Cruising With Noah

Why not send your children on a cruise this Summer? We’re once again running a holiday Bible club with a week full of the usual craft, games, challenges, songs, and general silliness! But this year there’s a musical twist as we’ll also be rehearsing for a musical production which will be performed on the Sunday morning. Just like the successful Amazon Adventure, Waste Watchers and Summer Knights holiday clubs of previous years, all local children aged 5-11 are invited to come along and join in the fun.

‘Cruising with Noah’ takes place at Bottisham Primary School during the first week of the school holidays. The club itself runs 9.00am until 12.30pm from Monday 25^th until Friday 29^th July, and we invite a donation of £2 per day per child as a contribution towards our costs. The performance of the musical is being held at 10.30am on Sunday 31^st July and admission to this is free, although we will be taking an offering towards the work of Tearfund. We’re inviting families to bring some snacks and sandwiches and to join us on the school field afterwards for a picnic lunch – there’ll be a bouncy castle and an ice-cream van in attendance too!

We have 9 principle acting roles available (no speaking required) and we will be auditioning for these at the beginning of the week. All children, however, will be involved in the singing of all the songs, and will be invited to dress up as one of the animals on the ark and we’ll also be making masks as one of the craft activities during the week. The musical itself explores in a fun way the tensions between the animals who are ‘Cruising with Noah’ and helps the children to think about issues like conflict, hunger and poverty. The club has been organised by RE:NEW and the team members will be people from this and other local churches. As always, the club is operated in line with our child protection policy – the welfare of the children at the club is very important to us.

Registration forms should already have gone into all of the local schools – please do send them back swiftly as places are allocated on a first come first served basis and we have to limit the number of children we can take for health and safety reasons. If your child doesn’t give you a registration form, or if you want to ensure your child’s place by booking early, then you can contact me directly or download a form from our website. All aboard – Noah’s Ark will be leaving very soon!

Family Friendly

At RE:NEW we call ourselves a family friendly church, and that is what we hope to be – but our definition of ‘family’ is a very broad one! Although we make provision on a Sunday morning for those with children (we have a crèche, a group for primary aged children, and a group for teenagers) we also welcome a number of people who are now enjoying retirement. This includes one of the members of our music team who bounces up and down to some of the livelier songs we sing more than those of us who are half his age! “To be seventy years young is sometimes more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old!” (Anon)

Indeed, the ministry of RE:NEW, at the school and with Queen’s Court, proudly reaches across the age spectrum. I like to describe life in four stages: the first phase (ages 0-19) is filled with energy, the second (20-39) is characterised by idealism, the third (40-59) are years defined by maturity, and the fourth (60+) is marked by the wisdom of those who have reached it. Our society often seems to value one stage above another (the majority of TV presenters, for example, fall in the second age bracket), but any community suffers if it misses the contribution of one or another of these groups. Where no children are present there is a lack of joy and energy, but equally, when we ignore the older people in our society, we are all the poorer for it. As Proverbs 16:31 tells us “Grey hair is a crown of splendour”!

Each year I hold a special service at Queen’s Court to celebrate the role that older people play in our society, and this year’s event is being held at 3pm on Sunday 5^th June. Based on the census theme it’s called ‘Count Me In’ and encourages us to recognise that the accumulation of years is no reason for the contribution of older people to be rejected or overlooked. There will be an offering for the work of MHA (the charity who run the home) and after the service there will be refreshments and an opportunity to find out more about volunteering at Queen’s Court. As someone who spends a number of hours at the care home week by week I know that it not only the resident who benefits from the occasional visit! I do hope many of you will come along and show those at Queens Court that they are still loved and appreciated by the local community.

Happy Birthday King James

Today, 2^nd May 2011, marks the 400^th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible, also popularly known as the Authorised Version. Over the past couple of months you may have seen a variety of television programmes exploring the historic context of this translation and celebrating its deliberately memorable prose. Indeed, it’s amazing that when I have occasionally used the King James Bible in services at Queen’s Court (the care whom at which I am chaplain), many of the residents, even some of those suffering from dementia, can recall whole passages from this version that is so familiar from their youth.

In the centuries prior to the Reformation the Bible had only been available in Latin, and it was partly out of the desire to make the Bible more widely accessible in the English language that the writing of the King James Version (KJV) was commissioned. The motivation to make the Bible accessible to everyone is what continues to inspire those who translate the Bible today. Indeed, there is still much work to do to ensure that the word of God can be heard in every tongue and dialect used throughout the world.

For 250 years the King James Bible had very few rivals, but as the English language evolved over time, and words like ‘Thee’, ‘Thou’ and ‘verily’ fell out of common usage, new versions became necessary. The scholars involved in a new translation always return to the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, and as some of the oldest copies of these biblical documents weren’t found until the 1940s (when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered) we can be increasingly certain about the accuracy of the text that we read.

Whilst some of those with a church background continue to find the text of the KJV familiar and beautiful, many from a younger generation are encountering the power of the Bible through versions which communicate its ageless truth in a language which is bang up to date. These include one version in ‘street language’ and another called the ‘Manga Bible’ which uses a graphical format popular amongst teenagers. You can also purchase the ‘Poverty and Justice Bible’ and the ‘Green Bible’ which highlight in a different colour all of the many Bible verses referring to these respective issues. The Bible, of course, is no longer limited to text on a page either, you can also now access the Bible online and via an app on your mobile phone!

The Christian faith is one which the church is called to proclaim afresh in each generation and these new translations are a vital tool in this task. As we celebrate 400 years since the publication of the King James Version I thank God for those who continue to help each new generation realise that the Bible is a living text, and one that continues to change the lives of those who read it.

Count Me In!

If you're reading this article in the UK you should have now completed your census forms and returned them to the authorities. It’s compulsory that we do it – although this year we did have a choice between using pen and ink or entering our details online. For centuries people have been counted by their leaders – and there are examples of censuses taking place in the Bible. Most people will remember the one that caused Joseph and Mary to be in Bethlehem when Jesus was born, but did you know that the book of Numbers actually gets its name from a census that was taken by Moses just after the people of Israel escaped from Egypt?

As we approach Easter later this month we are reminded of the events that led to the death of Jesus on the cross – the cheering crowd at his entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and the jeering crowd shouting “Crucify Him!” at the trial where he was condemned. When the time came for those closest to Jesus to ‘stand up and be counted’ it turned out that Judas betrayed him and Peter denied even knowing him. Thankfully for Peter the cross was not the end – the risen Jesus forgave and reinstated him and he became a key figure in the early church.

In the census, when it came to the “What is your religion?” box, we too had an opportunity to stand up and be counted. The trouble is its easy just to tick a box – and ten years ago more than 70% of us said that we were ‘Christian’. With only 7% of the population regularly attending Sunday worship it leaves me genuinely asking what the church is doing wrong for people who are happy to categorise themselves as believers to choose not to associate with other Christians week by week.

Louis Armstrong once sung about heaven with the words “Oh Lord I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in!” If you ticked the ‘Christian’ box why not join with other believers to celebrate the event at the heart of our faith, and the basis for our hope of life after death – the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I'm sure you’ll be welcome at any local church, and if you're anywhere near Bottisham, why not come to our all-age RE:NEW service on Easter Sunday (with an egg hunt for the children).

Fairtrade Fortnight

I buy fairtrade – and I’m proud of it! I’ve even got a couple of clerical shirts made with 100% fairtrade cotton…

This year’s fairtrade fortnight theme is ‘Show Off Your Labels’ and it celebrates the amazing growth in the range of fairly traded items available after more than twenty years of campaigning. Back then you had to find a specialist retailer, such as Traidcraft, but now you can walk into most supermarkets and find a range of items that carry the fairtrade logo.

If you saw the BBC series called ‘Blood, Sweat and T-shirts’ you will know some of the terrible stories that lie behind so many of the products in our shopping trolleys. Chocolate that isn’t fairly traded may well be made with ingredients that include exploitation and violence. Most cocoa beans come from West Africa where tens thousands of children are traffiked and trapped into forced labour.

Not only is the fairtrade label a sign that its producers have received a fair price for their labour, it also ensures that children in these developing countries are educated rather than exploited. You can now buy some of your favourite bars, like Dairy Milk and Kit-Kat, with the fairtrade label on them. This is real progress, but all of the other bars manufactured by companies like Nestlé, Mars and Cadburys are yet to be traffik free.

We’re a registered fairtrade church which means that all of the tea and coffee we serve after our services carry the label. It also means that we regularly take part in campaigns to try and change this world for the better, including one (click here to visit 'Stop The Traffik') in which we sent postcards to one of these chocolate companies asking them to consider extending their faritrade provision.

Alternatively during this fairtrade fortnight, why not see what the ethical options are as you do your weekly shop? There are other labels, like ‘Rainforest Alliance’, which also indicate a supply chain that is kinder to people and to the planet. Often the prices are very similar to the unethical choices – and even if you do have to pay a few pennies more, isn’t having a clear conscience worth it?

Love is...

Sometimes, when people tell me that they don’t believe in God, I ask them what sort of God it is that they don’t believe in. Once they’ve told me about an unloving deity who is distant and uninterested, I’m able to say that I don’t believe in that sort of God either. The church is made up of fallible humans like me, and over the years I think, by our words and our actions, we’ve often done a bad job of representing the one in whose name we gather. The Bible tells us that “God is love”, and in the life and teaching of Jesus we see this spelled out in great detail.

God’s standards of love are high. The story of the Good Samaritan, for example, is powerful because it calls us to a love that reaches beyond our prejudices and personal interests. When Jesus tells us to “love our enemies” he’s letting us know that love isn’t always fluffy and feel-good, but sometimes painful and sacrificial; and he puts this into practice when he goes to the cross on our behalf: “greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. Indeed, love can never just be a feeling and always needs to be expressed in actions – relationships fail when this truth isn’t grasped. Although 1 Corinthians 13 is a passage that is often read out at weddings, it’s a ‘love to-do list’ appropriate not just for couples, but for families and friendships, and society as a whole. In it we not only see a glimpse of the character of God, but also something that we can aspire to and work towards.
 

Love is patient – sticking with it for the long term.

love is kind – making the interests of others a priority.

It does not envy – happy for others, not jealous of them.

it does not boast – not emphasising personal success.

it is not proud – not having a sense of superiority

It is not rude – not putting people down.

it is not self-seeking – not lifting yourself up.

it is not easily angered – slow to anger.

it keeps no record of wrongs – quick to forgive.

Love does not delight in evil – standing against what’s wrong.

but rejoices with the truth – standing up for what is right.

It always protects – looking out for the weak and vulnerable.

always trusts – keeps believing in God and others.

always hopes – remaining optimistic for the future.

always perseveres – gets back up, again and again.

Love never fails – never underestimate what love can achieve.

'Happy' New Year

As we start 2011 I want to wish you a very ‘happy’ new year. But in twelve months time, how will you know if it has been – happy that is? Towards the end of last year David Cameron announced a £2m plan to develop a measure of well-being, saying that Gross Domestic Product “is an incomplete way of measuring a country's progress”. He is not alone – Tony Blair floated the same idea, and long before either of them, the US Senator, Robert Kennedy, stated that the GDP measured everything "except that which makes life worthwhile".

The cynics amongst you might point out that when the economic situation is poor politicians will obviously start searching for any measure of progress that might put them in a good light – but let’s not dismiss the idea just yet. We might, however, want to discuss what we actually mean by happiness. Is it the same thing as work/life balance or well-being? Is it dependent upon the circumstances we find ourselves in, or somehow deeper than that, an inner sense of positivity and joy?

The original Hebrew of the Old Testament has a word that I think sums it up well – Shalom! In our English versions we translate it as ‘peace’, but it’s much more than that. The word ‘wholeness’ might be closer to the mark, a sense of ‘completeness’. This isn’t about having everything we want, either materially or emotionally, but rather entering a spiritual place where our connections with one another, with God, and with the world he has made, are being restored and deepened.

In February we’ll be starting a new style of service at Lode Chapel called ‘Healing Space’ and it’s this sort of ‘happiness’ that we will be inviting people to seek after and find. The word ‘healing’ comes from the same root as ‘wholeness’ and when Christians pray for healing we ask God to bring his Shalom into the midst of the ‘dis-ease’ of our bodies, minds, hearts and souls. It’s true to say that God doesn’t always bring physical healing, but most people generally feel a greater sense of ‘Shalom’ after they have been prayed for – and sometimes miracles do happen.

If you're local to Lode Chapel, and could do with a bit of Shalom in 2011, you would be welcome to come along and receive confidential prayer support. Details will be on our websites (http://www.lodechapel.org.uk/ and http://www.re-new.me.uk/) later this month. There’ll be no sermon, no singing, just plenty of ‘Healing Space’.