As Lent is a time for confession let me tell you that this
time last week I was attending a Driver Awareness Course in Dorchester. Instead of the penalty points for speeding at
38mph in a 30mph district on the way to the Dorset coast I went to what my
children call ‘The Naughty Boy Driving School’ for a morning.
I have to say it was all done terrifically well and I learnt a great deal. It struck me, however, that the start and finish of our time together felt a world apart.
When the thirty of us arrived, (only two women in our group and I make no comment!), few of us made eye contact. There was an almost tangible sense of resentment in the room that we had to undergo the inconvenience of this course. A few ‘louder’ members of the group engaged in conversation as we signed in – protesting that they were only a few miles over the speed limit – ‘not as if I was doing seventy like the fool I saw on the road yesterday’!
We shuffled down the corridor in silence, heads bowed (is this what prison feels like, I thought) and separated into two classrooms with about fifteen of us in each.
It was the instructors who made the difference and started the thaw among us. They were such good people – treated us with courtesy and respect, listened to our questions, challenged our assumptions with politeness and a lightness of touch. The three hours flew by and we left as friends – I almost asked ‘same time next week then?’!
What happened last Thursday morning? I think a negative was changed into a positive – skilfully and deftly done.
It struck me that we in the church need to do the same. We talk about sin, confession and repentance – serious things which we need to take seriously. Yet to leave it there would only ever be half the story – it is, however, the only half I think people sometimes hear.
Jesus seems to put it much more positively in the story of the Lost Son. For that adolescent there was a moment when he realised what a mess he’d made of his life – a moment of honest self-realisation. Yet there was also, after the change of direction, such a welcome home given him by his father. A negative was changed to a positive.
We Christians are not the ‘thou shalt not’ brigade – but seekers after truth who believe Jesus came to show us ‘life in all its fullness’.
It seems to me that just about everything in church life should, therefore, absolutely be about turning negatives into positives.
With best wishes,
I have to say it was all done terrifically well and I learnt a great deal. It struck me, however, that the start and finish of our time together felt a world apart.
When the thirty of us arrived, (only two women in our group and I make no comment!), few of us made eye contact. There was an almost tangible sense of resentment in the room that we had to undergo the inconvenience of this course. A few ‘louder’ members of the group engaged in conversation as we signed in – protesting that they were only a few miles over the speed limit – ‘not as if I was doing seventy like the fool I saw on the road yesterday’!
We shuffled down the corridor in silence, heads bowed (is this what prison feels like, I thought) and separated into two classrooms with about fifteen of us in each.
It was the instructors who made the difference and started the thaw among us. They were such good people – treated us with courtesy and respect, listened to our questions, challenged our assumptions with politeness and a lightness of touch. The three hours flew by and we left as friends – I almost asked ‘same time next week then?’!
What happened last Thursday morning? I think a negative was changed into a positive – skilfully and deftly done.
It struck me that we in the church need to do the same. We talk about sin, confession and repentance – serious things which we need to take seriously. Yet to leave it there would only ever be half the story – it is, however, the only half I think people sometimes hear.
Jesus seems to put it much more positively in the story of the Lost Son. For that adolescent there was a moment when he realised what a mess he’d made of his life – a moment of honest self-realisation. Yet there was also, after the change of direction, such a welcome home given him by his father. A negative was changed to a positive.
We Christians are not the ‘thou shalt not’ brigade – but seekers after truth who believe Jesus came to show us ‘life in all its fullness’.
It seems to me that just about everything in church life should, therefore, absolutely be about turning negatives into positives.
With best wishes,
Ian
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