There was a real end of term / end of year feel as we met at the bandstand on Sunday morning for the last time in our usual format, before the Summer break. Paul and Fiona led us in the most poignant time as we reconstructed the Nevern Celtic cross of our first meeting there back in September (which we visited in February) and then reviewed key times over the year, building up a visual image with words and pictures and with everyone adding their own cherished memories.

What a year

Fallen leaves and Saints past and present, hazelnut cracking, hide and seeking the treasure, “I could be wrong”, entangled in the beech tree, slow walking, trout BBQ, connected with the seasons in the coldest winter, community within the circle, always the bread and the wine, building a snow table, Celtic earthy liturgy, walking and worshipping, with-breaders on the journey together, slate cairns, creation singing and the Christ icon.

All liturgy and readings related back to those used at some point or other over the year and felt especially significant, with a shared sense of wonder at how this has all unfolded beyond all our expectations.

The Caim circle of prayer

And how significant it was, in reviewing our story, that Tony, Frances and Charlotte were back with us – Tony on his feet and looking healthier than the rest of us put together! God be praised.

The coming weeks of Sunday mornings in August will comprise the sharing of a simple liturgy at or around 9.30 wherever we are. Those who can be at the bandstand will use it there and there will still be bread and wine, though the time spent there will be shorter than usual.

For those interested, the liturgy is adapted from a wonderful prayer pattern we have been using of late called Anam Cara, put together by Frank and Sue of www.anamcara.org.uk

Anyone who would like a copy of this morning, midday and evening prayer can either contact us or anamcara@btconnect.com

See below for our Sunday morning liturgy ‘Anam Cara’.

Creator God, we pause in your presence and hold this day before you. Still us, calm us, guide us as we enter this day. 

Suggested reading: The Psalms or Matthew chapter 5-7 

Creator God we hold our day before you. 

We hold before you all those we love…

We hold before you those we know who are troubled… 

We hold before you all those we will meet this day…

Lord God, grant me the faith this day to truly walk in the light of Christ: 

Christ as a light

Illumine and guide us.

Christ as a shield

Overshadow us

Christ under us

Christ over us

Christ beside us on our left and on our right

This day be within us and without us

Lowly and meek yet all powerful.

Be in the heart of each to whom I speak:

In the mouth of each who speaks unto me,

Lowly and meek yet all-powerful.

Christ as a light;

Christ as a shield;

Christ beside us on our left and on our right 

A Blessing

Creator God, may your peace go with us, wherever we will be this day.

May you guide us through the challenges, protect us when in need and inspire us with your love

May we acknowledge your presence in all the human goodness we will see

May you bring us back rejoicing to our places of rest this night

Creator God we now go into this day

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

Amen

We met at the bandstand this morning and our focal point was a football. It is world cup final day – talk about being connected!

We opened with some lovely liturgy form seasonofcreation.com

We gather this morning in the name of the creator,

who creates time and space,

galaxies stars and planets,

In the name of Jesus Christ , born on planet Earth,

and in the name of the Spirit who fills Earth with his presence,

Creator God

in this time we call “now”

and in this space we call “here”

we worship you.

Make your presence felt amongst us.

We were asked to think about the links between the Christian Faith and football.

Adapted from www.churchontheball.com

“While the World Cup promotes temporary glory, believers need to remember there is more to life than earthly rewards. Parallels can be drawn between the rules of football and the rules of life:”

What is your one/main/Golden Goal of life for our planet?

The planet is represented by this ball – (hence the football focal point!)

How do we play the game?

In our lives is God the coach, referee, manager, top scorer, defender, does he give red cards?

In Third Space do we have Players – Spectators… supporters…

The game of life might be 90 minutes – 90 years…  Extra time… sending off… Penalties…?

In our daily lives we need to be competitive without being aggressive; to be patriotic, without being partisan/sectarian; to strive to win without being unfair…

Do we have team spirit in Third Space, do we have rules, balls, referee, coach?

How do we play – Playing for fun…   Joy… Goals… Prizes…  Heaven…?

It’s not winning but playing the game fairly that matters

Our world needs healing and reconciliation: healing should come about when we meet Christ.

After reading from Ephesians 2 – the passage where Paul talks about Jews and Gentiles being united because of the death of Christ we were asked to pray for areas of conflict in the world. Particularly remembering the situation in the Middle East where Jews and Gentiles are anything but united.

Praying for areas of conflict and for those we know who are in need we gathered our thoughts and prayers as we gathered sticks from around and about the bandstand. We then took our prayers and played Pooh sticks in the river. Dropping our sticks in the river up stream and watching them flow down stream in a symbolic way showing us that God had taken our prayer requests to Himself.

We returned to the bandstand to join together in our emerging creed, written by Grayden not long after we started meeting as Third Space church.

We are a people who …

Have found Jesus to be beyond compare,

Invite all to join us without insisting they become like us,

Find more reality in searching and questioning  than in certainty and absolutes,

Realise that how we treat others is the greatest test and expression of what we believe.

Firmly believe in the equality of men and women, that no-one is greater than another and that all people bear God’s image.

Recognise that following Jesus is costly and we need to support each other in the work we feel called to do: being peacemakers, striving for justice, befriending the lonely, healing the sick, serving the hungry and destitute, visiting the sick and elderly, inspiring children and young people, caring for God’s creation………

In sharing bread and wine together look back to remember Jesus death and resurrection and look forward to God’s feast for all peoples.

The morning ended in a competitive mode, a competition devised by “map man”. It involved a map of the park, some orienteering and questions whose answers were countries of the world. There was a prize. A very large bar of chocolate (Fairtrade of course).

Who won the prize? Following a tie break question we did the only thing possible – we shared it!

This week it had been the Feast of St Peter and St Paul and it seemed an opportune time to focus on the story of Jesus’ resurrection appearance to Peter and friends at Lake Galilee recorded in John 21.  After an initial prayer and introduction we read the passage at the bandstand and took time to reflect quietly on what seemed important to us. There’s something so lovely about Jesus  providing for his friends who’d toiled all night to no avail – not just the terrific catch, but the words of invitation – ‘Come and have breakfast’. And so, from there we walked across the river and down a steep bank to a beach area where Steve and Harry were waiting with fish on the barbecue, bread and hot coffee and cold juice… There (in Liberation theology style or is it  Jewish style?) we started to talk about the things that had impacted on us and what they might mean or did mean to us.

There’s certainly something there about unexpected encounters with Christ, our need to recognise him, his readiness to serve us and feed us and our need to receive from him… and there was the phrase used by the priest at the Mass I attended on Tuesday: ‘Every saint has a past; every sinner has a future’ – that was so evidently true of Peter as well as of Paul that encourages us in our transforming encounters with Jesus…

It was a wonderful time with inspiring shared ideas, another truly incarnational experience in beautiful surroundings and we had the joy of welcoming Christine and Adrian too.

Any more thoughts on the passage?

Barbara and Grayden led us at the bandstand this morning, picking up on themes from the last couple of weeks. We’d all been asked to bring digital cameras / phones or writing pads and after some starting thoughts we were sent out to photograph something that spoke to us of God’s presence / provision… The park was stunning, bathed in sunshine (oh how we appreciate that after this long winter!) and we were all spoilt for choice as we looked with new eyes at flowers, trees, sky, colours, shapes, creatures, patterns, textures… These we shared with thoughts on them – a brilliant way of reflecting upon how we all see different things and will have different emphases, but each inspires the others in enhanced worship.  We joined together in these words:

In the beauty of this moment

We worship you

In the fellowship of your people

We worship you

In the presence of your Spirit

 We worship you

In the company of all creation

We worship you

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

These words are so meaningful and easy to say from the heart when worshipping outdoors – we’re beginning to question why we haven’t done this before and why more don’t do it!

For the bread and wine we used these words from seasonofcreation.com

It is right to give you thanks, loving Creator. Your word is the impulse for all things to be, for space, stars and stardust to appear, for Earth to emerge from the deep, for life to be born of Earth and for humans to be born of Earth and the Spirit.

Your Spirit is the life impulse in all things, renewing the barren and healing the wounded, groaning in anticipation of a new creation, stirring new life born of water and the Spirit.

You chose to be born a human being, to become a part of Earth, to suffer, die and rise from death to redeem humankind, renew creation and affirm all born of Earth and the Spirit.

Your presence is the living impulse in all things, the Christ deep among us filling Earth – land, sea and air – filling every element and place, filling the grain and the grape we share with you this day.

Therefore with angels and archangels, ancient voices in the forest, high voices from the sky, deep voices from the sea and the whole company of creation, we proclaim your presence among us.

Holy, holy, holy God of all life,

Earth and sea are full of your presence.

May we who share this Bread and Wine,

Share Christ with one another.

Amen!  Amen to that!

We had an excellent follow-up to our rowdy debate in the Crown last week, with Colin and Michele leading us for the first time.  In fact it was so well prepared and so challenging that we’re continuing with it next week in the Crown.  We were given questionnaires, in advance, on our habits such as recycling, buying fairly traded produce, considering air miles etc which started us off with plenty to think about and discuss. Then the really challenging bit… How were we at ThirdSpace (as individuals and as a church) espousing simplicity in our:

Worship

Theology

Church management

Personal lifestyle

Local community and

Global community?

That’s why we’re continuing next week!  Stretching stuff that’s essential for us if we’re to take our value of ‘Justice’ seriously.

Loved the closing blessing of the evening:

A Blessing

God’s blessing be upon us as we leave and return changed to our homes.

May we strengthen and encourage one another in our shared vision.

And may the blessing of our adventurous Creator God go with us.

And may the blessing of the Son, who showed us how to live, re-shape us.

And may the blessing of the dancing Spirit joyfully enable us in our renewed living.

Amen.

Source: Hope in God’s Future: Christian Discipleship in the Context of Climate Change Report & Study Guide, Methodist Publishing 2009

And here’s Colin and Michele’s resource list and recommended books:

BOOKS

 Saving Planet Earth, Colin A Russell

 Planet Wise, Dave Bookless, IVP 2008

 Christianity, Climate Change & Sustainable Living, Nick Spencer & Robert White, SPCK 2007

 When Enough is Enough: A Christian Framework for Environmental Sustainability, ed RJ Berry, Apollos 2007

 The Rough Guide to Ethical Living, Duncan Clark, Rough Guides 2006

 Kingfisher’s Fire, Peter Harris, Monarch 2008

 L is for Lifestyle, Ruth Valerio, IVP 2004

 The Busy Christian’s Guide to busyness, Tim Chester, IVP 2006

 Glory Days: Living the Whole of your life for Jesus, Julian Hardyman, IVP2006

 For the Beauty of the Earth, Steven Bourma Prediger, Baker Academic 2001

 Celebrating Community: God’s Gift for today’s world, eds Chris Edmondson & Emma Ineson, DLT 2006

 Caring for Creation: Biblical and Theological Perspectives, ed Sarah Tillett, BRF 2005

 Silent Fields: The long decline of a Nations Wildlife, R Lovegrove, Oxfod Press 2007

 RESOURCES

• A Rocha Christians in Conservation www.arocha.org 01387 710286
• Christian Ecology Link cel2000@christian-ecology.org.uk 01423 871616
• Christians in Science (CiS) www.cis.org.uk
• Department for international development (DIFD) www.dfid.gov.uk 0845 300 4100
• John Ray Institute (JRI) www.jri.org.uk 01242 543 580
• Tearfund www.tearfund.org 02089437818
• Eco-Congregation www.ecocongragation.org
• Living lightly 24:1 www.livinglightly24-1.org.uk
• Operation Noah www.operationnoah.org 

Join us at the Crown on Wednesday?  If nothing else we’ll all be needing company, if not a pint, for consolation after the match!

This was the task we set ourselves last Wednesday night at the pub. It ‘s a scene setter for our next 6 weeks theme – Living More Simply. Taking my inspiration from the world cup refs, I got to chuck out anything I thought was too general (as in ‘culture and art’- sorry Colin)  or just verging on the pretentious….and red cards would be distributed for swearing… ( I know this sounds very undemocratic, but what a sense of power!)

In pre-pub discussions with P, I was quite relieved to know he wouldn’t be able to make it -top of his list?? – moist toilet tissue…honestly, how superficial can you get?  Disappointingly, my fellow Third Space buddies had no problem with such wordly matters, – knickers, underpants and toilet paper featured high on the essential lists of quite a few of us.

Discussion ( a polite names for arguments) ranged around whether a laptop was one ‘thing’ , why it just wasn’t possible to live without a car and whether some of us really could start a fire by rubbing sticks together…

After much debate, we (kind of ) agreed on the following 5 corporate things we just couldn’t so without

matches (just in case the stick rubbing doesn’t work)

books

music

land ( a garden to you and me)

sanitation ( but you’ll have to use your left hand- the toilet paper didn’t make it)

I suppose we did descend into post -apocalyptic living a bit, (or post rapture, depending on your theology) but it was an interesting exercise, and harder than you think, and as I’m the ref, I’m cunningly going to hide my mascara in the box of matches.

Let us know what your 5 are.

We had a moving time together at the bandstand this morning reflecting on one of the ‘Morning Bell’ messages from Ian Adams this week (which give pointers to prayer each day). Based on the poetry of R S Thomas, the Friday morning message was ‘Listen today for echoes of God. Follow them ))))’  So we reflected on how God constantly reaches out to speak to us of his presence and goodness and love. These we wrote on arches of card. We read Psalm 8 in The Message which ends with words of God’s echoes in his creation and an extract from John Ortberg’s ‘God is closer than you think’ which speaks of every act of nature being God waving ‘hello’. Next we  coloured squares of printed paper – with no knowledge of the image – and pieced them together to discover the face of Christ. We know that it is through each other and when we are together that God speaks most clearly of his reality and love and community… Laying down the card arches of recognition of echoes of God in our lives, and seeing these emanating from the face of Christ, created a powerful image.

From there we moved to the magnificent weeping Beech Tree at the Royal Bank of Scotland – pretty central to town – where Steve led us with the following words as we shared bread and wine:

Divine Entanglement with Bread and Wine

 Look up, all around, entangled and surrounded, mind-blowingly all enveloping – God’s breathing, God’s love sweeping down and curling around.

Acknowledged blessing and unacknowledged blessing, love noticed and unnoticed, blessings overt and covert. Incidences and coincidences and God-incidences too complex for us to sort through and untangle. We are caught – in the web. God behind us, God in us, God before us.

Surrounded and enveloped by God’s care, those blessings obvious to us now and those blessings only to be known about in the future and those blessings perhaps never to be known by us.

God at work in us and in those around us and in those we love and despair of. God’s love touching us, our ground, our lives through His humanity and love incarnated in Jesus.

We are surrounded in our space and time by roots, by branches, by leaves, by this living and growing 360 degree, multi dimensional, 24/7, God who loves. We are not tree hugging, but we are God- hugged.

And so while we are still indifferent, ignorant, hostile, unblissfully unaware, God loves us and in our hands we hold the bread and wine which expresses, encapsulates and enfleshes that Jesus love.

So why us? Why are we invited to this banquet under this umbrella of God’s love? Because we deserve it, merit it, lead good lives and have good theology? No, because God loves because he loves because he loves….

And so together as one body within God’s enveloping, connected with the worldwide family, we eat bread.

And so together as one body within God’s enveloping, connected with the worldwide family, we drink wine.

And so we have communed with God in this banquet but we do not now take our leave of Him. These roots and branches encircle and will not let us go even though we depart from this holy ground. He goes before us, marks our steps and our way.

And so we pray for all:

May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore.

AMEN!

Fantastic!

Last Sunday we started our time together with a treasure hunt. We remembered what had been said when we were playing hide and seek, that God seeks us out and finds us. Remembering the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son we set off to find them using the clues we were given. Then we had readings from Matthew 6 : 33 and 13 : 44 and 45 which talk about the Kingdom being like a treasure.  The challenge was – do we seek the Kingdom with as much enthusiasm as we had looked for the treasure during the treasure hunt.

Steve and I went to Oxford for the Day 50 event on Saturday. It was  a day of celebrating the integration of CMS and SAMS as well as  CMS as an acknowledged community. And there was plenty to celebrate, with the inevitable humbling experience of meeting and hearing people from around the world, who told their stories of what God is doing elsewhere and made us realise again how the Church is so much bigger than we ever think. The new website ‘We are saying yes’ was launched too – a great idea which I can see us using. The website has a number of suggestions as to how we might take simple steps to live out our faith in new or more practical ways,. The idea is that we  sign up to having a go at one of them and then record our story of what happened! It was also exciting to hear Jonny Baker say more about the training of Pioneer leaders starting in September.

I said a little on stage during the ‘ONE mission SHOW’ about what we’re up to in ThirdSpace – though there was very little time to say much. Ian was there as our Mentor (still not sure what your title should be Ian!) and he said a little about his role in supporting small missional communities like ours. It was excellent to see him again and we should be seeing him soon in the next half term in Matlock.

Best bits:  Seeing and catching up with Ian again – always supportive and affirming… Chatting with Jonny Baker and seeing his somewhat contraversial installation – which we loved! Hearing extraordinary, ordinary people, who are serving God so fatihfully…  Being in the presence of so many people who have faithfully prayed for and served CMS and SAMS for so many years… Meeting old friends unxpectedly… Realising I enthused about our kids leading us in sharing bread and wine in a room full of Anglican priests, bishops and archbishop!!! Realising afresh that what we’re doing in ThirdSpace is thrilling and wonderful and radical and the best place to be! Well done all those who organised the day – it was a privilege to be part of it.

Wendy