Category: Sunday@thePub

Genesis 18:6

We don’t speak of a hearth very often now. It is an old word used for a fireplace or the place in a house where the fire was and the family would cook on it and receive the warmth from it. It was the gathering place on cold winters nights where they would sit and eat and talk together. In ancient times you would invite strangers into your home to share your hearth with you as an act of hospitality. In the story that our verse comes from Abraham is visited by three strangers and as they arrive he instructs his wife Sarah to make food for them so they can sit and eat around the fire. This is the welcoming in of strangers. It turns out that these three strangers are angels that Abraham and Sarah are welcoming in. Today we don’t have hearths. At least we don’t use them in the same way as people did in the past. We have kitchens and central heating and so gathering around the hearth is a thing of the past. But maybe we are poorer for that. Maybe we have opportunities to rediscover something of this past welcome of strangers to our hearth today though. In our current energy crisis we have seen buinesses, churches and others open their doors to share this warmth with others. Young and old gathering together for a hot drink, a warm radiator and the opportunity to talk. It shouldn’t really take a crisis like this though to encourage us to open our doors to others. The ancient tradition of welcoming strangers can be one we rediscover today.

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

Hearth
Hearth for warmth
Hearth for amenity
Hearth

There is a hearth for you in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
Welcome each other in this moment.

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

Photo by Craig Adderley

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

Grab a coffee/ tea/ or other comforting beverage.

A question to begin: When do you feel welcome?

What elicits that warm, relaxed, weight removing felling?

When do you feel you can be truly you?

Picture the place, the people, the circumstances.

…and sit with them for a little while.

I can think of two places where I always feel welcome (that aren’t home). The first is the Northumbria Community mother house in Felton. From the first time I went there I had a startling feeling of being unburdened as I walked through the door, even when I had not been there before and didn’t know anyone. It has continued every time I’ve been there. The second is our friends. Darren and Lisa’s, house. When we visit, we cook, watch films, walk, and be.

What were you places and people and why? Beachcomber is also a welcome place for me. I can be just – me. My thoughts and beliefs are heard. I know everyone doesn’t agree with me, but… I am welcome.

From what I’ve read a biblical view of welcome is two-fold. There is idea of an honoured guest who is welcomed with the best of things. The fatted calf, the food which is reserved for the weddings and parties, the best wine. And there is the stranger who is treated like one of the family. I wonder if either of these resonate more with you. Certainly, I prefer to be welcomed as if I was one of the family – but don’t hold back on the best wine if you have some 😉

How do you welcome? The Northumbria Community speak about vulnerability and generosity. To welcome is to be both we open our hearts, homes, and resources and we give without thought of cost. How could that definition change your welcome?

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

Welcome
Welcome in
Welcome home
Welcome

You are welcome
Stop for a moment
Know that you can be who you are here, today

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

Photo by Jon Tyson 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.

Psalm 91:1-4 

We talk a lot in society and in the church these days about being safe, safer spaces, safer recruitment, safeguarding. Being safe is something that we all crave, and while many of us might say that we are safe I wonder what being safe means for you? Maybe that is a physical sense, or it could be about feeling safe within yourself at where you are in life right now, it could also be linked to the passage we have just read that spiritual inner journey of safety, why not ponder on that?

But as we do, i’m also very much aware of the places and situations where the idea of being safe is not a reality at all. And in recent months the situations around the world are more precarious than they have been in a long time. And so I wonder what situations in the world are troubling you? I think it’s also important to highlight other issues today that we don’t really talk very much about in the church issues related to domestic abuse and violence against women.

As we continue to move through advent the idea of being safe reminds me of these short words from Matthew 1:22-23
“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”)”.

God with us… i wonder what that means to you today, i wonder what that means in the midst of all that is going on in the world or within some of the personal situations we have reflected on?
Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word Safe. Use the hashtag #woryem

Safe
Safe in the midst of external realities
Safe in the midst of internal anguish
Safe

There is a place to be safe, inwardly? outwardly?
Stop for a moment
Where is that today?

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 Evan Cornman 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 2:13-18

There is a lot said about immigration in this country. Words like invasion are tossed around as if millions of people are pouring on to our shores on a daily basis and that there is no land for them to live upon, no food to feed them with and that all our systems are falling to pieces because of this threat. Yet the reality is of a desperate few, who are left with no safe route to our land, risking everything to reconnect with family and friends and to make a better life for themselves and those they love. I sometimes ask myself, if the tables were turned. If I was having to flee from war or persecution, what would I do? The answer is always the same. I would do anything to keep my family safe. In the story of Jesus birth, Joseph has to make this decision. A tyrannical ruler is killing all the male children in the land to make sure he wipes out any threat to his throne. The choice Joseph faces is a difficult one. Stay in his homeland where he has family and friends but risk the life of his child or flee to a foreign land and hope that the kindness of others will mean your family survives. This is the choice those crossing the channel to reach the UK make. Not an invasion but a desperate journey to find safety. Like Jospeh, Mary and Jesus all they want is to be welcomed in and kept safe from those who seek to destroy them.

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

Flee
Flee from danger
Flee to safety
Flee

What are you fleeing from in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
You do not need to run from this moment

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We can welcome those who flee in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen

Photo by Matthias Zomer

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

Matthew 2:13

“You can free the world, you can free my mind,
Just as long as my baby’s safe from harm
Tonight”
Massive Attack – Safe from Harm (1991)

If you’ve studied social science, then you may have come across Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. If not, let me explain. In 1943 Abraham Maslow proposed that human motivation goes through stages. Each stage has to be satisfied before we’re able to concentrate on the next one. The stages are: Physiological; Safety; Belonging and Love; Esteem; Self-actualization; and Transcendence. Critics have argued that not each has to be fully fulfilled before we can move to the next stage of motivation, but instead there are blurred edges. But, it seems common sense to think that our more basic need for food and shelter, and then safety are going to be priorities before we start focusing on the more esoteric parts of our lives. 

What are your concerns this winter? Food, safety…the need for love and community…esteem or purpose? 

Matthew 2

¹³ When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

At the heart of our Christmas story is a young couple with a baby living under the weight of a prophesy. It harks back to Israel’s expanded story of Moses and yet again a jealous king is so threatened by the birth of a child that he is willing to murder countless children to keep his position. And so, a family flees…back to the beginning point of the story in Egypt. 

Those who flee war and poverty now, as then, are working with such a basic level of needs that it’s hard for us to understand it. Why would they cross dangerous seas? Why would they walk across continents?

The word “Asylum” simply means a place free from the fear of seizure, inviolable, safe from harm. 

Consider where you feel safe, where you feel in danger, what are the unfilled issues that cause you fear?

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

Asylum
Asylum a place to escape our fear
Asylum a state we call home
Asylum

How can we offer asylum in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
Where do you feel safe?

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We can make this world a safe place in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen

Photo by Ahmed akacha

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.

Luke 11:9-10

We spend a lot of our lives looking for something. Sometimes we are very aware of the thing we are searching for. The perfect job, house, partner, or holiday.  Sometimes the thing that we seek is there but we can’t quite put a finger on what exactly it is we are looking for.  Often these unknown searches that we are on are for the more etherial, hard to pin down, experiences and emotions and spiritual longings we all have.  Happiness, contentment, fulfilment, purpose. There are many others that could sit in this list as well.

In my short life I have discovered that this second list of things that we seek can be fleeting. We can capture contentment for a while, but then it shifts as we grow comfortable… or uncomfortable and then we need to seek it out again.  Sometimes this is by changing job or moving house but often these things only bring temporary resolutions because they in themselves don’t help us satisfy those deeper longings we have.

my faith is similar. It is there and is a constant but sometimes there are more questions than answers and more doubts than certainties. That’s what faith is about.

I have learnt that faith along with other things like happiness, contentment, purpose etc are all things that require constant searching. Once you grasp it you can hold on for a moment before it moves on again and you have to begin to search it again.

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

Seeker
Seeker of lost things
Seeker of the truth
Seeker

We spend our lives searching
Stop for a moment
What are you seeking today?

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

Photo by Tobias Aeppli

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

Matthew 6:26-27

When Rob told me one of my ‘Advent Words’ was Content. I walked the dog and considered the meaning of it. Both content as in what’s inside, and content as in being fulfilled by what we have and do came to mind. And I was surprised that the two can often be in opposition.

St. Sheryl Crowe wrote: “It’s not having what you want; it’s wanting what you’ve got”. In the late 1940’s Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays speculated that if the Nazi’s could manipulate a whole population for evil; businesses could do so to sell things. He called it ‘Public relations’ and it became the advertising industry. Wall Street banker Paul Mazur said:

‘We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture. … People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.’ 

This works for time as well as material goods, for lifestyle and morality and ethics and even charity. Like it or not we are bombarded by messages of what the Content of our lives should be – you’d be happy if [insert Content here]. But, as Paul Mazur said, the trick is to keep us continually discontented. It would be whole other conversation to include social media in this post.

So, I want you to do a little exercise for the next few days – it’s a bit clunky but humour me. Each morning consider what you’d be impressed with if you saw someone else doing it. What slowing down content do you admire in others. Going to the beach or woods. Going for a walk at lunchtime. Sitting in a café, station, town centre and people watching. Claire often sits in our bay window and eats her breakfast looking at the world going by – that always stands out for me. So have a go and think of something – and then do it! 

Matthew 6 ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

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

Content
Content to be
Content with what you have
Content

You can be content in this advent season
Stop for a moment
Slow down a little.

We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
You can be content 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.