THE BLOG RETURNS!

It's 2014. So I'm thinking... why not give the Blog another fling. According to church guru Tom Ehrich the day of churches being all about worship on Sunday mornings has come to an end. To quote his article in January's Presbyterian Outlook.. 'Leaders should be blogging, nurturing small groups, looking for ways like video to reach more people and using technology to pursue 'touches' and 'leads'..."

To be honest that all seems rather daunting, but I can at least start with the first thing on the list! 'Blogging'.  So the Baldwin Presbyterian blog has returned. In it's previous incarnation this little corner of the web reflected on the previous Sundays sermon. This time, I'm thinking that maybe some pre-emptive thoughts as we approach Sunday worship may prove more fruitful.

However, if Tom is correct, and Sunday worship is no longer the BIG thing, (but rather part of a larger picture) then maybe I'm not thinking far enough out of the box as yet. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE if you are reading this, leave an occasional comment, share it on your Twitter/FB whatever spaces. One of the major reasons I abandoned this blog was the lack of response from all but a handful of wonderfully faithful folk. It seemed to take up a lot of time to reach very few people. But I'm trying again!

Our topic for this upcoming Sunday will be 'Words, Words, Words', based around the prologue to John's gospel.  "John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (Joh 1:1 NIV) 

To offer a little preview; 

"On television, on radio, chatter, chatter, chatter and on and on and on, till we get to a point where the TV is left on and the radio is left talking, but no-ones watching and no-ones listening, just a constant murmuring going on in the background.Words to songs. We sing them. We sing them again. but often they don't mean anything. As a pop tune once declared "Video killed the radio star". 

Even in church with our hymns. Some don't bother to pick up the book yet alone open their mouths. And when they are sung it is sometimes without imagination and without understanding. "Nice tune, but what's it all about?". Where there is no engagement of the mind it becomes just empty noise. 

Words from pulpits. How many words have floated over pews, but have never been received, never been chewed upon nor contemplated. The Words of the Bible. "Oh, I know that passage... but I'm not sure I like it in that translation, not sure what it means either, but I do like it."

So some thoughts to ponder as Sunday approaches:-

1. The 'Word' for John was something active, something that caused things to come into being. Incredibly creative and powerful. How can we, within our own experience, embrace such a concept?

2. The 'Word' was also incredibly tied in with John's notion that 'God so loved the world.' Love is an action, not a sentiment."The Word became Flesh and dwelt amongst us". There is a profoundly 'unphilosophical' edge to this notion. This Word gets down and dirty. The Word is not a randomly posted comment, but a personal in the flesh visitation. The challenge here seems to be that it is easy to stand by and talk about something, but to get stuck in and DO something... well that's another story altogether. One of my pet hates is our Presbyterian tendency to believe that because we have formed a committee and talked about something, the problem is therefore solved.

3. The 'Word'  is hard to capture with words.Words often let us down when we are trying to express what is most important.

So there's some thoughts to get us going. If you are not able to be in Baldwin Presby church this Sunday...or have no desire to be ... then you are still invited to be part of the conversation. The sermon is usually posted sometime Monday morning, and engagement is invited. GO HERE and click on the 'most recent sermon' link to find it after Sunday.

God Bless for 2014!