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.

 

Holding and being held – setting out

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Ive been thinking about writing again recently but struggling because the medium of writing does not model the message of what Im hoping to write on. Whilst it feels indulgent the only way I can approach the task is in a collaborative ethnographical way probably starting with me. This is because the topic i want to explore is how to find a deeper spirituality that thrives through the interconnectedness of all things and how this helps us find our place in the ongoing journey of change. There is some deep embodiment involved and to borrow from Donna Haraways work on chthulucene explore how the interconnectedness and entanglement of all things facilitates a deep rooted, earthed spirituality that enabled me to “stay with the trouble” in the past and sustains me towards the future.

Staying with the trouble for me is about staying on the edge and recognising that change, creativity and the generative possibilities for systems change come from here. This is being fuelled by two places. Firstly it was sparked through the practice of being on the edge and finding G-d was always beyond what I thought, and discovering a more embodied way to connect with this through Flow, Mountain Pilgrims etc. Secondly it is only more recently that I have begun to find a language for what Im sensing and this is coming from ecology (thanks to Strands and Haraways work) and Christina Cleveland’s work on liberation. These two spaces of language and experience have started to give voice to what I reaching for when I spoke about “feeling my forward”, church as part of the deep magic, calling the walls to dust, the heretical imperative etc. but I still find myself running out of words hence the difficulty in returning to writing.

Sophie Strand uses the word “Sympoiesis” to describe how different organisms and entities come together to create and sustain complex systems and ecologies. It is a collaborative and dynamic process of co-creation that isn’t driven by central control, and thus it challenges both hierarchical and reductionist approaches. When we start to join the dots between this and non reductionist approaches to ecclesiology that I think we see clearly through the use of metaphor when discussing church in the bible, we start to enter a space where the trinity, the church, humanity and the planet are caught up in a sympoetic dance towards what Martin Luther King describes as the arc of world leaning towards justice and love. Then this is where I start to run out of words again, so I resort to image/metaphor but our challenge is to inhabit a space that is less boundaried and this means we inevitably stay with the trouble. So all I can imagine as such a space is walking in Rumis field out beyond the ideas of right and wrong where we meet Jesus who is both the ground on which we walk, the wheat we run our hands through and the centre to which we journey.

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.

A thought on Navigating local change

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I’ve been thinking about navigating change at a local level in church contexts and how the idea of what can be gained or lost plays out in the process. As we enter further into the post Christian landscape and context I find myself drawn into more conversations about how the limited resources we have, are deployed. The burning platform is both a gift and curse for change. Whilst it may help people recognise the need to change it also means many realise how much has been lost. My experience is people don’t fear change they fear loss. So who presents the idea of change becomes more critical than we realise particularly if we are talking locally about a new sort of ministry to replace something already in place. For example If a declining church needs to think about the type of minister it has, perhaps with the notion of replacing a pastorally minded member of clergy who is retiring with a more pioneering missionally minded priest or even lay pioneer, (obviously I’m stereotyping and understand it’s much more complex than two camps) but like any change the notions gain or loss come to the fore. Clearly how you have the conversation is critical but we shouldn’t underestimate the impact that the WHO has, who facilitates the conversation will impact on wether people see the change as a loss or gain. When the conversation is being led by a member of clergy, arch deacon, bishop, no matter how well they hold the space, culturally everything is signalling a sense of loss. The who reminds them of what they are losing, it echos memories of what things used to be like and even if they tell a great story of what could be, the sense of loss can and will play a really significant part. When someone outside, or lay hosts the space it will be easier to position the change as gain. People can much easier see the change as making space for something new to emerge, get a different sense of perspective even if the people leading the conversation is saying pretty much the same stuff as arch deacon or bishop was.

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.

What are we organising around?

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I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what are the things people of faith organise around and the problematic nature of this as question with all the power assumptions and notions contained within it. For the last 30 years or so it’s been a fairly common refrain that church seems to orientate and organises around gathered worship services, this where the bulk of the energy and resources go, and perhaps there needs to be a shift towards organising around mission.
At the moment as I continue to call the walls to dust, I’m struggling with the idea of “organising” in pretty much any shape, whether it is around worship, services, mission activity, practices of prayer etc. Instead I’m trying to be more chilled, chaordic, embodied and flowing, a multi directional wanderer.
Which also means I’m left wondering what might different people, thinkers, theologians, missionaries have offered in the past into this space. If ‘Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.’ Kosuke Koyama – do we orientate around being and noticing? Perhaps we orientate around the outside and “being story gatherers” an idea Al Barrett and Ruth Harley start to unpack, or “faithful improvisation” Tom Wright, or personal practices of prayer. Newbiggin would be interesting as although he was very much about the local context and community the way he viewed the space between the death of Jesus as his last public act and the resurrection as something more private could offer an orientation/organising in this in between space.
so what are are you organising around, personally and corporately and what do think different people would offer as the locus to orientate around or is the very orientation idea something we need to critique further?

 

 

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.