Why "rewire" the church? Church has been at the centre of my identity. It’s formed me, frustrated me, deeply angered and hurt me, guided me, and protected me. Some of the most challenging ideas I have ever met, far more radical than the lawn meetings of my student days, have come from the theologians of the church. There has been a sense of connection to the tradition and wisdom of millennia. And, inevitably, the frustration of tradition hide-bound. I remember singing the words of a hymn one Sunday morning, “nothing changes here...” and one of the youth group muttered sotto voce to his girlfriend, “God, you can say that again!” What worked for our parent’s church doesn’t necessarily work for us. I notice it often doesn’t work for them anymore, although older people are sometimes more gracious about their frustrations! Life changes, we change, and constantly need to reassess where we are going.
This little church on the web is modelled around the metaphor of an old and treasured house. It's the house our parents lived in and inherited from someone we never knew. The house is strong and robust, but needs rewiring. Our ways of thinking and being need to change to make the house liveable and practical. Otherwise it will be a burden, not a base camp for life.
Response to the Word
Response in Prayer as we grieve our losses
Note that the congregation repeated the prayer. There is nothing on paper, or up on the screeen.
(Please repeat the lines after me)
I confess my inadequacy to reach out to more people
I own my grief that our congregation is so small
I are ashamed that we have powerless for so long.
I am afraid to make changes and begin something new
when I don’t know if it will work, or quite how to go about it.
God help me live love to the people around me.
God move me to love the person next door.
God give me courage to be a friend to the person sitting next to me.
Help me live like Jesus.
Grant me peace in my heart because I am loved.
Grant me peace in my heart because God loves me.
Grant me joy in my soul, because God is my home, and gives me a life.
Amen.
Andrew Prior
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