Pip n Jay

Church Life April 2012

This way to new life

Happy Easter

Church Life Pip n Jay I’m so excited about Easter, I’ve got carried away and taken over the front page!

Don’t worry, Tim is still very much in charge, and on the centre pages you will find him talking about what it means to be a leader of disciples who are called to carry a cross like Jesus.

This issue of Church Life is built around Easter and, in particular, the last chapters of the Gospel. We are about to remember and re-live this time in church, so we decided to share some stories of what God is doing among us which link in with Easter.

There is food, prayer and trial as we see what it is like for our faith to be tested to the limits.

Sadly, in a still broken world, there is also death and a time for mourning.

But there is also new life and causes for celebration. God’s kingdom is breaking through.

There’s a lot we couldn’t fit in. At RE:SOURCE, where we equip disciples to make disciples, lots of people have seen breakthroughs and had exciting conversations with people who God seems to be working with.

Greg Sharples has seen a number of people start to follow Jesus - we share the story of just one of these people in this magazine.

It seems like most weeks I’ve been meeting people new to Pip n Jay who have come for lots of different reasons and are hearing from God through prayer or some other part of our worship together.

So we’re celebrating Easter, but It’s not just a story. These are things God is doing in us and through us right now. It’s a very exciting time to be here. I hope you find lots to share with friends and neighbours as we grow as disciples making disciples on mission with Jesus.

In this issue 3 Helen Leckie 4 Tim Silk 6 Tony Allen 7 Gary Silverthorne and Caroline Thomas 8 Prayer from the 13-18s

on mission with Jesus growing disciples growing churches April 2012

Easter excitement

Bern Leckie

Get in touch Email: churchlife@pipnjay.org

Editors: Bern Leckie & Tim Silk Production team: Mark Butt & Ellen Haggan

facebook.com/pipnjay @pipnjay

Next month The VISION Issue Out Sunday 6 May Story ideas and contributions needed by Sunday 29 April

Jesus started his ministry with a fast and spent the night before he died with a feast. What is so important about food in following Jesus? We asked discipleship group leader and occupational therapist Helen Leckie.

What do you like about food? The taste, sharing with friends, and cooking. I grew up with a family that enjoys food as an important part of life and rituals, celebrating special occasions and always sat down at the table with dinner together. It was the time everything would get discussed, everyday and deeper things. Sharing things like food enable people to be less like separate entities and more like one body.

How does food help discipleship? We’ve always shared food at the start of house group meetings. It’s been a really good way to get to know people informally and form real relationships which go beyond just meeting once a week.

It’s also a good way for people to take on a role within the group. People tend to offer help where they can, and we tend to accept! When we first started a housegroup, Phil Rendell was new to church and was the only one who offered to stay behind and wash up. This was a great way for us to get to know each other. People also like to feel useful and valued, and the different roles involved with food help with that.

So what have you learned from Jesus about food? The importance of fasting and feasting! These are both disciplines we sometimes need to celebrate. Marking occasions with a feast brings people together and reminds them of what they have in common. God saved Israel from slavery in Egypt and told them to keep celebrating the Passover feast to remember this. Jesus shared broken bread and wine at this feast to ask disciples to remember him.

I first had communion after I was confirmed at age 14, but it was something I’d wanted to do since I was a little girl. It made me feel honoured that I was getting a part in sharing Jesus’ body and blood, and I was awed by what it meant to have this connection with God and other believers who took the same.

Feasting sounds great—so why fast? God also expects us to do this. It helps me concentrate on him. I want to eat but I say that I don’t just live because of food, and the body needs to focus and acknowledge this.

The first time I fasted completely from food was in deciding whether or not to get married. We took the time we would have spent eating to pray and felt a sense of where God was pointing.

Fasting, feasting and followingFasting, feasting and following Does God speak through food? A couple of prophetic images given to me have been food related. When we started a new housegroup, we were worried that we could not fit in enough people. Jonathan Woolcock shared a picture of a picnic blanket which kept spreading to accommodate people, and this turned out to be correct!

When I have prayed about what to do in life, a key image was of being God’s spatula, an instrument used to gather in the bits which stick to the side and haven’t mixed with the rest of the bowl. I like to do this at church and at work, bringing people into the mix.

But at the moment you are dieting? Yes—that feels good and bad! God has given us various things including our physical bodies to take care of, and I have known I should reduce weight to avoid the risk of health problems.

If we put too much of ourselves into food it’s not acting responsibly with what God has given, and it could also be a sign of greed. Comfort eating is a way of dealing with things which isn’t taking God into account, so it honours him to live differently. The feasting bits in the Bible always sound good, I’d rather gloss over the fasting, but I want to follow Jesus.

Sharing food enables people

to feel less separate and more like one

body

Tim Silk has been leading Pip n Jay since last Easter. He has asked people to do some difficult things. Church Life asked to find out more about where Tim’s sense of mission and challenge came from.

How did you first meet Jesus? I was brought up in Kent in the 70s during a charismatic renewal. I saw men who worked outdoors farming or making things stop to pray, then I saw them again in church. They lived all of life in Jesus’ name in a robust and rugged way.

When we moved to Cambridgeshire, our church was not lively or young but when a visiting youth mission team came and stayed at our house, I saw their lives and they were saying what I’d always heard. I was 13 and that was when I personally encountered Jesus

and realised I needed to run to him.

How did you get into Christian leadership? I was immediately drawn into youth events and chucked in at the deep end to lead them when I was 15. We did tent missions in towns—door knocking, youth events and lots of surveys. It made me think a lot about what I believe, and why, because I was grilled about it.

There was a point at age 17 when I was invited to preach at a healing service and I considered the gospel deeply. I realised that if it is true, it has implications for everything I do and am, and I wanted to throw my life into that.

So you became a young church leader? I had lots of conversations with people at school and college about Jesus, but I was guided by youth leaders to spend

time at school rather than church.

I felt like I had to work very hard to be taken seriously by the people responsible for generating leaders. When I tried to get into Spurgeon’s College aged 17, I told them I felt called to be an evangelist. They told me to “grow up”.

Later, at Oxford Brookes University, I built up and led a Christian Union and the student worker at St Ebbe’s said that he feared being a church leader would domesticate me, and that I

should be outside and more radical. There was talk of working as a lay assistant, but when an opportunity came up to train at Oak Hill College in London, people seemed to believe the Lord’s hand was on the process where I gained

theological training.

I was ordained in 1999 and told I was very young when interviewed for a curacy. “What do you expect me to

I told them I felt called to be an

evangelist. They told me to grow up.

Leading people to carry a cross

do?” I asked. “All I can do is keep breathing!” They laughed and gave me the job. Age was always an issue, but I felt I was given a heart for all ages.

You don’t seem to be a “line of least resistance” kind of leader... One thing people have always found challenging is that I keep asking “how do we reach the people that we are not currently reaching?”

I have also experienced the challenge of being an English protestant trying to lead in Dublin from 2007 to 2011.

What did you learn there? I had to find out everything about everything. “I’m English and I’m here to tell you what to do” does not work, but “I don’t know—can you help me?” was much better.

The people I met were warm, interested and wanted to be helpful, and they had a way of doing things—”trust first, conversation later, action after that.”

Trust in the church had been a big issue. What sense did you have of your organisation being on trial? A number of things came to light in the 1990s. The church had been perceived as the moral police who had been found out. The extent of the crisis was that, when we underwent child protection training, we were told that the problems could be found anywhere and that we would all be tarred with the same brush.

In the past, people would have seen church leaders in dog collars all the time. Over 30 training colleges closed in Ireland, leaving just one, and of the few who were trained, many chose not to wear the dog collar because some who did were beaten up or stabbed.

It turned out that in this situation, being ordained seemed one of the most unhelpful things I could have been.

How did you lead in that situation? God helped me to understand that I had a culture, something different about me, and that I would stand out being in a minority as I worked.

It was a “lose-lose” situation and I loved it because anything that worked was positive. The people were also

nice and fun, and there is a deep interplay between the Irish and the English. In Ireland you never criticise the Irish, always the English, and make yourself the butt of jokes.

Most importantly I understood that, working for the church, people could expect to relate to someone as vicar and they might always be on trial for being associated with the church. But the real need is to go beyond that expectation and form real relationships.

What do you think of Jesus’ trial? Why didn’t he offer a defence? He knew who he was, in close relationship with the Father and empowered by the Spirit. His life was his testimony. He kept telling his disciples who he was and what would happen, and he knew how the story ended.

When Jesus said we have to carry our cross and follow him, what does that mean for you? I want to choose Jesus’ way and

whatever he is leading me into over something which is not his way. It’s identifying with him in a broken world.

I don’t see being vicar as carrying a cross—it’s a joy because I

know where God wants me—but the cross is the invitation to all of us to live as though we are dead, with our lives hidden with Christ in God.

Everything we are is in Jesus. Carrying a cross like Jesus is to live in the light of the fact that our lives are no longer our own. The life we’ve been given is lived to the full as it is seen to connect with Jesus.

How would you encourage someone who feels under trial right now?

This is not forever. God has put seasons into life. The things which appear hard and bad are often for God’s glory and good, and he will turn the hardest things to work for ultimate good.

Those who trust in Jesus are empowered by the Spirit. You are not alone.

Carrying a cross is to live as though

our life is in Jesus, no longer our own

Tony Allen writes:

Years ago Easter always seemed slightly odd to me - celebrating someone’s suffering and death! For me Good Friday seemed more important than Easter day. This year is different. Having recently lost my wife Rita I am now having to re-evaluate my faith. What Rita meant to me can be seen in the ‘Poem’ below.

Happiness Happiness was our first date Sunday 2nd May 1971

Happiness was you agreeing to marry me on Tuesday 18th January 1972

Happiness was me ‘Floating on air’ when we walked down the aisle of St Marks on our wedding day 18th September 1972.

Happiness was being there as each of our three children was born Mark, Kevin and Nicola.

Happiness was sharing the birth pangs with you as you bit into my hand.

Happiness was sitting on the beach at Paignton with a towel over our heads as the rain came down while the boys continued swimming.

Happiness was on your birthday walking hand in hand from Bournemouth Pier to Hengistbury Head and back again, you so loved Bournemouth.

Happiness was just watching your face as the grandchildren came, Olivia, Georgia, Daisy and Sonny.

Happiness was listening to your endless stories of life in Boots and the multitude of people you met there.

Happiness was the meals we shared from Egg and Chips to Sea Bass; from Cheese Salad to Chicken Madras; from simple Scones and Jam to Raspberry Roulade.

Happiness was having you there to nurse me through all my bad times and there were a few.

Happiness was sitting quietly side by side you reading the ‘Hatched, Matched and Despatched’ and me dozing.

Happiness was shopping with you wherever it might be The Mall, Sainsbury’s, Tesco’s etc.

Happiness was sitting in my favourite chair and hearing the worship songs emanating from the kitchen; you so loved to sing!

Happiness was waking up at three in the morning with you quietly sleeping by my side

Happiness was watching you reach out to others in Oncology despite your own suffering.

Happiness was being there as you breathed your last and went to join our Father God in heaven.

Happiness for me was just being with you

Grief and faith

I know Rita is in a better place, no more tears, no more suffering, but I miss her; and yes, it hurts, it really hurts! Jesus wept for his friend Lazarus before raising him from the dead. But, I know, God himself is here, just as he has been with us through all our lives. He knows exactly how I feel. He watched his own son suffer and die on the cross.

Now in front of me is a gaping void - but I look to God to fill it. The morning after I was told Rita was going to die, my bible reading was Jeremiah 29, which contains the following: 11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

My faith, if anything, is stronger! My hope is in God, as was Rita’s.

Rita Allen

A network of support

In January’s Church Life we looked at how simple church is being planted in Bristol. Gary Silverthorne is a new follower of Jesus as a result.

Last year, Gary was suffering with vertigo and depression. “These took away my confidence and self esteem”, said Gary, “and as I concentrated on getting myself better, my relationships collapsed.”

While he always described himself as “no angel,” Gary’s lowest point came when his heart had a murmur last June and needed to be jumped to recover its rhythm.

“I had been thinking on the dark side,” Gary remembered, “but when I woke up I said if I’m going to do something for my family one day I need to do something about it.”

Gary asked his doctor to take him off the tablets treating depression, and he started to build up self esteem through his family, including his mother Marilyn, who lives in the Dings, and his 22 year old son. However, they were very much missing Gary’s father who died a few years ago.

Greg Sharples called at Marilyn’s door in February this year while looking to church plant, and Gary quickly responded. “I really wanted to go to church. After the issues with my health I wanted to pay back and thank God.”

At his first Sunday at Pip n Jay, he asked for prayer. “I talked about my problems and guilt,” said Gary, “but those we re taken away as I chose to follow the Lord.

“Now I feel great and don’t carry the pressures I had before. I used to have problems not getting on with people at work, but life is now different. Instead of bickering I concentrate on more important things.”

Gary said the Bible has changed him. “Scripture gives me strength and a better outlook. I’m struck by what it says about love, not putting myself first, and the importance of helping neighbours. I have stopped swearing. I feel pure, a better person within.”

Gary hopes that his son will see how he has changed and follow Jesus too. “It changes your life. If you can show people the right way, they will realise.”

Caroline Thomas writes from Madagascar:

When an abandoned child comes to us from the police we have to research where he came from and try to trace his family. One of our latest little boys came from a village far away from here, so yesterday we hired a mini bus and drove for 3 hours to his city and a further 30 minutes into the bush through open fields and deep mud. The path was too narrow for a car so we walked in our flip-flops through long grass and hitched a ride on a passing tractor!

We found the house of our little boy’s family. We heard from the neighbours how his grandmother used to beat him and lock him in the animal hut next to their house, sometimes for the whole night. We heard everyone calling 'look, there's dirty-boy' as that's all they'd ever known him as. We had to watch his face as his grandmother said she had seen the posters the police had posted all over the city... they meant to phone the number, but they didn't.

We got to see the relief on his little 7 year old face as we got back into our car and he realised that he was coming back home with us again, and would never have to go back there again. I got to hold him in my lap as he slept in my arms the whole way home. It was an incredible drive back as a storm swept through the mountains and the lightning lit up the mountain tops.

We got to pray with our child this morning and hear His Father singing love songs over him, telling him how he is precious and chosen; that he is incredibly precious and that He loves him so much! We got to see him smile the whole day today whenever we say 'Hi Precious!' to him. I love watching my Father being so incredibly awesome, taking captives and setting them free and transforming these gorgeous little ones into his image!

Precious

New life is springing up

What are you praying for?

You can share your prayer requests with others on our Facebook group or in the next edition of Church Life—email prayer@pipnjay.org

If you also have an urgent practical need, you can contact the Care Links team via Cilla Weir on 0117 924 7301.

On Saturday 10th March the young people took part in a Holy Spirit Saturday led by CIRCLES (the youth club that meets on a Sunday morning). The day was devoted to understanding the power and significance of the Holy Spirit. Jo Allen spoke on ‘Who is the Holy Spirit?’ and Chris Owen explained ‘How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?’ In between we had some fun, asked a lot of questions and did some spirit-soaking.

Next term SOURCE will be looking at Jesus and how his incredible life can shape and transform our own. CIRCLES are going to be digging into discipleship. Please keep the requests below and the young people of Pip n Jay in your prayers as they walk and grow in their faith where they are.

Please pray for the exams and coursework that are coming up in the next couple of months

Please pray for an opportunity for me to get a job so I can earn some money

I pray we would

experience more of

who God is every

day

I pray for my family and friends who don’t know God, that they would come to know him

I pray for the areas of England that are close to drought

I pray that the world will come together, and trust, forgive and become Christians

Please pray that our relationship with God would become stronger

My new baby cousin was born today so I pray that she is well and has a good, safe life

I pray for world peace (and no rain on Soul Survivor!)

Please pray that we might know the power of God’s spirit in our lives, helping us to live for him every day

Please pray that I

would feel better

about myself

I pray to help my

lodger move into

her new home

This month: prayers from Source, Pip n Jay’s youth club for 13-18 year olds