Faith after Doubt: with Brian McLaren Part 2

that's perfect [Music] apparently [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning everyone welcome to one church whether you are physically here in the building now and there are so many people here with smiley eyes um that it's even starting to feel like uh normal for us physically in the building right now if you're watching live that's um great grab your coffee sorry we've started slightly late some technical difficulties but um if you're watching this later then that's absolutely fine and you won't even have noticed so whatever whenever wherever you are you are so welcome here this morning um god is pleased to see us and smiling on us and saying hello it's great to see you here this morning or this evening if that's when you're watching it but how's your week been i was reflecting as i cycled here that um for some people this will have been a perfectly normal normal as it ever is now so for like me you'll have just been working flat out there won't have been anything different about this week you're still nine months off getting a haircut and you haven't actually noticed that anything is different for other people one of the 60 people i cycled past yesterday queuing outside primark why or you'll have been seeing groups of six people every hour since you were allowed to on monday if you're in england um and fire pits and barbecues in the garden goodness knows what and you're kind of embracing every little bit of new freedom that you've got but for some of us there might have been crashed cars trips to accident and emergency funerals not getting a job that you applied for stress from your children or your parents or it might have been a holiday week you might have been off school and had stress from your children or your parents but whatever your week's been like god has been there in the midst of it we believe that and we are grateful for that i also just thought maybe we should reflect on how things are different from a year ago so if you were in england a year ago as i was you might have been chasing around the shops queuing trying to get eggs and flour making sourdough or living with someone who made sauerkraut frightened and just not knowing what what was going to happen and yet here we are now the sun is shining still and we're starting to emerge and it felt for me a little bit like the time between gethsemane and pentecost so gethsemane when you're kind of um it's all going horribly wrong and you can't see where it's going to end and how it's ever going to get better again and now we're just starting to emerge we're on that road to emmaus there's some suggestion that actually perhaps jesus is alive and it is all going to be all right and things are going to get better so i don't know where you are in that kind of space or time or journey but we just need to reflect that some of us will be in different places and stages on that but wherever we are in that jesus is with us all in it all understanding it all and he can see the end of it all so let's take courage and comfort from that and we are now going to say a psalm together we're going to start with a psalm because god's people have been saying poetry together to either comfort themselves or rejoice together for thousands of years so we are going to say this all together shout for joy to the lord all the earth worship the lord with gladness come before him with songs know that the lord is god it is he who made us and we are his we are his people the sheep of his pasture enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise give thanks to him and praise his name for the lord is good and his love endures forever his faithfulness continues through all generations god of wonder you made us for joy and gladness to thrive and flourish jesus risen lord walk with us today and show yourself open our eyes so our hearts burn with certainty and delight that we are so loved i'm going to hand over to the music group now and they are going to help us rejoice and praise and sing together good morning everyone we're gonna start by singing thine be the glory [Music] thine be the glory risen conquering sun the endless is the victory thou o death has won angels in bright rain went rolled the stone away [Music] kept the folded grains closed [Music] sun is the victory thou o death has won lord jesus meets us [Music] lovingly he greets us scatters let the church with gladness lives of triumph sing over the lord now live death has lost its thing thing be the glory a risen conquering sun and this is the victory [Music] no more [Music] glorious prince of life life is [Music] lead us in [Music] sun and this is the victory thou all death has once seen that one last [Music] the time risen conquering sun and this is the victory thou o death as [Music] one [Music] praises rising eyes are turning to you [Music] yeah for you [Music] we long for you [Music] cause when we see you we find strength to face the day [Music] and in your presence all our fears are washed away washed away jose [Music] you are the god who saves us worthy of all [Music] come have your way among us we welcome you here lord jesus sing phrases rising again praises rising eyes are turning to you we turn to you [Music] hearts are yearning for you we long for you cause when we see you we find strength to face the day [Music] in your presence all our fears are washed away washed away [Music] jose you are the god who saves us worthy of all our praises [Music] jose [Music] we welcome you here lord jesus hear the sound of hearts we turn into you we turn to you [Music] in your kingdom broken lies are made new [Music] we find strength to face the day and in your presence all our fears are washed away washed away [Music] jose [Music] you are the god who saves us worthy of all our praises we welcome you here lord jesus come have your way among us we welcome you here lord jesus come have your way among us we welcome you here lord jesus thanks i can't sing dying by the grory without crying it's a real kind of family favorite uh for us probably all going to have it at our funerals thank you so thanks for uh choosing that as a real favor of mine a few notices well actually only one notice really well two um so if you're thinking how come there's all these people in the building and i'm not that's because you didn't book in through eventbrite via the church website i think otherwise in the one church weekly email that you might have had if you want to come and be in the building on a sunday morning you can now do that in a socially distanced responsible way as lots of people here have i can't kind of turn the camera and show you but there are um so you just need to book in and that would be great except you can't sing out loud which is not great so your choice um but do think about doing that but you could regardless come down here at half seven tonight and see kath and a few other people in a socially distanced way for a time of reflection so we're going to be doing be still and no which is something that we've done for quite a few years where for an hour i'm told you can get back to watch something called is it line of duty call of duty something like that something to do with duty anyway um so you can get back in time to see that um so it's an hour from half seven till half eight um just to reflect a no pressure sort of time and kath will be leading those there thinking a little bit about some of the four stages that sam will be talking about with brian mclaren's video it'll all make sense later on trust me um so that's the notice really or the notices um so i'm now going to do what we would do if we were really here normally and i'm hoping that you can see something come up on the screen and if not splendid you can so this picture i got this picture from a site called art and theology which is great and i don't know how well you can see it but what's really interesting to me is this is a picture of jesus with the two people on the road to emmaus if you're new to things jesus then this may not mean anything to you at all but if you've heard of the story of the road to emmaus where jesus meets two people who are his followers who think he's dead and then it turns out well he's not um i've always been brought up to think of them as both men but actually apparently there's some theology that says they could quite we don't know um and it may well be cleopas and his wife so there's a thought for you anyway factoid possibly but i've got two questions for you so if you are with somebody physically here in the building or if you're with somebody at home where you're watching this maybe turn to them and talk about one or other of those or just think on your own if that works better for you when was god present to you when can you remember a time that you were absolutely equi absolutely acutely aware that he was present to you or was there a time when you were just painfully aware that he felt absent that he kind of mis missed out that he'd abandoned you that he left you that he had gone so um just take a little sort of minute now either to talk to people in the room or to reflect and then we'll um pray you so maybe those are questions just to keep thinking about um in the hours and the days ahead um but just to remember that even if we don't feel as if god is there even if we can't see him it doesn't mean that he's not so we're going to pray now god's people have always prayed on their own and in groups whether they've been in times of trial and desperation or whether they've been rejoicing whether they've been coming back together after times of um apartments or whether they're used to meeting together so we are going to do that now and um the bits in orange i'm gonna say and then the bits in black i'd like you to join with me if you can and you wish to um and i'm gonna have a pause in between so we're gonna be praying for ourselves for the people we know and for the people that we don't know but that god still loves and cares about like the disciples on the road to emmaus we can't see you lord but we see your power creating and sustaining and we pray with hope for ourselves and our world maybe take a moment to think about somebody or a project that you know in this church or the church that you belong to for the trustees of this church meeting this thursday for our church we pray that we will be a community of love bringing your kingdom where you are clearly seen and known be with us lord maybe take a moment to think about somebody you know who falls into one of these states of being people who are having a rough time perhaps the queen and the royal family others you know who have got death on the horizon for those who are sick or suffering or who feel you're absent or not listening may they see you know you feel your love and your everlasting arms carrying them be with them lord again maybe think about somebody you know or people groups you know who are suffering in a different sort of way for the despairing and the disillusioned and those who feel that they have lost their way or their sense of meaning we pray that you will renew their faith and hope show yourself lord and look beyond ourselves think about the world with so much difficulty on our screens and in our papers day by day both here and abroad for those facing daily oppression and violence injustice or poverty fear and chaos walk with them and move us to fight for them lord amen so i am now going to pass over to sam who is going to help us to think through some more of the road to emmaus and the progression from doubt to faith all right hello everyone look at this oh yeah it's lovely to do this this morning um i wonder about how you found last week for those of you who um were tuning in or you were in the building or you're watching online um last week we began as helen said to look at um kind of an interview that dave did with brian mclaren um about his new book which is called faith after doubt um and about this journey that often faith takes us on through our lives and this is probably one of those moments where we say if you haven't watched last week and you're kind of you know if you're watching this later on if you're watching this now then i would say stick with it because it's lovely um to just be here together but if you're watching this later on and you didn't yet watch last week this would be a great moment to go back and have a look at the first part of dave's interview with brian last week and what that did was it opened us up to this idea that what if what if faith is a lot more like a journey than just a static thing to maintain in my life and what if that journey where my faith changes and that can feel at times exhilarating and really lovely and at times completely threatening threatening and scary and oh my goodness where is this leading me and am i going to make it out of this with anything resembling faith um i can't remember where that sentence started so i can't remember how to finish it but basically it was an amazing kind of thing last week and for me it felt deeply deeply exciting i was a i watched the interview last week and listened to dave's thoughts and i was just like oh man this is making me first of all it's putting some language to how i felt my faith develop and change over the last few years in a way that makes me feel like oh it's not just being a slippery slope kind of slide to the left or something like that this has been a an actual journey forwards a journey not just of regression but of progression and that there is light and there is hope and there is god in it god comes as dave reminded us last week god comes to these disciples while they're walking along the road and jesus walks alongside them and says what is it you're talking about what what is it you're going through what questions are you asking and maybe it's exactly at those moments that the presence of christ is with us and that's such a lovely lovely thing it just left me feeling um so exciting maybe you found it deeply challenging or maybe a bit unsettling just kind of hold all that don't try and be like no it's exciting hold how you feel um about kind of last week this week what we're going to look at is a slightly different question if last week was largely what does this journey look like in my faith this week is us beginning to ask the question together what does this journey look like for a community what does this journey of kind of moving from a simple faith to a complex faith to a perplexity of goodness knows what to a um oh the last one cath harmony is very important word that's the point of what we're doing today that i totally hadn't forgotten um but what does that journey look like as a community what does it look like to live in harmony as a community kind of coming back to that luke 24 story at the um just before we watch the second half of this video today um i love love love love love this little bit at the end of the luke 24 story and cape and i'm going to put another little slide up and this is how the story kind of concludes it doesn't conclude because it goes on something else but it says as they approach the village to which they were going jesus continued on as if he were going further but they urged him strongly stay with us for its nearly evening and the day is almost over so he went in to stay with them when he was at the table with them he took bread gave thanks broke it and began to give it to them then their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he disappeared from their sight it's always slightly annoying how he doesn't then stick around afterwards for just like a little bit like like a little conversation or something you know these guys have been on a long journey and then they asked each other were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us here's what i love about this there's this moment at the end where some believers are together sharing a meal and in their wondering and their complexity and their confusion and their excitement and their what if and this could be oh maybe he's alive and maybe this all makes sense in that moment of goodness knows what they gather around a table and share a meal together and in that moment of just normal human living and loving and intimacy christ is revealed christ is made known among them and i feel like maybe that's the maybe that's the kind of the image maybe that's the moment for us this week to think about what if it's in this kind of breaking of bread together in our difference and in our goodness knows what that the christ is revealed among us that we come to recognize jesus more fully does that make sense um so as we watch this now just be thinking like i wonder what this says to our community i wonder what this says if you're watching online what does this say what does this say to how we relate to each other don't just you know maybe you're geographically miles away that makes the question just even more interesting what does this mean for how we do this journey of faith thing in community together so let's watch this and then we'll talk again at the end and in in this latest book um you begin to sort of point to what might a church in harmony uh yeah look like or a spirituality and harmony look like um without you without me telling you about one church i wonder i wonder how we're doing and and you know we just had this little series looking at jonah and it it interestingly caught me off guard but we ended up talking about our shadow side and looking at this very sort of jungian thing about if a person can have a shadow side then an institution can and what's not just what's the show is out of the church because that's you know like shooting fish in a barrel but what's the shadow side of one church brighton you know where are we failing who who uh i speak to this theologian called john swinton and he says if you want to know you know what kind of church you are ask yourself who's not in the room you know who's not there not not who have you managed to gather but who haven't you managed and so we we're committed to doing that post-easter and um i'm with some trepidation want to do that but you know what does the church strips of its sort of shadow side look like what does a church look like to you that is in harmony and integris and doing the things of the kingdom well yeah um i'm not just trying to be difficult in what i'm going to say here dave but the first thing i'd say is that a church doesn't feel it has to be stripped of its shadow side but just wants to become aware of it um because there's a certain sense i think young would say that the shadow is inescapable it's just whether we let it control us without knowing um but but the other reason i i bring that up not just to quibble but to say one of the horrible things that stays with us is this idea that we have to justify our existence by being correct enough or good enough or whatever and i think having that pressure on our back is going to cause us trouble now it it in a certain sense i know why we have that pressure i felt it as a pastor i know why it's because in order to attract people we have to convince them that we're better than somebody else or that we're we justify our existence um and and we end up internalizing that but i i have a feeling that if we could say you know we have however many 20 30 50 100 people however many who are really want to become a you know a better version of ourselves and to be a community that brings a blessing to our city or our nation or world um that's we don't need any justification if if we're just aiming to do that i think we're good enough already yeah and and but the maybe the only other thing i would say is that uh to me to the four-stage kind of community that i see making sense is not a community where everybody's in harmony but it's a community where its leaders are working from a place of harmony and are helping other people uh wherever they are grow and in and they will frame the whole growth process differently in other words a person who's in simplicity in stage one in that church it will be a whole different experience of simplicity than a person who's in a church where the leaders are stage one and the theology is framed and that's to me the thing that's that's happening and and and anybody like you and your beautiful community who is even trying and even exploring what this means in my mind is already a success and is already doing the right thing and and and will never ever get to a place where they feel oh we finally got it right because our work is never done you know yeah that is i think that's uh a word for us to use some old fashion language but that is a word for us i really uh resonate with that and i think i i hear individual stories on a daily basis of people saying you know why have we failed in this stuff why did i used to have that opinion why did how was i ever hoodwinked to believe that this group of people were were unwelcome you know in the camp and um lots of self-flagellation and that that can't be a helpful thing because it's a kind of stage one and two tool to try and work in a sort of stage three and four i i think that's right i think that's right and you know one of the chapters in the book i it was called a civilization in doubt and i think part of what we also need to do so that we stop flagellating ourselves and shaming ourselves and putting pressure on ourselves is to realize our species is relatively young you know i i just for this new book i'm writing now this morning i was doing research on how long we think that human language has existed and and anthropologists think we've only had the capacity to speak for 150 000 years and 150 thousand years might sound like a long time but when you say that's 150 uh i'm sorry that's a 1500 centuries um or uh if you take a person's life span being the average lifespan right now is 79 years um if if you take 79 years it's like 2 000 life spans well i have a good idea of what a lifespan is and i think putting 2 000 of those end to end i can understand that i mean we haven't been conscious in that language for very long of course we're at the early stages i i'm not saying that to let us off the hook we're in a lot of trouble right now and we have to have this breakthrough but i think it helps us say we're we're all in this together and it's not like yeah and and to me the greater wonder isn't that people had those bad ideas it's that the greater wonder is that now they're having the courage to grow beyond beyond them yeah i just i just want to ask you two other things one one that i've been nagged at to ask you and and one really just maybe you covered it but just if there are people watching this and they're going i don't know what i believe i don't i don't i don't know whether in between stage two or stage three or stage three yeah well you know they're just in that stage of question and doubt and perhaps don't feel that they can speak that out what would be your encouragement to those individuals well the the first thing i want to tell them is that you're not crazy and you're not bad and you're not alone um this is what it means to be human to have your own brain means that you have your own thoughts and and if you have questions and doubts you have reasons to have questions and doubts it doesn't mean that you're 100 right in what you're thinking um but it doesn't mean you're allowed to think that and in fact you can't really help it you know most people i know who say they've lost their faith or have doubts it's not like they said i'm sick of this faith i want to get rid of it it's like i tried my best to hold on to it and it just wouldn't stay you know so that's the first thing i'd say and then the second thing i'd say though is that when you have certain beliefs that feel like problems and you think if i could just get rid of that belief my problem would be solved the thing i'd want to say is yeah that problem would be solved but the but in a sense you could face a much more interesting problem and that is what kind of person do you want to be what kind of life do you want to live what kind of world do you want to contribute to and um and that to me is maybe the deep that maybe to me is the question that all of our beliefs and doubts were distracting us from and that's where doubt in a certain sense can clear the way for us to say here's the question that really matters yeah that's great and the other and this is this is a whole a whole other hour at the very least but you did kind of touch on it in your personal story there but one of the big tensions in a church like ours is we're we're a young church with lots of families and uh you know dad or mom you know i can sit and and they can be full of doubts but actually being a place going well i'm okay with that it's very different when it comes to bedtime and you want to pray with your kids or you want to or your child asks you about a question about god and you don't want to give them something that's not that you don't believe is true but you have no language yes to use um this dilemma that so many people feel of it's okay for me to do my deconstructing to go through my crisis but why love that on my kids um and i want them to know about a man who was swallowed by a whale and i want them to you know to to not be frightened of the bible and tell these children's stories even if some of them i don't believe are true myself or i or i you know struggle with the with the um simplistic reductionist kind of view of it help us navigate that brian well i should say um dave this back before covid when i was traveling a lot this was the most common question i've been asked probably over the last four or five years um in terms of things that i've written on this that could be helpful i wrote a book called we make the road by walking that's an overview of the bible and i try to talk about the bible in a grown-up way that children could understand um and maybe i'll give you an example in just a minute but um but the truth is we have so much more work to do on this and uh and the good news is there are a lot of people doing that work and i i hope you don't mind me putting in a plug for something but two friends of mine they live in new zealand have just come out with a book and a podcast one the book is called the six needs of every child and the podcast is called growing connected and all i can tell you is they are doing what i wish had been done like i have so many regrets about things i i believed as a parent that i learned from christian books and radio shows and i just feel like oh this is what i wish i'd had and and uh so there are i guess i'm saying help is on the way right that there are good things happening but if i can give one quick example i i in and we make the road by walking i tell a story about a woman who was reading a bible story to her child it was the story of elijah and the fiery chariot and her child looked at her and said is that real or is that make-believe and she said what should i say what should i have said and i said what did you say and she said i said well some stories are real um and some stories are make-believe and some stories are a mix between the two what do you think and i said what a perfect answer because you gave your child permission to be a part of the interpretive community you didn't tell your child what to think you you gave your child the gift of inviting your child's opinion and um that to me is is a good way to to approach this i mean there are stories now that i think that everybody tells their children that like i think i would never tell my children this story without a whole lot of explanations and questions and caveats like when you think of the story of noah and the flood i mean you know somebody just go ahead and read that story again and try to figure out the morality of that story but even that story if i told my children that story i'd say hey you know now we know there's an older story that this story was critiquing and i tell him the story of utnapishtim from the epic of gilgamesh which the the noah story is obviously a riff on and then telling those two stories and help them see what's changing and listen have a grandson who uh i forget how old he is he's really young but he's reading harry potter right anybody who can read harry potter is capable of sophisticated literary analysis so yeah we never tell the kids the bit after the uh the the naked drunk no that might grasp they might remember that bit of the story better than the rest oh that's right it's yeah like if that was supposed to solve the problem it didn't work very well exactly brian you've given us a lot of your time and it's much appreciated um we're really grateful thank you so much and inevitably in a style that you'll be uh pleased with i'm sure that i'm sure we just have more questions than answers but i think that's a good thing for us and um we really appreciate the work that you're doing and we hope that one day you get to come to brighton i hope so too especially after this conversation and thinking about this beautiful congregation that you're that you're uh working with and and can i just say thanks to you for the good work of of helping a community of people grapple with these questions um it is so important and people like you are the research and development uh and congregations like yours are the research and development department of the christian faith right now and we really need you so keep up the great work bless you thank you so much i did a funny but you know it feels like repeating the moment wouldn't be worth it um i just trust it was a very funny moment um i i just i love that discussion i i really like how kind of grounded it was and um even just this week um some of us who are parents of young kids in the church have this whatsapp group that if you're a parent of young kids and you're not on it you'd be very welcome to come on it's really interesting um and there was a discussion just this week of hey how do we what does it look like to raise kids when you are not even sure of your faith or when you and your partner are differing in where you are at with faith at the moment and and all this kind of stuff has made me i've been reading this book quite intensively this week because i really wanted to finish it by this this morning and actually i didn't um and what i was hoping for from this book and kath's already laughing is that so the kind of the first bit walks you through kind of like here's what some of these different stages of faith look like here's what it's here's what it looks like to be in simple faith in kind of what he calls stage one faith of um kind of very certain very rigid boundaries very clear this is what stage one looks like and here's what stage two looks like where your stage one's face becomes more complicated and more sophisticated and you can see some nuances and you're dial dialoguing and it's kind of oh how do i work around some of the simplicities that didn't quite work in stage one and then stage three and in perplexity is goodness knows what do i throw out do i throw out the baby and the bath water do i get rid of my whole faith altogether what am i left with asking all these questions and then what i really wanted from the second half of the book was how to just be in harmony how to be a community of like living in that stage four where you kind of move to a new simplicity and you can embrace mystery and you find god in new ways and realize that there is a light beyond the end of perplexity and basically i wanted like a little instruction manual for how we as one church could fully embody like what it looks like to be a church that lives in harmony what does it look like to be a church where stage one stage three stage four it doesn't matter we're all just doing this together and it we can all hold each other and we can all recognize the image of god in each other and what does music look like in such a congregation what does teaching and dialogue look like in such a congregation and what does church governance look like in such a congregation like i really wanted it to be like here's how to do this and i found it deeply frustrating when just a couple of nights ago i realized that that wasn't coming in the book that there is no cheat sheet at the end for how to do this stuff as a community and for how to kind of live this out in a really integral way and that i don't think that's because it's not possible i'm sure it is possible i think it's just because we have to get there ourselves like we have to work this out ourselves i really liked what brian said about kind of being the research and development um kind of department um of the church and i don't kind of say that to like boost our ego of like hey we're the ones who are pioneering on the front edge and that means we're better than everyone else and we're just doing a new kind of us versus them but just that kind of thing of actually isn't it interesting how little instruction jesus gave his disciples for actually how to do church he gave them a meal like gather around this meal and remember the central moment of faith remember this god who became incarnated among us who lived among us who whose body was broken and whose blood was shed for us remember that and celebrate that in a meal and he gave them a command love one another and there's actually little else the rest of it they had to work out themselves when do you meet what does that look like what do you do with your kids what do you how do you invite people into your community what what does that look like what does what are you know buildings and structures and what's your new story how does that look and the church had to work that out for itself and at the same time i find that a little bit like oh i just wish it was easy because actually it feels like we've been on a fairly long journey up to this point and probably for a lot of us in our own faith journeys we've been on what feels like such a rocky journey and now we just want something that we can just breathe into and just relax into that makes a lot of sense but equally i find it quite exciting and i find it quite exciting as we think okay we've already got this beautiful faith community that so many of us have found such a safe home in such a beautiful home in and now what do we do and now where do we go and now like how do we do this thing even better throughout the new testament um the earliest religious the earliest christian communities um had to work out what this means and as you look through the new testament you realize that basically it was always a very bumpy journey um it they never just kind of gathered and then had no problems paul has basically the reason we have a new testament is that paul had to intervene a lot in church situations where things were less than ideal where there was still some growth to be done and the one that really stands out in my mind as i think about this today is one corinthians and in in one corinthians paul's addressing the church in corinth that has really lost its way and it's not lost its way because they they they just believe the wrong thing it's not lost its way because um like there's just they the the slightly wrong method of doing church or something like that and it's lost its way because a bunch of people in the church have have come and said well basically my way is the right way and if you're that way you're wrong you're something ugh i'm gonna push you away you're less important than me i've kind of got it made and you haven't and then other people over there were being like no it's this way is the right way and and we've got it right and we're going to push you away and and then it descended into this kind of rivalry and factions and yeah all that disgusting stuff that some of us have seen play out in all too many contexts before now that ends up looking nothing like christ and paul writes to them and it's in that letter that we get this amazing kind of sequence in chapters 12 to 14 which i used to think was just about charismatic gifts basically and how to kind of see the supernatural at work among you great but really what it's about is it's about saying hey i am this way and this is where i'm at right now and you are that way and this is where you're at right now and look you're there and you're there you're bringing that thing that is bubbling in you and exploding and that's actually i can i can look at that and i can see the life of god and the working of the spirit of god in that but but i'm different and you're over there and you're doing that thing and that's the working of the spirit of god and hey look together together we are the body of christ now that means together christ is revealed does that make sense is that going to draw us back a little bit to that luke 24 moment earlier it's in the moment where we can sit together in our brokenness where we can look at we look at each other and i think this is the hardest thing looking at each other without trying to fix each other without trying to think oh i'm further along this journey i'm in stage four and i'll get you there you know or like i'm in stage three and your faith is so stage one you know like it would be so easy to do that stuff but what does a community look like where we can honestly look at each one of us in this room and and just say well i've got something to learn you are imaging christ to me you are imaging christ to me and it's when we gather in our unknowingness and in our brokenness around the broken bread and blood of jesus that that begins to make sense um i could waffle on here but um in a couple of weeks time we're going to try something to kind of unpack this a little bit more and what we're going to do is we're going to set up a number of different opportunities in the day did dave talk about this last week no okay so that means that's good and we're going to set up a couple of opportunities in the day where we can gather in person or on zoom in covered secure ways of course so we're going to create like a few opportunities so we can do it safely for us to come together and ask some questions about hey how are we doing as a church like where are you at what are you what do you crave in this community what do you look at in this community and you think oh we could we could really be doing better there but you know we're not just going to use it as like hey let's punch one church and kind of um like redesign it for the ground up or something but it's it's just it's a chance to really reflect together about how do we do this journey together how can we be a community that best embodies the body of christ and as we learn and grow together and so there'll probably be some communication about that this week and dave's going to talk through a little bit more about like what that thing in two weeks time on the second um is going to look like but we'd really really encourage you maybe you're someone who's just like actually i'm kind of done with this whole thing and in which case i'd be surprised if you're watching now but if you are but if you are please be in the room if you're if you're in the very depth of you know perplexity and you don't even know is there is there any kind of way the physical church can be something for me please come we want to hear from you um if there's anything to learn from this model it's that we really really need all of us to be a part of the conversation of what church is and how how it happens and how we do it because it's when we all gather in our our selvesness not having to conform to the one church thing when you come into the room and be like okay that's that's not safe here that is no it's when we all come just as we are and that christ is imaged around us what we're going to do on those days as well as having a lot of time to think and to discuss together and we're going to take communion together and i think we decided that but if we didn't decide that then we now have because i've said it um and communion is oh man i just think i've probably said this before but i just think that everything comes back to communion like communion is like the perfect picture of so much about faith it's a picture of dying to things and rising to new things it's a picture of in our brokenness is life it's our picture of the mystery of having faith in something that we can't see yet is somehow embodied in the very simplest acts of life and and so we're going to come around that the table in a couple of weeks time i was going to lead communion today and i thought no let's let's wait let's do it um in impersonal or on zoom or however you uh join in on the 2nd of may um but we're going to do communion together as a sign that not just that we are in this together but that christ is revealed when we are the body of christ together and and that means we've got a really exciting journey ahead of us um i've been a part of so few normal sunday mornings at one church i joined um in november a year and a bit ago and then we hadn't moved here until like january and then had less than two months before lockdown which means that while for some of you some of you are joined very recently and you you know we want you to be a part of that conversation some of you joined like 10 years ago some of you have been a part of the church um this site or gloucester place for you know 140 years or whatever um and i just i i can't remember why i started that sentence but isn't it great um but no we regardless of where you're at of how long you've been a part of things please please please join in on second make your voice heard and be a part of like this dreaming thing of as we think what does this thing look like together i've waffled on for too long um dan and the band are gonna come now and we're gonna sing um or not sing in this case um a final song together that kind of again it is quite hard to find songs firstly songs about the church at all songs about what it means to be the body of christ at all um but also songs that kind of embody or encompass something of this thing of what does it look like when a bunch of slightly bumbling people gather together and say hey how do we do this communal thing this song comes close and um it's good so we're gonna have this feel free just to let it wash over you feel free to join in with singing join in however you feel most led and and then helen's going to lead us and say the grace at the end thanks [Music] sorry bear with us come out of sadness from wherever you've been come broken hearted let rescue begin come find your mercy oh sinner come neal earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal earth has no sorrows that heaven [Music] lay down your shame and all you are broken [Music] lift up your face oh [Music] [Music] lay down your heart come as you are there's hope for the hopeless and all those who've strayed come sit at the table come taste the grace there's rest for the weary and rest that endures earth has no sorrow that heaven can cure your self has no sorrow that heaven can't kill so lay down your burdens lay down your shade and all who are broken [Music] you're not too far so lay down your heart lay down your heart come as you are come as you [Music] come are you are there's joy for the morning oh sinner be still earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal this earth has no sorrow that heaven can't hear so lay down your burdens lay down your shade and all you are broken lift up your face you're not too far to lay down your head lay down your heart come as you are come as you are [Music] come as you are thank you for being with us today whether you've been watching making the technology work teaching thinking singing playing being part of our community we are loved loved by the god who made this world and each of us with all our brokenness and all our questions we are loved let's hold that as something we can be absolutely certain of and now we're going to say the grace together may the grace of our lord jesus christ and the love of god and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with us all evermore amen you

Channel: One Church Brighton

Views: 316

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: one church brighton, onechurch, 1 church, church, baptist, social, community, sussex, brighton, 1 church brighton, florence road, florence road baptist church, brighton baptist church, uk, england, christian, christianity, charity, ocb

Id: 10hl24W3eEM

Length: 66min 26sec (3986 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021