Author Archives: Richard Passmore

Blog something new?

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In recentre I was wondering out loud if the new centre of culture or western meta-narrative was popular culture itself. PG

commented on how scary a thought this could be which in turn reminded me of the Thoreau quote below, that I use when doing stuff on spiritual disciplines.

“when our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper or been told by a neighbour; and for the most part the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper or been out to tea and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters proud of his extensive correspondence has not heard from himself in a long while.”
Henry Thoreau

I wondered about a rephrasing

“when our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us anything genuinely new about God or the world; and for the most part the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has been surfing blog-sphere and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails we go more constantly and desperately to the computer. You may depend on it that the poor fellow who walks away with the longest blog roll, proud of his extensive list of links has not heard from himself in a long while.” (adapted from Henry Thoreau)

The mere act of rephrasing this is ironical and forces me back to re-look at my walk before God.

Maturity without Membership

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In order to prepare for growth and outreach Chard Baptist are looking at Purpose Driven church, one of the principles of which is membership. This raises several issues for me. Membership in itself is not something I am fully confident about and whilst I understand many of the arguments, the approach to membership as we enter post Christendom seems all the more problematic.

How do you begin to grow towards maturity without membership? Murry in The church after Christendom offers a great critique of Matt 18 v 15-17

15″If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Whilst I accept the possible intended use of the language of tax collector/pagan to signify an outsider, it is interesting that this is only one of two times the bible actually places the word church on Jesus’ lips. I would want to explore the creative tension that verse 17 throws up as we begin to consider how Christ would have treated tax collectors or pagans. Murry points this out but I would want to push this issue towards a maturity without membership, that does admonish one another in a non dislocating way, and uses the process well to reaffirm core beliefs so the whole community matures, but does not exile people who disaggree.

Taking Youth Work Seriously

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The Occasion “Creating Memories” that happened on October the 8th was a FANTASTIC event. The feedback was great. You find out just how good people said it was here Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movies

download Chasing Amy

as well as some of the peoples notes and powerpoints from workshops.
Arrg
The feedback forms were great with 96% of the 115 people who completed a form saying they would recommend The Occasion to a friend and the other 4% was a maybe.
Lunch was at a local Chinese restaurant and all in all it was an occasion to be remembered. (excuse the double pun) Lori also put up a toilet at the top of the stairs for people to graffeti with the names of the youth groups they had been involved with over the years.
loo1loo2loo3

Bookmark the website www.tyws.org.uk if you are in the south west so you don’t miss out on the next one!

RE-Centre

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Sorry for the confussion Phil.
What I wondered or questioned is many people say due to post modernity there is no overarching meta narrative but I was questioning this assumption and think the metanarrative may have been replaced with a new overarching story that is mosaic of popular culture. eg in the past people found their place by how they related to the meta narrative of the time and now people find their place in relation to pop culture, ie we use it to help us interact with one another, people define themselves by the latest produce or band or music they adhere to. So whilst the metanarrative is less clear there is commonality to it. Does that make sense?

Hot Shots! the movie

Where is the Centre?

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Thinking more about effect of post Christendom church and mission, I think finding the new centre of our culture will be important. As the meta narrative (overarching story or worldview) has been lost the question is what has replaced it. Currently I think it has been replaced by interactions with popular culture and so in true post modern style there is no single centre but a centre that is formed by a collage of people interacting through popular culture. So the idea of Sunday papers as a metaphor for church fits well.

I was discussing this with some guys on the train back from London. They don’t know each other but often travel together as they get on and off at the same station, often their conversation centres around what is the news or papers that day. More on this another day but my battery is about to die.

Ideas on where the centre of culture is now, greatly received

The emerging church as missionaries to the mainstream church

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TSK posted a link

The Saint psp

a good and well worked challenge to the hearers.

The experimentation and practice of the emerging church is cool and will go so far, but in terms of influencing mainstream church, if we are serious about reformation then we may need to adopt missionary principles in reverse.

Take communication for example, The question of how we communicate to established church is as important as what we communicate. In the same way as choosing the language we use within our culture at times we need to choose the language of the church. If that means preaching in a style that they be familiar with and changing the medium as you speak (bringing them with you) so be it.

The anarchist in me doesn’t like it, the pragmatist approves, but holding two together is one of the most important pieces of advice I was taught at college “learn the rules of the game and learn how to break the rules without people realising you’re doing so”.

All of which brings me back to the need for an authentic theologically grounded redefinition of church. So we need people to step up and start working this stuff through in a way that will be heard.

DO-BE-DO

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In response to info on DO-BE-DO at the moment it is just shorthand as a way of putting into action this chaotic but intentional way of living within a redefined paradigm of church.

It is little more than a framework encouraging action (DO) – reflection (BE) – action (DO), so there is no long explanation, or place to look at it.

One element of DO-BE-DO stems from some of my observations that many of the emerging church groups seem to locate the church element, in the process of coming together to plan a service or event that may take place monthly or a few times a year. This can reinforce the old paradigm of church as an event at a particular time, and yet for many it is the community that evolves through the planning process that is key. People bring their ideas and concerns to the planning process and a theme develops then an event is put on; the community that evolves is a positive by-product. I would suggest that within DO-BE-DO the worship event should be just one of the things the group does, and if people can bring the whole of their interest to the group then the collapse between church and the whole of life may begin. For example I know that within Grace, Jonny (Baker) has an interest in ad busting (sorry to pick on you Jonny), could the group come together to explore this and undertake some adbusts together (maybe they have) as part of their activity? Within my redefinition (see manifesto), this kind of activity would be encompassed within church.

I would love to hear from any of the emerging groups, if any of this resonates with you, and if you have had shared experiences outside of the worship planning process where you have questioned if it was church.

A second element of DO-BE-DO would incorporate the kind of issue Rivertribemike faces and raised in the comments when TSK posted the manifesto.

This is primarily where the intentionality element comes in, being in a group that sees the whole of life as church and so carries this mindset into all they do. The group can either participate with Mike in the birthday celebrations and then help him reflect on how he can grow through the experiences, or by Mike bringing his experiences from the celebration to the group in order to reflect and grow. His comments already show that he was thinking about how God connects with his birthday and who knows how bringing others into the reflection process (either in advance of the day or after) may change him and others involved.

Any thoughts on where to next also appreciated?

10 Steps towards a redefinition of church

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Thanks for the comments and feedback here and on other blogs on the past three posts around “Emerging church a manifestation of our sub cultural weakness”. I thought I would try and bullet point a few of the key issues and where we have got to so far incorporating the discussions we have had along the way.

A Manifesto Calling for a New Way of Being and Defining Church.

1. The first reformation gave the bible back to the people and we need to give church back to the people (not just christian people).

2. This will take a redefinition of church NOT just a change in style.

3. The churches sub cultural weakness is a leaning towards evolution over revolution, hence style over definition.

4. Theologically there are many examples of revolutionary steps or leaps in thinking, eg Peters vision, Jesus new covenant and so redefinition is plausible.

5. Any redefinition that is put forward needs to collapse the old ways of being that distinguish between church/worship/prayer and the whole of life, BUT hold the tension that whole of life may not be church. (which is where intentionality comes in)

6. The redefinition we are offering of Church in the post- Christendom west is a way of being and living that is a series of chaotic but intentional encounters with God, one another, and the world, founded on the holistic teaching of Christ, and encompassing the whole of life.

7. This encompasses the critical outcome of the imagery of church used in the bible, this being that all the bibles images of church include “attitude and course of action”.

8. This whole of life process is not about walls, rules or fences but about wells, mutuality and redemptive processes.

9. The theological processes and reflections offered so far are consistent with the biblical tradition and can be seen to offer an authentic and consistent redefinition of church.

10. DO-BE-DO, offers one practical way of putting this redefinition into action.

Emerging church as a manifestation of our subcultures weakness PART 3 – A way forward

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Please note this is a work in process and an offering but will be developing as I think more and get feedback, but first a bit more background to set the context.

Dulles identifies several models/aspects that are present in church, community, herald, servant, institution, sacrament, disciples, but as I pointed out in Off the Beaten Track, Dulles talks about church being a union with the divine, not fully intelligible to human minds “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.� This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the Church.’(Eph 5 vs 31-32). Dulles suggests that this concept of mystery is closely linked to the mystery of Christ which is why the bible uses imagery when describing church, therefore it may be easier to define what the church is not (which we have discussed in earlier posts). He goes onto to say that images can suggest “attitude and a course of action� .

Therefore I would suggest that the attitude should one that redefined the theology of church as whole of the life balanced with the course of action that is about the process of chaotic and intentional being. (for more on the anarchistic God check out Gen 28 10-22, Exodus 3 or 2 Sam 7)

In my minds eye I see a group of people (some of whom are committed to exploring chaotic but intentional encounters with God, one another, and the world) coming together to engage in a process being together, doing together, reflecting together, doing together and so on. Each person regardless of age, status in the group or ability, suggests activities that the group engage with and so the process starts. Different people will bring their different passions and interests to the group, and as they engage together in this breadth of activities, and bring the breadth of their lives to the group, together they will start being church with the whole of our life.

The core group would have an understanding that this chaotic but intentional encounters was church AND that the encounters of life (when the group is not together) are part of or add to the shared chaotic experiences. It would be group facilitated rather than led. Implicit within this is the notion of process, recognising that we find God in the seeking and the ongoing nature of process. When Jesus says seek and you will find, doesn’t necessarily mean that you fill the God shaped whole in your life but that as the mystics would say any God we know cannot be god as God is always bigger etc, we are human becomings as Pip Wilson would say. http://www.sundaypapers.org.uk/?p=167

This approach would allow for a variety of things to be done, if I look at in my context with just one other family involved at the start, I could see people suggesting, going on a demo, eating together, visiting the local organic fair, colouring, computer games, the FaSt game, a party, an alternative worship event. All of which would be discussed and reflected on together, and create a sense of growing openness and a greater outwardness. It would change the way we approach childrens work as they could suggest stuff as equal members and their thoughts and opinions equally valued and acted on.

I know there is lots of tweaking needed and issues with this kind of openness, but a story from my friend Soren helps that came from conversation with a farmer in the Australian outback. When farming over such a vast area, Soren wondered how could they control the animals, maintaining the fences must take forever. The farmers response was “we don’t have fences we just have wells�. This redefining of church gives space for loosing the rules and regulations of what is or isn’t church and all the rules attached and replaces it with an open attitude that allows people to journey towards becoming more fully human whist the intentionally chaotic actions and activities add to the process acting as the wells that draw people together and to the source.

The key is a mindset change on what is church and then finding ways to act on this in life. I have offered one possible outlook, that is by no means whole, and for many will be in part what they are doing already and are drawn towards, but I think when the definition of church is changed/explored it becomes a liberating and validating process.

Emerging church as a manifestation of our subcultures weakness PART 2

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Often interpreted as a place of shelter and support for birds, the mustard seed of Jesus has indeed grown into a huge tree, but the birds are scavengers that have taken the seed of the word from the world, and are now a great evil harbouring in the branches of the church, that over time has corrupted it. The seed of the word has been genetically modified and what has been re-sown into the world is only a shadow of it’s former self.

A sweeping statement, and I know there are good and bad, but I wanted to start with this alternative interpretation of the Mustard seed, as I seek to re frame church in order to highlight and recognise the need for change.

Over time the corruption has led to a multi-faceted dualism, that splits worship between lifestyle or an activity, sees church as activity rather than a community, changed the inclusive kingdom of Jesus to an exclusive club, and reduced prayer to a time rather than a constant. So how do we progress if as in the last post, radical change is seen as inappropriate, and evolution is part of this trees sub cultural weakness. (Read yesterday’s post to see how this fits)

One thing we can take from the emerging church is the willingness to experiment, but we need to experiment from a different starting point. One that is different to the multi-faceted dualism, but which starts with defining Church in the light of the whole of the word, rather than one that focuses on style or a single activity. An emerging church that does not address mission, or is about a group of people coming together to worship in ways that they can relate to stemming from their cultural experience, cannot be church. Whilst I acknowledge the emerging churches would hope to develop a more holistic approach (and many have), there is still much to do.

We need to reconnect church with a life of worship (thus redeeming worship), reconnect church with prayer that never ceases (redeeming prayer) and by doing so to reconnect church with the life of faith and church the whole of our life.

Therefore a new definition of Church in the post- Christendom west that I would suggest is a way of being and living that is a series of chaotic but intentional encounters with God, one another, and the world, founded on the holistic teaching of Christ.

We need a community led approach to church that is inclusive of outsiders, and exhibits this chaotic but intentional way of being. I would advocate a valuing and engagement of all that each member of community brings, regardless of whether it is deemed as secular or sacred because through the redemptive process of reflection (see Outside In part 2) even that which seemed wrong or difficult can add to help us understand God, connect with one another and engage the world.

I will post what I think this can/may look like in practice tomorrow.