Pontefract Methodist Church
Off Tanshelf Drive, WF8 1NB
Minister in Pastoral Charge: Revd. Andrew Atkins 07955 126792
Our Sunday Morning service begins at 10.30am
Our Regular Activities
The Warm Room
Every Thursday, 10.00am to 1.30pm
Drop in or stay a while... it's FREE
Refreshments served all morning with a light lunch at 12.30pm. We 'pause for thought' at 12 noon (optional)
Coffee Morning
2nd Saturday of the month, 10.00am t0 11.30pm
Pop along and enjoy a coffee, some homemade cake and a chat.
Lunch Plus
Last Friday of the month, 12 noon for a 12.30pm start.
Join us for a two course meal and friendly chat
For details of the above contact Paula on 07477 906567 or paula@acmc.org.uk
Faith in Pontefract Poetry Post -
David Buck - Pioneer Listener and Shaper,
Pontefract Methodist Church
Tel: 07760 514030 Email: dbuck@aireandcaldercicuit.org.uk
6 – Defining our terms
All too often we assume that others know what we are talking about, what we mean when we use certain words and phrases. For one a spell might be some formula for magic, to another it’s a small bit of something caught in their finger. And even when we agree what a word or thing might be about still we might be left with quite different senses of what it really means. A wall, for some, might be good for keeping things in, for others it might be about keeping things out. Relaxation for one might be about being alone in a quiet place, for another it’s about a night out with friends.
We had an interesting conversation recently in our Faith in Pontefract discussion group about one of my favourite subjects, who or what is God? There were some similarities but also many differences as we used words and pictures to say something of what we thought and felt who and/or what God was. It was good to hear people explore this. My feeling for many years has been that everyone, because our life experiences are different, will have a personal take on this.
When we use or hear the term God it is worth pausing to wonder what we or others might mean by it. What exactly are we or others talking about? There can, I wonder, be a lot of confusion otherwise.
God?
I don’t believe in God, they said.
Oh, which one? I said.
They said,
the one that allows famine,
poverty, wars,
let’s crime go unpunished,
seems not to care about earthquakes,
volcanoes, tornados and floods.
And if there was a God, I said,
what would that God be like?
And they became thoughtful and said,
the air we breathe,
the bond between all,
hope, purpose,
past and future all rolled into one,
love.
Faith in Pontefract Poetry Post -
David Buck - Pioneer Listener and Shaper,
Pontefract Methodist Church
Tel: 07760 514030 Email: dbuck@aireandcaldercicuit.org.uk
5- What have I heard, so far?
Pontefract is not a bad place. There is so much good going on: the sick and dying are cared for (and you can tell a lot about a place by how it cares for people); there are organisations to support the hungry and homeless; schools and youthwork; mental health support; parks, play areas, a museum and even a castle. There are shops… and I could go on. There are all the things that you might hope for in a town and what is more there seem to be people who really care about the place and want to do things to sort out the stuff that isn’t quite working. There is kindness and friendliness. I hear and see God in the town.
Yet I also hear anxiety, particularly from some churches, of an existential nature. Many churches are in decline, they feel and wonder what the future of the church and the faith is. These are natural feelings and thoughts. Church is changing, faith is changing and society is changing. This does not necessarily diminish God or Jesus but perhaps invites us to look afresh.
“It’s not that I don’t believe,” I heard one man say, “It’s just that I don’t know what I believe.” Amen to that I say because it reveals not only a desire and openness to explore but the courage to ask.
I hear something of the call to discover God in places where God has always been – inside those that ask.
Cantus Firmus God*
That upon which everything is imagined,
made, framed and sustained;
breath in the rhythm of the seasons
as they come and go;
there before all time came to be
and there when time itself is ended;
inspiration for love and laughter,
compassion and care;
sweet melody in times of plenty,
soft lament in times of trouble;
holder of history and story,
wonder and mystery;
beating heart of the toddler running across the park,
gentle touch of young lovers holding hands;
in life, in death,
in doubt and fascination;
for now
and what is to be.
*Cantus Firmus is a musical term meaning the melody around which all the other music in a composition is based.
Faith in Pontefract Poetry Post -
David Buck - Pioneer Listener and Shaper,
Pontefract Methodist Church
4 - The Listener
Mary was emotional as I played on my flute a soft, beautiful, evocative, Irish lament. I was at the time a theological student and was visiting Mary in a care home as I did every week as part of my “in community” voluntary work for the course. Over the weeks she told me her story of growing up in an orphanage in Ireland, coming to England to find work (but not a welcome), eventually marrying and bringing up a family. She missed Ireland. As I played, the music clearly resonated on many levels. She was grateful.
As I travelled back to college a fellow student said, “Joe said he thought the flute had sounded like the cries of some dying animal.” My friend had been visiting Joe in the next room to Mary. Whatever buttons the music had pressed for Joe he clearly didn’t like it.
We hear different things because our experiences and life journeys are different. Show a picture of a park to two different people and you might get different reactions. One may have happy memories of days in the park with friends or family, another may have difficult memories to carry of unhappy events associated with it.
What we hear is shaped by who we are, what we can hear and, to a certain extent, what the background music is. God be in my listening.
The Listener
The listener listens
as if to the sunrise.
Waiting, wondering,
knowing and unknowing
in the same moment.
Attentive to the familiarities
of the new day
yet aware of the mystery it brings.
And the listener listens deeply
to possibility and hope,
anxiety and fear,
joy and sadness
desire and longing,
not wanting to let go
but also needing release
and all in the same breath.
Faith in Pontefract Poetry Post -
David Buck - Pioneer Listener and Shaper,
Pontefract Methodist Church
3 - Shaping
“In the beginning was the Creative Energy.”
I love the translation of the opening of John’s Gospel that Matthew Fox gives us in his creation spirituality book Original Blessing (1983). He argues that the original Hebrew word Dabhar, which we translate as Word, should more properly read as Creative Energy. So the opening of John’s Gospel goes,
In the beginning was the Creative Energy: the Creative Energy Was with God and the Creative Energy was God…The Creative Energy was the true light that enlightens all people.
And Fox argues that this energy, this work of the spirit of God, is active for all time, creative, creating and recreating.
I love too the image of this spirit as a bird, given to us in John Bell and Graham Maule’s song, She Sits Like a Bird,
She sits like a bird, brooding on the waters,
hovering on the chaos of the world’s first day;
she sighs and she sings, mothering creation,
waiting to give birth to all the Word will say.
The work of the Spirit is all about making and shaping and shaping is about setting free and responding to possibility.
Shaping
It begins with
silence and waiting
and the emptiness of before even time came to be.
And comes like a small bird
in ceaseless flight
sweeping down to drink
from the smooth surface
of consciousness,
touching almost imperceptibly
but enough to send out whispering ripples
that echo the great, “What if?”
And who would have thought
that such beautiful gentleness
could suggest the fire and pain,
which must come,
needed to free possibility,
new birth.
And the bird?
It will return,
it needs to drink,
time and again
for ever.
Postcard from David Buck,
Pioneer Listener and Shaper,
Pontefract Methodist Church
2 - Listening
“You have done something that no one else has done,” she said.
“Oh?” I said.
I visited Mary after the death of her mother, both stalwarts of the church. After I had given my condolences, Mary made us both a cup of tea and we sat down together. I asked how things were going. Thirty minutes later she said, “You have done something no one else has done.” I had asked one or two other questions but said little.
“Yes,” she said, “You have listened. Others have told me all about their own experiences of bereavement and loss or said what they thought I wanted to hear but you have listened and I feel better for that.”
That day confirmed for me the importance of listening and how transformative and healing being listened to and being heard can be. Being an attentive, empathic and compassionate listener is a valuable thing to offer.
And it’s not necessarily about fixing things or finding solutions, though that can be helpful. There’s something important about listening beyond what is being said to hear what lies beneath. Deep listening helps us as hearers to know how to respond, what to do, if anything. Mary needed someone to listen and, maybe, ask one or two careful questions.
Listening
What have you heard today,
the sound of traffic
or the trees beyond;
the rush of people
or the rhythms that sustain them;
words, only words,
or what is being said;
a request for help
or the need to share;
silence
or the desire for you to be with;
the urgency of the next task
or the need to stop;
pain and discomfort
or new birth;
a call to the place of your choosing
or the voice of one calling from the desert,
“Come join me.”
Faith in Pontefract Poetry Post -
David Buck - Pioneer Listener and Shaper,
Pontefract Methodist Church
1 - Pioneer Listener and Shaper?
I receive an enthusiastic smile as I introduce myself, “Pioneer Listener and Shaper.” This happens a lot. People are genuinely interested, “Sounds great,” they often say but I know they are wondering what on earth it is. I explain, “I’m being employed by the Methodist Church to listen to the town to help the church understand how we might better be church for the town.” A common reply to that has been, “Well yes, how can you know what to do unless you have first listened.”
Initially struggling to appoint to a full-time broader New Place for New People pioneering role, forming a new Christian community in Pontefract, a six month more focused role was created by the Circuit – Listener and Shaper. That was in February and now, from September, building on the work I have already done I shall be working a further 12 months in the role.
Each of these posts, every couple of weeks or so, will offer insight into my work as Listener and Shaper in the town. I shall briefly take and explain different themes, share experiences, raise questions, offer thoughts and wonder about the kinds of shapes that seem to emerge.
Feel free to contact me for a chat, ask questions etc.
Tel: 07760 514030
Email: dbuck@aireandcaldercicuit.org.uk
Poem
With each post, to help illustrate meaning and wonder, will come a poem. For many years I worked as a hospice chaplain and used poetry to help process and explain my experiences. Much of chaplaincy is about listening and wondering, wondering about what one can best do to help, yet knowing also that being is often more helpful than doing. Here’s one, let’s say, that I prepared earlier.
And What Do You Do?
People ask what it is that I do.
“Listening and wondering,” I say.
And if they want more I add,
“The listening is of a kind
that assumes that there may be more
and the wondering often holds an anxiety
about whether I should be doing something
other than wondering.”
