Learning from the Persecuted Church

Two weeks from the last blog - and it's happened again! The spacious month of August has filled up.

The week before last was given over largely to a children's Holiday Club at Mossley Hill. Over 120 children came each day, and about 70 church members were involved. It was a tremendous feat of organization, and this year was the 25th consecutive year it has happened. It was also the one where I was most involved personally. Each day, I led a brief devotional, looking at 5 people in the Bible who said 'Here I am'. I then featured as 'Mr Tagliatelli', the head chef of a fish and chip restaurant. This involved a slapstick sketch each day with 'Salt' and 'Vinegar' my trainee chefs who eventually, last Sunday morning, managed to cover me with cream as they tried to ice a cake!  All good fun, but that meant lines to learn, rehearsal time, as well as prep for each day's devotional.

All well worth it. Tremendous atmosphere, some very happy children, and some very happy parents and grandparents too: 5 afternoons to themselves! Already next year's dates are in the diary.

That same week, a total of 7 deaths were recorded in our 3 parish areas - 8 if you include a small-hours call-out to a dying resident in a care home, for whom no RC priest could be found! It just happened to be the week between Administrators: one had left, the other didn't start till this week. They all had to be arranged, and although I wasn't taking all of them, each one required some organization. Three were of very elderly church members, whose funeral services are or will be genuine times of thanksgiving and hope. One - which I have taken - was of a 59 year old woman, murdered in South Africa, where she was running a holiday estate. Her family were distraught of course. 'Why did God allow this?' cried her niece to me. I could only refer to C.S. Lewis' writing that if there were no evil we would not know what good looked like. The response to atrocities is often remarkable for its courage, hope and beauty. There were at least 7 tributes to this remarkable woman at the service, who was clearly much loved and truly inspirational in lots of ways.

Because of the South African connection, I thought it appropriate (in answer to the niece's question), to quote Archbishop Desmond Tutu's words, 'Goodness is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate...Victory is ours through him who loved us.' At a few minutes notice, our choir - bless them! - sang it for us.

All this against the backdrop of the most horrific atrocities and inhumane behaviour in Northern Iraq and Syria. The stories coming from that region put our own struggles and difficulties into perspective. Reading the testimonies of some of our Christian brothers and sisters I am humbled, and have noticed 3 things:

• They are incredibly grateful for the smallest mercy and act of kindness, be it material help or the prayerful support of Christian brothers and sisters around the world.
• They have learned to trust God in ways we simply do not in our culture, where we can more often than not help ourselves, thank you very much. There is no one else they can trust, and so often the relationship with God is stronger, deeper, wider - making them more generous in their judgments than sometimes we are.
• They have hope - realising that this earth is not their home, they look forward to the heavenly country. As the writer to the Hebrews says, 'this world is not worthy of them'. In fact, chapter 11 from v32 is uncannily descriptive of what many experience today.

Two things follow from this:

1. Our need to care for these brothers and sisters. Could I appeal to all readers of this blog to donate to either Christian Aid: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/current/iraq-crisis-appeal/index.aspx or Canon Andrew White's own charity Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East: http://frrme.org/get-involved/donate/.
2. We are challenged to consider the strength of our own faith. Of course, none of us knows how we would react to persecution. But we can at least ask ourselves the question, 'Is my faith worth dying for?' If so, why? If not, why not?

August

It's the same every year. I look at my diary at the start of August, and think 'great - no meetings, I can get loads done.' I think of all the planning and preparation I can do. Then, suddenly, it's September and I think 'what happened? I didn't do half of what I intended.' I think it's the old cliche, that work expands to fill the time available. You think you've got loads of time, so you take longer to do things which normally would be fitted into a busy schedule.  This year...!

Today, we've had a brilliant day of HOPE - part of a nation-wide initiative to get 'church' out there, making its presence known in the neighbourhood. It was a fantastic collaboration between a number of local churches (mainly Anglican), Scripture Union, Youth for Christ, and the local Athletics Club, whose ground is adjacent to one of our churches. The sun smiled on us, 100s came: there was a barbecue, tea and cakes, bouncy castle, sports, prayer tent, 'messy' crafts, and loads of other activities. And all FREE. People simply could not believe there was no charge: imagine the delight of parents with small children. One visitor said to me he felt inclined to give more by way of a donation than any charge which might have been made. It was wonderful PR for the churches, and we hope will really develop our community relations. It's all about blessing our neighbourhood.

It's meant to end with an open-air service tomorrow on the same field. Unfortunately, I think Hurricane Bertha has other ideas. More likely to be in our church building. Hopefully that won't put people off. We hope it will not just be a gathering of church members.

I've been thinking again about evangelism, because in a sense this is what HOPE is all about. Not just PR, but providing opportunity for God-talk. My own prayer has been that just one person will come to faith this weekend - and more if possible. I hope I won't offend or embarrass anyone here, but I've been struck by something I've read this week which suggested that the coming to birth of a new Christian can be the spiritual equivalent of how a child is born! My summary would go thus:

1. It begins with Desire - for the other person, the Lover. Evangelism begins and ends with God, and our Christian hope for 'baby' Christians has nothing to do with proselytism, 'making converts', but love for God, out of which comes the hope that others will love him too.
2. Then there is Passion, which derives from the desire and leads to an expression of love. Sadly, I believe, as Christians, we are strikingly lacking in passion. Church life is often dull, mediocre, routinised. There is little expectation of the Holy Spirit shaking us, in such a way that something actually happens!
3. When a child is conceived, there is going to be Energy! (I won't elaborate here!!) But again, for a spiritual birth it doesn't just happen. Someone has to act, speak out, do something which calls attention to God's presence in the world be it for compassion or justice. Maybe just to read the Scriptures or engage in dialogue. I confess to having been guilty myself of acting as though people come to faith by a kind of osmosis. Action is required!
4. Conception. This is the natural, hoped-for result (in good time) of a loving, committed relationship between man and woman. May we not expect the same when there is a healthy relationship between God and his church? Another weakness of the Church today, it seems to me, is that we lack expectancy of anything ever being different. I realise, of course, that a hoped-for, longed-for child is not always possible, and couples sometimes have to come to terms with their childlessness. Likewise, I believe there are seasons in the church when we appear fruitless. But at this point, the circle is completed: we return to our Desire for the Other, which in the end is at the heart of our faith.

I hope this makes some kind of sense, without being too explicit. It certainly helps me, and fires me with a new hope of seeing more people new-born into a faith-relationship with Jesus Christ.