Category Archives: Faithful Improv

The signpost is not the way – Drop the what

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My start point here is that mission and church are intrisically linked, two sides of the same coin and I have written extensively on this over the years so hold this in mind as you read the rest of this post.

I have been thinking a lot about HOW we should approach the task of mission and church, both HOW we should approach the thinking we need to do about it and HOW to develop the practices we engage.

When we come to the subject of mission and church Our default is to ask What type questions like ‘What is church? What do we do in mission?. BUT I think we need a different start point because if we take the idea that there can we can have a fixed answer to those questions, we can never get to an answer because we close ourselves to the possibility of interruption and contextual emergence that is intrinsic to the idea of a body, a movement, a people, a bride. We immediately start to fall into same the trap that Jews did and Marks gospel for example went to lengths to avoid of having a perceived idea of a messiah so miss it when it comes. I think the same can be applied to church and mission hence the need for thinking on the HOW because the what that emerges is contextual, co-created, emergent, the signpost is not the way, the map is not territory.

Drawing from Grenz and Franke who explore a method for ‘doing’ theology in a post modern age that uses the interaction of culture, Biblical text and tradition we can note that the established idea of mission as a bridge into church holds little weight Biblically and is not consistent with the images of church offered in scripture. Secondly the missionary traditions of people such as Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, Stanley Jones, Christ of the Indian road, and Water Buffalo Theology, written by Kosuke Koyama, all the way back to Acts 17, where Luke records Paul contextualising the gospel and using the language of the Unknown God reinforce the need to move beyond a contextualisation of the message towards a journey of discovery on both sides. Robert Schreiter sees this journey as inculturation which he describes as “the dynamic relation between the Christian message and culture or cultures; an insertion of the Christian life into a culture; an ongoing process of reciprocal and critical insertion and assimilation between them”. The emphasis being the reciprocal nature that allows the process to question our current assumptions (answers) about what church and mission is, and move us away from this to more of an emerging process. (see my last post on Habitus and mixed ecology).

Putting this kind of process approach (the how question) at the centre rather that what questions about church and mission flips the script entirely. It is a journey which fuels the individual in their understanding of God, enabling them to see the missionary endeavour as an act of worship to God, and encounter the presence of God in the whole process, which in turn brings us full circle to an understanding not of mission as a bridge into church, but church and mission as a dynamic, subversive, irritative interaction between the individual, community and Missio-Dei on a redemptive path together. Perhaps it is only without the What question that we be can led towards the future and find ourselves as co-creative participants of the way.

(for a wider read on the missional context that initially prompted this approach check out Reconnected – Releasing the missional imagination in a post modern world)

A deeper magic

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A friend who is a political theologian in Germany recently highlighted how one symptom of the loss of power and hold of Christendom was the rush of many to reopen church buildings. Prayers are no more special or effective because they are said in a particular place, and yet, it is equally true that holy places (hills, buildings, beaches, pilgrimage sites) can bring solace, connection. The nature of corona has been apocalyptic as true to the meaning of the word apocalypse it is uncovering a lot of different stuff. Whilst the church has done some amazing things locally in it’s communities with acts of love, bravery and service, some great examples of online services, for many who have honestly asked there has been an increasing uncovering that despite this their church is no longer at the centre of the community and that’s ok. At the same time it’s clear that many have had Christendom blinkers on, evidenced by the conversations (and their tone) about getting back into church buildings, not holding Eucharist online, ‘harvesting’ the rise of people praying for the first time, a lack of critical engagement with those already in online spaces, judgements about what is or isn’t church in the online space, etc. This is uncovering that many are still oblivious to the culture shift that has happened over the last 50 years and living to a greater or lesser extent in a Christendom bubble and whilst I would like to say that’s ok too, because it can be hard to see the systems we are caught up in, but I’m not sure it is. I love the part in the Narnia story where Aslan tells the children of a “deeper magic” and I wonder with all the anxieties around if we are still trusting enough to help push deeper. I saw Ian Paul had used a quote from Alan Hirsch who suggested “If you want to learn to play chess, then take away the queen—then you see what the other pieces can do!’ For many churches, Sunday services have been the ‘queen’ that we have lost. Which I thought was a great commentary on the situation, but as a friend pointed there is an assumption you know how to play chess the first place, and we may be playing chess whilst the rest the world has moved onto Ludo or more likely in the west Monopoly.
BUT despite this once again I want to shout out and congratulate those churches who have served so well without services, wether you have been dog walking for your community, organising food, doing prescription runs, organising sunflower competitions, supporting parents home schooling, and say don’t automatically drop these things because you want to refocus on sunday gatherings. Ask yourselves how can we keep these connections going, so we can keep building on what God has been doing through lockdown, perhaps God has even been showing you, you can improvise, you can change and do things differently. So if services aren’t what’s next, what might be? How can we continue to journey with people in a new way? What about those with dogs in the church arranging mini meet ups with those who can now walk their dogs again, what might a socially distanced homework club look like with a few adults on hand to help any children who have been struggling catch up. The church has learnt to do things differently and proved to itself and many skeptics that change can be done quickly when needed but as Blanchard warns in the seven dynamics of change “If you take the pressure off, people will revert back to their old behavior.” and perhaps the best way to avoid this is to recognise the sacredness of the spaces and relationships created in lockdown. Seeing God where you have creatively and effective served and changed your actions and communities and that this may well have been about you following the missionary impetus of the Holy Spirit into the new. So let go of some things and don’t rush to pick back up other things, even if that is your queen, give yourself the time and space to keep following the missio dei to places you nor I have been before and where the deeper magic happens.

Play and Dissent In complex systems

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On the 8th Feb we are having a taster day for the certificate in pioneer mission that will be starting in September as part of the Northern Pioneer Centre. The day the Pastoral Statement landed I was planning a session for the taster event on the stories pioneers find themselves in and using Arbuckles notions of dissent and lament. Particularly how pioneers led by Jesus find themselves so often on the edge and how they need to value the experiences of seeing the beloved manifested in those places as resource for hope and a call to dissent. “There can be no constructive change at all, even in church, unless there is some form of dissent. By dissent I mean simply the proposing of alternatives, and a system that is not continuously examining alternatives is not likely to evolve creatively.”
Arbuckle Refounding the Church
I guess this is where the church (as denominations) often gets caught, as it fails to understand system complexity. This system complexity helps make spaces that try to examine, try to propose alternatives, and even try’s to listen (E.g. shared conversations) but is placed within an institution (and fixed false orthodoxy paradigm rooted in the enlightenment) that favours reductionism that can never compete with the complexities of following the way of love in the person Jesus. So dissent really matters, because orthodoxy that exists in a vacuum is not truth, and the Jesus way demonstrates orthopraxis that love is a way of dissent toward shalom.

At the same time my FB memory popped up with “ Whisper, somewhere beyond usefulness is a land where play reigns.” For May 29-31st we are following the Taster day with a Pioneer Fiesta(all ages welcome). In the heart of the Lakes there will be camping (with the opportunity to come early if you want a holiday) or book a B&B, and join in the stories, food and play. We are playing with different voices animating Mark 4 going to the other side of the lake. The word animating is used deliberately as there will be playful experiments including a messy take, an outdoors take, an artists take, an entrepreneurs take, a priests take, an inclusive take etc all around Mark 4. We are also Literally taking a paddle steamer to the other side of the lake and having a band and party on board. If you want to find out more email godforallevents@carlislediocese.org.uk.

At the moment I know I am called to be on the inside edge of this system and my commitment to the bride of Christ keeps me hanging there. At times I find playing with words is one of the few ways I can cope when the institution gets too much so here is an offering Of hopeful playful dissent.

Love is judged unworthy and tears of sadness grow.
Acidic edicts, camouflaged in priesty garments,
close doors to grace filled embraces.
Love sits outside with the masses
Bewildered at processes so reduced so disconnected
and so this holy water from different wells will flow.

An exercise in missing the point

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Ok maybe it’s because I’m not feeling great with man flu, but I’m screaming inside as I read the peice “why does it matter if young people do theology” As it seems such a good question but so misses the point because it is rooted in an old paradigm perspective that flys in the face of all the good stuff that millennials are offering that the article cites earlier. It demonstrates the antithesis of what being woke is.

I agree “this is where theology comes in. Theology matters because it redirects our worship. It realigns it. It always has. It offers new perspectives on the age old questions of ‘who am I? What am I here for? What’s the meaning of life?’, which are being asked in new ways by a generation who live in a constant state of tension and flux.” But the authors quick jump to the idea that theology is about communications and translation “for and to a generation longing for answers” is swift and telling, and spectacularly misses the heartbeat of millennials. It fails to see how rooted in power that approach is and how that the approach of theology as something worked out behind closed doors, and done too/presented to people is, flys in the face of the millennial culture. Whilst the approach may tap into the authenticity narrative that millennials are searching for, it does so in a rather inauthentic way that most millennials will see through. Now I have to admit im not a millennial, and yes the list of topics in the theology slam are all good, but for the “me too” generation a theology that explains/translates doesn’t matter. A theology that doesn’t include “other” in the conversation, or an assumption that theology is done by Christians doesn’t matter. What does matter is theology that is cocreated with the woke generation, regardless of where they are on their journey of faith, a community theology around a bigger table where everyone has a seat is what matters to them because they graciously already know we need them more than they need us.

New Ideas are not the problem

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It was Leon Festinger who termed the phrase “cognitive dissonance” as he observed that when reality clashes with our deepest convictions we would rather recalibrate reality than amend our worldview. So when we are seeking change in church circles, or with people of faith, facts and evidence can often make little difference. John Maynard Keynes said “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones”. So the question isn’t about the lack of new ideas but about HOW people and society moves forward into the new. This forward trajectory towards love and peace, is central to the christian narrative, the missio dei reconnection of church and mission, calls the church as the living text, the same spirit that called the early church calls us on to the kingdom that is now and not yet. A kingdom narrated and marked by love and grace. So the HOW remains the issue.

I want to unpack the HOW and the role cognitive dissonance plays by looking at a little twitter conversation I had with Jason Gardner who raised the question “In a dominantly secular age, surely Christianity – all religion – is seen as irrelevant. Do we fight for relevance or admit that culture clashes are inevitable as the worldviews of secularism and theism are utterly opposed?” Personally I think they are both far less opposed than we think, but both ideologies that people want to protect. The issue for theist is more about how wedded to the old we are when are part of the kingdom that is now and not yet, and called to be part of the ongoing living text. Jason response raised two really important issues, “the New Testament way is ‘live such good lives’ that people can’t argue against our way of life but Jesus was clear that the world will still hate us. Still living the story is key.” I assume he was drawing on 1 Peter in the first part “live such good Lives” and I love this text because it is so grounded, rooted in locality and space and time and a community (and hate it because it is such a high call). Whilst Jesus parts are more generalised, the “world” (root cosmos) will hate us, perhaps he is being more parabolic and what he is addressing is more about the powers (the strongman is the systems of oppression and violence, social, economic and political domination that pervade our world see Ched Myers reading of Mark) and people wedded to the accepted ways of being, those seeking to hold onto what they have, know, think. Because when I am in local grounded spaces where people are questioning the powers, the old dichotomies and binaries, I find tremendous love and grace more often than not from people who would not call themselves christians. Yet when I am spaces where christians are drawing lines of who is in and who is out, what is true and wand what isn’t, I usually find the opposite of the grace and love that is supposed to mark the kingdom.

So I wonder if Jesus is saying us being hated is too often used by people in power to prop up the status quo and not wrestle with what good looks like, and in doing so disconnects from the ongoing story of Jesus. The world hating us gets used to excuse as cognitive dissonance to prop up ways of being that end up showing very little love and reinforces old ideologies that struggle to connect with the church as the living and emerging text. As Dean chipped into the twitter conversation “creating a siege mentality leads to a culture war… which is just a clanging gong”

Pioneering Transparent Ops and Real Relationships

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One of the issues I have struggled with most since moving from an organisation that has always been outside the institution and committed to the liminal spaces, to within the structures of the church, is staying true to the calling I think I have. It is very easy to tone stuff down for political expediency and so loose that sense of who I really am. Im fully aware I need to take care about the HOW of what I say what to whom, and I have always done that in no matter what role I am (good adult to adult honest and real dialogue in pretty short supply in the church), but Im not sure I should ever change the WHAT. Real Relationships for me is a two way thing, I can’t be in a real relationship with those I am serving in the institution if I am not being honest about the what of who I am and the what of what Im doing. I remember saying to students (usually in the first week or so) when I used to teach mission and theology that I wanted to be really up front and I saw part of my role as about corrupting them with the christ who would spend time on the margins with young people outside the church. Likewise with Transparent Operations I needed to be clear and open about what the third space fresh expressions were. That they were deliberately playful, pushing boundaries, pathfinding projects, about their failings and successes. I can be great at putting a positive spin on stuff but more often than not be too brutally honest about stuff so people end up thinking Im grumpy or negative. But my own self awareness has to be key to Transparent Ops and Real Relationships if we want to see increased impact and capacity and enable others to catch the vision.

I might not do anything as mad as Richard but…

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I wonder if there is an argument to say that when sodal side of missional church pushes out that the modal takes care of itself. For full definitions see Ralph De Winters paper but for shorthand I borrow from Jonny Baker “modal is the local gathered and sodal the spread out focused around a mission task” I think that maybe when you do the sodal well the modal gets a jump start as well, we have seen a proliferation of Fresh Expressions of church in Cumbria close to the fringe of the established church. Many have been great, imaginative, relational and for those involved bold and brave steps, but they aren’t what I would have done, and thats okay. When I arrived in Cumbria I deliberately set up 3rd space Fresh Expressions which were more akin to the emerging church stuff I was familiar with, they were not connected to the local churches so they had space to play and work towards the right hand side of the pioneer spectrum. They included Maranantha Yoga and Mountain Pilgrims and so Ive heard it said “i’m not going to do anything as mad as Richard but I’ll give this a go…” Subsequently we have seen a modal move to action, engage their fringe really well, and yes its not what I would do but thats more than ok its brilliant.

Inclusion delusion

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“A delusion is a false, unshakeable idea or belief, which is out of keeping with the patient’s educational, cultural and social background; it is held with extraordinary conviction and subjective certainty” (Sims A (2003) Symptoms in the Mind: An Introduction to Descriptive Psychopathology.3rd Edition)

There has been some really quite horrid stuff flying around the web in response to Vicky Beechings book Undivided. The level of vitriol sometimes explicit and sometimes couched in religious terms was disconcerting even for someone like me who knows just how difficult Christians can be when you challenge certain orthodoxies. So much so that the only word that came to mind was “deluded”. This is not a word I use lightly but to see the Christian story and particularly details (around practices, what is and what isn’t kosher) as so fixed, so unnuanced, so unchangable, is out so out of keeping with the “educational, cultural and social background” of the Christian narrative that it seems delusional is the only word available.
It is only by using the word delusional can I make any sense of some of the cheap shots (about her replacing one stage for another or she could never have been a Christian) that have been thrown Vickys way. The trajectory of Christian story is rooted in love, it starts in a garden and heads to a city, it moves in an ever unfolding redemptive arc, it didn’t start with Jesus, but he exemplified it, and it certainly didn’t stop with Jesus whose words to love our enemies call us to continue in those footsteps through the ages and continue beyond the now as what love really is, becomes uncovered. When you deny the humanity of one person, struggling, wrestling, seeking and sense making you step outside that arc, and you loose something in yourself.

We need to loose a bit more

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I’ve been reflecting on the paradoxes in faith, like, it’s better to give than receive, to loose life to find it, wisdom through foolishness, strength in weaknesses and so on. I’m wondering about their role in evangelism and mission, not about telling people the whats of the paradoxes like you need to loose your life in order to find it, but more about how paradox should function in mission. In discipleship we start with a banking approach giving people the basics of what we think they need to know, and I think this might be contrary to how the paradoxes function. Why don’t say to someone forget everything you think you know and I have nothing to teach you, other than I am weak, I have only foolishness to offer…
When we fail to operate out of the paradoxes, we disempower and we perpetuate the myths of organised religion, we operate from positions of power, and we compromise the opportunity for indigenous faith to be nurtured and supported.

Does G-d exist outside relationships?

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Every now and then someone reports on if young people are interested in God, or spirituality, or something of that ilk. Good reports like Buried Treasure, in depth stuff like Faith of Generation Y, and recently a small scale research piece called No questions asked.

One of the questions I always come back to in this sort of research is where is relationship within the context of the research, and what role does relationship play in asking these sort of questions? I often test out the questions used with young people I have an ongoing connection with, and without fail get into great discussions around faith, spirituality and life. Often for obvious research reasons, the research is conducted outside of the context of ongoing relational youth work. So whilst I could argue about research paradigms and the role of researchers, the question I really want to ask is; does God exist outside of the context of relationship?

I am always fascinated by the communal nature of the trinity, the relational and incarnational aspect of God. It also seems from reading the various documents that more often than not when relationship is excluded as a variable, the god talk doesnt happen, but when included it does. What is going on here? Is it as simple as people need to feel comfortable or known to talk, or is it more?

It’s natural that young people don’t talk about about God in a vacuum, as for most people the natural evidence is that God doesn’t exist. So is it supernatural that people do talk about God in the context of ongoing relationship? Is God being made more manifest in those conversations? Are miracles occurring in the lives of young people, as despite the natural everyday evidence that God isn’t real, they want to talk?