What a wonderful weekend we had at church - so many precious moments that I am still porcessing them all.
I've never quite understood the human fascination with fives and zeros, but it exists, so we may as well go with it!
Five years ago, we covenanted together as "WIMPS for Jesus" or maybe "WIMPS with Jesus" even though we would not have used either of those expressions. Our covenant, based on the BUGB five core values of Worship, Inclusivity, Mission, Prophetic witness and Sacrificial living, is a tough one - not really one for wimps after all.
For five years, in good times and bad, happy and sad, we have journeyed together with this covenant binding us to each other, and to God, towards an eschatological horizon where these values will find full and final expression in the new creation.
It was good to look back over the five years and note a few examples of what it has meant to try to live out those values... the struggles as well as the successes, the work in progress as well as the achievements.
As I've reflected, and as over the last few weeks I have experienced both the heart-breaking pain and the heart-aching joy of serving this community, this covenant, and our shared commitment to it is, at the end of the day, all about love. Love for God, love for neighbour and love for self.
Sometimes we focus more on the 'vertical', spiritual dimension, or at least a cerebral, philosophical one. Sometimes we we focus more on the 'horizontal', practical, earthly dimension, or at least in talking about it. Sometimes we manage to join up our faith and our living more than others. And sometimes, just sometimes, are those wonderful, fleeting, mind-blowing, heart-soaring moments when we glimspe who we are in Christ, who God calls us to be, what it is all about.
On Sunday, someone who has been attending for just a few weeks said to me, "I really like this church"... That was one of those moments when you know it's all worthwhile. The anguish over words that cannot be retracted. The anxiety over who might be offended by this or that. The banging on about mission or justice or having faith that God will undertake if our motives are in line with the divine. All these, and more besides, find a sense of proportion when one person glimspes what we aspire to be as WIMPS with and for Jesus.
Five years - it's flown by. Today I feel excited for where God is taking us next and inspired to keep on keeping on, even when it's tough, even when it hurts, because, d'you what, it'll all be OK, and one day, one day, we'll reach that hoped for horizon.