Last night about 55 people gathered from around Wythenshawe to eat a special meal together marking Jesus last meal with his disciples. We'd prepared lamb casserole, stew and hotpot as well as fairtrade dates, apricots, red grape juice, flat bread, homemade bread & pitta bread! There was lots of food to share, it was relaxed and informal as we made new friends and more and more people kept arriving we added more tables and food! We shared in breaking bread together as followers of Jesus, as regulars in church and regulars in relationship with Jesus in community. We want to do it again...soon and not wait another year!Yesterday the church building got a new life - the razor wire was taken down from most of the building and stored safely away. I looked at it & it reminded me of a razor crown of thorns. It has not stopped our young friends going on the roof more recently so we decided to take it down this Holy Week and just see if it is a sign that God is on the loose in the lives of the teenagers who are hanging around! Many of us think it could be...just as God seems to be moving in Kingsgate Road closeby - there are all sorts of amazing things happening with people there - and interestingly about 8 households of followers of Jesus...and counting! Watch that space!
Today several hundred followers of Jesus met and walked to civic centre in Wythenshawe through the market and we sang, danced and shared in the story of Jesus last moments of Jesus life and in his death on the cross by crucifixion. It was really rooted in Wythenshawe with stories of debt, money lenders and loans as well as stories of love and hope and forgiveness bringing new life.
Sometimes in our Wythenshawe we feel as if we are 'outside the city walls' of Manchester out on a limb in this garden city. There is still sometimes almost unspeakable violence done to people here I have met who live with so much from the past that burdens and weighs down. Today there were lots of amazing conversations going on around civic and on the walking around Wythenshawe with the cross that I cannot but see God here - in the midst of some of the violence, despair and filth of peoples lives. I hope that is not paternalism or tokenism but for me God is on the loose and the churches here can hardly keep up with the scandal of the cross stories and the explosions of life which are going on all around us.
I am not sure if Jesus is in the tomb. God is walking the streets in spite of us marking Good Friday.
And tomorrow - messychurch! Pray for us if you have an inkling of the dying-living GodOne amongst us all...god bless.
