On holiday with the Flanders

In several ways we are embarassed by the extravagance of the current holiday both in terms of cost and carbon and you've got to admit Disney is not exactly right on radical or spiritually uplifting. However we have been making a bit of an effort to gain a bit of family inspiration as we travel. Mostly this has come down to a daily dose of family time with dinner table notes that take us through a bible story from Acts everyday and suggest some ideas and discussion. This has worked really well and adults and children have taken to it. This and getting the boys to right dairies of the holiday add a bit of structure to the days.

However today we have gone into Flanders overload and gone to an American Church visiting http://www.ridgelandcommunity.com/Flash2/main.swf. An interesting experience in many ways I could go on and on about the various cultural and philosphical things that emerged. To lay out the scene we arrived at the church just before 1030am kickoff. The boys had been briefed that this was part of the cultural experience and that it might not be quite like home. The physical setting was the ground floor of one wing of a little roadside group of shops. Nicely set out and carpeted with the standard religious crosses etc, big band section and space on 2 walls for the computer projectors.

The overall format was several worship songs, bit of an intro by the pastor a sort of joint statement of beliefs on the bible then kids wander off to Sunday school (Josh and Sam went off to this happily enough). The congregation was perhaps 40 adults it was one of three services of the day.

There was then a lengthy flowing sermon by the pastor taking us on a tour of the Life of Joseph drawing out suitable lessons from his life and character. But making no reference to the Musical, I don't think I could talk for 20 minutes on Joseph without bursting out into song, The style flowed in a listenable way. The style was that of giving feeling to the story in a way than is unusual in churches I've been to and not very English, strangely there was no humour, attempts to think behind the characters or play on the members of the congregation present which are just about the only things I deploy when I'm speaking. However again it is a style that delivered well and was very listenable.

First notable thing was reference to 'Famine' in ancient Egypt led to a consideration of the current economic woes in the US. The Pastor said that he didn't know of one family that had not in recent months had to make alterations to their life style due to the financial difficulties. Cut your coat according to your cloth as we might say. I was stunned that the current financial difficulties could be so far reaching although as all the cars seem to do only 20 miles to the gallon, the buildings are all air conditioned around the clock and spread out and food is served in large doses I'm not surprised that house hold budgets are taking some punishment. The theme is repeated on TV adverts and in the papers. Of course we are still talking about one of the richest peoples in the world and the pastor wasn't drawing the point too far, although he did mention the decline in fortune and the current trend to sanitise spritual references out of public life in the same breath, implying a connection.

Anyway while that was interesting he went on to tell a story that was stunning. He told it at great length but I will just lay out the raw facts of the story as a reminder to myself.

Yesterday he met theminister of another church an hour away while at the funeral of a former member of the current congregation. He was impressed by this minister and wanted to ask him about himself. Amongst the story the minister told him was:-

7 years back the minister's wife had told the minister, then a successful corporate man, that she felt they were called to ministry.

He told her he would support her but would stick with his career. That night she dropped down dead and was discovered by him at the foot of their bed eyes glazed and body stiffening. He took this as a judgement on his refusing to go into ministry and prayed for forgiveness and then for his wife. He felt he had faith to pray for her life and he did and she came back to life. Understandably he phoned in and resigned the next day to go and become a minister.

Next his son and his daughter in succession suffered from incurable cancer but both were healed and went from in the case of his daughter from hospice care to fit as a fiddle. (this was told at much greater length each childs story).

Later the dying 16 year old son a family visiting Florida for a last holiday felt called to come to the church when he drove by. His dad took him and on hearing the ministers daughters story was prayed for and healed himself.

Now bible stories of similar scale of healings are of such note that they have been passed down through the ages. Naturally enough therefore I'm not taking this story (albeit only second hand and from the day before) as gospel. Not that I'm saying that God can't do these things but I note that mine and most peoples experience is that he normally doesn't. I also couldn't help feeling that having your wife drop down dead (presummably in her 50's) followed by 2 children seperately getting terminal cancer is a statistically unlikely occurence in itself and a notably nasty twist of fate. Anyway in the pastors talk here he was merely relating his conversation of yesterday not putting it under the bright lights. In fact his purpose was to suggest that such things were possible and should be looked for in the life of the church. He wasn't himself in any apparent need to hear of these events to bolster his faith or show he had a great God merely to be a pointer to do things to encourage similar things on his own doorstep.

Back home at St. Gabriel's in Liverpool we are cheered by someone getting over a bad back or even a bad day, raising from the dead would probably get both bold type and italics in the church notices. Not that we haven't in the past organised a relay of people praying for a congregation member critically ill in hospital (they survived). A story like this one given from the front of church would certainly be up for some heavy questioning back home, or polite non comital smiles, back in Orlando it was met by exclaimations of praise for God. Still you can't go wrong with an exclaimation of praise for God like complimenting a lady on her looks it is always appropriate.

As you can imagine I could chew over this story for a long time. And that is before I have even got started on the message from Disney's Magic Kingdom that if you but dream hard enough, dreams can come true, this message was heard by a larger crowd for the second time today I had to avoid shouting out 'wait a minute lets just work this through.'

Johnny