I started this working week with a visit to the Open Door Cafe for my coffee. I was putting up posters for Messy Church on Saturday (the banner will go up later when the wind dies down!) and stayed for coffee. I met a few people that I didn't know: a guy called Scott who's taking some Tuesdays off work to look after his son because his wife has gone back to work yesterday and their son doesn't start nursery till January. I had an interrupted conversation with a mum who thought that on the last occasion she came to a church service, the people there were all very old! She said that there was a young minister there - in 2006! Have I aged? Someone asked me recently if I was about to retire!
How others see us? Perceptions that people have of Church will shape the decisions they make - will I go to Church or not? How do we change these perceptions? Meeting people, listening to people, talking to people - it's a start!
Some of you have children who grew up in the life of the Church, but now don't attend. Why did they leave? What was it about the church that meant so much to their parents that they rejected? What would it take for your adult children to want to come back?
This link is to a video about Advent: it is a trailer for a website called busted halo that my browser complained about, but the You Tube trailer is well worth watching! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S02KOlw7dlA
The on-line Bible readings on SU's Wordlive site this morning are all about the forces that shape our lives. Isaiah 47 is a reflection on what shapes our lives: pleasure, superstition, self - or God. "I am, and there is none besides me" - these are words we declare about God, but Isaiah uses them to show that people in our world say them about themselves; atheism will declare that it is the force in Western civilization.
The challenge for Christians is to know that these words are only true of Jesus and that we live as if Jesus is the only 'I am' who shapes the way we think, speak and act.
