Category: Sunday@thePub

Matthew 1:1-17

I am fascinated by family trees. It is partly the detective skills needed to try and work out who is who from the many millions of records available so you can build a picture of where you come from. It is also something about connecting with the past and those that have gone before us which can also lead us to discovering some current family we may never knew existed. Matthews gospel opens with a long family tree which link Jesus with some of the great ancestors of the Israelites.Fourteen generations are listed and contained within are many of the names of the great stories of how God journeyed with his people throughout the years. All this leads me to dust! The amount of dust that settles on something gives us an indication of how long it has been in situ. Those things left for generations, hidden and undiscovered are usually coated in a think layer of dust. It is a sign of its age. As the names of Jesus family tree are read out layers of dust are removed to reveal the importance of the people contained in the story. The names of the woman that appear are particularly important. Woman were not usually listed in family trees in Jesus day, but here Matthew includes them because they reveal truth about who Jesus is. As we blow off the dust of the past we discover the truth that it wants to show us today.

Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word dust. Use the hashtag #woryem

Dust
Dust that covers the past
Dust that covers the truth
Dust

What does the dust hide in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
What history and tradition are you rediscovering today?

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We have removed the dust of the past and revealed truth in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen

Photo by Cojanu Alexandru on Pexels

David Wynd

Has been a part of BeachcomberFX since his arrival in the North East in 2014.   He is well travelled (at least in the UK) having lived in Manchester, Nottingham, Derbyshire, Southport, Doncaster, Berwick and Edinburgh.  Supporter of Newcastle United, will watch any sport.

www.anotherpath.co.uk

Jeremiah 3:25-28

Claire says: “When I first put my hearing aids in, I can hear everything: the swishing of my clothes, the creaking of my shoes, my hair against the hearing aids. After a while my brain filters that out and I don’t notice it anymore.”

We all get used to the noisy around us, we filter it out. Those who live in quiet spaces notice the noisy ones; those who live in noisy ones notice the quiet. And noisy isn’t just sound. It’s colour, company, taste, emotion, touch, smell etc. We get used to what we’re used to and sometimes we fail to see beyond the noisy surroundings we’ve filtered out. But every so often something breaks through. Some Christians refer to this as a Kairos moment. When we notice something different or see with new eyes. 

We can take ourselves somewhere new to notice what the noise is like, or we can try to re-notice what we’ve filtered. Sit in your house in a different position – on the floor in a corner. Sit in a part of your town you don’t normally go to. Walk around a place with headphones or earplugs. Subvert your senses and experience anew.

Claire and I had such a moment when Rob and Karen came to Newbiggin. As we experienced them seeing our town with new eyes, we did too. 

What is the noise you’ve filtered out, how could you learn to re-see, re-hear, re-taste, re-emote today? What do you need to experience anew?

When you set an alarm do you use something to wake you gently or to shock you awake?

What thing in your life have you filtered out?

What do you need to allow yourself to be more aware of?

Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word noisy. Use the hashtag #woryem

Noisy
Noisy days full of sound
Noisy lives filled with things
Noisy

It can be noisy during this season of advent
Stop for a moment
How can you hear what needs to be heard?

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We have listened to the noisy sounds in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen

John Cooper

I’ve been a member of BCFX for about 2 years. I love it. It’s home and hearth, welcome and challenge, ebb and flow.

Matthew 11:28-30

One of the lessons I hoped to learn as we emerged from the pandemic, was the ability not to rush around so much, well it didn’t last long! Good intentions are all well and good! But maybe we are consumed by this need to be busy, it’s what society is built on, it’s been instilled in us from an early age. I wonder if this sense of business actually feeds our weariness and makes the burdens we carry all the more complex, and even harder to carry because we don’t give ourselves enough time to rest.

Since we emerged from the pandemic we have also seen increased conversations about mental health and particularly about how to help people who are struggling. And so there have also been more groups being set up to support those who are struggling. These kinds of groups are vital to deal with the issues folks are facing. They enable people to take stock, re-center themselves and ultimately rest.

Our faith talks a lot about leaning on Jesus, or like our passage says, ‘come to  me’ (Jesus). I wonder if it is in this reality that we truly get to know our true selves, and are able to find rest as we are able to be secure in the knowledge of who we are. During this advent try to remember to take time out, to reconfigure yourself with the divine and find moments to rest.

Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word rest. Use the hashtag #woryem

Rest
Rest hard to find
Rest opens reality
Rest

There is time to rest in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
Take time to refresh and recharge.

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
There is rest in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen

Image by 畅 苏 from Pixabay

Rob Wylie

Rob Wylie is the founder of BeachcomberFX and guides its leadership team.  He has worked in the North East for over 20 years and has vast experience from various roles he has held.  He has a passion for Fresh Expressions of Church and Pioneer Ministry as well as beer, beaches and Miniature Schnauzers.

Proverbs 27:9

Do you ever stop to reflect on who you are? Why you do what you do? Or the reason you are passionate about certain things? Many of us don’t take the time to stop and think about these things.  It is often because we are so busy doing. Trying to complete our to do list or finding a way to pay the bills.  We don’t stop and take stock. We don’t ask ourselves why. We just do.  Maybe though today is a good day to stop. To reflect and ask yourself why.  The writer of this proverb reminds us that our lives reflect what is going on in our heart. That the things we do and say are an outworking of the things we believe and our passionate about.  Finding time to stop and think through why we do what we do can help us make sense of who we are. It can also allow us to work through unhelpful habits we may have developed and to consciously seek to change them.  This is not just a one time issue though, it is something we should take time to do throughout our lives. So maybe this advent you should find some time each day to stop and reflect and to discover who you are and what you are seeking to do in this world.

Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word reflect. Use the hashtag #woryem

Reflect
Reflect for pondering
Reflect for seeing yourself
Reflect

There is time to reflect in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
What is it you see?

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We have reflected on this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen

Photo by Bruno Henrique from Pexels

David Wynd

Has been a part of BeachcomberFX since his arrival in the North East in 2014.   He is well travelled (at least in the UK) having lived in Manchester, Nottingham, Derbyshire, Southport, Doncaster, Berwick and Edinburgh.  Supporter of Newcastle United, will watch any sport.

www.anotherpath.co.uk

Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

Our passage today opens us to the reality of darkness, it’s there in the first part of verse two, I wonder how you reflect on darkness? I think about being on a ship in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night, bleak, yet beautiful. We hear a lot these days about mental health and depression, maybe that is where this term darkness takes you? Wherever that phrase takes you, sit with it for a moment… How do you feel? How does it speak to you? For me it opens up the doorway of ache… or aching? A sense of yearning, longing, hankering, for something different, new, or things to just change.

Now of course this ache could also be painful, and it’s right to acknowledge that, this time of year can be incredibly painful, maybe thinking about loved ones who are no longer with us this year, or the pressure to be on form at this time of year can be overwhelming. It could also be that your health is not as it was and general living is hard work. Not to mention the economic crisis and the amount of really tough things that are going on in the world right now. However you are aching today, it’s ok… if you need to chat to someone we would encourage you to do that today.

If we go back to the passage we read about a child being born, that this sense of ache gives birth to something, hope? Expectation? Promise? Possibility? What I love about this sense of ache, is that it can be a driver for good, just like in our song by the Youngun’s. Advent provides us with this sense of ache of a better world, a sense of ache that Jesus lets us get involved with trying to make this world a better world. I’m up for that, what about you?

Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word ache. Use the hashtag #woryem

Ache
Ache for pain to end
Ache as longing
Ache

We ache in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
What does your body, mind and soul ache for today?

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We ache in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen

Image by Darwin Laganzon from Pixabay

Rob Wylie

Rob Wylie is the founder of BeachcomberFX and guides its leadership team.  He has worked in the North East for over 20 years and has vast experience from various roles he has held.  He has a passion for Fresh Expressions of Church and Pioneer Ministry as well as beer, beaches and Miniature Schnauzers.

Matthew 25:37-40

Orson Scott Card’s second book in the Ender’s Game series, Speaker for the Dead, is seen as a sci-fi classic. In Ender’s Game a young boy has been tricked into annihilating an entire alien species. Wracked with guilt he travels into the universe with his sister. His sister writes under the pseudonym – Demosthenes – trying to help humans to understand the philosophical and moral approach to alienness. It an obvious metaphor for how we divide and sanction our behaviour to aliens within our own species. 

I was very struck by this quote,  and so I did a bit of research about what Card meant by the terms and rewrote it:

“Yet that is what I see, or yearn to see. The difference between raman (neighbour) and varelse (stranger) is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. When we declare an alien…to be raman (neighbour), it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity. It means that we have.”

-Demosthenes, Letter to the Framlings

From the law of Moses, Rahab, Sodom, Ruth, the Gospels, Paul and the early church welcoming the stranger is a key act of God’s people. Why? Because the message is always that God is the God who welcomes strangers. 

In Matthew 25 Jesus says:

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

But there is another way, opposite and pernicious – othering. A compulsion to elevate stranger-ness by highlighting or inventing difference. National borders, skin colour, behaviour, tropes are highlighted, refined and purified into tropes, stereotypes and taunts.

At the height of cold war rhetoric in the 1980’s Sting released the song Russians. While there are obvious differences between a cold and a hot war and the current situation in Ukraine, it’s worth a listen while reading my reworking of Orson Scott Card’s quote.

Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word stranger. Use the hashtag #woryem

Stranger
Stranger who is welcomed in
Stranger who is left outside
Stranger

There are strangers to us in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
Who do I judge as alien or neighbour?

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We open our arms to strangers in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen

Photo by davisuko on Unsplash

John Cooper

I’ve been a member of BCFX for about 2 years. I love it. It’s home and hearth, welcome and challenge, ebb and flow.

Genesis 2:7

Breathe in. Breathe out. Every single breathe we take fills us with life. With each one we take in the essential oxygen that keeps us alive.  Breathing is so vital to our existence that we would die if we went a few minutes without the inhalation and exhalation of fresh air.  In this verse from Genesis, that comes from the second of the creation stories. We are told that God formed man from dust and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.  Maybe the writer was hammering home the importance of breathing with the phrase breath of life, because every breath is life.  Sometimes when the world seems to be going too fast. When the to-do-list is getting far to Lon or when there is just too much to do. I have to stop and take a deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. This basic, life giving rhythm often helps me reset and refocus on the important things in life.  Each breath is the simplest, yet most extraordinary and life giving blessing. It reminds me that to breathe is to live and it is one of the greatest gift we have been given.

Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word Breathe. Use the hashtag #woryem

Breathe
Breathe in
Breath out
Breath

There is time to breathe in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
Remember that each breath is a gift.

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We take breath in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen

Photo by zaid mohammed

David Wynd

Has been a part of BeachcomberFX since his arrival in the North East in 2014.   He is well travelled (at least in the UK) having lived in Manchester, Nottingham, Derbyshire, Southport, Doncaster, Berwick and Edinburgh.  Supporter of Newcastle United, will watch any sport.

www.anotherpath.co.uk

Luke 2:1-5

Those who know me, know that I love the light nights and particularly the warmer weather, as the clocks go back and we have less light my mood shifts and life can feel like a bit of a drudge. I suspect most of us can relate to aspects of drudgery that we all face, whether it be the amount of washing up to be done, or as in our passage, the drudgery of having to make a journey that you would not do! There are just things that we have to do that we really don’t like, that’s life! But you know what… drudgery doesn’t stay for long… sometimes the washing up gets done and then for a brief moment all’s right with the world. Sometimes the journey can be rough, but the destination can be fab, and of course after the clocks go back, they will leap forward, and the evenings will be lighter and the days longer and warmer and Rob will be happier again! In other words sometimes we have to go through the drudge to get to the good stuff. I wonder if that is why we have the mundane, the ordinary and the drudge, it makes the good things gooder! It makes the fun things funner! 

As we go through advent, you may not like the thought of all things you have to get done before Christmas, the gifts to buy, the house to sort, the decorations to put up, the social gatherings of family and friends in places you would rather not go to, eating things you don’t really like, sitting next that person that gets you annoyed, it can get a bit meh, it can feel like a drudge. But during advent we have a chance to rethink the drudge, why not try and saver the mundane drudge of the ordinary stuff, and in it you may be surprised to see something new, and it might make all the stuff you love that much better. 

Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word Drudge. Use the hashtag #woryem

Drudge
Drudge of the ordinary
Drudge opens the new
Drudge

There is time to rethink the drudge in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
What surprises you in the ordinary?

We are a community of faith
Strandlopers on a journey
We have drudged through in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go
Amen

Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash

Rob Wylie

Rob Wylie is the founder of BeachcomberFX and guides its leadership team.  He has worked in the North East for over 20 years and has vast experience from various roles he has held.  He has a passion for Fresh Expressions of Church and Pioneer Ministry as well as beer, beaches and Miniature Schnauzers.