Vision

Six Spokes of the Wheel - A Vision for Living the Christian Life

It’s not every day Sir Bradley Wiggins comes to town.  By the time you read this it will be history ... but as I am writing the excitement is building up!  The sun is shining, summer is still here and we are coming to the end of half a week of great excitement in Cheltenham, and not a few hold-ups on the road!

Congratulations to  Geoff and Ruth Wyatt and to Chris and Justine Hale for doing so well in the Cheltenham half marathon. And to Su McClellan, our guest speaker for that day who abandoned the car and walked the last half hour to church!

As for the route through Cheltenham for the Tour of Britain cyclists ... they’ll take Cleeve Hill, Harp Hill and Leckhampton Hill in their stride.   Let’s just hope they negotiate the pot holes safely!  Greenway Lane is not the smoothest of surfaces, and as for the dog leg round to the Six Ways traffic lights, look out for sunken manhole covers!

It’s the potholes and the sunken manhole covers that can do for even the best of cyclists!

And the same thing happens for the rest of us too. You can be sailing along quite happily, life is going so well, when something happens that throws you.  The wheels are buckled.  Everything seems to have fallen apart.

For me that’s what makes my Christian faith so special. It provides me with a whole way of seeing the world that is just the kind of strength I need to draw on when the wheels get buckled and things go wrong.

One problem is that sometimes my Christian faith hits one of those unseen potholes and things get a bit buckled.

On the Sundays from now through to the start of Advent we are going to think of the Christian life as six spokes of a wheel. For our Christian life to run smoothly it’s important that we seek to make sure all six spokes are functioning properly.

In your mind’s eye ... or even on paper, take a look at the six spokes of the wheel below and see if you can put a value from one to ten on your own Christian life.

If each spoke were at ten then things would be running smoothly and you could fill in the dotted line of the wheel!  The reality for all of us is that some will be stronger than others and some quite weak.  The line we would draw if we joined up the scores on each spoke would, for all of us, result in quite a buckled wheel.

Give it try!  See what you think!  And then join us at church where we are going to come up with very practical ways of strengthening each of the spokes so that our Christian lives can run much more smoothly, and so make much more of a difference in our homes, in our families and in our world.

We’ll start with Prayer and reflect on the extent to which spending time with God in prayer and meditation is important in our lives.

Then we will turn to Godly thoughts and Godly living and reflect on the kind of holiness we seek in our thinking, our words and our actions and the way we face temptation.

As we come on to think about Relying on the Spirit we will think of ways to draw on the strength of the Holy Spirit for the living of our lives, as we seek to nurture and strengthen the fruit of the spirit we bear, and the spiritual gifts we share.

Making a difference in the world is something we are all called to do as we make love for neighbour real in our own lives and in the wider world around us, in our commitment to social justice.

Do we share God’s love with others and the gospel of Jesus Christ in words as well as deeds?  As we draw closer to the start of Advent we are going to  start preparing for The Big Welcome, when we are going to be sharing our faith with others around us in the build-up to Christmas.  Watch this space!

And then on the Sunday before the start of Advent we are going to look at the way we Live out our faith everyday.  After all, as Advent unfolds and we head towards Christmas we will be celebrating the incarnation of God - the way God lived out the fullness of life in an ordinary human being.  How important it is for us to live out our lives in a way that brings together the sacred and the secular, showing just how real God’s presence is.

As I write, the cyclists will be arriving in just a couple of hours.  Let’s hope they don’t hit any potholes!

If they do, their team will gather round to make sure the bike’s wheels are fine.

That’s the great thing about being part of a church family.  When one or other of those spokes isn’t perhaps all it might be, that’s when we can realise we are very much part of a team.  We can draw on each other’s strengths and make sure those spokes are strengthened and the wheels are turning as smoothly as they can be.

Do join us on Sundays as we build up towards Advent, and together let’s see how we can support each other in building up Christian lives together.

Do look out for the notes we will be preparing to go with our services ... especially if you miss one or other.  Do have a word with Karen or with me if you want to explore any of these things further.  We are going to be drawing on A Spiritual Formation Workbook by James Bryan  Smith and Lynda Graybeal.  Karen has some copies of the workbook available if you would like to read further.
Look out for more news from Jean Gregory about The Big Welcome. That’s very much a follow on from all we will be sharing over the next couple of months.