Poo thats stinks!!!

Before he died one of my best friends was an awesome gardener, he could grow anything in a desert with no water, he was brilliant. He was slightly unorthodox but he got results, his Tomatoes were epic as were his cauliflowers. He was a traditionalist who knew what to do and how to do it, to get the best results. One of his methods was to leave horse manure soaking for a few days in a bucket of water so that it broke down and became fluid, more like slurry. His thinking and it was proven was that the liquid got to the roots quicker and fed the plants better. We discussed new ways of doing things, bought a couple of grow bags, got some new style fertiliser and gave it a go, he was not impressed with the results, but i was. Never been keen on gardening and the one thing i did grow well was illegal so that had to stop. But Bill knew what to do, what needed to be done, watched the seasons, tilled the ground, and generally enjoyed his little patch of earth. We disagreed on a vast range of subjects from the trivial, football and snooker to more serious topics like immigration, taxation and God. We had a mutual respect for each others abilities, but i never enjoyed slopping that slurry around the plants, it stank, it got stuck back your throat and if it got on your clothes you smelled like a cow pat, it was not nice.

Which brings me onto how we interact as Christians one with another and with those outside of Gods kingdom. We talk up a good show about loving the unchurched but tend to have issues with those in the Kingdom who think differently that us, those people we worship with regularly whom we should love as unconditionally as we have been loved by God himself. So why do we tend to kill the saints and give them all types of grief if they disagree with us. I'm not convinced that my theology is 100% correct and i know i screw up a fair bit and need grace shown to me and to show it to others, that is a requirement no matter how i dress it up in fancy language i/we have to do as Christians. Which brings me to the latest set of figures that say Methodism could be extinct by 2030, is it a warning shot across the bows we are going to take seriously, or are we going to bury our heads in the sand and ignore it hoping it will go away, and go away is something that could happen in a very real sense of the word. If the figures are correct it's going to require us to put aside our differences and work for the good of the Kingdom of God firstly and Methodism secondly. Now please here my heart on this next bit, If all Methodist started working for the kingdom and stopped turning Methodism itself into a god we would see a growth explosion. People are not interested in structures and forms of this that or the other, they are interested in a real living breathing faith, you can see that in the alternative spiritualities that are taking place, people want to connect with something that is life changing, that gives them something they can grab a hold of. Whether we like it or not Methodism faces a hard slog, we can deny it, bury our heads, set up committees to tell us why we are failing, pat ourselves on the backs and say we have the structure right and still miss the reason we started. It's going to be hard for individuals, it's going to take work. Some of it will be mucky and smelly and we may not like it, but maybe we need to start pouring slurry onto our roots to help us to grow.