Transforming Love -

the following article was written by Revd. Gill Hulme, Minster, Abbots Langley Methodist Church, Herts and published in their Church Magazine.

By the time you read this, the Easter Sunday service may be fading in your memory, but I am actually writing this on Palm Sunday, about to embark on Holy Week. This causes me a slight difficulty, mainly because I can never get my head around writing my Easter day sermon until I have ‘lived’ Good Friday, for to experience the joy of the Easter morning, I believe we first have to enter into the darkness and foreboding of Holy week, the bleakness of Good Friday and the emptiness of Easter Saturday.

So I am trying to imagine myself forward,  so to speak, to think of the joy of transforming love, that death itself could not hold.

The depth of the love shown for us by God, through Jesus, is what gives us hope, even through dark days. Faith is not certainty, but rather hope based upon experience.  And it is that hope, together with faith and love that we are called to share in our hurting world.

After Christ had risen, he gave his friends and followers a task – go and make disciples of all nations, in other words, go and share the good news, the joy of the resurrection. Go and share the transforming power of the Spirit, go and share the hope that keeps you going through difficult and dark times.

Part of that ‘going and sharing’ consists of ‘gossiping the gospel’. Not being afraid to tell people when they ask what is important to us, or being ready to explain what keeps us going against the odds, or why we believe.

We also need to give people the opportunity to explore difficult questions, to give space to be quiet, to find out about God’s love (and also perhaps to find out that coming to church can be a joyful experience and that Christians are not a race apart!).

This ‘telling others’ is not a case of standing on the street corner and shouting out – in fact I think that this sort of ‘evangelism’  does far more harm than good, putting people off rather than making disciples.

It is more about chatting naturally concerning our faith. I have heard mission described as ‘one beggar telling another where to find bread’ and I think that is a good description. After all we would tell our friends if we had had a good meal in a nice restaurant, or seen an excellent film, or a challenging series on TV, but how many of us say that there had been a really uplifting service at church last week, why don’t you come and try it out?

Some people ‘get out of the habit’ of coming to church and it can be a big step coming back, so an offer of a lift, or a walk with them can make all the difference.

And if you are reading this and think to yourself – this doesn’t apply to me because I don’t come to church, whether that is because in the past you have found it boring, or feel that you have to be really holy to come along, why don’t you give it a try? If you are available during the day, then our short monthly shoppers’ service on the 3rd Friday of the month at 11.45 may be a good place to start. If you already come along to this, then why not try out Sunday mornings at 10?

We are not perfect within the church, we are ordinary people with different gifts and graces, but we try to make our church a safe place where questions can be asked, where burdens can be shared, and where above all, the hope and joy of the Gospel can be lived.

Every blessing