Now when John heard in prison about the deeds Christ had done, he sent his disciples to ask a question:
“Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go tell John what you hear and see: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them.”
When Jesus walked this earth he meant business: the business of completely transforming lives. That was his aim, his purpose, his objective. Which explains why, when John the Baptist asked whether or not Jesus was indeed “the one to come”, rather than giving a verbal “Yes”, Jesus simply pointed John to the evidence of countless lives that had been utterly transformed and made whole. You could tell Jesus was in the life-transformation business, not by his words, but by the fact that lives were made whole. Which got me wondering: If people were to look at the effect that we have, would they be able to tell that we were in the Jesus’ business?
As a minister I get to sit on all sorts of interesting business meetings: in the community I share in school governing bodies, charitable trusts, and youth-work management; in Thornton Methodist Church I share in all sorts of meetings to do with leadership, finance and pastoral care; and in the church beyond Thornton I share in the work of the North Fylde Circuit, the North Lancashire District, and the national Connexion. The common thread that runs through every one of these various meetings is the desire of ordinary people to make progress, to move forward, to achieve good goals, aim at proper purposes, and accomplish honorable objectives.
As a connoisseur of business meetings, I have learnt that the true value of a meeting should not be judged by the exchange of fine words, the presence of convivial company, nor even the quality of the minute-taking. Instead, a meeting’s true value should be judged by what is actually achieved because of it. Like a good sermon, at the end of a good meeting we will know the point of it. The question “So what?” will have a clear answer. We will know what it is that we have to go and do.
The business world has long understood the importance of effective meetings, and has developed easy-to-remember tests to help make meetings as productive as possible. For example, in the early 1980s business project managers began to measure their objectives against the so-called “SMART” criteria. Invariably, they found that the most effective objectives are those that are:
On the basis that there is no more important business than God’s life-transformation business, these SMART criteria are now regularly used when objectives are being agreed within the business meetings of the Church.
One of the best business meetings I attend is our annual “Next Steps” day at Thornton Methodist Church where – at the beginning of each New Year - we agree our Priorities for the coming twelve months. A copy of our Priorities for this next year is enclosed with this magazine. The objectives contained in this document are not only SMART but soaked in prayer. Indeed, the week before our Next Steps day we held our first ever 24 hours of prayer, and elsewhere in this magazine you will find the testimonies of some of those who participated in that remarkable time.
I am very grateful that so many of you are already working very hard to achieve our Priorities, but there is so much to be done that we really do need everyone to play their part. So please do prayerfully read through our Priorities and consider how YOU can help us to achieve our shared objectives.
I have little doubt that as we achieve these things Thornton Methodist Church will become ever more effective in doing the Jesus’ business. .As we faithfully get on with the work before us I pray that this community of Thornton will know that we are indeed in the same business as Jesus, not simply because we say that we are, but primarily by the fact that all around us lives are being made whole.
Every blessing.
Pastoral letter - December 2009
From our Minister
“Joseph, son of David,” said the angel,
“do not hesitate to take Mary as your wife; for the child conceived in her has come from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
A five-year-old girl was watching as the nativity scene was set up for the carol service. She was mesmerized by all the figurines – especially the baby Jesus. When she asked what the manger was, her teacher explained that they didn’t have a crib for Jesus, so they had to lay a blanket on the hay and put him there. She thought about that for a minute, and then asked, “Did they have to use a manger for his car seat, too?”
Whilst many of the wonder-filled children of this generation will find it difficult to comprehend Christmas without cars, a number of today’s stress-fuelled adults would struggle just as much to come up with the connection between this annual Winter festival and the name “Jesus”. Christmas is simply a holiday, a time to party, an opportunity to exchange gifts with loved ones. “Jesus” is a swear word.
Those of this generation who do take the time to acquaint themselves with the story of Jesus’ birth often struggle to see how this ancient event might impact their 21st Century lives. After all, what difference should it make to us that a peasant girl called Mary gave birth to this particular child two-thousand years ago?
The answer is: All the difference in the world!
Before the birth of Jesus, we had only a vague idea of what God was like. In Jesus, God became one of us, and revealed himself to us. Before the birth of Jesus, we had a set of religious laws but no access to the Spirit who had inspired them. In Jesus, we hear the words, see the actions, and are introduced personally to the Spirit of God’s law of love. Before the birth of Jesus, this world so full of pain, injustice and death gave us every reason to think that, if there was a God, he must be angry with us. In Jesus, the almighty God stooped down to our level and opened the way for us to receive his hurt-removing, life-enhancing, all-transforming love.
Those of us who know all of this could spend this Christmastime bemoaning the fact that others are missing the whole point. We could get irritated about all the debt, the greed, the commercialism. We could be tempted to lock ourselves away and wait for it all to pass. But just as surely as Jesus was born to make all the difference in the world, so the Christian Church exists to communicate that awesome fact. If we spend this time of year getting all huffy and superior then we too will be missing the whole point of Christmas! Jesus was born for everyone, and not just for those who already know him. So for those within our community who do not yet know the world-saving, soul-changing, darkness-banishing good-news of the true Christmas story, let’s use all the means at our disposal to get the message out.
Every blessing
Pastoral letter - November 2009
From our Minister
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away”
I was a small child in primary school when I had my first lesson in remembering. Our teacher told us how during the reign of James the First a group of Roman Catholics plotted to topple the Protestant government by blowing up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder. We were told how on 5th November 1605 the plot was discovered and one of the plotters - a man called Guy Fawkes - was the first to be arrested as he guarded the gunpowder. Our teacher taught us this 400 year old ditty: Remember, remember the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason and plot, I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot. I do recall being a little confused as to why this particular historical fact was quite so important for us to remember. After all, one of my friends was a Roman Catholic, and he didn’t seem so bad!
Even without the gunpowder plot, November would be a month full of remembering. November 1st, which this year falls on a Sunday, is All Saints day when we traditionally recall the faithful Christian men and women that have gone before us into glory. On the afternoon of the 1st we will be holding our special commemoration service for those who have lost loved ones in recent years. And then on November 8th we will be joining thousands of people throughout the country in observing 2 minutes silence as we honour the memories of all those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in times of international conflict.
In many senses, remembering the past is a very good thing. It is right to honour the giants of the past on whose shoulders we now stand. It is wise to learn from the experiences and reflections of our forebears in the faith. And it is sensible also to learn from past mistakes in order to guard against them being repeated.
There is, however, a danger that if we spend too long lingering in the past then we may well end up living there, and as Edmund Burke put it ‘You can never plan the future by the past.’ So alongside remembering our past this November, we need also to remember our future. It seems to me that the greatest saints are those who remember above-all-else the future that God has planned for them, and who consistently steer a course in that direction. The passage above from Revelation 21 presents that future to us: It is a future without death; without tears; and without pain. It is a future in which God’s presence with us is so tangible that no-one can doubt it.
As we enter this month of remembering, my earnest prayer is that God’s future for us would begin to break into our present reality, and that we would be granted the great privilege of experiencing today the tangible evidence of God’s death-defying, tear-wiping, wholeness-giving presence.
Minister's Letters
about the deeds Christ had done,
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,