End the Week with CME - April 18, 2008 18th Apr 2008 | Download | Email to a Friend

Welcome to End the Week with CME! This weekly email is sent automatically to Clergy and Readers in the diocese (if you don't want to receive it, please send an email to CovEW-unsubscribe@lists.covlec.org) but anyone is welcome to subscribe to the list, and we are especially keen to pass it on to any interested lay people, especially those who may have responsibility for preaching. To subscribe they simply need to email CovEW-subscribe@lists.covlec.org.

Coming Up

Ordination Services - understanding the theology of the liturgy

What is ordination all about? The Common Worship Ordination Services have been in use for a couple of years now and a study edition of the texts was published in 2007. This study day will look at the theology behind the service, how it is reflected in the liturgy, and what it says about a contemporary Anglican understanding of ordained ministry. Weds 14 May 2008, at The Red Hill Christian Centre, Snitterfield, 10am-3pm. Led by Adrian Daffern and Richard Cooke. Cost: £30 (including lunch). Grants for half the cost are available for clergy and Readers. Book through sarah.palmer@covcofe.org.

Women Bishops - but what kind?

A study day for women and men. 10am - 3pm, Monday 9 June 2008 at Offa House.

Legislation for the ordination of women bishops will come before the General Synod in the near future. It is a timely moment to ask what we expect of bishops in general, and what we think women bishops might bring to the role. What kind of leadership is appropriate for the church of the future?

The day will be chaired by Katrina Scott (Diocesan Adviser for Women's Ministry), and there will be input from Rosie Ward (Leadership Development Adviser, CPAS). Cost: £30 (including lunch). Grants for half the cost are available for clergy and Readers. Book through sarah.palmer@covcofe.org.

Parish Information Officers' Meeting

The next Parish Information Officers' meeting will take place on Tuesday 22 April at Offa House, 7.30pm until 9pm. It is open to EVERYONE interested in communications / information.

There will be a guest speaker, who will give advice to those wishing to find out information about their church, as a resource to offer to different 'clients'. For example:

Potential for community use
Who to tell, and how to market
Historical interest
Ideas for getting your church better known and how to keep the building open
Is there potential in making use of the building as a place of pilgrimage?

For further information, please contact Mervyn Roberts at mervynrob@aol.com.

Vocations 'Taster' Morning

Saturday 26 April 2008, 9.30am - 12.30pm, at Warwick Gates Community Centre, Cressida Close, Warwick Gates, Warwick CV34 6DZ.

Are you interested in finding out more about ministry opportunities within the Church of England, or do you know someone else who is? Ministries covered at the 'Taster' morning will include:

Church Army
Reader Ministry
Ordained Ministry
Ordained Local Ministry
Ministry in Secular Employment
Non-stipendiary Ministry
Pioneer Ministry

All delegates will be able to attend a choice of two sessions, at which they will learn more about the particular ministry, from someone involved in it. For more details, go to: http://www.coventrydiocese.org/upload/file/Vocations%20Taster%20Morning%202008.pdf

Please let Susan Mileham (Vocations Advisers Team Leader) know if you hope to attend by emailing susan@mileham.net or phoning 01926 426250.

NSM Meeting

There will be a meeting for all NSMs of the diocese, whatever the focus of their ministry, on Wednesday 7 May 2008, 7.30pm at St James' Church, Abbey Road, Whitley, Coventry.

A message from Pam Gould about the get-together:

"It is hoped that we can begin to put together a paper for the new Bishop, highlighting the contribution made to the life and witness of the Church in the Diocese by our large and disparate group. Maybe to look, too, at ways in which this contribution could be more creatively extended, where possible."

For more information, or to indicate you wish to attend the meeting, please email Pam Gould at revpamgould@aol.com.

Subverting the Empire: Romans Disarmed

Blah . . . is a series of conversations on mission, worship, church and Christianity in today's rapidly changing culture.

CMS have planned a 2008 'blah tour', and have invited Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat over from Canada to present it. "Romans Disarmed" will take place in Birmingham on Tuesday 17 June, 10am until 4pm at Birmingham Cathedral.

For more information, or to book online, go to www.blahonline.net.

Unity in Diversity: celebrating the breadth of Reader Ministry

The Central Readers' Council National Conference will be held Friday 12 - Sunday 14 September 2008 at the University of North Wales, Bangor.

The keynote speaker will be Canon Dr Christina Baxter CBE, and the Principal of St Johns College, Nottingham will be leading an exploration of 1 Corinthians 12. There will also be a number of seminars, led by Readers who are involved in different aspects of ministry outside the church, such as prisons, hospices, bereavement, education etc.

A core part of the weekend will be worship and fellowship, and throughout the weekend there will be an exhibition of various resources relevant to Reader Ministry.

Cost: £170 per head if you book before 30 June / £180 per head for bookings after 30 June.

For more information, contact Alan Wakely, CRC Secretary, Church House, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3AZ, crcsec@c-of-e.org.uk or Susan Salt, Chair of the organising committee, Christ Church Vicarage, Meadows Avenue, Thornton Cleve Leys, Lancashire FY5 2TW, nsalt@waitrose.com.

www.readers.cofe.anglican.org

Mission Training Opportunities Spring 2008
Coventry Cathedral & Hope08

An exciting programme of Mission preaching and teaching opportunities are currently taking place at the Cathedral, to help train and enable Christians to engage in Mission during this year of HOPE08. With special guest speakers such as Steven Croft, Sharon Stone and John Drane these are opportunities not to be missed!

For more details, go to: http://www.hope08coventry.com/CMS/uploads/842/documents/Mission%20Training%20Spring%2008%20small.pdf

Notes on the Gospel Readings for Easter 6 (Sunday April 27, 2008)
John 14. 15-21

'Famous last words' vary in quality. Tory Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger is said to have sat up in bed and announced 'I think I could eat one of Bellamy's Pork Pies' before he dropped dead. An American Civil War General, advised to take cover in a battle, told his staff 'Nonsense. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist... ' Others are much more edifying, though, and in the ancient world farewell speeches of the famous were often recorded. The best example is Plato's Phaedo, a sustained narrative of Socrates' teaching to his close followers on the night before he was put to death by the Athenian authorities; on a much smaller scale Paul's address to the Ephesian elders fulfils a similar function (Acts 20.17-35).

In John's gospel Jesus often teaches by means of long speeches or discourses. This is a contrast to the first three gospels, where Jesus teaches in short stories and sayings. Richard Bauckham has recently pointed out that Jesus must surely have taught in a more discursive and lengthy style. The Synoptic gospels preserve the sharp and pithy sayings, which were probably designed to be remembered easily, but they must originally have been embedded in longer speeches. The great crowd who gathered to hear Jesus teach from the boat by the lakeside would have asked for their money back if they really only heard three parables (Mark 4)! John's representation of Jesus' teaching 'is more realistic' than the Synoptics, 'but at the same time it required much more...the putting of words into Jesus' mouth' ('Historiographical Characteristics of the Gospel of John' in New Testament Studies 53 (2007) p.17). This is especially true of the 'farewell discourse' in John 14-17, Jesus' private teaching to his disciples on the eve of the crucifixion, which John has reconstructed for us.

Jesus' final words to his followers are that his departure will not leave them alone, for his place will be taken by 'another advocate', the Spirit of truth who will dwell with them forever (John 14.16-17). In other words, the business of manifesting the Father in the world which has been the role of Jesus, the messenger from heaven (and which has formed the basis of the earlier discourses) now becomes the role of his disciples under the leadership and guidance of the Spirit.

Recognizing this transference from Jesus to the community of disciples is crucial for understanding John's gospel. The high claims of the first half of the gospel that Jesus is the revealer of the Father now become the basis for the claim of the community behind the gospel to possess the 'authorized version' of the meaning of Jesus. Their role is also to take on the function of Jesus in bringing the truth to the world (John 17.15-18). After the resurrection, Jesus authorizes and commissions the disciples with words that make their link with him explicit: 'as the Father has sent me, so also I send you'. Then he breathes his Spirit on them, just as God breathed into Adam in the creation story (Gen. 2.7), and gives them the authority he himself has had to forgive and retain sins (John 20.21-23). The identification is complete. As Jesus and the Father are one, so also are he and his disciples.

The connection of Jesus, the Father, the Spirit and the disciples in this way in John's gospel paves the way for the later Church to develop the idea of God as three in one and one in three, a trinity. The concept is richer and more dynamic than Luke's more linear sequence that Jesus leaves the disciples and is replaced by the Holy Spirit in a sort of procession. Instead John touches on the idea of a complex dance sequence, what is sometimes called perichoresis, the intertwining relationships of the persons of the trinity which weave in and out of human life and draw us, as disciples, into their eternal life (John 14.20).

John doesn't go quite that far, of course, but the roots of the idea can be found in this passage as Jesus speaks his final words to the disciples. He is 'the way, the truth and the life' (John 14.6): the way they follow to the heart of God, the pure truth of God's being, the life that animates the whole world.

And Finally...

This really relates to the reading I wrote about last week - John 14.1-14 - with its talk of 'many mansions/rooms'. But you might pick it up in time to use on Sunday.

A man dies and goes to Heaven. On his first day St. Peter shows him around and they begin walking down a big corridor with doors on both sides and Peter explains that there are rooms for every style of Christian worship.

When they get to the first door Peter looks through the window on the door and says, "In this room we have the Charismatics. It's sound proof because they get a bit loud sometimes."

They walk a little farther to the next door and he says, "Here we have the Methodists and in that door over there is the genX group."

After showing the man a few more rooms they get to a door without a window and Peter tells him to be very quiet as they pass. "Shhhhhhh. That's where we keep the Baptists - they don't know anyone else is here!"

That's all folks!

Richard

Richard Cooke
Coventry CMERichard.Cooke@CovCofE.org