Depending on where you get your daily doses of national media you may or may not be aware that the Church of England released a short advert to promote a new website - JustPray.
The plan was that this short ad would play in cinemas before the new Star Wars movie - along with ads for new cars, clothes, hotdogs and popcorn. But although cleared by all the relevant bodies the ad has been banned by the Odeon, Cineworld and Vue chains.
This has promoted a backlash amongst some parts of the media who have taken the opportunity to get on their usual soapboxes and bang their predictable drums. But here is one of the best pieces I have read a response by the Bishop of Sheffield who reminds us of the power of the Lord's Prayer and why we shouldn't be surprised that those involved in the media business should want it banned.
Tomorrow (19th November) will be the last of our days of Prayer and Fasting before the Vision Evening on Wednesday 25th November. So as we continue to ask God for wisdom and guidance concerning his vision for CBC it will be good to reflect on how we hear from God.
In Acts 15 the church leaders in Jerusalem are wrestling with the new phenomena of Gentile Christians and how they fit into the church alongside Christians from a Jewish background. How do the freedoms we read about in the gospels fit with the traditions of the Old Testament faith of Israel? How are these Jewish Christians to make sense of the clear acts that God is performing in and through Gentile Christians? What about circumcision or eating pork? And so a council is called for the church leaders to come together, to pray and to discuss this exciting development in the life of the early church and how best to respond to it. ‘What has this to do with us at CBC?’ I hear you ask. The letter that was sent out from the Jerusalem church uses the phrase (verse 28) “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us …” rather than phrases such as ‘God has said…’ or ‘God has told us that…’ As we look forward to meeting together next Wednesday you may:
feel certain about what God has been saying to you over these last few weeks,
have some idea about what God has been saying, but you’re not sure how much of it is God and how much of it is you,
not feel that you’ve heard from God at all but you’ve got some good ideas about the way ahead.
One of the things that this verse in Acts 15:28 shows us is that all of these responses would be expected within a church, and is valid within a broader context of prayer and a desire to obey God. Sometimes God does speak clearly leaving us in no doubt as to what it is that he is saying. For example, this might be through a vision, or through an interpreted tongue, or through an audible voice. Sometimes we think we hear from God but we’re not sure whether it is God or whether it’s just thoughts that we’re having, generated by our own good ideas. For example, a thought comes into our head as we’re praying, or we have a picture - which we then try and interpret. Over time and through experience we might get a better sense of what is God and what is me - so we’re fairly sure it’s God but not 100%. And sometimes, even though we’ve been praying, we don’t feel we’ve heard anything from God but that doesn’t stop us thinking about things and discussing them together. One of the things that we should always do as individuals and as a church is to test and to weigh what we believe God is saying. And that is what we’ll be doing next week as we come together. We will spend some time praising and worshipping God and praying together and then we will split into smaller groups to listen to what we believe God has been saying over recent weeks concerning who we are and what we should be doing. Hopefully each of us will feel able to feed into this conversation and that by the end of this whole process (which is not the Vision Evening) we can say ‘it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…’
Last week my two youngest daughters went on a school trip to a church where they learnt about the parables of Jesus - I think. It was a little difficult to work out exactly what they had done as the excitedly tried to tell me on the way home. The plant pot in a plastic bag that had been thrust into my hand in the playground apparently contained a mustard seed. And there had been other stories too - there was one about a wedding, another one about a pearl, another one about hidden treasure.
They both brought home a small bag with a few items in that they had collected to remind them of the different stories. And they both had a piece of broken pottery. I never did learn what the piece of pottery was for, because it was at this point in the trip home that they descended into a full scale argument over whose piece of pottery was the biggest.
Some of you may have come across the Ugly Duckling Company - but if you haven't they exist to stimulate conversations around the big and the not so big questions of life - at least that's what their website says. One of the ways they do this is through Table Talk - for the iPad or as a pack of cards.
They have just released their Table Talk for Christmas advert - which you can watch now, and then pop over to the relevant app store and download for free. Click on a card and answer the questions. A few of the Christmas eve questions include: if you could change one thing about Christmas, what would it be? What would you like help with in the next hour? Can you name any of Santa's reindeer?
