questioning minds

Talking of things being out of date (which I was in Monday's blog), I realised last night that the website's exactly that!

So first thing this morning I was down to that, updating the thing and ringing the changes a bit. The thing needs freshening up from time to time.

Like most of us as well. How easy to get in a rut.

So one of the things I'm always working to do is ensure that the last thing that's true of our worship is its slowly becoming just stuck in a rut.

Not change for change's sake, or anything like that. But growth. Development. Maturity. That sort of thing. The way a child will grow. The way the seasons move.

Today I've been working at that in the main. This coming Sunday's services. Drawing aside to the quietness of these halls and getting alone with the Lord. Hearing what he has to say and how he wants it said.

I was out and about a couple of times. But mainly I was hard at work preparing for these services to come.

One of the times I was out and about I met a group of children from the school. They'd been at a party and were all togged up. And were still on a bit of a high, I think, from the party they'd been at.

"Can I ask you a question?" this one fellow asked. (He just had, of course!)

I'm always well up and eager for that, so he fired away.

"If God's so good, how come he kills people?" The directness of the question took me by surprise!

"Like all the people getting stabbed", he went on.

Where do you start?! "How many of you have got robots for your friend?" I asked in turn. None of them had (thankfully - because that would have destroyed my argument!).

I explained how God wanted friends, not a world full of pre-programmed robots. Which means we all have choices to make. And sometimes the choices we make are not that clever or good.

They seemed to get the message!

At least, they soon went on to other themes. Like why did the church have all these buildings, when we could be meeting in the fields - and then, they said, you could be sending loads more money to the poorer people in the world.

And why was all of the ground we had not better used? Which struck a chord - since that's what we'd been talking about ourselves on Monday past!

Out of the mouths of little children ...!

Children like that, with questioning minds - when they're around there isn't any chance of our being stuck in any rut!