Looking for the best seat in the coffee shop? Look again....

I was sat in the corner of an empty coffee shop this morning drinking a large black Americano (it's Monday after all) pleased I'd managed to get my favourite seat again - the perfect seat where I had clear view of the door so I could keep an eye on who was coming in, but had my back to the wall so nobody could surprise me. The cushions were perfect and the temperature was right.

The coffee shop began to fill up. First was a someone who clearly was waiting for a business meeting beside me - his meeting companion turned up, introduced himself and the next time I looked they had disappeared. A woman with a toddler arrived and they sat a couple of tables away, ready for an early lunch. A toddler from our toddler group arrived, not accompanied by his Mum (who I know) but by three strangers who I assume were his Dad and Grandparents who were picking up takeaway lattes.

And then it happened. 

The door opened - a woman with a buggy and small baby. She sat one table away, shifted the tables and manoeuvred her buggy into place. 

The door opened again and another woman with a buggy waved hello and shifted the table enough to fit in a high chair - she looked at me now a little pinned in and apologised (a little) - I said 'someone is joining me' (worried they wouldn't get in). She shrugged and put the baby in the high chair. 

The door opened again and another woman (without a buggy) sat down at the table, handing her baby to another as she went to get a high chair for hers.... by this point the possibility of me having space for my companion was almost nil unless we wanted to sit knee to knee with our heads in the high chairs and (as I don't like to get too close to people and meeting in this way for a serious conversation would not have been good) I considered moving.... 

The women, as if in sync, then picked up their babies and stood up in a dance that only a group of mums can do and rocked.

I took that opportunity to slide across the bench and frown as my perfect seat was exchanged for the seat next to the sauces and the menus, ready for interruption from the next person who needed a condiment.

It reminded me of an episode from Gilmore Girls (not that I am an addict, honestly) where Luke the diner owner is rather grumpier than normal and he points out that the reason why is the group of parents and babies who set up camp in his diner every weekend, bringing tables together and changing the status quo. 

I realised I was turning into Luke... and I tried not to.

I recently had a conversation with a woman somewhat older than me about children in church. She said that they used to have a few children, but that when one of them got to 18 months, he began to get a bit boisterous and actually was too much of a distraction to the congregation and preacher and secretly she was glad he wasn't there any more. But she'd like more children in church. 

As I sat and was entertained by one of the babies in the high chair who cheered me up as I was waiting for a meeting that didn't happen because it had been planned for a different day, I reflected on this, and my own response to the entry of the three women to the coffee shop. I loved that those children were there. I loved that they made me smile.... but I didn't like being knocked out of place.... 

Perhaps the women should have thought of me a little more, but actually, it didn't matter, I still had a place to sit... I could still see the door... I still had a wall at my back so no-one could creep up on me... and actually no-one wanted condiments while I was sat drinking the last dregs of my coffee. I told myself off, and as I did so I reflected on what I could have said to the woman who was secretly glad that boisterous toddler wasn't there anymore. 

If we want to be welcoming and not just friendly to people of all ages, but particularly young children, we need to accept them as they are. Those women with babies - they just wanted some space, and yes, maybe they could have asked, but actually, it wasn't really a problem to frown at. The child who likes to run, let them run... as a preacher I'm happy that children feel free to run and play at the front (and I think it's good for the church to embrace that kind of life!). When the time is right, then part of my role as worship leader is to help them to learn how to and enable them in worship, so I sit down with them on the step and speak to them at their level as I share with them and the rest of the congregation... or I pick them up and they help me to lead the whole congregation as their smile tells us all something of the Kingdom of God... or I sit them on one of the 'special' communion chairs because the joy it brings to their faces brings joy to the rest of us... 

I do this because Jesus said 'let the children come to me, do not stop them - the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these...'.

My experience in the coffee shop was a bit of a warning to me that our resistance to a change in the status quo can be so deeply ingrained that we do not realise why we are acting in the way we are before it becomes too big to manage.... and that my challenge to that woman in the church should have been a challenge that I also give to myself...

As church we need to be constantly asking whether our frowns and secret celebrations are what place hostile barriers to prevent us welcoming like Jesus.... and we need to ask whether a slight slide down the bench to a place that is not perfect for our own needs might be what's best for the bigger picture and it might be just where God is calling us to slide...... in fact, if we are to be welcoming and not just friendly it probably is....

Don't be like Luke.... or actually like me in Monday morning perfect seat coffee shop mode.. there is a better way to be.... 

Go on.... slide....

Inn Church?

In the 1881 census my Great Great Granddad Joseph Christopher Wright (from now on JC) was staying at an inn in the hamlet of Nosterfield (which was about seven miles from his home near the village of Healey in North Yorkshire). I've always wondered why he was there on census night. Had he had a bit too much to drink and taken a bed for the night? Was he going home from a journey or heading out on one? Was he seeing friends? Was he working? Was he there for only one night or had he been there a while? 

The inn in Nosterfield JC probably stayed

I won't ever know the answer but that doesn't stop the intrigue. The role of inns at that time was interesting - they were a way point - a place of rest on a journey. They were places where the community gathered, often having some kind of communal dining room. They were places of food and lodging - places of sustenance for the weary traveller, whether they stayed one night or were there for weeks. Travellers would have probably been invited to eat with the more permanent community and join for a while... I wonder whether JC had been invited in in this way. 

The oldest inns were established by monks, who have a history and culture of hospitality - welcoming the stranger in.... hospitality is key in the ministry of many monastic communities to this day. After the dissolution of the monasteries the nicer inns survived, but the ones that were for poor pilgrims were far more likely to close. These inns came into their own as people began to travel more for work (like perhaps JC did .....?) and became places of sanctuary and rest for those on a journey. 

Inns are places that intrigue - places with stories to tell. There are many stories written throughout history that include inns - dark stories, horror stories, stories of safety... love stories..... life changing stories. When you enter an old inn you often see stories on the wall - like the story of the Bible at the White Horse Inn at the foot of Blencathra in the Lake District (a place with excellent food) where legend has it that if it is removed bad things happen, and now after the pub was flooded it stays firmly in its locked cupboard.... I wonder what stories JC heard that night in 1881?

Over the last few years I have become more and more passionate about churches as communities of hospitality. If church is to be just that, then perhaps an image of a church that might be helpful could be that of an inn. All those values that came out of the early monasteries, where strangers were not simply nodded to, but were welcomed in to stay and eat and sleep, might be something we might endeavour to imitate. Perhaps those who pass by our buildings, our places of worship, our activities and even our homes might become those travellers to welcome in as they seek a place to rest. 

If church was like an inn, we would celebrate its history through the stories we tell. Stories of our past, stories of our founding, stories of people we have met on the way. Stories of why there are certain things we hold particularly dear and stories of when life has been really difficult. Stories that inspire and stories that we learn from.... when we know our story we can tell it to the people we encounter on their way. 

If church was like an inn, then it would be a true community gathering place; not just for the centre core, but for the strangers we meet on the way. The dining room would perhaps be an attractive and intriguing place to be for those who stay for a short while as well as those who become more long term residents. Perhaps the voices of the short-term stayers - the travellers - might inspire us to see something of where God is leading us as they encounter different things on their way.

If church was like an inn, it would be a resting place - a place of sanctuary - for the weary traveller. It would be a place where true rest could be found. It would be a place where the traveller could be restored and fed. It perhaps would be a resting place that became a place of belonging on the way. 

If church was like an inn it would contain all sorts of people - the core staff who make the inn feel like home, whose lives are based in the community and who make sure that there is a warm place to gather - the guests who pop in for a moment, but quickly leave again, having eaten and drunk, only to return another day for a while longer - the long term residents who came for a while for work or for play and then chose to stay.... It would contain the troublemakers in the corner who need to calm down and the jokers round the bar who are inappropriate at times.... the thinkers, the doers, the sleepers, the dancers.

If church was like an inn it would be both home and place of pause, both sanctuary and sustenance, a place to belong and a place to stay.... and Jesus would be sat at a table sharing His story through the lives of those who were part of the community that gathered from all ways and none.... 


(if you are interested in reading about inns here is where I got some of my info) 

Glitter in your hair, glitter everywhere......

Glitter
Glitter in my hair
Glitter in my shoes
Glitter between my computer keys
Glitter in every corner
Glitter in every space
Glitter


When I was a teacher I'm sure the cleaners had a secret moan when I had been making posters with my class again. Anything from charity fundraising, international pi day, Mechanics revision (there was a big basket of glitter on a slope, what friction kept it sitting?) and bar charts with Year 7 declaring their favourite fraction involved glitter.... 

Glitter on the carpet
Glitter in the corridors
Glitter

Now I'm not a teacher and have morphed into a Baptist minister, my love of glitter has not diminished. A craft with the added beauty of glitter makes one sparkle and shine like no other.

Glitter in the hymn books
Glitter in the cake
Glitter

What I don't understand about glitter, is the number of people who I talk to who have an intense hatred of the stuff. 

We've banned glitter, it gets everywhere. 
Glitter? Nasty stuff. 
Glitter......

I was reflecting on the banning of glitter from church buildings. What does it say about us? 

That we like to be tidy and clean and not make too much mess?

Or let's dig deeper.... we don't like things when we don't know where they are going to scatter? 

I recently ordered a new book. I don't know what it has in it as I haven't opened it yet, but I love the front cover. It's called Untamed Hospitality by Elizabeth Newman. On the front cover is a picture of a Dandelion Clock.



Imagine if we practised hospitality like a dandelion clock offers its seeds to the wind? We don't really know where it's going, we don't know what impact it will have and where the seeds will settle and grow, but we might be open to the possibility of our hospitality seeds taking us to places we don't expect. 

Imagine if we practised hospitality like glitter - where we don't mind where we end up, where we don't really know where we are going, but we know we will end up making our home somewhere where when the light catches us, we will sparkle, and bring beauty and change. 

Are we afraid of the glitter because we are afraid of mess?
Are we afraid of the glitter because it says something about our approach to change and risk? 

A crafter went out to make craft with glitter. As the crafter crafted, some of the glitter fell on the floor, and someone came later with a vacuum cleaner and sucked it up. Some of the glitter fell on some paper without glue. It looked beautiful for a while, but then it was picked up and the glitter fell away and the picture was no more. Some of the glitter fell amongst the scrap material, and its sparkle was hidden and eventually it was thrown away. Other glitter fell on the craft the crafter was making and it sparkled and it shined as it became something beautiful. As the crafter carried the craft home, the glitter spread onto their clothes and there was a trail of glitter wherever the crafter went - a trail that spoke of the story of the beauty of the craft even when it had been left in a pile with others. 

Let those who use glitter spread the sparkle far and wide by being generous and hospitable and be not afraid to take glittery risks.....

And go with the glitter. It doesn't matter that it gets everywhere when it brings joy to so many. It doesn't matter if you go home sparkling because then you can tell your story. 

And while we're at it, let's stop banning food and drinks from certain parts of the building..... church needs to be like the living room, not the formal front room where the sofas are covered in plastic and shoes are most definitely banned. The living room is where family is built, where people feel safe and where relationships develop. If we don't allow the spreading of glitter in our spaces, there will always be a barrier to feeling at home. The living room allows space and time for faith to grow - a messy, glittery, challenging, comfortable place to call home. 

Glittery glitter.

(for Jesus' version of the glitter story (and with a much greater depth of meaning than surface glitter) see The Parable of the Sower - Matthew 13:1-9)

Moving beyond fixing.....

Bottom set Year 10 in a difficult school - a girl, with problems at home. She suggests to her friend who is pregnant that she'd quite like to have a baby too because then she will have someone to love her. The teacher overhears this, ignores it, carries on teaching. The observer (me) overhears it and mulls it over for a while. 

Later on in the week the girl won't stop talking. The teacher stops. Again. Again. Again. The girl won't stop talking. The teacher says 'you need to stop talking' the girl says 'that's not what I need'. They argue for the rest of the lesson it seems. 

Next week there are exam papers lying on the teacher's desk. The girl - she asks what they are about. The teacher says they are for another class - but that if she wants she can help count them. The girl picks up the papers, she puts them in piles and she quietly listens as the teacher continues with the lesson. 

That series of incidents from when I was learning to be a teacher has never left me. The needs of the girl - at home and in school are evident. The teacher knows that getting a grade in maths will make a huge difference to the options for her future. The girl - she has other things on her mind. 

What can the teacher do to fix it? Not ignore her - that is what seems to happen all the time. Not make her conform - perhaps she is sick of being told what to do. She's different. Deal with it. 

But, perhaps the teacher's role is not to fix, but to welcome, and in that welcome, help guide her on a path to a better life. As she is invited to participate by counting exam papers and her contribution valued, she then begins to feel like this is a place she can belong. She's there. She's needed. She begins to journey forward as she chooses to participate.

Our initial reaction is too often to fix. How can I make this person's life better? How can I make them fit in to expectations so that they can get on in life? What can I do? What difference can I make? It becomes about 'me' and that's emphasised when we make sure we write down what we've done on social media for everyone else to see. 

We like to fix. I've had people try and fix me. I don't talk much, until I know I am in a safe place. But then when I talk, I occasionally encounter people who want to fix me. And that makes me angry. I don't want to be fixed. I just want to be. 

And I think that 'being' word is the key. For the girl - belonging, being there in that classroom with purpose was what she needed right then. For me, when I talk, I just want you to be with me, listen, help me learn to trust you, go at my pace. 

When we look at the world around us, often our response is 'how can we fix this?'. Then we jump quickly to fix - which is sometimes needed, but often reactionary, short term and doesn't offer long term solutions and reach down deep into the roots of the problems. 

I've been reading a book called 'Making Room' by Christine D Pohl. It's about hospitality in Christian tradition. I've been struck by her reflections on how Christians today offer hospitality. Our offers of hospitality are often about doing stuff for people or to people - fixing people through resources - and then when we are drained, we hide away from those who are different to us to build up our resources again. Pohl writes that Christians today are much better at collecting and providing for needs than we are at welcoming people into the community. We become people who fix rather than people who 'be'. Providing for others is good, and important, but when that becomes an 'out there' thing and not a 'welcome in' thing, when we 'do to' and forget to 'be with' we miss something of the hospitality of God's Kingdom. 

The early Christian communities were radical, rebellious and counter cultural because of equality within the community - no society reflecting hierarchy or privilege or special food for special people. They recognised the need and importance of fellowship and friendship.

As we recognise that same need within church community, then perhaps we need to be thinking about how we be with people and journey together. As we serve, invite others to serve with us. As we provide food, invite others to share in the distribution and then sit alongside them to eat. As we sit down, put an extra chair at the table. As we prepare, invite others to count exam papers. Small invitations to belong, to taste and to experience the love of God together.

Be......

The Parable of the Polygons (and let's add some shapes with curved edges because they're important too)

I often talk about what normal is with one particular mathematician friend. Whenever anyone talks about what normal is then there needs to be a central defining point. For us, (jokingly of course) it's people like us. We're two different people with a different set of beliefs but with a number of things that unite us, so if we are both normal the concept of what is normal (if it is to be us) must be quite diverse. What I value in our normalness together is the fact that we can engage on a level that has more depth than engaging with people who are just like us. 

I've been doing a lot of thinking about community building and hospitality in a church context. When we look to belong we often look to people who are like us. Same social standing, same economic background, same interests, same...... those social groupings are based on our own concept of normalness. To begin to let the group grow beyond that normality is seen as taking risks or messy or rocking the status quo. 

Or is it?

I recently came across the 'Parable of the Polygons' which was shared on facebook. This attracted me because of the word Polygon and probably put a lot of people off because it sounds a bit mathematical. Anyway, have a read and a go, it is really interesting - like a game you could play for ages..... and there are graphs. 

The general gist of the Parable of the Polygons is that the choices we make in the way we relate to different social groupings and the way we invite people to be part of our own social groupings can cause harm if we don't make those choices carefully. We can say we are seeking equality, we are seeking to embrace all, but in making bad choices as to who we spend time with we could be creating a community made up of unhappy triangles....it'll all make sense if you have a play... go on, I dare you. 

The writer wraps up with three points, the last one of which tells us to 'demand diversity near you'. They say that we need to look around us and that if we are all triangles we're going to be 'missing out on some amazing squares in your life - that's unfair to everyone'. 

The results of this parable are interesting - that where we demand a bit of diversity in our groupings, this makes a huge positive difference overall. 

So, why is this important in the context of a church community? 

Well, words are batted around about being welcoming, inclusive, seeking diversity; we say that God's love is for everyone, not just people like us, that Jesus died on the cross for everyone, not just those we like, they just need to respond to him. But then we mourn (or some of us secretly love I reckon) the fact that churches are monochrome, made of one generation, too family orientated, too feminine, too masculine, just too..... 

What the Parable of the Polygons shows us is that where a small minority are committed to challenging the biases that naturally exist in our communities, that can make a difference, but that it takes work. It doesn't take giving up and hoping it happens. It doesn't take giving in and saying 'well this inevitable'. It takes 2,3, 4..... people who are committed to being anti-biased to change a community, and as more people see the change, feel the change, recognise it as beneficial to the wider community they will join too. 

In recognising the diversity that should naturally exist in the people we group with as a local church, we recognise how society has changed. We'd like to hold on to a time when society was not as it is today, but then we miss the beauty of what we can learn from the God places - the thin places where heaven and earth meet that exist in the communities around us. 

So perhaps we need to change where the boundaries are, and that's what those triangles and squares seeking diversity are doing. Where the status quo changes to something more reflective of where people actually are, where the diversity of culture is expressed, then the community we are part of becomes better, more beautiful, more reflective of the Image of God in which we were created. In the end perhaps we'll be happier together....?

I've been reading 'Tracks and Traces' by Paul Fiddes. I love this book... he says on p133....

".... If we are to minister to society as a whole, and to its various social groupings that can no longer be confined to a nuclear family, then we must learn to 'open up space' within the boundaries of the gathered church. We must learn hospitality which is not patronizing and which values people for whom they are. We must let our living space overlap with others". 

A type of hospitality that is unbiased? Welcoming the squares and the triangles and the shapes with curved edges? Is that more normal than gathering with people who are like me? Is that what a church with Christ at the head should look like?