Today we had our All-Age Harvest Festival at St John's Seven Kings. Our congregation generously collected a large amount of Harvest goods to donate to the Redbridge Food Bank. After the service we enjoyed a bring & share Harvest lunch. In the service we thought about the third of the Transforming Presence priorities - serving with accountability.
"They spent their time in learning from the apostles, taking part in the fellowship, and sharing in the fellowship meals and the prayers." In a single verse Acts 2.42 describes the life of the very first Christian community. It is a community which is faithful to Christ. It is a community that is growing as the Lord adds more people to its number.
It has a life of clarity, integrity and mutual accountability. The apostles teaching, fellowship with each other, the breaking of bread and the life of prayer constitute and characterise the life they have in Christ.
In Transforming Presence Bishop Stephen asks us to consider how these things are evident in the life of our community? What else would we add to this list? Or, put another way, what aspects of the apostles teaching need to go alongside these other three basic priorities of our life together?
Is there a bottom line? Is there a set of ministries and activities that we should expect to find in every Christian community, whatever its context and circumstance, and about which we should hold ourselves accountable? Is there a rule of life for the local Christian community? Are there a set of ingredients that constitute a faithful, healthy Christian community?
Our churches should be places of prayer; places where people learn about the faith and are active in discipleship; places where there is a ministry of evangelism; places where ministry is shared and developed; places which serve the local community; places that are inclusive and welcome to all; places which are seeking the unity of all God’s church and working with their neighbours locally and globally.
We must move, Bishop Stephen suggests, to a situation where it is no longer possible or acceptable for a church to say, for instance, ‘we don’t do children or young people’ or ‘evangelism isn’t our thing.’ Each community will, in its own way, be developing a common set of ministries so that we might be a church that is faithful to its apostolic calling.
As part of doing so, a Diocesan rule of life could help us answer the following questions:
· What are we doing to teach people to pray?
· What are we doing to teach people the faith and help them in their discipleship?
· What are we doing to share the faith with others and what have the results been in the past year? And does our church have a place of nurture?
· What are we doing to nurture and develop the ministry of the whole people of God including enabling people to come forward for authorised lay and ordained ministry?
· How is your church a blessing to the community we serve? And how are we witnessing to God’s kingdom of justice and peace?
· What are you doing to ensure our church is a place of safety and welcome for all ages and for people of all backgrounds?
· How are we working in partnership with other Christian communities in our locality and at the diocesan, national and global levels?
As we ask and answer such questions we are being accountable to each other and to God for the ministry of this Church. Similarly Stewardship month is a time when we stop and reflect on our actions and activity and review what we are doing. To do this is to be accountable to God and each other.
At Harvest and in Stewardship month we regularly remember that our church is made up of people who, together, trust in and follow Jesus. We depend on Jesus and care for each other and for the community where we live. By being together as the disciples of Jesus we can offer spiritual sacrifices of our time, energy, abilities and possessions to bless God and our neighbours, by:
· offering ourselves as ‘living sacrifices’ in love of God and our neighbour – including our enemies (Romans 12)
· living a life of love – following the sacrificial example of Jesus (Ephesians 5:2)
· sharing our possessions with those in need inside and outside our community (Philippians 4:18, cf. Galatians 6:10)
· praising God together and sharing with people living in poverty (Hebrews 13:15–16)
But we are not on our own. We are also part of the global church – all made of living stones. Jesus the cornerstone joins us together. Our church, through Jesus, is joined to churches locally, nationally and internationally. We offer spiritual sacrifices to God, which benefit the people around us. We can also demonstrate unity through supporting – and praying with – churches across the world. As living stones, together, through Jesus Christ, we are being built into God’s global church, his spiritual home. Together we are church.
We are one of the richest nations in the world; we have been given so much. God calls us to make spiritual sacrifices for his kingdom, and we can start today by committing to offer spiritual sacrifices, through prayer, by giving regularly to this church and the global church, and by taking action to care better for the world in which we live (see today’s Stewardship form). These sacrifices, made in partnership with other churches - like King’s Church who run the Redbridge foodbank and the Anglican Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo whose youth work we support - enable more and more churches to bring spiritual and material transformation to their own communities. Together we are church.
Matt Redman - I Will Offer Up My Life.
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