One for the road...

Bright shiny things...

"How do you know, I haven't told you..."

Traveling back from holiday in the car my 5 yr old son proudly announced to me that he knew where his heart is.  "Look Dad" he said, making me twist round in the front seat (don't panic i wasn't driving) as he proudly pointed to his chest.  "Yes,"  I said "I know, that's where your heart is."  "But how do you know that Dad? I've only just told you!" was his puzzled reply.  At which point we nearly did crash  my wife )who was driving) and I suffered from prolonged spasms of suppressed laughter.

Let's ignore for a moment that that my son has skipped the phase where parents are all seeing, all knowing Gods and has now hit his teenage yrs where his parents know nothing, apart from how to make his eyes roll and die of embarrassment (i've still got hope that he won't corrupt his younger brother that his parents are mere humans hiding behind the curtain!). 

"Treasures in the attic or forgotten junk?"

What this conversation reminded me of was how often often we in our new "traditions" of Christianity can often say exactly the same thing as my son said to me.  We know how worship is done, who the holy spirit is, how to encounter him, what issues really are pressing and how best to present them to the world at large.  We are probably just as skeptical and surprised that we might have discovered something that looks new and fascinating to us but to the traditional church is something that has been gathering dust in the attic for years.

Ohhhh look at this we say gathering around.  Passing it around for a few minutes.  Puzzling over it for a while. Then throwing it away and rummaging around in the trunk some more.  Heh there's something much more interesting down here...

Such moments of discovery, or rediscovery are great.  They can be immensely valuable, they can remind the church of what that they are keepers of a shared heritage rather than children playing with long forgotten things in the attic, help rediscover our inheritance and remind us of what common ground we have. 

More often we are like the barbarian hoard, not caring about who we plunder from only that we have the plunder to through up into out attic and forget about,  or what's left after we have squander and squabbled over it.

Ripping off the back catalog

Now, I think some of this is just part of our insecurity.  We want to be right and we need to get some legitimacy somehow.  We certainly don't want that to come from some kind of laying on of hands and blessing from the tradition we have escaped, no tainting thank you.  Not in this man's true church.  But it does get a little bit tiring writing off 2,000 yrs of church history as a sell out to the roman empire and then all the imperial powers of the colonized world that followed.  Much better to "discover" or "rediscover" new and exciting practices and theologies and use them adapted for our own circumstances without getting too bogged down on where they come from. 

The other day I heard a radio DJ interviewing the band Oasis (giants of 90s cool britania!). He congratulated them on their great new single and told them it was so good because now they had stopped ripping off the Beatles and were now doing the Stones!

Let's face it, ripping off the back catalog in fashion or music is not new so why not of church history? Why stop at church traditions? 

Well I don't think we do, infact i think it is a lot more common to plunder the metaphors and practices of the the latest business models, socio-political concerns, social spaces and techo fads and rip off these for our faith as well.

In some ways this is a good thing, after all i'm glad we have electric guitars and (ripped off) U2 cord progressions in our worship, it's great to move on from 70s soft rock, 50s organs and 700BC lyre and pipes ;).  I'm grateful for images to mediate on in buildings where there is not stain glass.  Or that people don't have to shout thanks to the wonders of a thing called a microphone. 

(Can I get an Amen for that?)

The next new/old thing...

On the other hand when do we stick with anything for longer than 5 minutes?  I've been a christian for 20 yrs and i've lost track of all the ways that i've decided were the ways to evangelise - i've done tracts, door knocking, drama, conferences, friendship evangelism, servant evangelism, alpha, testimonies, books, prayer and now social action/social justice.

Hands down my charismatic friends if you have become charis-missional overnight?  Like the Joker in Mr Burton's batman, I don't know what it means but I like the sound of it.  It's the new buzz word and therefore we need it. 

Honestly I used to be just a plain old sitting on a hard pew conservative evangelical congrationalist.  Then I became a happy clappy, theological sound, bible believing, signs and wonder experiencing with good coffee and top toe tapping arm waving God tunes christian. Now I'm a veritable glossary - a  contemporary, authentic, post-modern, missional, social actioning, trinitarian, mystery appreciating, often quite wrong member of a spiritual pratices practicing faith community who's statement of faith is the apostles creed, good coffee and more comfy chairs - i think.

Oh who's also evangelical but not like well those hard pew sitters...

(can I get a oh beware God has hardened their buttocks!)?

and charismatic but not like those emotionally high, holy spirit high, experiential charismatics

(is there a chicken clucking in the house tonight?)

Well at least that's who I am today.  Tomorrow I might well be known as something else.

There is no neutral space...

And why do I think that there is some sort of neutral metaphor or space that I can pull in from the world around me and use to define me and my practices as a christian?  Does really a 2.0 church enhance my heritage?  Is meeting in a starbucks really a neutral space?  Does my concern for me going out and being missional really just me giving me a license to go and hang out with who I like, where I like, when I like and feel good that I'm out here for God?

I've got a friend who says that christians can consume being missional to the point that they go to conferences on it, read books on it, append the label to their christian identity, discuss for hours how to do it, spot who's not doing and never get round to really actually doing anything that is remotely about the mission of Jesus Christ whatsoever.  To be quite honest when do I have the time when I'm doing all that?

Radical mission is..?

What if the most missional thing I can do in todays consumer obsessed culture is inconvenience myself by going to church every week, committing myself to spend time with people who I would never normally want to hang out with, at a time where I've got far better things to do and give up my precious time (i'm so busy), scarce energy (i'm so tired) and money (i've got so little) voluntarily to serve them? To put myself in a place where maybe I will do something with someone else and God can do something with me?  To stop for 5 minutes and detox from what I want to do and try and re-orientate my life towards the mission of Christ, not the mission of me?

Actually, what if that is the second most missional thing I can do.  What if the most missional thing I can do is tell people that I am doing this, that I am not insane or insecure (well not more than the average).  What if my faith is public rather than being supressed by the secular society in which I live which says believe what you want about whatever you want as long as it makes you happy - but if its about God then just don't mention it.

What if that is what church has been doing for 2,000 years (flaws, failings and all). People gathering together publicly, to do life together and re-orientate ourselves around the mission of Christ as we go back out into the world?

You should know, I've told you!

Which makes me pause for a moment and think of how often I have slated church.  How often I have pointed to a particular christian, church, denomination and shaken my head at their foolishness for thinking that if Jesus came back he'd want to hang out with them.  In fact how often I have reduced my faith down to just me hanging out with Jesus and maybe a few selected and carefully vetted like minded others (but i'd still want that fave spot!).

Where did I pick up all these ideas about the perfect church (which scarily enough currently only I would qualify to be a member of, unless I could persuade anyone else to worship me too?).  I love the idea of a church like Acts 2 but conveniently ignore all the bickering, rivalries, double standards, grumbles, complaints, theological finger waving, selfish, fearful, preserving, socio-economic tensions of the rest of the book let alone the rest of the New Testament. 

Best only with the worst

Acts 2 might just describe church at its very best but I can't have church at its very best without the flip side, church at its very worst.

And that means people get to experience me at my very best and I get to experience them at their very annoyingly worst.  Or is that the other way around?

It's easy for me to be cynical, burnt and jaded by past experience.  It is often good to deconstruct and spit out bones we may have choked on but at some point we have to reconstruct.  Have to try and do as well as warn and not be surprised when things go south.

Pick your curent favorite bete noir christian...

Todd Bently (told you so, i was burnt in the roar like a headless chicken of the toronto blessing)... mark driscoll (told you so, i'm not projecting my own negative experiences of church and gender)... Ted Haggard (told you so, no one could be that evangelical and be healthy)...

or pick any issue that bugs you about church, really gets your goat... one that you are tempted to say I know what the answer is...

Admitting my bright shiny new addiction...

I've almost become a consumer of being an anti-church as it is consumer who dreams of church as it should be, whilst using the existing resources of the church community to keep my faith going.

Maybe we should pause for a second and acknowledge our obsession with this bright shiny thing...

worship (singing) and the emerging church

I've just done a guest post at Jason Clark's site, exploring worship and the emerging church - the deconstruction/problems with it and asking what is a positve/healthy way forward (your reaction to the image for this post will probably help you identify whether you are in either a deconstruction/reconstruction phase :)...

Deconstructions:

I briefly picked out 3 areas where i often hear worship as singing critiqued in emerging church conversations:

• worship reduced to (only) singing rather than lifestyle (a la Romans 12);
• elitist/consumer activity where the talented chosen ones do something to us as the heard that we passively consume;
• worship that is over intimate/Jesus my boyfriend/auto-erotic - i.e. all about me and my emotional disconnect/highs/needs/consumption (the below clip might help - HT to Kamsin)

Where to go from here...

This being where I'm at, this section is longer - but primarily what i was struck by is my own consumer driven preference affects what style of worship i want e.g

• i may say that my life is about 24/7 worship but i seldom live 7/24 or even 0.7/24 like that - in fact the 1.5/24 on a sunday is a key part of actually re-orienting my life again around what i profess to believe but so often don't do and be re-encouraged that i am not alone in doing so;
• intimacy is no bad thing - worship becomes more about spiritual formation but also offers the possibility of exploring other themes - and the need for local songs coming out of our communities and contexts that reflect that.
• my own choice to put myself in a position to do something that is counter to my usual self chosen activities, that actually frustrate my own preferences, that give me time to recentre myself towards God and consideration/giving favour towards others preferences-n might actually be more spirtually forming in terms of growing/practicing love/generousity/grace and needing the Holy Spirit to help me than actually do my own favoured form of worship style...
• and finally the riches of our church heritage that is available to us to help us worship God - my way is only one way, my preferred way but maybe i need to be more humble and open to both the new and the old...

I'll leave you to read the post at Jason's if you wish but feel free to leave your own comments here about what questions/thoughts/feelings of your own you have about worship and the emerging church...

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 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?

Domination free communities: learning to live other centred shared lives?

The very nature of God is both communal and other centred - God is in eternal community of one nature/will in three persons.  They do not not try and hog the stage for themselves but instead turn the spotlight on each other.  There is no hierarchy, there is no ego, there is no fear, there is no dominance - there is mutual acceptance, delight, laughter, creativity as each one bows to the other and loves to see the other lifted up.

I am going to leave the last few posts with their theme of Walter Wink's dominance free order with a final reflection of how we as christian communities can live out something of our future and of our past - in asking you to imagine with me what it would be like to be communities where we could be open to each other, we could live in a way where it was other centred - not stuck on the huaraches and domination systems that we as humans have created out of fear, the need to control and to be controlled - but how we were created in the beginning - in the image of this tri-une fear free other focused God and how it will be at the end when we receive our fully restored humanity in bodily form back and liberated, dominion-free,  life back again.

I am not sure I can imagine this myself, or think that clearly - if this piece is on community and taking the example of sex and sexuality as to how we can live other centred lives - than i am going to need your help.  Otherwise it becomes either just my wishful thinking or a new system of dominance that is the 'right' way we all have to conform too.

We all have a sexual nature

In my last post on christian sexuality, Molls made some very thoughtful generously said comments which made me think about our sexuality and how as communities we express that amongst each other.  Whether it is heterosexuality or homosexuality and the variations of expressions of sex, emotion, thought, domination filled or free, part of broken humanity or not than i would say it feels like to us who are going through it that this is our nature - and whether that is genetic or not from my own experience of my sexuality i would say it becomes 'nature,' it takes on who we are/feel and therefore i think we as communities need to get beyond that point.

Another way of approaching this is for me to say ok this happens but is it ok, or is it the best?  And if we are saying there is something better which might involve say not practising my homosexuality by having sex how much are we prepared to be communities where:

a) we can all share our sexual issues in an accepting way knowing that we need each other and God to help; and

b) am i prepared to give up some/all of my rights/freedoms -to be other centred rather than self centred?

For example: Cherith Fee-Nordling has suggested that maybe if i am a single christian maybe what i have to do is to give up what it is that i am asking my gay friend to give up and not get married, or indeed have sex, bur instead dedicating our lives to support each other gay/straight to live this out together- nd with all else that it might also cost us in terms of career, where we live etc...

I think too often we heterosexual christians sound like:

a) we are better morally because of our sexual orientation; and

b) that because we're straight have a right to sex and you because you're gay don't have that right? [Is it just me or does the term 'straight' seem to apply a betterness to our morality just because we are attracted to the opposite sex to us?].

I look at my own life and ongoing sexuality confusion and think that i am at least if not more messed up, same as a large chunk of the world, and if the rest of that chunk isn't messed up about sex they are messed up about something else.

Jesus has a sexual nature

I also look at Jesus, as a man who has a fully human male has a penis which works and therefore how he must have chosen celibacy because he was other centred: he was obedient to the father and it wouldn't have been loving to drag a wife into what he had to do.   

The film, the 40 yr old virgin, captured something of how strange this is in our sex focused culture but it must have also been very strange in Jesus time too - with its Hebraic expectations of family - how Jesus must have faced questions about his choice of staying single, how he must have faced pressure to get married, and be misunderstood about why he wasn't - after all a wild prophet like John might be able to get away with it but the village carpenter what was his excuse?  Am I am sure it was not because there weren't women who Jesus was attracted too - but somehow when he saw them and felt his own humanity stir in that moment he gave them back their humanity and refused to treat them as sex objects but instead saw their beauty as part of the reflected glory of his Father as fellow image bearers of God.   Jesus must therefore understands the emotions and consequences of making choices about our sexual expression.

How Jesus must have faced choices all the time to give life/humanity back to people rather than treat them as sex objects/means of gratification and therefore has not only been to the no sex place but understands sexual feelings.  But also how he is for the other, how maybe gay or straight, male or female we need to learn to be affirming and appreciative of each other rather than so scared of not being able to keep it in our pants? 

Can we learn to be honest and open about our feelings?  Are we gonna live in an environment where we are scared about falling sexually that we can no longer relate to the opposite sex?  Or an environment where we can share and confess our sexual feelings and learn to give each other our humanity back - not flirt for affection or need sex to make us feel good about ourselves but live in communities where we feel good cos we are loved, where it is normal for us to appreciate each other and the image of God that we each reflect in personality and our bodies?

Can we walk this out as communities in the the light?

I mean writing all this sounds weird - it makes me feel way uncomfortable cos i have been taught that once married its all about building barricades, about being careful, about not mixing with the opposite sex - all my worries kick in and i go man is this not asking for trouble?

Maybe another way to think about it is trouble is already there?  Temptation is already there but cos we keep it hidden and in the dark it just goes on its merry way.  Maybe we need to bring it out into the light?  Maybe we need to to think about how as communities we need each other?  How married people aren't better or single people people aren't better but that we all need each other and can learn from each other and help each other to reflect God to each other and affirm and care for each other.

Jesus said it was for our love for each other not our fear people would know that God was real.  If we practise being for each other in the same way the trinity practise being for each other - where it becomes not about me and my rights but about mutually living for each other then maybe we'll have something that is not just an argument based on reason but a way of life that encompasses love and experiences the Spirit at work amongst us, shaping us more like that?

What do you think?

I think what I am asking is:

• how can we do this? 
• what would it look like to live other centre lives not just asking people to give something up but asking what can i give up to help them?
• would you change your views on homosexuality if it meant you being prepared to surrender your own sex life and live with them as a friend and companion who together shared a life of celibacy and its related struggles?
• do you feel weird about men and women as the joint image bearers of a communal other centred God finding ways to affirm and share each other and be for each other?
• what scares you?  excites you?
• do you think that if we do something we'll be at least starting to bring light and life and if we do nothing all the things we are afraid of will still continue to happen but they'll be some body else's problem?

A new reformation/rediscovery of Divine imagination - christians as the artistically expressive community of the book...

Do you read the bible? If you do, how do you read it - in the way you've always done or in a variety of ways/settings?  What pose do you strike - disecting? fact finding? evidence to support a case? evaluating? flirting? exploring? rose tinted wish it was like that today glasses? How often do I let the bible read me? 

I think i am changing from a book that i have to read and analyse to a book that i can form a relationship with and that invites me to find different ways of both pursuing it and being pursued - that there is an active involved communal relation seeking God who is behind the words, revealed in the words and is breathes in and through them...

I also ask cos there is a small group of us trying to explore different ways of reading the bible, particualarly as a community of the book who wants to practice what we discover.  I am thinking about what I can lead our group into exploring and came across this great article about learning to read the bible again.   I found the following quote on recapturing the divine imaginagion of God in our bible reading one that really impacted me...

"...the good news in recognizing scriptural interpretation as an art is that reading scripture, like other forms of art, has the potential for creating something beautiful. Interpretations of scripture are not just right or wrong, although at times such categories are useful and necessary. A more adequate way of judging our readings might be the way we judge works of art -- according to the standards of beauty. To what extent do our readings reveal the intricacy, the wondrous quality of what the biblical writers call ma’asei Adonai, "the works of the LORD"? To what extent do they draw us toward something, a way of being that is -- to use Paul’s language -- more "lovely," more "gracious," more "excellent," "noble," "worthy of praise" (Phil. 4:8)?

Our readings will produce such beauty precisely to the extent that they respond faithfully to the antecedent imaginative power of God, to which the Bible bears witness. We normally say that God relates to us through God’s power of love, of compassion and so on -- and of course that is true. But if imagination is the capacity to envision the existence of something that does not yet exist -- the clearest instance of this being the artistic imagination -- then it makes sense to speak also of the divine imagination.

The creation of the world, the covenant between the Creator of heaven and earth and an old man named Abraham, the formation of a nation of priests out of a band of runaway slaves, the incarnation of the Godhead in human flesh, the destruction of death’s finality the inclusion of the gentiles in God’s covenant with Israel -- all these and more are remarkably imaginative acts on God’s part, acts through which God envisions and effects something totally new, totally unimaginable before it was brought into being. If we are faithful readers of the stories of these imaginative acts, we will find our own imaginations expanded and transformed. Thus scripture claims us and gradually forms us into a new people.

If reading scripture is an art, there follows one more conclusion: we learn the practice of an art through apprenticeship to those who have become masters. We come to read scripture imaginatively and well only by learning from those who have gone before us and performed, in their lives of embodied faithfulness, beautiful interpretations of scripture..."

I find this whole idea captures my imagination, not least because the last para in particular connects with some of my thoughts about deep church. 

Some qestions stirring in me...

How do you feel about reading the bible as an artistic expression?

If it is about us participating as communities caught up in the passionately creative imagination of God then how do you think we could...

• practice this together in our faith communities - what do you think it would look/feel like for you or even if you have experienced it?
• become not just students but artists, not just readers but creators?
• become creative/imaginative change agents rather than agents of preservation?

And who for you:

• is a master artist who inspires you and fires your creative God connecting life transforming imagination?

Exploring the marks of deep church..

Is deep church I wonder, the way of cultivating an understanding that I expressed in my post on the kingdom of God being bigger than church? In other words if we accept that our individual churches are part of the kingdom but not the sum of the kingdom then maybe there is a healthier and less parochial way of participating together as christians in the kingdom of God?

What is deep church?

The term was first coined by C S Lewis who on Feb 8th 1952 wrote a letter to The Church Times standing-up for the supernatural basis of the Gospel which he felt strongly was being undermined by modernism:

‘To a layman,’ he said, ‘it seems obvious that what unites the Evangelical and the Anglo Catholic against the “Liberal” or “Modernist” is something very clear and momentous, namely, the fact that both are thoroughgoing supernaturalists, who believe in the Creation, the Fall, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Second Coming, and the … Last Things.  This unites them not only with one another but also with the Christian religion as understood ubique et ab omnibus. 

The point of view from which this agreement seems less important than their divisions … is to me unintelligible.  Perhaps the trouble is that as supernaturalists, whether “Low” or “High” Church, thus taken together they lack a name. May I suggest “Deep Church”, or if that fails in humility, Baxter’s “mere Christians”’.  (C.S. Lewis, Church Times 1952)

In other words christians have more in common than actually divides them - whether you want to call this mere christianity, a generous orthodoxy or deep church or something else it would seem that deep church represents a way that is above either judging the kingdom of God on one church or making our church/denomination the litmus paper of the kingdom.  Christians might differ in practice and emphasis but the vast majority hold to a common orthodoxy/practice/experience of the core tenants of what the christian faith is in/about.

As Professor Andrew Walker said:

"Deep Church, while it is open to ecumenical insight and ‘cross-over’ doctrines, is not about syncretism or absorbing the next fad in the endless search for liturgical novelty.  It is about the marriage between the ‘new thing’ God is always doing in our lives, and the ‘old things’ – the historic givens of the Faith - that he has already done which includes the means of Grace that he has provided for our spiritual nourishment. Deep Church, then, is not just about something old for something new (or the other way round). It is about anamnesia and re-imagining. It is about catholicity and a holy separation. It is about a re-collected history and writing a new chapter in the annals of faith.

The establishment of Deep Church is not merely overdue, it is a missiological imperative for we are entering a time of great testing in the western world: the Enlightenment era, which in so many ways has served humankind so well, has drawn to a close and with it the optimism of a glorious future has faded away.  We are now past the twilight of modernity but not yet in the dawn of a new age: in this transitional stage we are caught in an age of uncertainty poised between the forces of apocalypse and congenital boredom. "

Deep does not mean the same...

I am not advocating a homogeneous church,  as i expressed in my last post i think different forms and styles of church are a positive thing - it would be arrogant of me to assume that everyone needs to attend a church like mine and i need to realise that it will take lots of different churches with lots of different styles to reach and connect with lots of different people.

In one sense it is a question of space - the places that churches inhabit could be vast public gatherings or small house churches.  For some people it would be a nightmare going to church in someones front room but for other people it would feel natural.  For some people it would be a mare being in church in a big crowd but for some people it would feel natural.  I think i need to get beyond space/style and look at something more than that which is values...

Values or marks of deep church...

What do you think the marks or values of a deep church should be?  You might think i've pulled one step ahead of myself and should first ask the Q what is a church?  I've deliberately not gone there because i think the two are linked - i think deep church can be in any space, public, private, intimate and in any denomination, structure, leadership etc.  It can be with a crowd of hundreds or just within a handful.

Professor Walker  suggests that:

"one of the distinguishing marks of Deep Church is that as adopted brothers and sisters of the incarnate Son of God what holds true for Him is intended to be normative for us: if you want to be my disciples, says Jesus to the apostolic band, ‘take up your cross’.  This is a clear directive for us, especially in the present uncertainty, that there can be no resurrection without crucifixion, no legitimate charism of power, certainly no exousia, without exposing our vulnerability to the cruelties and exigencies of a fallen world and the evil of principalities and powers. And there can be no long-term renewal or spiritual awakening of the Church without sharing the deep wounds of the crucified Christ so that through them we too share in the pain of the world.  A  theologia glorie without a theologia crucis, Tom Smail has reminded us often enough, is a cock-eyed gospel and while it will always have  popular appeal, it has no place in the soteriology of Deep Church."

To start the ball rolling here are some of the things i think should be values/marks:

• generous orthodoxy - we are on the same side, in the same kingdom, following the same king - what can we learn from each other?
• generous orthopraxy i.e. co-operating/partnering practically with other churches [mission then is more than I win you lose but how can we work together so the area we inhabit experiences the kingdom of God].  Any other practical examples of how to do this?
• christians who embody the works, words and wounds of Christ and who as a body are prepared to be broken for the world
• local and global - the kingdom of God does not just stop at the edge of my town, postal district etc but is global
• believers who do/act good deeds in the kingdom not just have right beliefs
• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?

Ok, please suggest some more..?

new kinds and old kinds of christan... revisited!

One of the fun things I get to do is help Jason Clark look after his blog.  I like to liken it to guest services, making sure that the variety of guest writers who have volunteered to write are looked after as well as looking to develop the content of the site.  One of the guests could not post yesterday so I covered by posting this recent piece on why I am growing to value and appreciate and value all kinds of christian, but especially the old kind on Jason's site.  You can see it here [apparently this boosts the technorati links for Jase and for me as a spin off!].

A question of engagement

I also have a Q for you on engagement with the audience that reads blogs.  One of the things that Jason and I would like to do is to increase the number of readers who interact on his blog so I'd love to hear your ideas on:

• what makes you want to leave a comment on a blog?
• what doesn't make you want to leave a comment?
• any blogs you read which have a high number of commentators?
• any ways you can think which might help engage people to leave a comment?

looking forward to hearing your thoughts...

If you're happy and you know it...

Jason Clark has written this deep but profound post on superficial church.  You might need some wet towels and some time in a dark room but I think even if you struggle with the big words like me the examples give plenty of insight/meaning... so major HT [and if your reaction is like me heh this is hard work, i don't want to consume a post like that, maybe it's a reality check on my blog consumer mentality]...

One of the thoughts that struck me is how much of my life is orientated towards happiness  - even to the extent of day dreaming about different ways of living - you know if i had a £1m, or was famous, was more clever, more profound, or didn't have to work, or could just have sex all the time with streams of beautiful women - my goodness i think i have a solomon complex!  And how much of my life is then orientated in that direction?  How much emotional energy do I invest [or the flip side how much do i worry about not having these things], how much time do they consume?

Here's a true story to illustrate the point - i've just inherited some money so on saturday I went to John Lewis in Kingstom to buy a new tv - now because i had been too lazy to phone up to get a new pin code for my credit card I borrowed Debs.  All was going well, delivery was arranged for today and i punched in the correct pin code - but then the card was selected for a random check, clearly it was not my name on the card [even though i produced my card which is identical bar the name] so it ended up with my order cancelled and the bank cancelling my credit cards.  I was so angry with having my consuming thwarted that i left the shop, phoned the bank and cancelled my account credit card account with them.  Debs used her credit card and phoned up the shop on sunday  - no need for a pin over the phone [ah the irony] and now it's coming next tues - i was still grumpy that i had to wait a whole extra week!  I wanted it now!!

My happiness is wrapped up in consuming, it is wrapped up in in the immediate as well - i will trade longer term happiness for short term pleasure - even if that is mental pleasure of imaging an alt reality to escape too when life gets stressful/hard...

Now the other thing is that I have known i have this money coming for awhile so i have been researching tvs, I have been dreaming about what it will be like, looking at HD, weighing up price, performance, future proofing etc.  I have read websites, studied reviews, looked for a consenus and researched retailers to find a good price and a good service too...  I have been doing this for the last few months and i think that added to my frustration that I couldn't have what I wanted...

I wonder what would happen if i devoted the same amount of time to imagining a different  spiritual me?  I know one of my motivations for getting fit/exercise has been the thought of loosing my belly and love handles - i have been imaging wearing a couple of shirts that i haven't worn for a couple of yrs... imagining how much Debs will appreciate my new shape, imaging how good it will be to play with the boys without having to stop cos i can't breathe... and it is working, i have a soundtrack playing in my head 'sexy boy' by AIR and it is bending my will power to actually go out and run, actually eat less, skip over that beer in the fridge again...

One think i notice when I read the bible is not so much the comprehension of what i read but how it shapes a different rhythm in me - how the words flow over me and infect my mind... how as i read it is not so much what I understand but the echo of the different beat I hear, a shadow of an alternate reality, a glimpse of something where life could be different... Maybe when the bible speaks of meditation on God and his word maybe it is asking me to spend that time dreaming, imaging a life where i was more committed, more giving, more generous, less taking more giving...  where not only my life but the life of the people and places, animals and atoms all vibarated with a new kind of harmony, a different sort of peace, hints of harmonies of a whole harmony...

The danger I think is creating that dream world in my head, let's call it heaven, and i escape to it when i can and wish the world was more like it... or do i start imaging it in the little details of my life, the seat on the crowded train i give up?  the act of kindness of bringing in something nice for my colleagues to eat [that dunking donut stand i pass on the way out of the station looks good] etc.  In fact just dreaming about it now i have an idea to take some donuts in on shrove tuesday and maybe try and infuse something delicious of taste of mouth with delicious taste of alternative reality - i have no idea how but heh it's a dream...

Ok then, help me out here, what ways can you dream about God infusing your ordinary every day life, what little things could you maybe do, maybe even just a smile to someone could be the start... happy dreaming!

Is the consideration that I might be wrong the new right? or why christians like me shouldn't find [on-going] humility such a surprising revelation...

Christians should find it easy to consider/acknowledge or even go as far as admit that they might be wrong - was the thought that I had this morning.  Swiftly followed by the question: 'ok so why do I find it so hard then?'

I was wrong once [upon a time]...

What do I mean - well I was thinking that the most natural entry point in entering the kingdom of God is the one where we repent, or re-think how we are doing life and come to a crisis of realisation that maybe we are not doing so well - heading the wrong way down the right road as Jason described it in his talk yesterday.

Now however that has been framed in the decision making process is not really the point - the point is at some point I made a decision to follow Jesus - or to put it crudely i said ok my kingdom is pretty crap, small, crowded squalid place where i reign and i've heard/read/felt/experienced something different Jesus which seems to be your Kingdom and therefore I abdicate my throne and my kingdom and instead want to join/be part of/live in your kingdom.

I admitted i was wrong/limited/shallow/oppressed/selfish/arrogant/greedy/cruel/unkind and consumeristic and more than that i participated in a confederation of kingdoms called 'society/culture' where we shared all these things in common - we had a simple constitution which said...

We each have the right to do whatever we want that makes us happy as long as it doesn't mess too much with our individual happiness [and even then it will limited by our historical understanding of protecting my rights to health/wealth/possession].  With that caveat I won't tell you how to live your life and you don't tell me how to live yours...

Your kingdom come - but i'll take the franchise option of my will still being done!

But here is the nub, I wonder after making that initial confession that I was wrong and deciding that I needed God whether I just changed the name on the outside but fell straight back into my old practices - instead of one form of cultural acknowledgement i now had another, instead of moving into God's kingdom I set up shop on the border and took the best of God - he will look after me, sort things out for me, keep me safe, healthy, wealthy, problem free whilst continuing to have the best of my life before - it's about me and my happiness.

Yes of course this living still required pay offs, compromises and becoming fluent in two forms of language/lifestyle and if anyone asked of course i was fully in - look i bashed the minorities who christians were supposed to bash, i had made my confession, i tried to twist a few arms of people to join me but in reality it was still my kingdom, loosely affiliated to God's, mainly in name only.

In my kingdom i drifted away from that original thought that maybe i was wrong, maybe i needed to continue the process of rethinking, repenting, reconsidering and instead I became about being right in my new affiliation - I found a nice comfortable place of doing what i wanted and any challenge to that was met by the reaction:  'who the hell are you to tell me how to live my life, what I should believe and how i should live that belief!'

Over recent years experience has shown me that I have been wrong about many things - that I my own actions are so often rooted in my own insecurity and addictions, my selfish need and more than that i participate in a faith whose systems inherently reinforce that...

I have come back to the point where I started from which is that I am often as wrong about being a christian as I was as about being a secular member of society - i have made both experiences about me and my needs, about doing things that make me happy with a veneer of respectability of doing so in the name of God...

So I wonder....

... if instead of insisting on my own rightness i became open to consider that maybe i was at best only partly right?  I wonder if i continued to rethink/repent in my life whether i would be open to letting it be about how i acted in my marriage, at work, who i voted for, what i wore, how i played, who i hang out with, how i care for the communities i am part of including this planet? 

...whether that ongoing consideration that I have a tendency to get things wrong would help me be less insistent that MY way was the right way - whether that was my way of doing church or anything else?

...if being more humble would make me more open to advice about how to live my life, would make me more open to sharing who I am rather than who I think I should be, make me transparent as to the pain/selfishness/addiction/stress/tension/hang ups that I have and need help with but also make me more loving in reaching out to people with their own issues/stresses - to care for them as people made in God's image rather than as projects to shape into that of my own and assimilate into my kingdom [so i feel better/smugger/more righteous about being me]?

...that being wrong is an opportunity to be a work in progress rather than have to feel i am a finished article?  That life is about learning, seeking, searching for God and he is about finding me in growing depth and transformation?

...that i might have not have all the answers, or even all the questions makes me wonder if rather than seeking to enforce a particular practise/way i should be more open, supportive, encouraging of people who are different to me?  To what end am I right is less important to the Q is this helping someone find/connect/express their faith in Jesus in practise rather than per my own preferences/experience/choices?  Is polarity - i'm right/you're wrong a concept that should be on the way out and instead maybe something that says where are you right, where can i learn from you?

...what the impact of reflecting on whether we are still  being wrong would mean to our gatherings/structures/systems as a faith, how could we change them and how could they help us to be more humble, open, God seeking?

...that being open to being wrong by myself and my tendency to self determine in favour of me is not an invitation to seek to participate in a community? to encourage confession?  to support accountability?  To seek to make my life not so much about just me but to encourage me to open up to others, to seek to love and care for people and in return to do the same for me - so that we can challenge each other and ask the Q how are we living life?  Are we living out what we believe? More are we living out the practise of life, the marks that Jesus suggests that we should? And encourage, love, support and spur another on to do so?

...any more that you can think of/would like to add for you?