One for the road...

Some light (saber) fun...

Practising presence...

I have written a guest post at Jason Clark's site on practising presence. 

For me this is something that I am grappling with in my life - how can I stop dreaming/fantasising away my life, wishing it was better and start engaging with my reality and with God in my reality?  I often feel like a stranger or a ghost in my own life - disconnected because I want my time to do what I want but in doing so not being present or a presence in my reality.

Increasingly in the hardness of my life i am realising that escape is not an option that will help me experience a better life but instead i need to practice commitment to others  and suffering/frustrating of my own self desires as a result.

It's not sexy, it's not even that fun but it's got to be better than clock watching my way through life, chasing the myth of a way to have it all and have it now...

What is deep church?

I realise I have written a lot recently about deep church and that many of you may be going - yeah but what the hell is it and why is it of any relevance to my life??  Both excellent questions.

I also realise that answering the question involves asking lots of other questions - in the same that what is the emerging church isn't just a simple definition.  So rather than give you  a simple easy answer [like the tag line remembering our past to face our future] I thought i would offer you a brief intro about why i am involved in both the deep and emerging church conversation and them empower you with some resources/sites/places to go explore more and lets start a conversation/exploration together...

Why I am involved in the emerging church and deep church conversation...

+ive about church

...for me deep church is a positive response/engagement to church, valuing/open to church in all its forms - across time and traditions/denominations-  being open both to the new things that God is doing and the new things he has done that have been past on to us through christian traditions/practices.  It represents an engagement with generous orthodoxy - that old or tradition is not necessarily a bad thing cf with new/novel and both contain the inspiration of the Spirit in past and present which we can benefit from as we enter the future [rather than exercising chronological snobbery where we focus only on the new of our age or an ecclesial amnesia where we seek to forget the past].

emphasis on the more we as christians have in common

C S Lewis first used the phrase as a suggestion for a union between catholics and evangelicals in the face of modernism, seeing both as having a lot more in common [supernaturalists who believed in the virgin birth, death, resurrection of Jesus etc].  Lewis in the same letter to the Church Times suggested 'mere christianity' as well which he used as the title of his book setting out the common christian tradition.

a constructive alternative to post-church or no-change church

The 'deep' perspective I think is particularly helpful for the emerging church where there is on the one hand a strong post-church/liquid church reaction - where we look to write off much of the modern church - with language and thoughts that seem to see a complete disconnect from our church heritage and how much we have in common rather than where we are different. On the other hand, particularly outside the emergent church there is the opposite reaction, an emphasis on renewal - which seems to being do more of what we've done before/always done rather than being open to new forms, expressions, experiences, engagement that the Spirit is inspiring.

practical not just theoretical...

A practical example might be preaching - a post-church perspective might argue that it is unhelpful, it's a monologue, it's got no place in our conversation and culture and therefore should be scrapped.  The renewal  perspective would be we need more preaching, people don't know what truth is any more so we need to tell them the answers in clear bible based ways -just like we've always done.  A deep church perspective would allow us to explore not only preaching in the context of Jesus and Paul say but also across church history - how have we got to the form we have got in the modern era?  What is form/style and what is content/purpose?  Can we then reimagine preaching, inspired and informed by our past heritage, so that our response is not more preaching or no preaching but better preaching?

constructive conversation and critique

I think deep church offers the means for both to inform the other - a helpful perspective for that two way critique and conversation to take place - to examine why we do what we do, to explore new ways but also to connect us to the wider history and context of the church in order to help us.

purpose and perspective

I think deep church offers us in the emerging church the chance to remember our history and heritage - to not be like a leaf that has forgotten it was part of a tree and therefore focussing only on our lovely leafiness.

Exploring more

• the book 'remembering our future' is a great place to start alongside the deep church blog which will be exploring the themes of the book and widening the conversation;
• another attempt at a definition by me here
• other posts on deep church by me here
• other posts referencing deep church by Jason Clark

That all said, what are your questions, thoughts, feelings on deep church?

Abstinence makes my consumer heart grow less wronger?

Whilst I have been burrowing my head in the sand of deep church I notice that the blog world has been pulsing with debate about the southern baptist decision to abstain from alcohol [John and Helen both have good posts on this].

Now I'm not southern baptist, or baptist from any other point of the compass [i was going to say I'm not even American but due to an accident of birth i hold dual citizenship] so what on earth has this got to do with me.  As I read the posts and comments on christian view on alcohol and whether to abstain or not, I'll tell you what I thought...

'How dare any institution ,or any person for that matter, tell me how I should live my life!  If I want to drink alcohol then dammit, I will!  And what's even better is I can think of bible verses to back me up'

What I wanted to do was write a long post ridiculing people who lived by such legalistic notions and celebrating my freedom to do what I want, with some of those good sounding bible verses thrown in and then go for a pint or two...

But the more I thought about the more I find myself trapped in my own prison, in which I am the jailer - I am not really free I am self obsessed, selfish and unable to accept that anyone would want to deny themselves something - such that i feel i have to assert my right to do what I want free of all restraint.

Is practicing abstinence really such a bad thing?  In a consumer dominated world, when i can have what I want when I want it at my convenience - that I have come to expect this as my right?  Maybe if i want to start detoxing from the effects of my consumer addiction praticing abstinence is in fact a good thing?  Certainly if i was a recovering alcoholic for instance the southern baptists would sound an ideal church for me to go - maybe as someone who is as touch with his consumption as an alcoholic is with their drinking I need to go along as well?

Not that I know any southern baptists, which is a shame, but if I did I wouldn't offer them alcoholic drink if they came to dinner out of respect of their convictions, i wouldn't meet them in a pub either, in fact i wouldn't try and drink alcohol in front of them out of respect for their practice.  So why should I start now on the internet telling them they are wrong - when i am reacting out of my own wrongness and self addiction?

Towards an emerged church: thoughts on how deep church can help sustain us

If in the first section of part 3 [see here part 1 and part 2] I talked about the emerging church can act as a hand-me-up to the christian tradition [bringing the new work of the Spirit and Jesus into focus and allowing renewal and reconnection to flow back] then it is also true that the emerging church needs the hand-me-down of the christian tradition that deep church offers to help  us grow old grace-fully. 

One day that which seems novel, exciting and experiential/experimental of our pioneering in post-modernity will be past and we will have settled into routine - deep church will I think help us not to settle into a rut. 

It is this connection and critique of deep church which i wish to focus on in this section and final section of part 3 - deep church for us is far from a fad but a life sustaining inconvenient encounter with the truth of Jesus, as his body in this world and in the age to come...

An inconvenient truth

The very nature of the best of the emerging church conversation makes us ripe to be open to the idea and practice of deep church - for example: a recognition of the ongoing need for a faith that is about more than ourselves, a realisation of how often we have been wrong in the past and that we need each other rather than depend on ourselves to live this life of faith in following Christ.

Deep church opens us up to a both a critique and way of practicing our faith which I think will lead to not only an emphasis on the best of the emerging conversation but also sustain that conversation, of helping us both embrace continuity and discontinuity...

1. Rediscovering our churchianity

deep church allows us to place ourselves in the emerging church as part of the history and tradition of the church.  It allows us to see that we are hold the common traditions of the faith, the creeds etc in common - whilst we agree on the content we are then free to give each other permission to have differing forms that reflect these practices.

The history of the church shows us that christians have practiced gathering together as larger community to testify to remember the story as part of the people of God and gathered together in smaller groups to share their life with each other. 

It is this practice that deep church helps us to reconnect too, to not get lost so much in the contents but in creating a space in our lives where we are reminded that we belong to someone else.  The inconvenience and cost of church helps us re-orientate our lives and creates a space where we can remind ourselves of why we have chosen to gather and in who's name we do.

Deep church allows us to recognise that the church is not our idea but God's. It is Jesus who has instituted the church and the church remained the primary agency of both passing on the christian faith and in helping christians live in that faith.

2. Mission of God as an invitation to and an ongoing way of different orientated life

Whilst it is helpful to emphasise that our life of worship should only be centred on our christian community but in sacramental people, broken for the world around us, we should not fool ourselves that the rhythms of our lives our largely shaped not by our worship of God but out of our convenience/social patterns. 

Mission, whilst vital and by default takes place in those other rhythm shaped places, needs to help people understand and explore the practice of setting time aside - in an age where our time is limited, precious and commodified [time is money] it becomes part of the counter cultural christian witness that we choose to set time aside to be with each other and together to worship Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In an age  where Jason Clark has said that it 'would be more of a miracle for someone to change their diary commitments then to be raised from the dead,we must be aware of the danger of a mission that:

• calls people to be join the people/community of God but provides no place to gather;and/or
• does not challenge that people need to believe and belong and lets them continue to order their lives as they choose [or still belong to what they wish and believe in more].

Our understanding of the church as the body of Christ, our learning from church history of the ongoing need for that body to broken for the world, to serve it, love it and express the different reality of God's kingdom - and then invite people to join with us, who are joined with Christ - lets us both experience in both the pain and the glory, the hurt and the honour, the imperfection and brokenness that is being made new.

3. Deep Church remains both deeply offensive and deeply attractive...

offensive... because it asks us to put face and struggle with our own imperfection, our favouritism, our cliques, and ultimately our own consumer choice.  Church as a gathering of people who are marked not by their similarity of social standing, theology, age, gender, race but by our choice to love each other.  Not out of some altruistic brotherhood of man or some primal fear but because we are ourselves are loved, accepted and equal because of the love of Christ - we are found in Christ, crucified with him so we can live with him - invited through him to dwell in eternal community and union with the one God in three persons.  Church therefore is practice, we will offend each other, we will be hurt by each other, we will do crap things in crap ways, our egos will rise to the surface, our fears and suspicions will cause us to doubt ourselves and each other.

attractive... because it offers us hope of discovering who we are, finding our identity even as we're accepted, facing our fears and our shortcomings, challenged and encouraged - the voices not just of our community in the here and now but the cloud of witnesses from across the ages who are cheering us on, sharing their wisdom and experience through practices handed down and infused and informed by the life giving creative Spirit which allows us to hand me up and refresh the wider church. 

4. unity in our diversity

our understanding of ourselves as christians who are part of a chain of faith that stretches back to the very early church and beyond us into the future gives us both a perspective and a challenge- a perspective that we have a story, a history and a heritage that is bigger than ourselves and explains why we are who we are with the beliefs and practices that we do - it is in that common tradition that we share far more in common then separates us.

One day we will become old churches and have left our own contribution to the ongoing unfolding tradition - a challenge because we are asked to be faithful witnesses to our generation, to pass the faith forward and in that we are united in a common purpose and cause that transcends our own hobby horses and pet peeves - to know Jesus and make him known. 

In the face of that common tradition and common mission we must ask ourselves how we can be for the other?  How can we co-operate rather than compete?  To give away and to share rather than to take for ourselves and our own success?  For instance mission or evangelism becomes not about my church growing at the expense of the church down the street, or as an Elijah style playoff to determine who's theology is really the best - but about how can we co-operate as the church in the town, city, area that we live.  How can we a body of Christ in an area not just in a denomination - so that one church brings people, another a venue, another the contacts with people in need - so that no one is greater but in all and through all Christ receives the glory.

5. regaining confidence in the gospel

if the emerging church has a weakness it is that we lack confidence in the gospel - we are uncertain how to communicate the truths of our christian tradition - how do we have both good news about our own lives, how do we talk about sin, how does Jesus save us, how do we get reconnected as image bearers and start living out the God whose image we are formed in?  This is particularly problematic in an age of the individual when choosing to submit our lives to any other authority other than our own is deeply unpopular. 

It is easier to talk about how we can make the world a better place, how we can consume in more ethical ways, live in a greener way, be more open, just and tolerant and find ourselves engaging in our own current interests [there is after all no need to be a christian to care for the planet, or the poor, or to opt to buy organic or fairly traded - indeed how much of these are just the trappings of our own liberal west middle class mindset - where we have the time, money and education to live in this way?].

Deep church invites us to have confidence in the gospel, to learn from the riches of the different ways the church has expressed it, how church itself is part of the ongoing story - the place where people gather to hear the story, to share the story, to be invited into God's story rather than be God's of our own.  It gives us confidence not in our words, language, novelty value but in the work of the Spirit and Jesus in growing his church.  Whilst we do need to find new ways of retelling the old old story in our culture and context, deep church lets us learn from the past, to hear different ways and let our own imaginations be infused and inspired.

What do you think?

Emerging to... ongoing thoughts on emerging church and deep church [part 3]

This is part 3 of my limited exploration of emerging church and why I see its engagement with Deep church as a vital part of  our ongoing growth and mission as Christians [For more on-going conversation on Deep Church see here]. 

Just to have even more fun I'm going to look at this part over 2 posts - this one on emerging church contribution to deep church and the next one on how deep church can help us in the emerging church find sustainability as we mature.

By way of recap:

Part 1: looked at why reports of the death of the institutional church have been greatly exaggerated – that in the emerging church we have often been reactive and reactionary driven, sometimes we in self denial of;

Part 2: built on this to look at how the emerging church shares much in common with the Pentecostal-charismatic movement as highlighted by the essay by Luke Bretherton in Remembering our Future;

Part 3 will therefore explore why I think Deep church offers the emerging church a hope for engaging with the ongoing work of the Spirit in an experiential reality but also providing a the historic context and critique of practice that will help us mature rather than burn out or fade away.

Experiential truth - contributions of emerging church to deep church

We in the emerging church may be shaped both by the sociology/philosophy of the age, our church incubator (PCM) and by our reactions against the (evangelical) church of modernity but that does not mean that such origins are not part of the ongoing new work of Jesus and the Spirit in the church.  In many ways the emerging church reflects the wave of so much of what is new in the same way that in their time new churches, charismatic renewal and before that Pentecostalism were in the van guard of  waves of change that have impacted and washed over the church. 

There is no particular need for us to get big headed or consider ourselves better than others, indeed as many people have acknowledged being involved in the vortex of emerging church can be both a very painful and a very hopeful process.  I lay out a number of key areas of contribution that I see the emerging church pioneering/exploring which will have wider benefit for the church at large:

1. Conversation - an openness and opportunities to engage with Christians from a variety of traditions.  If it is more focussed on those who agree with us then with our critics that is perhaps our evidence of our flawed human nature.  However, the fact that we are practicing conversation, listening to each other and learning both from across traditions/denominations and across history is a skill that I think will be essential in a Deep Church reality.

2. Co-operation – out of the openness comes a spirit of cooperation that is allowing a consensus to form around the particular key emphasises of emerging conversation – such as:

• Community – both as a gathering of people who recognise Jesus as Lord and in participating in our wider communities to live out that reality.  This is closely linked to:
    o Image - Imago Dei - a growing understanding that we are image bearers – a people called and created in the image of the tri-une God who is in eternal other centred communion as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and
    o Mission – missio dei- that the tri-une God is engaged in calling a people to bear his image and to make himself known.  As cracked image bearers we are following  cruciform way of Jesus in this mission, through the power of the Holy Spirit in obedience to the Father.

• Language – talking and thinking in ways that we understand – stories, image, questions

• Invitation – allowing people to experience through us and for themselves, recognising that there are practices that keep us open to the daily invitation ‘to pick up our cross and follow Christ.’

3. Remembering – at its best the emerging church conversation has let us draw on the bible, Christian tradition, practice to be shaped by and recognition that forms of Christianity can be responses to our place in history.  This can help us be open to trying out new forms and incorporating from the wider Christian tradition to do so – recognising that there are many ways to express/do/be church as part of the culture/context we find ourselves in.  The conversation then becomes not so much that my way is THE right way but that it is one way of many.  At its worst we can be guilty of reacting against our past and seeing the solution as removing the practice i.e. preaching is monologue/irrelevant therefore jettison it rather than how can we reimagine preaching to be a process that helps spiritual formation for our own context.

4. Reconnecting – the conversation at its best places an emphasis on reconnecting, of recognising that polarity is not necessarily constructive – within the Christian tradition there is plenty of scope to disagree, express difference and look/be different – a generous orthodoxy.  However the conversation has also put an emphasis on reconnecting, rather than either/or the catch phrase has become both/and - for example, emphasising right belief AND right practice, faith AND works etc.

5. Character – finally there has been an aspiration that our faith should be less about being right and more about being good – being generous, thinking the best of each other, a recognition that we all have our blind spots, faults and flaws and trying to own [and be open] about  our ones of these.  At its best the emerging church compares its worst to others worst and its best to others best – welcomes critique [both of itself and the wider church from within and without of the church] and learns from the experience of such bench marking.  This attitude of generous humility is for me the stand out characteristic of the best of the conversation.

Concluding thoughts on emerging church contribtion to deep church...

I have taken a positive approach to both the “emerging” and “church” in emerging church and the conversation that has sprung up – in part this reflects my own +ive bias and belief that church is a needed ongoing institution to both transmit and deepen my faith.  It is not a comprehensive survey and I would welcome your own thoughts on the best of the emerging conversation.   Whilst there is much to welcome in the emerging church conversation I think there is much that embracing a deep church perspective can enrich our conversation, perspective and practice and this is what I turn to in the next part.

Before I do, any thoughts/observations that you would like to make?

Are you a Luke like me... can you ever get enuff Star Wars?

After yesterdays Star Wars quote fest  comes today's quizz - which character are you? I was Luke but only just - tieing with Palpatine [proving my dark side must be close to the surface :)]

You scored as Luke Skywalker. Eager to help the rebel alliance and begin Jedi training, but unwilling to sacrifice those you care about for your own goals. You have high ideals and believe you can achieve them by following your heart. Now if only you can get your ship out of the mud. Palpatine 75% Luke Skywalker 75% Padme Amidala 69% Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader 63% Darth Maul 63% Leia Organa 63% Obi-Wan Kenobi 63% Yoda 50% Han Solo 44% Boba Fett 38% Which Star Wars character would you be? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

HT to Julie

Fooling around... obi wan and John Wimber style

 

Jon does it again! 

As a fool, a Star Wars fan and a thinking christian leader/follower, this has long been both my favouite and most apt quote from the orignial Star Wars trilogy.  And I love Jon's cartoon!

I confess that my gutter mind also really enjoys these sexual innuendo quotes from the trilogy. My partucular fave: "you came in that thing, you're braver than I thought."  Only just ahead of : "pull up Wedge, you're not doing any good back there..."

Speaking of quotes (but not innuendo) It also reminds me of John Wimber, the guy who established the Vineyard Movement that I am part of, who used to say:

"I'm a fool for Christ, who are you a fool for?"

Of course John was only paraphrasing St Paul, who in turn was picking up on on this  one theme that runs through the bible...

My answer to John's Q would be - i'm often a fool, sometimes its for Christ.  How about you?

Worshipping the self revealing God - a reflection using the seven I AM statements of Jesus

Intro...

I lead a time of worship in our small group last night.  I am aware that I often adopt a style of worship that starts where I am and tries to spiral up to God.  The danger of that is I often end up creating God in my image, or trying to add him into my agenda.  I tried in the reflection to reverse that, to start with the revelation of who God is and that self revelation, spiralling down to me and sweeping me up into God's story rather than trying to put God into mine.

I was inspired to use the seven 'I AM' statements of Jesus - not least because Jesus is God revealing himself - through his humanity and divinity he has one arm around the Father and one arm around us. 

The format I used was to have:

• a creative action to help people focus/experience,
• reading out loud the I AM saying of Jesus read out,
• spending some time in silence to reflect on those words,
• a prayer read by me as a response; and
• inviting people to make it their worship by saying out loud 'in your presence we worship you.

The reflection...

I am the bread of life

action: take loaf of bread, break and pass round for people to have a piece.

Verse: Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever. I have told you this explicitly because even though you have seen me in action, you don't really believe me. Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don't let go. I came down from heaven not to follow my own whim but to accomplish the will of the One who sent me.

Response: Jesus we choose again to align our lives with you.  Thank you that in you we find our fulfilment, not in serving ourselves but in being a servant like you.  You know where we are empty, where we hunger and thirst, please satisfy us, fill us, and consume us. 

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the light of the world

Action:  light a candle

Verse: I am the world's Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.

Response: Thank you Jesus that it is you who is the light of the world.  Help us to live in your light.  Search us and fill us with your light so that the darkness in us is pushed back.  Make us your lights in the worlds we live in to the people and places we know.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the gate

Action: fold arms, cross legs – as I read uncross them, relax open your body and self up.

Verse: I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good—sheep stealers, every one of them. But the sheep didn't listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

Response: Jesus we confess that we often kill, destroy and steel life away from ourselves and others.  We have chosen other places for our safety and security and hidden behind the gates of our fear.  We have felt the pain and loss as life has broken in and stolen us away from you and our humanity.  Thank you Jesus that we have that promise in you of real life.  That with you and each other we can go through this real life of tears and laughter and find freedom and hope.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the good Shepard

Action: whisper in the person to your left’s ear as if voice of Jesus: ‘I love you and delight in you' so it goes round the whole circle [think chinese whispers]

Verse: I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They'll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father."

Response: Jesus you are our good shepard, you know us and allow us to be know you and each other.  You call us by name and care for each one of us.  Help us to hear your voice and know we are truly loved. Let us live in your love, free to tend and care, guide and serve.  Jesus help us to freely lay down our rights, our lives and let us be known as good because we are known as yours.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the resurrection and the life

Action: close eyes then when you are ready open them, take in your surroundings anew.

Verse: "You don't have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?"

Response:  Thank you Jesus that in you our lives are resurrected.  That our life starts now with you and that death is not the end of our story.  Help us see our life as you see it in preparation for the life to come.  Help us live this life with our eyes open to see and our hands ready to help.  Thank you as our resurrection and life we have become part of your story and so in you our stories will live forever.  Thank you Jesus that we will be like you, you will restore our humanity and we will one day be raised from the dead - alive in spirit and flesh with you for all eternity.  We believe it even as we don't understand it.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the way the truth and the life

Action: give everyone a spoon.  Ask them to look at their reflection in it and see how it is like them but not like them, how they are distorted and changed.  Put a mirror on the floor and a cross on it.  Ask people to look in the mirror and see their reflection now, that that through the life, death and resurection of Jesus our life, our humanity is being restored - no longer distorted images of humanity but in, through and with Jesus, the perfect image-bearer, we are being recreated in God's image]

Verse: Jesus said, "I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You've even seen him!"

Response: Thank you Jesus that the way to the Father is about living  like you, through you, because of you.  Jesus in your humanity you were the perfect image bearer of God's image and in you we find the true image of our humanity.  You have made the way and through the cross to embrace the pain and help restore the broken humanity in us and the world around us.  Jesus thank you that you are the truth, not an abstract set of rules to possess and control but a person we can know, love and relate to, as you as fully human can relate to us.  Holy Spirit help us know and be known more and more so our lives become truth filled and alive.   

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the vine, you are the branches

Action: pass round a ball of wool, each personwrap it around their hand pass on it on to the next person, until everyone in the circle is connected together by the wool.

Verse: "I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.

Response: Jesus, thank you that we are one branch of your vine. You have chosen us, call us and connect us to you and each other.  Let your life flows in us, through us and out of us as we abide in you.  Father, like Jesus, may the Spirit produce an abundant harvest in our lives of love, kindness, patience, peace, generosity and self discipline.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

Emerging from where? (part 2)

HT to ASBO Jesus

Recap of part 1

In part 1 of this 3 part series, institutional church - R.I.P?', I explored something of how we in the emerging church are often in reaction to the institutional church, not as some concrete reality but out of our own experiences, frustrations and pains.  It's one of the reasons I like Jon's cartoon that heads up this post - who of these people do you identify with and want to hang with?

We're emerging from as well as to...

In this part 2 I want to explore a little bit more with you how the emerging church has come to me.  We have not sprung magically out the ground or been created as the one true church after many false starts but are part of the global, sociological, historical and cultural background of our time.  Or to use my favourite leaf metaphor, a person who does not know their history [or cultural story] is a like a leaf who never knew they were part of a tree. 

Whilst it is important for the emerging story to engage with what God is doing now we also need to be informed of how we are all part of God's story, just as we are all parts of the body of Christ.  So whilst we can critique the institutional church we must also be open to being critiqued, whilst we can contribute and bring out new things we are also able to learn from what has gone before.  More of that in part 3 [contribution of the emerging church and contributions to the emerging church].

I'd like to hear your thoughts on some ideas put forward by Luke Bretherton in Chapter 2 of Remembering our future, in which he locates the emerging church as part of the Pentecostal/charismatic movement (PCM) based on these two key similarities [drawing on the work of Bolger and Gibbs in terms of identifying characteristics of the emerging church (EC)].  Luke is writing from the perspective of someone involved within the EC conversation rather than as an outright critic of it.

Similarity 1: anti-institutional style

Bretherton highlights that the EC like the PCM is a movement that is suspicious of institutions and focuses of Jesus/the kingdom of God over church/denomination.  This is closely linked to the idea of church as a family and the emphasis on personal relationships.

This has some good practice:

• a focus on Jesus is always a very good thing - we become part of his story rather than try and carry him into ours; and
• a reminder that the kingdom of God is bigger than the church.

There are a number of drawbacks that we are prone to fall into, particularly when we start to set these up in opposition to each other, so it becomes about the kingdom of God vs church or historical Jesus vs church history.  As Bretherton poignantly puts it:

"To emphasise the person of  Jesus and the kingdom of God as somehow necessarily in opposition to the history of the church is to fall into a kind of 'Jesusology': an attempt to escape history as if christians can simply copy the primitive church or ask what Jesus would do and ignore 2,000 years of church history.  It is also a refusal to acknowledge the providential and on-going work of Christ and the Spirit in history, thereby separating the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ, so that, in practice, Jesus becomes little more than a historical example of radical ethical conduct."

In part we in the EC are prone to wandering down this path because of our own anti-institutional feelings.  We feel more naturally drawn to statements that the church was not meant to be the dominant religion in society and that somehow when Constantine made christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, that was it.  The church became mainstream and lost its way and it is only now 1700 yrs later as we enter a post-christian age [in the west at any rate] that we are able to recover the true church from the impurity of its reign as supreme social institution.

The church was imperfect before it's promotion to the official religion of the west, was imperfect during that period of dominance and remains imperfect now in this post-christendom age.  What the church is still is an institution, despite our denials and semantics in the EC and maybe our focus then should be not on where we are or not one but rather what sort of institution we are?

The hermeneutic of suspicion towards institution reflects a nagging concern about power and how this power is used in our churches.  Our emphasis on the issue of power again is something that Bretherton identifies as a link to PCM movement.  Power is still central to the EC but it is inverted and becomes "an emphasis on escaping power or powerlessness."

Similarity 2: Engagement with culture and cultural forms

Bretherton identifies 3 areas where the EC and PCM share common ground:

1. entrepreneurial and innovative use of information and communication technology;
2. consumer orientated emphasis on individual creative expression/fulfilment; and
3. mixing of sacred and secular, particularly in worship

1. information and comms tech

The first of these can lead to metaphors for church that have more in common with current web technology [like web 2.0] than with the scripture.  Or to unpack that further we use these creative technologies and then apply metaphors of what we use to our church life.  We need to combine these however with our meditation on scripture, for example, Jason Clark in a sermon on  the Kingdom of God gave the example of the kingdom being like the world wide web where we are connected through nodes, mediation on the scripture combined with a common popular metaphor can be life changing.  As Bretherton comments:

"...the translation is going the wrong way: instead of internet use being transformed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Christian life is being reimagined through the use of the internet."

2. consumer culture

The second reflects an emphasis by both the PCM and EC to be consumers and producers of worship, whether through prayer/healing or acts of creativity the goal is to reconnect with 'our true selves.'  That is healthy in terms of our need for Jesus to restore our humanity through the ongoing work of the Spirit.  It can however lead to a focus on individuals and a me centred faith where my story becomes about me whose life incorporates Jesus story rather than Jesus story holding my own.  Perhaps one of the key emphasises of continuing to meet together is to share communally in God's story as his people, called together to be his image bearers.  A reminder that this story is not just about me and my own personal fulfilment but a cruciform life of loving service?

The hidden danger is that we in the EC continue to be immersed in our own consumer identity, heritage and practices - such that our focus becomes merely on better or more ethical ways for us to consume without ever addressing the practices that shape us to consumer centric - more ethical consumers but still consumers.

Bretherton references Daniel Bell who argues that we are shaped by the practices and disciplines of consumer culture [for instance the regular liturgy of TV advertisements reoccurring every 15 mins] and that church should be a place that provides counter practices such as fasting, serving, giving, communion which helps enable christians to resist the process of commodification and competition.  Indeed some people, such as Catherine Pickstock,argue that it is only christian practices the predate the consumer culture that will be really effective in helping us unplug from it.  This leads Bretherton to comment that:

"From this perspective, emerging churches, far from being sources of radical witness in a postmodern, post-christendom context, are collaborations with the capitalist hegemony, while older, inherited forms of church are sites of radical resistance, deeply relevant precisely in their non-conformity to contemporary culture."

3. mixing sacred and secular

Finally the third area reflects that christianity has been from the beginning a religion that has incorporated material from other religious and cultural contexts but yet does not merge or absorb other religions.  There is an ongoing process, according to Lamin Sanneh, "of contextualising and translation that involves simultaneous affirmation, critique and transformation that results in a point of new departure for both christianity and the culture or religious system that it is interpenetrating."

Bretherton draws out that, for the EC one of the key areas of the conversation is reaching out to those who like Jesus but are unable to participate in an existing form of church as they find it too difficult.  Bretherton makes two great points with regards to this:

• the historic christian witness has a communal space which is dedicated to God which causes disruption to our lives to attend - this inherited church allows us to choose to escape from other gods clamouring for our attention and allows us a space to interpret our context through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; and
• we could give up such dedicated spaces but it is important to remember that people do not simply believe and not belong, as Bretherton puts it...

"they may believe but they also actively belong to non-church places which are not neutral in relation to Christianity.  Many of these non-church places are antithetical to the faithful practice of christianity: for example, to be in a cafe is not to be in a neutral space  but to be in a site of consumer capitalism.    Hence, to claim one is forming a church in one is deeply problematic."

Bretherton suggests that we need to recognise that any church space is contested, particularly of consumption and cultural production - church is both sacred and of the world.  But chrisitan mission has also been about transforming such sites by putting them in the context of worshipping God - such that pagan temples become churches - so the question is how do we distinguish being a church from just going for a coffee?  Bretherton suggest this answer:

"What sets them apart from non church gatherings and places are how a particular time and place is transfigured or translated through orientation of those gathered to the christian tradition of belief and practice and to the work of Christ and the Spirit..."

Your thoughts:

This again has been a detailed piece and I have drawn extensively on the work of Luke Bretherton to do so.   What do you think?

• do you recognise the offshoot of EC as part of the PCM movement [which might help explain why the label charismissional can feel quite comfortable?];
• what struck you in reading this?  Would you draw out any other similarities other than the two suggested here?
• Is there anything you see differently or would maybe express in a different way?