One for the road...

An alternative strapline to my life...

I am learning to be honest with myself and to take the plunge of speaking outloud what i think/feel - i am often terrorfied however as doing that opens me up to looking silly at best or being rejected at worst.

Me as the problem not the solution to everyone elses...

However, having lived my life and felt the liberation and healing that comes with being honest with god and others i am compelled to at least trying to live like that some of the time

One of the great things about being honest and putting myself as the centre of the problem rather than the solution to everyone elses - it helps God change me into a better person and allows other people into my life to help me become a better person - which is often the way i find God tends to work through other people and me being honest.

Loving & truthful friends (in that order!)

I especially value those people who will be honest with me - who will listen and accept me but not be afraid to give their opinions.  I find it those people are very rare and very wonderful! 

It is easy to say "heh do what makes you happy" or "heh i think you are wrong and you should do it this  [my suggested] way." Neither of those 2 things is really that helpful.  But for those people who listen, love me and speak truth to my life, thank you!

The flip side...

Self honesty has a flip side tho it means i find it hard to be selfish and do what i want.  I went to counselling recently and sat for an hour talking about my problems.  It felt like the most selfish and narcistic thing i've ever done and by the end of the 50 minutes i was getting tired of the sound of my own voice!  Maybe if I had sat talking for 50 mins talking about why i was the problem and what i was going to do then it might have been more helpful!

Self reflection i find pushes me towards giving to others rather than demanding from them and it often means that i have to in the end face up to things i don't want to face up to and take the pain that comes with them.

Following Jesus into and through pain...

I think that's what my good friday talk was mostly about - how Jesus did that in embracing the cross and finding a way through the cross.  More how Jesu can helps me do that, when i stop running away from the place of pain, frustration etc.  Often thinking about being honest is more painful than actually being honest...

I can think of lots of painful reasons for not facing the truth, hurt feelings, disappointment, changes that might be needed!

So back to that alternative strapline...

"jesus helping me embrace pain and helping me through it -  if only i'd stop ducking it, try bein more honest and trust him more..."

You got your own personal strapline suggestions? ;)

Restoring my humanity: personal experiences of Jesus as the way/truth/life...

Yesterday I reflected on some of my thinking why Jesus is the way not only for me to find God but also to become fully human.  Today I'd like to explore that by looking at some of my life and  how for me Jesus has helped me become not just more human but a better human in terms of my work, marriage, my sexuality etc...

My way or Jesus way?

The way of Jesus for instance was the way of self sacrifice and death, through torture.  Watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion and it all comes home in glory/gory filled technicolour.  To see someone die with such dignity and compassion in the face of such suffering and injustice is a calling to aspire high above my immediate life goals/desire for a way of gadgets, gizmos and carefully collected knowledge. 

It is a way that I have often wandered off as well.  The low point of this journey came just over 6 years ago. 

I had gone through a patch of being wildly successful at work, given increased responsibilities for key clients and a higher wage packet I plunged myself into work, dreaming of the day when I would become a partner in the firm of auditors for which I worked.  Long hours and such dreams of more success and money kept me feeling happy and content and my need for following the way of God faded.  I was doing this myself and reaping all the benefits of such.  Forget the wild ways, the hidden valley, the exposed windy hillside – I was down in big green lush fields where I would live my days in gratifying and enjoying the desires of my heart. 

Over night it all began to go sour. 

I got a new boss who didn’t like me.  I got dumped on with more and more responsibility; previously it had felt liberating, now I was hopelessly out of my depth and drowning.  My staff failed to get their work done.  My clients complained and circulated emails and memos out of context.  I was warned, failure would not be tolerated.  So I of course redoubled and trebled my efforts, worked longer hours, made bigger promises, tried to bluff that I was thriving under this pressure instead of being crushed.
For awhile it looked even sweeter.  Off my own back I organised a transfer to the Boston office subject to the approval of my bosses, I dreamed of new experiences and of course returning higher up the ladder and work seemed to be going good again. 

Then it all fell apart. 

Staff shortages had led to a poorer piece of work but the new boss wasn’t interested in excuses my manager and then my boss both phoned me up at a client to tear a strip off me.  After my manager’s call I was shaken, retreating to the toilet I started to cry, I had tried so hard and it was so unfair, pulling myself together I returned back to my desk to put a brave face on it.  I still had some dregs of self confidence left, I had demonstrated bounce back ability before, and I would do so again.  Then the phone rang again, it was the boss.  Nothing I could say could satisfy him, he had written me off, it was clear by his tone, his comments.  My thin wisp of self belief snapped along with something inside me, the stress, the pressure, the end of all my hopes, the dreams becoming a nightmare and I started sobbing into the phone.  All I kept saying between wracking sobs was “I tried, I tried so hard…”  The boss told me to call me back after I pulled myself together and hung up.  Leaving me to sob it out and to leave work that night a broken man.  No move to Boston, future in the firm, it was all clear to me that I would have to move on…

The way I had chosen had looked like leading to success but instead had shown me failure.  Humbly with no where else to turn or anything else to cling to I began to return to the way of God, haltingly, honestly, scared of rejection I began to read little snippets of the bible, to pray and to wonder what the future might now hold for me.  I didn’t feel at all comfortable out on the lonely path but at least I had something of a map and compass…

Looking back the humbling of me was also the making of me.  Going back was going forward.  I was vulnerable and in a place where God could find me, guide me, change me, take me on… And of course then there was truth…

Before my sense of pride, my goals, my ambitions, my fears and my insecurities had kept me blind from the truth of who I was, what I was like, why I was like it.  Now vulnerable I could begin to face some of the truth about my character, my nature but it would also take something more.  It would take someone modelling the power of honesty and in turn giving me the courage to be honest as well and it would take a dramatic intervention by God to show me the truth.

There's truth and then there is The Truth...

I have already blogged a little about my encounters with truth and deeper truth and the strugle to be honest about my sexuality here.

It was on a mission trip to Zambia when the radical encounter with truth which has lasted for the last 4.5 yrs began.  I think I had signed up for the trip in my heady days of success but by the time I departed I was wondering exactly what the point of me being there was... 

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?

Thoughts on christian sexual ethics: or what to do or not to do unto thine brother (or sister)...

Sexual Orientation Regulations - a christian reaction?

Following on from my post asking the Q who is healthy/who is sick exploring some issues of christianity and sexualityI was going to write a post about what I think my reaction as a christian should be to the to the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORS) being uheld by the House of Lords that attracted a recent christian led protest outside the Houses of Parliament. 

However, Rupert has done so an excellent job on exploring/clarifying/reducing the hysteria that I can't help but recomend his two posts on gay rights(SORS): part 1 and part 2. In particular I would encourage you to read this Faithworks response, that Rupert links to in his post, on why the christian response to the SORS borders on sounding homophobic (for instance by allowing a hetrosexual unmarrried couple to sleep in a BB but not a same sex couple).

Before I go on to consider how this issue has impacted my thoughts on the christian reaction to homosexuality and wider than sex and sexuality in general I personally felt my response shaped by these words of Jesus - about opening up my life, my home  and living in a generous way rather than one where I seek to shut out what I do not agree with/am afraid of...

"Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven."

Reflections on christian sexual ethics - or why we might be in different boats but we're all still sailing on the same sea?

One of the excellent comments left on Rupert's blog raised the whole issue of sexual ethics, what is right but at the wrong time and what is wrong and there never is a right time... how should we react as christians?  How can we get beyond our fears (in this case homophobic ones) and live a life where we can be both generous and gracious and faithful to the calling of God to live differently in terms of our ethics/lifestyle.

Christian ethics:  living not just thinking

Awhile back I wrote this post on christian ethics  where my point is that our ethics come with both action and a cost - it is not so much what we tell others but what we do ourselves, or in short we have to point out that not only do none of us make the bar (which is why I need Jesus in the first place) we are also prepareed to do something about that gap in terms of loving empowered action - to be part of God's solution to be a blessing to the world even if it costs us our rights, time and all the other things we might treasure.

As someone who has had a very tangled sexuality i have found that the christian ethic which says you must have a perfect and pure sexuality was not helpful to me in that I could not talk about my situation, it was who i was and the tug was always there to be me - it was a truth [as it was who i was] on the other hand it was not the truth of who i was in that was not my fully formed identity - confused, might be easier to read about it here...

It was only when i started to be open, to find the courage to talk about where I was and whether that was who i was that God helped me with a loving community to reveal more and more of what was false with my picture of me and what was right about it...

In this context i think we need to acknowledge the honest fact that living out traditional sexual christian ethics practices are a struggle for a lot of people: whether you're single and want to have sex, married and want to have sex with someone else [or not want to have sex with your spouse etc] or gay and want to have sex with someone of the same sex...

Thought 1: What/who am I committed too - or why would God care about our sexual behaviour?

I think part of the answer to this Q is about commitment - i think we would do wise to move away from marriage [which is a society construct, just a take a look at the history of it] and instread see it as a formal commitment. In other words God is saying we find the best in ourselves and others where we commit to one person, where we have to learn to face our selfishness and learn about a love that is based on giving not getting, laying down our rights etc. It is then not a Q of sex but a Q of commitment. Outside of commitment i could have sex with whoever i wanted but what that ends up as is me fulfilling my needs and using other people to do so, it encourages me to move on when things are difficult, to live a me centred, me first existence. And of course all the pain, heartache, selfish, cheap, desperate, short term living that comes with it...

Or as St Paul puts it in part of his letter to the Galatian community:

"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. "

God is then setting guidance in place cos he loves us ands knows if we go against the moral grain of the universe we will pick up splinters - we will be hurt, we will hurt others, we will become users and abusers and consume each other, doing whatever we want to satisfy our own hungers which i've found from experience tend to not really be satisfied [hence the eroticised culture in which we live where sex sells and we evaluate ourselves by how many orgasms we have, or the quality of them, or the beauty of the person we go out with etc...]

A thought that I heard Jason Clark say recently was how it was interesting how the TV series Friends had to end on a happy note - and what was that note?  Well here were 6 people who we followed over the yrs living the single dream of various searches for love/sex/relationship/careers/coffee  and by the end of the last series they all pretty much found happiness in commitment - it ended them with being married etc... that was the big happy ending for Friends and that is maybe the big happy ending God has for us, not commiting our lives to chasing our wants but to giving away our lives in loving committed relationships where we need God to empower us, so that our love can be about giving not getting...

Thought 2: a whole/healthy sexuality?

We could maybe extend this loving God to not just sex but to sexuality - we could say that commitment is part of the equation but God also wants us to have a fully realised healthy sexuality which is something i wonder how many of us have - whether gay or straight do we live with a sexual script which sees us addicted to porn, or shaped by the past so we our sexuality is disconnected/distant or is overwhelming, we seek to medicate the pain, to deal with how we have been shaped often by seeking in our sexuality to capture something lost and in turn are captured ourselves by the own chains of our life.

I can only use myself as a case study but in hanging out with people who for instance wanted to dominated, if they were female they usually had an issue with their father, more often then not he was absent and they missed having that male presence in their early teens and sort to have an authority figure now. Or they had experienced dominating parents and had learnt to associate that with love and therefore had sexualised it.

For me I experienced a passive father figure and a dominating mother, i also saw how force could give you power and therefore determined to be dominating myself and use force if necesary - which influenced my sexuality so that I needed to be dominant and found the sense of power erotic.

Following Jesus is about a journey towards healing/wholeness/fulmes of life?

Now I am not saying that everyone can blame their parents, or that everyone's sexuality has been shifted in the way that mine was - only that i can see that my sexuality was not very healthy now but at the time it was how i felt. If we all carry some degree of damaged sexuality the Q becomes not what is damaged about you but what is damaged about me, do i use my sexuality to manipulate? am i sexually shut down because i don't know how to talk about it as my family never did? am i afraid of having children? am i unable to cope with the expectations of my partner? etc etc

If we talk about our sexual brokeness and practice healing of that through God in our faith communities, will we then have a story to tell that might start well i was attracted to men but it was because my uncle abused me when i was little and never really faced it just thought it was the way it should be...

Or i needed to have sex with as many women as possible as i never felt attractive growing up and i just want to feel atrractive/loved...

Or whatever...

But then can we tell a story of a more fullfilled, health, less selfish, more open life as a result maybe we are saying something more than just this is the ideal. maybe we are saying yes let's be honest, whether i am ready to face it or not it is likely that i will have issues around commitment and issues around my sexuality - God is not about condeming us but about helping us live life to the full, caring not just about what makes me happy now but about my characture... in order to start facing deeper truths I need to be part of a community where I can be loved, accpted, be honest in and do the same for other people.

A God empowered journey in a community of  new creations...?

I need to be less judgemental about other people's sexuality and focus on my own - i might be married but am i committed to my job more than my wife? I might be hetrosexual but i am addicted to porn [which I have been] as it feeds a need in me/creates a buzz to help me feel good about myself...

I need to be aware that I cannot do this by myself - that Jesus is about helping me find a life that is healthier, whole, fulfilled and that there are people in my community who share this story of their own journey... that we are empowered to help people who are ready to face the truth and that includes ourselves...

Does it then become a Q of saying in my community we teach this as I think it is helpful in helping live out this more fulfilled way but it is unlikely that you will feel like living like that - that you need to belong first and believe...

Do I believe that the holy spirit takes us on a journey of revealing truth to us and each other but that truth is a loving one that inspires us to change as much as giving healing, life, new perspective so we can change... or as St Paul says in the same section of the letter to the Galatians:

"But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely."

Is that more costly but ultimately healthier than saying you must do this or that when all of us know that we can not keep every aspect of the law anyway? What price tag does grace come with? Or are we gonna be like the older brother in the story of the prodigal son who throw a jealous fit because we lived as hetrosexuals [denying our own commitment/sexuality wounds]and here is the Father celebrating all these gay people [who maybe are starting to recognise their own]???

And what am I going to do as a result... how am i going to be generous and gracious?

Help please:

This is the beginning of my thinking, i'd love to hear your thoughts, stories, experiences...

Start with what I have, start with who I know, start from where I am...and give away more than I need to those who need it...

I have been reflecting on the last few days on the question I asked on my last post - about wheree to start in taking the NOW of the Kingdom of God seriously... and have been inspired having watched this clip reminding me of God's heart for the poor, the oppressed, the lost and the least, something you also may wish to do:

HT to Jamie

More than ever I think that the following words of Jesus sound the simpliest and yet seem the hardest to put into practice but maybe that has just been an excuse.  This year I said I would like to live more graciously and generously than last yr so I will try and take these words as being for NOW and not just for some other better time and ask Jesus and fellow followers like me to  help us all to live this sort of revolutionary life giving/revealing light...

"To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.

Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that's charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.

I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind."

An emerging epiphany..?

Traditionally the church celebrates the feast of Epiphany on 6 January - you might know that as 12th night (or time to take the decorations down!).  The feast celebrates  "the 'shining forth' or revelation of God to mankind in human form, in the person of Jesus..." and includes the birth of Jesus and the visit of the wise men/magi (and indeed all of Jesus childhood in the Eastern tradition)...  it is a time to reflect and remember on how Godhead  has/is/will  shone/shine forth and how we as his church can be light this coming year as well as a good old feast (isn't it cool that these church calendar things weren't just remembered with a church service but a full on party!!)...

Epiphany of course has another meaning which is the feeling of a "sudden realisation or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something", not necessarily seeing the full picture but "new information or experience, often insignificant by itself, that illuminates a deeper or numinous foundational frame of reference".

In bringing these 2 epiphanies together I have been reflecting on my own hope for me as part of the emerging church, the dream of how this little part of the church can shine forth and be light to the world as it is it is indwelt with the light and love of God.  What follows is 6 pairs (or 12) reflections/hints/feelings/hunches of the marks of light that we can be about - and then please do let me know your thoughts...

Generosity and grace

I have the opportunity to model generosity, whether it is in expressing a generous orthodoxy or in being communities where people can belong before they believe.  We have another year of being able to practice this discipline both on-line and in real life and it is one where I am always so grateful for people who model it to me.

I am feeling called to be generous particularly to two groups:

firstly the critics of the emerging church and indeed of the church as a whole (to whom we all look the same),  I think there is much to learn from this critique and opportunities to open up dialogue rather than close down doors. 

secondly,  I feel called to be generous with is those other emerging/new church groups who I may not feel comfortable with, e.g. Godmen.  In fact I see parallels in that I am now stepping into the shoes of my critics, maybe therefore I should reserve making pronouncements until I have talked with these people, attended their meetings, had an opportunity to see how they are growing/impacting the lives of the people who attend - in short everything that I would like to see critics of the emerging church do.

I am inspired by the generosity of God and the calling of his people not to hoard his blessings and gifts but to actively use them to help make this wold a better place.

Not least as we as christians have a powerful message of God's grace, his forgiveness/love rather than the experience of karma/pay back/revenge/getting what we deserve.  In a world which insists in getting even before getting on, in laws that determine that there is equal reaction to every action we can be communities that model something radically, powerfully, world changingly good...

Communities  of both the immediacy and the mediation of God

As I seek to follow Jesus I am not doing so alone.  I am part of a local faith community which in turn is part of  something bigger again the collective faith communities around the world and even more bigger in the commune of the saints, living and dead who have gone before.  I therefore need to open and humble before God in doing new things in old ways or the old things in in new ways. 

It is easy to write off the past history of the church and say that what is happening now is how it should be, or is getting back to how it was originally but to do so something that says more about me and what I like than a historical valid comment on Christ's church.  Whilst the church is continually reformed and being reformed it means that there is always the temptation to polarise, to pick the now or sometime in the church past as the ideal.  I think I need to move above that line and ask what is the will of God, how am I showing/expressing the ancient themes of mercy, love, grace, justice, humility, right living - am I prepared to join Christ as both king and as suffering servant, sharing in both his reflected glory but also is pain, hurt and dying to self in reaching out in love to our hurting world?

Missional and mere christianity

I know the emerging church talks a lot about being missional but I wonder if I still see it in terms of my living my life to my preference on the one hand so hanging out with people like me or trying to make my faith community the one of choice [cos we're so right?]. 

I guess the challenge I feel about being missional is to value faith communities and see it as not wanting to be a competitor - mission should not be my church wins at the expense of your church, but how as the body of Christ in an area can we work together. Recognition that between our different traditions we have more in common that divides us and that we have something to rally around, being hope, love, light, action in a world.

In that sense I think it is something communal and not just about something that is about who I like to hang out with.  Yes being missional is cultural/contextual but it is something formed/breathed by the creator/spirit/Word - our faith is not just about souls but about the resurrection of the physical body and therefore being missional also involves as concern/care about the material world and material beings that inhabit it...

The c0-missional church is about reaching outwards to help the world we live in but it is also one that  holds to the ancient creeds and traditions of the faith - where possible we should seek to build on the common ground that we share, to be focused on the mission of God and be moved by the compassion of Christ as suffering servants we reach out with/through/in him to heal this planet. 

To that end I think I need to embrace deep church (or mere christianity as Lewis called it in the end) - to be positive about the church in all its forms and traditions, whether ancient, medieval, modern or post-modern.  More than that I need to welcome its diversity and celebrate its different forms of which I am only one part and not a very significant one either and yet we share a common tradition and heritage where we have much more in common than we have differences.

Intentionally incarnational and icons

One of the challenges in being missional is the where/when/whom - I am wired in a certain way that makes me able to connect with some more than others - so where can I be intentional about being incarnational and embodying Jesus? There are some very obvious places that I forget sometimes like in my marriage, with my kids and in work and there are others that I have had the privilege of connecting on various blogs and resulting conversations... I am excited where a whole new year will take me.

I think it is also great to be able to provide the communities that we interact in not only a visible apologetic within our own lives but within the images/icons of God that we can connect them too, show them, let them experience. An icon after all is a visible image that helps people connect/worship God so I am also challenged about what I do as an individual and as a community to create icons that connect with people and let them encounter Jesus where it is through works of love/service to art/creativity. I am not talking about worshipping the icon but allowing the icon to act as a sign and a place of encounter, common ground that can become holy ground. It is good to remember that the holy spirit is active in both us and in the world and we are creatively made in God's own image - it is he who breathes life into creation and inhabits/indwells and we share the joy in providing space for him to walk through the room...

Questioning and questing

I am on a quest to seek the kingdom of God first, to live out the wish/will of God of seeing this done on earth like it is in heaven.  It is an adventure and a slog, to quote dickens: "it is the best of times and it was the worst of times."  I will experience suffering, hardship,pain, frustration and failure as much as we encounter joy, companionship, support, love and care.  We get to see each other at our best and our worst and try to love each other in both states. 

This year I am challenged in my quest to love God with my mind - to read my bible more but also to study, to explore faith thinking  - a thinking faith that asks questions and seeks to find the answers to them as part of a community of God's people.  It maybe that I do not find comfortable answers for all my questions but to me I would rather have a live searching wrestling faith that is chasing after God - whether it is in the thinking/inspiration of those who have gone before, those who are in the now or wrestling with questions/thoughts that are still to come - than one which accepts the script of my faith as final and fully revealed.

I think to that end I need to continue to be honest, to expose myself, to make myself transparent and open to encouragement, spurring on and critique - to explore with the wider community of faith both past and present, to listen and converse.   I am inspired by enough of my past of being wrong about so much that I am no doubt going to be wrong about a lot - but that is one of the most exciting things, the fact that I know so little but am part of a faith community that is so rich in both thought and deed.  So that more that just intellectual ascent I am able to apply my faith to my life, to learn and practice together as a community knowing that we need God to help make this a reality, that there is a living connection which is life empowering and transforming.

So I am looking forward to getting things wrong and learning how to apologise, how to listen more and to have a faith that allows me to do so...

Justice and judgement (of self)

One of the reasons I am on this quest and asking questions is because I want to be engaged in social/economic/environmental/political justice - whilst I am all to aware of my own focus on my morality it is often that of focusing on "private" faith and "private" sins.  Indeed when I do sin it is often something about focusing it on me and my failures when sometimes it is appropriate to talk about the failure/sin of the environment I am in.  That may sound like trying to get me off the hook but I think there is something in that of escaping from the focus of MY and asking wider questions about the systems that I am consciously or unconsciously apart of and the effects it has on people?  Clearly there are obvious ones in terms of economic and environmental issues for instance where I can make ethical choices about my consumption which seek to make the world better but will cost me more to do so.

It is in my need to become God aware which means I should apply any judgement I make to myself first - search me oh God and show me where I am blocking out the light from someone else and help me change the systems I am in - maybe by becoming aware of them - to those of the kingdom of God.

I think it is therefore for me important to be in a confessional community that does not only confess to each other but then is involved in healing action - both internally and externally, that focuses not only on the private sins but also on those that are public and institutional within our western culture...

Your own epiphany?

Those are some of my hopes/dreams/mini epiphanies...so how about you?

My theological worldview... probably!

HT to Fernando for highlighting this quizz on theological worldview.  Fernando's pleasant surprise at finding himself in agreement with its outcome persuaded me to give it a whirl... and well these are my results...

Emergent/Postmodern 75% Neo orthodox 71% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 64% Roman Catholic 61% Charismatic/Pentecostal 39% Reformed Evangelical 39% Modern Liberal 39% Classical Liberal 25% Fundamentalist 18% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

I top scored as Emergent/Postmodern... "You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this."

Now I agree with most of that description, except I don't feel alienated from older forms of church and I feel that many do connect with modern culture... which of course will explain the high % connection with evangelical holiness and Roman Catholic (maybe that also explains why I am such a fan of deep church!).

My no. 2 was neo-orthodox described (from Fernando's as)... "rejecting the human-centredness and scepticism of liberal theology, but neither do you go to the other extreme and make the Bible the central issue for faith. You believe that Christ is God’s most important revelation to humanity, and the Trinity is hugely important in your theology. The Bible is also important because it points us to the revelation of Christ. You are influenced by Karl Barth and P T Forsyth.”  which is also very true and I agree with that as well...

At the end of the scale I am not at all very fundamentalist (maybe that comes from having been one and found to be wrong so often) nor very classically  liberal  - with a 3-way tie for the rest (modern liberal/evengelical and charismatic/pentecostal)...

If you take the test do let me know what you think and whether you agree with it or not?

The trial of trials...

My friend is writing a song about the Lord’s Prayer and since he wants to make it an excellent song he asked some people to critique it – unfortunately I am one of those the people he asked.  Seriously it is a song that moves me and engages me with God and I know for those of you with a musical bent I am being a real tease telling you all this…

Fortunately my gift is not in the art of crafting a good tune so I have not been able to mess with that but it has triggered off a good conversation on trials.  The song contains the lyric…

“…spare us from all trials”

Now I should clarify certain things before I proceed:

• This is a song based on the prayer and therefore inspired by it;
• The song is also inspired by the paraphrase in the Message and the writings of McLaren and Dallas Willard;
• I am no way in the same intellectual prowess of the last 3 writers;
• Oh and trials, Christian shorthand for those hard things in life, those things which are beyond us, involve suffering, generally not fun, testing etc

Did I say it was a great song?

Anywho the conversation that has arisen is on whether or not we should pray that God spares us from all trials or not – my thoughts on this tug of trials are below but do please read and join in with what you think?

Spare us from all trials….

At first hand it sounds like a no brainer, unless you are a extremely masochistic spiritual Rambo sort, shouting bring it on God, I can take -  then who of us wants trials?  Who of us wants to experience those churning times of doubts, that sick feeling of being alone, of misery, pain, sickness – where are world is shattered and that which we hold much dear is ripped from our grasp.  Who wants to feel powerless, helpless in the face of the careering juggernaut of trials driven by intoxicated fate/circumstance/destiny?

Is it not then eminently sensible to pray to God asking him to spare us from trials a concept that my friend did not make up himself but was inspired by the writings of Dallas Willard?

Is it not us being honest before God in admitting that we are not that tough as we like to make out? Is it also an admission that we are not as independent as we like to make out as well?   Is it not a confession of a reality beyond our own where God has some form/degree of influence, person and place shaping role, one that far exceeds our own influence?

Save us in our trials…

Forget spiritual Rambo’s is the other extreme that we are so soft that trials of any description knock our faith, erode it, how could a loving God let this happen to me, does he not care about my happiness, well being etc?  Are we so consumed with pain avoidance that to face pain sends us into denial, either of the circumstances with a God will make it all ok if I just believe hard enough (a sort of fingers in the ears, eyes tight shut na na na approach…) or by a rejection of our faith as one that does not care for me, if God can’t save me then I’m outta here to find something or someone who will…

The narrative of the bible is often one of people of God facing trouble, trials, suffering and their reaction to that – in fact some of the NT writers almost seem to love the idea of trials – consider it pure joy says James, but then again he sounds like he is echoing the words of Jesus himself – rejoice when persecuted… and we will have troubles.

Trials, troubles, sufferings seem then to be a part of our reality and therefore rather than being taken out of the world or granted some special protection as Christians it would seem that deciding to follow Christ can infact lead to increased troubles, pains and heart aches…

Now you might be seeing where my sensitivities lie in this debate, I am sure my bias is blatant above but if you are in any doubt I think that we need a theology and an expression of that which allows us to follow God in face of trials and sufferings – rather than to be spared from them (or maybe asking to be spared the excesses of them would be a fairer interpretation) that we are saved even in our trials – that we grow with Jesus, deepen our relationship and our faith…

Here are some thoughts:

1. Jesus the suffering servant – in Jesus we have the model of compassionate suffering, someone who rather than avoided/ran away from pain and trials, ran towards them and in his nailed spread arms on the cross embraced them…who provides for us a way through the cross to follow him in the face of disappointment, betrayal, pain, injustice, rejection, suffering and even death.  If we are a people of love we are going to suffer, we can not be about relationship without experiencing all the pains of that connection, in Jesus we have the inspiration and model.  Jesus was no Rambo though – in Gethsemane  he prayed three times for the cup to be passed from him, he went in with his eyes open and for me that expresses an even greater love, a deliberate choice to follow God even in the face of suffering.

2. Character – God might  be concerned with something more than just my happiness and that is my character.  It seems to me that all those spiritual ‘fruits’ we read of in the bible e.g. love, patience, kindness, mercy, generosity, self control, forgiveness, to name but a few, seem to develop more in me when I am going through a hard time.   I think precisely cos I am out of my comfort zone, I see how shallow and limited my own resources are.   Sometimes it even makes me turn to God, usually when my other coping mechanisms have run out.  Two examples:

• I remember the day when I lost my future in the company I worked for, I knew that the head honcho had just written me off as he told me – all my career high flying dreams gone in that moment and I remember just crying in the toilet repeating over and over ‘I tried so hard…’  A little later it struck me that I had tried so hard, given it all and failed and I felt a lil like the prodigal son in the story thinking maybe I’d be better off heading back to my heavenly father…

• the other story is learning in my marriage that love is about giving not getting, which was fine to say until Debs had post natal depression and then it was a real hard thing to actually live out – suddenly I found out just how selfish I am and how much I needed to grow my capacity to love as part of my dependence on God.

3. Community – I think that trials teaches us something else, that we can’t do life alone.  We need a place where we can be honest, where we can be seen at our best and worst and do life together.  More than that it is about me caring for others even as I go through my own trials – not waiting til I am all sorted but realising as part of the body of Christ I need to reach out as much as others are reaching out to me.

4. Mission – I think being blindsided on a wet Tuesday afternoon by the trials of life is not a uniquely Christian experience.   Look at the world we see disaster, injustice, acts of natural disaster and man made – does my faith crumple in the face of that or do I see again the mission of the suffering servant – of reaching out with Christ to embrace the hurt of the world, with Christ to have something of the healing – I don’t think there is a good apologetic for suffering but I do think we can share suffering, we can allow suffering to motivate us to bring out good, for prayer and action. 

Following Christ into a suffering world is the motivation for mission and indeed can lead to trials increasing in our own life as we are inconvenience, put upon, stretched, heart broken and mocked… It is in mission where we see the need for a community that shares and supports in suffering, it is in mission where the story of our transforming character and the hope we have in Christ gets told and encourages others in turn.

A growing christian - learning with lines and circles

From glory to glory - linear growth

Something that I am wrestling with is my previous model of expected christian growth looked like this:

or in other words I think I expected that the blue line would be the pattern of 'growth' in terms of knowledge, understanding and revelation of 'the truths' of my faith that would then impact my life and cause me to be more Christ like.  The pink line represents that for me I realised that God could intervene and increase the wisedom of my understanding of his revelation in such a way that my growth would be accelerate over time...

Unfortunatly the reality of my experience of 'growth' in terms of character and gifts was not at all exponetial or even linear like across the board - ok there were a few areas where for awhile - say the revelation and engagement with the Holy Spirit today where it felt exponential for awhile (but then I had a lot to catch up on) and as time went on I probably knew more christian things but it had little impact on growth for me as a christian.

I'm going in circles - from glory to gorey and back again

Whilst I acknowledge that there are times in life when I do hit a season of growth that takes me head knowledge up but also transforms my heart more, I tend for me to find that it looks less like a linear relationship/expectation and more like...

how a tree grows - depending on the season and the inflow of water, sunlight, nutrients etc  a tree grows outward at a faster /slower rate which can be measured.  Fo me this feels a lot more like how I grow - often I go round an issue again and again, each time i might grow faster or slower and there are often points where I think this is where I was a year ago or 5 yrs ago - because in one sense I haven't got very far in a linear direction - but as part of the growth of me as a person I have got a lot, hmmm, fatter, lol.

It also means that I am looking growth as having an outward impact rather than just focussing on the inputs and can think about what is the most appropriate form of input i need on this issue - is it better smarts, is it actually doing something, is it accountability to help keep me focussed etc?

I also feel that by changing this growth expectation helps me realise that growth is not just one dimensional or in one direction, it fits within the growth of me as a person.  It is the sort of growth style that I was thinking about when I was reflecting on when I drew a more holistic model of growth as disciple

Ok that's enough waffle from me (secretly pleased that I avoided the word organic :) - so I would love to hear from you, what is your growth style?  What image/metaphor do you use?  What have I missed do you think???

Interactions of my sexuality (and other parts) with objective truth, honest truth and The Truth (further reflections on chapter 1 of a New Kind of Christian)

One of the Qs from chapter 1 of a new kind of christian, that we discussed in our group exploration this week was a question about why if modernity was partly about the quest for pure truth(s) why do (some) modern christians find it hard to be honest.

I found this a particularly engaging question as I was one of those modern christians who whilst engaging in defending and protecting the 'truths' of my faith was chronically unable to be honest with my feelings, confusions, fears etc.  It seemed to be that there was a polarisation between honesty, which meant a confession of why aren't these truths working harder to pure truth - which if I could grasp would transform me. 

Maybe I was just a classic example of faking it until I could make it but for the rest of this post I'd like to explore a little about truth and not least, where I believe the Truth resides, in communal, self disclosing relationship with Jesus (Truth) and with those who follow him.