Privilege of Preaching

Sunday was Synod Sunday - ministers in the district get to swop pulpits for the day and share some of the unity of synod.  (Synod is a meeting of our church leadership over three days to receive reports, make decisions about policy etc.)  The church I serve in Table View has three services on a Sunday so Heather and I managed to worship together with them at 8am and Heather stayed on to teach Sunday School at the 930am service.  Rev Ross Southern from Tokai and Muizenberg Methodist Churches took all three services for me.

I headed to Bishop Lavis straight after the 8am service.  When I arrived in the suburb the rain was pouring down; despite the rain a salvation army band was forming up in the main road.  I found the Methodist Church in Bishop Lavis with the property steward busy sweeping away the leaves that had fallen during the week.

Later - as I met in the vestry with the worship steward for the day I heard the march of the Salvation Army band through the streets.  I asked about the hall they had recently built - only to hear that people kept stealing pieces of it; the gutters, the windows.  At one stage members of the congregation took turns to sleep in the church in an attempt to ward off the thieves.  The steward reckoned that most of the thieves steal pieces of the church to sell as scrap in order to buy drugs.

Table View where I live has its own set of problems - we get so wrapped up in them that we forget what our brothers and sisters in places like Bishop Lavis have to put up with and the history of injustice that determines so much of their lives.

I also need to be constantly reminded that my faith invites me to be part of a family that is not confined to this or that suburb - but that stretches across the diversity of the city and country in which I live.