Lori is writing an essay around commodification and a play with a hint of post modernism thrown in. A question I often ask is “if an Orange is orange why isn’t a Banana a yellow?” I wonder “is this the ultimate post modern question?”
I did some really hurting experience the other day. It was a day of celebration since the spring is emerging in sweden – it is called “Valborgsmässoafton”. Almost everbody is out celebrating. We had a gathering in our church (with an extremely good band www.loneydear.com Train Master movies ) and I started to talk we a guy. He was about 40 years old. I asked him where he was working. He replied that i he was cleaning (you know putting everything at the right place…) at the university of Lund. There our conversation ended. I hade no more questions (he was a really quiet man – but anyway…) – my university education became a block between us. If he had been a engineer, socilogist or that kind – but he wasn´t. We really have a need for a church that is for cleaners. A church which like music that is not high-cultural. (1 Cor. 9:19ff)
Fredrik Wenell
Last week at youth group some of the guys commented how they felt a bit under the spotlight if they didn’t take communion on a Sunday morning. This is especially so if the person introducing it says something along the lines of ‘if you have unresolved sin then feel free not to take the communion’!
So, it occurs to me that communion has the same root as community and as such is surely something to do with unity and inclusivity within the church. So perhaps we should consider having communion (having community) rather than merely taking communion?
In our rush to take communion aren’t we alienating people?
Sure communion is for people who believe what it is about – Jesus’ death – and as such is obviously not appropriate for ye olde evangelism evente. But hang on, most Sunday morning church these days is open to seekers (et al). So why, in the face of not having communion do we insist on taking
communion?
Welcome to the revamped Sunday Papers. There is still some tidying up to do and pics to add but we have moved to wordpress. Thanks to Mark for all his work. The main reason for changing was to be able to categorise the posts. These have been set up to reflect the strapline and are LIFE, MISSION, YOUTHWORK with some sub divisions and a few other categories. We can also manage any comments better, and hopefully increase dialogue. We will still allow anonoymus comments but registered people can get pinged if they get a response to the comment or a related post. Although I am not sure how all this works yet.
Recently I met an old friend of mine. I had not seen him for a long time. We were never on the same side in discussions. He had been over in the States for a couple of years and had been studying the philosophy of religion. (He is really a modernist with all that follows…) He has started a new project back in Sweden. It was about abortion (he probably met some from the moral majority) and he thought that the church was ready to give up about it – maybe thats true, so he felt he should go public with picture of children which had been aborted. First I thoought he was ironic but soon I realised he wasn´t. I think the question of abortion is too tough an issue to use that method of informing people. I think the problem is not that people do not know that stuff but that they think about it in other ways – in a theological language: They do not think like a “christian”. (of course you could reply what is thinking like a christian…let´s discuss!) The problem is not that people are stupid or dumb but that they have other criteria for judging what is true. They judge regarding to their worldview and what they think is true. I think that the truth is in Christ but I have to be humble when I meet other people and their “truths”. And you are certainly not humble if you use that method. First of all we have to live the faith and in this case to show another ways of dealing with our sexuality and taking care of our children in the christian community. The truth is a way of life not a statement or a picture! And people around us have different ways of life and I think we have to give people “the freedom of unbelief”.
Ps. For you englishmen – soon the World Championship in Icehockey starts! Enjoy! Ds.
In pushing the theological boundaries how far is too far? I have been thinking a lot about TSK post here
on Acts 15 and recognise that as missionaries come back and tell the stories of how they contexualised the gospel, that the teachers did indeed make some sense these stories and grounded them in the biblical narrative. A couple of thousand years on are todays teachers willing to do the same leg work? As I try to make sense of where God leads through mission contexts I am not sure if the teachers will catch up. As the missionaries move on and culture shifts if they do not keep up it takes a Luther or Calvin to fill the vacuum (My fear is they would never be heard in the myriad of voices of postmodernity). If Dave comes back with a reinterpretation of Blessed are the mourners through his experience with the young people here that does not fit into the traditional narrative who is to say they are right and he wrong. Where should the weight be, with missionary or the teacher?
Penal substitution is a topic that is being kicked around the church at the moment. The concept that Jesus took the penalty for our sin when he died on the cross.
In thinking about this a couple of things have crossed my mind:
I probably need to get my head down and look at some theology about this to be honest. Anyway, you can take the above merely as some wandering wonderings of the mind! 🙂
I caught an interview this morning on GMTV about the number of counterfeit wristbands being sold and the money NOT going to the charity. One thing it highlighted was how hard it can be to get young people involved in charitable causes and political action. Their guidance was to only buy the wristbands from reputable shops or via the charity on the web. A few ideas came to mind on how we could tap into the wristband culture in our work with young people, I bet these ideas grab them more than talking about the election.
Let me know if you try any of these.
This article first published in Benchmark Magazine (http://www.benchmarkmag.com/).
Pensions! Does anyone still believe that the pension system is functional? Do any of us think that pensions will provide for us when we retire? What is going on?
Surely the point of retirement was originally to provide for those who were too unfit, through age, to work? Pension was society’s provision of an income for those who could not provide for themselves due to, age related, forced retirement from useful work.
Somewhere along the line we confused this pure vision of care for the elderly and developed a selfish vision of escaping the ‘horror'(!) of our working lives and living out a leisure fantasy that we surely deserved!
Well, living as a community just isn’t like that! We all have a responsibility to do good for one another. John Calvin once said that Christians should “choose those employments which yield the greatest advantage to their neighbour.â€?
Fortunately, you and I both know people who seek to redeem their retirement, doing community work, caring for people and many other positive activities that contribute to the strength of their community. Perhaps, if we take Calvin’s advice, we can only truly review our activities at any point in our lives if we seek to break through the distinction between paid work and other forms of work.
Aside from all this there is a need for us to recognise where our provision is coming from. We should always seek to provide for ourselves and only rely upon our communities (the state) to provide for us if we are unable to do so.
Looking at the state of retirement pensions today we see two kinds: We see taxation of workers to provide for retirees (as per National Insurance) and we also see workers saving up for retirement (as per pension funds). We have looked at the former of these two in the brief comments about a community’s provision for it’s dependants. Savings, however, are a very different matter.
We recognise that we live in a changing world. We know that there is no such thing as 100% security. We see pension funds going to the wall, with pensioners ending up losing all of their life’s savings. We also see the risk of prolonged recession eating into our savings, we also live in an age of fantastic medical advances where if we live to be 100 years old we will only have done paid work for half of our lives! Compare this with an era (or even other parts of today’s world) were economically productive work starts at around age 5 and continues until you die aged 43! That would be 88% of your life working!
Are we going to insist that the our children pay for our retirement? Are the young going to rise up against the old and refuse to pay, or is our ageing population going to ensure that any democratic decision is in favour of the retirees?
Is it possible to ‘set up’ a church? I’m not sure.
If you ‘set up’ a church then there is immediately a sense of heirarchy, the founders and the invitees – you also immediately have other structures and practices such as a meeting place and a meeting time. I’m not sure if these things are fundamentally important to being church. I wonder how much they get in the way?
To me, church is about being friends with other people who are also part of Christ’s body. I’m tempted to think that this means I am church with whatever Christian’s I spend time with… even if they already ‘go to a church’ (how bizarre is the term ‘go to a church’?! How can one ‘go to a church’?).
I wonder if the term ‘church planting’ was first coined to overcome this problem of whether it was possible to ‘set up’ a church? The basic concept of the term ‘church planting’ is surely merely the concept of being church, mixing with brother’s and sister’s and then church emerging from that basic root.
?????