October 18 - One World Week

The whole creation cries to us penetratingly, with a great cry, about the existence and the beauty and the love of God. The music roars it into our ears and the landscape calls it into our eyes… In all of nature we find God’s initials and all of God’s creatures are God’s love letters to us.

Ernesto Cardenal

Servants with Creation

⁴¹When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve ...

Mark 10

What does it mean to be in relationship with the earth ? How do we see the natural world around us and how do we treat it through our various everyday actions and decisions ?

If we follow Jesus' teaching here our relationship to the planet (just like our relationships with one another) is not about domination but mutual service. As a world we seek to serve one another and God. This means a recognition that we are part of creation, and not something apart or aloof from it.

So what might it mean for us to take Jesus' words here seriously in our relationship with the earth ?

The discussion started this morning but continues here ...

Peter

More details on the Copenhagen Summit can be found here.

More details on One World Week can be found here.

Sunday September 13 - Who do you say that I am ?

Mark 8: 27 - 38
The Christ We Share

This morning we viewed, discussed and reflected on a series of 32 images of Christ from around the world, all reminding us that Christ is visualised and experienced in many different forms by different people in different times and places.

You might wish to continue your reflections on the different images here. Which did you like and why ? Were there any you didn't like ? What would / does your image of Christ look like ?



Thank you to those who brought in the image / object which helps you to respond to the question "Who do you say that I am ?"



A number of people commented on the image below that it was difficult to tell which one was Jesus - a reminder perhaps that we are each called to be "Christ" to one another ...

16 AUGUST 2009 - Hannah, Mary and Prayer

We’re half-way through our season of All Age Praise and Worship at Time for God, during which we looked at Gifts, Good News and all manner of things. We had some quirky songs to begin – Have you heard the Raindrops? (this chorus goes nicely to the Rupert the Bear song), followed by Christ’s Love is the Best Love (Fred Flinstone). Great Fun!

We looked at Hannah’s yearning for a child in 1 Samuel 1, whereupon the children made presents out of Play Doh and decided to whom they would give them in the hall (Well they had to give them away there and then since Play Doh doesn’t travel well on a warm day!), which was followed by a rendition of “I am a new Creation” and read Mary’s song of praise from Luke 1. We looked at both Readings and considered different sorts of prayer; Praise, Sorry and Thanks – making sure that “Asking” was the last and smallest. The need to put God first and what we can do for others was considered, and lastly, we placed post-it prayer notes on to our prayer wall, while the children finished their gifts and gave them away. Our “Sorry” prayers were based around “Three F’s” of sin; fear, fantasy and failure; The fear of believing we are nothing; building fantasy pictures of ourselves; which can ultimately lead to the failure of putting God first and worshipping ourselves instead. Hmmm!

Finally we sang Mary’s song “Tell out my soul” and finished up with “He’s got the whole wide world”. The adults took part in the Play Doh creations – since they were longing to “have a go” and an imaginative time was had by all. So with Valerie at the piano and my faithful band of stewards on hand, the whole morning went with a swing.

And so to next week … Just watch this space!

Deacon Olivia

August Holidays

Owing to the Summer holidays, the TFG blog may not be updated regularly until September. However, feel free to conmment on any of the existing posts or indeed anything else that you would like to. Normal service will resume next month ...

ALL AGE PRAISE 26 JULY 2009

“IS IT FAIR – LET’S SHARE!”

We’re into the season of fun and games with All Age Praise every week until September! So what did we do? Well of course we looked at Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 and enjoyed a variety of songs; My God is so BIG; Make me a channel of your peace; Be bold, be strong; Father I place into your hands; and Colours of Day. We looked at Exodus 22 and talked about not ill-treating a stranger. During “Is it Fair” the children set up a Teddy Bears’ picnic and shared biscuits (pink for Emily’s sake!) equally. In “Let’s Share” following the “5000” reading (John 6), we drew up Menus with unusual components from around the world whilst the more sedentary among us wrote the prayers. We looked at sharing the world’s resources and were thankful for all that we have – since we realised that we have so much compared with much of the rest of the world. So we all considered how we might “do our bit” and ask for a fresh in-filling of God’s Spirit to enable us to do it.

After all Jesus said “As you did it for one of … these, you did it for me”. (Matt.25)

A lot of thought provoking took place – I hope your thoughts are moved too.

Peace and Joy!
Deacon Olivia

Sunday 12th July Mark 6:14-29

The beheading of John the Baptist

There are many different aspects to this story and each one will speak to a
different group of people. Maybe, it is the way Herod was interested in what
John was preaching even though he was being criticized. Maybe it is the fact
that Herodias got her way by using her daughter. We commented in TFG that we all have our own agendas so God will speak to us each in a different way.
I was struck while thinking about how we apply the story to our own lives. We can see from the story that John the Baptist was not afraid to speak out. We are sometimes slow to speak out about the wrongs in our world. He was
pointing the way to Jesus who must also be our Saviour and Lord. He was
higlighting the need for repentance. We too must put aside all the wrongs of
our past and make a fresh start with Jesus. Also, at the end he was killed
and we too must be prepared for persecution and maybe even death for what we believe.

Let us know you views and how God has spoken to you through this story.

Peter Ewen

Sunday July 5 - Appearances are Misleading

In our All Age Praise on 5 July we looked at: “Appearances are misleading – Judging!”

We had great fun with a brief passage from 1 Samuel, and why Eliab was rejected. For this section, the very young children each chose a cuddly toy of their choice and then said why they liked it. So we learned that it wasn’t necessarily the most beautiful or smart that was selected, but for many reasons.

We then listened to Jesus’ words “Don’t judge others, so that God will not judge you” from Matthew 5.

Following this the older ones explored optical illusions, how they appeared from different angles and the visual deceptions they produced; how mind and sight put things in place that aren’t there and add effects to alter perception. This, as I told, the adults is what happens when we try to judge people; we don’t know why they are how they are, we can never walk in their shoes, so we can’t form an objective opinion. We have to leave that to God. No-one is good enough to judge others. Only the faultless has a right to look for faults in others; and that one is, and can only ever be, our Lord Jesus.

So we came to the conclusion that Appearances are misleading – in judging others we’ll come unstuck. We must learn to think the best of all people and can only hope they’ll do the same for us. We had various songs such as Give me oil in my lamp, Whether you’re one and When I needed a neighbour and enjoyed some children’s interactive prayers by Pauline. It all worked really well.

We left with green and yellow paper heart-shaped promises to re-commit ourselves to God and to each other, but not before we had enjoyed a lovely piece of Hazel’s birthday cake!

Peace and Joy!

Deacon Olivia