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.
unless a grain
unless a grain
John 12: 20-33
why wait for death
to sweep you from the floor
before you shed the centred-self
that speeds you to her door?
why wait for death
to start to take apart
the closed and shuttered capsule
of your tightly guarded heart?
why wait for death
to lift you to a place
where you might see
the face of love
and know it as your own
eternal home?
why wait for death
while life demands release;
a long and fruitful burial
of all that hinders peace?
why wait for death
to live this hour?
© Jennie Gordon 2009 Used by Permission
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