Searching for a thin place ... be bald!

This week our leadership team is off to Ffald-y-Brenin, a house of prayer in west Wales where there are some wonderful things happening under an ‘open heaven’. Early Celtic Christians described places where heaven and earth intensely intersect and interact as ‘thin places’, witnessing that there are locations or events in life where the dividing line between the holy and the ordinary blurs to the point that the ordinary becomes holy and the holy becomes ordinary.

God’s intention has always been to make his presence known within the sphere of earth, to dwell among his people and for us to dwell with him. There are countless biblical references to this: Jacob saw angels going to and fro on a ladder between heaven and earth; Moses took off his sandals when he discovered he was standing on holy ground. Indeed, a considerable part of the Exodus story is devoted to the description of the tabernacle, a holy tent where God dwelt in the middle of his people. The main focus of Israelite belief in the overlap of heaven and earth became the temple in Jerusalem, the place where God dwelt. The Apostle John gained a glimpse into heaven through an open door and described the sense of overlap between heaven and earth ultimately expressed in God sending his Son, fully divine and fully human, who tabernacled among us and who now indwells his people, a living temple, by his Holy Spirit.

The question for us today is not ‘where is God’? but rather ‘where isn’t he’? God is not confined to tents, houses or temples, the whole earth is full of his glory and in humility he makes himself wholly available to humanity. We can meet God anytime, anyplace, anywhere. And yet busyness, countless meaningless distractions and the noise levels of modern life make it difficult to dwell. We become limited by our sameness and our schedules, yet there are no limits with God! As a group of ordinary people gather to eat, drink, pray, laugh and learn together I’m expecting to encounter some extraordinary things ‘on earth as it is in heaven’.