One for the road...

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...

Love the sinner...love the sinner: sexuality, sin and christian leadership

I still am thinking about christianity and sexual ethics - but this strand of thought is how far we allow sexually sinful people into the church - how much do they have to believe before they can belong and more than that, what level of moral perfection is needed to be achieved before they can start to lead...

My musings are inspired this time:

first by Jamie Arpin-Ricci's powerfully honest and beautiful post about his own struggles with feeling attracted to people of the same sex, which if you haven't read it then please check it out Jamie's personal reflection here and his follow up here; and

second this really thought provoking post by Shannon on is black still black and white still white.  I have lots of thoughts on Shannon's post but i think to write them there would be churlish, i don't want to litter his blog with my half formed thinking - and when you're a guest it is not polite to leave wet towels all over the bathroom!  I understand where Shannon is  coming from, it is the script that i have spent most of my life reading off of but am now starting to wonder how much is just my evangelicalism speaking and how much of it really is Jesus...

The question is that classic one of whether to allow gay people to become leaders  - Shannon suggests the position that i am most familiar with of gays being able to come to church but not allowed to lead- just as say a church wouldn't allow  a [serial] adulterer to be a leader etc...

But i am left wondering at what level do we allow sinners into leadership - after all i am guessing that such restrictions on leadership are not placed on people who think lustful thoughts, who find it hard to forgive, who feel pride, gluttony, addictions to work etc etc?  We seem to send out the message that leaders should be morally pure, upstanding examples of the sinless Jesus...

Or maybe i've just the point somewhere along the line?

i'm presuming leadership is not someone walking through the door and being promoted to snr pastor on the spot - but one that has a whole lot of variable roles - and therefore if i am gay i can't lead in any of them, even though God might have given me the gift because being gay is a sin, but if i gossip then that's ok cos that's more acceptable - or is it?

If i was gay and came to such a church i think i'd hear that most loved refrain of heh we love you we just hate your sin - which to the speaker is mighty comforting to tick that loving box but to the listener it sounds like heh i'd like to love you but you're a sinner - we don't love your kind round here...

If i was gay and came to such a church i don't think i would tell anyone that i was, i'd say heh as soon as i do i won't get to use my leader gifts and they are as much a part of me as my sinful nature - but it that is gonna hold me back from serving God then why do i need to reveal that - or bisexual in the sad case of someone who did that and rose right to the top of his denominational tree before stumbling once too often...

In fact i am not sure me with all my struggles with my own sexuality would not have got far in such a church - which was why i never told anyone for yrs and struggled so much - and yes i was in leadership.  in fact when i started sharing my struggles i was asked to stay in leadership which surprised me but allowed me to model honesty, confession, grace and love and to see people come out a little from behind their own masks...

I know from my evangelical back ground that faith is a private matter and that the sins we get most het up about are those obvious private ones - and seemingly minority ones - like sexuality when it is revealed in public, not when it starts off with a lustful look...

I wonder though when we will also scrutinise our own institutions and ask ourselves how much our 'right' actions prolong and promote sin?  How do are black and white rules that ride coach and horses through grace?  Does the system we operate whilst looking righteous actually encourage sin?  Do we ask people to live to the laws that we say are important and define what they are and how they apply and therefore deny them the grace that they were promised when they decided to orientate their lives around Jesus in the first place?

I say we cos i think i am as much a part of the problem here as anyone else in the evangelical church - we do our pharisee bit in the most complimentary way, we are zealous for God, we are passionate about his word, we espouse high moral life and then maybe we wonder why our churches are such shiny happy places for shiny happy well scrubbed people who play the game, manage our sin and say thank goodness we have rules in the bible and we get to enforce them...

But our we missing out on something - if what we focus on determines what we miss then by focusing on sexuality we let a whole lot of other sins slip by... by focusing on law we let a whole lot of grace slip by...

I'm not saying that snr church leaders should not show maturity of character, a commitment to follow Christ etc but wouldn't it be great if we also had leaders who were able to grow by being honest, by confessing, by sharing their struggles and fears with the fear of being disbarred, banned, or sacked?  What would that do to us to learn about mercy and grace, to experience them and to have leaders who have grown up in their faith immersed in them? 

Maybe we need to check that script again and possibly start to think of getting a new one, as for me the same old lines just aren't working...

What/who is sunday church service for?

When reviewing my blogging year I found this post in drafts of a conversation I had with my friend Tim on sunday church back in Feb, so i thought  i'd post it now...

Ah Snoopy providing a  good reminder to keep it humble and that I could well be wrong, something particularly relevant for this post...

I thought it might be interesting to reflect the thought of who the sunday church service is for in a conversation I had with my friend Tim...  As always he provokes top conversation, thought and action...

Tim:

“Maybe this is the key to understanding what we should be doing, as we've been talking about things. In the western sense of healing, there is an end to the process, and it should be achieved as quickly as possible. That why find putting hands on people easier than living with their hurt and pain, and finding healing together.

Maybe the church should be about maximum relationship/minimum berating and prescription. In essence we have the prescription when we choose to believe. If we truly start down the path, then God will help us - and we'll all be at different places - so to have an inclusive church you almost have to abandon the continual congregational teaching model as for most of the people there, it will be irrelevant 95% of the time. My experience is that most church teachers will aim the talk squarely at the lowest common denominator - the new Christian - and go from there. And to me that makes sense, why alienate new people when you know that the regulars will just put up with it.”

Paul:

“…isn’t that being prescriptive about what church should be?

Says the Devil’s Advocate in me…

And what about the 5% of the time when God walks through the room for you? And if that 5% happens for a couple of people each wk… is it still worth the sacrifice for the rest of us?  Or should that maybe fuel our worship and focus our prayers? What if for those few people it involves God using me or thee or any other ordinary Jo/e and can occur at any moment, whilst gathered together, triggered by any word, action, love either we express, they feel or God moves in either…

Could the church service aim possibly be a hint of the discipline of helping the weakest, giving up the right to something more profound so that we can do the most profound thing and turn back and help the weakest in our midst… the discipline of serving rather than the me me me and my consumer needs to be filled?”

Tim:

“I knew you'd say that... Sorry.

But then isn't everything - even telling them they have to deal with the weakest etc.

What about Paul telling us to get onto solid food, rather than sticking with the milk. Everyone will say, then get it elsewhere. I say yes - so thus I'll go elsewhere. But our worship isn't singing - it's offering our bodies as living sacrifices ala Romans 12:1 (unless there's something else about worship). Is not the way is it prescriptive anyway.

We've been here before..."

Paul:

“Sorry I couldn’t resist – it appealed to my prescription in context is not always bad streak – especially when the context is Christ in action…

Maybe we have a prescriptive God where – Christ like character leads to Christ like action… imitators of Christ or some such wording that Paul uses…

And maybe it’s not just in the telling but the doing… or as someone said the words, works and wounds of Christ…

As for Paul and milk/meat – the context escapes me without checking but I wonder if that echoes what I was saying about us showing maturity in sacrificing our wants for the milk drinkers…”

Tim:

Well, here you go - and it makes reasonably good most of the points... Hebrew 5:11-14

11We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Paul:

Ah, so what does that mean for you in being salt n light – action and reflection?

Tim:

Well, whatever the righteous life is, I don't have it

Paul:

What makes you so sure you don't?

New Kind of Christian chapters 4 & 5: At the turn of the tides...

I have been summarising the chapters of Brian McLaren's book 'A new kind of Christian' which we are reading and discussing in the midweek home gathering that I belong too.  Here are my thoughts on chapters 4 & 5...

Chapters 4 & 5 are best read together and cover a lecture that Neo gives to some evangelical college students (chapter 4) and their Qs (chapter 5).

The crux of Neo’s lecture is that as with the change from the medieval period into the modern one that there are significant cultural, social, political, scientific and economic changes in both the 15th and 20th centuries that means the tide has changed in the west and a new phase of cultural identity is breaking upon us. 

As with the tide I would say  that we cannot be Canute’s and order it to turn back, nor on the other hand should we be swept out to sea, lost in the currents of societal change and transition.  We need to learn not only how to swim but to know the shore line, understand the new ocean and that can only come from transformation by the Spirit from within and his navigation without.

For one excellent discussion on area raised with regard to chapter four may I recommend to this post and discussion by my friend and fellow small group member, Mark.

Practical Qs explored...

Are focus on chapter 5 was to move away from the theoretical for a moment and ask the question what does this mean for us and for our church…

Post modern - like learning a new language?

I suggested the metaphor of a learning a new language –we often read it as modernity and anti-modernity instead of post-modernity. Post doesn’t mean bad but what comes after and of course that means its built on a foundation of modernity.

I think we need to discover the joys of being bilingual - our children can do it I am sure but I think we struggle at the moment to be fluent in postmodernity - we keep switching back to modernity, translating it and then putting into a postmodernity style.

My wife who is a better linguist than I am tells me that you know you are fluent in another language when you can think in it without translating it back to your first tongue, so I have a long way to go.

I think it is why we react against modernity sometimes and yet struggle with postmodernity - the language of modernity is not adequate and yet we are not fluent enough to express what we mean in a postmodern context either…

lol, it’s is exciting but also frustrating at the same time, why structure and imagination are both good things - after all a language without a structure of how to write it called grammar would be a mare but without dreams, ideas, engagement to express using that language it would be very dull and technical… or in other words we read a great story and are inspired but we hardly notice the structure that allows us to enter in and participate across the pages…

What is cultural vineyard and what is post-modern about Vineyard Church Sutton?

This was an interesting discussion, in part having a perspective of experiencing a modern UK vineyard church and a more post modern one (thinking of the faith community that we belong to, Sutton Vineyard), a different experience from some folk who had come from a more traditional evangelical denomination.  I have put some musings below, which are my own rather than anything official/binding (click on table for larger image):

 

Passing on the story

One concern that was raised was about whether we miss out on something by not have a more expository style of preaching – are we in other words bible-lite and suffering for it in terms of not being shaped by the God of the book as the community of the book.  One thing I find fascinating about Jason is that he is super theologically minded (doctorate and all) but that his sermons are in the vineyard tradition of staring where people are in life rather than starting with a bible text.  To listen to Jason’s teaching, I think, when you are aware of the story of the book is to here it echoed, explained and put into a context we can not only understand but also apply, even when we don’t realise how often it is filtered through and steeped in the bible (for example see my thoughts on Jase's brill kingdom of God series). 

I have also reacted to the thought that we need more bible preached is often by those who know the bible well themselves and have experienced that style and enjoy that form of engagement – I am not sure we need more bible preached in the classic sense of the word but maybe more bible lived, internalising its truths and reproducing them in thought, word and deed.  One of the hard things about the modern approach to bible preaching for me is that we have used it judge the world rather than letting the God of the book judge us – so we wonder about the few remaining taboo areas like gays where we are hyper critical and all for a bible based bashing whereas we are super uncritical of issues equally destructive like gossip or holding a grudge against our brother/sister.

One thing that struck me though as we forge forward into a post-modern world is how do we communicate the stories of the bible to our children?  We who were shaped by systematic Sunday school classes and then systematic preaching had this laid out for us – church was designed to equip us with knowledge and to that end it succeeded well.  The post-modern milieu would seem to be allowing us to be generous/gracious but to maybe not so deeply immersed in the stories of the book and connecting that with our ongoing story today.

Playlist for chapters 4 & 5

1. What if  (Coldplay)
2. Comes a time (Nada Surf)
3. Desire (Ryan Adams)
4. Lost souls (Doves)
5. City of blinding lights (U2)

A leaf that never knew it was part of a tree: a personal reflection about emergent/emerging church and my faith journey... (parts I-III)

I have collated my recent trilogy of  posts for my article into a Word doc (Download a_leaf_that_never_knew_it_was_part_of_a_tree.doc ) for those who prefer this medium... comments still very welcome.  Next stage will be a re-read next week and some re-editing of my own.  Now done so I have updated the document to its final submitted form.

Book and film rights still very much up for sale :)

A leaf that never knew it was part of a tree: a personal reflection about emergent/emerging church and my faith journey... (part III)

I have been asked to submit a piece for consideration to be published in new Emergent (UK) Magazine.  This is final part (III), well all the best things come in trilogies.  You can read Part I here and Part II here.  I’d really appreciate your honest feedback/comments/discussion on anything that you think would improve this (content/readability/structure etc).

Finding a forest called emergent?

“I think I should speak now (why won't you talk to me)
I can't seem to speak now (you never talk to me)
My words won't come out right (what are you thinking)
I feel like I'm drowning (What are you feeling)
I'm feeling weak now (why won't you talk to me)
But I can't show my weakness (you never talk to me
I sometimes wonder (what are you thinking)
Where do we go from here (what are you feeling)” Keep Talking, Pink Floyd

As I said in the introduction it is hard to point at the emerging church, it is not so much a denomination or a movement but rather a collective co-operative complement, exploring theology and practice.  It is therefore hard to point attribute how I first began to engage in that conversation.  I suspect it was a stumble in cyberspace or a tip-off from a friend that led me to find that the whispers I heard in me were in full blown conversation, I realised that this leaf had discovered the following ways of seeing the trees.

A leaf that never knew it was part of a tree: a personal reflection about emergent/emerging church and my faith journey... (part II)

I have been asked to submit a piece for consideration to be published in new Emergent (UK) Magazine.  This is part II, you can read Part I here.  I’d really appreciate your honest feedback/comments/discussion on anything that you think would improve this (content/readability/structure etc). 

Echoes of trees

“I like the sound of my own voice, I didn’t give anyone else a choice, an intellectual tortoise, racing with your bullet train” All because of You, U2

For most of my life I grew up in a leaf pile that was made up of leaves like me, we were all the same shape and colour, we agreed that we were what leaves should look like and there was no thought of trying to go back to life on a tree or indeed that there were any other leaves other than our own.   A Christian that did not conform to our shape was a leaf in transition, either becoming like us or was once like us but had decayed and crumpled.  We were pretty sure that life in the leaf pile was a life of safety, together we were protected, a leaf venturing out on its own in the forest might get blown who knows where.

Thoughts on the how of (blog) conversation...

Rather than reproducing my thoughts here, please allow me to kill 2 birds and direct you here to the blog 'Adventures in mercy 'to read some considerations on the subject.  Thus  allowing you the pleasure for your self of discovering Molly and her excellent blog as well as contributiong your own thoughts and insights to the conversation...

Moments that have helped me walk humbly with my God...

One of the ways in which I often sum up what being a Christian means/does/is is to quote an ancient prophet Micah, who summarised what God had commanded thus:

But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do,
   what God is looking for in men and women.
It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
   be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously—
   take God seriously.

I admit that I have often taken myself far too seriously, that I have acted as God's protector and argued out of fear of my own faith being undermined, of some sort of domino theory with be being the guardian of orthodoxy.  I have been proud, boastful, arrogant - quick to anger and ridicule anyone who I thought was in dangering themselves or anyone else with a different view other than my own particular conservative take on God.   It was something that was a proud tradition in the church I attended, we knew so much about the bible, knew clearly were everyone else was in error, were so confident that we as the faithful were pure.  Our theology...

the product driven church?

If there is a danger that I live a product driven life, and if I am not alone in doing so, then it might not be surprising to find this being reflected in product driven churches.  What product? why the purveying and consuming of religious goods and services...

Now I know that most churches this does not apply too - but then i know that i have turned up as a consumer in the past as well - so it might happen still in the present... where customer base (visitors), loyal customers (regulars) and market position (denomination) and market differentation (the range of ministries/products) - become the focus of what is important...

I know that there is an ethos that doing something should be done well but this culture of excellence can become more about market place position and product differentiation to attract new customers.  Take something like music – whilst it’s great to have a good band, how good does that band have to be?  Where does the law of diminishing returns kick in – whereby for each increment of additional quality some is dropped as they can’t make the new level… or more practices are needed with the impact on the quality of life etc…

And what is the impact/gain – to most people there is a fairly low threshold for what is good enough to sing along with… after that any one who is new to the church experience is probably so surprised that its not some bearded guy crooning kumbya with a rainbow guitar strap that there threshold is probably even lower – so who does the extra quality attract – why us church consumers who appreciate the slick performance, can contrast it to a whole back log of entertaining shows – “heh do you remember ASBO 04 week B” – “oh yeah awesome worship…” We love the slick performance, the flash gear and the awesome tunes – contrast it to our own rainbow guitar strapped musicians and decide its time to change churches…

And replicate that consuming experience across every other aspect of church on a Sunday – the preaching is shorter/better/deeper/more real (delete as appropriate)… the spirit flows freer/faster/more profoundly… the kids work so much more advanced/interactive/has kids… the coffee/tea/selection of hot beverages rocked… etc etc

Maybe the same answer applies to me here as in my last post – in me serving…loving…caring…reaching out to others – in being not so keen to be marketing the Christian excellence experience but in experiencing the Christian life