Richard Littledale
Richard Littledale
radio microphone
BBC Radio 2Janice Long Show
Alex Lester Show
Pause for Thought
Richard Littledale: Series 19, Number 2
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Tuesday 1 May 2012

One of my great little pleasures in life is running assemblies at a local primary school. The children, with their eager faces and shrill voices, certainly make for an enthusiastic audience. The only trouble is - I have to find lots of creative ideas in order to get the message across in a way which will appeal.

The other day I was walking into work puzzling over my next assembly idea. The title I had been given by the school was "all different, all special". Its a great title - but how to get it across? This is the moment at which I came across a man in a bright yellow jacket carefully washing down the 'keep left' sign at the traffic lights. Now, I know - I should have realised that someone has to do it. After all, a traffic sign of any description is no good at all if it is so grubby that nobody can read it. The signs won't wash themselves - which is why this man was there early in the morning with his bucket and his soapy water. It takes all sorts...

When the Christian church was first founded, it attracted all different kinds of people. There were slaves and slave owners. There were wealthy merchants and poor widows. There were Jews and non-Jews too - two groups who never used to get on. Very early on the church had to learn some lessons about accepting each other. One of the ways they did this was to ensure that everyone had some kind of contribution to make. Some preached sermons, some washed floors, some visited the sick and some went far afield as missionaries. In this way the church could do its work, and people were more concerned about the job which united them than the differences which divided them.

Centuries have gone by, and now the denominations in the Christian church are numbered in the thousands. Locally, though, they can still be fine examples of co-operative working. They can still be places where each individual can offer their small contribution, and between them they can achieve great things. I'm not quite sure who the equivalent of the keep-left-sign-washer is in our church - but I'm sure we've got one!

What's your special contribution to the lives of those around you today?

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© BBC 2012
This talk by Richard Littledale was first broadcast as BBC Radio 2's night time "Pause for Thought"
at 01:30 during the Janice Long show and at 03:30 during the Alex Lester show.
It is reproduced here by permission of the BBC.