Using Reform magazine in church

Reform NEWS COMMENT INSPIRATION DEBATE

Using Reform in church: A guide Reform exists, not just for individual readers, but also as a resource for churches. It’s been our privilege to hear how our readers have used items in the magazine as part of services and in small groups. Now we’d like to share those ideas with you.

We hope they’ll prove useful, and we look forward to hearing how you find them. If you have more ideas as to how Reform can be useful to your church, don’t forget to let us know by emailing editor.reform@urc.org.uk

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Small group study materials We produce discussion questions every month based on articles in the magazine; these are available from the Reform website to download and print here: www.reform-magazine.co.uk/studymaterials. The idea is for group members to read Reform articles before the meeting, or together as a group, and then work through the questions together.

One of the articles we produce study materials for is “Chapter & verse” – a regular column where church leaders provide thoughtprovoking comment on a passage of Scripture; so this column now doubles as a Bible study resource. Using our study guide, small groups can read the Bible passage and commentary, using the questions to analyse both texts more closely together.

“A good question” discussions Our “A good question” feature – where each month we get four people from different perspectives to comment on a topic – has been used to spark discussion in small groups, from junior church to coffee mornings. Read from four different contributions, and then discuss the arguments. Subjects range from abortion to worship, and from miracles to Scottish independence.

Prayer

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There is a lot of material in Reform that those leading intercessions can use to inform their prayers. Some readers tell us that they use our “A letter from...” column for this purpose, because every month it contains a report from a Christian in

another part of the world, telling us about their experience and how we can support them. “A letter from...” is often topical, written from some of the trouble spots that most deserve to be remembered in our prayers. Others have used “A month in numbers” (a statistical round up published in our news pages) because it so strikingly highlights areas of concern.

Reform often contains one-off articles on national and/or international issues as well as the work of Christians; all these might help shape your prayers. Our monthly column from Niall Cooper, the director of the social justice charity Church Action on Poverty, can also be used to inspire prayer.

Reflection

Some of Reform’s more reflective articles have been used at appropriate moments in services and quiet days. One example is “Notes from a dark place” (published in our combined July/ August 2013 edition), a reflection on hurt and forgiveness which, a reader tells us, worked as an introduction to Communion. So did “Shaking hands”, a poem about reconciliation (February 2014).

Other examples include “Teaching God to dance” (April 2013), an Easter story which was used during Holy Week, and an extract from “A kind of sleepwalking” (July/August 2014) which was used in a time of reflection.

“Art in focus”, Reform’s monthly full-page Christian artwork, can be appreciated as a focus for reflection, and can be accompanied by music within a service or quiet day.

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Information about resources and events

Reform’s news pages frequently point readers to new, often free, resources for local churches. For example, October 2014’s edition highlights: Christian Aid campaign material; rural church leadership training; advice on church maintenance; and JPIT’s discussion material on organ donation. DIGEST and the Notices page points readers to URC resources as well as resources produced by the URC’s ecumenical partners. Notices also highlights events of interest to churchgoers that could be published as part of your church newsletter.

Sermons

Much of the content of Reform provides material for sermons, by dealing with issues facing Christians today and showing how we might understand and actively engage with them. The “Christian activist” column, which focuses on activism in the Christian community, shows how we can address global issues in the context of God’s mission. Other articles deal with how to make a Christian response to topical issues including money, sex, race, justice, immigration, persecution and much more.

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