Today began feeling like everything that might go wrong would, but in the end it was really wonderful, with people packed in and at least seeming to enjoy themselves.

When I arrived, nothing was set up by way of tech., so I had to get it all out and set it up - that's fine, not a problem, just it was the first time I've needed to, and a few glitches arose along the way...

Then I realised that I had forgotten to print off the quiz... and had left the craft activity at home... ah well, I thought I can work around both of those...

So, I didn't make the fruit kebabs, instead substituting 'making Daniel snacks' to replace the craft....

And instead of the quiz, I thought, well we can just see what people can recall about Daniel... but in the end that was abandoned as people kept piling in from all sorts of people-groups and I opted to invite people to share where they had come for today, and where they were born, recognising that many have moved away from their place of birth and many have not.  It just about connected to the theme.

When we go to the sharing time, there were some great inputs - from questions about why Daniel refused to eat the royal food, to an account of how a dream of Jesus had lead to someone becoming a Christian, to beginning to think about why this set of stories is part of scripture.  

It was a truly remarkable morning with so many people we needed more chairs, had to open the doors to avoid overheating, and almost certainly had slightly obstructed fire exits (I chose not to look!).  Revival in Railway Town?  Just maybe!

Anyway, for any loyal readers who are interested, here are today's discussion questions:

• What comes to mind when you think about the story of Daniel:
  • Do you think it is a true story, is it a myth or a mixture of the two?
  • This is one of the stories of the exile (when the Hebrew people were in Babylon (Persia) why do you think they are included in the Bible?
    
    
• Dreams, visions and supernatural signs
  • In some cultures and religions dreams are taken very seriously even today, but we in the west usually don’t. What do you think about dreams, can they be significant?
  • What other Bible stories can you recall where dreams or visions were important?
  • How do you think God ‘speaks’ to people – or to put it another way, how might we discern the ‘Mind of Christ’?
  • The book of Daniel is an example of ‘apocalyptic’ writing – referring to the end of time. As such it is very difficult to understand, and there is a risk of dodgy or dangerous interpretation.  How do you think we should handle such parts of scripture and why?
    
    
• Thinking about religious freedom
  • Baptists right from their earliest days placed a very strong emphasis on religious freedom – even if they believed other people to be wrong, they should still have the right to practice their own faith. Do you agree with them? Why do you think this?
  • Daniel and his friends very publicly continued to practice their own religion, e.g. eating a vegan diet rather than the food offered by the court officials; e.g. refusing to bow to the statues, and insisting on praying three times a day. Do you think you would feel brave enough to do this?  Why is that?
  • In some parts of the world, it is dangerous to be a Christian (or indeed other faiths), risking arrest or even execution, yet people still express their faith. How might western Christians show their support?
  • Many people seek asylum on religious grounds; most are honest but, sadly, some are not, how can we be ‘wise as serpents and innocent as doves’ in our relationship with other people who claim to share our faith?

• Personally (mainly for private pondering)
  • Have you ever had to stand up for your beliefs as a follower of Jesus in a way that felt costly? Recall how it felt – would you do it again? Why is this?
  • Are there times when it is right to remain silent about your faith, and instead live out the values quietly? Some overseas mission partners have to do just this e.g. in Nepal, Afghanistan and South Korea.
  • How important for you is freedom of conscience (not just religion), and how far would you go to maintain it?

What do you like or dislike about the story of Daniel, and why?

Each week of our Cafe Church season I am using different crafts and different interactive approaches to prayer.

This week as our focus is on Daniel (who 'was a man of prayer, daily prayed he three times') so I decided that the craft option could be to make prayer cubes.  There are any number of templates available online, so I simply picked a selection to prototype. 

It was only after I had taken the photo that I spotted the missing word in the top cube... closer inspection revealed it was only this one face of this one cube that had an obvious error, so the odds of getting this particular photo were fairly small (let's say it's one face we see on each cube (it isn't but for simplicity...) (1/6)^5 = 0.00013 to 2SF (or 1 in 7776)).

The odds are irrelevant (if fun to calculate), I am just amused that my brain did an autocorrect on the real cube that it didn't on the photo.

All of which has nothing to do with Sunday, except it's a bit of a spoiler!

Sometimes small changes make a big difference... and sometimes the Holy Spirit blesses us with beautiful surprises.

This week I made some pretty small changes to the cafe style service... all the colouring and puzzles were put out on the tables before the service, with only the quiz and the questions being handed out during it.  I allowed a little longer for the quiz which seemed to be appreciated.  But what really blew me away, after the 'reflection' time  was the engagement with the questions and the quality of what people chose to share in the plenary bit... everything from someone asking why the New Testament was written in Greek, to the significance of Ruth as a foreigner being one of Jesus' foremothers, to the sense of welcome they had experienced in the UK/Railway Town/This church by people who had arrived as migrants, to the fact that we don't have to look back too many generations to find migrants in our own stories... wow!

For our prayers we threw an inflatable globe to invite people to find their lands of birth, or places in the news, or places where people they know and love live for which they wished to pray... prayers for the integrity in public office, for people who are homeless, for elections, for the those most impacted by climate chaos... it was profound and beautiful.

All this inspired by the story of Ruth, a Moabite woman who lived in ancient times...

Next week it's Daniel, and some ideas emerging for thoughts around exile, about church and state, about civil disobedience and peaceful protest, and maybe more besides.  A reminder that Sunday School favourites can be thought-provoking if we dare to engage with them as grown-ups. 

In case it's of interest, here are the questions...

You don’t need to work through these in order, or to cover them all, just pick out a few that interest you.  Try not to settle for simplistic ‘Sunday School answers! – we are grown-ups and need to wrestle with complexity and contradiction.

• What comes to mind when you think about the story of Ruth:
  • What do you think she was like as a person?
  • What do you think it was like when she married a foreign man (Mahlon or Kilion)? How might her family and friends have reacted then… or when he died?
  • Why do you think that Orpah and Ruth planned to go with Naomi? Why do you think Naomi tried to discourage them?
  • Did Orpah make a good choice to stay in a place she knew?
  • The story of Ruth and Boaz is often portrayed as romantic love story, do you think that’s correct? How else might you understand it – perhaps thinking of the risks taken by Ruth at various points in the story?
    
    
• Thinking about migrants more generally:
  • Can you imagine how it might feel to leave home for a new land to give your family a better life?
  • How do you feel about the arrival in the UK of either economic migrants, (or refugees and asylum seekers)? Does it make a difference why or how they came here?
  • Since Windrush the UK has relied on people willing to leave their homelands to fulfil essential roles, whether that is bus drivers, care assistants, cleaners, plumbers, builders, or nurses, doctors and teachers. How do you feel about this and why?
    
    
• Thinking about those on the margins
  • In the story of Ruth and Naomi, widows were totally dependent on the good will of others to take care of them. What care is available in our country (state benefits and otherwise) for widows or people with no family networks?
  • Who might slip through the net in our country? e.g. homeless single men are often the lowest priority for social housing.
    
    
• Thinking about churches
  • How many different nationalities are represented in our church?
  • What practical things can churches do to ‘welcome the stranger’?
  • How alert are we to our own privilege and bias, especially if we are white, British born and have/had good jobs?
  • We have registered our Coffee Morning as a Warm Hub for 2025/26, how can we make that a place where the ‘Ruths and Naomis’ feel safe and welcome?
    
    
• Personally (mainly for private pondering)
  • In my own story, have there been times when I have left home to seek a better life? How did that work out?
  • How many work colleagues or friends do I have who are very different from me, e.g. nationality, religion, interests, etc.?
    
    
• What do you like or dislike about the story of Ruth, and why?

Love it or loathe it, cafe church, like Marmite, is a thing, and a thing I try to do during the school summer holidays so that all the hard working volunteers can get a few weeks 'off duty'.

This year I'm taking a theme of 'Sunday School Favourites' and trying to encourage people to add to knowledge of the stories of these characters, and to make links to contemporary issues.

Today we looked at David, so, after a quiz, we began with the story of the young boy picked out by Samuel, and the defeat of Goliath, before racing through the rest of his life to name some of the key relationships and elements of the plot(s).  With a choice of craft (decorating 'kindness rocks'), colouring linked to the psalms,  reading or writing psalms, or reflecting on some questions relating the story to contemporary issues, it's perhaps not such a surprise that most people happily opted for colouring and crafting.  We also shared a very informal communion and sang a few songs.

I think the questions I came up with were worth pondering - and maybe could feed into a sermon some other time - so here they are... 

Questions to Consider

You don’t need to work through these in order, or to cover them all, just pick out a few that interest you.  Try not to settle for simplistic ‘Sunday School answers! – we are grown-ups and need to wrestle with complexity and contradiction.

• What comes to mind when you think of David:
  • What roles did he have?
  • What were his gifts and skills?
  • What was his character like?
  • What about his relationship with God?
  • In what ways was David a flawed, or sinful, person?
    
    
• Thinking about the recent General Election, the US Presidential Campaign, and people in public office more generally
  • In what ways are politicians and those in public office like David?
  • What are reasonable expectations of those in public office, especially in relation to character and behaviour?
  • Should someone with a significantly tarnished past be allowed to hold public office?
    
    
• Thinking about churches
  • How do we choose those we entrust to lead us?
  • What accountability structures could we or should we put in place?
  • How should we respond if/when leaders fail or ‘fall’? Does it matter what kind of crime/sin it is?
    
    
• Personally (mainly for private pondering)
  • Where do I fit in my own family and how does that make me feel?
  • What gifts or skills to I have that no-one knows about?
  • Do I try to be like other people (putting on Goliath’s armour) or like David (a few stones in a sling)
  • Do I have skeletons in my past that I am glad no-one knows about?
    
    
• What do you like or dislike about the stories of David, and why?

That was a very full day, and a good one.

Much food was consumed at the barbecue (and the rain held off)

Much fun was had decorating candles for those who we were valedicting

Much formation was celebrated as we said farewell (-ish) to another cohort of MiTs

Much faith was expressed, in God, in each other, and in the churches/communities we serve

I am tired now (as I am sure are my colleagues) - good tired, and the kind of tired that knows it was well worthwhile.