Northern Lights MCC
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Growing in God

24/3/2015

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As many of you know, we are developing a family service on the first Sunday of every month at 10am. The number of young children in our congregation is increasing and we want to offer them, and their parents, space for meaningful and fun worship. The service is open to everyone in the congregation, but you do need to be prepared to do actions to songs! Our next Family Service falls on Easter Sunday. I am pondering on how to explain resurrection to a group of children, most of whom are not yet old enough to go to school.

 

I am still scarred by the graphic description of Jesus being flogged, being forced to wear the crown of thorns and then being brutally nailed to the cross, as conveyed to me by the head teacher of our primary school when I was in ‘top infants’ – perhaps 7 years old. I was reduced to tears and desperately wanted him to stop. The message that he wanted to get across, was Jesus had gone through all this for me. Rather a tough thing for a small child to understand. I took this to mean that all of this was my fault. I asked a friend’s father about it afterwards. Mr Corley offered the idea that Jesus died to open the gates of heaven. I responded with “If God can do everything, why didn’t God just open the gates of heaven himself?” To which there came no reply.

 

One of the delights of being in Northern Lights MCC is to learn from each other. Most of us come from churched backgrounds, even if we left our home church in our teens and have only come back to worship as older adults. We bring a range of experiences and understandings from a wide variety of Christian and other traditions. There will be aspects of our faith which we hold dear our whole lives long and other areas where we have changed what we believe. The final theme in our Lenten series is ‘Growing up – the process of change’. Part of being a mature Christian is being able to change and grow in our faith and our understanding of God. Sometimes, we will use our reason and this will change our belief. Many of the shifts in attitude towards ordaining women or fully accepting LGBT folk into church communities is about applying reason - we think it is the right thing to do. Sometimes, our beliefs change because we have an experience or spiritual encounter with the Divine.  We may feel God, or hear God or somehow ‘know’ God in a profound way. We experience an internal shift. This deepens what we understand about God in a way that we might not be able to describe, but we know to be true - a new way of understanding a sacred mystery. May this Lent bring you such a moment of revelation.

God bless,

Cecilia

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The Circle of Life

22/3/2015

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Yesterday I attended the funeral of one of the St. James’s congregation, our host church. Margaret was a lovely woman, always smiling and positive. She had been born into this church, baptized and married here. She spent her whole life serving God in this place in many different ways. We used to have a little chat when she was in doing the flowers or some other task. She was always elegantly and immaculately dressed. When I came back to work after my wife died, she put a gentle hand on my arm and said “It does get better”. It was wonderful to hear tributes from her son and granddaughter about how she loved her family, and from Rev. James Breslin, about all that she did in and beyond St. James’s. Margaret lived a good and long life, taking delight on her family and her faith. One of the readings was from Proverbs 31:10 -31, which extols the virtues of the wife of noble character – a very fitting tribute to Margaret I thought. Although this was a sad occasion, it was also very peaceful and filled with love. Margaret was in her 80s, she had enjoyed her life and appreciated who and what she had. She had talked about dying with her family and seemed at peace.

It is still rare for me to attend or conduct a funeral where someone has lived a long life. As a congregation, we are relatively young, and those who have died amongst us have died at a younger age, often unexpectedly. In our community, AIDS claimed so many young lives. In my own family, surviving to the age of 70 is quite an achievement. On these occasions, there are emotions of shock and perhaps anger, questions about why someone has died, the thwarted dreams of a life cut short, In contrast, Margaret’s gentle slipping away after a life well lived seemed to complete the circle of life, and the overwhelming sense I had in the church was one of gratitude. Her family and friends will miss her a great deal, but this was a ‘good death’.

Soon, we will be marking the death of Jesus. A young life cut brutally short. In those hours after his death, the shock and confusion amongst his followers must have been profound. How could all that he had done and said come to this terrible end? Every Good Friday, there is something so powerful for me to hear the passion story, with its betrayal, cruelty and injustice. If we read this story on the Amnesty International website today, we would be outraged. The human story of Jesus ends in the tomb. I listen in shock on Good Friday to end of all goodness. In the darkness of the tomb, God is at work. For me, the resurrection of Christ is the ultimate proof of his divinity. All humans die. Christ overcame death. We follow God made human and living amongst us.

God bless,

Cecilia

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Proud to be MCC

10/3/2015

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Last week I made a short presentation about Northern Lights MCC to other people in our Newcastle City Centre Churches Together group. It was a very interesting evening, learning about the traditions and practices of St. James’s United Reformed Church and St. Andrew’s Church of Scotland. We have different worship styles, different traditions about the celebration of communion and target different communities. As time was limited for each presentation, it was interesting to decide what the key aspects of our life are as Northern Lights MCC that I wanted to get across. As most people in the room had never heard of us, I started with a brief history of our denomination, telling the story of Reverend Troy Perry hearing the ‘still small voice of God in the mind’s ear’, telling him, as a gay man,  how much he was loved by God. I talked a little about our current Moderator, Reverend Nancy Wilson and asked folk to pray for us, as we go through the process to find her replacement.


I suppose then I talked about the things that really matter to me about being part of MCC and our ministry at Northern Lights MCC. I love the way we value ‘the priesthood of all believers’ – that is, everyone having the opportunity to be involved in ministry. A MCC clergy friend and I were chatting recently. Like me, he is having to take on several roles in worship at the moment. We agreed that it just felt wrong – not because we are lazy, but because it is not the MCC way to have the pastor do everything in worship. I explained a little about our use of inclusive language and how we all experience God in different ways. I got quite a nod of agreement from some of the women listening when I said I didn’t think God just sent peace on earth to men.

Our mission statement at Northern Lights MCC is ‘Be yourself, find meaning, know God.’ Being ourselves might be to do with our sexuality, it might be to do with other aspects of our lives. I explained that our worship is open to all - we don’t have a machine that beeps if someone is not LGBT : ). One of our guest preachers last year came from a tradition where he wore a cassock to preach. He could be himself and wear his cassock, even though it is not the tradition at Northern Lights MCC for me to wear vestments (the special clothes that clergy sometimes wear). Our name and logo reflects our vision to be hope and light in the NE. of England. I was so proud to show a photo of us at Pride with Big Jesus from Liberty Church and talk about our outreach into the community we serve. My final slide showed our website, Facebook and Twitter details, some of the other ways of being church. We are not a church that hides behind closed doors; we go out, taking Jesus with us. We make a difference.

God bless,

Cecilia

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Letting Go

5/3/2015

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I am currently clearing out my house in anticipation of a move to a much smaller home. I have possessions from my childhood, items inherited from my parents and all the everyday items that remind me of my dead wife. Opening each cupboard or drawer takes me into a world of memory and it can make choosing what to keep and what to let go of quite a long process. Recently I took someone to the airport who was leaving the UK for a new life in another country. She had a suitcase and a bag containing all that she was going to take with her. I remember wondering at the time what I would take if I was in the same situation. In order to help me be more efficient in my house emptying, I have decided to imagine that I too, am moving to another country. (I’m only moving to the next local authority area). Hopefully, this will help me to make faster decisions about what to let go of and what is really important to keep. I also keep reminding myself that I can always buy a replacement for most items, if I find I need them in my new home.

 

We all have items that cannot be replaced – the first painting by a much loved child, the watch we got on a significant birthday, a present from someone special. When people are burgled or houses are engulfed by flood or fire, it is often these sorts of items that folk grieve for.  I was burgled a while ago and the thieves took my laptop, which was inconvenient. They also took my father’s first fountain pen – it didn’t work, was of no material value and was of no interest to anyone else, but my sister had looked after it for decades and had given it to me as a wedding present. We were both upset that it was gone, even though we agreed that my father would have been more upset about me being alone and asleep in the house whilst the burglary took place.

 

In our Lent groups, we have been talking about giving things up for Lent and whether that helps us spiritually. In the desert times in our lives, most of our possessions are no use to us. It is what and who we carry in our hearts that will see us through. In our prayer time on Sunday, we were invited to imagine receiving the most wonderful gift we could think of, then giving it away, first to someone we loved and then to a stranger. When the news is so full of cruelty and acts of hatred, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that people still do wonderful things for others, often strangers. Perhaps you give blood regularly or are registered as a bone marrow donor. Maybe you sponsor a child abroad or give clothes to charity shops. We may give away something that is valuable to us, but it is so much more valuable to the person who receives it. In sorting out my possessions, I am trying to find ‘good homes’ for certain items, so that they will give real pleasure to the person who receives them. This helps me to see my giving up and letting go as a blessing.

God bless,
Cecilia

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