Skip to main content

Street Church, Leeds

Visiting The Lighthouse Church in the Crypt of St. George's Church, Leeds just over a week after worshipping with the Street Church in Rio, provided a rich opportunity to reflect upon similarities and differences...

GOD'S LOVE at the heart of both.
SHARED MINISTRY - lay and ordained - underpinned both.
WELCOME - everyone (known 'regular' attenders and newcomers - like me) was shown warmth, friendship and compassion with open hearts in both.
EMMANUEL - remembering God's presence with us - even in our 'darkest' of times - and God's desire for us to live with hope and trust in the transformative power of the Holy Spirit was the key message in both.
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC - live in Leeds ( we sang a Christian variant to the Beatles' "Let it be"!) and recorded in Rio  (but what a witness worshipping in public)  enriched the quality of worship, generating a tangible sense of corporate endeavour in both
LITURGICAL DRESS - a (retired) bishop in purple shirt, cassock alb and stole in Rio and two casually dressed clergy in clerical collars in Leeds but, in both, a physical demonstration of clerical leadership and presence.
TEAMS - clergy and lay working together in common witness and service evident in both.
SERVICE  - food common to both, clothes and medication in Rio (offered or 'signposted' during the week in Leeds) and lots of interpersonal "TLC" very freely expressed in both
MEN - far more men attending than women in both
CHRIST'S SPIRIT - spoken of, celebrated and evident in both - thank the Lord!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CORDOBA - clever, cultured and cold....!

Travelling from the lush tropical rainforest of Iguazu to Argentina's second city, Cordoba, came as something of a shock! Firstly, there were all the usual trappings of a city - traffic, buildings, people, hustle and bustle. (The very comfortable but "simple" hotel was also a bit of a come down! Indeed, intermittent wifi has made sending blogs a challenge but, here we are...!) Although a travel cliche, Cordoba really is a fascinating mix of old and new... 17th century ecclesiastical buildings stand next to the latest shopping centres. CLEVER: Indeed, this city boasts a long established academic foundation: Manzana Jesuitica, Argentina's first university (so it claims!). The next door academic establishment, Colegio Nacional de Montserrat, with its baroque exterior walls, may be as old - it all depends on whether you consider the date building began or charters were established! Visiting the university's oldest library and being shown a 17th century bible...
1 comment
Read more

Insufficient words....

... that's what I felt like when, having moved on to the (equally beautiful and 'touristy') town of El Calafate, I ventured to see one of its main 'draws' - the Perito Moreno Glacier.... Some fifty photographs (from the water facing it and from the organised viewpoints above it)  cannot capture its magnitude, all shades of white and blue shimmering in the sunshine... It is as large as the whole surface area of Buenos Aires and is "in equilibrium" (ie the amount of ice breaking off at its end - and I witnessed that several times - is equal to the amount of snow replenishing it day by day.) It travels some 2 meters every day and, as often happens, has "cut off" one side of the vast Lago Argentina lake so that the water level one side is some 3 meters higher than the other. In time the natural forces will find a way to redress this inbalance and the sheer force of water will eventually cause the glacier to "rupture" - with great force a...
1 comment
Read more

If God was a glacier...

Would I recognise within the purity of the whiteness, the whole spectrum of mercy and love hidden in that white light....? Would I stand in awe of the power veiled in the beauty...? Would I be open to this transforming force - shaping and re-shaping, removing all that stands in the way of changing, slowly and subtly taking all the 'boulders' of my 'baggage' and depositing them far away from my concerns...? Would I be prepared to pause, to stop and to listen out for the sounds of the secret symphony within, God promising hope that, even in the cold, painful moments, all will be ultimately well...? If God was a glacier, would I dare to visit, would I want to visit, knowing that, when we meet God, things will never quite be the same again...
1 comment
Read more