Sunday 29 May 2016

'Sharing faith in words and deeds - my task - your task - our task' Transcript of sermon 29th May 2016

CA Preachment St Michael and All Angels Colwich 29th May 2016
Galatians 1.1-12 & Luke 7.1-10

www.churcharmy.org.uk


The Church of England is currently undergoing restructuring and renewal and reform at all levels. Archbishop Justin Welby has made evangelism one of his top three priorities and established an Evangelism Task Force Group. We have just had the call to prayer from both Archbishops for the evangelization of the nation. Yet despite all of this, a recent report has predicted that we are not going to see any kind of turn around and real increase in numbers engaging with the Church of England for the next thirty years.


This will be exacerbated by a huge tranche of priest who will be retiring in the next ten years – the ‘baby boomers’ born in the 50’s and 60’s.

Some of course see the inevitable decline of the church until it becomes a total irrelevance.

You may well have had it said to you that religion is just a psychological crutch, or you may have heard people say that Christianity is a myth, a fairy story.

The Church Army's CEO Mark Russel paid a visit recently to The Amber Project that exists to support any young person (aged 14-25) in Cardiff and the surrounding areas who has experience of self-harm.

He got chatting to one young girl who he said had arms that looked like the map of the London Underground. Mark was curious as to why anyone would want to self-harm in this way and so asked her why she did this. She told him of her abusive past at the hands of an older brother. That made her feel awful inside and so in self-harming she was trying to show outside what she was feeling on the inside. Mark began to say how awful that was but she stopped him and said, Mark you have not noticed. There are no new marks or cuts because Jesus is cleansing me from the inside so I do not need to self-harm any more.


Through a set of circumstances, a woman in her seventies found herself sleeping on the streets of London. Desperate and cold someone suggested she try the Church Army Marylebone Project. Gradually she has been helped to get her life back on track and now works as a volunteer at the project. The Marylebone Project, which is one of the very few projects for homeless woman, last year offered over 40,000 bed nights.



If Christianity is just a myth and fairy story then is it a brilliant one.

Through the ministry of Church Army, many people are saved, literally as well as spiritually. 

Prebandary Wilson Carlile founded the Church Army in 1882 to help people come into a living relationship with Jesus. That remains our core business, for only in Christ is there fullness of life.

The world is a vastly different place from those early days that initially focused around Westminster, London but quickly branching out across the country with our first Training College in Oxford.


Today we are a mission-focused community of people who are transforming lives and communities through the work of evangelists, staff and supporters. We are committed to sharing the Christian faith through words and action in a variety of contexts across the British Isles.
 
I have been involved with the Church Army since 1978 and my first CA experience was on a Beach Mission at Great Yarmouth.

Then I moved to take up a post as Warden/Manager of a Conference and Holiday Centre in Victoria, London. The Church Army has always been innovative and willing to check if a piece of work was still fit for purpose or to try something new and different.  Brookfield House was a tall up and down town house in Ecclestone Square and initially offered a safe home to young girls going to London for work as home-helps, nannies or secretaries. Then it shifted focus and began to offer a London experience to many youth groups from across England, Ireland and from many other parts of the world.

Residential Centres are very expensive especially when trying to meet the ever-increasing demands of new laws and legislation.  Therefore, the Church Army gradually moved out of its Men’s and Woman’s hostels and its Care Homes and Holiday Centres.

We still have a few flagship residential centres, principally the Marylebone Project in London and The Amber Project in Cardiff.  

A key part of the Church Army today is the Centres of Missions established around the country. A new one has just opened up in remote Tuam in the North West of Ireland in partnership with the Roman Catholic Church.

Centres of Mission, which began in 2008 are a community of evangelists working together to pioneer a fresh expression of church or a new piece of evangelism with the aim of bringing people to a living faith in Jesus Christ.

We moved out of residential training much the same time and Centres of Mission are also the place where our Evangelist-in-training are currently placed for their four-year training.

Another major shift came in 2012 after three years of consultation and research.

Wilson Carlile’s original vision was to create an army of lay evangelist, who ‘could tell the Gospel in the same homely language of the workshop.’

Over the years, that idea of a mass movement gave way to an elite group of Officers, largely without any troops.

In September 2012 at a Special Service at St Paul’s Cathedral, where Wilson Carlile is laid to rest, the Church Army became an Acknowledged Mission Community.

There are four pathways with everyone accepting a simple Rule of Life and Prayer.

Commissioned
Covenant
Co-worker
Companion

We have also welcomed back into Church Army many of those who moved onto become ordained and had to resign their Commission. The Church Army is now for both Lay and Ordained Evangelist.

In addition, while our roots remain firmly with the Church of England we welcome as Covenant Members those who have been trained as an Evangelist with another denomination

In the consultation and research, we spent time going back and trying to capture the charism of Wilson Carlile and then asked ‘what does this look like in the 21st century?’

Therefore, as we welcome more people into the Church Army Mission Community we are once again becoming a mass movement and our numbers are growing.

Another core aim was to ‘go for the worst, seeking out the least, the last and the lost and sharing faith in both words and deeds.'

We have re-embraced that and a key component is our DARE strategy.

DARE has four objectives which underpin our work:


  • Doing evangelism
  • Advocating evangelism
  • Resourcing evangelism
  • Enabling evangelism

One of the ongoing debates is about our name. In 1882 such a name would have been readily understood, in much the same way as the Salvation Army.

Our Sister Society in Canada is now called 'Threshold Ministries.'

However, at a Community Gathering in 2015 Paula Gooder helped us reflect on feedback from Officers and others about the name, among other things. She said we should reclaim the name and that it still had value today.

Personally, I was delighted as I have never found the name a barrier or a difficulty, although I have had a few conversations about the kind of battle we are fighting and the weapons we are using.

I became a Christian on the 1st January 1975 and was Confirmed in February 1976 at the age of 24. I took on and fully accepted the call of my infant baptism; that I was to fight against sin, the world and the devil and to continue a faithul soldier and servant until the end of my life.’

Therefore, for the moment the name Church Army is remaining as a reminder that we are men and woman called to engage in battle against all that would hurt or harm, against all that stands in opposition to God. All that would prevent people from knowing that in Christ they can have life and life in all its fullness.

This leads me nicely into saying something briefly about another solider we met in our Gospel story.

Remember this is an occupying army, this is a pagan, a Gentile, someone for whom death and killing was second nature. He was a man under authority and with authority. An authority that could extend to having a soldier or anyone else summarily put to death.

Yet there is something about this man and about the way he has come to acknowledge the religion of these very strange people, the Jews.

We meet these people from time to time, often called God fearers. This unnamed Centurion had been kind and generous towards the people in Capernaum and had even built a Synagogue.  I cannot see any hint at all that this was anything but a genuine act, not trying to curry favour and get along with the Jewish people.

Roman Centurions did not need to do that, they had might and might was right and anyone who forgot that would soon be crushed. 

Now there are more questions in this passage than answers. What had he heard about Jesus?

How is it that the Jewish Elders are also apparently okay with going to ask Jesus for help on behalf of this Gentile soldier?

One thing this Centurion knew about Jesus was his authority and if there was one thing he knew about it is authority.

‘I say to one soldier go and he goes, to another come, and he comes. I am also a man under authority.’

Yes, I recognize authority when I see the genuine article and a word from you, Jesus, is all that is required. You do not need to add to your problems by coming into the house of a Gentile but simply say the word and your authority will mean that it will be as you command.

This week I was in Blackpool for the Annual Missioners Summer Gathering. On our last morning, we had Revd Jean Kerr offer some reflections having retired last year. (Yet being as busy as ever)

I was profoundly moved by what she said and the way she called us back to first principles.

She said, before you are anything else, Missioners, a Bishop, an Accredited Lay Evangelist, you are ‘in Christ.’

That is our place, that is our calling, that is our vocation and that is our authority - we are 'in Christ.'

Another saying within Church Army is that whilst not everyone is called to be an evangelist everyone is called to evangelize, to witness to the hope that they have within them.

To help with this the Church Army has produced a fantastic simple free course called Faith Pictures.

This helps you frame your faith story.

More in depth and yet still accessible is our study book ‘Stepping into Evangelism.’







The report I mentioned earlier predicted a turn-around would take thirty years.  I believe in a God who could turn things around in 30 weeks, or even 30 days.

However, that calls for prayer, for confidence in the authentic authority that is ours in Christ.

That calls for passion and willingness to share Christ’s love in words and deeds.

That calls for each and every one of us here this morning to know the love of God deep within our hearts.

To know that he died and rose again that we might have life and life is all its fullness.

If you do not know that and have yet to  accept Jesus as your Supreme Commanding Officer then make sure you sign up before you leave this here morning.

If you do know Jesus as your Supreme Commanding Officer, here is one way how we can begin turn things around.

If everyone here seeks to bring just one other person to faith ‘each one to reach one’ that will help focus our hearts and minds on reaching out with the life changing message of Jesus.

If we become excited and expectant that through the life and witness of this Community of People of Faith we will see lives changed, we will see new people engaging with us and making their journey to faith and life.

If we are realistic and yet do not give in to negativity, to the snide remarks about it being a fairy story.

If we know and search out those stories of lives radically transformed by the power of the Gospel, and there are plenty on the Church Army web site.

If we believe we are in a battle for the heart and soul of our nation and for our world.

If we believe these things and act upon them, if we encourage each other and not neglect to meet together to pray, to study Scripture and to share our lives.

If we dedicate to walk alongside and support each other in covenant rather than convenience.

If we can come at the last and say along with St Paul…

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Then my brothers and sisters we will see our communities transformed.

For changed lives, changes people and transforms communities.  

Let us not merely pray the Lord’s Prayer – let us work to make it a reality in our lives and in the life of our community, our nation and our world.


So we pray...

O Saviour Christ, in whose way of love lays the secret of all life, and the hope of all people, we pray for quiet courage to match this hour. We did not choose to be born or to live in such an age; but let its problems challenge us, its discoveries exhilarate us, its injustices anger us, it possibilities inspire us, and its vigour renew us. Pour out upon us a fresh indwelling of the Holy Spirit; make us bold and courageous in sharing faith in both word and deed for your Kingdom’s sake we ask. Amen

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