5th March 2023

On Sunday 5th March, we looked at being salt and light in the world. We studied Matthew 5 verses 13-16. We shared a short children’s talk shared in the UK Baptist Women in Ministry Group by Ruth Eluned Wood, showing through the use of relighting candles that God’s light never goes out. 

We shared our experiences of being salt and light in this world in our Bible Study and noticed some of the significant words that Jesus chose in these few short sentences of his teaching. In the example Jesus gave of why we do not cover up our light, we learned that the large bowl or basket would have originally carried dried goods and would have been empty and become useless itself, if it were used to cover the light, in turn destroying its usefulness.

We did a science experiment, shining a torch into some cardboard boxes, trying to imagine ourselves as small parts of God’s creation letting his light shine into the place and time we live. We discovered that the more of us down the line of the cardboard box, we needed to work together, where God has put us and line up with his teaching so that we can follow and shine his light out of the box!

Our prayer activities, were making prayer dice with things to pray about on each side – the decoration that we produced reminded us that we are individuals created by him to live and shine his light in his world. Our Polish star origami was made by 6 people, working together with circles which when created into spikes from dividing it into eight sections. We wrote our prayers for the world which needs God’s help – in our families and friendships, in our country and the wider world. We wrapped  the flat eight sections into a 3D shape and joined them together into a star shape. We each prayed that God’s arms would embrace those things that we had written.  We explained to the church that prayer is a way of bringing God into our world and everyday life – shining his light on our situation and asking for his presence to walk forwards and to experience his powerful ways of changing things.

One of our congregation was inspired to sketch Pilate washing his hands and was struck by the idea that he was afraid of Jesus – we discovered this passage in the gospel of John.

These are two of the poems we wrote:

Poem One

If I am salt, then I cannot halt:

Feels like I am in a vault, cracked and hot.

But if I am salt, then I cannot halt.

May I remain a salt in this world of fault.

May you make me faultless,

Less I’ll be useless

And as I am useful, may you be exalted.

If I am light, I am sat on high,

Not with the world, but to light the world.

Then I’ll need a might, that which is not light 

so I can stand, Just as the light wants that I may be like Him,

The light of the world.

Poem Two

If I am salt, I am the flavour of the world.

          I am expressed in

culture…

acceptance…

flavour …

and imagination…

I am the fruits of the Lord.

If I am Light, My brightness never fades.

It is represented by the never-faltering kindness and example of Jesus.

Light radiates around the house and rebounds on righteousness and good deeds.

Without light I cannot see…

Without Light, I cannot read…

Light is God.

Light is our World.