Our kids love pouring over the family photo albums. Sad, really, that most of our photos are on a computer now, since they love lying on their tummies on the bed, flicking through the (real) pages and asking "who was that?", "why wasn't I there?" ("Because you weren't born then..." "Why not?"). They're a celebration of the past and, I think, give them a sense of security for the future - who they are, where they belong.God's people are shown doing this sort of thing over and again throughout scripture - sometimes it's with rocks rather than photos (as when crossing the Jordan), other times with words (as many of the Psalms retell the past), but each time, it's stories of God's grace that are celebrated together.
It seems to me that it's one of the very most important things that a church community can/must do - celebrate God's goodness in their midst, tell one another stories of that goodness... open the family photo album and enjoy the snapshots of grace.
Church Annual Meetings have a rotten bad name in CofE circles - but they really needn't. Our's is, genuinely, one of the most spiritually uplifting evenings of the year for me and for many others. We focus on 'snapshots of grace' as a way of understanding our written reports (and by having them written down and minimising elections, we keep the business part of the meeting to less than 30 minutes) and then, in the context of worship, have an 'open mic' for people to bring out their own snapshots - or testimony, I guess - of what God's been doing.
Last Thursday evening, we spent nearly 50 minutes doing just that - and ran out of time for more. People spoke of God walking with them through dark times, mending relationships, answering prayer, helping them belong, challenging their parenting and building faith.
We need to go on finding ways of opening up the photo album - it's encouraged and challenged me no end!
It really was a truly inspirational and moving evening. I wish we could have an annual meeting more often than annually :)