Category Archives: Church

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.

How to Participate in Church Without Turning Up on Sunday Morning!

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Right, let’s face it, the most important thing about Sunday morning is to pick up a copy of the weekly newsletter so that you know what exactly is going on in the life of the church for the rest of the week!

Aw, come on! The most important thing is face time with your (church) family, not something that you get a lot of on a Sunday morning (especially when the music/singing group decide to prevent all chat before kick off).

Anyway, living in the Internet era should enable us to not need to grab a hardcopy of the newsletter… well in theory anyway! In practice most churches aren’t net savvy enough to practice ‘push’ email where information is pushed to ‘consumers’ of said via email. So the alternative is to get a friend to pick up a copy for you.

Surely it is without doubt that every church recognises that there will be some who can rarely attend church, due to work or perhaps because they live elsewhere at the weekends…?

So, get along to prayer meetings, house group, meals, parties, mission presentations etc – that should give you your fill of face to face encounters with your brothers and sisters. If that isn’t enough then get yourself invited to people’s houses for meals, or babysit (and then refuse to leave when the parent’s get back!). Better still, invite others to your place or on holiday. Why not employ some of them?!

But I do recommend turning up on Sunday am once in a while. You never know, it may have changed…

Well put

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I came across a good discussion on mission and church and Steve put my thinking on mission infront of church very well in the comments.

misisology is the lense through which ecclesiology dhould be formed not the other way round.

Check out the full discussion here

Communion

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The question was asked today why do we celebrate communion? My immediate thought was because at the time, having some sort sacred meal was very culturally relevant and a good way of connecting this “new” religion with the diverse religious communities around, particularly as the passage we were looking at the time was from Corinthians (a cosmopolitan city with a variety of temples and religions). Whilst all the gospels talk about the last supper, only Luke records that Jesus tells the disciples “to do this in remembrance of Him”. I wonder how much the early church read into these words (at the expense of the other gospels) to institute a communion meal that would help people connect and how much we have now read into it to see it as instituted by Jesus rather than by Paul and the disciples. This is not to say it is wrong to have communion or that Luke was not accurate, but maybe its time for a rethink about what we mean by communion and how we find ways that connect with the people today in the same way a sacred meal would have 2000 years ago.

The Clique film

I’m sick of all strategies!

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Now I’m really sick of strategies we are offered in different ways in church. I just want to live a life faithful to Christ.
I hope that Emergent thinking not goes in that direction. But I understand we need to think somethings through and get some organisation but I just want to live together with people who wanna explore the depths of life. And from my point of view I’m convinced we get it from Jesus Christ. Of course have other peoples experience something to teach us.
Emergent as I see it is not a new strategy but a new way of being, living and understand church. It is not a strategy which will guarantee success (another word which make me sick) – but a way to be true to Christ. One of my favorite theologians didn’t understood the thing with “saving souls” – for him the most important thing was to invite people to discipleship – which of course includes social justice, setting people free, witness, proclamation in order to get human beings in relationship with the lord.
That’s were I am right now!!!
So thank you Richard for charing your thoughts – I appreciate them.

Mission and Emerging church

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I have a growing unease about much of the emerging scene. It is one of those nagging but growing feelings. I like the co-operation and much of the generosity both in terms of theology and ideas but the growing shape and organisation seems to be turning quite product focused. I think the initial questions of what is church and mission in contemporary culture has been replaced with how do we worship in ways that reflect our culture, perhaps with the assumption that this will answer the mission question. In an earlier post I likened the emerging church to a bonsai tree that was top heavy. I wonder if the way the current conversations around are adding to this. There was a good post on simple church a while ago that I agree not to organise check out the comment. The unease is growing and I think we may miss the mission along the way.

Small is beautiful!

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I think that smallness of the church community is a necissity for quality in training of disciples of Jesus Christ. For a couple of days ago I spoked with an old friend of mine. He was brought up in one of the biggest freechurches in Sweden. He and his closest friends was really into the church – arranging things and were really in the centre. But now 15 years after that time – most of this bunch of friends is not part of any church. The church of their teenage years hadn´t train them for a dicsipleship that lasts the entire life. Sometimes I think that small is more excellent in managing to form young people spiritualy. But that is not because of its smallness but in what ways it use it smallness. Being small is certainly not a guarantee for “success”. But I think it is a better chance to form teenagers when smallness and quality in the pracitces of the church is partners. Please look into a church which is quit fascinating in this area – Solomon Porch – Peace!

Deep Ecclesiology and Learning

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TSK has been writing on the term Deep ecclesiology which was the first time I had come across the phrase.
The term has been picked up and used by bloggers in a number of ways one definition TSK offers is –

We practice “deep ecclesiologyâ€?– rather than favoring some forms of the church and critiquing or rejecting others, we see that every form of the church has both weaknesses and strengths, both liabilities and potential.”

For me his definition links into the Generous Orthodoxy of Brian Maclaren. I like both terms Deep ecclesiology and Generous Orthodoxy and the sentiment, acceptance and openness that they express. I have recently been doing some work on Learning and the concept of Deep Learning both for lecturing and for my own thinking about process ecclesiology (which builds on tacking). Deep Learning includes a scale that moves from “performative understanding” through “direct application to indirect application” to finally a “holistic integration”

I am left wondering if the definition TSK offers is more apt to Generous Orthodoxy and whether “deep ecclesiology” has a notion of process involved because it is evolving from the growing emerging church movement. As we move to a deeper and greater understanding of church through the praxis of the emerging church movement are we moving to towards a deep ecclesiology that is more integrated, more holistic, and whilst hopefully maintaining the openness that TSK’s definition offers is also more actualised. By actualised I don’t mean that it is a theology of church that thinks it has arrived but one that has a greater sense of holistic integration and knows itself better so it can get on with task of being the type of church that serves the world well.

Church Amongst Churches

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Further to my ‘Denomination Domination’ post I would like to speculate that we can be church amongst

Bewitched movies churches. I.e. just because you want to change your pattern of fellowship with other believers, you don’t have to exclude those in your current church (i.e. the church that you ‘attend’).

However, what does seem to be necessary is a re-prioritisation of how much time you are going to spend with who, but this is a long way off from dumping anyone entirely. Our mission of discipleship (internal church activity) should still be a priority in the situation we find ourselves – I tend to recall the passage around:
1 Corinthians 7:20
Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him.

and imagine that this could apply to continuing to participate with the church we are in, whilst we allow ourselves fellowship with those from outside ‘our’ ‘church’.

Naturally there is a danger, if we practice this slightly subversive form of church, that existing church leaders might have a problem with us… but one would hope not! I imagine it would only be a problem if they were particularly territorial or possessive!