inside the story

Today's been just a little bit more varied in the things that I've been doing.

The shadow of bereavement and of sorrow still hung across the day. A service of thanksgiving for a man who'd died last week. A man I'd never met. A family I've only got to know within the context of their grief these last few days.

But not without those same sustained demands upon my heart. How quickly, in the cauldron of a family's grief - how quickly you can get quite close to them and feel the pain that's theirs.

There weren't so many at the crematorium for this service of thanksgiving. A man who'd lived his life quite differently from Ian in many ways. And very much a 'loner' in his way, I guess as well.

A life well lived, of course, I do not doubt. But not within the context of the family of faith. And so that whole dimension of the large, involved community of faith was wholly absent. The service, too, is therefore very different in its tenor and its stress.

Each service of this sort is so entirely different from all others, you could not even start to have some one-size-fits-them-all approach. Without the thing becoming just a totally impersonal and God-less sort of thing. Which to me is just anathema.

If I want the Lord to be known by the people sharing such times, I have to pour my heart into the thing. I have to feel the pain. I have to be myself involved with all the family, instead of being detached, removed and distant from it all and leading all their worship in a cold and clinical way. Folk need to know the heart of God himself goes out to them. That he, as much as any, feels their pain.

Well, I think that they felt that they'd met with the Lord. And I pray they'd have heard his voice.

It's times like that, when hearts are sore with grief and faced by all the stark reality of death - it's times like that that sometimes people start to listen out to what God might be saying to their hearts.

But that was in the afternoon. Before that there'd been quite a bit to do!

I was in at the school first thing. The Primary 1-3 assembly once again. I wasn't doing the talk or anything. Just being there and in that way sort of sitting with the children for a while.

Except they're on the floor and I get to sit on a chair - thankfully! My body wasn't made to do such sitting there, cross-legged upon the floor: I admire the children for sitting like that for so long and for coping so well with it all.

Right after that I was on to the Primary 1s. (For them it was another little session of their sitting on the floor. Poor things!)

I was there to speak about Christmas. I focussed on the shepherds. Their concentration-span is not that long (the children, I mean, not the shepherds: I can't really speak for them!)

I tried to get them involved. By making the sounds and acting the parts.

Shepherds who were sleeping, shepherds who were maybe sitting round and telling little jokes to one another. Snoring and laughter in equal measure. And the sheep in the fields with their varied bleating noises. Daddy sheep (deep bleats), mummy sheep (more middle of the range, their bleating) and little lambs (a high-pitched sort of meh-eh-eh-eh-eh-ing).

As I say, I wanted to get them involved. To see and feel that they as well were there inside the story. I guess that's what I'm endeavouring to do all the time. To open the book and help folk get inside the story.

Be part of it. Instead of simply reading it.

And then we had some actions, too, once the angels came and sang their praise of God (the children did that too - I mean, they played the part of the angels as well).

Then on and down to Bethlehem, and I had them up and onto their feet (some of them, at any rate: I split them up into different groups - not least because one of the children was in a wheelchair and I didn't want to make him feel left out): and some of them clapped and some of them hollered. And off they went to Bethlehem to see this child who'd grow to be their King.

I love being with the children! They're so keen to learn. So keen to enter in to all that's going on. Though what they all took in, who knows? I leave that all to God!

Back here there were things I needed to do before the lunchtime service. It wasn't my turn to speak at that - how grateful I am for so many able people here who share this teaching ministry with me: but I was leading the worship and therefore had a few things still to prepare for that as well.

And Heather and all her family called by just before the service started, too. It was lovely they feel so much at home round here - all of them. That's the way it's meant to be. And that's how it always feels with them. They're just part of the family. And we of theirs.

Greta was doing the teaching slot at the lunchtime service today (as well as playing the piano - a multi-tasking woman no mistake!). What a gifted lady she is! She had about the hardest bit of the book of Ruth to explain and she did it wonderfully well. Clear and just so well applied.

As I say, it's great to have such folk around. And to have them so ready to help. They all so gladly give of themselves, in countless different ways. It's a huge and humbling privilege for me to be part of the family here!

At night I was out at a service again. It feels like this week is full to nearly bursting point with service after service all the time!

This time, though, it was a service further afield. Along the road, but still in the north of the town.

Newhaven. A fellowship with whom in one way and another down the years I've had a fair involvement. Tonight saw the start of Peter Bluett's time as minister there. And what a great service it was (despite being still, in some ways, fairly formal)!

A real sense of expectancy. A buzz about the place. The sense of God himself being very much involved in all that's going on. It was good to be there. And good to catch that sense again that underneath statistics and beyond the eyes of those who only see the visible, there's something really striking going on these days.

Our Lord at work! And we ourselves a part of it. Inside the story. Writing it more than reading it.