Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

The Dragons don’t frighten me anymore

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We have been playing with the metaphor Here be dragons as a way to describe what we are up to and where we are with Church on the edge. On old maps there is that space simply described as Here be dragons. We are committed to going to a new place with young people and have been off the map for a while now.
We simply do not buy into the language of whos in and whos out, dualism, etc, We recognise the curtain has been torn, the kingdom is now and not yet, the earth and everything it is the lords, follow missio dei and refuse to see mission as a bridge into church but simply collapse the bridge.

We described our approach to being and growing church in this new land to a young person and here is what Sam (18yrs) came up with what do you think? (click it to enlarge)

StreetSpace going to a new place with young people

We build on the idea that we tack (like a ship sailing into the wind) with young people on a journey to become fully human and in the process we discover what it means to be fully human and what it is to be/grow church. In the process I think I have learnt that actually the dragons aren’t that scarey anyway.

Missional musing with Flow

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So following on from the last post the next point Csikszentmihalyi makes is:

There is a balance between challenges and skills. If the challenge is too difficult we get frustrated; if it is too easy, we get bored. Flow occurs when we reach an optimum balance between our abilities and the task in hand, keeping us alert, focused and effective.

I love the adventure of following the Missio Dei, so although Csikszentmihalyi is relating to sports, the connections are not so hard to make. God works at the right pace for us and knows what She is doing with the young people or community we serve. Working on the edge with young people can be frustrating but usually this stems from me pushing too hard, or not being alert to what the Holy Spirit is doing. I may have some abilities in story telling but t is my alertness to the Holy Spirit that means I focus on the right stories with the creative edge that make them effective.

Learning to be Missional from Flow

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Flow was term we developed around God and Skating a few years ago. Check out the stories here

It is also used by Csikszentmihalyi in sport and he identifies several characteristics that I think are pertinent to emerging theology and mission. So over the next few posts I hope to take each characteristic and unpack a few thoughts in the light of the journey Flow has taken me on in the last few years.

There are clear goals every step of the way. Knowing what you are trying to achieve gives your actions a sense of purpose and meaning.

We use the word coined the word intentionality back in 2004 and it is used a lot around mission now to hold the desire to aim for something in what we do. However we are values informed rather than being goal centred and act out of sense of purpose and meaning. In StreetSpace we have nine stages that help us measure where we are and where we need to go, but it is about small steps that are rooted and linked to the culture/group we are in.

A lot of what I see around emerging church is great about it responds to the community needs but can still lack intentionality. Critical questions about why are we here and what are seeking to achieve are key and need to asked in a balanced way. But these questions need to be within a context of kingdom hope (which is values informed, and relational), and recognizing the need to become more powerless rather than a business driven ethos.

Holding the tension between setting goals and triple listening (to yourself, to your community, to God) is key.

Resonnance and disconitunity – Reflections on Wright and Cron GB12

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There was some great stuff at GB this year, and I didn’t get to very much of it. Two I did were Tom Wright and Ian Cron, both were excellent but in two very different ways. Ian spoke about his memoir and much of his personal story resonated with my own, (not that my father was in the CIA). His personable style and content meshed well with my own experiences of my father, and offered cracks where the light of his story could penetrate the darkness of my own. Tom on the other hand was simply excellent on the content as he outlined 4 typologies present in the gospels to hold in tension as we explore the wholeness of Jesus. However in some ways his strength of being so clear about each type although excellently delivered, well structured,etc seemed discontinuous with my own experience. As a Gen X and post modern product the idea of holding these types in tension is second nature to me and most of my contemporaries, with a level of theological literacy. So I came away wondering what was the agenda?

moved into the neighbourhood?

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Does anyone have and recent examples of where having a Youth Worker and or community worker living in the community has had a positive impact on the estates?

we are ideally looking for examples of where Housing Associations made properties available for workers who wouldn’t be eligible for their help under normal circumstances, in areas of high social need.

One of our potential projects has access to a house that their housing association is thinking about making available. It would be great if you had any clear evidence base eg reduced crime rates, quotes from councillors, recommendations from associations. We hope to compile a bit of an evidence base and produce a short report that we will make available to others seeking to move into the neighborhood.

Illustration without definition

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I came across this quote about Spirituality (hoping I have spelled the surname correctly) the other day which I loved.

Spirituality defies definition but demands illustration -Phil Daughtry

I have been musing for a while on two encounters we have had on the streets, which I think illustrates the type of discipleship that is emerging around StreetSpace locally. Our approach is quite in line with what Pete has been on about in Stop teaching the Ethics of Jesus. A kind of discipleship that demands illustration but defies definition. It is seems our desire for an unfolding habitus (see here) and hope for a Sobornostic community (see here) is beginning to be animated by the two following engagements with young people.
“I am want to help at the community day as StreetSpace is the type of community I want my son to grow up in” A young dad who is becoming a young leader in the project.
“We need a community house” Two young leaders describing their future hopes for the project. A place to be that is way beyond a drop.
We had never mentioned the idea of a house to the group or the idea that we were trying to build community. Whilst the statements in isolation don’t express the unfolding habitus emerging when they are set into the context and ongoing journey I think we have an illustration where the ethics of Jesus are emerging in a conext where we stopped teaching them a long time ago.

A silent auction

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In August, a group of young people from Chard will be visiting Romania, to convert a dilapidated cabin (see above) into a village pharmacy. They are traveling with Project Romania (a local charity) to Seica Mare which is twinned with Chard. You can find out more on Project Romania here

To support the project the young people have undertaken a variety of fund raising events, including a sponsored cycle (riding the equivalent of Chard to Romania), a football match, coffee morning and quiz. In the pipeline are a motorbike run, BBQ and community day.

The current fund raising activity is a Silent Auction, and local businesses have been contacted and kindly donated a host of prizes. If you would like to bid on any of amazing items you can download a form here

The arch-bishop, the gruffalo and StreetSpace links

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Today the Arch bishop of Canterbury is visiting Coventry, where StreetSpace has linked with Urban Hope Coventry as an Alongside project. Yesterday I went to meet with Greg and the team to discuss them, increasing their involvment with us and becoming a partner with StreetSpace so we can offer a bit more support and structural help to the youthwork at Bardsley House and detached in the city centre.

UH is a great emerging expression of church who set up Coffee Tots. The work Greg and the team do is excellent, and has gone through various stages starting with detached work, drop in, through goth church to Coffee Tots and Urban Hope as an expression of church that has about 50 people linked in. I asked Greg if they organised around mission and the answer was yes and I think it has to be one of the nest examples of a missional church in the UK. Missional church is a church that defines and organises its life around its real purpose as an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic organising principle is mission. Therefore when the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only the product of that mission but it is obligated and destined destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. Hirsh “The Forgotten Ways” Brazos 2007 p238

gruff
I have know Greg for years and I love the parallels of the story of Urban Hope and the Gruffalo which the Arch-Bishop will be reading to the children at Coffee Tots today as part of his scheduled visit today. In the gruffalo story, a mouse is on a journey and on the way meets various creatures (a fox, a snake and an owl) that want to eat him, so he imagines the gruffalo to help him escape their hungry tummies, and with each encounter the mouses imagination grows as does the picture of the gruffalo in his head. At times for Greg and the team they were breaking new ground, and trying to explain to the powers that be what was happening and imagining the way head as they went. This future hope was powerful, it drove them on and enabled others to give them the space that was needed to the mouselike groups emerging.
When the mouse actually encounters the Gruffalo there is a point when it all seems about to go horribly wrong, but the journey has given him a confidence and robustness to bluff his way out, and it actually turns out the Gruffalo is much more fragile than first thought. Greg and team will encounter the Gruffalo today in the form of the arch bishop and all that he represents as the leader of the Anglican union and Rowan is so right for the role not only with beard and voice, but also with the humility and fragility that will read a story to bunch of children of parents who would never come near the established institution he represents, without the courageous journey of the mouselike Rev Greg Bartlem, who I am pleased and privileged to know and gives more to StreetSpace than I feel able to return.

Constant change

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I know it is sad but I got several theology books for my birthday (it is the only way i can get them as so pricey) one of which was Constants in Context which is set to be a classic like Bosch’s Transforming Mission. I am happy to review mission books if there are any publishers out there who want to send me a free copy, or I have a wish list on amazon next time you want to buy me a pressie! (thanks Mark and Annie for the Arbuckle book)

Constants in context – The clue is in the title and is written from the perspective that church by its nature is missional and inhabits a changing context. The six constants of the church in mission that they identify are:

Christology – Who is JC and what is his meaning?
Ecclesiology – What is the nature of the christian church?
Eschatology – How does the church view the future?
Soteriology – What is the nature of the salvation it preaches?
Anthropology – How does the church value the human?
Culture – What is the value of the human culture as the context?

These constants are addressed depending on your paradigm and they use Gonzalez and Solle to suggest there are three main theological approaches:
Type A: mission as saving souls and extending the church (orthodox-conservative position, characterised by Tertullian)
Type B: mission as discovery of the truth (liberal position, characterised by Origen)
Type C: mission as commitment to transformation (liberation perspective, characterised by Irenaeus)

They then have a history section which is great as it has most of the key stuff all in one place; early celts and local inculturation, Francis of Assisi and all creation, Francis Xavier and indigenous language, Hudson Taylor and other pioneers, Henry Venn and the importance of Localism, E. Stanley Jones (whats not to like), Niles and missional humility, McGavran and the Church Growth movement, Newbigin grappling with issues of gospel and culture, and the late John Stott recognising the need for confidence in the gospel.

The last section is great; it starts looking at missio dei, then explores the perspective that christ came primarily to build kingdom not church, and lastly explores mission as affirming the uniqueness of christ. It then uses notions around ‘Mission as prophetic dialogue’ to draw these strands together. “Only by preaching, serving and witnessing to the reign of God in bold and humble prophetic dialogue will the missionary church be constant in today’s context.”p398.

Reflecting on the book in the light of StreetSpace, offers some challenges. My own approach is certainly a mixture of the three perspectives they outline (a product of post modernity?), with an Eschatological hope that is found in the here and now rather than the hereafter. I think this hope balances the hyper criticism of post modernity, and enables us to be the constant that the young people need. Most of our atesting to the reign of God is in the serving and witnessing elements (not much preaching) but the dialogue is real and genuine, in that we are changed as we converse and act together. I think this lack of action and the role animating the gospel together with the communities and contexts we are called to is the final weakness of Constants in context, ie the missional humility is identified but perhaps the deeper and more dynamic challenges of inculturalation are missed a little, as there is some implicit orthodox understanding of church.