Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

Explaining Church as way of being with AI’s help

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I recently did a podcast for Youthscape which timed in well with a lot of thinking I have been doing recently about the nature of church. my amazing friend Paul Rose gave some great thoughts that’s set my mind going on why knowledge (epistemological) based approaches to defining church are such a stumbling block. I think much of what I was arguing for in Here Be Dragons was a more ontological approach but At the time I hadn’t really encountered enough embodied theology and practice to start to frame it well. As Rachel and Martin said I use a lot of long words I thought I might just explain the ontological approach a bit more here. And then I thought as it was youth focussed and I’m into co-creation why not use the latest tech to help. So  I asked ChatGPT Ai to write it for me in the style of Sunday Papers blogpost and here with a few edits is what was created.

I think my shift reflects the growing interest among theologians and religious scholars in the use of an ontological approach and towards a deeper consideration of the fundamental nature of reality, and a rejection of the dualistic thinking that has long dominated Western thought. Part of what we learnt from being and doing church young people and Flow was we needed a different embedded joined up approach, and this was where we were heading in Here Be Dragons with sobornost.

At its heart, an ontological approach to the church emphasizes the importance of being and existence, rather than simply knowledge and understanding. While the epistemological approach tends to focus on the intellectual aspects of faith – what we know, what we believe, and how we come to know it – the ontological approach looks beyond these cognitive processes to consider the very nature of the church itself, and the role it plays in the world.

One of the key benefits of an ontological approach is that it allows us to move beyond the limitations of language and conceptual thinking. Too often, our understanding of the church is shaped by our attempts to put it into words – to define it, categorize it, and understand it within a particular framework. However, this can often lead to a narrow and limited understanding of what the church really is, and what it can be.

By adopting an ontological approach, we can begin to see the church as a dynamic, living entity that is constantly evolving and changing over time. Rather than trying to pin it down with definitions and concepts, we can appreciate the church in all its complexity, and recognize the many different ways in which it can manifest itself in the world.

Moreover, an ontological approach to the church allows us to move beyond the traditional boundaries of religious affiliation and denomination. Rather than seeing the church as a set of beliefs or practices that are unique to a particular group, we can recognize that the church exists in many different forms and contexts, and that it has the potential to transcend the divisions that often separate us.

Of course, an ontological approach is not without its challenges. It requires us to embrace uncertainty and ambiguity, and to acknowledge that our understanding of the church will always be limited by our own experiences and perspectives. However, these challenges are precisely what make the ontological approach so valuable – by embracing the unknown and the unknowable, we open ourselves up to a deeper and more meaningful relationship with the church, and with the divine.

In conclusion, the adoption of an ontological approach to the church represents an important step forward in our understanding of what it means to be religious and spiritual in the modern world. By focusing on being and existence, rather than simply knowledge and understanding, we can move beyond the limitations of language and conceptual thinking, and appreciate the church in all its complexity and diversity. So let us embrace this approach, and open ourselves up to a deeper and more profound experience of the divine.

The Ai bit ends here.

once the podcast goes fully live on the site I might say a bit more why I think how the epistemological approach showed up in the podcast discussion and how it can inoculate us from change.

 

It is possible to feel more than one emotion at once

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I wanted to write about what I’m observing in the Queens passing. This remarkable woman won me over, her dedication, faith, life of service was inspiring. She hasn’t turned me into a royalist or an advocate of the monarchy and that’s ok, it’s entirely possible to feel more than one emotion at the same time. In my case feeling a deep grief at the passing of a wonderful inspiring figure and feeling grieved that how the process has drowned out voices calling for greater equality at a time of such need. These mixed feeling are accompanied by a sense of bewilderment at how strongly the soft power implicit in cultural hegemony* is being played out so that any alternative voice is shouted down, arrested or demonised.
Obviously at times those dissenting any dominant system are subject to critic, and at times like this it is easy to write off dissenters, especially when the language used is abrupt and inconsistent with the grace needed by those feeling a sense of grief and loss. But never in my lifetime has there been a greater need to address the gap between the rich and poor. The cost of living crisis will never be solved by the crumbs from tables of the rich but only by overturning the tables. Just think about how we saw huge increases in the price of petrol and diesel that a few years sparked protest but now are just accepted. We are about to see the same thing happen with gas and electricity. In part it is cultural hegemony that enables this. The momentum built by valuing key workers during lockdown, and conversations that were just beginning to posit alternative ways of being, the strikes for living wages that were supported by the populace have all been hijacked by a narrower narrative that says we cant feel more than one thing at the moment, we can’t have a conversation about the injustice at the same time as grieving the loss of someone important and loved by so many people.
So we are going through a reinforcement of cultural hegemony like never before, and Liz Truss’ proposed tour with the new king is just the start, that if we don’t find a way to have a better conversation will keep the poor poor, make the rich richer, see pensioners dying in their own homes, kids go to school with empty bellies, while we sleepwalk into a new an era where nothing has really changed except a figurehead at the top.

 

if you’re not sure what cultural hegemony is or how it works visit HERE

Let there be an invitation

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When I think about how my faith and practice is formed, there are number of angles but each perspective has at it heart an invitation to a journey, an offer alongside others to co-create a better world. At the heart of lots of the key tools, or practices, that I have written about is the notion of collaboration not to create out of nothing but to co-create with what ever fish I hold and what ever bread the other carries. These concepts are embedded in community work through Asset based approaches, Youth ministry through particpation, Fresh Expressions through listening, and the emerging church through the resistance of power.  In fact they are embedded in the faith itself, in the earth, in the Beloved, since before the beginning of time.

Our past flows into our present reality and we tend to read the creation story from the position of power, reinforced by the idea of divine omnipotence  and the notion of humanity as the pinnacle so we see the statement “let there be” as a command. What if it was more complex, and it is a language of invitation of participation. This is much easier to see when we embrace the fullness of God revealed through the Trinity in the creation story. The Spirit hovers over the waters and enlivens the cosmos, joins with the Christ who participates and sows seeds, and the Beloved issue an invitation “Let there be light”. And there was light, and the God of Love responds with delight seeing it good and invites the elements to collaborate to bring forth life, and animals, and fish, and they do. So the Beloved sparks co-creation, encourages transformation and we begin dance in divine solidarity with the Beloved and the creation who continues to invite us to participate in the ongoing co-creative process.

The Mixed Ecology Trellis – a watershed moment?

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Over the past few months I have been using an innovation technique of Pitch and Exhibit to further my thinking on Pioneering and Church. What has become clear over the past week or so is that what has been emerging as fresh expressions, and pioneering expressions of church has matured and is now firmly part of the landscape of the church in the UK and consequently we need a better way to describe the mixed ecology of church that is now present in so many communities and spaces. We have long said that Time Honoured church and Fresh Expressions have distinct needs, but we also know that they need each other. If pioneers have the gift of not fitting in, when we also see them as being a gift to the church, conversations and practice take a creative turn. We have experienced this in Cumbria and in my previous post I failed to adequately recognise just how far we have come. It is clear through church history that both modal and sodal expressions of church are required to help everyone flourish but more than that, when there are good relationships between the two, significant cultural systemic change could be achieved.  I think we are very close to a watershed moment where we can observe the church Cumbria and in places beyond and really begin to shed light on what a mixed ecology of church might look like and how it interconnects and relates to one another. The image below is an attempt to capture this. You can find a larger image as a jpeg HERE or  in a PDF here

A few things to say about the Trellis:

  • We have been reaching for a more organic image than the spectrum and I hope this captures more the ecological element and interconnectedness of the Mixed Ecology. You can’t see it amazingly well as I need to fade it but there is a vine that weaves and interconnects across the different elements, traditions and approaches. This is to try and help people see this in a more patterned and less linear way.
  • We have deliberately moved away from and taken out the specific pioneer words, recognising that we are in a new space. We all have parts to play and we are one Church in many expressions with different gifts and need one another. This is not to say pioneer language is redundant indeed it remains critical in creating the space and continued imagination we need in the institution to reach the breadth and diversity of the communities serve.
  • We have removed the sense of Venn circles for a more fluid and interconnected approach.
  • The left hand arrow is deliberately split into two to capture the learning from the original pioneer spectrum that at some point(s) we need a distinct and deliberate shift in posture if we are to reach deeper into our cultural context. This is particularly the case as you move towards Innovation and Activism.
  • Accommodators has been one of the words we have wrestled with. It is meant as generous space makers, leaders who see that Time honoured and Fresh Expressions need each other. Accommodators are leaders who are secure enough to let others flourish and generous enough to let people go to new places they may never travel, but nourish and support them. Accommodators are not those begrudgingly making room for new things, but those who set people free to build the kingdom in the now and not yet.

I have said “we” in the wording above as the pitch and exhibit approach I have used means this has been developed collaboratively and I am grateful to all who have contributed over the past months and weeks. There is a lot to be said about the relationship between the spaces and particularly about the relationship between the centre and edge. Indeed I would even say the language of centre and edge is now problematic as  in a mixed ecology centres and edges are hard to find but that’s for another blogpost.

 

Connecting the pioneer spectrum to the mixed ecology

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With some other pioneers in Cumbria I’ve been thinking out loud about how we embed pioneering more into the systems. This meant having to do some thinking about what a #mixedecology of church might look like, how it fits together, and how this connects with some of the other research out there on things like how receptive people are to church etc. it’s still a work in progress and all models are wrong but some are helpful. I’m really grateful to Paul and Tina for their work on the pioneer spectrum that in some ways built on a few ideas about a typology of church I developed here.  This attempt draws on some of that typology and takes the spectrum idea but expands it for the mixed ecology. I’m still not sure where hermits and other things fit but here’s my starter. The first image was where we started here in Cumbria. You

This second image is an attempt to capture some of the wider research on peoples views of church and potential reach, building on some of our research as part of our Reaching Deeper project. You can see a larger version here 

The valley in the hand.

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If I have any known knowns it is the reality of Jesus, who walks before, beside and behind me, who encompasses me and who is good news to the depths of my soul. It is a soul knowledge where definition of who, and how, of why and what fade into insignificance. It is soul experience of love and care, of positive regard and compassion beyond feelings or formulas. It is a soul space where deep meets deep with an acceptance that is unconditional and independent of schemas and systems and a call that is too easily reduced to a method and corrupted into a mechanism. Yet we in our human frailty rely on these methods, definitions, systems and schemas to try to communicate something of that reality that we experience.

We hold stardust in our souls but our words are grains of sand slipping through our fingers. We feel such welcome in our being but offer a coir mat stamped with a word that cannot possibly convey the depth of acceptance we know. Our minds are expanded and neurons fizz with an energy that is beyond logic but we offer a recipe that can only be a bland version of the delights we know.

So how do we share this good news, how might we convey that deeply held known? What can do justice to the story that jumped off the page, out of pulpit, beyond the building and calls all walls to dust? Might we simply live and try to tell the tale more honestly, more openly bearing witness to the questions we still have and in doing so communicate the deeper truth beyond. Can we seek out the deep soul sparks in others to listen and learn. Might we let go of our formulas, systems, equations, to be still and still moving as we journey with others and the Other within the lifeline etched like a valley in the palm of Christs hand.

Building velocity

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From SpaceX via Unsplash

Today I spotted Apprentice to Jesus, which was initiated by the wonderful Cannon Chris Neal. Chris was an amazing human, who had a huge impact on my thinking and ministry, not least because he coined the phrase “gravitational pull” in relation to pioneering in the institution. He would talk about the gravitational pull of inherited church as a double wrapped paradigm. There’s the culture/tradition that has been placed around the original (dissenting)idea as one layer ie the way we do things around here. Then the second structural layer of leadership hierarchy etc. Chris used to say pioneer projects need enough velocity to break that gravitational pull. Like a rocket needs the boost to break gravity and head towards the moon until the moon starts to pull it forward. I hope I will always have the courage to ride with the Holy Spirit or hang on to her coattails towards the new. However I wanted to reflect on the years since Chris’ passing some of the lessons that I have learnt that may help us reach the velocity needed.

Theres five ways I have identified so far to help create the velocity needed to break the gravitational pull. The first is the heretical imperative (and I’ve played with idea countless times across this blog) but today’s orthodoxy is yesterday’s heresy and a way into this is to embrace the pioneers on the edge and those pioneering beyond the boundaries. In Cumbria we have been gifted with some amazing pioneers on the margins following the Holy Spirit into new places as they reach new people and discovering new ways of thinking and theological insight as they go. This is the gift of the 3rd space fXs.
The second is the need for Authority dissenters (those in power in the system) to work with and release the Pathfinding Dissenters. Like the rocket needs the tower at the point of lift off and the people back at base (think Apollo 13 With images of the people behind the screens) helping the rocket break out we need the space and and support to get going, keep going and break out. It’s even better if you can launch several rockets from different spaces at the same time or spot those that may have already launched.

So the third is to network pioneers who are following the spirit into new things as the old system is dying. This network is vital in building the resilience needed, as things get tougher and the pioneers travel further out. But we need to watch this (see previous post). However through the network and community created pioneers can build the resilience needed to get through the ceiling whilst the old is dying and dream together of new ways. Connected to this is my fourth area which I think is something about scale and momentum, telling the stories of these pioneers and realising this isn’t some random one off but taps into the tradition of new life, of seeds dying, new wine skins that is happening all around us if we only have the eyes to see.

Lastly we need to recover our dissenting traditions, recover that history, and find stories from the tradition that fuels and connect the current pathfinders with the pathfinders of old. And here I don’t just mean those early saints or desert fathers and mothers, but more recent pathfinders in the tradition, and every tradition has them, for some it’s those dissenters that were part founding story like Wesley in Methodist, for others it’s pioneers who were misunderstood at the time, like Dorothy Day, Guteriezz, Punton or Rawnsley. Knowing our founding stories and finding those who have pioneered locally in the past is rocket fuel.

And as helpful (or not) as these reflections maybe as Chris would always remind us it does come back to being an apprentice of the master Jesus the pathfinder and perfector of our faith.

Lets dare to be the Mixed Ecology of church

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As I wrestled with the non-dualist ways of being missional church I was seeing in and through my practices with young people back in the late 1990s and 2000s, I became a big fan of Walter Brugemann’s work and particularly his work on orientation, disorientation and reorientation in the Psalms. This alongside Hegel’s thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis, and Paul Ricour’s work on naïveté, complexity and recalibration, this flow and process started to give me a language and frame of reference for the less dualist way of being that I was sensing and observing in the emerging church. Then through my post-grad I stumbled onto the idea of an emerging Habitus that Bourdieu identifies as something that emerges as an interplay between free will and structures and is developed over time. Habitus is shaped by both past events, present practices and our ideas (perceptions) of these events and practices. ie coherence (reorientation, synthesis, recalibration) emerges through the process. In this sense habitus is created and reproduced unconsciously ‘without any deliberate pursuit of coherence… without any conscious concentration’ see here for more info.

Both the national church of england (here) and in our county we are looking to become a deeper mixed ecology of church. I have two thoughts on this. Firstly it seems entirely natural and in line with the flow and process I first saw in Brugemann and more recently in Richard Rohrs work on Order, Disorder and Reorder – Institutional church, Emerging church to Mixed Ecology. It’s pattern we see through church history and before throughout the scriptures, all of which is very positive. However, my second observation is how much we lose when we try to organise, and how an emerging habitus comes without conscious concentration. So I find myself caught between a place of concern and hope. A concern that the mixed ecology become a bit like Bonhoeffer’s saying “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.” A hope that the hard work of the emerging habitus of mixed ecology is sufficiently embedded and that we are in this new place of metaphor and symbol, of connectivity, of Time honoured and Fresh Expressions of church, and not seek to return to a modernist approach that categorises what is happening as the mixed ecology. But live in the spirit with her daring mixed ecological metaphors of wind and water that resist categorisation, control and keep us humble and always emerging.

Post pandemic expressions of church needed with younger people

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Pandemics are not a new phenomena, and Dr Nicholas Christakis suggests several patterns can be observed in society as we pull out of pandemic situations. Exploring these, here are a few observations the church should heed to be alive in 2021 and beyond.

Firstly, whilst all the stats suggest people will not return to church gatherings in anything like the numbers pre pandemic, and this decline will continue, it will be initially masked by the huge desire people have for what Christakis calls “extensive social interaction”. Like the rise of online interactions saw with churches moving online, we must not be fooled into a false sense of security that everything is going to be fine post pandemic. The predicted increase of religiosity which is usually seen, during the pandemic was played out in the rise of online visitors, and hopefully some churches will be able to build on these relationships and capitalise on the desire for interaction as lockdown eases during late 2021, but it is unlikely to stick. Beyond 2022 and going forward the nature of the social interaction observed after previous pandemics is more hedonistic in nature, so it is unlikely people will look to the church spaces as a point for gathering longer term, particularly young people. So the impact for stronger decline with an already aging profile of traditional church shouldn’t be underestimated.

However I am hopeful that the desire for social interaction accompanied by the more conscious awareness of millennials (I know there’s generalisation issues here) will provide an opportunity for the church to connect through its myriad of great social action and social interaction initiatives, such as Toddler groups. But churches will need to shift their approach to attract this group and engage them beyond the social space and the critical posture that needs to be adopted is that of missional humility. The need for this missional humility should not be underestimated when we consider the rise of Trump, his evangelical alignment and the months people have had to think more deeply about who they are and how they want to be. So perhaps we need to plan parallel approaches utilising one approach for the early millennials, now with young families, that builds on the assets of groups that already took place pre pandemic. Then we will need a second approach for those younger, who if Christakis is correct will be “relentlessly seeking social inactions”, seeking out hedonistic opportunities, with more access to money thanks to a recovering economy who will be increasingly rejecting religiosity. Perhaps we need to develop something far more akin to the emerging church of the early 1990s who were able to engage the generation emerging from the early 80s HIV and AIDS epidemic reaching them in very different creative ways. These emerging expressions were rooted in the real relationships people were seeking and held a missional humility that made space to journey with people in ways that had rarely been seen before.

Mixed Ecology a language of protest since 2011?

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Super nerdy I know but the first time heard the phrase “Mixed Ecology” was sitting with Mark Berry back in May 2011 because it was the day I started Twitter. I had just heard Rowan give a brilliant address on ecclesiology, but around our table we were struggling with the economic metaphor and playing with ecology instead. There was Twitter feed behind Rowan and I wanted to join in.

It’s great that in more recent years Mixed Ecology as a concept has been gaining traction. Over the years the ecology phrase and mindset has become increasingly important to me to root and give shape to type of change I want to see. Back in 2011 at the conference my earliest tweets during the conference as Rowan spoke at were “if change comes the edge not sure I saw enough edge to change the landscape of church as we know it…” and “institutions on catch up”.

I wanted to reflect on these tweets as in reality the rise of the phrase Mixed Ecology shows nothing much changed, the institution is still on catch up. The term Mixed Ecology is great but once again its something developed from the edge, something other that has been colonised by the institution, and in doing so lost meaning, understanding and authenticity.

Notions of Ecology run deep within the emerging church, its about far more than a catch all phrase that seeks to make everyone feel welcome. For example It inhabits notions of an embodied ecological leadership approach that is highly networked, rooted, connected and equal. This is in direct contrast to the more mechanistic, modernist, leadership within the institution.

Heres something we wrote last year at the CMS HUI and perhaps if we are going to talk about a mixed ecology we remember it was a language of protest and contrast to the fiscal language of economy seeking to be faithful to the edge and start here…

often the system works in silos
but the ecosystem connects & works in synergy

systems are heavy with titles, officers & symbols of power;
the ecosystem fosters relationships that are real, authentic & symbolic

the system works behind closed doors where knowledge is power;
the ecosystem is transparent and lets the light in

the system can become self-sustained,interested in sustaining the institution;
the ecosystem starts small where life & growth find a way

the system is stuck in a past reality
the ecosystem reframes, reimagines & adapts to the reality of the now through creative stimulation

THE ECO-SYSTEM IS HERE, IT WAS BROUGHT INTO BEING WHEN THE CURTAIN WAS TORN,
MODELLED BY CHRIST, IT SPEAKS ITS TRUTH TO POWER
WE KNOW IT WHEN WE SEE IT, AND WE UST NEED TO JOIN THE DANCE

the system can tend towards the letter of the law
& ecosystem leans towards the spirit

the system can struggle with new thinking where
the ecosystem embraces the “heretic”

institutional systems fear chaos,
ecosystems thrive from it

systems can be based on control & punishment,
ecosystems find new ways of trust & solidarity

systems produce isolationism & monoculture,
ecosystems live in and by generative & fruitful symbiosis

institutional systems cultivate comfort zones & boundaries.
ecosystems foster growth beyond these boundaries

the institution designates who can be in the space;
the ecosystem simply creates space.