Category Archives: Church

Being Church for the community you serve

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Mark has posted some great thoughts about being church and living shalom here Since coming to faith I have been committed to shalom and really it was as I explored and tried to live out a falteringly shalom lifestyle that I was drawn more and more into community mission and where we are now of Church on the edge, trying to grow church fom scratch with marginalised young people.

The community of God… will be a community that does not live for itself but is deeply involved in the concerns of its neighborhood. It will be the church for the specific place where it lives, not the church for those who wish to be members of it – or, rather, it will be for them insofar as they are willing to be for the wider community.
The Gospel in a pluralist society Leslie Newbiggin

Yet doing church from scratch confilcts in some ways with the need for us to become powerless, as we draw others into ur community who are not at the same place maintaining this call to be a community that does not live for itself becomes harder to maintain. Recently we have had a couple of conversations with the young people about our relatioships with other young people in the community. They are wary, guarded aybe even jealous yet they are part of the community we serve. As we leave at the end of the month to take a group on skate pilgrimage and rite of passage

and they enter more into our community is this a serving the wider communitysomething we need to ensure we hold a non negotiable, even though they are committing to christ, but to explore.

Radical orthodoxy and Skate Church

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I don’t normally listen to podcasts but this one came across my in box, from a variety of sources. I guess this is because it picks up different themes and interests from the eceltic networks i am in, from practice based mission/youth work, to Emerging church networks, to anabaptist links. There is some I struggle with but am interested in the concept of radical orthodoxy, particularly around the trancendancy of God, the issues explored around reason and faith and some of the issues around the societial, and cosmic dimensions of church I am really into because of my community bias, but have questions about how Millbank places the parish as core to this, and is so strongly critical of network approaches.
Good stuff but not always easy concepts to get your head aroundHatchet movies

change and the insider

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Can you really change a system from inside? I was wondering how inside the system Jesus was? Yes he was Jewish but choose mainly not to preach in the synagogue. There is no such thing as free lunch and if we try to work from inside there is an inevitable need for politics etc. In an age when many of our institutions are still strong although on the demise I wonder if the cultural layers built up can really be changed from the inside?

Having All In Common

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Acts 2:44
All the believers were together and had everything in common.

I was thinking for a few moments about this today and I found myself framing this issue with a question:
What is it that worries us about sharing possessions?

I think it is the fear that our contribution will be abused – that our generosity will be taken advantage of, that we will not be able to count on others to be fair and considerate.

In itself, sharing your possessions or having shared possessions is quite a joyous practice. You get a heightened sense of usefulness, a sense of giving, as sense of helping. The sharing is a positive, it is the abuse that is negative.

Why is it that we cannot trust our brothers and sisters, that we cannot rely on them to be considerate? Is this a shortcoming of our relationship with them. Is our fear of having common property simply an indicator about the state of our relationships?

If so, what can be done? I’m challenged to be closer and more involved with the people I call my Christian friends.

These thoughts have sprung my considerations about what is private property and what is ‘common’ property. Are even our labours (perhaps our most personal and private resource) common property in the new Kingdom?

Does Pastor Ted need to meet Father Ted?

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I am writing about the latest high profile evangelical to be caught with his pants down, a powerful American with links to the White house. Pastor Ted was actively preaching against gay marriage while apparently indulging in gay sex with a male prostitute.

How many times have we witnessed Christians from this tradition struggle to practice what they preach? How many times do they have to live with double standards? Why? Are the standards to high? Perhaps the person just has weak morals and values? Or perhaps the theology is wrong?

Now we all make mistakes – in fact the making of mistakes is one of the best ways of learning. But are we allowed to make mistakes in some theological power houses?

I wonder if the deep rooted theological position of dualism is to blame for this. This position understands things in terms of – black and white; right and wrong,; secular and sacred; in and out; sinner and righteous; saved and unsaved; good and bad etc. This root leaves little space for flaws, mistakes and embracing your shadow. This type of theology encourages a split personality and a lack of authenticity and intimacy. Dualism gives little space for personal development and leaves the individual with little self-awareness and an inability to face the real difficult issues that reside in who we are.

The Essence of What I Love and the Essence of What I Hate… About Church

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Recent posts by James and Richard have really got me thinking – for a couple of minutes! 🙂

What I love about church (and I’m talking about what I think of as church, which isn’t necessarily what I turn up to on a Sunday) are the intimate relationships and the dream of intimate relationships. The idea of having honesty, love, concern, responsibility in a set of relationships. Thinking about these things makes me believe that life as a disciple is possible.

What I hate about church (and I do mean hate!) are the formal shortcuts that lead to relationships that lack the above qualities. I believe that the presence of organisation tempts us to formalise our relationships and encourages us to think that we can treat each other with less grace, it tempts us to think that we don’t have failings, tempts us to look for specks in eyes when we have logs in our own. Formalisation makes us forget our humanity and the centrality of close relationships. We look at the world and see how it operates and we think that we can run the business of church like that, instead of recognising that church isn’t a business, it is people, people who need love, people who need to give love. It’s not what we do, it’s the way that we do it – sometimes we think that the ends justifies the means, that the business is more important than the love.

Longing to belong

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Following on from Richard’s ’ thread, I haven’t attended a traditional church in a committed way for the last 10 years and I have often asked myself what I miss from not going. My answer to this is the group experience , being part of a social network which I have struggled to find since leaving. I am aware that many people join social clubs and create social networks that can often give some of the same benefits but I suppose I long for some spiritual connection. Since that time I have been part of many starter things but have all failed for various reasons and I know that in some ways I have been the problem leaving me to do much soul searching and self-reflection.

Hidden within the longing to be part of a group is that I have a need to belong. Belonging to me is a sense of ‘being known and knowing others’ in an authentic way. I sensed this to some degree in the traditional church and especially with the vitality of meeting with people of difference especially the broken. I also felt that many in the church could not accept difference or be authentic and vulnerable – therefore I was unable to get to know them.

My journey has taken me to a place of stepping out of the church framework that I have found difficult and painful provoking some fundamental and raw questions about faith, gospel, church, salvation, sin, love, grace etc. Part of me longs to go back to those days, but I know I can never return, but I know and long to be part of a community of people who want to explore humanity in a real and loving way.

The closest I have got to this dream, has been in the Counselling and Psychotherapy community. It has given me a place to be me myself without judgement, a place to explore my flaws without condemnation and a place to learn to listen to others with empathy without the need to provide the answers or try and fix them.

I suppose that old U2 song is still very relevant for me, “I still havn’t found what I’m looking for� but the journey has taught me so much and taken me into areas of my own pain that I would never have explored without this experience and I feel I am a better person because of it. But I still long to be part of an authentic community, I long to explore faith in humanity, and ultimately I still long to belong.

Desert and in between time

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I have to admit I am really struggling again

The Onion Movie on dvd

with the church stuff. Living and working in the in between time is hard. I asked Mark about some of the recent posts and his view based on their experience in Telford, his post was helpful particularly when thinking at a trans-local or global approach to church and enagagment. The harder issue is the very local involvement in local church. Several times I have withdrawn from traditional local expressions and now really only go for the relationships and for the children who enjoy it, I guess I don’t see the thing that I go to on sunday morning as church. Maybe that is part of the in between time.

We are an in between people, living in an in between time.
A people between two worlds, and two times.
A people of hope in a land of pain.
A people of pain in a land of hope
A people who see and read between the lines,
embracing the good of the old, discovering the space of the new
As culture shifts and changes the in between people move and grow,
We are an in between people, journeying in an in between world.