The Cross Stitch Church - the needle

as i sit at the keyboard and write this my wonderful wife is sewing my coat pocket back on, using needle, thread but no gauze. The sewing is more out of necessity than creative design and very much appreciated i have to add. It is a mark of my complete incompetence that i am unable to repair my own coat! Sadly, i expect that this bit will get more comments than anything else i write below!

I have thought about the gauze, the pattern and thread, all in a very pretentious way and so now i continue the theme by thinking about the needle. In my metaphor of a cross stitched church, the needle stands for church leaders, those wonderful, dedicated, inspired, anointed breed of which i am one (please note the irony).

In my own denomination we have been somewhat wary of leadership i think. In an effort to avoid personality-focused ministries and authoritarian and domineering leadership styles we find ourselves lacking in leadership. This is both at the national level and the local. This is not to denigrate the work of my own District Chair who currently occupied the throne of 'President of the Conference. He has (and I'm sure will) do as good a job as any in his Presidential year. The problem is that it is a merely representative and even 'PR' role rather than any that exercises leadership and direction.

In the local church the same is true. The local minister has no more say than anyone else about church mission and policy because legally he or she has one vote along with others at church meetings. This often (not always) leads to a lack of leadership 'on the ground' within the local church. Something we miss to our cost as a denomination.

And then there are the ministers themselves. So many of my colleagues, it seems, are reticent to see themselves as leaders. Yes presbyters, are to be pastors and teachers, but they must be leaders also. It is part of the authentic role of presbyteros, elder - to watch over those in their care in love, but also to lead them as a shepherd leads their flock.

In the metaphor of the church as a piece of cross-stitch - where the gauze is the world, the pattern and thread the church, the needles that display the pattern are leaders. Leaders are necessary, leaders are important, and we need to rediscover the position and place of leaders within the church. It is through authentic leadership, modelled on Jesus' leadership that the pattern of the church gets threaded. Without leadership the thread is not completed, it is haphazard, random, at sometimes beautiful, but mostly chaotic. The pattern of the church is woven by the artist, using leaders to shape the edges and colours etc. Lets not forget that in the sewing analogy it is actually the needle that pulls the thread. The needle leads the thread through the holes, through the material, back over itself etc to complete the destined path for the thread. Why is it we are so afraid to let leaders lead? Why are we so afraid in Methodism to be led?

I believe in the church and i believe in church leaders who are humbly submitted to God but confident in their God-given mandate to be apostolic and lead with due diligence. I believe in needles that pull the thread, but always surrendered to the hand of the great artist.

The Cross Stitch Church - a pattern

Seasons greetings one and all. I had some hassle from a few people recently about the lack of update to my blog - hassle that has been justified i have to agree. Christmas is a crazy time for clergy - a strange breed of which i am a part- and i've just not made the time to write. Not though due to lack of desire! There is much in my little brain that i have wanted to express not least on the theme of the church as a piece of cross-stitch.

I mused last time that in my little metaphor the world in which we live is like the plain gauze waiting for the artist to weave His great and creative pattern upon and within it. Perhaps then the next stage is to think about what that pattern is and consists of. My suggestion is that the Church of Jesus Christ is the thread weaved by the hand of the artist upon the gauze. We are the thread. We are the church, people who are connected and committed to Jesus whom God is weaving into a beautiful and distinctive pattern that others might stand in amazement and wonder at. We are God's workmanship, God's design, the church Jesus died to bring about, the people He loves, a community being prepared like a bride for His return. And i believe it is the church that God longs to renew and restore to be an obvious sign of God's life and love in the world. I believe in the church. I don't think i believe in our western expression of it much (although i am still exploring it) but i do believe in a church that has values mirrored in the book of Acts. I believe in a church that is a gathering of people connected and committed to Jesus. I believe in a church with prayer and worship as its lifeblood. I believe in a church that loves the poor and includes the outcast. I believe in a church that believes in itself and believes that it can change the world from the inside out as Jesus did. That sort of church i believe in, not one defined by structures, committees, buildings, power, mindless ascent to tradition. But conversely maybe i can believe in an institutional model of church that reflects the values i mentioned above? Who knows. I don't as yet.

Whatever the pattern may eventually look like, whatever the artists design is going to be, the pattern in thread on the gauze is the church of Jesus Christ, the people of God. All of us who are a part of that community can find ourselves part of the pattern that God is weaving in the world, a pattern that people stop and stare at with amazement, a pattern that is attractive, a pattern that reflects the brightness of God, a pattern and design, God-conceived, God-made, and God-sewed. in my metaphor of the church as a cross stitch, the world is the blank piece of gauze waiting expectantly for a grand design, the thread that makes the pattern, and indeed the pattern itself is the church, the people of Jesus.