What it takes to be church - inclusive church that's open to all

Welcome to our services today and a special welcome if you are worshipping with us for the first time. This afternoon we have a cream tea from 3-00 to 5-00 to celebrate our new serving area in church and our new café space too. We have invited those who use our premises during the week so come along and give them a warm welcome! 

In our services at the moment we are looking at what it takes to be church. 

We’ve looked at the way we are called to Christ-centred, Bible-based and Spirit-filled. 

Today we come on to reflect on the very last part of the vision we have for our church: that Highbury be a place that’s open to all … and so, inclusive. 

As you are preparing for this time of worship imagine for a moment you are outside our church.  What can you see?  Think of all the people who live in the houses around our church, the houses you have passed on your way to church. Next imagine you are walking down Oxford Street: you turn right on to the London Road and walk into town, through the Strand into the centre of town to Boots Corner … keep on walking down the High Street, past the new Brewery development and on down the lower High Street towards the Honeyborne line and the railway bridge just before Tesco’s. 

Who do you see?  

Elderly people, young people, children, wheelchair users, people of many nationalities, pushchairs, bikes, families, people who are homeless, women, men.   

Now think of all those who will be sharing in this service. 

And then think of all those who will be coming into these premises during the coming week. 

Ask yourself – does our church reflect the make-up of people you could see around you? If they came into our church, would they feel welcome? Would the worship and the life of the church include them, or drive them away? 

Spend some time in prayer and put your thoughts about these questions into God’s hands, seeking his blessing and praying that our church can indeed seek to be a place that is open to all.

Welcome and Call to Worship

Praise and worship with Hy-Spirit

Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer

Jesus welcomes all

Galatians 3:26-28

A Hy-Spirit Song

Activities for all over 3

All are welcome

Reading; Jeremiah 31:1-14

In our services at the moment we are looking at what it takes to be church. We’ve looked at the way we are called to Christ-centred, Bible-based and Spirit-filled. Today we come on to reflect on the very last part of the vision we have for our church: that Highbury be a place that’s open to all … and so, inclusive.

Did you try it? Bring to mind the experience? Try it now?

As you are preparing for this time of worship imagine for a moment you are outside our church.  What can you see?  Think of all the people who live in the houses around our church, the houses you have passed on your way to church.

Next imagine you are walking down Oxford Street: you turn right on to the London Road and walk into town, through the Strand into the centre of town to Boots Corner … keep on walking down the High Street, past the new Brewery development and on down the lower High Street towards the Honeyborne line and the railway bridge just before Tesco’s.

Who do you see?  Elderly people, young people, children, wheelchair users, people of many nationalities, pushchairs, bikes, families, people who are homeless, women, men.  

Now think of all those who will be sharing in this service.

How well do we know each other? On the surface we look fine. But under the surface. I guess we each of us have issues.

Now think of all those who will be coming into these premises during the coming week.

A large number of groups – a great number of people.

A number of groups provide care and support to particular groups of people for people to support each other: the Highbury Club for those who are blind and with visual impairments, Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous; two Heart to Heart Exercise Groups, a balance group, Slimming World and occasional meetings of the Gloucestershire 4 x 4 Response Group.

We host a number of life-long learning classes that enable people to study without working towards a qualification: with the University of the 3rd Age, two Bridge Classes, a Recorder Consort, an Art Group, a Shakespeare Group and a History of Art class. We host a Lace-making class, the Carlton Lacemakers, and two upholstery classes. Two further Art classes have started during the year.  For chidden and young people we host three schools: Monkey Music for toddlers, another music school for Toddlers and a Rock School for young people. And for all ages, the Cheltenham Philharmonic Orchestra rehearses each week at Highbury. And the Mid-life Choir-sis rehearses here too.

Among the interest groups  that use our premises are the local NHS Retirement Group and the committee of Cheltenham’s Horticultural Society.

We are home to the 1st Cheltenham (Highbury) Scout Group, and the 11th Cheltenham Guide Group, and the 7th and 11th Cheltenham Brownie Groups.

Ask yourself – does our church reflect the make-up of people you could see around you? If they came into our church, would they feel welcome? Would the worship and the life of the church include them, or drive them away?

What would people make of what we are doing now? Does it make connections? Is it alive? Is it something we believe in and so want to share?

We have started doing things differently – Film Club – a mix of different people coming in with something of a message in what we do. Messy Church – engaging in a different way with worship. Is this high on our order of priorities?

Are we welcoming of all people?

There’s a wonderful vision Jeremiah has at a moment of deep distress for the people of God. All has been lost. They languish in exile. There is nothing for them. Then he has a remarkable vision of the God who is the God of all the families of Israel.

At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.

Thus says the Lord:
The people who survived the sword
   found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest,
   the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
   therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Again I will build you, and you shall be built,
   O virgin Israel!
Again you shall take your tambourines,
   and go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.
Again you shall plant vineyards
   on the mountains of Samaria;
the planters shall plant,
   and shall enjoy the fruit.
For there shall be a day when sentinels will call
   in the hill country of Ephraim:
‘Come, let us go up to Zion,
   to the Lord our God.’ 

Then comes a remarkable passage and a remarkable vision. It says a great deal about people with disabilities. Usually when in the Bible we tell stories of people with things like leprosy, or blindness, or not able to walk the stories are about the healing that comes to them. But that can be troubling for those who live with conditions that are not going to go away. Is there something missing.

This is one of those remarkable moments in the Bible story – when all are welcome as they are. It is not just when they are ‘better’ when their condition has finished or been overcome.

For thus says the Lord:
Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
   and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
proclaim, give praise, and say,
   ‘Save, O Lord, your people,
   the remnant of Israel.’
See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
   and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
among them the blind and the lame,
   those with child and those in labour, together;
   a great company, they shall return here.
With weeping they shall come,
   and with consolations I will lead them back,
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
   in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
for I have become a father to Israel,
   and Ephraim is my firstborn. 

The exciting thing about this passage is that all come as they are – not as they have the potential to become.

See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
   and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
among them the blind and the lame,
   those with child and those in labour, together;
   a great company, they shall return here.
With weeping they shall come,
   and with consolations I will lead them back,

We have worked with Through the Roof on disability issues – the point of what we were doing was not just to put in ramps and better facilities in our building, though we have worked hard to do that. It was about attitudes. It was about acceptance. It was about our understanding and willingness to accept. The recognition that people are people made in the image of God and that we affirm each other with our rich variety of abilities.

Richard Sharpe sent me a link to a new group that has recently started who aim to share just that – introducing disability and Jesus.

http://www.disabilityandjesus.org.uk/index.html

In that way our vision is that we be open to all.

Spend some time in prayer and put your thoughts about these questions into God’s hands, seeking his blessing and praying that our church can indeed seek to be a place that is open to all.

Song: The Lord’s my shepherd

To seek to be open to all is a challenge at one level – of understanding, of acceptance – a challenge to us in what we do.

There is also a challenge at another level.

Faith is a funny thing … and religion even funnier. Religion can so often draw lines to mark out those who are in and those who are out.

That was very much the case at the time of Jesus and in the experience of Peter. There were all sorts of things you need to do to be part of that people of God. Ritual things to do; particular foods to eat; particular foods to avoid.

In that setting Luke tells the story of one of those moments of breakthrough for Peter. He had a clear idea in his mind of where to draw those boundaries.

In any other circumstances if he had been challenged to accept the hospitality of a high up centurion in the elite part of the occupying Roman army he would have baulked at the idea.

Acts 10:1-8

In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, ‘Cornelius.’ He stared at him in terror and said, ‘What is it, Lord?’ He answered, ‘Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.’ When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa.

At the very same time Peter had a remarkable vision of all manner of foodstuffs that were banned. And yet in his vision he distinctly heard the voice of God commanding him to get up, kill and eat. Coming to he found Cornelius’s men at the gate. He was prompted to go. What is difficult for us to appreciate in this story is just how much it took for Peter to cross that line, break through that barrier he had erected on religious grounds between us who are in and them who are out.

Acts 10:25-28

⁵On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshipped him. ²⁶But Peter made him get up, saying, ‘Stand up; I am only a mortal.’ ²⁷And as he talked with him, he went in and found that many had assembled; ²⁸and he said to them, ‘You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.”

That’s a remarkable comment to make.

Jesus had said, judge not that you be not judged.

This is the moment Peter sees the full impact of that insight.

He shares with Cornelius and with everyone in his house. And then says some remarkable words

Acts 10:32-36

Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, ³⁵but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. ³⁶You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 

This is a question that has hit some parts of the church hard in the context of sexuality. Is our sexuality all about behaviour that can be changed … or is our sexuality something that is a part of us that God accepts in all his glory?

I am drawn to the latter view. Whether we are heterosexual or homosexual is part of our make-up. And all of us, equally, are loved by God and made in his image. For all of us there are wonderful guidelines that our faith offers us about building relationships that are loving, caring, respectful, faithful and forgiving and they apply to heterosexual and homosexual relationships alike. It’s not something to make into a big defining issue where boundaries are drawn … it is simply part of being in that one body of God’s people where God shows no partiality and where we are all equally called to share our lives in God’s way of love that is truly open to all.

MTS 10 I the Lord of sea and sky

Prayers of Concern

Praise and Worship with Hy-Spirit

Words of Blessing