thank you thank you thank you everyone who has bought a copy of fringe dweller. it’s one month ago that we had an incredible launch party at st mary’s in ealing. since then we have been out and about in margate, oxford, leatherhead, croatia, denmark hill, ealing, church on the corner, and st luke’s holloway talking about the book and hosting conversations on one or more of the chapters. thanks to cms who have made it their online lent course with reflections landing in inboxes once a week. thanks to other groups who are using it for a lent flow or course. there is plenty more to come in the next year or so. if you are interested me or david or both coming to do something – here’s a document with some suggestions of the kind of things we could do. get in touch.
we have been overwhelmed with the response to the book – thanks so much everyone who has messaged and enthused and posted comments on instagram or facebook or wherever. we are going to have to reprint pretty soon i think which for a small independent publisher like getsidetracked is wonderful.
yesterday we were looking at ‘eating with scum’ on the lent course at st mary’s. the illustration of that by jon birch seems to be one that people really love. i thought you might be interested in the idea behind it. the reflection is looking at a story where jesus invites a tax collector, matthew, to follow him and goes to have dinner with him and his friends. the religious leaders view them as disreputable sinners and ask jesus disciples why he is ‘eating with scum’. the passage is followed by a discussion of what proper religion is and the religious leaders clearly don’t think jesus is adhering to it. he tells a parable about new and old wine where he says that new wine should be poured into new wineskins. this is often taken as an encouragement for those starting churches to create a new community rather than get people to join the existing church. but what is interesting here is that the context for the story is jesus at matthew’s house and not a church plant. so in the illustration new wine is overflowing not in a church space but on matthew’s table. you could extend the thought to say if you want yto experience that kind of new wine get round those kinds of tables. i mention that because for those of you receiving cms emails they are shortened versions of both the reflection and the liturgy in the book so you are missing out – you probably want to get the book for the full version! i thought it might be of interest to get a bit of back story to the image.
but happy world book day and happy one month birthday to fringe dweller.
