Picking fruit

At this week's connecT service we thought about the fruit of the Spirit -love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5: 22-23) . We were asked to pick a few that we found easy and a few that we found a little harder. Most of us found love, peace and joy the fruit easier to pick but patience, faithfulness, self-control etc. a little harder.

Thinking about it bit more today I wonder whether we can really ever know love without patience or faithfulness, or peace with out self-control. Is Paul's list pick and choose or do we need them all to pass the test? Maybe, it not a test, at all, but an invitation to invite God's Spirit in to do the work. 'If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit' (Gal 5: 25).

Chris

Love is all around us

On Sunday night two of our leaders designed the worship around love and the Holy Spirit - a great connection. Though the verse wasn't used I was reminded of Romans 5:5 - 'God's love has been poured into hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us'.

A clip was used - the beginning of 'Love Actually'. For some reason I always get a bit 'misty' at the beginning and, especially, at the end of the movie. All those people at the airport meeting in love coupled with a great Beach Boys song, 'God only knows'.

Which leads me to ask: are our churches like airports; meeting spaces where loved ones meet at the beginning of , or at the end of, or mid-way through journeys, with stories to tell and experiences to share? Do our worship spaces help us to connect life, faith and love?

Chris

Change

I borrowed this from Steve Taylor's blog 'emergentkiwi'. I thought it was good and something, especially, for anglicans to think about.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less”.

A quote, not by some emerging, missional hipster, but General Eric Shinseki, now President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Chris

Emergent worship

Just recently we began a new evening service. At this service we wanted to explore some 'emergent' forms of doing and being church. There would be music, Bible, monthly eucharist, some creativity and, especially, an opportunity to gather around the 'text' of scripture and talk - and, yes, food too! Some input would be provided by one of the leadership team - 7 adults under 50 and over 30; 4 women and 3 men. The service would be built around themes. Last night, for example, being Mother's Day in Australia, we looked at feminine images for God. The service was led by all women. We used the Rob Bell Nooma dvd 'she' as a discussion starter (the only male input, we wanted to find a dvd by a woman but couldn't find one quickly) - it worked well. At the service there we about 30 people aged from 9 to 80 and good gender balance too. I felt it was a good night and made me, at least, think deeper about how I see God and value women's experience. I forgot to mention we call the service 'connecT' (the church is at a 'T' junction and we want to connect in Jesus, with each other and with the world around us).

Why this post? Well, are there any others doing similar things? What's your journey been like? Where do you find your inspiration, music and resources? What keeps you on track? What feeds you? I'd love to hear from you and get the conversation going.

Chris