.. well actually that is not quite true, but we have stopped printing the Bible passage at 5pm church. Why did we do that?
Well, there are arguments both ways. The main argument for keeping-on printing the bible passage is for the newcomer who arrives at 5pm church but obviously doesn't have a Bible with them. Everything we do should be sensitive to the newcomer, and their needs do need to be considered with the change.
However, there are a number of arguments for dropping the printing of the passage from our service outline.
The first is that context mattters. Late last year when Kanishka was preaching on Joshua and we only had a small amount of the passage printed, it came home to me that we miss out on where this slither comes from in the Bible (like editing a PhD thesis on a computer screen that only can display one page at a time).
The second is that when it comes to your own Bible, familiarity matters. It is a great asset to be able to get familiar with your own Bible, and a good way of doing that is to bring it to church each week and open it up to the passage.
The third is because newcomers matter. One way we can meet the person sitting next to us who doesn't have a Bible with them is to lean over and offer them ours to use. On Sunday I said that love was 'an active commitment to the good of others'. Here is one commitment we can all make!
What do you think?
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
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4 comments:
Thanks for the blog Nigel. Helpful to have extra thoughts/info to look through. But ... can you explain the gravy reference? This non-savvy-first-time-i've-ever-looked-at-a-blog-blogger doesn't get it.
Am also pleased to see that the time stamp on my comment is 8 hrs later (or 16 hrs earlier) than when I sent it. Am pleased because this means you weren't actually working at 11pm and 5am.
Oh, and, as for commenting on BYO bibles at church -- good move, for all the reasons you mentioned. There are a few Bibles in a high cupboard in the foyer that I've found handy to offer newcomers & others who don't have a Bible with them.
Hi Sal,
Thanks for the comments. "How To Make Gravy" is the title of a beautifully sad Paul Kelly song. The song is from the perspective of a bloke in jail who phones home a few days before Christmas. He asks who is going to make the gravy on Christmas day if he is not there. And he promises to make it up to his family one day when he will make plenty of gravy. One of those songs that sends a shiver down my spine. Hence my comment that I hope I can always make gravy for my family!
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