Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

Incarnation and Disruptive experiences

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Last week in after reflecting on Petes interview and our practice around TAZ (check out Kester), Flow and our approaches around being and growing church, that collapse the idea of the idea of mission as a bridge into church I tweeted

“The process of being and growing church should be a disruptive experience that is a series of encounters with the other”

I have been thinking for a while how we are so fixed in our own paradigms that we often take an approach and deceive ourselves that we are using it as intended. A classic example is Messy Church – where people so often use it as an outreach tool into ‘proper’ church. They think they are doing something different but when pushed will not leave established services to free up time to invest in being and growing church in the Messy context.
It is interesting to look at incarnational youth work and how this spawned notions of relational youth ministry – much of which was simply a tool like youth alpha or a youth club to get young people into ‘proper’ church. As such when Pete suggests there does have to be an IN he is right.
However when we think around incarnational youth work to be and grow church (and to help us discover what the church and gospel actually are as we encounter others) there is no in. In order to make this a reality this needs to embrace both the relational nature of the incarnation and the disruptive. This is not a new to my thinking Here I wrote that faith is about the redemptive processes that consistently ruptures our worldview (inc our faith paradigm) and is a series of revolutionary moves that form and shape a new (at the time) but growing (in hindsight) understanding of God.

At the moment I am very hopeful of the work going on around the openness to genuine change both around the missionary encounter with other (Ian Adams posted a series of quotes from Christianity Rediscovered that got people talking) and to changes in the liturgical space Pete mentions that Ikon experimented with. The challenge to not allow the gravitational pull to suck us back remains, and we need to counter this by asking mission/kingdom shaped questions rather than church shaped ones.

A great interview

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I really like Pete Rollins stuff but at times it can be hard to get. Here is a great interview edited down with some of the key stuff I have gleaned from him in a really articulate and understandable presentation. Recently I have been speaking of church as the majority know it is redundant and Pete really nails this as he discusses worship and idols. It is 25 mins so grab a cuppa and a pen to take notes.

Benign Indifference and missional youth work

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Mayo, Collins and Nash’s book the Faith of Generation Y is good stuff, but the concept of Benign Indifference never sat to well with my experience and I could never quite put my finger on why. In the light of the two recent posts about there not being an In and asking the wrong questions, I wanted to revisit it.
I rarely ask questions about faith, and once a conversation is sparked rarely experience the benign indifference. I wonder if this is because I am asking different questions, and that I ask within the context of a robust relationship that allows me to probe answers and not let young people off with easy outs. For example Flow came about by asking “What does it feel like when you skate?” and taking the risk to say “I think that maybe God”. This did not locate God or Spirituality with something outside of the young persons experience but within, and this opened a journey. I never presume to have the truth or tell young people what truth is, rather create an environment for dialogue and discussion. I think StreetSpaces resistance to an eccelesiocentric (church centred) approach to mission, helps us find the questions that are rooted in the lives of young people rather than an implicit or unconsciously church led questions or experiences. It has always been this way for me 20 years I used to ask young people in detached in the summer to be quiet for two minutes and then tell me what colour was their silence was. Recently I have used the word “church” to help locate some my questions within a christian tradition, eg whilst at the skate park asking could this be church?
Central to our approach is an embedded (non dualist) notion that G-d is as present on the streets as anywhere and that of going on a journey to discover with young people who G-d is, what is church, what is belief. What has been interesting is we have robust conversation, even young people taking steps of Faith to come on a journey although are without any notions of imaginary boundaries or lines to cross, and we have “fruit” in terms of a changed landscape, improved communities, turning away from crime, better relationships, but we rarely have benign indifference except perhaps when we ask the wrong questions.

There does not need to be an In(n)

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Great chatting yesterday with Ben at Urban Hope. As part of his MA at Kings he was chatting with Pete about Inside Out – Outside In and Outside Out mission. Pete Ward had suggested there always had to be an In. I obviously had not been part of the conversation so am in a bit of a vacuum here but…..
There is only an in if your work is church centred rather than mission centred and much of so called incarnational mission is still hamstringed as it operates on a version of the eccelesiocentric the bridge model, ie youth work as bridge into church. For many relational youth work has become a corrupted tool (often unknowingly), used in place of the youth drop in, or programme or alpha as way to get young people into church (albeit a hipper, more relevant version). This approach is a long way from the kingdom/shalom notions of incarnational missio dei that inspired relational youth ministry. Here there is no in there is only being and becoming, equality, reciprocal, open set, unbounded, redefining and discovering what church can be. It is model of missional church inline what see of the metaphors of what church is in the bible, (see Off the Beaten Track) that collapses the idea of a bridge, to see church emerge, outside out!

The idea of having an in at all in a post christian mission context simply reinforces my last post that we are asking the wrong questions, often have the wrong start point, and how embedded the eccelesiocentric paragdigm is in our structures, thinking and imagination.

A parable for Occupy

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Making money had not been difficult for Jimmy, he had a good stack of cash from his dad, invested it in property, employed builders, did up houses and soon started to diversify.

At first he bought the building supplies yard, that way not only could he control the builders but also the prices. After having some stuff nicked, he started a private security business which was soon being used by most of the local shops.

Then he diversified into rentals, buying land and building small properties for renters that couldn’t afford much. It wasn’t generosity, it was an economy of scale. Lots of small flats brought in the same rent a large house.

In an age of no welfare state or government handouts, he pretty much controlled the town, owned most the land and was mayor in all but name. He had a close selection of business associates who he thought of as friends, but they knew which side their bread was buttered.

As he and a few people grew richer, the town grew poorer so Jimmy extended his security business as a sort of local police force to keep the locals in line. This meant he could increase his charges to other businesses to keep them safe and everyone knows it takes money to make money.

Jimmy thought himself happily married, with a mistress or two on the side, and two children (that he knew of). When his daughter turned 21 it was time to celebrate with a masked ball. The theme was winter and everyone would be provided with appropriate clothes, to ensure the elegance of the event and that the theme was suitably expressed.

After many months of planning he sent out invites to the great and good of the community, the people Jimmy thought of as friends. A few simply didn’t reply, probably because Jimmys private police force had been too heavy handed recently and the taxes felt more like extortion money. A few replied and said they were too busy to attend, not really wanting to come but trying to keep Jimmy on side.

As the day drew near the marquee for the party was put up covering the football pitch. Two others were erected for changing rooms for guests. Caterers were bought in, musicians prepped and waiters found. The only hitch was that no none was coming. Jimmy arranged a second invite but grew impatient. However, sending out a second invitation made good business sense,a good party was a chance to network, make a few more contacts.

Word had spread amongst the business leaders that no one was attending and so they became bolder, as in solidarity they felt more secure about their excuses or non replies. But their ‘security’ was short lived, in a rage Jimmy ordered the police to break their windows, and when the owners went for replacements he hiked the prices of repairs and controlled the supply. He increased the rent of these ‘friends’, and ordered the mayor to evict those who didn’t replace the damaged windows as it wasn’t in keeping. Soon Jimmy had driven away, beaten up, or simply killed his supposed friends and business allies.

Not wanting the party to fail he invited the tenants from the flats, knowing that people would scrub up well enough and he had the right clothes ready for them to wear. He would need to replace the business leaders he had driven out anyway and might recruit suitable people at the party. The invitation was delivered by the private police force and it was made clear attendance was required, besides which rumors and stories of what had happened to the great and good of the town were rife.

As one of the tenants explained to her husband, they had to go, even the people who had a bit of money behind them and had refused Jimmy’s invitation had been had been attacked, who were they to refuse. Besides which there may be a future in it and at least she got to wear a fine dress and eat well at Jimmy’s expense.

The party started, and was going with a swing, contacts were being made as Jimmy identified a few people to rent the shops and agreed to replace a few windows at cost to get things moving again. The only blot had been the appearance of a small tent occupying the mouth of the goal on the football pitch. No one pointed it out to Jimmy and besides, what did it matter? But Jimmy had noticed it, and started to make plans to get them removed the following day, he would do it legally, and without fuss, whilst tonight he would focus on the party, after all life goes on.

It was later that evening that Jimmy spotted him, well he could hardly be missed in his ripped jeans and t-shirt that simply said ‘Occupy’. Everyone else had worn the clothes provided as instructed. The audacity, the sheer nerve, Jimmy thought, to come in here eat the food, drink the wine, and not wear the right clothes. But by wearing a simple t-shirt the occupier showed the fine dresses and suits for what they were, a nothing, a falsehood to open doors and enable the same mistakes to be repeated. Jimmy saw the irony, the threat, and how powerful the powerless man in a t-shirt was. He called security, had the man stripped naked, beaten, and killed.

The lack of resistance from the man was breathtakingly, his quiet humility seemed to pave a way for all the onlookers to take a different path if they too would lose the trappings of power, but for many the cost would be too high a price to pay.
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Also see The wedding banquet from below

Put your wetsuit on

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It is not often I write out of a sense of frustration, and accordingly I have held off this post for a while. However I have growing sense that the majority of the missional conversation is still paddling in the shallow end and asking the wrong questions.

Norman Iverson blogged about a sense of a lack of real change around Fresh Expressions and church. It is interesting to see an insider raise some the same questions those on the edge have had for a number of years about the FE Movement, perhaps it is time to review those questions. My comment on the post was “The unwillingness to embrace death (of ideas, orthodox Ecclesiology , power) will mean a lack of interest on real change, so the sense of cognitive dissonance that things that FE bring will be embraced instead. But like the institution I fear they too are not really interested in real change.”
Another place of paddling in Fresh Expressions and the emerging church conversation is around the idea of relevance. As if we listened to the community we would discover how to become a relevant expression of church. But we will never really hear the community whilst we are so rooted in our current models of church and orthodox Ecclesiology . An example was a recent post Is your church too cool. My comment again was rooted in the need to practice a completely new way of being and engaging with the question. “Church can never be relevant in our understanding of the word whilst it remains rooted in a concept of gathering outside of the wider community for a supposed experience of worship. Articles like this are asking the wrong questions”
It is easy to fall into the trap of meeting with other christians and thinking we are doing something new, doing something differently. However this, gathering in an exclusive way (i think we often kid ourselves that we are more open than we are) outside of a wider community is part of the gravitational pull that produces the sense of cogitative dissonance that means a lack of real change and keeps us in the shallow end. It is rooted in our false history that we can suggests we can get closer to G-d through a worship service. There is a brilliant article here exposing this myth and its problems.

I am part of a number of emerging (note not gathered and most of which have christians as a minority) communities, and more and more I am convinced that we need to loose any ideas of coming together for a time of prayer, a time of worship, or a church service. They all simply produce a sense of security that stops us finding out what it really means to love and serve. That is not say we give up meeting together but we meet head on the myth that god is present in the gathering more than anywhere else and work out what it means to put our wetsuits on and ask better questions and swim deeply with G-d.

Uneven Cuts

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Hope has sustained me, but as I look at the situation in our country and how uneven, unfair and unjust a situation we find ourselves in, my hope is waning. The reports coming out from organistions such as the highly respected Joseph Rowntree Trust, or the National Council for Voluntary Youth services show how the poorest and most marginalised are bearing the brunt of the cuts. The wholesale dismantling of the youth service at a time of highest youth unemployment is one of the stupidest and shortsighted practices of the last 100 years. Usually the optimist in me would see the idea of the Big Society as an opportunity but already I see that again that it will be the most marginalised that will be most affected. It is already becoming clear that the investment needed to resource work with hardest to reach young people will simply not manifest itself, either in terms of people, skills, or money, as the voices of a powerful few sweep up the crumbs of what money is left, or baton down the hatches and become even more insular, to weather out the storm, and unfortunately this is a pattern I see both in the church and the local authority.
Occupy offered me hope, and as the leader of StreetSpace which has to be one of the fastest growing youth work agenicies my hope is still an ember, but I have to remind myself and challenge to church to recognise the inequality of the cuts, the simple injustice, that the poorest communities and young people are not to blame to for the situation we find ourselves in… so here is my reminder……

Still meeting them where theyre at – bible

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I have been thinking about a rewrite of Meet them where theyre at and in the process reflecting on, what does it mean to meet people where they’re at with the bible. A lot of my work over the past few years has been around powerless mission, and process eccelesiology, so if we are to embrace the fact that our liberation is wrapped with those around us and particularly the marginalised, then how we approach the bible will be a factor.

Our consumer shaped language and modernist culture has driven a guidebook, approach to the bible. But the answers we have come up with in the past through systematic theology and critical textual analysis are pretty redundant. This is not to say what has been offered in terms of understanding the context and time of writing has not been valuable. However 99% is rooted in a language house and culture that has (probably unknowingly) never really balanced the bible, culture, and tradition paradigm. The desire to drive down into the text for a correct answer, or definition of for example church will never reach a real conclusion, and the idea that if we get this right that we can then develop strategies for mission or programmes that will see growth is a modernist consumer driven myth. The closest I have come to definition of church is that it is a mystery and as such you cannot separate out being and growing, mission and eccelesia so we will never arrive at a full definition but the journey and destination are inexplicably linked, and we need to embrace this uncertainty more fully.

As I was thinking about this subject during the week I tweeted –

The bible is not a map showing the way around a new land but a seed that will only grow and nourish the pilgrim as they interact with the skills and knowledge of locals, who challenge the pilgrim again to let the seed die that a new plant may grow and see fresh bread made.

I was deliberate with the word bread, as my experience has been one of seeing Jesus revealed as I journey with others outside traditional christian community gatherings, both in the day to day journey and as I grapple with the text. Coupled with an experience of having Jesus hidden from me and others by well meaning theologians and ministers who have sought to offer an answer (which stems more from their consumerist cultural paradigm) rather than being prepared to embrace the way of christ with its uncertainity, adventures and challenges.

Two StreetSpace/FYT development posts

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Frontier Youth Trust is seeking TWO dynamic, experienced and entrepreneurial individuals to join the growing StreetSpace network. They will be part of the FYT/StreetSpace team with a development brief to support, and grow existing and new StreetSpace linked projects, as well as be directly involved in one local StreetSpace expression.
Candidates should have experience of Detached or Community youth work and an understanding of emerging culture and church.

Post One – London
This post is full time, (initially funding is secured for 18 months) but the post is expected to be secured beyond this, and applicants must be available to commit to the post for at least three years. The post will be responsible for developing StreetSpace within the M25 (with a possible office base and project base in Islington) or working from home.

The salary is in region of £20000 – £22000 plus a London allowance depending on experience and qualifications.

Post Two – Scotland
This post is one day a week initially but is anticipated to be full time within a year. The worker will be based from home, and be expected to travel throughout Scotland. The role will include fundraising, supporting and growing StreetSpace linked projects in Scotland. The worker will be expected to help contextualise StreetSpace programmes and initiatives to the Scottish context as well as developing dedicated resources for Scotland.

The salary will be in the region of £30000 pro rata.

For more an informal conversation about the roles please telephone Richard Passmore 07830197160. For general information on StreetSpace please visit www.streetspace.org.uk

For an information pack and application details please contact: Leanne Youngson, Frontier Youth Trust, Office S15b, St. George’s Community Hub, Great Hampton Row, Newtown, Birmingham, B19 3JG Tel: 0121 687 3505.

The deadline for applications is 6th January 2012 and Scotland interviews will take place in Glasgow on 11th January whilst London Interviews will take place on the 24th January 2012.

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Pulse Rate Research

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I have completed the write up my sabbatical research if your are interested. In the end I decided not to write the stories for people but give pointers around some theological narratives that can be used to counter the cultural themes that were identified through the research and that will be emerging in the Western youthwork context in the next few years.

I am aware that there are few academic shortcuts but I was on SABBATICAL!

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