Page 2 - Moravian Messenger January 2020

Editorial
Due to the Christmas holidays and printing deadlines I am writing this January editorial before the General Election on 12th December. It feels like I am looking into a void with no idea of what lies ahead; will the future be red, blue or orange or a hung parliament? Of course, when you read this you will know the political landscape and the news media in all its various forms will be carrying out their running commentary on all of it. I do not expect that the election will solve all our problems or even bind our country together again. There are too many deep divisions that have been forced into the open by the Brexit debate and by our differing world views.
I recently took a friend from Continental Europe on a tour of the peace walls of Belfast. In truth they are anything but peaceful, they separate communities on the basis of their political and religious affiliation, and they are designed to protect each community from the other. My friend was shocked. These walls enforce peace rather than build peace and they are easier to put up than they are to break down. Walls are used or proposed around the world to separate people from people on the basis of threat, real or perceived. They are the symptom of a world in which division and polarisation is becoming more and more marked.
It is too easy to fall into an us and them, or us'uns and them'uns, as they say on this side of the Irish Sea. The other is to blame for everything, their opinion is not worth listening too and they don't care about us and we think that our opinion means nothing to them. Them'uns may be a different denomination, different religion, different ethnic
background or more likely at the moment a different political or social/sexual persuasion to us. A major task for us as individual Christians and for us as a world-wide denomination is how to reach across the barriers and make peace within the Church and be a model to those outside the Church.
Christ comes to us in an act of reconciliation from God and he makes peace for us and with us through the horror and shame of the cross. The divide between heaven and earth is bridged at his birth, the curtain separating the holiest of holies from the worshippers in the temple is torn open at his death1 and in his resurrection he gives us the possibility of a new life lived in and through him. If God is determined to reconcile the world to himself then as followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to be part of that reconciliation. We may not agree with others on their perspective, but they cannot be them'uns to us, but only ever those whom God loved so much that he sent his Son to
save and restore just like us. The amazing thing is that Jesus calls us to share in this mission to the world and so all of us have a ministry of reconciliation2. A great way to start and to continue in this New Year would be to reach out hands of friendship across what ever divide you find most difficult.
1 Matthew 27:51
2 2 Corinthians 5:18
Sr Sarah Groves
Editorial Team
Sustainability Review
Recently, I did my duty as a member of the Congregation and attended the meeting called by Synod under the above heading. There were just above ten percent of our membership there, including two of the six-member Church Committee. The independent chairman dragged us through a SWOT agenda, looking at the Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of our current position as a Congregation.
The results of this review and of similar reviews in the other Congregations in the Province will now be considered by a Synod Committee set up for the purpose. I am very much afraid that little will be achieved other than some tinkering round the edges. The last such exercise simply resulted in shuffling up all the Synod Committees, giving them new titles with slight differences in their areas of responsibility and a limit on how many Committees an individual member could serve on.
My solution would be for Synod to rule that, as soon as possible (and I realise that this is a long-term solution) future entrants to the Ministry should be as non- stipendiary, part time, ministers; a 'Tent-making' ministry on the lines of St. Paul.
With brotherly love,
Br Malcolm Healey
Fulneck
Letters to the Editorial Team
I read with some surprise the letter on child poverty by Br Alan Holdsworth in the November Messenger. He can be assured that the congregation at Ballinderry have not procrastinated on this issue for nine years and I think that other congregations would be in the same position. We have made a special endeavour to aid our local food bank and other groups dealing with this issue every week for many years. This work is not only with the local population but recently arrived immigrants etc. who find things especially hard as they have no family support. As a small rural congregation, we effectively match and surpass the quantities collected from the much larger congregations in Lisburn City.
We should all recognise that constant action on the ground is necessary and legislation from whatever political source will grind along before anything truly effective may be achieved. All parties have followed a road paved with good intentions. Better to be a tenacious congregation having some immediate effect on people's daily lives.
Br Henry Wilson
Ballinderry
2© Sr Sarah Groves