Emerging Church

On Being an Ordained Minister

2004-08-23T20:48:00.000Z

I got an e-mail from my old friend Doug Holt today. He offered some advice on getting ordained:

"Always remember re diaconate, priesthood and episcopacy that the being of the one is not defined by the doing of the job."

I've struggled with this one a lot, as you might imagine. That I will be a different person when I am ordained is now obvious to me because my identity is, in part at least, continually being co-created in the relationships in which I participate. Since others will obviously see me differently after ordination, I must change my identity.

The question about whether my relationship with God will change after the laying on of hands is one to which, at present, I am minded to offer a tentative "yes". If so, my identity will change even further.

But then, once one leaves the notion of identity as a state and sees it as a pattern which emerges from all the relationships into which an individual enters, it is obvious that identity is always subject to change. (Indeed, it is stability which needs more explanation!)

Identity involves both continuity and change. I know that I am not the same person as I was twenty years ago (or even yesterday) and I also know that I am the same person as I was twenty years ago (and even yesterday). The interesting questions are around the influences which lead to both the change and the stability.

Doug also wrote that, "I find the old ontological: functional distinction re orders unhelpful, but I know that the psychology is so strong always to build an identity on one's role or function, and that is not helpful."

I must admit I struggled with this one: will ordination change the very nature of my being; my ontological status, or will it do no more than give me permission and authority to perform certain tasks? But perhaps a dichotomy between 'I am what I do' and 'I do what I am' isn't helpful. Perhaps, like the photon, both are true in a quantum sense and one or the other only becomes actuated in specific contexts - but the actuation of one does not negate or destroy the validity of the other.

It will be especially interesting for me because I will continue to play my professional role. I am currently working with Dublin City Council, helping them with a participative approach which aims to involve a lot more people in the process than they had last time. I will be ordained in the middle of the contract (it runs until the beginning of December) and it was a bit weird when I first realised that I will change by title and my mode of dress half way through. (Though, of course, this will remain hidden from them unless I choose to disclose it).

The above makes me sound (and feel) like a bit of a prospective cross-dresser: appearing like a 'normal' man to my client but dressing in strange clothes and assuming a new identity when in secret! There is a frisson to this:that I will have a secret identity about which my clients may know nothing unless I choose to self-disclose. This seems very childish - I need to deal with it pretty quickly I think.

Contextualisation

2004-08-15T07:16:00.000Z

I'm reading Frost & Hirsch's The Shaping of Things to Come; a very stimulating book. As an aid to my thinking I try to consider the implications of the ideas in it with reference to any possible work I might do with the 'new age thinkers' around here. Something which struck me profoundly was the notion of contextualisation (chapter five).

There I came across the C1 to C6 spectrum proposed by 'John Travis' (a pseudonym for an evangelist amongst Muslim people). There's more at a couple of articles by 'Joshua Massey': "His Ways Are Not Our Ways" and "Misunderstanding C5". Basically Travis argues that, in Islam, there are six possible types of Christ-centred communities (C) in an Islamic context.

C1 is a typical transplant of a church from one country to another. Inside a C1 church, everything is almost exactly the same as it would be in its country of origin, including the language.

C2 is basically the same as C1, except C2 uses the local language. C2 doesn't use any Islamic religious vocabulary, but instead has a distinctively "Christian" vocabulary for religious description.

C3 is essentially the same as C2, except C3 uses local music styles, dress, art and other native cultural elements. C3 makes a clear distinction between practices that are purely "cultural" and those which are "Islamic." Islamic forms are rejected. C1-C3 believers all identify themselves as "Christians."

C4 is much like C3 but has also adopted biblically permissible Islamic forms and practices (e.g., praying prostrate; washing before prayer and before touching the Bible; abstaining from pork; etc.). C4 believers do not call themselves "Christians" but "followers of Isa (Jesus)." However, the Muslim community does not generally see C4 believers as fellow Muslims.

C5 is much like C4, with the primary difference being self-identity. Whereas C4 believers identify themselves as "followers of Isa," C5 believers identify themselves as "Muslim followers of Isa"—much like Messianic Jews, who call themselves "Jewish followers of Jesus." Islamic theology incompatible with the Bible is rejected. In contrast to C4, Muslims may view C5 believers as Muslim, though perhaps a "strange kind of Muslim."

C6 is a secret believer, who may or may not be an active member in the religious life of the Muslim community. (Taken from "His Ways Are Not Our Ways")

Does this typology have any reference to other 'faith communities' in the UK - specifically those who are 'New Age' worshippers? I think that I have been hovering around a C2 or C3 approach: you have to 'do church' but you can do it in ways which are more congenial to you (candles, incense, meditation, etc.) This is basically a "we'll change the trappings if you'll change your fundamentals" approach - which fits well with the notion of metanoia, or turning around, to be found in concepts of repentance and conversion, but may not be culturally appropriate.

The question is, what would a C4 or C5 New Ager look like? I don't know the answer but it is worth thinking about. I have a sense that they would reinterpret some forms of prediction as prophecy and some forms of clairvoyance as words of knowledge and so on.

Whether notions such as chi or chakras could be 'baptised' seems less certain. Quabala or Tantric yoga also seem a long way from authentic Christianity, even for C5.

Spirituality 4 - Lessons Learned

2004-08-07T16:46:00.000Z

To close this little chapter on spirituality, I'll just reflect on some of the lessons I learned from my 'tent experiment'. Two things were against it: firstly, it was put together in a hurry and more importantly, it poured with rain for the whole afternoon while the fete was happening.

This latter fact meant that a lot of church people used the tent as a shelter and for a time it became a sort of base for the fete organisers (mainly because my wife, Shirleyanne, was one of the key organisers). Other church members wandered in for a chat. This had the effect of making the tent a place of busyness rather than peace. Largely this was because I had no time to tell church people about the tent or its aims, so they came in.

In fact, I'm not sure that there should have been anyone in the tent at all. I had this notion that I would sit quietly in the tent, meditating, and that this would model an atmosphere for any visitors. Perhaps one or two might want to talk; if so, I would engage with them. If not, I'd just sit still. But maybe my presence was both an attractor to church people to come and chat and an inhibitor to non-church people.

I was also concerned that the tent was too large but this led me to prepare four 'stations' and the end effect was that it was actually a little too cluttered. I don't know if this mattered but I was aware that the forgiveness station (inviting you to put a stone into a bowl of water if you wished to put away something that you regretted) was rather exposed if there was anyone else in the tent. In addition I had to put two stations (prayer & meditation) on the same table which was not ideal.

Finally, a practicality. Because it poured with rain nonstop and the wind got up from time to time some of my cards got wet and the ink ran. A laminator (which I've now ordered) would have been a great help.

Andwas it worth doing? Yes, it was. If nothing else I learned a lot. But I do believe that it was some kind of a marker; unashamedly Christian but in a manner which many would not associate with the church. It was a start, a small one perhaps, but a start nonetheless.

Spirituality 3 - Chill Out

2004-08-03T06:41:00.000Z

My thoughts about needing to do something to start making contact with those who are seeking but not looking at church came to an action point about two weeks ago.

On the Wednesday before the village fete a woman phoned asking to have a stall for her tarot readings. This suddenly triggered a passion in me: we, the church, must have a presence too. Remarkably, I had three clear days ahead of me with little other work to do; the opportunity seemed heaven-sent. I decided to have a "St Andrew's Chill Out Tent", not as an evangelistic opportunity but simply as a marker; an attempt to say that we know something about spirituality, too.

I managed to get hold of a tent, about 18' by 12', and designed four areas or stations to go in it:

A prayer station, with a bowl with floating candles, a prayer leaflet which I put together with some prayers (mainly Celtic) for different occasions, a prayer box into which people could put prayer requests, a couple of books on prayer and a brief introduction to prayer which I wrote.
A meditation station, with incense, some books, a handout and an introduction.
A Jesus station with an introduction, some books, night lights in the shape of a cross, pictures of Jesus from "The Christ We Share" and a few copies of 'footprints'.
A forgiveness station with pictures, an introduction, some books and an art nouveau lamp.

The tent was decorated with a series of bible texts on suitable images and music played in the background - Arvo Part, Gregorian Chant, and so on.

I wish I could say it was a huge success but it poured with rain all afternoon and very few people went to the fete. But it had some effect - a few visitors entered and lingered and at least one church member was put off because she thought it was a new age thing! One man hovered outside the tent for about two or three minutes before deciding not to enter.

I learned quite a lot from this. Perhaps I'll write a bit about this tomorrow.

Spirituality 2 - David Hay's Spirituality Research

2004-08-02T06:16:00.000Z

I've just read David Hay's Understanding the Spirituality of People Who Don't Go to Church (you can download a Word version here). It's based on research he did with Kate Hunt in Nottingham. They found 31 people who described themselves as either 'spiritual' or 'religious' but who had no contact with any church. Then, using both focus groups and follow-up conversations, they explored a number of topics:

Experience of Church or Sunday School as children
What does it mean to be religious or spiritual?
Is religion/spirituality a private concern, or does it have social implications?
What relevance does the notion of 'God' have in society and in their own lives?
What relevance does prayer have to life today or to them personally?
Do they ever read the Bible?
Do they talk to their children about their beliefs?
Why do they not go to church? Was it a conscious decision?
Why do they think people still go to church?
How would they change the Church if they could?
What is the media's attitude towards the Church?
When does the Church come across either positively or negatively?
What image of God/religion does the Church portray?

The results of the research are fascinating, especially in the context of declining church attendance and increasing admission of 'spiritual experience' (figures are from 2000 survey, those in parentheses from a 1987 survey):

A patterning of events 55% (29%)
Awareness of the presence of God 38% (27%)
Awareness of prayer being answered 37% (25%)
Awareness of a sacred presence in nature 29% (16%)
Awareness of the presence of the dead 25% (18%)
Awareness of an evil presence 25% (12%)

The study offers three case studies, offering some depth to the further findings. There seem to be many misconceptions about church and Christianity (at least, I would like to think that they are misconceptions) such as having to believe with certainty, being obsessed with control, living in the past and failing to be concerned with humanity as a whole.

Coupled with the findings from Nick Spencer's Beyond Belief: Barriers and Bridges to Faith Today David Hay's work offers a fascinating glimpse of the mindset and worldview of some of those who are beyond the church (both dechurched and unchurched).

One of the big challenges for the church is to develop a way of engaging with some of these people - hence my own current interest in the new age approach. The new age appears to have developed a more effective apologetic than the church; it has tapped into the growing interest in spirituality. (Actually, there are a few unexamined assumptions here - it may be that the new age has helped to make admissions of spiritual interest and experience more acceptable.)

Think about horoscopes - for years they were an object of fun, only to be found in women's magazines and tabloids. Now the secularist Observer can devote a whole page to its horoscope, together with sections on holistic medicine and other new age phenomena.

Perhaps humour is a route in; perhaps just offering something with no strings attached is a way in - after all, so many people seem to be afraid of the commitment they perceive we will demand from them if they contact us. And this, of course, is not commitment but coercion - whether we mean it to be or not.

Spirituality 1 - The New Age in our Village

2004-08-01T22:04:00.000Z

I've been thinking about 'spirituality' and new age a lot recently. There seems to be quite a lot of new age interest in our village. There's the 'David Andrew Sanctuary', which meets every Sunday evening in the village hall. I'm not really sure what they do but it seems to include some clairvoyance, mediumship and other stuff. Then there are the weekly classes in clairvoyance, readings, et al at one of the chalet parks here and there are also occasional clairvoyance evenings as, for instance, a fundraiser for the playgroup.

You could see all this as an evil perversion (and in some ways I must admit that I do) but Paul's approach in Athens seems more authentic and missional ("I see you are in every way very religious" he said after being shocked at the number of idols) . So I prefer to think of new age stuff as an attempt to walk the same journey as I am walking; as a sign of a longing for meaning and an apprehension of the divine.

The really sad thing is that they do not see the church as having a role to play in their journey. In part it's because we do not speak their language (and I don't just mean words; we don't use their symbols or rituals). In part it's because we don't listen or try to get alongside.

So, I wonder - what can we do; what can I do? I did try something last weekend and I'll write a little about it in part 2. But here I just want to set out my current concern: should I, and possibly others from our church, go to the David Andrew Sanctuary? Could I face it? I went to a Spiritualist Church a few times when I was younger just out of curiousity's sake and it was excruciating. So phony, I thought in my young arrogance, so many sad and desperate people being manipulated by charlatans.

Would I find the same here? Would my presence be seen as legitimising their activities. What would other people in the village think? What would my rector think? What would the bishop think? But if we don't go, how can we come alongside; how can we be authentic; how can we have the kinds of conversation which might lead to change? It's a real puzzle to me. I don't know of anyone else who is doing this kind of work but I'm sure there must be.

Any thoughts would be most welcome.

Leadership and the Emerging Church

2004-07-14T21:15:00.000Z

I got an e-mail from someone today who wondered if I had ever used my professional skills within the church, especially in the filed of leadership development. I haven't actually but leadership and new expressions of church seems a crucial issue to me. The church's leadership models are firmly rooted in the feudal world picture, modified with a strong dose of modernism. This simply will not do today for a number of reasons:

* It is not Biblical and models a false gospel;

* It does not relate to postmodernist people, who will only follow those they trust and relate to;

*It is unable to provide the depth or breadth of leadership currently needed by the church.

It seems to me that leadership in the church must be visionary, servant-focused, relational and facilitative. The tasks of the leader are to hold the vision, both of the gospel and of its local proclamation in word, deed, and presence; to model the kingdom values which Jesus came to initiate (Luke 22:24-26; Phil 2:5ff; etc.); to offer authentic relationship; and to facilitate the development of new leaders.

How to achieve this? Partly through teaching, but mainly through experiment and support. Church leaders seem to me to be ill-informed, ill-equipped and low on self-esteem (though that often manifests itself in a kind of authoritarian arrogance).

The most powerful approaches in leadership development seems to me to focus around coach-mentoring and action learning. The action learning set is like a learning laboratory where leaders can experiment with ideas and concepts without getting their fingers burned. Coach-mentoring offers the opportunity for stimulated reflection, supportive challenge and attentive encouragement. All leaders should have access to coach-mentoring; this is not generally true for many leaders, especially in the church.

I have just completed a three-year course of study in Norwich diocese and am due to be ordained deacon on 2nd October. There was nothing on my course about leadership, yet it is crucial especially as we begin to grasp the fact that we have to be a missionary church in the West. There is already a certain amount of experimentation with leadership forms in the emerging church.

Cell Church, for instance, has a huge requirement for leaders, though these are of a rather traditional nature. Base Ecclesial Communities have a different leadership model; which could be described as distributed and participative. Alt.worship groups tend to operate with a consensual opt-in style of leadership. Each has something to offer the church yet I suspect that most ministers have been completely untouched by these developments.

Changing the syllabus in theological training courses will help but there is an urgent need to do something now. The challenge is great because so many ministers have a vested interest in the present structures and feel threatened if asked to move outside their comfort zones. Yet the risk is even greater since the lack of effective and appropriate leadership is the single greatest factor in holding back the development of the church in the West.

Endings

2004-07-05T22:01:00.000Z

Tonight was the end of my course. Formally it was session four of the Gospel & Mission course and indeed that's what we did. There were no special rituals to mark the end of three years' study. We made a small presentation to John, our course director, at half time and we ended by saying the grace together. That was it.

We will all meet again at the start of our ordination retreat in three months' time. It all seems a bit unreal; there's relief certainly and thoughts will turn to practicalities such as preaching scarves, stoles and the rest of the impedimenta of sacrality.

We talked again about our role. Will our incumbents let us be mission-focused? Can we be instrumental in Rowan Williams' 'mixed economy'? There are moves to dilute the differences between Ordained Local Ministers and other clergy. The net result of these may well be that we, too, are sucked into maintenance of the existing structures and provisions. This cannot be what God wants, surely.

Yet how can we avoid it? The inertia of the C of E is so great that it sometimes seems that despair is the only authentic response. Sybil said that someone had done a presentation on 'Mission Shaped Church' at their deanery. When it came to exploring the notion of mixed economy there was huge resistance from the clergy. "If you can't get them to come to the main service then you're doing something wrong" seemed to be the message. It would be better, it seems, for no-one to come to worship than for a group of people to worship together in a way that is not directly connected with the traditional Sunday service.

Cell vs Base

2004-07-03T10:33:00.000Z

I'm not very good at keeping this blog up to date but life has been very hectic recently. Now that the Pursuing Excellence project has finished I may have some more time.

I've been thinking about cell groups and base ecclesial communities. Both offer a fresh expression of church but each has a different orientation. I guess that this is partly because of their background. Cell seems focused on growth while base majors on service. This dichotomy doesn't seem very biblical. When I hear, as I did recently, an evangelical minister say that we must remember that we are not here to offer a social services programme I get worried. Church growth is required by the great commission but not at the expense of living a kingdom life. There is a temptation to simply combine base & cell to provide a more holistic form of small group. The fact that this hasn't been done suggests that it's not quite that simple so I will resist the temptation to offer simplistic suggestions - for the time being at least.

There is another key difference between cell & base: the way that leadership is exercised. Cell replicates a hierarchical leader/led status model while base has a collaborative role-based model. The collaborative model seems more postmodern and more congenial to me at the moment. But I do not want to assert that it is superior or more biblical because I believe that we see both forms of leadership offered there.

An advantage of the status model is that a leader may be better equipped to hold the vision and manage the boundaries than collaborative leadership. On the other hand, cells often fail because they cannot grow leaders fast enough; perhaps a collaborative model could cope better with multiplication by division. Yet base groups do not seem to have a desire to grow.

I do get a sense that a dialogue between the two approaches should be fruitful. Has this happened? Can it happen in my head? I will continue to explore and try to get a sense of what might emerge from such a dialogue.

Disconnect & Connect

2004-06-24T22:05:00.000Z

The final presentation of my course, on Gospel & Mission, was this morning. I was quite enthusiastic about it but when it came to the bit where we had to draft a mission policy for the parish (we don't have one) everything seemed to get stuck in thick mud. It seemed (and I could be quite wrong here) that my incumbent was trying to stifle any initiative. Frustrated, I asked him, "Are you against evangelism?" He looked taken aback and I clarified: "I mean in a structured intentional way..." Afterwards Shirleyanne, my wife, said that my question was too strong, though she had felt the same way as me. O well...

In the afternoon a joined a few others in conversation about emerging church at the Bishop's house. We were all a bit tentative at first but it was good to sense the enthusiasm as well as the encouragement from the bishop and archdeacon. We didn't come to any conclusion (which was good) and there was no emergence either but we made some connections and we introduced some diversity into the system, so that was a positive start.

So, a funny day; all part of life's rich blah blah blah I suppose.

There's no such thing as a church

2004-06-24T21:49:00.000Z

I've puzzled over this question for a long while: I know what the church is, but what is a church? None of the definitions or explanations I could think of, or that I have read quite worked for me. Today the penny dropped.

There is one holy, catholic and apostolic church - and there are a myriad of localised expressions of this church. We have got into the habit of thinking of some of these expressions as being churches. Contrariwise, we have gotten into the habit of thinking of other expressions as not being churches. This thinking has got so ingrained that it trips us up when we try to think about new ways of being church.

The question we should be asking of a body of Christians is whether it is an authentic expression of church. If it is, then its outward form and inner structure do not matter. If it is not then its outward form and inner structure don't matter either. Of course, the test for authenticity might not always be easy to apply or unequivocal in its answers but the principle is still important.

Indeed, even much of what I have written above may be guilty of an inappropriate reification. By thinking of church as a noun and then dividing it up into more and more nouns we have turned Paul's body of Christ into a tangible object. Does an authentic expression of church always have to involve a gathering of people? Does that gathering always have to rely on physical contiguity? Could a valid expression of church be a disparate and scattered set of people, perhaps only connected by the fact that they visit the same space from time to time (but never at the same time)? (I'm thinking of the visitors to our church building.)

There's a lot more to think on this topic but I do feel I've made a start for myself.

Be Quiet!

2004-06-24T06:18:00.000Z

I went to the Mission Shaped Church conference yesterday and I will write about that in sue course. But I was more struck, as my journey home was delayed more and more, by a passage from Doug Pagitt's "Reimagining Spiritual formation"; his account of the Solomon's Porch experimental church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (A very interesting book, by the way.)

I get quite upset by the amount of noise at the start of services. I want to be quiet, to prepare myself for an encounter with God. The babble of secular conversations distracts me and I can end up feeling a bit resentful and spiritually superior (I've come here to worship God, you lot have just come to swap trivialities with your friends...). Doug wrote:

"Our Sunday night gatherings officially start at 5:30 pm, so people are sometimes puzzled when the music doesn't start until 5:40. At least once a month someone asks me, "Why do we start late?" I tell them we aren't starting late, we're starting the conversation. And that's important because this conversation is the heart of who we are. Our hope is that the music, the invocation, the prayers, and the sermon that follows will be a continuation of the conversation between us and with God." (p 50)

And I was suddenly convicted that this is right and that I have been wrong. I talk a lot about building community, about worship being a collective rather than individual experience and yet my own thoughts and actions belie my words.

On Sunday I will start the service by sharing this with the congregation. I wonder what response I'll get.

What is a Church?

2004-06-16T06:46:00.000Z

I'm having trouble with the notion of a church. The church seems far less problematic - those who are 'in Christ', the body of Christ, etc. But what is a church? There seem to be lots of possibilities:

1. Those people, some of whom may be 'in Christ', who attend public worship at a particular building? Often called the congregation.

2. Those people who attend public worship together (there may be others who attend different services in that building)? Often called a congregation.

3. A group of Christians focused around a priest/pastor?

4. A group of people meeting together to participate in God's work of justice and mission (New Way of Being Church or Cell Church)?

There are others. I guess that numbers 2 and 4 seem most important. We should be treating them as the atoms of the church and wondering how we can support them in their development and interaction with other atoms. This means that one church building and one priest could support several different 'churches' within it. They may interact and overlap at times but at other times they will develop their own particular ethos and style (within the parameters of the catholic church) and will provide a home for those whose path to God lies through their particular way of approaching him.

All in the Family?

2004-06-15T05:54:00.000Z

Last night at my course David Court, the vicar of Cromer, was with us. He observed that CPAS and the Church Army, the two prime home mission organisations in the Church of England,have quite different strategies. CPAS favours all-age worship ("The CPAS body beautiful? Conference challenges the local church to become the all-age community that God has always intended it to be.") while CA is leaning towards segmentation. Having recently moved from 'one size fits all' to segmentation myself this was interesting to hear.

Behind this is, I think, a sense of imperative. Church should be a family and so we should all meet together. The first part may well be true; certainly if we are all sons of God we must be related and part of his family. But the second part? Modern families spend much of their time apart. Dad in his shed, Mum watching Eastenders or Corrie, Sam upstairs with her best friend Julie, while Jo is on his PS2. They may come together for meals from time to time but their sense of family does not necessarily depend on them doing everything together.

So why do some want to impose another model of family on the church? Is it more 'Biblical'? I'm not convinced. "In my Father's house there are many mansions" - does this imply that we're all supposed to be together all the time? Poor exegesis, I know but nothing to support what seems to me to be a rather romantic ideal of family leaps out of the Bible either.

Certainly, if we are to be where the people are then the segmented model of worship and congregation would seem to be closer to most people's experience of family than the 'all together now' approach.

Metanarrative & Fractal Encoding

2004-06-13T21:34:00.000Z

If the metanarrative is unknowable, what does this say about the Bible? I guess that the Bible points to, proclaims, but does not delineate, the metanarrative. After all, there is no linear narrative in the Bible. Biblical theology may try to 'extract' such a story - that, after all, is part of the Enlightenment enterprise. But, in truth, this does injury to the text. The Bible is full of contradictions such as an unchanging God (Ps 59:19, Mal 3:6) who has to put a rainbow in the sky in order to remember, who is beaten down by Abraham in a haggling contest and who changes his mind constantly. The two creation stories contradict each other, and so on.

This is important. Instead of trying to harmonise these different strands we should let them interact and see what emerges. It is significant, though, that we often find the metanarrative fractally encoded in individual stories.

Richard.

Is there a metanarrative?

2004-06-12T18:13:00.000Z

Postmodernismat least some forms of it (Lyotard, for one)claims that there is no such thing as a unique metanarrative, or megastory (or that there are lots of metanarratives and it is not possible to privilege one of them). I say, there is a metanarrative, which is Gods story and that it broadly corresponds with McLarens Creation, Crisis, Conversation, Christ, Community, Consummation.

However we cannot know the details. Instead there are lots of mininarratives which may even contradict one another. This is the way to read the Bible (Bruegemann 1993, Texts Under Negotiation). Treat each mininarrative (or pericope, if you prefer)on its own terms and see what emerges. Don't try to harmonise different parts of scripture or use scripture to read scripture (heresy!). This can only work if you know the answer already. Whilst this may be true in broad outline it cannot be true in the details.

Richard.

Modernism & fundamentalism

2004-06-10T17:05:00.000Z

I'm reading Ernest Gellner's postmodernism, Reason and Religion in which he argues that there are "three basic contestants" today in the matter of faith: religious fundamentalism, relativism (of which postmodernism is the most obvious exemplar) and Enlightenment rationalism.

He offers Islamic fundamentalism as an example of the former and shows considerable understanding and respect for it. He abhors postmodernism as, for instance, "What all this means is less than clear - the metaphysical-lit. crit. jargon takes care of that - but the theory, such as it is, feeds back on its own style and underwrites its chaos and obscurity..." (p. 29)

Gellner's preferred option is rationalism, which he admits is also a kind of fundamentalism - he calls it 'mild'; there is a belief that there is a unique truth but a society can never possess it definitively.

I find this very interesting; because although I thought I had repudiated Enlightenment rationalism, this latter position is closest to my own. I believe that there is an absolute truth (one privileged metanarrative which is privileged because of its one-to-one mapping onto the way things actually are) but that we cannot know it in its entirety (1Corinthians 13:9-12).

Gellner and I would disagree fundamentally about the nature of this absolute truth and also about the ways we may gain knowledge about it but our positions are more similar than I had thought. Interesting...

Holy Experiments

2004-06-09T20:44:00.000Z

There are lots of suggestions for new ways of being church at the moment. The modernist approach would be to decide that one of them was right and to pursue it until it succeeds or fails. purpose-driven seems to be the flavour of the month in the States at present.

I think that a postmodernist approach might be to adopt the notion of holy experiment: try lots of different things and see where the Spirit leads. If one thing doesn't work (in the sense that no-one is able to connect with it - or, more importantly, to connect with God through it) or if it runs out of steam, try something else. Have faith that the emergent result of all these experiments will be what God desires.

You can see glimmerings of this approach in some settings. Spring harvest here is the UK (a large evangelical celebration held over five days each year) has different evening celebrations with different styles. But they are all variations on the same theme.

Even Saddleback (home of purpose driving) offers something 'brand new': a range of worship venues on their campus ("What is a worship venue? It's a live feed of the message on a large bright LED screen. It's live bands with different styles than in the Worship Center. It's a smaller, more intimate atmosphere for worship. AND you can even bring your coffee with you into the service!") They offer Worship Center (Saddleback Style), Praise! (Large Gospel Choir), Over Drive (Rock 'n Roll), unplugged (intimate, acoustic), elevation (Saddleback with an edge), and Passion (intimate, younger).

This is good but what I had in mind is a bigger mix still. Something like this, perhaps: Taize, alt.worship, Book of Common Prayer, praise services, contemplative, etc. Funnily enough we had all these at St Mary's, Ealing while I was there. So what's new? Well, for me I think that I did not value the diversity in a proper way - I loved all of them and I wanted everyone else to love all of them as well. Most others seemed to feel that one style was more important or better than the rest. So we had BCP once a quarter at 10:30 (and lots of people didn't like that). What I am thinking of now is to have BCP every week and work to build a BCP church, as well as an alt.worship church and a Taize church.

Sure, some people might go to all of them (like me, though I wouldn't go to all of them all the time) but most would find a way which enables them to get closer to God and would stick with it for as long as it 'worked'. You could have multiple churches meeting in the same church. Perhaps they'd come together sometimes but you'd never get everybody together, just as a service at a cathedral will never attract all the Christians in a diocese. I'll say a bit more on this another time.

Diversity - what are the limits

2004-06-08T21:59:00.000Z

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that diversity is key. We have to be able to offer a range of 'ways in' to church. I hesitated as I wrote that last word - church?; Jesus?; God? But if we accept Pete Ward's definition of church - those who are 'in Christ' then it is actually offering ways to Jesus.

But are there limits? Does anything go because it might just be the way to Jesus for some individual? I guess it seems as if we ought to be able to say that no impure road would lead anyone there so that there must be limits. But all roads are impure - without the guidance of the Spirit no-one would get to Jesus. We are commanded to 'judge not'; we are told that 'by their fruits you shall know them'. Between the creative interplay of these two principles we may be able to discern what is OK - good enough - in what we offer.

Labyrinth in a country church?

2004-06-07T21:20:00.000Z

Just got back from the first session in the Gospel & Mission module of my course. A guy called Tony Windross, vicar of St Peter's, Sheringham was with us. He has just published a book (The Thoughtful Guide to Faith, O Books, New Arelsford, Hants). He seems to have a very non-theist approach but claims that this is a way of speaking to the postmodern generation. I'll try to reserve judgement until I read it.

While he was speaking (reading from a prepared speech, actually) I started to think about diversity and 'going to church' (a phrase which Tony used several times). Lots of people visit our church in Bacton; some of them sign the visitor's book; some put requests in the prayer book. Some wander round, others sit. Some are one-off visitors, others come quite frequently.

What more could we offer them? Some suitable literature? What about a labyrinth of some kind? Something which would offer a tour of the church (catering for those who appreciate church history & architecture etc) and combining that with the idea of prayer stations and different focuses for prayer. Since the church is unattended there are some obvious security implications - anything high or even medium tech would be susceptible to light fingers but surely we could offer something? It's worth thinking about...

We've all got to start somewhere...

2004-06-06T19:33:00.000Z

Normally, beginnings are my speciality. Endings are a different matter, though.

This, however, feels difficult. So I won't try too much today. Suffice it to say that I am on a personal journey of discovery about the possibilities of emerging church. Not only that, but I guess I have a particular interest in how new forms of church can emerge in the countryside since I live in rural Norfolk - right on the edge of rural Norfolk, actually.

I'm due to be ordained in October (2nd) as an Ordained Local Minster. It will be interesting, especially as I intend to continue my work as an organisation consultant - which my reminds me of my current anxieties. Having got through the hurdle of my first beach service this morning (it went very well) I still have to face a workshop in King's Lynn tomorrow with a team of people who have some significant interpersonal difficulties. I have a proposal for conducting the workshop from a positive fiture-oriented frame but if they reject this it could easily disintegrate into acrimony and massive projections and introjections. I'll let you know how it goes and perhaps then I'll be able to post some thoughts on emerging church.