WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 What have you missed or what are you still missing during this lockdown? 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:12.000 I've missed so much and one of the strangest things that I've missed is driving. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:19.000 I love driving, the sheer joy of the open road, not the M5 on a bank holiday. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:28.000 But there is something about being in a car, a long winding road, the windows down and my favourite tracks, 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:35.000 which I have on a Spotify download called Driving. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:39.000 I've put all my favourite tracks on there and one of them is by Green Day. 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:43.000 And it's called Wake Me Up When September Ends. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:49.000 And in many ways, with all the challenges that we've been facing, like many of you, 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:56.000 I wish I could just stuff my head under a duvet and wake up when September ends 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:59.000 and it will all have gone away. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:02.000 We know that's not reality. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:08.000 And we know that in this time, especially for us as Christians and in Christian leadership, 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:19.000 we need to be wide awake, wide awake and alive to what God is doing at the moment and offering us in this season. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:30.000 September compared with previous years is looking very different for many children and young people going back to school with masks and social distancing. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:40.000 And young adults starting college, university, starting back in apprenticeships with a diversity of regulations and constraints to contend with. 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:43.000 Parents and carers not able to go and support their children. 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:50.000 Many people facing redundancy and others wondering if there will be a job for them when furloughing ends. 00:01:50.000 --> 00:02:00.000 If ever there was a year for us to be awake, this is it. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:08.000 In the book of Acts, Luke wrote an account of a time when a small group of people who had witnessed Jesus wrongly arrested, 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:15.000 believing that they too would be arrested, they had seen Jesus crucified and they'd hit the depths of despair, 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:22.000 thinking that there was no future, only to experience the glorious resurrection. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:30.000 His ascension and the wake up call for what would be the early church, just as Jesus had promised. 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:38.000 The wake up call supported, empowered, enthused, excited, encouraged and enabled in the power of the Holy Spirit, 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:43.000 which allowed them to speak to a world that brought change and transformation. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:49.000 A group of people who showed that hope wasn't dead and new life was possible for all. 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:55.000 It was a junction point in history. Junction points, I believe, are so important. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:04.000 Opportunities to wake up, engage afresh with God's purposes and see the way forward in a new way. 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:10.000 And I strongly believe, along with many others, in the mess and unknowing of these past few months, 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:18.000 leaves us as a church standing at a junction point that could give us an opportunity if we choose. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:22.000 We choose to follow and take it. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:26.000 Last week, we finished our series on the I am sayings of Jesus. 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:32.000 And like you, I have learned so much about the character of God through all that Jesus said about himself. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:40.000 And it's no coincidence that we follow this series with a teaching series on the book of Acts in the Bible. 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:51.000 This is supported by an inspirational book that many of us have read, and I hope you will too, over the next few weeks by Anne and Gavin Culver. 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:55.000 It's a book called Unleashed. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:04:10.000 Reading their book alongside the book of Acts made me even more hungry to engage afresh in that outpouring of opportunity that Holy Spirit gives us at this junction point. 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:22.000 If ever there is a time for our generation to shine his light into the fear and anxiety that so many people are experiencing, this is it. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:33.000 Gavin and Anne wrote their book with Brexit in mind, little knowing that an even bigger storm was about to hit in the form of Covid. 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:38.000 Their writing is a truly prophetic wake up call for us all. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:54.000 As Gavin says in page 117, this current junction point provides us, the church, with a wonderful opportunity to show what is different when we too face this uncertainty, but we do so with Jesus. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:57.000 How does this impact the way we behave? 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:01.000 What difference should it make to our sense of hopefulness? 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:12.000 How can we help others who don't know Jesus to see in us the difference this makes? 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:24.000 That is truly inspiring because as we enter this series, and indeed a new series in the life of the church, a junction point is offered to us. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:27.000 We have the space to consider the way we move forward. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:38.000 And much like the early church, it will depend on how we as a people respond and people see how we respond or have already responded. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.000 There's been some great stuff going on. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:45.000 TLG coaches supporting children and parents online. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.000 People queued for neighbours to get food and prescriptions. 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:52.000 People have helped those in other countries. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:53.000 We phoned people. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:54.000 We zoomed. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:06:01.000 We spoke safely distanced over garden fences to people maybe that we hadn't spoken to before. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:04.000 We shopped for others unable to leave their homes. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.000 Families worship together at home. 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:14.000 Maybe you're doing that now, bringing families together and Jesus into the heart of your living room, your kitchen. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:19.000 For many who tell me that you worship from the comfort of your bed with a breakfast tray. 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:20.000 Well done. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:22.000 Some churches closed. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:29.000 Eyes remained open to cook meals from our kitchen, thanks to Clevedon Aid. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:39.000 The Make Lunch team filled room two with food that provided young people with meals during the holiday in settings where food was in short supply. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:42.000 And as I wandered around the church building, it wasn't empty. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:43.000 It was full of hope. 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.000 The people of God responded. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:56.000 And I gave thanks that we are in the business of feeding others and that we are modelling the way God's people respond to challenge. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:00.000 What does that junction point look like for us today? 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:03.000 Have we been shaken and stirred? 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:04.000 We certainly have. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:10.000 Yet as a nation, this town, our community, we have an opportunity to see a way forward. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:21.000 And in moving in that direction, people will look to us, the church, to shine and proclaim Jesus and bring hope as they did in the early church. 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:36.000 In our reading this morning, they didn't know when Jesus was returning, so that there was this sense of urgency, which over the years, I think we have lost and we need to regain. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:46.000 You know, it's not for you to know the times and dates the Father has set by his own authority, but he calls us to be witnesses, just as he did in the early church. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:55.000 And that urgency remains because nobody knows the time and it may be, may be in our generation. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:11.000 Maybe it's that urgency and commitment that made them so radically passionate that they sold land, they sold houses, they gave up the security of what was to step into the adventure that millions have engaged with since. 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:26.279 In amongst the grim news, and I've almost given up listening to the news, but I listen in the morning to Radio 4 and in amongst there, there is this glimmer of hope, this light often provided by hope for the day. 00:08:26.279 --> 00:08:33.320 And Rydian Brooke is one of my favourite contributors, a Christian writer of which John Humphrey said, 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:40.279 The problem with Rydian's thoughts is how often I find myself agreeing with him. It's most annoying. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:50.639 People need to hear the message of hope and to see us modelling that at this junction point. 00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:59.519 I believe we are called to shape the culture we are called to serve and we do that and we join in where God is already at work. 00:08:59.519 --> 00:09:09.720 Is that safe and comfortable? Probably no. Will it look sensible? Probably not. Will it look like the early church? In many ways I hope it will. 00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:18.360 As C.S. Lewis said in the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan is on the move and he's not a tame lion. 00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:25.360 Maybe already you are sensing or hearing that roar afresh. 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:33.820 That rallying call of God for people to rise up and follow inspired and expectant. 00:09:34.279 --> 00:09:43.340 Perhaps these past few weeks you look back to the point maybe where you first met Jesus, a junction point where you decided to follow. 00:09:43.340 --> 00:09:52.639 Yet somewhere, somewhere along the way, we lost our zeal, our passion, our confidence and our energy. 00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:59.860 I pray, I pray, I pray that in this season that we will regain that and get back on track. 00:10:02.860 --> 00:10:06.600 Recent months have been brutally challenging for many. 00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:11.040 For many of you and for us as well as a family. 00:10:12.159 --> 00:10:17.899 The words of Tolkien's hobbit, Frodo to the wizard Gandalf, surely resonates with us all. 00:10:18.899 --> 00:10:22.580 I wish it need not have happened in my time, says Frodo. 00:10:23.639 --> 00:10:25.480 So do I, said Gandalf. 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:29.220 And so do all who live to see such times. 00:10:29.220 --> 00:10:32.340 But that is not for them to decide. 00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:38.360 All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. 00:10:40.379 --> 00:10:48.920 I pray at this junction point, we will all be inspired, enthused and excited in the power of the Holy Spirit. 00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:52.320 And as Jesus said, I am. 00:10:53.379 --> 00:10:55.940 I pray that in the power of the Holy Spirit. 00:10:55.940 --> 00:10:58.440 We can.