Category Archives: Church

No Taboos

Posted on by
Reply

I was chatting with Richard and Lori P today and I suddenly said to him “what I like about this is that there are no taboos chatting with you guys”.

I thought back to my youth at church and recognised that you just weren’t allowed to question too much stuff (not that my parent’s were like that though).

This made me think about ‘not doubting’ as we are instructed to ‘not doubt’. But the essence of the ‘do not doubt’ instruction is ‘do not doubt what you know by faith’, which is entirely different to doubting loads of the other stuff that you hear at church, etc. Anyway, I found this deeply encouraging, as it is great to be encouraged not to doubt the stuff you are absolutely certain of, that God has shown to you – i.e. to get on and live how you believe.

It’s also great to know that we can (and should, perhaps) doubt everything that we don’t have a certain faith about. Let’s face it, I’m not about to have faith that ‘you must go to the church meeting every Sunday morning’! 🙂 But I am not going to doubt that ‘God is love’! Hurrah!

Analysis of Eye Contact During ‘The Grace’ in Large Groups

Posted on by
1

It is with deep concern for the bretheren at megachurches that I pen this analysis of eye contact during ‘the Grace’.
‘The Grace’ is that little blessing that we state to each other which reads ‘May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore, amen’. It takes approx 12 seconds to complete.
Let’s look at some examples:
When a meeting of just two people say ‘The Grace’ then chances are that they will make eye contact for most of the duration of ‘The Grace’. However, we must always consider that 10% of any meeting population will have their eyes closed in the mistaken thought that they are praying to God and not speaking to each other. Therefore there is a 20% chance that in a meeting of two people eye contact will not be made – and 80% likelihood that contact will be made.
A meeting of three people: Well, it is possible that as person A looks to person B, person B is looking at person C and person C is looking at person A. Then there is always the chance that they may move their gaze into another order where there is still no eye contact! Then bear in mind the shut eyes fallacy. However, there is a very good chance that, bearing in mind that participants might switch gaze every 2 seconds or less that, on average, a participant will make eye contact,during ‘The Grace’, with one person or more (90% estimated) or exactly two people (70% estimated).
Moving on to larger numbers and we begin to find more dramatic problems. A meeting of 1000 people: In the 12 seconds it takes to say ‘The Grace’ you will on average switch gaze every second. Your gaze will dwell on people who are obviously looking in the completely opposite direction for perhaps 0.1s and you will not look at people with their backs to you, but bear in mind that perhaps 50% of the people in front will turn around to look behind them (the other 50% either having neck problems, being too enamoured with the people in front of them, or just being plain lazy). So you can look at 12 people in 12 seconds, but the chance that the person you are looking at is also looking at you is 1 in 1000? Well, you have better odds if you are taller, maybe you are well groomed? Perhaps you are their close friend? So the odds improve to 1 in 500. Let’s see, so the odds of you making eye contact with someone during the grace is 12 in 500 or 2.4%?
Hmmm, perhaps it’s time for experimental results. If you are a member at a megachurch then contact me, Mark Porthouse at thegraceexperimentalanalysis@prayertriplets-r-thenewchurchmodel.com
I’ll be intently awaiting your results!

The Nailed down God

Posted on by
1

I have been thinking recently about Jesus being nailed down on the cross. How it is the opposite of movement, fluidity, and much of current theology and certainly opposite to our fast moving culture. Christ was static in his response, both by keeping silent when put on trial and ultimately static when nailed down on the cross. Our current Christology draws much from the elements of incarnation, of Jesus walking and talking with people. I wonder how the nailed down Jesus affects our Christology. In a world that is busier than ever, at Easter when people are moving from place to place to visit relatives in the four day weekend or off on holiday, when the DIY stores host sales and garden centres entice us to get the garden sorted with primroses. What is our mission response? Should it be to simply say you cannot serve God and yourself and sit down? To explain, things, a decorated home, friends are fleeting and sit down? Tomorrow, Good Friday should we simply sit at the foot of the cross and focus on the Nailed Down Christ?

Insomnia movie

Teaching Disent

Posted on by
1

Don’t you just love it when you find a quote to back up your thinking. Currently there is a debate in youth work circles about curriculum and the nature of teaching, Jeffs who is questioning of curriculum cites Stiener “to teach greatly is to awaken doubts in the pupil,…to train for disentâ€? (Youth and Policy Summer 2004) and argues this is a key to education particularly informal education, and curriculum by its very nature hinders this. I love the quote and tend to be in agreement with Jeffs.
I just wonder how much of this critical education goes on in churches or youth work circles. We prop up the status quo so much, when actually called to be a counter cultural movement. The rich young ruler (see eariler post Is the Church the rich young ruler?) had kept the commands but hadn’t been trained to disent and therefore process/critque his actions so was well away from inheriting the kingdom.

Is church the rich young ruler?

Posted on by
1

I have been doing quite a bit of follow up work on Off the Beaten Track, and as ever when I start doing talks and workshops my thinking develops. I am thankful for community as it helps me think and grow. However I have had a thought that just won’t go away and the more I chat about it the more angles I see.

When I was reading the parable of the rich young ruler the other day I was struck by how Jesus’ word in verse 29 and 30 resonated with John 10v10 “life in all it’s fullness.”
This was my start point for the question Is church the rich young ruler? I could argue the similarities throughout the passage. One issue for me is that like the rich young ruler the church has sought to keep the commands all it’s life, but still we know something is missing, and if we are not demonstrating life in all it’s fullness by keeping these, what is it that is hindering us? What do we need to take off?
Will we get through the eye of the needle as we are?
Do we need to the challenge to go away disappointed for a while so we can recognise where we have gone wrong?
Does our wealth and new initiatives that come and go hide our disappointment to well?
The Rich Ruler
18A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone. 20You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
21“All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
26Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”
27Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”
28Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”
29“I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.”

Gentile Church

Posted on by
1

Well (in response to the question I posed at the end of my last post) I reckon we have plenty of Jewish traditions (adapted):
1) The worship leader (High Priest).
2) We come into the House of the Lord.
3) We come into God’s presence.
4) We come into the Holy Place.
5) Worship narrowed down to singing instead of it being our whole lives.
6) Ecstasy – no, not that ecstacy!
7) Lots of singing.
So I’m ready for a remodel! 🙂

Now, what is a sensible attitude to existing tradition?

I think that if we are going to learn something from the OT it is more
likely to be in the realms of justice and community incorporating economics,
social care, empowerment, etc.

Is this about me, or is this about you?

Posted on by
Reply

Hi, just thought that I would post a quick intro, seeing as Richard has introduced me.

Twenty years ago my Dad told me to judge whatever I heard in church as it wouldn’t always be right. So, now I’m 33 years old and I’ve tried to live with my eyes wide open and I know that all is not well. Is the problem with you and is the answer with me? Well, that’s really the wrong questions – we need to think in terms of us. We are the problem and you know Who is the answer!

So it isn’t about me or about you – it’s about us, and ‘us’ includes Him, you and me.

I’ll try to be careful, but remember, I’m only human too – we can grow together, if we watch our pride and know love.

Moulin Rouge! hd

Something to think about until next time:
I heard someone say that the ‘gentile’ churches needed to recover it’s Jewish roots and put into practice it’s Hebrew forms and holidays…

In the church but not of the church or vice versa

Posted on by
Reply

Went to look at some houses today and saw a great one just need to sell ours. The state of flux around moving has been triggering all sorts of thoughts about church. Dropped in on some friends in Chard and Mark came out with the statement as joke that we need to be “in the church but not of the church”. Reflecting I was unsure whether it was the right way around. The alignment of church and state, the issues around what church has become, and the need for a new theology of church, has all caused me concern over the past few weeks. I want to be around the people and explore and grow towards community but am not sure of the current associations. All this reminded me of the Anabaptists, and I came across the article by Anne Wilkinson-Hayes
“>The key task of the church in this era is to reinvent herself for mission With the history of the Anabaptist’s I was encouraged to see the continued movement that the title of the article suggests. Following on this theme I am really into a notion that I am currently calling Process ecclesiology that sees the missionary endevour (when well thought out and open ended)as church. I am yet to fully develop the concept but began to explore it in Off the Beaten Track. But I think Howard Snyder is spot on who states “The church needs liberating from it has become in order to be that which God intends.â€? Whilst the concept is hard to address in brief the key points would be
1. Holistic mission is about changing society, ourselves and individuals.
2. Mission should happen in-front of church not out-from church, and the danger is the latter holds back real change and reinforces control.
3. An acceptance of the Regnocentric position means that Tacking is about helping society and individuals become fully human which is also being and growing church.
4. Church is a broad concept that is about process and outcome, and tacking is church.
5. All of this is framed by the ethics of Christ with Orthopraxis being a key concept.

So where too next with Process ecclesiology?

Labelling and praxis

Posted on by
Reply

Ben raises some good points (see comments on last post) and the praxis issue got me thinking. Thanks Ben I love your input keep it coming. So two points.

1. Ben raised a great point about people doing the restorative kingdom thing and that maybe that can only be described/labelled as church. But in someways Bens description of this, reinforces the need to move beyond labels that are used for shorthand. He laid out a case and his description of church is quite long, needs unpacking and processing through an irratative praxis that roots out what is really meant. This will lead to diversity, and growth.
2. I agree with Ben about the need for praxis, but just as the process (in bens terms the need for a powerless revolution) can change or corrupt the label, the DNA of the reflective cycle will mean the label can equally change or corrupt the process.

So are we back to the need for the long hand, labelless approach that starts with a clean sheet process, rather than a labelled process? Is this back to the post on constructive deconsruction? Hope all that made sense I have just got back from a retreat.