(This is an article Christoph has written for our latest church magazine. All quotes initalics are from his CD “Accidents & Emergencies”. You can listen to it further down in this blog or at lindnermedia.org)
Friday, 12 November 2010
Countdown, lights, applause from the audience. And then Mark Bingham, Martin Paine and I are up on stage and playing the first song from my new CD …
It has taken me ten years to write, compile and record these fourteen songs. I’ve given the album the title “Accidents & Emergencies”, as I first got serious about this project when a seemingly routine sinus operation had to be abandoned because of potential brain injury.
God often does his deepest work in the accidents and emergencies of life, but tonight we celebrate: his goodness, our friendships, the eternal hope that a faith in Jesus brings. What a gift to be a part of the community of the two St James - you have helped Edda and me to live and sing and write “new songs” for over ten years now!
New songs we sing / Old are the tunes, but when played on a new string they are / New songs…
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Together with some of my colleagues and friends from St Mellitus College I kneel down in the chapel of All Saints Pastoral Centre. The gentle worship music is balm to my soul. Tears. Prayers of thanks. “Lord, you know all my shortcomings and yet you want to use me to show Christ’s love to this messed-up world? What a crazy plan!”
It has been an exhausting week: As part of our “vicar training” we have done a course on character formation - “The Undefended Leader”. We come face to face with our defences, our traumas, the ugly dark corners of our lives. We speak God’s truth into each others lives. We allow his Spirit to begin the healing work. We know that this will be a life-long process. To learn to lead like Jesus did.
King with towel, you kneel down before me, and you wash my feet…
Why has it taken me so long to start ordination training? Because, being a vicar’s son, I had to get over a few hang-ups. Because I had to learn that I can be an ordained priest and still believe in the priesthood of all believers. Because God’s timing is perfect. And because, sometimes, the Germans and their towels don’t get there first. Although that towel will come in handy now, if I am going to lead like Jesus did.
Monday, 30 August 2010
Edda and I celebrate ten years in England. For one year we have now been British citizens. House and garden are full with friends and neighbours. We’ve really grown roots here. When we arrived, we initially committed to three years. But after those years, Edda spoke fluent English and was leading the children’s ministry at St James. We are at home here and yet we haven’t lost our hunger for new beginnings.
I breathe the air I see the changes all around me / How a new season is advancing / And abandoned like the leaves I join the dancing…
We are both training at St Mellitus College now, Edda for a Diploma in Contextual Theology, I for a BA in theology and ordination. We love the community, the learning, the great examples of innovative church ministry we see in our colleagues’ work. We dread the next essay crisis. Our work-rest balance needs attention. Has always needed it.
Saturday, 30 July 1994
Our wedding day! Another great church community rallies around us as we promise to love one another and to serve God in family, church and world. And off we go to Hamburg to start from scratch together: new town, new jobs, new church, new friends, new married life. The pile-up of too many “new somethings” takes its toll on our health. Our dream to become part of a new church planting movement comes to nothing. Our inner city jobs in education are often bruising. Did we make a mistake? Did God lead us down a cul-de-sac? We also discover the wonder of a shared life: trust, intimacy, laughter, tears, dreams, rows and reconciliations…
I felt a touch today / It was gentle and firm, two hands enclosing mine / Held by a greater hand / We walk into the future, with our lives entwined…
Friday, 12 November 2010, again…
The concert is nearly over and I am on the phone to my parents. A spontaneous idea I have had just before the concert. To show them how much their support means to me. They have been listening to my songs in their sitting room in Germany while we’ve been playing them live here at St James! I ask them what their favourite song is. “New songs…”
Edda and I don’t know what the future holds, what new songs we will sing. What exactly will happen when we finish our training in the summer of 2012 (apart from a loooong holiday!)…
Trees need strong roots to spread out their branches. And we have roots: the support of our families, our amazing church family and friends, our faithful God: He gives you and me a new song to sing amidst the noise of this world:
Sing them out, make them heard / They need our voice so that more ears can listen to those / New songs…
