A Nappy Christmas

Running short of an idea for your Christmas sermon? Check out Kim Fabricius' example on the Faith and Theology site. You might not want to copy it intact (though you might) but there are plenty of good lines, and plenty of good thoughts in it to give you something to grab hold of. Here's how it finishes:

Christmas: God’s PowerlessPoint presentation, God’s dressing down, God’s self-demonstration that he has no sense of occasion, that God is God in a messy birth (and, later, in a messier death). And there, I think, is the true wonder of Christmas: the miraculous not in some supernatural phenomenon but in the striking ordinariness of the neonatal (and the finally fatal). And there also is the real hope of Christmas: things are not as they seem; and, more, things are not as they have to be, they can be altogether otherwise. Is a new world possible? Absolutely, because a new world came. And because a new world came, a new world is coming.

I particularly liked the line: a God whose idea of a grand entry is a Nappy Christmas, which apparently he pinched from Godfrey Rust.

Kaiapoi Pa

In recent weeks one could be forgiven for thinking that Pakeha in New Zealand are either continually at odds with Maori (or vice versa) or that our history together has been one of contention and nothing else. It might also be thought that the history of the church vis-a-vis Maori had always been fraught.

News, like that about Hone Harawira, doesn't tend to help much. (See Wikipedia for a very up-to-date summary of his situation.)

However, today I came across a blog post written by Steve Taylor which draws out three stories that present a rather different picture of our mutual history. They each connect to the Kaiapoi Maori pa, which was put to seige and finally destroyed by Te Rauparaha; the other link in the stories is Christianity, and its power to change and bring forgiveness and peace.

Check this sermon out (and don't be too picky about the lack of proofreading!)

So your church is dying?

Here's part of what Steve Taylor suggests on his sustain-if-able kiwi blog if it seems as if your church is dying:

Keep meeting at 10:30 am Sunday. Keep the doors open. Keep the coffee fresh. Keep the muffins warm. But stop the sermons and stop the singing. Take all that energy and reclaim the time for mission. Read a creed. Dwell in Luke 10:1-12. Initiate some listening experiments. Share stories. Foray into the community for simple acts of service. Return to share stories. Re-read a creed. Re-dwell in Luke 10:1-12. Initiate some more listening experiments. Share stories. Foray into the community for further acts of service.

You can read the rest of the post here.

Worship and Words

I have often thought that too much of our worship focuses on the speaking of words. The sermon is given pride of place and time, even though it often contains a message we have heard several times before. Would we not do better to stress how the Word daily "becomes flesh" in our neighborhoods and communities, if from time to time we shifted the emphasis from podium speaking to face-to-face fellowship? Gathering around tables to eat, or in gardens to weed and harvest, or on building sites to do repair and construction--and not just on Sundays--we can learn more directly the ministry needs of the communities in which we move.... This more corporate sort of perception not only leads to authentic worship but quite naturally also leads to good work and good relationships.

Norman Wirzba
Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight

The Olympic Creed

Rowland Croucher wrote: A Uniting Church magazine asked me to write something about the Olympic Creed (below). Feel free, my preaching-friends, to steal it if you want!

Who was the American football coach who said: 'Winning or losing is not just a matter of life and death: it's more important than that'? Addiction to winning is not only a capitalist phenomenon, either. Remember past East German and Chinese drug scandals?

The Olympic Creed says: 'The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.' Google tells me Pierre de Coubertin got the idea from a speech given by the Bishop of Pennsylvania, Ethelbert Talbot, at a service for Olympic champions during the 1908 London Games.

You can find the rest of this sermon here. If you have problems accessing this site, drop me an email (address on my profile).