September/October 2024
Well, here we are, its September! The beginning of a new Connexional year. Summer is giving way to autumn; leaves are starting to fall from the trees; the light evenings are slowly becoming darker with each successive night. Things are changing all around us. On Thursday 29th August some of us attended the service for the Rev. Jemima Strain at Moor Lane Methodist Church, where we welcomed her into the NLSS circuit and on Saturday 31st August a special service was held at the Victoria Hall Bolton where the new North West England Methodist District, of which we are now a part, was officially recognised. Nothing stays the same – and because of that, its important for us to stop and take stock of where we are on our own spiritual journeys both as individuals and as a church and circuit.
Just recently I’ve been doing a lot of work in my garden – my back garden in particular! Well, I say I, but I have to admit that Graham did come over to help me. At the moment, my garden is all neat and tidy, new edges to the lawn, new gravel and plants in the borders but I know that even in its pristine state, my garden is already trying to become a nuisance as its always growing and developing and changing – why? because it is alive! It is a living thing! Thinking about that took me back to my biological knowledge, that living things share certain characteristics they grow, feed, move, excrete, respire, reproduce and respond.
Living things grow because they create new cells, they develop and change, they feed because they require nutrition to allow for energy to be released, they move in all kinds of ways that might be seen and unseen, they excrete to remove any waste, they respire to release energy that they need from food, they reproduce (or have the ability to reproduce) and create new life, and they respond to the stimuli of environment around them. Now, it seems to me that it’s a bit like the fruit of the spirit you can’t just have one of them, it’s all or nothing - for something to be ‘living’ it must have all of the seven characteristics not just one or two.
Ok...so where has my garden inspired musing got to? Well I know that the garden is full of living things, and I am fairly sure that I am a living thing, and those of you who will read this are living things... so what about being spiritually alive? Those seven characteristics seem like a pretty good checklist to me for our spiritual life – and what better time to have a bit of a check-up than the start of a new church year?
Are you spiritually alive? Am I? Is our church? Well, if we are... I think we should probably be showing all seven characteristics.
Grow: are we growing on our faith, changing and developing? Are we allowing God to shape us?
Feed: are we being fed? Are we taking opportunities to be fed by God, allowing him to give us the nutrition we need, not only through Sunday service but in other ways as well?
Move: do we move? Are we allowing God to lead us into new places or are we happy with staying put?
Excrete: are we removing the waste from our lives? Throwing away those things that are not of God the actions, thoughts, attitudes that pull us down?
Respire: are we using those things that feed us to release new energy in our service of God? Or are we feeling jaded and lifeless?
Reproduce: are we creating new followers of Christ? Or are we allowing and enabling other people’s faith to grow, reproducing our faith in other people and places? Speaking out for God, proclaiming his love and grace when the opportunity arises (and maybe when we have created an opportunity to!?)
Respond: are we responding to the places that God has placed us? Asking what it means for me to be a follower of Christ here – wherever that here may be? Asking what it means for us to be Gods church here – in this country,
So where are you? Where am I? Where are we? Is everything in place or do we need to do a bit of ‘gardening’? Well if we do... then I suppose it’s time to get on with it, thankfully I know a really good’ ‘spiritual’ gardener, “I have come” he says “that you may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Every blessing,
Sue