OasisINDIA.ORG.UK

I can hear the sound of singing. That’s not unusual is it?… but this is singing before work. I’m sitting in the vocational training centre at Punrata Bhavan (PB), a residential care facility for people living with HIV, it’s one of my favourite places in India. it’s monsoon season and there’s green all around. I can still hear the singing, it’s self led and unaccompanied… do I (we) do that at the best of times, let alone before work?... I wonder, are we happier to be led?

I also wonder, when I look at these people, if we are led, where is it we are led? Are we led into deeper worship and praise… or led into a state of dependence? We should aim for a maturity and independence. To be honest it's our personal own personal revelation of Jesus (an independent view) that brings an a real and true inter-dependence.  I should learn to be more like these women, preparing for work with praise and thanksgiving. There’s a time of prayer and study too, not because there HAS to be, because this is their CHOICE. No one is forced or coerced into this, anyone who wants to participate can, in whatever way they choose.

 

Sewing and tailoring classes begin, the clatter, clatter, clatter of sewing machines fills the air along with other associated work sounds, along with words, spoken through smiles, you can hear it!… This is a happy place. 

I wonder if this is actually what church should be… A place of hope and challenge… A place to participate with what we’ve learned and continually learn new things… A place truly different from the world (where to some extent we are all exploited). Where is the time for contemplation at work? We do a deal with our employer, we give them our time, they give us cash. We sell ourselves to them (unless you’re mental like me, and give yourself away!)

What is the Jesus way? He was in business after all, on earth and in heaven. He must have been paid for His joinery skills… but once his ministry began, how did He support himself?

Don’t for a minute think I’m saying you’re wrong or I’m right, here or I want your money. If that’s what you think then we’re seriously on the wrong wavelength… I just think we all need to look past what’s considered “normal” and take a Jesus centred look. His attitude to money, power, possessions and people is often so different from our own.

 

Meenakshi is chatting excitedly, she and Harrish are helping me with some alterations to clothes I’ve bought for Daniela. Like all things here it’s done in community, a chance to share, learn and develop. A Jesus centred model of encouragement and development. Add to this the fact that all the trainees are HIV positive (including Meenakshi, an ex-resident and now trainer) and you have an awesome model of good news in action.

 

I can hear distant thunder now, rumbling away in the distance. The rain is back now, steady, monsoon rain, not the downpour I wrote about in my “floods” post… but constant, incessant, unremitting. Everything gets damp here… but not the spirits of the staff and beneficiaries here. Do we in the UK get discouraged sometimes because we don’t see God in action? Could it be we’re not into the kind of action God’s into?

Things change so slowly sometimes we don’t realise… let me give you an example.

·         God says don’t work on the Sabbath… Easy

·         Time passes… man says…

I think you need some help God, I’ll define what work actually is and isn’t for you.

Carrying wood… I’ll put that on a list for you God so no one will work on the Sabbath carrying wood… I’ll think up loads more too… because you were very imprecise with your “don’t work on the Sabbath” thing God.

·         Time passes… man (Pharisees especially) twist the simple message further…

If you get a splinter in your finger on the Sabbath you mustn’t walk… because a splinter is wood and if you were to walk with a splinter in your hand you’d be carrying wood… and therefore working… which God said we weren’t to do!

It’s mad isn’t it? It’s true though. It took hundreds, maybe thousands of years to get from one to the other, but it happened.

 

What is the cornerstone of our faith? Is it worship, evangelism, prayer. Does our faith require any action or is it just a state of mind? Whatever it is we think, do (or don’t do), have we got the right image in the first place? 

Is it the image of God?... the same image in which we are created, or could it have been corrupted?

You see this HIV residential home models a different way of being and doing church. It offers another way to look at and live out good news… it’s real, relevant and radical… all the things church should be. Are you happy with things as they are? I know I spent years yearning to reach people with this great news of forgiveness… but nothing ever seemed relevant. I got caught up in the intellectual argument about sin, repentance and salvation (maybe you did too)… Who responds positively to an argument? We tend to take up entrenched opposite positions. 

The good news is simple! God is on your side! The good news is a community football team if you’ve nothing to do. Good news is breakfast if you’re hungry. Good news is water if you’re thirsty… Good news is NOT pointing out to a drowning man his lack of swimming proficiency.

 

If you’d like to see for yourself a different way of being and doing, to share this India experience I’m prepared to lead a small group to Mumbai for 2 weeks. We’ll see some of the work of Oasis India. You’ll see how your faith works when you experience things that are out of the ordinary. 

It won’t be easy. It won’t be cheap. It will challenge you in ways you cannot imagine. 

I guarantee you will come away changed. 

Why not join me and see something different. Perhaps when you do, you’ll stay involved. Maybe it’ll inspire you to not only imagining new ways of being and doing church… and maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a way to bring about the revolutionary revelation Jesus actually came to teach us… How to live.