One for the road...

Deep faith...

If like me you are still trying to get your head around practices of deep church, open & generous orthodoxy and orthopraxy then I think this article from US News might help: A return to Tradition. 

It reminds me again how this reconnection with the past of our  faith, the richness of our heritage is something that is being explored within a number of faiths, not to take us backward but to help us as faith communities reimagine and reconnect to face the future... 

Here are some tasters for you...

"Something curious is happening in the wide world of faith, something that defies easy explanation or quantification. More substantial than a trend but less organized than a movement, it has to do more with how people practice their religion than with what they believe, though people caught up in this change often find that their beliefs are influenced, if not subtly altered, by the changes in their practice.

Put simply, the development is a return to tradition and orthodoxy, to past practices, observances, and customary ways of worshiping. But it is not simply a return to the past—at least not in all cases. Even while drawing on deep traditional resources, many participants are creating something new within the old forms. They are engaging in what Penn State sociologist of religion Roger Finke calls "innovative returns to tradition."

And...

Talk to Carl Anderson, the senior pastor of Trinity Fellowship Church, and you get an idea. "Seven or eight years ago, there was a sense of disconnectedness and loneliness in our church life," he says. The entrepreneurial model adopted by so many evangelical churches, with its emphasis on seeker-friendly nontraditional services and programs, had been successful in helping Trinity build its congregation, Anderson explains. But it was less successful in holding on to church members and deepening their faith or their ties with fellow congregants. Searching for more rootedness, Anderson sought to reconnect with the historical church.

...Anderson and others tried to emphasize the power of liturgy to direct worship toward God and "not be all about me," he says. Anderson also stressed how liturgy "is about us—and not just this church but the connection with other Christians." Adopting the weekly Eucharist, saying the Nicene Creed every two or three weeks, following the church calendar, Trinity reshaped its worship practices in ways that drove some congregants away. But Anderson remains committed, arguing that traditional practices will help evangelical churches grow beyond the dependence on "celebrity-status pastors."

If you've read the article I'd love to know what you think..? Helpful? Ringing any bells?  Confusing?  Relevant to how your community is practicing and exploring their faith?

What are we waiting for? Eschatology and contemporary culture conference...

What Are We Waiting For? is a one-off, one day conference from Spring Harvest and King’s College London for church leaders and members who are passionate about the place of theology in the church.

Featuring leading thinkers and theologians, the conference will unpack the major themes of Christian eschatology including the Second Coming of Christ, the end of the world as we know it, eschatology in the Old and New Testament, the doctrines of heaven and hell and contemporary issues such as art, culture and the environment.

In an ever engaging, sometimes bewildering and often controversial area, What are we waiting for? will provoke new questions and fresh answers.

The conference takes place all day on 26 January 2008, at Kings College, London.  The price is £12 but includes a complimentry book "What are we waiting for? Eschatology and contemporary culture."

Full details of the day and how to book are available from the flyer here: what_are_we_waiting_for.pdf  or online here: http://www.springharvest.org/main-event-sh/programme-sh/article_index.php?id=148#cost

Theory, practice and Steven Segal...

Apart from being one of the funniest of the Orange cinema adverts and therefore worth watching, what does this have to do with theory and practice?

Well i have just written a guest post on just this topic (theory/practice nor steven segal) inspired by Jason's reflection on this as one of the values of deep church.  In the guest post i thought of the idea of  the UK driving test which has both a theory and practical element - you need to pass both, to use both together in order to be able to drive safely.

So in the clip above we have Steven Segal, an "action hero," who cannot escape from this stereotype as he tries and pitches a much more reflective romantic film (not to mention some spectacular golf cart driving) - I wonder how far our perceptions/stereotype drive our frustrations, particularly with different christians?

If we are the reflective type do we get annoyed that people seem to label us as never acting?  People question why we think/reflect when there is so much that needs doing?  That we aren't a good enough christian as we just aren't doing enough for the people who need us to do stuff for them?

If we are more action orientated do we get annoyed that people seem to critique us for what we do - that we get lumped as just some social/environmental/political action orientated type who runs around like a headless chicken and misses out on what makes us distinctly christian?

I wonder if we are missing a trick/love/ history/bible in keeping up the distinction of faith/works and valuing one above the other - whereas maybe we need reflective people to help us reflect and we need activists to help motivate us.  Neither is right by itself. 

What do you think?

Or am i saying something that is as plausible as Segal playing a Hugh Grant role?

Part of the great chain of faith...

I led two reflections on All Saints day yesterday - using a cut down version of the text that I posted here.

I found it a powerful reminder of how we are part of the great unfolding story of God calling a people who will bear his image. For me that means two things:

• living in way that embraces community, justice, mercy, love; and
• telling/showing/demonstrating/conversing to tell other.

The community of the saints - living and dead

It was a reminder to me how I am only here as a christian because for 4,000 years people have faithfully done those two things as they live out their ordinary lives, in times of persecution, doubt, tiredness, worry, tears as well as times of celebration, joy and laughter.

As the people of God our calling is personal, God seeks us out, loves us and invites us individuals but All Saints day reminds me that my faith cannot become private or individualistic. We are called to be part of the community of the Saints, those past, present and future and it is this context with joining together with other christians to declare our faith and share the pain and the celebration that I think we are called to live out this story. In a way it is like breathing, we breathe in, we gather together and then we breathe out, go out into the world to love it and bless it.

Chain of faith...

At the end of both services we had a huge paper chain which we had made, each person writing a name of someone who inspires their faith from the past or present on each link - for me this was an incredibly powerful visual reminder of what it means to be in the community of the Saints and to live as a faithful link in that chain, to pass on our faith to the next generation.

I was also struck how at the end of time, in the biggest family reunion/home coming the earth has ever seen we'll have conversations with Saints past who have been cheering us on, we'll find Saints that have inspired us and thank them but also people will come to us, maybe who we know maybe from hundreds of years in the future to say thank to us for how living out our faith in our everyday ordinary lives in ways blessed them...

Inspired prayer...

I was on the scrounge for a prayer to bring the reflection to a close and Sonja put me on to this prayer which we used (with a couple of slight changes):

With saints of all ages we come to God this day

With those who were, who are, and who will come

With saints of all ages

We believe and trust in God the creator

The one who is, who always was, and who is still to come;

The one who calls us to be salt in a world that has lost its flavour

With saints of all ages

We believe and trust in Christ our Saviour

The first to rise from the dead, and the ruler of all the nations of the world.

The one who calls us to be light in a world that is mired by darkness

With saints of all ages

We believe and trust in the life giving Spirit

The seal of our inheritance the guarantee of what is to come

Who calls us to glorify God through our thoughts, words and actions

With saints of all ages

We believe and trust in God’s kingdom coming

A new world breaking onto ours, eternal world of wholeness and joy

Where the poor will be fed and the prisoners set free

With saints of all ages

We believe and trust in God’s kingdom coming

Where justice and righteousness will have no end

Where the sick will be healed, the blind see and the deaf hear

With saints of all ages we join to give glory to the Father, the Son and the Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and forever shall be, world without end, Amen

HT to Christine Sine

Which leave me wondering, what does celebrating/thinking about all saints mean for you?

My eucharistic theology... what's yours?

Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Calvin You are John Calvin. You seek to be faithful to Scripture, and to harmonize difficult sayings. You believe that in the Lord's Supper those who have faith are united to Christ, who is present spiritually, yet in a real way. Calvin 75% Orthodox 69% Luther 63% Zwingli 44% Unitarian 25% Catholic 25%

HT to Kay

The next old thing...?

A feeling...

I've felt in my gut for awhile that there is a change of wind a coming in the emerging conversation - turn unlikely corners and you'll catch a teasing glimpse... listen in and you'll hear a faint song on the breeze, turn your face towards it and you'll smell the scent of earth rather than the tang of the sea, the call of settling rather than the desire to sail...

Or as Galadrial might have said... The world is changing. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was lost is being found and much that will be is calling to us from the future...

Maybe it's just me, i don't think this the next big thing, i think this is the next old thing...

The fast...

Deconstruction is good. It shouts STOP! Stuck in the desert, barren, bereft, our faith resembling atheism, the ending of faith in the God we've created. It is the time of Lent, the time of reflection, the time of fast. It allows us to see the idols of our ideas and ideals and tear them down... to look behind the curtain and find the man rather than the all powerful Oz, to readjust and take our cultural and Christ bearings.

But after the initial flush, the gorging on the low hanging fruit of our theology, our church forms, our cultural emeshment and our practices it becomes less and less easy to maintain the momentum. The labels get longer as we redefine ourselves. Hurts heal. New and old truths and practices are discovered, the excitment of the door back into engaged faith takes it.

Is it time for the blue pill or the red one... Will we stay in the adventure and find out just how deep our faith is by plunging in fully or will we continue to trail our toe in the water, convincing ourselves that this is just a bad dream that one day we'll wake up from?

The feast...

Like a flower growing up through a crack in the derelict and deserted parking lot, faith is beginning to blossom again, life is returning. I'm reminded of Jesus words on a right time for fasting and a right time for feasting...

"The disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees made a practice of fasting. Some people confronted Jesus: "Why do the followers of John and the Pharisees take on the discipline of fasting, but your followers don't?"

Jesus said, "When you're celebrating a wedding, you don't skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to pull in your belt, but not now. As long as the bride and groom are with you, you have a good time. No one throws cold water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come!"

A season of celebration. A season of feasting. A season of construction. A season of Kingdom come and coming..?

Do you feel it too? What glimpses of it can you see? feel? smell? touch?

Every church service has an ending...

sometimes it feels like it will never come other times you wish it wouldn't. Here are a couple of the better endings I've seen this week...

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers...

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

(From a Franciscan Benediction)

HT to Anne Jackson

The task is ended go in pieces

The task is ended
go in pieces

†

Our concluding faith
is being rear-ended
certainty's being amended
and something's getting mended
that we didn’t know
was torn

†

We're unravelling
and are traveling to a place
of new-formed-patterns,
with delusion as a fusion of
loss, and hope, and pain and beauty.

†

So,

†

The task is ended
go in pieces
to see and feel
your world.

(Written by Padraig Twomney and performed by Jayne McConkey)

HT to Jonny Baker

As you go out from gathering as a faith community what endings/benedictions/blessings have inspired you..?

The foolish church...

In the final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when things are at there blackest and darkest, Gandalf looks out into the east, to where Frodo and Sam are already lost in the coming storm that will engulf them all, and says "there never was much hope, only a fool's hope..." 

I often find myself wondering the same thing, the church in Europe is haemorrhaging 50,000 christians a week, in America the right and left baptise their politics with Jesus, the web is full of stories of the hurt that christians inflict on each other and all the while our western world is sucked into the seductive darkness of the dominant religion of our time - self-centred consumerism.

As with the story of the one ring it is easy to lose heart, to see only despair, to retreat into the seeming safety of our own personal kingdoms to hide from the storm.  Where we are safe to relive the glory age of the past or reimagine the future with people like ourselves for people like ourselves.

Same as it ever was...

I wonder though was it ever thus, when the writers of the new testament church wrote their letters it was not to the perfect, equal, Jesus following, missional churches that i often imagine - often those letters address serious problems then which are all to common still today: lack of equality, bickering over ways of doing church, selfishness, spite, fear, rival factions, popularity contests, greed, jealousy, insecurity, gossip, hype, hypocrisy, apathy, spiritual and theological rabbit trails etc etc...

The church, me and (the) you who follow Jesus are still making the same mistakes today.  On the one hand that's depressing, on the other it's hardly surprising, human nature being human nature.  On the third (and here i'm thinking divine) hand i wonder if it can be any other way: it seems so like God in chosing the weak, the broken, the desperate, the worst and not the best of people to showcase his kingdom - where else can the the gritty place of reconciliation and reconnection happen if not with those who need it the most and are the least incapable of being able to do it themselves...  I look at my own life, pompous and pronouncing one minute, stupidly sinful and self-absorbed the next and know that i am a foolish choice to be included in a people who are called to love, serve, care and bless each other and the world around them. 

God chose the weak things of this world...

Maybe your a better choice, i hope so.  However I suspect that maybe you're agreeing with me and saying heh what is the point - how can a bunch of people so weak they spend most of their time faking being strong actually qualify to represent anyone about anything, let alone God almighty...

Being weak, being failures, facing darkness and bleakness is something that we can see in the life of Jesus, the cross on good friday marking the high tide of despair - where all hope has been lost - the fellowship of the Son has been found wanting and the Master of life-giving is dead (if you are familiar with the LoTR films the scene where Gandalf has been cast down by the fiery balrog and the company is grief stricken and soon to fail springs to mind).  The triumphal events of easter sunday have to take their course through the grief of good friday and the numbness of easter saturday - our own journey often experiences both...

No wonder in Jesus we share the hope of glory

Maybe that is why the bible writers like Paul, Peter, James, John don't despair as they look at the mess of the churches they write too - they laugh, they rejoice, they pray, they praise and thank God for them and for all the christians in them.  I don't know about you but i rarely pray for the church (apart from my own) apart from to complain to God - maybe i should change my tune.  We need prayer, yes, but maybe i need to take a leaf from my namesake and celebrate and rejoice to God over each community of Jesus followers.

Sure these saints and apostles see the faults, they are not blind, but they also see the flip side of the coin... the hope and the glory, the holy spirit at work, the lives that are being transformed over a life time - the foolish who are loved, who are the best examples of a God of grace and power.  These writers glimpses of how God see's us , calls us, walks with us - as ambasadors, priesthood, royalty, light bearers, co-inheritors, reconcilers - our very lives telling his liberating story - the story of  the  bride who's beauty is discovered as her character deepens, revealed, celebrated (from shallow mean gal to caring giving high school heroine or from dowdy unwanted unloved ugly duckling to beautful swan, via fickle lovers anf friends to be with a faithful lover - to change film genre to high  school chick flick).  And we will be resurected, consumated with our creator, with all the hope now and for then, just as Jesus showed life before and after the despair of death...

An invitation...

I'm going to try something a bit different (again) and invite you to join me in leaving your own prayer (either in the comments section or on your own blog) of grattitude, hope, thankfulness for the church, in all its beautiful foolisnness... as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be and to our only wise God and Father, who has chosen us through the Son, to be transformed into his likeness by the Spirit, now and forever more.  Amen.

Being in a lazy mood i have used this post for my guest post on Jason Clark's site today.

The Absence and Presence of God - meditation by Dr Luke Bretherton

   

This post will be going on to the deep church blog.

Dr Bretherton (one of the editors and contributors too the deep church book 'Remembering our Future) has put together 3 meditations using words and art.  He introduces these mediations thus...

Words: The theme of these meditations is the absence and presence of God or more precisely how relationship with God necessarily involves both God’s presence and His absence.  The first meditation will focus on the Old Testament and explores how Israel’s relationship with God can be seen as a dance that involves moments of both intimate closeness and withdrawal.  The second meditation will invite you to consider the paradoxical dynamic whereby God is made present through his absence and made absent through His presence.  This will be done through comparing the sculptures of Rachel Whiteread and the waxworks of Madam Tussauds.  The third meditation draws our attention back to central drama of Christianity and reflects on Jesus’ crucifixion and entombment as revelations of how God is absent and present to us in the midst of a sinful and suffering world.   

These meditations are not a systematic overview of the rich and diverse theological theme of absence and presence.  Instead, they are meant to be explorations, mining the theme, uncovering points for reflection and elliptical or indirect in how each meditation relates to the other.

At the end of each meditation there will be an invitation to reflect on a particular question or point.  These are meant to be an aid to your thoughts and prayers but feel free to go in other directions.

Pictures: There are some images relating to the text.  Some of these will be referred to directly in the meditations, others are meant to complement what is being said but will not be referred to or discussed.  Again, they are there to be enjoyed and to serve your prayers and reflections.

Meditions:

Download meditation 1: a dance of withdrawal and intimacy.pdf

Download meditation 2: absence in presence and presence in absence.pdf

Download meditation 3: cross and tomb.pdf

Do we need church any more?

I've written this post on the Deep Church blog.

Riffing on the Pope's recent reconfirmation of the RC view point that true churches = apostolic succession, I speculate whether we need to move beyond legitimacy debate to talkin about existence/puropose/point of church. In the intro to the post I write...

“In these revolutionary post-church/pathological-church times I wonder if we need to move beyond arguements of legitimising our existence as gathering of Christians and instead address the question facing us in the west of why we should bother gathering at all?”

I've taken a trinitarian lens to consider this with and also contrasted our western preoccupation with the individual with a 2/3 world view which places more emohasis on the many, with some great thoughts from Archbishop Tutu. 

Please feel free to add your thoughts/perspective...