Love and sacrifice
I recently came across an interesting video on my Twitter feed that had a clip from the Late Show in the USA. Popstar Dua Lipa had turned the interview tables on host Stephen Colbert and was asking him how he balances his Christian faith and his comedy. He gives an interesting and rather profound answer, referencing Kenneth Brannagh’s new film, Belfast along the way. But he also says that his faith is “always connected to the idea of love and sacrifice.”
These two words struck me when looking at the content of this month’s Herald.
In ‘My story’ Laura Whitcroft and husband Derek sacrificed the comfort of familiarity when they followed God’s leading from Belfast to Sligo. Responding to the Lord’s prompting, they left jobs, family and friends behind, with a simple goal: “…join the local church, do ordinary jobs, get involved in our local community, build relationships and with God’s help share our faith.”
In his column, Norman Hamilton speaks of loving our neighbour and sacrificing our rights. Concerned that there is an increasing desire for personal choice, without the same increase in care for how decisions affect others, he says: “For Christian people, it is of first importance that love-filled relationships matter a great deal, and ought to be at the heart of everything we do and everything we are.”
Also this month, Ruth Garvey-Williams reports on a lengthy piece of research from Vox magazine and the Irish Council of Churches that surveyed church members throughout Ireland about racism, discrimination and exclusion. For the Herald she has summarised the specific findings about PCI.
At times this makes uncomfortable reading and if change is to come about, it will certainly take honest reflection and commitment. Maybe most importantly though, it will take love. One respondent insightfully says, “We are blind to our own world view, but it is the lens through which we interpret others.” Unless we adopt a lens of love, we cannot expect to be the open, warm and inclusive Church that Jesus asks us to be.
Of course, we can never achieve this on our own, and thankfully God doesn’t expect us to. Sharon Garlough Brown will be speaking on the subject of spiritual formation at several upcoming retreats this spring. She says, “We don’t have the power to make ourselves like Jesus. That is the Spirit’s work. But through the practice of prayer and other spiritual disciplines, we are trained to grow in our attentiveness to the presence of God with us and, within us… It is a way of being with God and resting in his love and grace.”
Read Roz Stirling’s article, ‘Learning to listen’, to find out more.
The Presbyterian Herald is the official magazine of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. It provides a forum for debate and discussion on a wide range of topics and aims to challenge and encourage Presbyterians, as well as inform them about what the wider Church is involved in. It has a readership in excess of 25,000 and is distributed throughout Ireland.
To find out more go to www.presbyterianireland.org/herald or access the digital version via Issuu.