by Liz Smith

These are just a few of the comments following a recent Time to Talk service on a Sunday evening in our circuit. Once a month the evening service at one of our churches has become ‘Time to Talk', when a congregation drawn from across the circuit now comes knowing that there will be an opportunity for them to speak as well as to listen to others. Initially, the invitation to leave the security of the pews and gather around tables for activities and discussion was met with an anxious silence and some reluctance, not to mention a spasm of fear in the hearts of those leading - what if they refuse?

As the sessions have continued, however, participants have voluntarily changed their seating pattern and, as we share in an opening song and prayer, there is now a sense of anticipation as to what the evening will hold. Once people start talking it can be difficult to stop them! However, we are currently still working within the parameters of an evening service ‘slot' so the whole session is a maximum of 80 minutes, including a ‘topping and tailing' of singing and prayer. The time discipline helps us to focus our conversation, as well as keeping the session accessible to those who can commit to attending a Sunday evening service.

The sessions have grown out of a similar series last year under the heading ‘Beyond the Box'. In those sessions it was Tom Stuckey's book that offered us a framework; this year it is the ‘Time to Talk of God' report that is offering encouragement and inspiration. The sessions are prepared and led by the Superintendent minister working with the Circuit's Worship Leaders, who have taken sole responsibility for some of the sessions. Of those who attend on any particular evening there will be a number of Local Preachers and Worship Leaders who are a real resource in our conversations about God and faith around the tables.

Our Sunday evening ‘Time to Talk' sessions are one of the ways in which the Circuit is seeking to address the reluctance of Methodists to speak with others about their faith, as highlighted in national surveys, and to take seriously the Connexional priority to endeavour to speak of Christian faith in ways that make sense to all involved. Put another way, it is about people who are committed Christians recovering their voice for ‘mission' in our communities. Put another way, it is about people who have previously sat through hours of meetings and formal worship alongside one another, finally having conversations about God and faith with one another. Put another way, it is time for the preacher to be silent! It feels graced of God and ‘quietly exciting'!

This multi-layered understanding of what is happening in those sessions is also reflected in thoughts that emerged from a session listening to the Jesus who engaged in conversation, as sketched out in the gospels. In asking the question "So what was the good news in this story, or for this person?" we began to see how multi-layered good news can be!

Those who know me well, know that I enjoying working with images as much as with words. By the end of this particular evening I knew that an image was required to help us with what we had shared. The mental picture that arrived and has remained, is that of filo pastry!! Before baking it looks flat, but useful for the purpose of holding fruit or jam in its proper place. However, once the warmth of the oven has allowed the expansion of air and the separation of the layers, it is lusciously more appetising! And it still contains the fruit or the jam as expected. Now I am not suggesting that our ‘time to talk' sessions are filled with hot air...!, but it seems to me that after each session the material prepared, which has been adequate and functional, has been transformed into a multi-layered, luscious filo pastry through the distinctive and rich contributions of people willing to share their insights with one another.

This was particularly true as we wrestled with questions about ‘good news'. For the Syrophoenician woman, (Mark 7 v.24) the good news was that her daughter was healed. The story is remembered, however, in a way that points to the wider and deeper good news of Jesus' own growth in self-understanding, that his ministry was not limited to those of Jewish descent. Implicit in this, for the Gospel writer, is the eternal good news that God's grace is not confined by culture, creed or custom. For ourselves, the good news is about how this or other stories from Scripture connect with our own experience, perhaps of margins and boundaries, in opening our eyes to ‘good news' breaking in on us in all kinds of ways, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

There are likely to be similar layers of good news present within the life of our churches and communities. A particular person's need is met, perhaps through a chat over a cup of coffee or in a pastoral visit and conversation, but another layer of good news is that there is a community willing to organise a coffee morning where such conversation is possible, or a group of pastoral visitors willing to be people who will sit and listen in times of need. The layers develop as each of us, responding to the good news in our own lives, is enabled to do something or to be something for others that otherwise would have been beyond us. The good news of God's grace, it seems, is always both particular and ready to spill out in all directions. And still at the centre, at the heart of all those layers of filo pastry, is the fruit or the jam: the flavour of Christ-likeness that permeates all the layers of the good news!

In her book ‘Mixed Up Blessing', Barbara Glasson speaks of this in the context of ‘Somewhere Else', the bread church which has developed above a book shop in Liverpool. Writing about their ‘Pantioke' night (a cross between a Pantomime and a Karaoke), through which a number of people discovered, in the midst of much fun, that ‘it is possible to be a Christian and a real human being', Barbara speaks of some of the ‘under the surface' things that she knew had enabled the event to happen: "I secretly knew that in order for this to happen, someone was overcoming their claustrophobia, someone else had taken dancing lessons, a friend of someone else had offered the sound equipment for free, and so it went on." In addition to those specific and unique ‘good news happenings' Barbara is able to draw out a more general, but still very particular, truth: "It is about finding enough deep trust between ourselves to have fun, laugh and sing without fear. It is about rejoicing in our embodied humanity and saying, ‘It is good to be here and together with God and each other." (Glasson 2006, p. 113) Good news indeed!

Time to Talk offers the opportunity for those leading busy lives to make connections with their faith and with God, so that they might discover a greater confidence in speaking as well as living their faith. The gift of time and safe space in which we can speak and listen, and in which we know that our voice is heard and respected, is a unique gift that the church can offer, whether in rural Lincolnshire or inner city Liverpool. Time spent in this way can be empowering and encouraging, and just might provide the optimum conditions for a recovery of confidence among Christians who value their Methodist heritage, as we seek to speak with integrity about the grace of the gospel: good news in all of our lives.

I suspect our next ‘Time to Talk' session will begin with filo pastries on the tables ... does that make it ‘Café Church'?

Rev Liz Smith
Superintendent Minister, Market Rasen & Caistor Circuit
Chair-Designate, Leeds District