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Thank you for 2016

31/12/2016

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Christmas and the end of the calendar year always feel very liminal times to me, when the possibilties of the lives we have been gifted with stretch before us and the decisions that we have made to expand or limit those possibilities are uppermost in our minds.

Our lives do not follow an obvious trajectory of truly happy or truly sad periods, but very often a year has a certain tone or feel to it as we cross into what is to come. Births, deaths, anniversaries and milestones slip in and out of memory like gems across the lens of a kaleidoscope, changing the hue of what lies before us. There are those who have died since we last toasted a new year, and those who have been born. As a church, our community has celebrated life with baptisms, funerals and weddings, and we know there will be more to come. 

I joined the leadership of Northern Lights MCC just before Easter this year, and have shared with you some profound changes and been enormously privileged to see how the church has grown with it. There are more preachers, worship leaders, and communion celebrants on the rota than there were in the beginning of the year. Student Peta (whom this church taught and nurtured for 6 weeks this time last year) has been ordained. Family Service is going from strength to strength, as are the all-age evening worship services. The Refreshment, AV, Welcome, and Music teams fill the rota every month without fail and provide the structure for the services and hospitality. Every week a member of the church blogs for Rainbow News and 80-200 people read RN and the blog each week. There have been 11 Feasts on Friday (or similar), which bring our extended family together. In addition to the regular Pride vigil, members of Northern Lights MCC have served the wider community in providing a faith presence at vigils for the victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre, and at World AIDS Day this month. With the assistance of Northern Lights MCC, Rainbow Home continues to serve some of the most vulnerable refugees in the North East. Thank you all for your inspirational work.

Globally, this was the year of MCC General Conference, and the selection and installation of our Interim Moderator, Rev. Rachelle Brown. It was the year when MCC churches around the world committeed to speak up for the Black Lives Matter movement, and the year when we have seen renewed political anxiety in our own country and globally. It has tested our faith.

This is also the year of our Silver Jubilee, which we began to mark at the end of November. We are grateful for the ministries that have made this anniversary possible.

Trusting in the promises of God, I invite you all to thank God for the blessings of 2017 - even though we don't know what they will be yet. In our prayers, we are all called to seek how we can be part of that blessing in the months and years to come. After all, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me". (Phil. 4:13)

Happy New Year!
Blessings,
Kate
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pray for peace

15/12/2016

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As we come towards the end of 2016, I think we are all reflecting on the changes that have taken place in the past twelve months, as individuals, as a community of believers, as a nation, and worldwide.

Uppermost in my mind are the effects of the political changes of the second half of the year. After the referendum on the European Union in June, we saw a recorded increase in hate crime across the board, but particularly racially aggravated incidents. The xenophobic language of the leave campaign seems to have contributed to this increase. 

Similarly, following the election of Donald Trump as President-elect of the United States of America, there was a renewed sense of threat against our churches, against black people and other people of colour, and against the LGBT+ communities. The language of the campaing appeared to give this permission.

That Advent comes in the end of the calendar year, amidst the shortest and darkest days, reminds us that Christ is a presence with us in all our own times of cold and fear, and encourages us to look to the future. The Nativity stories we read in the Gospels tell of a family living in a politically hostile landscape (Roman Palestine) who were forced into seeking asylum in Egypt because of the whim of a corrupt ruler. The birth of Christ gives us hope because it overturns corruption and the status quo through the simple subversive image of God as a child fleeing for his life. That is the Unexpected Peace we are commemorating with our service this Sunday.

The Christchild is alive in every young person desperate to leave Alleppo. Mary's loving care holds fast in every mother, stepmother and mother-figure who protects the vulnerable. Joseph's steadfastness is present in every father or protector who places themselves between the court of public opinion and the righteousness of God to keep the law of love.

As Lorraine reminded us last week, the peace of Christ is not a reality in our world yet. Advent reminds us to pray continually that the Prince of Peace will come once again amongst us, that God's Rule of Love of will create the world anew, and that we will be agents of unfamiliar peace, unclear hope, unrevealed joy and unknown love. 

Blessings of the season,
Kate
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The revolution of love

8/12/2016

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Time sure goes fast. Already we are three quarters way through the time of Advent and Christmas will soon be here. Advent is the time of holy listening, a time of waiting when we recall the joyful hope of the first coming of Christ in the incarnation.

It is a time for me of spiritual pilgrimage in which I seek and find Christ in our world as it is. It is a time when I recall the things that have made an impact in me throughout the year and time when I reflect that Life is a God-given opportunity to affirm our own spiritual nature, to be who God wants us to be and to say ‘YES’ like Mary the mother of Jesus to the one who calls us the beloved.

A few weeks ago I spent the day in Edinburgh and came across a wonderful spiritual shop. It is a shop that invites us to look at the journey and struggle of Palestinian Christians and their neighbours in Israel. Being in this spiritual place made me think of the time of Advent and the time of waiting for the birth of Jesus and made me questions what must it be like to wait in or near Bethlehem today for the birth of

Jesus? I suppose at this time the images given to western people of Bethlehem are of a wonderful settled place of rolling hills, shepherds roaming about with their sheep and although it is busy there is a wonder about it. The Christian cards and images display tranquillity and all of this draws you into this preconception of peace .The reality of course however is that life near and in Bethlehem is filled with struggle, with occupation and fear. It is so easy to let fear paralyse us into non-action and as I looked back at the violence, the discrimination, the injustice and the changes happening in our world I have felt afraid. But I ask how will my fear help? Reality: it won’t. In the Bible the words ‘Do not be afraid’ are written 365 times so Jesus is reminding us every day not to be afraid. So the challenge in the midst of change is to find inner peace. That peace that only Jesus can give. If we are routed in relationship with Jesus Justice and Peace are possible.

Gareth Hewitt in his book Occupied Territories expresses this amazingly; ‘Somewhere around 4BC the Prince of Peace was born. A word, a statement, an action, a lifestyle, a revolution of love burst with hope from Bethlehem – at the time, an occupied territory- showing us how to live as a kingdom or community of love.

Now Bethlehem is an occupied territory once again. But a movement is being born again there from the followers of the Prince of Peace that says there is a better way, a nonviolent way. This community is sending a message of love, justice and peace, a prophecy that offers hope to the whole world’.

This is the GOOD NEWS.

May you find inner peace wherever you are and may you know the revolution of love that bursts forth from Bethlehem as Jesus is born again.

Blessings
Lorraine
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