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HTF News General News The Searchlight has been switched on
HTF News General News The Searchlight has been switched on
| The Searchlight has been switched on |
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| Written by Graham Owen |
| Monday, 01 February 2010 00:00 |
 What is God calling us to be and to do as part of his church in Frome? SEARCHLIGHT (which will run until the end of March, now has just over 50 HTF folk involved) is about praying and working together towards discovering what the answer to that question might be as we move into a new decade. It is not intended to be a management exercise even though some things may change as a result. Rather, SEARCHLIGHT is about looking forwards, it is about vision, and that means letting light shine afresh on our church life so that we can see what is there that is good but could be better; what has been good but should be put to one side now, and of course, what exciting new adventures of faith are we being called to?At its heart, then, SEARCHLIGHT is a spiritual exercise; a prayerful discernment of vision and of how we should be adapting our life as a church to meet the requirements of our mission to share the love of Christ in Frome over the coming years. Those who came to the Parish Weekend at Lee Abbey in October 2009, will remember that we thought a great deal about the encounter that Jesus has with a Samaritan woman as she comes to perform her burdensome chore of drawing stale water up from the ancient depths of Jacob’s well. As the conversation goes on, Jesus surprises and shocks her by speaking to her (which by the standards of the Jewish practice of the day was unheard of) and telling her, and through her, us, that he has something new to offer; a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. This is a truly delightful metaphor, the image of living water describes perfectly what it means to be refreshed and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God who it seems has broken free of the old understanding as represented by the ancient well. The sparkling, bubbling, oxygenated, breath-filled waters of which Jesus speaks are on the move, touching new lives and especially those who are on the edge in some way, healing, restoring, consoling anyone. At Lee Abbey we began to imagine what it might mean for us to be filled to overflowing with such living waters, the Holy Spirit; refreshing dry and barren places in our lives and in our corporate life as a church, and flowing through us and beyond us into many desperately needy hearts and homes in the parish and town all around us. What would our church look like if we were all filled in this way, what would it mean for our sharing of the love of Christ? We are not to keep the blessings of God and the Good News of Jesus to ourselves, we are to pass them on, and there is no shortage of people who stand in dire need. Our existing mission statement is a good one “We aim through the power of the Holy Spirit to: grow closer to God as we worship, pray and read the Bible; be committed to each other in love, and encourage and support one another; share our faith and invite others to follow Christ; be involved with our local community, and offer practical help” But how do we rise to the challenge of this mission for the new decade, how can we be sure that we are as effective as we can be as a channel of grace to the thousands of people who live all around us? Let another woman from Scripture instruct us; the lady who is at the centre of a trinity of ‘Lost and Found’ stories in Luke 15, and who, having lost a precious coin, lights a lamp and searches diligently until she finds it. There are un-told possibilities in this short parable: as she searched high and low for that one coin, did she stumble over things that were just in the way and needed chucking out; did she discover other precious things that had been forgotten and should be restored to their proper place; and, after she had passed her light over every inch of her home, did she see it in a new way? In the encounter between Jesus and the woman of Samaria, the living waters are a powerful metaphor for the Holy Spirit, and now, in this story, we have the light by which a search is conducted. The light stands for Christ coming into the world, revealing truth wherever it falls and bringing the lost into his kingdom. So let the SEARCHLIGHT shine faithful and true, may it bring us to a deeper knowledge of ourselves and our mission, and in the words of C S Lewis, may we be ‘surprised by joy’ as the love of God, the Light of Christ and the Living Waters of the Holy Spirit flood out into Trinity Parish and the whole of Frome. Lord Jesus, as you fulfilled your promise to send the Holy Spirit upon your disciples, so we pray that the same living waters, the spring of eternal life would well up in us. Keep before us a right vision of what we are to become, and help us in our task to share the Love of Christ with the people of Frome |