Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

Rules Rule?

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Structures, traditions and institutions are all examples of rules. Most of the church today appear to be very happy with rules, they appear to create a certain level of health in the church. You can even measure the results of programmes and see how well these structures perform – just the same as a well run business.

However, Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was, in some way or another, an emergence of a new era of life in which the opportunity to have a renewed spirit that could drive a holy life. This was a step change away from the law, which could not bring life, but only death.

This was a move away from the inflexible law to flexible love, as demonstrated by Christ on, probably, many a Sabbath.

Laws, rules, routines, traditions and structures cannot provide the most optimised lives. A great example is the speed limit: Within a 30mph limit there are places where it would be unbelievable lunacy to travel through a give way junction, corner or a roundabout at 30mph, in other places, where there are no risks of the presence of unexpected other road users it seems to be an unnecessary task to do 30mph (please bear in mind that I am in no way promoting the breaking of the speed limit – we should obey the laws of the land unless God specifically calls us otherwise!). Similarly how can meeting on a Sunday at 10:30am week in, week out be an optimal solution? Why should a hymn sandwich reliably provide an intimate experience of God’s love? (or whatever it is supposed to provide)

What is great about rules is that they can embody hundreds or thousands of years of wisdom – that’s a whole lot more wisdom than your average Joe Bloggs. Because of this, society seems to flourish in the presence of a well developed system of law and social etiquette. To prove this general truth we note that in societies where law and order have broken down you tend to see a lot of injustice, poverty, violence etc.

Now, what scares the church about the idea of life without rules? Well, the same things as society really: injustice, exploitation, abuse, hurt, etc. You just have to see the evidence of antinomianism to ‘prove’ that laws and rules are an absolute necessity for the church.

…But hang on a minute, why does a lack of rules mean that we are going to descend into anarchic mayhem? What kind of tragic Christians descend into the pit of iniquity just because they lack a rule book? Aren’t Christians supposed to have love? Isn’t love supposed to be stronger than law? Aren’t we supposed to be able to resist the temptations that we are faced with? What kind of Christian believes that God inside isn’t enough to be a better person? Isn’t the community of the church going to moderate our beliefs and behaviours by mechanisms of accountability, discipling resulting from Holy Spirit lead lives?

Or am I missing something?…

“…as if I were a Christian!”

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One of my student said the other day while we were eating lunch. “I’m so tired to live as if I were a christian – and not as a christian!” The phrase struck me. It was really good. We were talking about all the strategies, methods and stuff we are facing. (I’m lecturer at a theological school – www.salt-sv.se) Sometimes these strategies and stuff is hindering us from living as Christians. The focus in all the strategies is how to evangelize or do mission. But seldom what the content of the mission should be. But the truth is that the strategies are a theology! There are no value free strategies. The question is – are they true to Christ or not? Growth has most often become the most important thing. But our task is not to sell coke as coca cola co. should sell coke – we have to incarnate the gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe is efficiency not a value taken from the gospel but from another story…

The christian life is sometimes getting so technical – we should do the right things to become successful instead of being a good person (understood in a christian way of course). The thing is that I think that the content and the strategies should be the same thing – DO-BE-DO – we should do what we are. And then reflect if we did what we should be… As an example – Jesus set demonized people free as an concrete example of the freedom of the Kingdom. He had done that, I’m sure, even if had not been successful because it was the content of the kingdom. He did reflect who he was.

I think we have to think through if all the methods, strategies, Mega Church techniques are a faithful way of living the Gospel in our specific context.

Communicating with/within the Church

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We, the church, are the Bride of Christ. What I must remember is that the church is not my ‘bride’, it is not an extension of me.

When I interact with the church, I can interact with it in two ways:

  1. as individuals to whom I am accountable and am in relationship with.
  2. as an entity.

I suspect that I can only treat it as an entity when I bring prophecy to the church. Whilst I can bring my own ‘chat’ to individuals with whom I am in relationship, if I bring comments to the church surely there is much more of an onus on me to bring God’s word, to bring prophecy?

Most of our communication is within our tightly knit groups. Only some is ‘broadcast’. When we ‘broadcast’, both the purpose and responsibility is different. When we broadcast we are not seeking one to one discipleship, encouragement or accountability, we are surely bringing an edifying message of God to the church?

Anthropomorphising The Church

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Whilst the Bible illustrates the church as the Bride of Christ, we must recognise the metaphor and not put too many ‘person’ characteristics on the church. The church is not a person, we are not hive!

I keep hearing about:

  • The will of God for a local church.
  • The specific mission of a local church.
  • The purpose of a local church.
  • etc.

Whilst I cannot knock these things absolutely, I do wonder if they illustrate our institutionalisation of the church. Hand in hand with institutionalisation come many characteristics that would normally only be applied to a person – the institute begins to have a character, a vision, a purpose, not enough time, not enough resources…

My concern is that we aren’t individualistic enough!!! OK – cringe in horror BUT:

  • We have to ‘work out our own salvation’.
  • Each of us has the Holy Spirit.
  • We are each a priest.
  • We each have to take our own responsibility to be obedient to God.
  • etc.

If we institutionalise the church and treat it as an autonomous entity then:

  • It is easy to ignore our personal responsibility.
  • We end up putting expectations on the church – which actually means putting the individuals under pressure, and because ultimately we don’t treat the entity that is church with the same loving care and attention that we would give an individual – we are insensitive to the entity that is church and therefore insensitive to the people in it.
  • We form structures to pass the ‘will of the church’ down through to the people who we expect to do the work. These structures enable distance to open up and can negate the need for intimate relationships.
  • etc.

So, let’s assume that there is a need to de-anthropomorphise the church, to deconstruct it’s structs and to de-metaphor our over literalism!

Isn’t individualism a crime?!

Sure, individualism that is self seeking is – sure it is. But what about taking our individual responsibilities seriously, not putting too much pressure on others, not making the excuse that something is ‘their’ responsibility.

We see throughout the New Testament plenty of teaching. This teaching is aimed at the individual, it is talking about our responsibility as individuals, our relationship as individuals with a God who loves each of us, as individuals. New Testament teaching isn’t full of stuff about how to control others, it’s about how to control oneself… and submit to others.

The individualism that we see envisioned in the Bible is a personal love. A love that we gain as individuals from God’s action on our individual hearts. Out of that love we sacrifice ourselves, as individuals, on the cross of love. Love for others. We are united as church, not by control, but by love, love for God and love for others.

Let’s stop palming off our individual responsibilities on the church, let’s stop trying to control each other through the structure that church has become. Let’s look to the fundamental property of church, that it is a network of individuals, concerned for each other and having varying depths of relationship with each other, ranging from the intimate to an awareness of our brothers and sisters around the globe, whom we have never met.

The emerging church as missionaries to the mainstream church

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TSK posted a link

The Saint psp

a good and well worked challenge to the hearers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emerging church as a manifestation of our subcultures weakness PART 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emerging church as a manifestation of our subcultures weakness

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Regular readers and people who know me may have guessed from the last few posts I have been mulling something over re the church thing. Annie has been looking at worship and Conrad makes a great response, outlining a positive wholistic approach to worship/life.

(Conrad in response to Annie) When Paul talks in Romans 12:1 about your whole life being an act of worship, he would be horrified if he thought the Christians were mistaking a life of faith for worship, as horrified as James, who said faith without works is dead, would be if Christians started taking that to mean social action was the same thing as faith.
Conrad goes on too ask
What’s my subculture’s weakness? If you’re in a place where you’re likely to neglect the actions, what the New Testament wants of you is not merely works, but a faith that isn’t lacking works. But if you’re in a place where everything has to be about us or the effects we have or the numbers we win — about what we get out of it or someone else gets out of it, then maybe it’s time to be told that there’s a time for prayer and worship that is about God and him only. The Christians’ true worship is more than this, but it isn’t less.

My initial response (in Annies comments) was around a wondering if there is something more in Conrads comments that stems from a confusion around the kingdom and church. I started arguing in Off the Beaten Track that they are far closer to each other than evangelicalism sees. Our current approach to church and worship is discontinuous with this kingdom perspective of wholeness and shalomness that we should be progressing and to me is what Conrad was on about in his first comment when he was balancing James (deeds) and Corinthians (worship) so brilliantly. I still think that we may need a paradigm jump in our definitions of church rather than the emerging shift that is going on which often seems to focus on style rather than definition, and so in the end may not move us that far forward.

On further reflection I wonder if our subculture’s weakness stems from a commitment to a paradigm of church and worship that is no longer relevant or biblical. We are using an old wineskin, and even our new wine-skins are irrelevant. Theology and culture is moving on, it is time to move onto wine bottles, but this kind of radical shift IS our subcultures weakness. Radical shift is deemed inappropriate or unbiblical, and this is again part of our subcultures weakness; a commitment to evolution rather than revolution. I would argue that Jesus was the embodiment of a radical shift and whilst people may cite philosophers who promote evolution (Marx, Camus) look what an evolutionary approach has done for socialism. Other voices for revolution are needed but take care as Herbert Marcuse wrote: “In every revolution, there seems to have been a historical moment when the struggle against domination might have been victorious…. but the moment passed.� So care is needed in the process but it is one that can see real change.

Years ago I felt we needed a new reformation but couldn’t quite put my finger on what was needed. The more I think about it the more convinced I am that it is our whole conception of church that needs reforming. Our thinking about what is church, and what is kingdom. A reformation of church that is far more about definition than style.

The current emerging model could be stemming from our subcultures weakness (surely it is a model that is more about evolution than revolution) and so will not achieve the shift required. Luther nailed definition to the doors and started a revolution. I value the conversational nature of the emerging church (and imagine something similar was going on in limited form in Luther’s time) and I value the emerging churches non combativeness, I think, the generous orthodoxy, has added much to the process. But we need to see the current emerging church stuff for what it is, a valuable early conversation that is bubbling away, but not a great hope for future change, and without care a possible hindrance to real change. Take heed of Marcuse and lets not allow this moment to pass.

Okay I recognise I have not offered an alternative definition of church, but I am working on it and hope to nail it the door soon.

Blog the whole

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There has been quite a bit of discussion in blog-land on the Spirituality of blogging much of which was sparked off by TSK stuff from Greenbelt . Phil has looked at the holistic blogging. At the moment I have been thinking a lot about the old Christians mystics who would pray to rid themselves of the god they knew, for any god they knew could not be God as He is so much more (apologies for my crap paraphrase of an ancient spiritual truth). As I think of the mess of life and what it is to blog the whole, I was sparked by Frederick’s about the death of his father, to rethink the place I have come to in relation to my fathers death. My hope is that this blog is about blogging holistically but a kind of holisticism that moves me (and maybe others) on, to discover more of God and to loose sight of the god I know. So THANK-YOU to those who share the journey.

Part of the journey for me at the moment are the questions I posed here. Thanks Annie and Charlotte for the thoughts, more comments welcome

The Star Wars Fallacy

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As we all know, the Star Wars epic is a story of a battle of good against evil, where the evil empire uses fatal force to ensure it’s dominance against the good rebel alliance who also use fatal force against the enemy to ensure their dominance.

Unfortunately for us, we are taken in by this idea that good can defeat evil using hate – the tool of evil – but we find it hard to accept that the tool of good is love, and that the only hope of defeating evil is with love. Jesus set an example of love and perhaps the hardest commandment was to ‘love your enemy’, which seems to entailing doing the same stuff to your enemies as you do to your friends!

For some reason we find it easier to accept the violence fallacy as being the ultimate power rather than the supremacy of the truth of love! Let’s not be fooled by the myths and legends of our culture, which present the idea that violence is the ultimate arbiter. Let’s accept Christ’s example on the cross and incorporate his message fully into our lives as we are changed by his love for us.