I was just reading Richard's report for YBA on his church's Hope 08 initiatives - FANTASTIC!  One of the central themes is doing things for free and turning away offers to pay for car washing etc.  This is a culture I have been advocating - and largely managing to achieve - in the initiatives of our little church too.  We give away stuff at our events which usually astounds people who then ask us why - though having said that at our last event someone objected to the fact that the Fairtrade Gift Stall was, as advertised, selling products.  We have hosted meals, given goody bags to children, painted faces, hired bouncy castles, given away butties in the pub and so on for one simple reason - God gives freely to us.

Back in the 1980's (I think) the song 'freely, freely' was very popular.  Thinking back, it is probably one of those from which the message lodged somewhere deep in my psyche or soul or wherever things lodge.  When we used to sing it in GB in Warrington, local accents rendered it free-er-lee, free-er-lee and I guess that's how I still hear it - but the message is still valid: free-er-lee you have received, free-er-lee give to others.  The song is very dated, and it is not without its limitations, but I like its missional thrust.

John 3:16 says 'God so loved the cosmos that he gave...' I think sometimes we get so hung upon the super holy aspects of this, so accustomed to the traditional interpretation as 'world' which we then hear as 'humanity,' that we miss the word 'gave.'  God didn't leave out a saucer for donations, rather the choice was do something that embarasses us in its open handed generosity - God gave.  Maybe if we can truly grasp the idea of giving away our love - in flowers, car washes, litter picks, lunches with lonely people, smiles on the faces of children, carols in the pub or whatever - it is we who will blessed as we begin to grasp a little more of the mystery who the God who gives free-er-lee to all...