We are glad to announce that the new Scargill Programme (covering new events both in-house and online from March to August 2024), combined with our latest Momentum magazine, will be available to book online from Wednesday 8^th November (from after morning coffee) – please place booking requests via the website if possible, as our ‘phone lines will be busy. 

Our lovely Admin Team will be working their way through your requests in order, and will respond to specific requests as soon as they are able. We hope that you enjoy our new publication as you read,  browse and start to make plans to come to visit us. We look forward to welcoming you through our doors or seeing you online at one of these programme events.

Momentum is packed full of articles for you to enjoy and includes updates on our Phase 7 Building project which has been progressing well since April.

We are still looking for new members of the Community who can be a lead on worship and youth – Job Descriptions are here. Please do pray with us for the right people to join the Scargill adventure.

This month, Di has been reflecting on ‘faith’. Enjoy!

Diane writes:
Evening Prayer liturgy:
Opening prayer
God the fulfiller of enduring promises,
God the sharer of abundant love, and giver of eternal life
   We remember Your faithfulness
God, who calls all life into being – the earth, sea and sky are Yours
Your Spirit enlivens all who walk on earth
   We remember Your faithfulness
We praise and thank you this day
  We remember Your faithfulness
Our prayer is one and simple
    May God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven,
God’s righteousness and beauty echo through the universe

A while back in morning prayers I heard a quote from David Pawson ’It is not the faith we start with but the faithfulness we finish with that is important.’ I was intrigued and challenged by these words, placing them on my desk and mulling over them. Then recently we had cause to have been given a courtesy car and I was horrified to find no brake handle to firmly hold onto when wanting to release or apply my brakes. NO! All I had to do was apparently rely on a button that shone, presumably to reassure me, and another that said AUTO HOLD. Hence the most uninspiring photo to look at.

But it does highlight my apparent complete lack of faith in technology. I found it really hard to believe that those two buttons were going to keep me safe, I honestly felt scared avoiding at one point to drive it. But that was silly, so, yes, I did embrace the technology and even began to rest and relax when stopping or parking. Alas, just as I began to ‘enjoy’ driving the car, in fact only yesterday, we had to return it – I had survived, Phew!! And it was such a joy to use a handbrake again.

So why was it so difficult to have faith in the light and the button – perhaps because it was trust I was lacking rather than faith. Which did get me thinking once again about faith. Merriam-Webster defines faith as “belief and trust in and loyalty to God.” So, there is a link between the two words but recent research has prompted some to argue that New Testament faith and belief in Jesus should be understood in terms of faithfulness, loyalty, and commitment to him and his teachings, rather than in terms of belief, trust and reliance.

Faith is important because faith frames who we are, our existence, our values, our hopes, and our dreams. Faith is the quiet calm before a storm as well as the anchor within it. You see Faith is a gift from God, an absolutely gratuitous gift. It is the establishment of God’s relationship to his people. A relationship our evening prayer reminds us of with the refrain ‘we remember His faithfulness’.

The Old Testament is full of examples of God’s faithfulness. We are all very familiar with Noah’s rainbow and whilst writing I saw the most beautiful double rainbow. A visual reminder that God’s promise to Noah is not simply part of an ancient story or merely a symbol of hope, it is a living example of God’s faithfulness. It is an assurance that God has not forgotten us and that he continues to work in this world. Also, I read an article (https://www.pastorwoman.net/podcast/episode/2… Posted by Christine on November 11, 2022) about faithfulness’ through the eyes of Caleb. Christine talked about Caleb, one of the twelve spies, along with Joshua who were sent to ‘suss out’ Canaan.  They were the only two who brought back a good report [because they trusted God!!]  Joshua and Caleb ‘through Eyes of Faith’ saw no reason to delay but to immediately go and take the land.  Caleb was a man who remembered the God who was faithful, and on that basis, plus God’s promise, he trusted him.  And that trust readied him for action.  We too have the choice to either see with eyes of faith what may seem impossible for us to accomplish or see with expectant eyes of faith what is possible for us, us only to accomplish – an interesting thought!

This reflection has strengthened my resolve to seeing faith in the terms of faithfulness, of moving beyond being something I think to including an attitude of action. James’ letter is all about the works of faith, in fact faith is the centrepiece of his argument. In 2v14 James writes “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works?” And a few verses later he firmly answers his own question by stating, “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead”. Well, that’s quite clear! 

What makes faith a living and a saving faith is what you do about it. We must not stop at a faith that involves mere mental consent. Our faith is meaningless unless it produces the confidence in God that would cause us to act … to take on giants in the land.  

So let me finish as I started with our Evening Prayer liturgy:

Closing prayer
May Your kingdom come O Lord, on earth as it is in heaven,
May our words proclaim it, our actions reveal it
May Your kingdom come through us, this day and every day
May we feel its heartbeat of love

With love and prayers from

Phil, Di and the Scargill Community

Thomas’ response, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe,’ is the response of a person who is both frustrated and feeling rejected. “What’s the matter with me?” could be a fair description of how Thomas was feeling. “Have I not been just as loyal, if not more so, than my fellow disciples? So why I did I miss out?” He had missed out on the this life-changing encounter, and the shiny eyes and smiles of his fellow disciples would do very little to comfort the distraught Thomas.

He had to wait a whole week before Jesus came amongst them again, and this time Thomas was there. He was offered the most remarkable, life giving, transformative encounter: the invitation to put his hands in the wounds of the risen Lord. The wounds of love that had changed the world, that had showed us the depths of God’s love: Thomas was invited to put his fingers in them. Now that is a bit of a ‘Wow’!

Yes, Thomas was a bit of a doubter, as John’s account portrays. But Thomas’ encounter with Jesus gives hope to all of us who feel that we’ve missed out, that we’re in some way rejected, that God has passed us by, that we were “out of the room”. For the risen Jesus truly wants to have a ‘one-to-one’ with us.

Perhaps Bruce Cockburn’s words in his wonderful song “Somebody touched me”, can be our prayer this week – great song, great lyrics. Thomas was surprised that he had a one-to-one with Jesus: may we also be surprised by the risen Christ this week.

Somebody touched me
Making everything new
Somebody touched me
I didn’t know what to do
Burned through my life
Like a bolt from the blue
Somebody touched me
I know it was you

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeuVJ_A0CoE

And on another note, I am sure that I’ll be out of the room if and when my team Spurs score a winning goal…

Last week I was down at Coventry Cathedral attending a conference entitled Faith in Conflict. It was full of quite important influential people, I had to behave like a grown up! One of the things that we discovered (which isn’t rocket science) is that conflict is normal. You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief and I know that from my experience here at Scargill we have had to work through quite a bit of conflict over the last few years. Just because we are followers of Jesus doesn’t mean we are going to get on all the time.

What is really important is how we deal with conflict. Often we are either confrontational and shout with a ‘come on if you think you’re hard enough’ attitude or the other equally unhelpful attitude is to go into silence and avoid confrontation at all costs. But what we are encouraged to do and the way forward – is to speak and to listen. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow says, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

Of course living in community this is essential if we are going to grow and become a place of reconciliation. The quality of our relationships is an authentic witness of God’s love. This is the heart of the Gospel. In fact one of the speakers at conference said that reconciliation is not the warm up act to hearing the Gospel – it is the Gospel.

Whenever we are reach out (and I’m not talking about with a fist!) to somebody we are in conflict with we are doing the Gospel. St Paul reminds us in 2nd Corinthians 5 that Jesus has reconciled us with God, our relationship with Him has been put right. We are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation.

It’s not an optional extra.

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