Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

The call of the pioneer and ecclesiastical hypothermia

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A final post from Nigel and it reminded me of a conversation I had with my good friend Mark Berry recently who I hope might write more fully on ecclesiastical hypothermia at some point! When above the death zone on a mountain, we know that to survive we need to be mobile and get off the mountain but our body wants to pool resources to protect what it believes are the vital organs… so it shuts down the very things that could make survival possible… it tells us to sit down and sleep, to pull energy back from the limbs into the centre… in an attempt to keep the core alive as long as possible it shuts down and sleeps itself to death!!!

Nigel writes…

The call of the pioneer: hoisting sails in the storm of crisis, chaos and uncertainty
This is the last of my reflections about what we can learn from fresh expressions of church in the current season. It invites us to draw on the sense of adventure that pioneers and those curating fresh expressions embody; hoisting sails in the current trinitarian storms of crisis, chaos and uncertainty.
As I begin, I want to acknowledge that it’s rough out there. The storms of illness, bereavement, unemployment, fear and anxiety are raging. The waves are big ones and the winds fierce. Whilst this is a sobering and challenging assessment, we would be foolish to pretend that conditions are anything other than turbulent and threatening.
It would be understandable if we looked to the gods of safety and certainty as antidotes to the crisis and chaos threatening to engulf us. Indeed, I argued in a recent session on ‘crisis leadership’ that our very first response needs to be to protect people and try and get an element of stability in the situation. That is the priority. However, once we have done some of that, I believe we need to look to the future, rekindling our purpose, vision and mission. We need to develop where we are going, revitalising where necessary – hoisting sails so we get to where God needs us to get to. To fully catch the winds, we may need to start doing this while the storm is still raging.
There is an Irish proverb that I resonate with – ‘the seas may be rough, but the rocks have no mercy’. Perhaps it is my Irish ancestry that engenders the appeal, or maybe the pioneer in me that wants to recognise the value in seizing the day, taking the risk and venturing into the unknown. Whatever the reason, I like the thinking. I know that if I don’t hoist the sails, I risk perishing on the rocks.
Institutions usually play it safe; especially church institutions. Conformity, regularity, longevity, consistency and certainty are the cultural narratives of many. Thankfully, for those of us committed to hoisting the sails, many fresh expressions of church have broken free from the shackles of inertia typified by these constraining cultural values. Many fresh expressions and pioneer folks are risk takers; they are prepared to take a chance and hoist the sails even in the most stormy of seas.
I’ve been thinking about taking chances quite a bit of late. I’ve been asking myself if our best chance, is to take a chance. Might we be better served taking some risks and exposing ourselves – deliberately – to chance, especially when we don’t know what to do or where to go? Might this be the best chance we have of allowing God to meet us in the sea that is the ambiguity of our uncertainty? I say this in the firm belief that when we have no idea where it is we are supposed to be going or how we are going to get there that it is better to set off on the adventure and allow the voyage to determine what outcome subsequently results.
Perhaps we can learn afresh from those who have pioneered new forms of church and once again create an ecclesiological culture that celebrates, mandates and honours those who hoist the sales for God. Once out on the waves, tasting the salt, and being guided by the sun, moon and stars, we may need those who might be considered more a safe pair of hands and who can steady the ship. However, if we align ourselves with these good folks and allow them to influence our initial thinking too much, we risk never setting sail in the first place.
For the pioneer, the hoisting of the sails is something that may come more easily than for others. For my wife, Sue, and I this is something we are actively doing right now. We have left the church we have been part of for 7 years, Sue has given up her job as a senior school leader, and we are in the process of applying to be foster parents. We don’t know where this journey will take us or what the outcome will be, but we’re hoisting the sails and setting sail.
In doing this, we are not being reckless. Preparations for our journey are meticulous. We are preparing according to our well-defined values, being true to our core purposes and seeking to do the right things in terms of what we believe in. We’re undertaking training, engaging in learning and development and committing everything to God in prayer. We may stumble upon crisis, encounter chaos, and be confronted with uncertainty. To borrow a thought from Richard and Lori Passmore, we may find dragons as we sail into uncharted waters, but I hope we continue to have the courage to hoist those sails.
I also hope those who are thinking about what church might look like beyond the pandemic, might stop looking to the rocks. I hope they look beyond asking questions about when they might re-open buildings, how they can do communion, and when they can sing together again. Such questions betray a lack of adventure and display inertia and malaise. Instead, I hope they look to pioneer, to go where they have not gone before and venture to the vast and wide-open oceans. Hoist the sails and explore uncharted waters. Bon voyage …

Eyes wide open: the value of participation

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I read recently that if one of a kitten’s eyes is kept closed during the first few weeks of life it will be blind in that eye, even though the eye is perfectly normal. That got me thinking about which of my ‘eyes’ have been opened and which have remained closed, resulting in blindness. It also got me thinking about which of our ‘eyes’ have been opened regarding the things we are currently discussing in this series of blogs about fresh expressions. What has been learned – particularly in my case from youth work practice – in our fast moving culture? My thoughts quickly focused on the matter of ‘participation’.

Around 25 years ago a group of us in Frontier Youth Trust began to focus and take seriously what youth work might look like if young people’s participation was elevated to the place of paramountcy. When talking of participation I mean that, ‘affirmative value, focused on creating settings that enable people —whatever their identities, backgrounds, or institutional positions—to thrive, realise their capabilities, engage meaningfully in … life, and enable others to do the same.’ We consulted young people, changed our practice, wrote books, spoke at conferences, ran workshops, and most importantly, looked to enable young people to participate in the things, decisions, and initiatives that were about them.

We endeavoured to stop doing things to young people, and focused on doing things with them. Whilst others journeyed with us, it was initially an uphill struggle. The ‘adults know best’ sacred cow was a big idol to compete with. I am pleased to say, that young people’s participation has come a long way since those early days. In the church it is now thankfully mainstream practice in many places; albeit an ongoing work in progress. Eyes have opened and the blindness of ‘youth worker knows best’ amended.

Perhaps because some of the early ‘participation’ pioneers went on to start fresh expressions of church or perhaps because many were simply convicted that effective participation was essential for the future of the church it has become important in fresh expression thinking. It’s considered a better, more humane way of communally existing. Stuart and Sian Murray-Williams note that many churches promote passivity as the norm. However, multi-voice approaches enable a more liberating, empowering and dynamic participative approach. The fresh expressions web site encourages people to move from ‘audience to participation’. It encourages participants to experience and engage with others and join in with what God is doing. It advocates listening and finding out what needs are; connecting heads, hearts and hands.

Whilst lots of progress has been made regarding participation, there is still some way to go across the church before we can truly claim to be a fully functioning, including community and priesthood of believers.

British-Indian poet Bhanu Kapil writes about colonialism and race and how exhausting it is to always be an outsider in a culture:

“It’s exhausting to be a guest, In somebody else’s house, Forever.”

In his introduction to this series, Richard talks about how for the last 20 years it has felt as though championing things like participation has caused many pioneers to feel as though they are swimming in a different sea to most in the church. Many times it has felt like we are guests at the mercy of the hospitality, and in the clutches, of the institutional church. Whilst I am sure it has not been as crushing as how white privilege and exceptionalism has crushed people of colour, it has been exhausting and wearying. Quite why some would want to resist involving people so – as our definition above states – they can thrive, realise their capabilities, engage meaningfully in life, and enable others to do the same, is a mystery.

The challenges we still face are aptly illustrated in the current debates about online communion that are taking place in some of our mainline denominations. Those with power are preventing the participation of those with no power. How the sacraments are made available has always been a challenge in those fresh expressions where the sponsoring denomination has particular theology and rules about ‘presence’ and the function of the priesthood. Many people have been denied communion because a powerful priesthood has prevented participation in something Jesus indicated should be a daily reminder over a meal. Quite how something so accessible and so simple has become something so controlled and complex is a mystery. Many of us just get on with it and share ‘bread and wine’ as and when. We eat our contemporary contextualized and cultural equivalents of whatever bread and wine might be. My prayer is that eyes will be opened.

If we don’t manage to keep increasing participation so that all eyes are opened then I am less hopeful for the future. In my own setting I have seen very painfully what happens when people are systemically not encouraged to participate.

Another church group recently decided to join something I was facilitating. After they had come along a few times, I deployed my participation values and asked the leader of this group if somebody from their cohort would like to contribute something; share something, tell a story, or offer a reflection. Their leader went away to ask the group. Despite most of this group being in church for decades (some 50+ years), the reply came back that ‘they weren’t quite ready for that sort of thing yet’. I went away (muttering some very bad language) wondering when if they would ever be ready. Decades of non-participation had rendered them voiceless; eyes were closed.

On the positive side, anecdotal experience suggests the current use of online platforms has increased participation in church settings. Conversations seem to have flowed more easily and people have felt more at ease to participate more fully. So long as we don’t embed broadcast power in the hands of a few, then I am hopeful for the future. I have noticed how those of us who championed participation in face-to-face settings have continued to do so via online platforms. Whilst the future has arrived, we need to be mindful that all are not yet quite equally participating in this moment, but platforms like zoom can help with this.

A while ago, I wrote about some tools to help our participation. I noted that God – despite many reasons why she might not – has continually trusted people to fully participate and be his agents, ambassadors, co-creators, and advancers of the Kingdom. I still hold to that view and hope God will continually open our eyes to the delights of participation.

Dr Nigel Pimlott
Expressing a personal reflection especially for Sunday Papers
S. Sturm (2012) https://www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/full-participation-and-arts-culture-and-humanities
S and S Murray-Williams (2012) Multi-Voiced Church
https://freshexpressions.org.uk/get-started/vision-days/
B. Kapil (2020) How To Wash A Heart
N. Pimlott (2009) Participative Processes

The gift of the edge and bias as a virtue

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Nigel Pimlott and I spent well over a decade at FYT and we have both moved from there to what I would call the edge of the inside. Nigel now works with the Methodist Church as Regional Learning and Development Officer (4 days a week) and church-wide Evangelism and Growth Officer (1 day a week), and I work as the Director of Mission Innovation and Fresh Expressions in Cumbria. So, in the next few posts Nigel and I will explore some of the early and more recent pioneer learning and explore why the church can seem reluctant to draw on this resource.

To set the scene I want to revisit some of the cultural backdrop and responses to the story we now find ourselves in. The pace of cultural change has been accelerating over the last 70 years. Where previously we talked about longer term generational change, more recently significant cultural shifts have been noted at least every ten years. The Face Magazine back in the noughties was talking about significant shifts every decade: 1960’s The Decade of Optimism, 1970’s The Decade of Decline, 1980’s The Decade of the Individual, 1990’s Caring and Sharing, 2000s The Digital Decade. Although the Face article only went up to the noughties, several commentators suggest 2010’s as The Decade of Participation. This with the larger overarching constructs of Post-Modernism and Post-Christendom was the culture I swam in when I started in ministry back in the late 80s. For at least two decades I felt I was swimming in a completely different sea to everyone else. During that time I was grateful to link with Frontier Youth Trust who grew in response to the challenging culture of the 1960s seeking to respond to these new entities called “teenagers”. With FYT I started to recognise, thanks to the brilliant work of Jim Punton and Terry Dunnell, that as well as finding new ways to do things we also had to find new ways to think about things. I learnt that practice and reflection went hand in hand and as early as 1993 with others we started thinking through the need for a new type of ecclesiology. We had critical conversation partners such as Jim Punton, whose work on shalom was key, and several early pioneer workers and thinkers with decades of experience, like David Watson (and Graham Cray), Jeanne Hinton, Pip Wilson, and David Sheppard. It is interesting to reflect on how well these people were listened to at the time and how this helped prepare the way for some radical change, and later Nigel picks up why we may struggle to listen as well to edge now.

The two Loops of Change theory talks about the need for innovators to network and this was key to the survival of what was being birthed throughout the 90s and 00s. Towards the turn of the century a clear emerging church movement was building (often with youth workers getting older and trying to work out how to connect to their culture) and slowly we met others who were in the same ocean. Eventually the structures also started to recognise what was happening on the edge, and that they were perhaps not as well equipped as they thought to swim well in these fast moving currents, so Fresh Expressions was bought into being. Someone once said that Fresh Expressions was the “Research and Development wing” of the church. For the past 20 years several key denominations have been investing in Fresh Expressions, this generosity is a gift to pioneers and now maybe this wealth of learning could be a gift to the church.

With the two loops in mind churches have innovated well in the lockdown, either in the online space or in other ways, so it maybe worth asking, how are you networking with others to build knowledge and support yourselves? Many churches have been brilliantly creative, but innovators need to network not just for new ideas but more importantly to build the resilience needed to resource continuation. Someone once asked me when I was speaking at Greenbelt to say in three words what is needed in today’s missionary context and my answer was Courage, Courage, Courage. As churches reopen the pressure to restart the old will be on, but we can’t do everything, and you will need courage to say no, to not restart some things, courage to stand with what the spirit has been doing for the last weeks and courage to go to new places theologically. Networking will help you build the knowledge and story base to hold the innovative space you have found, and the friendships you build through networking will sustain and nourish your innovation, but alongside this maybe invite a local pioneer to walk with you through the processes, they will probably have more questions than answers but that is important right at the top of change curve.

Richard

Appreciating the hidden harvest: bias as virtue – Nigel writes…..

I’ve recently done some Unconscious Bias training. I’ve worked hard over the years and hopefully become more fully aware of my biases. As a white middle aged man, I think I have reasonably successfully endeavored to raise consciousness-levels regarding any gender, sexuality and race bias I may have had and I have sought to change my thinking and behaviour accordingly. However, I have recently become very aware of a whole set of biases that I embrace which I didn’t really know were there. I am pondering if these biases are a problem, or if they should not be called biases at all, but rather aspirations, virtues and/or essentials. Let me explain …

I am biased towards the ‘new’ and innovation – I think that’s an aspiration. I am committed to working in diverse and creative ways – I think this bias is a virtue. I remain passionate about involving younger people (participation) in the life of the church and I am biased to hearing all the voices in as many ways as possible, and on their terms – I think that’s an essential. Bias on the basis of gender, sexuality, or race is, I believe, a big problem, but the biases I refer to here I consider virtues, not problems. My challenge is, I note other people don’t see things this way. For them, my ‘new’, ‘creative’, ‘younger’ biases are a threat.

In 2015-16 The Methodist Church carried out research into 15 years of involvement with fresh expressions and in 2019 produced a report of the findings – Methodism’s Hidden Harvest. The research concluded that fresh expressions have been extremely successful in welcoming previously unaffiliated people into Christian faith exploration and participation, certainly much more successful than the vast majority of inherited Methodist churches. So why isn’t everybody who wants to reach unaffiliated people drawing on these research findings and deploying them?

• Why isn’t everybody looking to start something new rather than simply maintain ‘what is’? The research notes that fresh expressions are evangelistically fruitful, with an estimated 65% of those attending having no previous involvement in church.

• Why isn’t everybody looking to grow the church working in diverse and creative ways – the research notes that fresh expressions work in multiple and creative ways to make disciples and asks if this is an important factor inherited church needs to embrace if it is to similarly attract unaffiliated people.

• If the church wants to engage and disciple younger people, why does it not embrace how fresh expressions go about doing this as they appear much more successful at it?

Could it be that the reluctance to embrace the new, creativity and younger people’s participation is the unconscious bias, perhaps conscious bias, of some people against such things? If so, this bias is putting them in danger of disregarding things which don’t fit their own templates, paradigms and worldviews, at the expense of making disciples and growing the church. In other words, the problem isn’t my bias for these things, but the bias of those who will not embrace such things.

Of course, it’s not as simple as this, nor a binary choice, and hopefully not a case of inherited church vs fresh expressions; ‘them and us’. Having said that it sometimes feels like it is! Drawing on a bit of political bias thinking, I will explain what I mean.
There is what is known as Confirmation bias – in our context this is when someone favours information about church that affirms their existing paradigms and worldviews. People who like inherited models of church and who don’t want to change might, for example, draw exclusively on narratives that value tradition and predictability of output. They might use information that espouses the familiar, embeds and promotes an ‘it’s what we know’ paradigm. In my experience, whenever I draw on research findings like the Hidden Harvest? report, endeavor to facilitate debate, and/or offer suggestions to those in declining churches facing uncertain futures, there is more often than not push back and a negative response to counteracting information – like the value of new approaches, creativity, and aiming younger – which conflicts with favoured information.
Then there is what is called Coverage bias – this is when, for example, someone happily tells (covers) stories that relate to the ‘good old days’, when the church was full, overseas mission adventures from yesteryear, what happened in 1970, but rarely, if ever, tells stories or allows space for others to tell stories, about what is happening now in new forms of church and the changed lives of those becoming disciples.

Thirdly, I would highlight Concision bias – where people selectively focus on information, ignoring nuance and context, in ways that crowd out different views that take longer to explain. For example, someone will often counteract my encouragement for the new, creative and younger with a tale of when a fresh expression closed, a project failed or a young person left. The detail, reasons, learning and legacy are never portrayed, just the (perceived) negative outcome.

A couple of years back I had surgery for cancer. It was radical, impacting and has meant things will forever be different. If I had not had it, my future was uncertain, and I probably would have died many years prematurely. I needed to set aside my bias against someone chopping bits out of me, having lots of injections, not to mention several other deeply personal things that might not be appropriate to mention in a public blog. It was challenging but necessary.

If we are to set aside our biases and embrace the virtuous findings of research and development from fresh expressions of church, the consequent changes we need to make will be challenging and necessary. If we don’t make them, we may discover our end is also more premature than it might have otherwise been.

You can access the full results of the Hidden Harvest? research here

Dr Nigel Pimlott
Expressing a personal reflection especially for Sunday Papers

What counts?

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How many people came to church on Sunday?  How many baptisms?  How many weddings?  How many came to the Fresh Expression gathering?  Are the numbers going up?  Are our churches growing?  These were our questions three months ago.  Then we left our buildings and we had a whole new set of questions.

How many logged into church on zoom?  How many watched the video on youtube?  Hurrah, more people are connecting remotely than ever came to church in the building!  Then more recently: How many of our online viewers will join us when we are back in the building?

But what if these are the wrong questions?  What if we are not supposed to be concerning ourselves with church growth at all, at least not in the numerical sense?  Dare I say that we should concern ourselves with other priorities than church growth?

Forty-six years ago Lesslie Newbigin returned from India and in 1989 wrote a book: ‘The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.’   It has become a classic, much read and quoted but the point often missed, because his point is that committed faithful believers will always be a minority.  It is how it always is.  It happened to Jesus so who on earth are we to think it will be different for us – he had crowds in the beginning but numbers dwindled.

Newbigin argues that the church has a key and important role to play in wider society, that our presence within society bringing challenge and change is critical.  We are to be confident in what we learn from Jesus, to live out and communicate faith.  But we are to bear in mind that our individualistic society has blinded us to communal aspects of salvation, meaning counting numbers is missing the point.  We’re to focus on changed society as the outcome rather than church growth.  Newbigin writes: ‘We get a picture of the Christian life as one in which we live in the biblical story as part of the community whose story it is… from within that indwelling try to understand and cope with the events of our time and the world about us and so carry the story forward.’ (p.99.)

What if we take seriously the calling to be salt and light, yeast in the dough, at times visible and other times invisible, a small ingredient that changes the whole?  What are our questions now?  How many people turn up on Sunday morning is no longer the priority, unless we have fallen into the trap of caring more about the institutional structures than the heart of what God is doing.

The questions then become about what the world need us to be and do, right now, as we face this crisis and wider societal challenges.  What is God working on?  What needs to be said and done in order to support society to re-engage well, to move forwards into something more connected, more earthed, more real, kinder?  Who are our partners in this work for the Common Good?

I find it hard to care as much as the church thinks I ought to about numbers coming to church.  I understand that people gathering to share together in the story of God is a good thing.  We need refreshing in what renews our vision, we need one another, we need God.

But turning up isn’t the point – the point is whole lives lived in God.  Right now, there are bigger questions at stake than numbers at church, whether in a building or online.  We have a unique moment as society, we have choices to make.  Right now, that is what I care about, that is what matters, and that is where my energy is going.

Cate Williams 1st June 2020

An open Letter to the church

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Dear Church
I thought quite hard before writing this but I have been re reading a Bonhoeffer biography and last time I read it I was focussing on Bonhoeffers theology. This time I found myself constantly drawn to the political situation in th early 1930s right at the start of Hitlers rise and the churches failure to speak out, the internal politics of the more moderate voices (and the church) and how the Nazis used the social situation of unrest and unknown futures deliberately often using tactics of chaos, polarision, statements about recovery, moving on etc to manipulate and consolidate power. I have to say I see too many parallels with what is happening in the UK, (and the US) through the demonisation of socialism (ie how Corbyn was treated) preparing the way for a rise of right leaning politics, and the masquerading of elite political classes as being of/for the people and since Boris came to power how he and Cummings have access to even greater resources of the state for even greater manipulation. The whole contempt with which the public have been treated, blatant lies, then gaslightling concerned voices that we need to move on, the removal of Emily Matiliss from Newsnight for speaking truth to power, and the abuse of power through strategic ambiguity, is just too familiar after what I read in Bonhoeffers book, my spirit is ill at ease and I need to speak out.
The light in all this has been the bishops who have gone public, but the church is in danger of being complicit as the voices are still to few and internal wrangles have already started. Yes we need to pray for our leaders but we also need to stand up for integrity, and truth. Many of us will have seen the words of Niemöller “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” And it is important to note many like Bonhoeffer warned Pastor Niemöller what was going on as far back as mid 1930s. So we need our Bishops and church leaders of all denominations to speak louder, speak now, and SPEAK TOGETHER, and we need to do our part in encouraging them to do, whilst ourselves standing up and speaking truth to lies and power where we can and we need to so now.
Faithfully
Richard

The relentless fight for political freedom from the market, a missional response

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At the height of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln gave and address at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 that contained these words. “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”  What we sometimes forget, is that this battle was directly related to the global market system of the time.  The battle in the USA was whether the State was there in the vision of the founding mothers and fathers of the nation to be centred on human freedom, or like many other nations, end up just another expression of an oppressive feudal state where the uber rich oppress the many.  The battle at the heart of this civil war was for the right to enslave human beings as the cheapest form of labour in the growing of global commodities of the time.  Lincoln won the battle, but I do not think he won the war.  Looking back at the USA now in 2020, I think we can clearly see that the market won and civil rights has never been fully delivered in one of the most divided and unequal societies in the world.

What exists now in the USA and now in the UK is economic slavery, maintaining cheap labour with reduced employment and terrible wages.  The Global Market won, and democracy and equality lost out.  We are now all commodified and where human dignity is now in decline.  You could argue that actually there has been a constant state of battle in the Western World ever since the Black death in 1346, when the feudal system and oppressive market society collapsed in the pandemic, as there were too few workers, so that wages and freedoms had to rise to ensure crops and industry were sustained. It was purely economics that drove this social change, and that since then there has been a battle between a society of justice and fairness v a market feudal oppressive system culminating in our current society.  Until recently you could argue the market had won, but now in another global pandemic, will this give us an opportunity again to diminish the power and relentless scourge of the market society? Or will it actually make a more feudalist system more likely to be reimposed? How does the church respond?

We remember that Jesus’ entire ministry happened in the context of the oppression of the Jewish people under the super power of the time, and that included the imposition of an international market system at the time.  It has always been a personal bafflement to me why Jesus did not call out this oppression at the time, other than Jesus being clear about money about fairness and money being of this world in Caesars name. The only hint of challenge to this, are the words of Jesus before Pilate after he had been flogged where he says “I am not of this world’.  Chad Myers helpfully reminds us that the greek here for ‘world’ here is ‘Kosmos’ the same as ‘domination system’.  With this in mind, Jesus is calling out the Roman Empire as a militaristic market society as a domination system and so we Christians, holding onto our understanding of Jesus ‘now but not fully yet’ Kingdom in the context of having to live in a domination system, but not of a domination system,

I want to point out at this point, I am not being an extreme Socialist or Communist, this is the stories of the Gospels and and Letters of the Apostles, and my thought has always been that more conservatively inclined Christians really need to get back the Gospel narrative, as you will be in for a shock!

So how do Christians react to the reality that our market society continues to oppression and now leads to destruction with global warming and ecocide.  Mission has to start with economic, ecological and social justice.  These are the heart of the Judaeo-Christian understandings of stewardship, jubilee and the Kingdom.  We can not idly sit by and see successive governments just continue to oppress people.  What will it take for Christians in the UK to stand up to the oppression of the market and the invisible power of the super-rich as Jesus sides with the unbearably poor?  What will it take to seek a Government that prevents the excesses of the market system by what used to be called a mixed economy?  What will it take for this to be seen by the church to be a missional priority?  It is not just about evangelism , fresh expressions and new ecclesial communities.  like Jesus turned over the market stalls in the temple for causing de-sacralisation, so we as Christians should be challenging and turning over the market stalls threatening the wellbeing of people and the continued existence of our planet.  It is high time that the Christian Church rediscovered it’s calling and historic roots. Now in this pandemic, can we face this calling to prophetic witness and prophetic living.

Reading Systems Failure as Sign of the Times

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I do think some of the reactions in the USA for me just show how addicted we are, (not just how they are), to a consumerist capitalist system, and I really do think these are signs of system failure. Most of my life we have talked of the shifts from modernity to post modernity to post secularisation and the collapse of our financial system as the consequences of a system where money has become disconnected from the real when we ended the gold standard, and where the system has created economic slavery and an insatiable desire to use the worlds resources beyond what is sustainable and now faces global warming and ecoside.

The dominance of a culture dictated by Economics now does not make any sense anymore, where the billionaires are forcing political leaders to get people back to work even when their lives are at stake with this virus because they are losing money. For too long now Economics has been more important than human decency and human dignity. We need to own that we are facing a global system failure and it is going to be very painful as predicted by Obama at the beginning of his presidency. My sadness is that many Christians and Churches are so addicted and emeshed into this current market society that they have become part of the problem not the solution. Our model of ‘Church as business’ has been proved impotent in this crisis, with many important pioneers furloughed and now not able to work at a time when we need them more than ever to help and reimagine a church and society in this change. I am convinced that the effects of this virus are part of this system failure, and we have not faced this yet, and the solutions brought in to ride the storm like a universal wage, reductions in activity and destruction of the earth are going to need to part of our future.

There will be no going back, we need to face the future and I am sure that God must look back at some aspects of the Church and weep. I will never understand how some can call themselves Christians with the stances they take which seem to me to have very little to do with the Gospels and Jesus” teachings. We Christians need to play our part in this painful time to face serious change as our global market system collapses, and not be part of the problem. It seems to me some aspects of the church are to deeply emeshed and polluted by ties to the rich and powerful they they have lost their prophetic place as God expected as being the Body of Christ and the visible expression of the invisible Kingdom of God. Give to Caesar what is Caesars and give to a God what is Gods.

Interestingly traditional religious communities with their shared purse and commitment to poverty obedience and chastity can continue as a model of discipleship resistant and counter cultural to our market society and “Church as Business”. This is why I think we need to start to think what does it mean to be a Christian community living out the faith as a rhythm of life and why I am committed to a more new monastic approach to understand how to be a Christian in the context of our changing world where I am seeking not to collude with a system in failure but live simply and seek to hold onto Jesus’ teachings concerning social, economic and ecological justice. May be the solution is that we need to do our own spiritual 12 steps to be able to face this. I recently had to face an addiction problem in my life and this has really helped me to face things in a way I have never been able to before. We need to face our own sitting down by the rivers of Babylon, so we can be part of the solution not the problem as the church unfortunately can be.

Sunday Papers In conversation

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Just to let people know that over the next few weeks/month Sunday Papers is going to have some different voices posting. Following a few on line web chats a bunch of pioneer people will be using This blog to post thoughts about about how the church might inhabit the now and the not yet of the corona situation. So added a new category corona if want to access these posts. It’s a great line up people who might post so watch this space.

Is the normal we once knew worth returning to? – 10 Hyperglocal tips for a different future after lockdown

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I’m fascinated by the ramping up of the magnificent marketing machine preparing the way for a return to consumerism. Yes I’m looking forward to the freedom post lockdown but if we come out of the situation unchanged I think we need to ask some pretty big questions of our own humanity. It’s great that so many people are considering whether the normal they once knew is worth returning to. There have been a few memes floating around and they are asking the same question in different ways and Russell Brand pretty much hits the nail here.

However what I want to suggest are 10 Hyperglocal tips towards a different future.

Glocal was a term mainly coined in business terms around how to be a global brand that rolls out local variations to suit a local market. Think Macdonalds offering different burgers in different cultures. Later the term was taken up by environmental activists exploring how to address climate change by thinking of the global climate crisis and acting locally. What I mean by Hyperglocal is about both the small elements of activism we can do locally but also share globally through social media networks etc so the first tip is just that:

1. Be Hyperglobal – share your thoughts and small acts of resistance to the normal, that once was, with the wider world. Whether you are a poet, a pray-er, a philosopher, a carer, a doctor, or a nurse, and let’s be honest, the voices of nurses and bus drivers questioning the lack of PPE and dying as a result of their jobs, are some of the most heart wrenching stuff we will ever hear.

2. Be Courageous – call out the bad normal that once was. I love that Captain Tom Moore has raised over £10,000000 for the NHS and I’m not criticising him, but why the hell does the NHS have to be supported by additional charity, not to mention that we have been underfunding the NHS and undervaluing key workers for decades.

3. Be Aware – Take time to respond to the feelings you are having about questioning the normal that once was. Pause and reflect and throw those questions and angst out into the ether of social media, you might be surprised who responds and how this can equip you to move forwards.

4. Be Attentive – Notice the small things. People have talked about hearing the birds in Wuhan or seeing the mountain goats in Llandudno, notice this stuff in your locality and use it to resource your resolve when bombarded by busy-ness on the return to “normal” either by noticing those small things that continue, or their absence when they get squeezed out.

5. Question Language – In fact question most stuff that’s media and marketing related. Already the marketing machine has shifted its message to being “with” you at this time, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos saw his wealth grow by $24BILLION since the start of corona, whilst many of their workers fear for their health, and when the chancellor suggests we need to get the balance between health and the economy, what does that really mean, and what is your local response to all this? Yes we might question the long term economic sustainability if we are trying to return to the normal we once knew but remember that normal was a mirage, so we don’t have to play the same game any more. Research and support different economic possibilities, suppliers and use the questioning of language to help build some resistance to the lies we were once sold and will be re-ramped up as soon as lockdown ends. Indeed we are likely to see marketing messages about returning to “normal” as doing our bit to help economic recovery, when what we really need is a recovery package more like the 12 step programme to challenge our addiction.

6. Help others find a new vocabulary – keep reinforcing the message that the real key workers aren’t the business bosses. Start locally to do stuff that helps by giving the supermarket workers a thumbs up, gifting something to the refuse workers, etc and share your ideas and actions with others. Look for the positives of the lockdown (I know for some this will be easier than others depending in circumstances) and frame your language around this to explain and remind yourself of different possibilities.

7. Act yourself into new ways of being – Learn different ways of doing, behaving and belonging. Do-Be-Do, don’t rush back to the old ways but pause and reflect each time after picking up an old activity to ask if this is needed, helpful, healthy or simply a quick fix to the false normal. Take time to learn how to grow your own food, get an allotment, learn how to meditate, make that career change/move you have always wanted.

8. Live a different rhythm – many people are putting in different spaces into their day to help them cope with the lockdown, time to read, time to chat online with friends, experiment now with what works for you and join online groups or connect with friends to help you keep these up afterward.

9. Keep being Neighbourly and keep volunteering – If the lockdown has taught us anything it has been the rise of good community neighbourliness. From the practical support to simply chatting over fences. We too easily exist in social media echo chambers, but we rarely choose our neighbours, and so they are a great resource for hearing difference. Equally the massive response to the request for volunteers was great, and volunteering is a great way to open yourself up to newness and break out the bubbles you’re in.

10. Be still and Still Moving – many people will have to for a time at least return to jobs they no longer really want to be in. But can we cultivate a stillness deep in our being that will carry us through as we take the steps we need to change to the new normal we might be dreaming of.

We need to talk about the Adjacent Possible

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I know many people are just trying to cope, just trying to get through, some are trying to keep the show on the road, and few are still trying to carry on regardless but in a different format. But in the midst of this the opportunity to speak to the Adjacent Possible (see Jonnys blog post on this for some background) is probably greater than ever before, but the voices seem lacking and particularly voices from the faith communities.

People struggle to imagine a future they can’t see, and you can’t think yourself into a new way of being. So the possibilities of the moment are immense. People are having to live differently and inhabit new ways of being. But who from the church and how is the church speaking into this? I have had some fascinating conversations by posting simple questions into different Facebook groups eg I posted in a couple of Mountain groups How do your experiences of being lost in the fells help you cope with being in lockdown? In fact I got such good feedback it inspired be to use Lost as theme for a virtual Mountain Pilgrims experience on Sunday.

So how can we speak to adjacent possible? We need the artists and poets and this where we have seen some signs of hope, such as the NHS You clap me now and Tim AKA Beat liturgist Exploring the future and we can all do our part through local action, groups and online. However I wonder in these “unprecedented” times what we are being too called beyond the acts of service and love that the church has been brilliant at responding with such as keeping the foodbanks open, connecting and collecting shopping etc. With so many millions of people on lockdown, if only one or two percent of those people re-evaluate their life choices and decide to live differently after lockdown the culture shift could be seismic; are being called to speak into this? Can we draw on the wisdom traditions, to help people see the adjacent possible that so many are reaching for and is so tantalisingly close, and how might we do so on the scale of these unprecedented times. Let’s mobilise to speak to the adjacent possible (my offering is below), let’s dialogue with new people beyond our social media bubbles but let’s take a few risks to connect at scale for example I would love to see a conversation between Russell Brand and Rev Kate Bottley or Rev Richard Coles. What would you suggest, what future do you want to see and who are you talking about this with?