A Community of Hope

In 1997 I (Tom) spent a very happy week in Marrakesh wandering around the souks and then climbing in the High Atlas Mountains. It was a beautiful and intoxicating country, full of friendly people. One night as I slept on a rooftop in the foothills of Mount Toubkal, I could barely comprehend the magnificence and splendour of the stars. The whole of the Milky Way, painted in such majestic abundance across everything above me, framed by shadowy mountain peaks, caused me to speak words of worship to the Creator. At the time I wasn't even sure I was a Christian but I knew that something amazing must have made all of this.

Last week, much of Marrakesh collapsed during a savage earthquake. Many of the friendly people I met (or their children at least) died in the rubble. Many are still looking for loved ones.

As we woke up yesterday we saw that a terrible flood has almost certainly killed thousands in Libya.

At times it can be hard to live in the midst of this earth. We can't let go of faith in the transcendent; in the God beyond everything who imbued everything we see with the gift of being. And yet we can't close our eyes to the pain, to the suffering, to the flawed nature of existence... especially for the poor.

Philosopher Charles Taylor calls this "hardness" being "cross pressured". Modern life urges us to "do life" purely for the stuff in front of us; for the money to pay the bills, for more material comforts, for a happy nuclear family. And yet, every day we feel a pressure coming across that way of life; we feel an instinct towards something we call justice, a horror at human suffering, a sense that "it wasn't meant to be this way" and that there must be a spiritual power out there somewhere we can call on to help us out. Taylor says this pressure haunts modern people, pushing us to think about what life actually is, about whether new iphones and weekends away and chasing our dreams is really what this whole thing is really about.

Over the last 10 days 71 people in Croydon Vineyard signed up to Contend for an Awakening. In our town 71 people chose not just to do normal life in a "cross pressured" way but to buy into a totally different way of doing life; a way that was demonstrated and proclaimed by a poor man named Jesus who lived very close to Morocco and Libya and who was also killed before his time.

The decision of these people is beautiful to us. It acknowledges that we are in a fight. It acknowledges that there are not easy and quick solutions to the calamities of this earth. And yet it testifies to hope. It stands in the midst of chaos and says "no" to just carrying on. People chose to pray and fast for the new day that dawned in Jesus to spread wide to more and more people across more and more of the earth. They were praying for you. And they were praying for those in Morocco and Libya and in the other nations across the earth which didn't make our news feeds, but where equally horrendous things are happening.

This is the kind of church community we want to be; people who, like Jesus, lay our lives down for the sake of others; that the weak and poor and lost on this earth can find life, even before they die.  We don't live that way perfectly, but it is our aspiration, and we feel God assisting us in it in ways that are hard to explain. If you would like to be part of our community - if you would like to join us - then we would utterly love it. You are invited. Come and be a community of hope in the midst of this contested world.

With much affection
Tom and Lesley

Sent as part of our CV Invite email - which can be read in full here - https://mailchi.mp/7e7812594570/into-autumn-with-croydon-vineyard-church