1
Thessalonians 3.12 May the Lord make you
increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in
love for you.
That’s
Paul’s prayer reaching down through the ages and it would be mine and the PCC’s
for St Giles.
As
you can read in the Mission Action Plan head statement in the news sheet: St Giles Church has a mission to grow in faith, love
and numbers.
We want to grow in faith towards God, in the expression of love to the world and to grow the numbers in Christian fellowship here at
St Giles.
Last
week we looked at action planned to build faith such as tonight’s healing
service and the meditation session later on.
What action has the PCC got planned, or raised
up, to help us grow in love in the months ahead?
If you look on the porch flow chart the PCC has
identified various opportunities for action. These include the social aspect of
the Martindale refurbishment in its involving people and groups that use it,
embryonic plans for action that comes alongside the youth and better outreach
towards the housebound and elderly.
May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and
for all.
Those
fifteen of us who walked to the coast, or almost to the coast, for the
Martindale refurbishment raised almost £2,500 with gift aid. We raised something equally significant in the
day we spent with one another. This for me meant discovery of a parishioner, or
near parishioner, who knew the interior of Guyana as well as I. We’ve met since
to have a drink which linked in with a dining commitment with discussion of
ways the church and others can help build village life.
If
I’m typical the things we’re doing because of the Martindale refurbishment are
taking us out of the box, out of our individual boxes, into new involvements
and sharing as a community.
The
6th November youth meeting mentioned on the MAP was attended by St
Giles members with a dozen young people and supporting adults. It looked at
future provision for youth. By putting this involvement under love and not
numbers the PCC are saying let’s serve
our young people before we evangelise them though the two are inseparable.
This
brings us to broader thinking.
A
church fellowship does community ministry through the individuals in it, as
well as through what the church organises. A lot of us in Church aren’t
involved in the listed activities on the PCC plan to grow love: Priest and lay pastoral visiting, First
Steps, Thursday coffee, Westall House visiting, monthly village lunch, FOHKC
events, Serendipity concerts, churchyard working parties, Harvest lunch/supper,
FSW
Of
course we want more of us involved in our mission through such things, more citizens and less consumers so to
speak. Receiving the sermon and the sacraments is central to our Christianity but
only when the body turns food into action do we see God’s kingdom built up.
Our
individual growth and exercise of love has far wider remit than involvement in
church activities. Charity begins at home. It’s also the case that people in
our congregation are making a difference in the world hardly comparable to the difference St Giles members
make through running the weekly toddler group or monthly village lunch.
It’s
not either/or but both/and. The Christian good news is given to permeate homes,
villages and work places as well as education, healthcare, politics,
environmental thinking and so on. No one
in Church this morning should feel guilty they’re not involved, save for prayer
back up, in St Giles projects, unless the Spirit prompts them so.
What
matters is each of us doing our best to bring love into realms of individual obligation
such as our marriage and parenting, family and work commitments with an eye to
the church community’s plans, hence today’s reminder. The PCC are doing their
job in gently setting our priorities as a Church and helping more people to own
them. We hope that as we share, like today, there’ll be people here realising
that they too could join what is a
rotating body and be a church leader such as James and Jan, David or Rhoda,
Chris and so on. We’ve a pressing need to form younger Christians to lead the
transformational ministries we have here.
May the Lord make you
increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in
love for you.
Growth
in love may impact homes and communities but it starts in the heart as my
concluding story illustrates. A young
man walked to church for years through a group of homeless people in a London
churchyard. He was given a gift of love, a sort of ‘prayer burden’ for them and
started to pray for them in church. He put it eventually to his church that
they might run an occasional lunch and there was consensus to do so. Later on
the church advertised for helpers in the local paper and had 300 phone calls
offering help. This refreshed the mission partnership between the church and
the community engaging with the needs of street people. It also helped church
growth.
Your kingdom come, your will be done is the aspiration
at the heart of Advent and of our Mission Action Plan for St Giles to grow in faith, love and numbers. It
needs to be an aspiration that wells from deep in our hearts, as we live more
and more aware of the love that surrounds us and cares for all that is, simply
because it is!
May
God enfold us in that love through this eucharist making us increase and abound in love for one another and for all through
the almighty power that reaches into our hearts in this sacrament. Amen.
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