on the feedback and the way the Faculty were nodding their heads during the final debriefing session, we could say that there was mutual satisfaction and the agreement that the Hall return next year.”