A little teaser for Sunday's service. 

As I have been preparing the sermon it struck me that Baptist ecclesiology, properly understood, is very grown-up. 

It says to the local church, you have the wherewithall to discern the mind of Christ and the responsibility to seek it. 

It says, you don't need us to tell you, you are capable of working it out for yourselves.

It says Christians don't always agree on everything and that's alright.

It says, being church is hard work that will demand your energy and emotions.

But it also says, we will stand by you in your explorations, in your mistakes as well as your successes, when we agree and when we don't, because we covenant to walk together, with God, wherever we are led.

(I also note the complication of ministers being under the dicipline of the union in a way churches are not, but that's another issue!)

Salvador Dali, Ascension

Ascension Day.

Not a day many proddy nonconformists mark.

Today there will be, if tradition prevails, a Churches Together Communion service for Ascension in Dibley.

This time last year I had it in mind to do something for Ascension this time around.  Events overtook that.  Maybe next year...

Anyway, I have already been sent Ascension Day greetings today... and this is mine to you!

"When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them.  While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.  Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.  And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God. (Luke 24:50-53 NIV)

Last Sunday's evening worship used this phrase, from the end of John's gospel, as its title.  The guts of the input was a summary of the story of one German pastor who was imprisoned by the Russians at the end of World War II and forced to go 'where he did not want to go.'  It was an interesting account of a steadfast, simple faith, that survived despite incredible hardship.

Someone will take you by the hand and lead you where you do not want to go... these words, spoken to Peter on the lakeside by Jesus formed part of a reading I used in Sunday morning worship last September.  At the time I was very struck by them, as I was about to go where I did not want to go, at least in a metaphorical sense.

I can honestly say I have never questioned why I had to have cancer, or even why it happened when it did (though I did feel the timing was naff) and I was never angry with God or questioned God's love or existence.  I had to go where I did not want to go, so I might as well get on with it.

Looking back, and beginning to reflect, this unchosen, unwanted, journey has brought me and others to a new place, and given us opportunity to gain insights we might not otherwise have discovered.

I have learned to let other people help me - not an easy lesson for someone who has spent her entire life being independent and self-sufficient.  Sometimes to retain our independence we need to be a little bit dependent.

I think my church has gained confidence in its ability to support a minister during a time of trial.  Churches can easily have their corporate confidence knocked, and sometimes adversity, handled well, enables them to gain new, or renewed, confidence.

I think I have learned a whole heap of empathy - with those who look different, with those who have no hair, with those who are forbidden to eat certain things, with those who are forbidden to do certain things, with those who face an uncertain future.  I don't think I really needed quite so many lessons in empathy all at once but now I've had them, I think I am a better equipped pastor.  (That doesn't mean I think anyone else ought to experience any of them)

I think I have learned to be kinder to myself.  I have always been a worrier, have always tended to beat myself up over the things I failed to do, or messed up, or whatever.  That hasn't changed, but I think I let it get to me a little less than before... Well, I hope so, anyway.  I hope I might have learned to say 'no' a bit more, and to make more time for myself.

I have found I am less tolerant of bigotry, of grudge-bearing, of finger-pointing, of bitterness, of scape-goating and so on.  I don't think I've been guilty of them to any extent myself, but I have tended to let it go in others... Now I think I'm more likely to speak my mind (be warned!) 

In a few areas of life, and on a few issues, I've stopped wrestling the head and heart and, atypcially, let my heart decide.

I have met many amazing people who have inspired me... kangaroo girl,  J and Mrs J, and relatives of terminally ill people, to name but a few.  Without this unchosen, unwanted journey, I wouldn't have known them.

I have had many wonderful conversations with people - about theodicy, about healing, about euthanasia, about my call to ministry - conversations I would never have had in the cosy confines of Christian leadership.

When you are old(er) someone will take you by the hand and lead you where you do not want to go...

I am technically (medically) young and that has its own significance in terms of the journey taken and its likely future direction, but I have been dragged onto a path I did not wish to follow.  Of course I'd rather it hadn't happened, I'm not Pollyanna, but given that it did, I have no regrets.  By accepting that I had to go this way, and by making the most of the opportunities it gave me, I feel I am now a more whole person, if a more broken and vulnerable person, than before.

In all things God works for the good of those who love Him.... even on the unchosen path that takes you where you don't want to go.... and I AM is with us always, to the end of the age (Romans, John, Matthew).

Whoo, an email to say my thesis hardcopies have been received in Manchester and are now winging their way to the examiners.... Better start revising then, as that means the final examination by viva looms large!

Occasionally my friends in Dibley refer to themselves as the Midlands branch of the Gathering Place as the two churches share the same initials.  Whether that makes us Dibley Caledonian Thistle or them Gathering Place Albion Rose I'm not sure.  What I do know is that having served there, they are indelibly part of me.

The last couple of years have been hard for them, and today came news that one of them, my nearest neighbour when I lived there, had died in the night.  I had been in regular contact with this couple and over the weekend had the privilege to speak briefly to him on the phone, a memory I will treasure.

For now I weep with those who weep... and then being a good minister person pull myself together to care for those God has given me to love here.

If one part suffers the whole body suffers...

RIP D, may God uphold you B.