Questioning the place of ritual/tradition in mission

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Had a moment to post something. Thinking about the role of ritual in mission (picking up on post on happy midis and commitment). There is an issue we have discussing with the Yp about the purposed dominance in ritual (wether formal tradtional or reasonably new) in how it when they are involved others presuppose that they are committed to the concept behind it. This is particularly true for those taking place in a chuchbuilding. There is a way in which it inhibits thier journey to explore and exeperience g-d through engaging with it because of the meaning others prescribe to their participation.

This problematic partially because of their approach to committment but also as it demonstrates the imbalance of the culture tradition bible approach and how even when we are sensative about how to engage with tradition there is an overweighing pull that for some gets in the way of encountering g-d.

Calling the community

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StreetSpace working with Chard Town council are inviting local community groups and charities to come and be part of a fun day to celebrate the completion of the work on the Skate park and surrounding area on July 3rd 2010. The whole area has changed with the new lights, skate park, cycle path and redevelopment, and has a more open and community green feel. The fun day will build on this and is hoping local groups will come forward and use the opportunity to fundraise for their cause and contribute to making the day work.

Local groups and charities are invited to attend the day and have a stall in the tradition of the summer fete. This could be a smoothie or ice cream stand, tombola, dunk the mayor, bash a rat, bric a brac, plant sale etc. Proceeds will go to the local group and StreetSpace Youth Project. If any local groups want to attend the day there is no charge but they must provide their own stands, equipment etc and book a place in advance by emailing admin@streetspace.org.uk or ringing Richard on 07830197160

Richard Passmore says “after all the hard work it is time to celebrate, and we hope as well as all the competitions and official opening, the day will have real summer fete feel. I hope local groups take the chance to raise money for their good causes whether that is a recognised charity, carnival club, local football team or whatever, the more the merrier ”

The day will run from 11am – 3.00pm and the Skate and Bike Park will be opened by The High Sheriff Mrs Patricia Hunt JP. There will also be sports and games events in the Multi use Games Area, Skate and Bike Competitions, a Bar-be-que and a whole host of activities for the whole family .

The nature of commitment and mission

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To think about mission without considering the changing nature of commitment in post modernity would be naive and for some time the changing nature of commitment has been buzzing around my head. what does it mean to commit or be committed to Christ? Is it that the old has gone and the new means we are instantly changed. Pete talks about denying the resurrection every time we walk past a homeless person or fail to to feed the hungry as part of his insurrection tour. I have been exploring the notion of commitment with a few young people (happy midi narrative) and others and the more I discuss it the more I am taken with idea that the process needs rethinking. If we are on a journey then maybe as Tuffty says it is about finding some values and committing to try and work to what these mean for you. I think he was hinting that it doesn’t start with a statement but is a life long process.

Often we see our role as helping young people learn values, but in that process our purposed dominance so easiliy comes to the fore and in doing we either either undermine the values we are seeking to communicate or we undervalue the depth of values by reducing them to words. Perhaps our role is recognise the lack of values and real commitment in our own lives and as we journey with young people recognise that we will encounter situations and circumstances where values can be encountered. Because when we pass the hungry with a young person and choose not to deny the resurrection and meet with that person, we encounter christ. Likewise when we walk past – will we have the humanity to discuss with the young person our disbelief in the resurrection.

The implication for mission is on the one hand huge – as if the nature of commitment has shifted we need to shift how we do evangelism. But if you are into emerging missional thinking the implication is to ensure you are as consistent in the going to the new place that you may set out with and continue this open journey with the young people to reframe and rediscover the resurrection in every encounter, and see today that Christ is doing a new thing.

Mission without Christ?

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Rob has picked up on an article by Stephen Bevans I read while ago and have been meaning to blog.
The article gives a good backdrop to the pressure that we have to move Flow from a pneumatology to christology. To quote a line form the paper “Mission in obedience to the transcending immanence of God’s Spirit can avoid the danger of what William R. Burrows calls the over-objectification of the Christ-event, that is, preaching the gospel as if one controlled its message, or as if that message could be exhaustively expressed in objective, rational categories.”

I have always found this to be a difficult issue to address and ask myself how much of the desire to introduce Christ stems from my own conditioning rather than following the presence of christ that is in Flow and present through the trinity. Perhaps I am beginning to think the unthinkable as Bevans suggests below in his conclusion

“To think deeply about the Holy Spirit,” writes John V. Taylor, is a bewildering, tearing exercise, for whatever he touches he turns inside out” (Taylor 1972: 179). The Spirit is the Spirit as God turned inside out; the Spirit given to Jesus turned him inside out and opened him up to the vision of God’s reign among women and men; the Spirit lavished through Jesus turns his disciples inside out as they include unthinkable people and go to unthinkable places. Thinking missiologically about the Holy Spirit can turn the church inside out, and perhaps make it more responsive to where God is really leading it in today’s world.

Balance

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In mission terms we often talk about the missionary imagination happening in terms of a balance between a culture, tradition and bible triangle. Often people talk of using tradition and ritual as a place to root discipleship or as a resource for creativity. With the emerging post christendom context and the gravitation pull of tradition, I think we need to explore the balance in a new way and give it a different sort of prominence in the mission task.

In church on the edge, the tradition balance comes not from a replication of ritual but using traditional language a resource to locate the work in a christian tradition. As we talk about Flow and often when reworking bible passages talk about Jesus as a sufi or wise man and it would be easy to completely miss the christian underpinning. However using words like church connects with the echo of the memory that gen y still hold, or gives an opportunity to locate the project in the christian story but also importantly enables us to balance out the gravitation pulls that can come with the usual way of approaching the triangle. Then as communities of faith become more important ritual can be revisited but in a way that does without the purposed dominance that many people ascribe them, and rather genuinely allows for a reciprocal re-working that values the culture, tradition, bible balance.

Growing well

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We have two new projects coming on line for Streetspace in the next few weeks, and I am still following up the other 30 odd enquiries. FYT also have two new posts with the out for good project.
Out4Good Project – working with and for ex-offenders

Project Leader and Project Worker posts

With 3 years of BIG Lottery Funding Frontier Youth Trust is taking the Out4Good Project (O4G) into its next chapter by recruiting these two key positions. O4G provides a sharp and challenging picture of how young people/adults who are ‘ex-offenders’ might be enabled to make the crucial transition from incarceration to a full and meaningful life back in the community.

With several years track record of success the project team will;
Work with young adults from prisons – supporting them to ensure that they don’t return to prison.
Develop creative housing responses for those young adults
Recruit and train mentors and ensure that young adults from prisons are able to find meaningful and purposeful activity
The workers will be based from home and will work in the Colchester area

Interviews for the Project Leader Post will be: May 21st 2010
Interviews for the Project Worker Post will be: 16th or 17th June 2010
Closing date for applications: Project leader (May 7th) and Project worker (7th June)

Salaries for these posts are Project Leader (£25,134) and Project Worker (£15,300). An application form and further details can be obtained from: Frontier Youth Trust, Unit 306f, The Big Peg, 120 Vyse Street, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, B18 6NF, Tel: 0121 687 3505. E-mail: frontier@fyt.org.uk.

THIS PROJECT IS FUNDED BY THE BIG LOTTERY FOR THE NEXT THREE YEAR

S

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Dave Wiles has finished the book that he started writing 3 years ago!! It is called ‘Stories from the Edge’ – the book is an attempt to challenge, inspire and encourage people who work with other people (especially youth and community workers). It contains some of his own story and lots of the stories of people who are active in youth and community work.

More detail about the book below with some endorsements – To order a copy (£10 plus £2 p&p) please phone 0121 687 3505 or e-mail: frontier@fyt.org.uk … or you can purchase via the FYT website.

STORIES FROM THE EDGE – Over 50 encounters with young people at risk: A practical resource for youth workers

By: Dave Wiles, CEO, Frontier Youth Trust

Foreword by: Adrian and Bridget Plass

These true stories are instructive, inspiring, arresting and shocking. Meet the 16-year-old on probation, who is on suicide watch; mediate between a rebellious youngster and his too-strict dad; listen to a 21-year-old girl, with two children in care, who works the street to pay for the heroin her father deals. Each chapter follows a particular theme, such as ‘Dads and Lads’ or ‘Youth Culture and Gangs’, and ends with points for discussion.

“Stories from the Edge shows us where God’s Kingdom can truly be found …This is invaluable for those who are engaged in ‘frontier’ youth work.” – Nick Shepherd, Centre for Youth Ministry

“Thank God for Dave Wiles, a bruised human being who understands through troubles in his own life and through his involvement in the battered lives of others, that Christianity is a messy business.” – Adrian and Bridget Plass, in their foreword

“Dave not only practises what he talks about, his own story shows the impact that can be made. A moving, challenging and motivating read.” – Tim Evans, Worth Unlimited

“Be warned – this book doesn’t hold back; it is not a gentle read! Instead, it is full of tough stories and the reality of the lives of young people on the edge. The brilliance of the book is in the questions – challenging the assumptions we have when working with young people and encouraging us to be people of grace and hope.” – Jill Rowe, Oasis

“An amazing collection of stories … A refreshingly honest and down to earth read for anyone who shares Jesus’ heart for people on the margins.” – Gavin Calver, Youth for Christ

“Everyone loves a good story and this book is packed with them – stories that challenge, inspire, shock and pull the rug from under your feet. It had me gripped.” – Jonny Baker, Church Mission Society

Illustrated by Jon Birch, www. asbojesus.wordpress.com

echos

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I have been reflecting around the issue of Flow and christology recently. Jonny pointed me to this great article “God inside out – towards a mission theology of the Holy Spirit”. It challenges the adage that the father sends the son – the Father and son send the spirit – and the trinity sends the church and unpacks the centrality of the spirit.

The article started me thinking about the Trinity as an echo. For a while now I have had the vague idea of church being an echo of the trinity of coming from God and continuing in the unfolding revelation of God. (if the spirit sends the church what does this say about the divine nature of the church).

The reduction of G-d to the trinity is problematic and avoids the transcendent nature of G-d beyond our understandings (not mention the other characteristics of God within the biblical narrative that do not readily fit the Father Son Spirit image).

G-d echos through the creation, all our images and encounters are echos of G-d that we are swept up with (missio dei) and join the echo of G-d towards the fulfillment of creation. The power of the echo can transcend the blocks of institutions and break beyond the walls of our imaginings, it calls us forward, beyond and out of what we know, to be more and less (at times) of what we are, towards unity as the bride of christ.

Unprepared a way to prepare for mission?

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Officially StreetSpace starts this week as a national project. It is with some trepidation that I left the securer role of my split post with BCYM to take on the task of developing 36 new Streetspace/ Church on the edge projects. Whilst my funding is reasonably secure for the next two years, beyond that depends on the take up. I always found risk easier and certainly more fun when I was younger and never know quite what to think when people say they need this or that to get going. My first role was nonsalaried and I lived in a shed for a year responding to a need I identified in my dissertation – Was I naive, or am I now just old? Trying to follow what God is already doing – to an extent feels less risky and is very reassuring when stepping out. Perhaps this is the difference – the see a need meet a need demands a different kind of step to the one I am currently taking.
So what should my preparations be? I have spent the last few months positioning the project between the missional intentions of the churches/localities and the funding streams available. Knocking the paperwork into shape and setting up the first few months meetings. Even though it has been clear to see God in the process so far I still feel unprepared.

My role is about finding what God is already doing and helping others sniff this out in their localities. Using Streetspace positioning where needed or coaching others to develop their missional instincts. The meet the need see the need and where I am perhaps aren’t that different – both are off the map, where the easy to spot pathways are nowhere to be seen, where following the spirit moment by moment is the only way to go. This openness and freedom can be daunting but is the heart of mission so my preparations are to, forget the maps, ditch the compass and to travel Light and remain unprepared otherwise I am likely to miss out the Missio-dei.