By Derek Graham
Training and Development Officer
Are you sitting comfortably?
I am a decidedly mediocre brass player. For a long time, my old trombone languished year round in the attic, with just a brief airing to parp out a few carols each December. So it took serious arm-twisting by a very persuasive young friend to enrol me in his big band. And I’m still not sure how that recently led to me jumping up in the middle of ‘Green Onions’ and giving my debut jazz solo. Terrifying. I wasn’t just out of my seat: I was well out of my comfort zone.
Now, Peter had given me the notes to “improvise”, and I didn’t hit them perfectly even at that. But nor was it the disaster I feared. It didn’t send the audience away wincing. In fact, it was an incredible buzz.
Standing up, making myself heard… If you’ve been following developments in the East Midlands Synod, you probably see where this particular riff is taking me.
For the next two years, we’ll be Talking Faith. Now, some among us are brilliant at sharing our passion for Christ. And some are not. We’ll gladly hand out hymnbooks or staff the community café but when invited to “stand up, stand up for Jesus” we’re inclined to shrivel into our pews.
I’m not ashamed to own my Lord, but I’m not quite making a song and dance about Him, either.
But if we churchgoers don’t dare raise our voices, He’ll be entitled to ask what we’re doing there. Are we sitting comfortably, for a cosy hour of consolation each Sunday? Or readying ourselves for a 24/7 adventure, going forth to trumpet our good news as the Lord of the Dance commanded?
Maybe we just need a little gentle encouragement, a little rehearsal – which is what our Synod focus on Talking Faith hopes to provide. But none of us has to be perfect. We just need to step out of our comfort zone, trusting in God’s power that we’ll hit roughly the right note – and find a more receptive audience than perhaps we imagine.
So you’ll be seeing more and more about Talking Faith in this e-letter over the next two years. I hope you’ll be emboldened to join the conversation.
There aren’t any trombones in the Bible (except the one the King James translators added by accident). But there’s evidence to suggest that if you blow your horn, walls can come tumbling down.
Image credit: Detail from The Assumption of the Virgin Mary fresco in the Cappella Carafa at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, painted by Filippino Lippi c.1490 (public domain via Wikimedia)
