Advent 2020 Reflection – Day Thirteen

Day 13 – 3 John 9-11

⁹ I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us. ¹⁰ So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.

¹¹ Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.

Reflection

There is a real sadness in todays reading. A leader of the church refusing to welcome others into his congregation. Rightly John exposes the unacceptabilty of this situation.

I, like you I am sure, long for more people to join us in worshipping God in our churches. How do we encourage that is always the question. We have become a world where most people are not exposed to God in their lives and so coming into church is a real “leap of faith”. How we conduct our worship has to be accessible to those with little experience of church. That is not to say simplistic but accessible. I often think back to a field trip to Wales when I was at University far too many years ago. On the Sunday morning I decided I would like to go to church and so as most of my fellow students were fast asleep I climbed into my motorbike leathers and headed off to the nearest Methodist chapel.

Walking into the church I was warmly greeted despite my leathers and long hair. They told me that they were due to have worship in Welsh that day. However, as I was there they would forgoe  that and worship in English instead. It was a brilliant service we sang loud enough to lift the roof of the chapel and one of the members at the back of the church could not get enough of it restarting most of the hymns again as we finished. It was clearly a common occurance as the organist did not seem at all phased by it just joining in as the hymn started again. It is a mark of the welcome I recieved that day that I remember it as if it were yesterday and it was nearly 40 years ago. How different it would have been if they had insisted in continuing the service in Welsh – I would still remember it but for all the wrong reasons.

As we emerge from the restrictions of the pandemic we need to take the opportunity to look at how we worship and the lessons we have learned from our online worship. We cannot afford to go back to what we have always done for although we do not exclude people directly like Diotrephes we perhaps do by our inaction and unwillingness to change.

Silence

In our time of silence today we think of the times when we have complained that worship was not what we expected whether expressed or just in our thoughts. We also think of different things we could do to make worship more accessible and commit to working those ideas through with the church leadership.

Carol

I have chosen as my carol for today Light a candle in a darkened place. Which can be found in Singing the Faith 174. “Time for hope and not for fear”. We are called to light the candles in our lives and let them burn, bringing the light of Christ to those who live in the darkness of not knowing God.

Prayer

Loving God we come before you in sorrow for the times we have insisted on our own preferences and turned away others from you by our actions. We pray that you will help us to accept change, especially when we find that change hard and painful. Help us to see that you come to each of us in the way that we need and that you desire everyone to come into a personal relationship with you. The scriptures show the way that you engage people through the wonder of nature and the use of story, making use of words and images which resonated with those hearing your word.

We pray for new and innovative ways of spreading your Good News and for our own willingness to embrace these for your glory. May our face to face words and actions be enhanced and magnified by our use of the digital resources we have at our disposal. Amen