Week 35

Auntie Flower pointed out to me that this year I am living my own advent ... we are in our 36th week of pregnancy which amongst other things may developmentally mean

"he/she now weighs about 5.25 pounds/ 2.4 kilograms and measures approximately 18 inches/ 45 centimetres from head to toe. His/her elbow, foot or head may protrude from your stomach when he stretches and squirms about. (Sure does!) Soon, as the wall of your uterus and your abdomen stretch thinner and let in more light, your baby will begin to develop daily activity cycles.

This week, your little one is now sporting fingernails and has a fully developed pair of kidneys. His liver can also process some waste products.

There's much less amniotic fluid and much more baby in your uterus, which has expanded to a thousand times its original size".

What a miracle happening inside of me and yet has this mystery placed a different spin on the advent story for me? Truth is I don't know an advent when I've had a more church-less, God-less experience. Actually between work, visiting and hosting friends, preaching elsewhere and just being exhausted by life that's pretty much been my year. I certainly haven't set foot inside All Saints since October and the thought of this afternoons Christingle is really exciting (not least because it's a service I love).

At the beginning of advent our vicar sent out this challenge...

"Advent is a time of preparation, of recognising the signs of our failures and setting our lives back on course as we prepare to celebrate the birthday of our brother Jesus.

Bill Hybels famously said: ‘The local church is the hope of the world.’ Our Anglican churches attract only 1% of the population on an average Sunday (maybe 3% if all the Christian churches are lumped together).

Advent is also about waking up to the signs of the times. Jesus went on at length about this. The signs seem to be that people see our ‘churches’ as hopeless rather than a source of hope.

So perhaps the times have arrived for us to set our churches back on course. (church = you and me, the church communities and how we express our faith when we are together and when we are ‘in the world’). The big question is ‘how?’

Do we know what are goals are? Are we just trying to survive? That doesn’t seem to me to be what Jesus meant when he commissioned us to go and make disciples of all nations.

Imagine this: If we as Christians were arriving in our villages for the first time this December 2008 what would we do and how would we be ‘church?"

I haven't really given much time to this brilliant question but tonight I think Jesus would be less interested in what we did and more in how we did it. How we love each other.

My home group leaders have given me calls to let me know their schedule this term even though they knew I couldn't make it, which is great but no one has called to see how or where I am which makes me a little sad. Not being in church regularly is one of my failures this year, (going back to Derek's opening statement) back in January I committed to being there at least once a month to enable me to someway be connected to the life of what happens there and to the wonderful people walking this journey together. That is my advent challenge, a day and a half is left and I want to think about what our church looks like and where I am in the picture, what I can give (and I don't just mean by doing more but by being more creative with what I do maybe). I certainly don't want to be just a consumer. How could I have handled my absence better, would it have been possible to keep in touch more? If I couldn't be there in body what about in spirit - have I been praying for all that happens there?

I wonder in answer to that challenge if we get better at looking after the church we have maybe that will be the best way to have a useful church for the future.

I pray in the services that I go to over the next two days that the lessons I need to learn will be really clear, in the carols, readings and community. At this point in time the final verse of In the Bleak Mid Winter (my favourite carol) seem really appropriate... and a great way to get back on course.

What can I give Him poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man I would do my part.
Yet what can I give him?
Give my heart.