'We Make the Road by Walking'

One of the first books I read on moving to Cockermouth last year was 'The Shepherd's Life' by James Rebanks - tales of a Lake District shepherd. It provides a fascinating insight, season by season, into a way of life known only to a few. Among many fascinating explanations, we read about 'hefting': the means by which, after thousands of years of shepherding, a flock recognises its own territory and remains within it, needing no fencing. It is as if sheep take their sons and daughters year after year to the same places so they realise that is where they belong. Rebanks reckons that people are 'hefted' too, with a strong sense of belonging to a place, following familiar paths.

Starting this month, we are going to follow the pathways suggested by another book, 'We Make the Road by Walking' by Brian McLaren. There are 52 chapters to the book - one for every week of the year - as well as some seasonal material. Our sermons will follow the Bible readings he suggests, informed by comments in the following chapter. McLaren's theme is 'Aliveness', believing that the Christian Way leads to 'life in all its fullness'. The book is intended to help us explore God's Big Picture from creation in Genesis to new creation in Revelation with the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, of course, at the centre. He hopes that a 'global spiritual movement of aliveness' may result.

Making the road suggests setting out on a journey, and that is an idea very familiar to Christians. However, we are not the first by any means to do so! As we explore what it means to be a Christian in today's world we will find that the pathways are not new ones at all but we are being 'hefted' into the territory of God's kingdom, called to live the life which many have lived before us from the very beginning. As the prophet Jeremiah puts it: Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls (6.16)

It's very important that we discover - or re-discover - why we are here as God's people: not as members of a private club, but with the sacred task of bringing all people to the knowledge of God's love through Jesus Christ.

Week 1 begins with the wonder of it all: joy in creation, as God originally intended, before we messed it up!