Easter e-card – New Life*

As I was thinking about Easter… the pain and suffering of the events of Holy week as Jesus was condemned to death – and then the new life we celebrate in the resurrection of Jesus – I reflected on what that ‘new life’ really means… and so I thought of Alex in the photo above.

I met Alex last week – he lives in a rural part of north western Zambia and is HIV+. He has known great suffering. Having discovered he was HIV+ 8 years ago… he was condemned to death… but then four years ago he was able to start taking Anti-Retroviral drugs that would transform his life…

Alex knows what new life is… he lives and breathes it every new day.

This Easter may you know the joy of new life

Matt & Polly

If you can’t see the image above clearly – click here.

Photo: Alex is happy for us to identify him as HIV+ and is pictured here holding his Anti-Retroviral drugs. He is married with one daughter and lives in a rural community where health facilities are still very limited – he is the chairperson for the constituency committee for action on HIV created at a Jubilee Centre led workshop last week. The words are those of Jesus from John 10:10.

 

Believing without belonging

A new report from Tearfund on churchgoing in the UK has some interesting findings – especially finding more evidence for the need to grow new communities and fresh expressions of church. I have not read it all but the BBC website says the report finds that whilst people find “the church thing a little bit difficult, they are willing to recognise God.” These people are dubbed the “believing without belonging”.

It seems in a post-modern age the “me” generation often find church boring and irrelevant – and it has to be said that they do because often it is! In the foreword of the report Revd. Dr. Steven Croft says: “The research underlines very deeply the need to grow new communities: fresh expressions of church alongside traditional congregations. These fresh expressions of church are beginning in different places as Christians do as Jesus did: going to where people are, listening to their culture, offering loving service, forming new communities, making disciples and beginning church in a different way.”

Many of the issues raised are explored in more detail in a book we are currently reading, called Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture, which we will blog about soon in more detail. In the past we’ve blogged about The Secret Message of Jesus and Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire, both of which cover similar ground.

If you want to find out more about the Tearfund research try: Tearfund press release / BBC Magazine article on the report / Download the full report

Lent resources

I stumbled across some Lent resources last week by Christine Sine. We’ve mentioned Tom & Christine Sine in the past – their books have been really insightful in our journey over recent years, particularly Living on Purpose and Sacred Rhythms. They run Mustard Seed Associates – which has a great website with lots of resources – and have just started the Mustard Seed Journey blog. They have also just formed an intentional community in Seattle US (something that Polly and I have been dreaming of for many years, and will be watching with interest) which is called Mustard Seed House.

Anyway the Lent resources…Christine Sine has produced a guide for Lent called A Journey Into Wholeness – which you can freely download here. It is designed to take us “each week on a journey into a different aspect of the brokenness of god’s world”, using the time of Lent as preparation for, “being instruments of God’s healing and restoration.” We will be using the guide over the coming weeks – there will be additional resources added at the Mustard Seed Journey blog and also at Christine Sine’s blog GodSpace.

Lent invites us to re-enter the school of life and be disciplined in the endless possibilities of growth Christine Sine – A Journey Into Wholeness

Another great resource for Lent is 40 by Revive. Forty illustrations depicting Jesus in the Wilderness (as described in Matthew 4: 1-11) making one image for each day of Lent. The images have been made into PowerPoint and movie presentations with a soundtrack – which you can order from CMS or Proost.

 

Christmas card 2006

“For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

May you know the joy and peace of Christ this Christmas

Matt & Polly

The photo: This alternative image of a baby is real and human – the childs hand reaching out in vulnerability, showing the frailty and reality of birth. A far cry from your usual Christmas image of the birth of Jesus – but at Christmas we celebrate the moment when Jesus was born when he willingly experienced what we experience in all our vulnerability, so that he could meet us where we are in our journey.

The photo was taken in India by Joke – a friend of our friend Rachel Dodd.

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Wait…

Like a growing nunber of people, over recent years Polly and I have been curious about Celtic Christian traditions (which we have blogged about before – Daily Prayers) and found their practice really helpful.

Celtic Saints traditionally started their period of advent a full forty days before Christmas – which is today – matching the 40 days of fasting and prayer they observed before Easter.

So what better day to share this alternative advent image that I came across recently by Ben Bell.