Monthly Archives: December 2017

FXS role in traversing the fantasy

Posted on by
Reply

In his Facebook podcast “how to get clients and extract their wealth” Pete Rollins playfully unpacks the idea of Transference, where an idea/construct that is key to you gets played out with one of your heroes or a guru or a leader, or I would add, even an institution. Transference works on the basis that we think this guru, this institution, has the answer to the secret, we follow them as we think they know the answer. He goes onto borrow from Lacan where the role of a therapist is to help you be freed from transference, and the disempowerment that it brings then traverses the fantasy that you have built up. He applies this to his work around Pyrotheology (see the divine magician).

I wonder if FXs have an uncovering role and empowering role, not to pull back the curtain for people but to them the tools, strength or even frustration to pull back the curtain for themselves. Too often the church unknowingly or knowingly projects that it has all the answers, like the myth of the wizard of Oz. This mythology of answers taps into people’s deep rooted desire and fantasy that someone else knows the answer. Whereas in reality for faith to be real we need to “know ourselves” that knowing ourselves is both about seeing that we have built up a fantasy that someone else has the answer, and recognising that we must do the hard work and pull back the curtain for ourselves. Otherwise what sort of faith are we peddling. This collapses the notion that church is the destination (noun), where people could allow themselves to be anethesised recipiants with the illusion that church has the all the answers and instead locates it firmly back in process(verb) the unfolding kingdom that is now and not yet, where the curtain is torn and we are coproducers in the process.

Innovation and Adaption

Posted on by
1

Innovation is one of those things that comes naturally to some people, and in my work it is less about an idea coming seemingly out of nowhere, but more a sense of feeling a way ahead, seeing half a dozen steps ahead feeling a way forward. Often people ask me to explain how I work, or what connections I am making, and it’s particularly problematic. Innovation is hard to explain, it’s a bit like when a weight is place on the edge of a wheel, and the movement is more jerky, a jump forward happens in response to a nudge. Innovation has a naturalality to it, it’s easy, fun, organic. Adaptation is hard work it, it turns innovation into a technological process, it means taking the time to explore the processes and reasons why an innovation worked, working out how to repeat and tweak it. On the plus side it means Adaption is easier to explain, someone has observered what’s gone before tweeked (often making it better) and then rolls out the adapted version. We need to the adaptors, but let’s not confuse the two, but more than ever the church needs to make space for and support the innovators, those making hesitant, jerky leaps forward.
The trouble is that too often the innovators are so far from the centre, and what they do is hard to explain and measure that they are overlooked by the centre or funders in favour of adaptors. Applications based on adaption are mistaken for innovation and don’t get me wrong often these adaptive change makers are often able to have improved outcomes, systemised processes that can be scaled etc, but don’t confuse the two.

FXs older brother

Posted on by

I’ve always been intrigued not so much by the older brothers jealousy but by what was happening in the economics of the story. The prodigal had taken a third of the family income blown it, is welcomed back as a son, so when the father dies will he get a third of the two thirds left. Or perhaps if he did offer something new to the family on his return, and was the family eventually better off.

Either way if the father re-embraced the son, and full rights restored in the here and now. I wonder if the institutions ever really hear and value the contribution from the edge or if an older brother mentality gets in the way. If Fresh Expressions are the emerging churchs gift does the way FXs have been sanitised by the the insistution, made a little safer, less edgy, show the embrace of the older brother rather than father. The desire to protect what is already there and play it safe. So perhaps this is where we need the wisdom of the lost sheep and the emerging church had no problem leaving the 99 to go after the one. I’m sure the father would have run after the son given the chance, not so sure about the older brother and Perhaps this is why we are also leaving some of the most creative voices outside. So if the institution is serious about resisting an older brother mentality perhaps take a look at THIS

Who left who, Learning from Pigs and Dragons

Posted on by
Reply

In the last post on the Prodigal I posted about the postures we may need when emergents return. One of the things I want to tease out here is did the prodigal leave or perhaps more accurately, who left who.

Im a big fan of stories and parables, particularly in how they stretch. I am left wondering if the parables work, as Jesus did as the still point in a turning world, but as Elliott says that’s where the dance is. So I am starting to see the parables maybe acting as a pivot point reconnecting Israel as a blessing to nations and Peters vision.

When Abraham was called as the father of Israel, he agreed to go with what he had, which probably wasn’t that much in terms of material wealth or in terms of knowledge of where he was going. As Jonny Baker brilliantly put he is commended in Hebrews for basically saying “I don’t know where Im going but whos up for coming with me!” In the light of what we said about the prodigal picking up ideas and wisdom from the culture that hosted him, did Abram do the same. Did he go through some rites of passage in his 70 and 80s? Was there a link between the journey of Abram and the destination of becoming Abraham, that one couldn’t happen without the other? And importantly wasn’t being blessed by Melchizedek all about the inclusiveness and presence of God in the culture (ie Abraham was told he would be the blessing to the nations but some dude turns up to bless him, and shares bread and wine with him)?

The trajectory of Israel being a blessing to other cultures is wrapped up in Abram being embraced by and embracing the gift from other cultures, and this more universal embracing shows us something about who and how God is revealed.

In the story of the prodigal the pigs weren’t unclean in the culture that the prodigal had entered. In my world it’s about the journey off the map to the spot marked here be dragons. Pigs were only unclean in his old land. He had crossed so many boundaries, and yet they were artificial boundaries that had been put up by law makers. So much so that God has to emphasise the point to Peter later on by giving him vision on the roof, and instructing him not to call unclean what God has called clean. Perhaps the embrace at the end is as much repentance on the fathers side as on the sons. The tearing of the curtain broke these boundaries ushered in the kingdom which was always the trajectory of Isreal. In killing the fatted calf, (the Christ) and eating together a new world without boundaries is created, the old walls are called to dust, the father and the son are Called to repentance and a new place.

so maybe it’s less about leaving and returning and more about a pivot around which shalom is formed as all things are made new, relationships restored and boundaries pulled down. Don’t forget the prodigal is part of a trio of stories and lost coin doesn’t have to shout “help” it simply sits there and waits to be found.

When emergents return

Posted on by
1

It seems several people from the emerging church are taking roles on the inside edge of the institution, some are embraced and others hesitantly recieved. So with a Hat tip to the wonderful Simon Succliffe for the spark and Johnny Sertin for the brief brainstorming session, This is going to be a couple of posts maybe even a mini series of posts putting an emerging spin on the prodigal. I’m going to be pretty playful with the text so don’t expect some sort of textual exegesis.

Firstly I don’t think those of us that left the insistutional church are prodigals in the sense of backsliders or any of those traditional interpretations, many of us left as part of a faithful search and found faith reinvigorated, and a depth of encounter with the Christ of today of the here and now, rather than yesterday or tomorrow.

So the leaving is part of the return. What if the prodigal leaving is part of a rite of passage and wether it is planned as in a formal rite, eg the boy who goes out to face the challenges in the wild and comes back when they are ready, or culturally normative eg an Amish young person on rumspringa, or for the middle class heading to uni. Perhaps in the prodigal it was more an unplanned rite of passage and like many people a series of encounters take place that help you grow up. So when it says “he came to his senses” was this the move from the youth, a coming of age, a recognition of adulthood. This raises the question what had he encountered, and how was his new sense of personhood going to be a gift and service to the community. NB I think this question of what he was able to offer still stands if you don’t think he had in anyway been involved in a rite of passage.

Coming to his senses and like a Masai warrior having walked through his exile here was a young man with gifts and talents and a different spirit, someone who had known the highs and lows, real hardship and starvation. There’s also a lovely hint in Luke that perhaps the father was open to this. The son had prepared three stances for his return, an acknowledgement of sin, a lack of worthiness, and a willingness to be treated as a servant. Yet the father only let him blurt out the first two before the re-embrace. So Once the party was over how did he re-inhabit the space he was given. Having been away to distant land had he picked up new farming techniques, was his renewed spirit of humility and way of being a gift, was he able to simply see things from a different perspective and offer these ideas to the family. As a son he was able to bring in these ideas whereas as a servant he might not.

So what stances do we need to take now. When and how we offer the new learning that has emerged from the emerging church experiences and what postures should we take. I think because the leaving is part of the returning I want to encourage those of on the inside of the edge to be themselves. This was the key advice my referees gave the bishop when I applied for the post, that I needed space and they would get the best out of me if they let me be me.

In the next post I’m going to riff on the importance of the son crossing boundaries.