Ilkley Baptist

For the past couple of months, the first hymn on Sunday mornings has been followed by the 'briefing,' a chance to share news. Anyone in the congregation can say anything, so sometimes someone will give a notice or a reminder. Sometimes a visitor will be introduced. Sometimes someone will just say how they're feeling or tell about what they did last week.

I've been tremendously heartened by the way it's gone. For a start it has gone well. Each time there have been people wanting to say things, and they've spoken appropriately and at the right length. A great variety of people have spoken, and people have seemed very relaxed about it. It has felt natural not forced.

More importantly, though, I've found it a very valuable part of worship. It helps us to be aware of one another. We may arrive at church full of our own preoccupations, but worship is a collective act, and in the briefing we become aware of the variety and breadth of the congregation. Better even that this, it is a powerful sign that worship is not a special activity, remote from life, but is the other side of the things we do Sunday to Sunday. Our working lives, our friendships, holidays, disasters and joys are what we bring and what worship and faith deal with.

I'd like to see more clearly the exciting vision Paul has of the church. When he talks about the church using new vocabulary - the saints, the new creation, being in Christ - he is describing something dramatically new and unprecedented. People are not just changed individually by what God has done in Christ, but are part of a community which is unlike anything that has gone before, unlike any human society. The way they are to relate, the basis of their actions and communal life is all fresh.

They don't fully realise this, of course. Even in Paul's day divisions were sharp and unpleasant. But there is a glimpse of something amazing. A new way of being in relationship, and therefore a new way of being a human person.

I've lost two new posts, so this is a test post to see what happens.

The Comedian Harmonists were a German group that were hugely successful between 1927 and 1934. They sang folk songs, popular songs and arrangements of other music, including jazz and light classical music. Their gimmick was to not only sing any words there may have been, but to immitate instruments with their voices. In some pieces that is all they did.

I discovered them recently. They were wonderful musicians, and there is something irresistible about such a light hearted approach to music making. Also, you listen harder, hearing the sounds of trumpet or saxophone copied by a person, and appreciate it all the more.

I used one of their pieces in church last Sunday. Creole Love Call is a well known jazz piece, but would have just been recorded by Duke Ellington when the Comedian Harmonists did their version of it. And there's a point to be made about the extra power that is often given to music when it is transcribed. As there is to scripture when it is 'performed' in a sermon, or the good news when it is played out in our lives.

Chris, a minister from India coming to the end of a period of study in Leeds, will be preaching on Sunday. Chris is a delightful man, an enthusiastic, gentle and learned person, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

He has been writing a thesis on a man called Dhinakaran, an Indian evangelist who regularly preaches to gatherings of as many as 300,000 people. Dhinakaran's ministry is based on miracles and prosperity teaching, but also an identification with the suffering of the poor. Chris has been exploring the pros and cons, and the links with India spirituality and the guru tradition.

A point that interested me particularly was the suggestion that Orthodox Christianity, with it's understanding that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, but not the Son, is more open to finding the Spirit working in other faiths - it doesn't have to go under the name of Christiann. So it is more sympathetic to syncretism. And in India syncretism is a good thing.