Magazine for November 2010
Half Term at Queen’s
“In a war, you do whatever you need to,
to keep your family safe.”
We had been discussing Rahab’s decision to help the Hebrew spies, but suddenly she was just reporting how life was, with gun fire in the street back home in Sierra Leone.
Sometimes it’s others’ experience that brings the bible alive, and sometimes it’s inspiring just to be at Queen’s, in a group of people called by God from an extraordinary range of backgrounds: a time-served convict, a war survivor, an asylum-seeker from Zimbabwe, an Indian, a Sri Lankan, several English, even a Canadian.
It’s the end of the first half of the first term of the first year of my three-year part-time ordination training at The Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham, and I’m definitely feeling like a student. It’s probably that the modules I’m starting with are at the more theoretical end of the scale.
Introduction to Christian Theology has us looking at how the church has developed its view of who God is and how God acts, including assessing the more catholic, liberal, pentecostal and liberationist views, as well as the evangelical outlook that broadly shapes St Mark’s. Intro to the Old Testament has us covering the whole thing in under 30 classroom hours, so it mainly produces frustration as just when you’re getting into, say, Deuteronomy, its already time to move on.
There have been more obviously vicar-ish bits. A series of skills sessions included planning worship to help people experience God through it, rather than just learn about God during it. I used the approach when I led St Mark’s evening service at the start of October, and as far as I could tell, it worked well.
But the strongest impression so far is the glorious range of people. And when all those different cultures lead the daily worship in their different styles, including their language and their norms and customs, it really hammers home that Jesus has a worldwide following.
He is praised week in and week out, in the poorest Indian village as well as in the rich West, by those living comfortably in their homes as well as those with war an inch away on the other side of their front door.
Steve Hood