The Venta Group of Churches

Hello everyone

At the beginning of February, Cathryn and I started telling people around the churches and the wider community that we will be moving in the summer, because I have been appointed to a new post in two churches in and around Swaffham.

I expect there will be a chance to say a bit more about this in a future Free for All, and certainly an opportunity, for anyone who wants to, to say goodbye once July comes, but for now I thought I would write about something I have found myself doing as part of the process. You see, for their magazine (because all churches seem to have a magazine!) I have been writing a little paragraph about myself and the rest of the family so they can get a sense of who we are, ahead of us arriving.

I wrote about 200 words, and it could have been much more. This is the sort of thing you might have done yourself, of course, on a job or university application, or written about a friend in a reference that they needed for themselves. You might have found yourself asking what to write. Of all the things you could say, what is relevant to this situation? What is an honest reflection of the person? How do I sum up all of that appropriately in just a paragraph? Big questions.

Over the last few years I have spent a lot of time reading over a chunk of the beginning of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, even trying to memorise all of it, only partly successfully! It’s a bit longer than the biography paragraph I’ve been writing, but about the same as these articles which I write every month. In this passage he writes something like a biography of the people he is writing to, but rather than concentrate on where they all come from or what they have all done, he focuses on who they are because of what Jesus has done for them.

I often describe reading these verses as like a mountaintop experience – and not just because I am distracted by the Winter Olympics. Paul reminds the Ephesians that they are holy, faithful, blessed, chosen, blameless, adopted, given grace, redeemed, forgiven, included, sealed, guaranteed an inheritance – and on it goes. If you are anything like me, you will find it completely overwhelming that anyone else, and especially God himself, would look at you in that way. Maybe you think that you can’t possibly considered holy or blameless because of all the mistakes you make every day. Maybe you have been hurt by rejection, in a relationship, or at work, or back in childhood, and couldn’t imagine that anyone would choose or include you. Maybe you like the idea of this mountaintop experience, but in all honesty you feel like you’re stuck at the bottom and can’t possibly imagine getting up there.

Well if that’s you, there is good news, because in the next chapter Paul goes on to say that all of us who believe in Jesus are up there already. He has put us there by dying and rising for us. No mountaineering or chairlift or cable car required – we’re sitting up there with him. And that same invitation is open to everyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus yet. Through him, we can experience all of that wonderful list of truths I mentioned before, not just now but forever. Next time someone asks us for a paragraph about ourselves, we can write something like that. Maybe that’s what I should have done in the first place!

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