How big is my family? (1)

Yesterday, I was preaching at Oundle Baptist Church on the theme Belonging Together.  Meeting in a school hall, the congregation was seated around tables (cafe style) for an all-age service. But, alas, there was no heating and no food or drinks!  We sat in buttoned up coats, hats, scarves.  Some had brought blankets and even hot water bottles.  Not quite God's frozen people...but nearly.

My friend had planned the service imaginatively with songs and exercises.  He talked about family trees and showed us his work with his grandson tracing his own. (Apparently, he's researched back to the seventeenth century but we were spared too much detail).  Unusually, he then asked everyone to write down on large pieces of paper all the churches and Christian organizations we had ever belonged to.  Sitting opposite us was a young American mother whose husband is serving in the forces over here.  We discovered that she came from the very same small (and I mean really small!) town of Hillsborough in Kansas as our daughter-in-law, Lori.  Of all the places in the USA!  We are cross-referencing her family details with Lori. Her list obviously included many US churches, as did ours.  We were asked to reflect on the church families we had belonged to  and give thanks for their influences.  Hearing lists of the many different churches was stunning.  And, as our leader put it, all these past influences had now been blended in the DNA of Oundle Baptist Church. 

Yet another exercise involved us reading out to each other three stories from parts of the national Baptist family. The work of the Baptist Union was vividly described by a series of slides and then each table had a different set of three prayer topics: a Baptist college, a Baptist association of churches, and one particular local church.  For me, that was a first.  To focus on belonging together (which is the Baptist logo) with a focus on Baptists took some chutzpah.  Rarely, do we focus on the Baptist family - partly because often, many in our congregations come from other denominations and frankly it is hard enough praying for the local family needs.  So, it was a really different engaging time!   And, I'll mention something else too.......