Come, Holy Spirit, renew our hearts

We have always done it this way!

I hear it in the church today, and Peter heard it over 2000 years ago. Peter went back to Jerusalem and was criticised for travelling with and eating with uncircumcised men.

This was a new thing in the early church, when many still saw themselves as Jews, and therefore the purity laws of Judaism were still important.

Peter didn't just ignore the purity laws.

Peter had a vision,

A vision of food, at least some of it not kosher, and he tells God he can’t eat such animals.  And this happens not once, not twice, but three times. But each time the voice returns and reminds Peter that God made all of creation.  "What God has made clean, you must not call profane.' [Acts 11: 9b]

In the beginning the spirit blew over the waters, and the earth was created. And that God saw that it was good.  

And Peter asks: “… who was I that I could hinder God?" [Acts 11:17b]

This passage is full of references of God speaking to people, in visions, and through the Holy Spirit.

Peter saw the vision of the animals, the men came to Peter from Caesarea in response to a vision of an angel giving them a message. Peter travelled with them in response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Talk of visions and voices, angels and dreams, responding to the movement of the Holy Spirit can seem a bit alien, even in the church. This is not language we use very often. But read through the book of Acts, and see how often people are moved by the Holy Spirit.

The theme of the Synod meeting was ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts’. The worship, the reports and discussions were all around this theme.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

And the prayer we prayed earlier had three parts:

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

What would it look like if the church was renewed by God?

How would you know?

What would change?

Would we still be saying:

We have always done it this way!

We have never done that before!

What do you mean change?

      Women elders! What next women Ministers?!

     

What would it look like if the church was renewed by God?

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

How can we be part of the renewal of the earth, of God’s creation?

In what ways does our living harm creation?

What could we change that would mean less waste.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

I wonder what it would look like if our hearts were renewed by God.

What would it look like if your heart was renewed by God?

Is that something you are willing to pray for?

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Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

We pray for renewal, not by plastic surgery or a marketing campaign. We pray for the Holy Spirit to come, to remake us, to cleanse our hearts, to inspire the church, to heal the earth.

We heard earlier from Margaret/Ian about their experience of Synod. We did discuss some important issues, and you can read about them on the Insights website or in the next Insights magazine, but some of the things that stood out for me were:

·        The number of younger people, under 30 years old, who participate in the meeting.

·        The increasing ethnic diversity

·        The participation of members of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress

·        The moderator, Rev Myung Wha Park and Diane Torrens (UAICC NSW/ACT Regional Chairperson) sitting together throughout the meeting

·        The prayerfulness of the moderator

On Monday evening we were asked to name something inspiring from the session, and then on Tuesday morning we went around the room, naming something we would take away from the Synod meeting with us. One thing for me was the worship and bible study.  The other thing I took away from Synod was the way the meeting itself has changed since the first meeting I attended thirty years ago. You can read about that in the Grapevine.

It is inspiring to be around people

·         who can name the positive things about the Uniting Church,

·         people who look to the future with anticipation of what new thing God will do

·         people willing to be an answer to the prayer for renewal

I know change can be challenging.

But think about some of the major events of the past 30 years

•     1990 fall of the Berlin Wall

•     1994 end of apartheid in South Africa - Nelson Mandela became President of the Republic of South Africa after the first post-apartheid elections.

•     2008  Crowds around Australia watched broadcasts from the House of Representatives when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd led a parliamentary apology for the effect of past government policies on Indigenous people.

Amazing things can happen when we live for God’s world, for all of creation, for people everywhere.

From the closing worship at Synod:

Bec “There are some things we have learned together about what it means to live by the Spirit, and to be guided by the Spirit,”, “We have met at times with each other with vulnerability, at times with openness.”

“Because of this we have had conversations and we have had new beginnings, exciting ventures have emerged. We brought the mosaic along and thought we knew what it would look like at the end. Yesterday something was missing. Congress wanted to know, ‘Where is the hand?’ so we have added it in. We have changed it and added something knew.

Aunty Leena explained the significance of the hand and the importance of being open to live by the spirit in her language. 
“I belong to you, you belong to me we all belong to one another but most of all we belong to God almighty,” explained Aunty Leena

Bec continued “We share this sense of hopefulness of belonging to each other to belonging to God and that we are not alone. When we go back to our congregations and our churches may we hold the sense of hope and belonging, that we hold it for all creation and all things not just for us but the whole world,”

“God does not leave us. God does not leave God’s church, God keeps calling us to follow in the way of Christ Jesus.”

#SynodMeeting2016 #ComeHolySpirit #RenewOurHearts

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

I wonder what it would look like if our hearts were renewed by God.

What would it look like if your heart was renewed by God?