Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

Where did it start?

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.!.

I have been having a conversation with Louis Krog who is doing some work on the history of the emerging church movement in the UK. I gave him a copy of some notes I put together for Denmark and some talks in the UK about the links between youth work and EC. He is trying to establish a time line and has put up a slide from me and and an alternative timeline here

Center Stage: Turn It Up full

and would like your comments. My contention is that a lot of the EC has some roots in different strands of youth work and developed through different expresions of youth work into altworship as the youth workers got older. Let us know what you think!

Christmas is all about receiving !

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The following is a reflection I prepared for an Advent session…..

Christmas is all about giving!!
The lord loves a cheerful giver!!
Giving is better then receiving – or so they say
But what about being a good receiver…
It seems to me that receiving is much harder
And when we think about it isn’t receiving what Christmas is actually all about
Giving is relatively easy – it may challenge our selfishness or priorities
But giving doesn’t expose our needs

I don’t like surprises, why? Because I’m not in control..
What if I get something I didn’t like or want – what do I say?
Do I lie and say how much I like it, do I have to be grateful?
Knowing that I will either give it to someone else or give it to a charity shop.
Have you ever received a Christmas gift from someone you hadn’t expected one from?
What do you do? Do you feel guilty and rush out and buy them a token gift?
What happens if that gift is perfect, something you really appreciate and yet you had no idea that you would like it.

Mary was open to receiving an unexpected gift,
She welcomed and wondered at the gift given and created space within her to receive it.
This unexpected gift radically changed her life
She ultimately gave over her whole world to this gift.

Giving can make us feel powerful, competent, self-sufficient and capable sort of people, giving doesn’t expose our needs.
Learning the art of receiving calls us to intimacy, honesty, openness and evaluation.
To receive the love of another, calls me to intimacy, I have to expose something of my inner world, of who I am. To receive another’s love I have to allow my innermost self to be touched.
To receive I have to open my hands, ( I love the Eucharist in this sense, this childlike openness to receive the body and blood.
Inner growth comes from opening ourselves up to receive from others
Christmas is about receiving the love that Jesus offers to us.
To be loved means that I must bring myself with all my insecurities, pain and needs to be embraced by another.

To be on the receiving end of love requires that we see our lives not as our possessions, but as gifts. Emptiness is a gift, to have enough room, to not be too full. To be needy, poor, weak, can be a gift.
Ultimately the gospel is about receiving a precious unbelievable gift, the gift of God being born in us.
When Mary offered space, love and belief in her life, her life changed forever.
Learning the art of receiving is a powerful call to change.
In receiving I need to welcome the other
In receiving I need to make room and space to accept that which I frequently fail to realise I need.
In receiving – I change.

Bristol Baptist College – Politics Sessions

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If you were at the Thursday (30th Nov) session on politics I recommend having a look through the ‘Government‘ category on this site.

Some summary points:

    Blood and Chocolate trailer

  • Politics is basically the relationships that give us power over others.
  • Power over others is a facet of fallen society.
  • Power over people is being superseded by the new enabling power of the New Kingdom.
  • The New Kingdom ushers in an upside down paradigm – the last shall be first, the least, the servant, submission, love.
  • The Messiah was expected to be a political power – to relieve Israel from the conquering nations that had troubled it and the Romans who occupied it. However, Jesus Christ did not so much as lift a finger against the Romans, who’s empire later caused immense damage to the church.
  • We see the story of the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-25) who Christ recommended to give away all of his wealth. This would result in the giving up of power.
  • The church has historically decided to utilise the power of the state and has not kept itself as a separate entity.
  • Evil is separation from God and as such cannot be stopped by legislation.
  • We are judged on our heart, our motives, not our actions (although our actions display the nature of our hearts!).
  • Sin is simply separation from God – the acts we do are not either more or less sinful, they are either sinful (coming from our separation from God) or not (coming from our relationship with God). When we focus on sinful acts we tend to forget that the thing that matters is the sin inside – the Beattitudes (Mat 5:21 etc.) illustrates this sea change from the Old Testament where the focus was on sinful acts.
  • Law cannot bring justice, it is merely privilege and counter-privilege piled high.
  • Justice and freedom only come through a relationship with God. The New Kingdom of submission and love for one another is the only way that we will see true freedom and justice.
  • Accept persecution rather than legislate to prevent people doing it to us – Romans 12.
  • Even though we become Christians we remain in a world that continues to oppress us. Christ was oppressed, but simultaneously had freedom from oppression. Similarly Christ has relieved us of oppression and set us free.
  • In the same vein we can still be fulfilling God’s mission for us even when we are in submission to the authorities and powers that God has allowed to rule (Romans 13, Matt 22:15). However, everything we do should be in obedience to God – just that a lot of that will also be obedience to government or simply submission to others.
  • We do see a difference between how Jesus acted towards the leaders of God’s people and towards others. He did bring critical prophetic word to leaders of God’s chosen nation of Israel.
  • We see ‘easy Christianity’ where people just have to chant a formula to apparently meet God, but we mustn’t forget that we often practice ‘easy evangelism’ where we duck out of the ‘hard’ submissive, powerless lifestyles that Christ’s example urges us to take. Often we try to paint an attractive picture of Christianity after we fail at living a sacrificial life.
  • Using legislation to force our society to do ‘good’ to others actually includes forcing people to pay more taxes or lose their ‘freedoms’.
  • George Muller of Bristol never asked for money for his five homes for orphans. He focussed on God’s task and God proved to be the provider, meaning that George never needed to push people to provide.
  • Non coercive power is basically the power to persuade people whilst giving them freedom of choice. Christ’s power is persuasive, but he does not negate people’s free will.
  • We do see that Christ will bring judgment, vengeance, get rid of oppression, rule with an iron rod, but this is to come and is not now.

Some points that I missed:

  • Talk is our major form of interaction with others and as such can be our major source of coercion as we attempt to bend people to our wills. We need to ensure that our talk liberates others.
  • Other forms of coercive control include temptation. This could include deceptive marketing (as per lifestyle consumer goods) . Are certain forms of evangelism merely types of deceptive marketing that don’t spell out the truth of the total cost and the total gain of following Christ?
  • Look at the accounts of Jesus reaching out to various people throughout his lifetime – do you see a tendency to control?
  • Moderation of those inside the church appears to be by exclusion rather than control. We are called to judge inasmuch as to understand whether it is healthy or productive to our mission to spend time with particular people. However, our response is still to love, but bearing in mind that we are called to love others too.
  • Some in the church are trying to usher in a utopia, trying to create a poor copy of the New Kingdom, by using fallen methods such as coercive control.
  • Education can be a form of non-coercive power. It is therefore very political, but in a very different manner to attempts to control the behaviour of others. However, education done without humility is often coercive. Education is best imagined as a fellowship of explorers rather than a structure that brings one person’s ‘truth’ to many.
  • We need to ask ourselves whether we should be utilising the power of the state – such as using the police (as we have a civil right to) or using our vote.
  • We see that the most extreme form of persecution, martyrdom, is a greatly effective and persuasive act. However, it takes the ultimate sacrifice (this is not to be confused with being killed whilst killing others).
  • If we feel that we need to abandon behaviour that seeks to control others we should not only question whether we should work in the military sphere, but also whether we should participate in various areas of law enforcement.
  • We also need to assess whether our trading habits involve unfair control of others. Are our trading partners on a level playing field with us? Do we reinforce the controlling behaviour of some businesses by trading with them? Do we strengthen the hand of exploitative and manupulative employers?

I recommend visiting the Ekklesia web site. It is an interesting approach to politics for Christians. Whether they get the balance right is up for debate, but this is a very interesting outline The King Maker buy from which I have learnt much.

Advent Wisdom

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Oscar Romero said/wrote this…

No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas
Without being truly poor.
The self-sufficient, the proud,
Those who, because they have everything,
Look down on others, who have no
Need even of God – for them there
Will be no Christmas.
Only the poor, the hungry,
Those who need someone to come on their behalf,
Will have that someone.
That someone is God – with – us.
Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God.

Advent – How do you wait?

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We did an advent reflection in a the lift for a youth work training event last week. Below is the story we used but you can find the whole card here

The Waiting Room – How do you wait?

In a hot crowded waiting room full of noise and bustle you find yourself a seat. Do you sit away from people or next to them? Or do you sit near the exit, watching as people enter and leave? Perhaps you pick up an old magazine and leaf through it, idly looking at the pages but not actually seeing, always being alert to those around you. Or maybe you sit and think, running through lists or things to do when you leave. You might worry about the future or what lies for you behind that closed door.

You may wait expectantly, anticipating the answer to come soon, or you may know that your wait is a long one, maybe with no answer at the end. So how do you wait? As the world passes by you and round you, what is in the stillness of your mind, how is your spirit stirred?

Whether you find waiting easy or difficult we all have times in our lives where we just have to—wait.

What happened to Christmas?

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I live in a multi ethnic community, where people belong to many different religions. Recently there was an event to mark the start of Eid , Davila and very soon Hanukah. All these religious festivals are openly talked about in my son’s school and celebrated but you can’t find celebrations for Christmas anywhere? On a local poster all the above religious festivals are mentioned but not Christmas – Santa is on it and words like winter festivities or festival of lights, but Christmas is never mentioned. In my son’s school they are going to do play about a baby – but as yet the word ‘Christ’ has not been mentioned.

You can tell by now that I am a little pissed off about this. Who is against Christmas? I don’t think the other religious faiths are? So who is it – is it big business or people who are trying to be politically correct – why is Christmas so offensive? Is it because it has ‘Christ’ in the title? I don’t know. Any ideas….??

When will the leaves fall?

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My family and some friends annually celebrate ‘Leaf day’ – where we mark the leaves falling, recognise the passing of another summer and prepare ourselves for winter. This is one of the rituals that we seek to keep to remind and reconnect us to the rhythm of our year and seasons. We do this with games for the kids in the leaves, eating and doing something crafty and a meditation for the adults about the joys of letting go and the beautiful lessons and colours that death can reveal to us.

But here in Nottingham the leaves are not falling (some are, but not in great quantities) …. So we wait and we hope that the leaves will fall before the season of Advent begins.