Scots Church Adelaide - Uniting Church in Australia

Why "rewire" the church?  Church has been at the centre of my identity. It’s formed me, frustrated me, deeply angered and hurt me, guided me, and protected me. Some of the most challenging ideas I have ever met, far more radical than the lawn meetings of my student days, have come from the theologians of the church.  There has been a sense of connection to the tradition and wisdom of millennia. And, inevitably, the frustration of tradition hide-bound.  I remember singing the words of a hymn one Sunday morning, “nothing changes here...” and one of the youth group muttered sotto voce to his girlfriend, “God, you can say that again!”   What worked for our  parent’s church doesn’t necessarily work for us.  I notice it often doesn’t work for them anymore, although older people are sometimes more gracious about their frustrations! Life changes, we change, and constantly need to reassess where we are going.

This little church on the web is modelled around the metaphor of an old and treasured house.  It's the house our parents lived in and inherited from someone we never knew.  The house is strong and robust, but needs rewiring.  Our ways of thinking and being need to change to make the house liveable and practical. Otherwise it will be a burden, not a base camp for life.

First Impressions of the Lectionary

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Part of the Christian tradition is cautious about first impressions. First impressions are often paired with "judging a book by its cover," and equally disparaged.

One should always be ready to reconsider the book. But as my son says, when it has the florid cover of a Mills and Boon production, "You just know what's going to be inside!" Slowly, I am learning to pay attention to my first impressions. There is always more to consider, and insight to seek, but often my first impression tells a surprising amount about a passage of scripture- or about myself! It makes sense. If I am being re-formed by my life in the church, surely my instincts count for something, and have themselves also been a little reformed.

These are the First Impressions for the year 2010, which is Year C in the Revised Common Lectionary. They are based in the Gospel of Luke, the third Gospel in the New Testament. Year C begins on the first Sunday of Advent, November 29, 2009.