2012/13 Relay Workers- can you spot the doctoring?
After nearly 2 weeks of conferences, amazing fellowship with Christian brothers and sisters, profoundly convicting teaching on Colossians, 2 Timothy and Luke, I returned on Sunday 9th to what is now my home for the next 10 months, loaded with a rucksack of smelly washing and an expectant heart.
So now that I'm finally settled in it's time to start properly digesting the savouries of sermons and seminars with the sweet of song, experience and fellowship. What have I learned?
It may take me months to feel the full effects, but perhaps I can share just the tip of the iceberg. Relay 1 conference was a time for drinking in the power of God's grace. If there were a motto for the week, it would probably have been 'be rooted in and strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus', or even, 'continue how you started'. Remembering grace is the heartbeat of 2 Timothy and Colossians. Since we're prone to forget the basics and definitely prone to believe that there is something more to be had in the Christian life than possessing Christ in all His fulness, it is essential that we bathe in the glory of God's grace revealed to us in Jesus every single day. It's the only cure for legalism, discontent and Satan's deception.
Robert Murray McCheyne summed it up quite well: 'For every one look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.'
Maybe we girls ought to stick that one to our mirrors.
Leading straight into UCCF's annual student conference, Forum, I swapped my warm abode for the more rustic canvas option. With over 1000 people (996 students to be exact!) attending, the campsite was so packed that it was difficult to hear anything remotely belonging to nature above the raucous chunnerings of closely pitched campers. Hearing one CU group rouse their spirits every morning with a war cry of 'ahhhh...WOLFPACK!' and to be assailed by torpedoed water balloons one afternoon meant the week was far from dull.
Above all it just seemed to me to be the most perfect time of fellowship with Warwick CU. Close quarters and campstove-cooked food drew us together every dew-filled morning. And as the warmth crept back into our frames through bacon butties and copious cups of steaming-hot tea, we laughed at the foolishness of what we were all doing in the middle of the countryside, humming songs and discussing yesterday's teaching. Shared experience soon led to shared adoration of our Lord.
And really, what I keep on finding is that the more I try to go it alone, the more God puts me with people I can't escape from! As we kept on hearing from Mike Reeves, community is in the very nature of God because He is triune. This perfect conversation, fellowship, submission and faithfulness between the three Persons of the trinity revolutionises how we see community. If even God is not an island, then what makes us think it is good for us to be alone? So, both Relay 1 and Forum chipped off pounds of pride from my weary individualism and I hope the Relay year will hack a little more both out of me and out of Warwick CU.
So as I round off this trip through the first two weeks of Relay, as I reflect on the lessons learned, I am once again beginning to realise just how much work God is going to have to do in me this year. Whether it's my eagerness to be legalistic, my insatiable desire to be utterly autonomous, or my reluctance to simply love those around me, I'm going to need to do more than look at Jesus. I must gaze. Ten times for every one look at self.
