Yesterday, Palm Sunday, we joined with folks from St George's Bloomsbury and St Anselm's and St Cecilia's in Lincoln's Inn Fields to walk between the churches. In each church we read part of the Plam Sunday story, offered prayer together and sang a hymn. As we walked between the churches, we carried a variety of palms - some real, and several created out of painted card and bamboo (Thanks to folk who made them for our morning service. I know they were not meant for outside, but they just about survived!), and some of us carried Palm crosses. we got pretty well spread out, as we wandered through the crowds on the streets, talking to people we knew from our own or from the other congregations - and, in the case of those of us who were supposedly responsible for organising the whole thing, trying to ensure that nobody got lost. We came to the conclusion that while not as noisy as the original parade, it was probably just about as well organised, and coherent; or as disorganised and incoherent. And that was just fine! We mingled with people. Some of them looked very oddly at us carrying our rather strange assortment of palms. One person even asked for one of the palm crosses, saying he had not managed to get to church that morning. Gladly, the cross was handed over. Some folk joined us and some folk left us. And through it all we told a story, and met with one another and with God in our worship and our prayer. It was a good afternoon, significant in building links between our congregations, and hepful in reiterating the conviction that the story of Jesus has its place within and among the life of a busy city.
And it leaves me with some questions.
Perhaps we should have done our reading and prayers on the steps of our various churches - each of our buildings has a significant area where we could stand. Perhaps we might have made our identity clearer - a more coherent parade, leaflets to hand out, or placards to carry. Perhaps we might have sung our hymns as we walked, not only within our buildings. All of these are important questions to ask ourselves, not just on Palm Sunday, but at any point in the year. Our commitment to living the gospel is well focussed in what we do - but perhaps we need to redicover the words and the symbols that will allow us also to speak of what our good news is. We are rightly wary of anything that looks triumphalistic, or hectoring. We do not want to "thrust our faith down anybody's throat". But we do have a story of God's activity to tell, to offer. How might we find the words and symbols through which we can communicate it?

On last Sunday afternoon, a group of us met to plan the worship for Easter Sunday evening. Although we were a smaller group than has sometimes met in the past to plan services, it was as a creative as ever. There is a particular energy about a group of people thinking about how a group of people might be enabled to worship together. All sorts of creative ideas come up, and things that, individually, one of us might think are too hard to work through, or too unconventional to be effectively practised, turn out, when we think about them together, to have all sorts of possibilities.
We have been fortunate over the last months to have had all sorts of people leading worship and preaching - and, over the last few weeks, to have had groups plan and lead the services. It has been so good for us that even as we return to a more normal pattern of ministerial presence, we are intending to try and keep up the pattern. At least once a month, we hope that various groups will be able to lead the evening service - and perhaps even the occasional morning service.
It is not just about the energy of a group leading a group; it is important for how we think about the church. One of our defining features as a Baptist church is that we do not have a clerical "caste"; that ministry belongs to all of us, and each of us has a role to play in the coming together of the congregation with Christ in the midst. It is helpful, and effective that people with recognised gifts and given space and time by the church to do the planning, take seriously those responsibilities. But to leave it all to those folk is both to impoverish the worship of the congregation and to deny the gifts of all of us.
So - it is not just that I want to do less. It is a delight to experience the leading of others, and to hear new voices, and discover new insights. Thank you to all who share in the work - and come and join us if you haven't shared before.

One of our members came into the room I was sitting in yesterday morning, and let out a great sigh. I laughed - the sigh seemed to express just what I was feeling at that moment, rather harrassed, not at all sure what was going on, finding it hard to feel relaxed, and a bit frustrated.
Then he said to me "why did you laugh" - and I realised that this was not a sigh of sympathy, but of pain and struggle on his part. And I had missed it! I had been so wrapped up in what I was feeling and wanting, that I didn't notice that he was in pain and that the sigh was very real.
He is a gracious man, and accepted my apology for my clumsy behaviour. And we spoke about his pain, and my frustration, and it was fine.
But it stays with me.
It is not easy to be in the church, it is not easy to be the church. We come together from all sorts of circumstances, both immediate and reaching far back into our lives. We come for all sorts of reasons, and bring all sorts of expectations. When we actually meet - and in the reality of the context of Bloomsbury that meeting may be infrequent, hurried or erratic - we are not immediately in tune with one another, we often have different agendas and plans.
It is not difficult for misunderstandings to arise. It is not infrequent for me to be so caught up in what is going on in my immediate experience that I miss what is happening in others' - or indeed, ignore the fact that their immediacy is different. The wonder, the grace is, that, on the whole, it's OK. We do in fact hear each other, meet each other and share in the fun and the frustration of being alive, and following Jesus.
But sometimes we miss. And then we need to re-engage, to listen more carefully and to to pay attention.
It takes an effort of will, but it is also one of the ways of God among us; this mystery that God works in our working, and transforms us through what we choose to let happen. I have been rereading The Go-Between God, John Taylor's wonderful exploration of how we can talk about the Spirit of God - and his powerful vision of the Spirit as the One who makes links, who connects us to creation, to each other, to the Mystery of God. We are not, on the whole, a church who speaks often of the work of the Spirit. And in that, I believe we follow the witness of the Spirit. The Spirit works not by drawing attention, but by pointing to God present in Jesus, and the life of the Kingdom. But here is, I suggest, one of the actions of the Spirit among us - that often enough, creatively enough, with hope and joy, we do connect with each other, we do build relationships, we do hear each other, we do share - despite all that might stop it happening.
For this grace, thanks be to God.

on prayer, rhythm and (not getting around to) blogging

With apologies to those of you (are there any?) who read this blog regularly, I confess there has been a longer than there was supposed to be hiatus in writing. I had had a regular point in the week at which I sat down and dragged up words of wisdom, insight, wit and creativity - or at least found something to say that I thought might be interesting.
In recent weeks, my routine has changed -all for good reason, and I am glad about it. I don't like routine, and it usually falls apart on me sooner or later. But it has meant that the regular sitting down to write the blog somehow got lost. It wasn't that I didn't think about the blog - and even come up with some ideas of topics I wanted to reflect on. It was just that - somehow - I never quite got round to actually doing it.
When I was a little girl I was pretty resistant to too much routine and ordering, and particularly to beign told what I had to do when. We grew up using Bible reading notes that were dated - and I always had trouble with them. I was always behind hand (except on the days when the reading was so short, and I ended up reading ahead, and got myself completely confused), and behind hand was enough, in the end, often to provoke me to give up. I was greatly liberated as I got older and discovered that it was permissible to encounter God at any time - to pray at all times and in all places, and prayer became not something I did at one set point in the day, but part of my whole living.
But then I began to realise that doing this anytime could all too often lead to never quite getting round to it. And so finding regular times for prayer - together with others or on my own - became important again; not the only time of prayer of course, but a (relatively) regular rhythm which forms a helpful discipline - and enriches the rest of prayer and life.
I guess I forgot it with the blog. Doing it any time turned into doing it never. Irritating with the blog (and apologies to those I have irritated). With prayer however, a much more profound and damaging effect. That is why I remain committed to finding ways we can pray together - even when routine seems less spiritual and authentic than spontaneity. And (and I did manage to do this even with the changes in rhythm) keeping the prayer pages of the website updated. I am grateful to those who have a much more ordered outlook on life and are able to encourage me in and sustain me through a good rhythm of life in God. The interweaving of rhythm and spontaneity is the in and out breathing of life. I will try not to get breathless or hold my breath too long again!