Bank Street Unitarian Chapel

Open Hearts Open Minds

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Thursday, 19 January 2012 14:42 Stephen Lingwood

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Charles Dickens Service

12th February 2012

10.45am

Charles Dickens

1812 - 2012

A service celebrating the life, works, faith, and social conscience of Charles Dickens

Tuesday, 25 October 2011 20:58 Stephen Lingwood

“Live Adventurously”

An Article based on a Reflection by Stephen Lingwood on 25th September 2011

“Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak.”

Quaker Advices & Queries, 27

In 2003 the American Christian writer and activist Shane Claiborne decided to go to Iraq. The invasion was just starting, and Baghdad was being heavily bombed. Amidst the on-going war he joined the Iraq Peace Team and visited homes, families, and hospitals, and worshipped with the Iraqi Christian community.

When he got back to the United States and told people about what he had done in Iraq he reports that one woman, came up to him, shaking her finger, and saying, “How dare you be so careless with your life and put your mother through all that? Jesus would be shaking his finger in your face, saying, ‘How dare you be so reckless.’”

Shane Claiborne goes on to say, “I listened, silently, wondering what Jesus she was talking about. The Jesus who died on a Roman cross and invited his disciples to do the same? The Jesus who taught his disciples that if they wanted to find their lives, they should lose them? (And most of them did, perhaps leaving behind some angry parents.) For centuries, Christians have been jailed, beaten, and executed for preaching that Jesus. How was I to tell this lovely lady that Jesus was actually the one responsible for my travelling to Iraq in the heat of the bombing, not a decision that I would rationally make, even on my worst days?”

He goes on to say, “I had a college professor who said, ‘All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don’t tiptoe.’” (Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006) 225)

Finding Out More

To find out more about this open-minded spiritual community, why not check out some of our videos, either by clicking on the "MultiMedia" tab above, on by having a look at our YouTube channel by following this link.

Of course the best way to find out more is to join us in person this Sunday, 10.45am. We'd love to see you.

Last Updated on Sunday, 27 November 2011 16:43

Thursday, 05 May 2011 16:05 Stephen Lingwood

Open Hearts and Open Minds

An article based on a relfection given by Stephen Lingwood, 20th February 2011

Many years ago there was a boy called George. He was a French Protestant refugee growing up in England, 300 years ago. At age 12 his father sent him to sea as a midshipman, and he was sent as part of a small fleet on a diplomatic mission to the North African coast.

In Algeria something life-changing happened to him: he met Muslims. Now he had always been told these were barbarian people, infidels, lost souls: the part of humanity predestined to hell. But when he met them for himself – he realised that these were people with compassion, with love, with a life of prayer – all those things that he considered “Christian” – he observed in these Muslims.

Something changed in George that day: his heart opened, his mind opened. His heart opened to seeing those Muslims in Algeria as good, as God-filled people; and his mind opened to the idea that maybe God was bigger. Maybe God didn’t just care for Christians. Maybe God’s love was wider than he had ever imagined. Maybe God’s love extended to all people, regardless of race or religion.

Engaging with the World

An article based on the reflection given by Stephen Lingwood, 30 January 2011

We have a few martyrs in Unitarianism: those who gave their lives for the Unitarian faith, and for Unitarian values. Michael Servetus is the most obvious example, who was burnt at the stake in 1553; but much more recently than that we do have other martyrs. One of them was an American Unitarian Minister called James Reeb.

In 1965 Martin Luther King was campaigning for the right to vote for black citizens in Alabama. During a voting rights march a young man called Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot and killed. The protestors tried to organise a march to Montgomery but were met with state troopers with clubs and whips. Martin Luther King called for clergy of all faiths and all people of conscience to support the black citizens in Selma, and many people responded, including the Unitarian James Reeb.

Quick News Feed

Women’s League News

On Monday 7th December members of the Women’s League invited the rest of the congregation to a Seasonal Beetle Drive – which in fact, thanks to Janet Poole, turned out to be a “Snowman Drive”.
The various artistic representations of the snowman could well have appeared in the Tate Modern Gallery!
The winner was Evelyn Hardman and great fun was had by all.

Details of the January meeting will be advised in the New Year.

Best wishes and Seasonal Greetings to all members of the Women’s League both here and at the other Churches and Chapels.