Church Weekend Away 2002

Well, over 130 members of Christ Church, Beckenham decided to get into SHAPE at Pilgrim Hall, East Sussex. However, this begs some questions; what kind of SHAPE are you in at present? What kind of SHAPE do you want to get into?

So how do we define our SHAPE? Well...

S is for Spiritual Gifts – we all have them

H is for Heart – what has God given us a heart for, what do we love to do?

A is for Abilities – don’t confuse abilities with ambitions!

P is for Personality – we all react differently to differing circumstances

E is for Experiences – they shape our lives

We come as all sorts of shapes, sizes, ages, from different continents, from differing backgrounds. God, who knows us all, creates the diversity amongst us. The aim of our Weekend Away was to understand our current spiritual SHAPE and then to work out a self-assessment of where we want our future SHAPE to be and how we can best serve God. What God has made us to be will guide what God wants us to do. The challenge of the weekend is carry this forward in our lives towards a new improved SHAPE!

One of the most interesting bits of self-assessment was the congregational psychometric test (the Myers Briggs version). Many of the participants were hardly surprised at the outcomes about themselves; after all we know ourselves as well as anybody (except God). What was more challenging we respond to other types of people. To put this in perspective, two identical people in terms of sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling and judgmental/perceptive personalities will have very differing views about each other if one of them happens to be an extravert and the other an introvert! This is NOT amateur psychology, but vital to us recognizing our God-given talents, and unique skills. The next time you are debating with a friend as to the right and wrong of a situation, remember that God has made us different from each other; no wonder we see things differently!

One of the most appealing features of the weekend away is that our younger people are so well looked after – from a few weeks old and upwards, there was someone or some activity to cater for them. Crucially, Simon Lang blended the young people’s programme into the whole weekend at the Sunday morning service. Whilst the message may have been pitched at a different level to reflect age and stage, the message was the same. We all have differing talents and need to work out for ourselves how to use these talents. This message was brought to us at a service that included prayers and drama from all ages.

Finally, we had an Agape Communion. (I didn’t know what this was either!) Agape has as its dictionary definition: a communal meal in token of Christian fellowship. In this instance it had a wider invitation in being a Family Holy Communion that Andy Bousfield conducted. It was a time of family and friends sharing in one holy meal and mystery.

The weekend focused on the SHAPE we are in. The over-riding feeling I came away with was of how little I do, how much more I can do. God has furnished me with unique talents and I need the humility to recognize that I can’t do everything. Like our Agape Communion, we can only succeed as a Church if we blend all our ages, skills and energies to God’s glory.

FDT 19th May 2002