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This week on Fab Church
Hello Fabbers!
At the beginning of this week, I was on retreat with the Anglican Church of Bermuda clergy in Mississauga, Toronto. We were staying in a Catholic retreat centre and getting away for three days gave me a short time to stop and reflect. Helen and I took a month off in the summer to visit the UK but had very little time to ourselves, therefore it was no wonder that on the second day of the retreat I crashed. I could hardly stay awake!
It was wonderful being in the slightly cooler Canadian air, watching the salmon leap in the Credit river, the flocks of flickers on the lawn (a kind of woodpecker), and the fluffy, black squirrels — we even caught sight of an urban coyote! — however, the best thing about the retreat was the inclusive teaching from Judith Paulson, Professor of Evangelism at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto.
Judith focused on four conversion stories from the New Testament, and it was encouragement to me (as someone who thinks they are probably an evangelist and teacher) to be reminded of God’s heart for the poor and marginalised.
With so much running through my head, returning from retreat on Wednesday night, I laid low for a couple of days and this was a good opportunity to work on the back end (the code) of fab.church. Certainly not glamorous, but going through seventy or so pages of code and tidying it up, adding comments, spotting errors, and improving efficiency was cathartic whilst I thought about this week’s Insight and what to write.
To cap this week, Helen and I were humbled to read a letter to the editor of The Royal Gazette here in Bermuda, about the inclusive church work we are doing on the ground. You can read it here, not as a means of blowing our own trumpet, but in recognition of God’s Spirit at work in and through us and the lives of those we encounter. We must celebrate the small wins and give God all the credit!
This week…
Sometimes things come together and align, and no-doubt the Holy Spirit is smiling this week! One of the stories we looked at on the retreat was about the Ethiopian Eunuch who came to know Jesus. You can read all about this in Acts 8:28-40, and at the same time a friend pointed me to a Facebook post all about biological gender. During the retreat I wrote up a very short summary about this and posted it as a Creativity item:
Biological Sex
Biological Sex is non-binary and complex and you cannot base someone’s Biological sex solely on outward appearance.
This Creativity fed, partly into my Insight which is based on Sunday’s gospel reading from Mark 10.2-16. Jesus talks about divorce and mentions how God made them ‘male and female’, and he finishes with the passage where he blesses little children.
How does mercy trump judgment?
There is important ‘Godly’ principal found in the book of James — ‘Mercy triumphs over Judgment’ — which is vital for us to embrace as we navigate our contemporary lives.
And finally, this week’s Devotion, based on Luke 3:18-20 and called Justice, ties into the gospel reading as it is about John the Baptiser who criticised Herod for marrying his brother’s wife!
Justice
Sometimes, as Christians, we are called to stand up for what is right and speak out against injustice.
And finally…
I will close with the prayer from this week’s Devotion:
Holy God
Give me wisdom to know
how and when to speak out,
when I see others being
oppressed, abused, or exploited.
Give me boldness to
stand up for what is right, true, and honest,
in the name of Jesus Christ.
This day and for ever.
Amen.
Have a blessed week.
Rev Gav and Helen
xx
