Last Saturday there was a beautiful moment. I went out the front to play with the kids on their scooters. The people opposite were out doing their front garden. I sauntered over and chatted with them. and was there for about an hour. Maddy [my wife] came out with a cup of tea she had promised me. Given that i was chatting she offered the neighbours a cup of tea, on their own front lawn! They accepted, next thing Reuben [my 3 year old] came out with a plate of cookies and handed them round to a bunch of kids and their parents. Monday morning the lady come over 'wanting to repay the favour of a cup of tea'. Maddy went round and fed Asher [my 4 month old] at her house [just to oblige her, you understand]. What a fantastic moment of life sharing and commuity building - what a great way to bring the kingdom in!! Now imagine if we were at the point of living that kingdom community life in our street like that - how natural and organic a Christian life is that! With mission right at the centre - with the good old English cup of tea.
I am sure part of our missionary call is to agents/catalyst/creator of commuity for those around.
I used to say that time travel was impossible 'cos we had never met anyone from the future, well now that has all changed >here< ......maybe!
.Posted by: Mark | 3/31/2003 03:37:00 pm |
At the leaders conference I went to the other day one of the most provoking things said was that eldership was not about being the ‘neck’ of the body of Christ, through whom the life flows, but maybe more like the heart – setting the environment for life. A helpful challenge I think, as we try to make this transition as leaders away from the “CEO model” to something more like a “spiritual director”.
Having said that it is interesting the way the church worked in the early second century. We have a glimpse through the writings of Ignatius (martyred circa 110ad), who wrote letters to churches on his journey to Rome to be fed to the wild beasts – he hoped:
To the Trallians
“…It is essential therefore that you continue your current practice and do nothing without the bishop, but be subject also to the presbytery as to the apostles of Jesus Christ our hope, in whom we shall be found, if we so live. Furthermore, it is necessary that those who are deacons of the “mysteries” of Jesus Christ please everyone in every respect. For they are not merely “deacons” of food and drink, but ministers of the God’s church. Therefore they must avoid criticism as though it were fire.
Similarly, let everyone respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, just as they should respect the bishop, who is a model of the father and the presbyters as God’s council and as the band of the apostles. Without these no group can be called a church…”
And all this time we have been wondering what church is about…
New Models: Preparing the Whole Person for Ministry - By Brian McLaren
One characteristic of our modern approach to Scripture is that it is analytical. When you are analytical, you are always breaking things down into smaller pieces, and you believe that you will find truth when you reduce things to the smallest set of pieces. And you do learn a lot of truth that way. But you miss all the things you would discover if you looked for even larger realities.
For instance, think of a car. If you take a car and break it down into all its smallest parts so that you understand how pistons and rings and windshield wipers and accelerators all work, you do understand a lot about a car. But there is a whole range of questions that you never ever ask when you approach it in that way—questions like “What role does this car play in the life of the family that owns it? Is it a status symbol for them? Is it part of the father’s mid-life crisis? Do they have a teenagers who drives the car, and what role does that car play in mating rituals among human beings? How does that car relate to the ecological crisis? What role does it play in the whole system of oil politics?” All of those kinds of questions are totally missed. [MORE]
And also this talk by Brain - The Missional Factor
What can I say... we got on gink world, we got on gink world ( to the tune of Eddie Murphy's song "I've got an ice cream")
...and no I didn't pay them!!!
Phew, that's been a busy time!! Time to get blogging again!
As mentioned a couple of weeks back here are the details of the Paul Stevens [Author of "The other Six Days" and "Liberating the Laity"] conference in Oxford - the week before the round table mentioned below...
Date: Saturday, 21st June
Place: The King's Centre, Oxford
Timings: 9:15 registration, refreshments and networking; 10:00 intros; 10:15 "Market place: Mission field or field of mission?"; 11:30 "Calling in a Post Vocational Age"; 12:30 Lunch in networking groups; 14:00 Reflections with Paul Williams; 14:15 "the Spirituality of leadership"; 15:30 "Stress, Sabbath and Serenity"; 16:30 Summing up and close with Aled Griffith.
Cost: £15 before 7th June, £20 after 7th June.
I will be going with a few mates. If you want to come let me know. [or contact: enquires@kbctc.org]
Hope I can get a pass out for two Saturdays in a row............
Organic Church Round Table
With Jason Clark
When: Saturday June 28th 2003
Venue: TBA (The Northampton Area)
This is the first Organic Church Blog event and is aimed at networking and connecting leaders and others involved in the emerging church conversation.
To help with the discussion we have Jason Clark with us. Jason and his wife Bev planted an emerging church in 1997 in Sutton, Surrey (edge of SW London). He is currently doing a very part time postgrad research degree in postmodern theology, and co-ordinates the UK activities of Emergent You can also view his blog at http://jasonclark.emergent-uk.org
The event will be limited to about 25 - 30 people, so please let me know if you're interested in coming along.
Here is another one, the search words were: "evangelist jonathan morgan"
.Posted by: Central Vineyard | 3/19/2003 05:05:00 pm |
I've just been looking at the webstats for the Organic Church Blog and someone reached us by searching for "graham old theology"
Is there something you're not telling us Graham?
Church Planting
WE NEED TO STOP starting with the church. Rather, we should plant the seed of the gospel in all sorts of new and emerging cultures and contexts – and make disciples of what sprouts. The fruit will be all sorts of new expressions of authentic church - that is, Jesus communities of disciple-making disciples.’
- Bob Hopkins, Anglican Church Planting Initiative
N.T. Wright Strikes Again
Need I say more?
Jason Clark a fellow Vineyard pastor, sent me an article he's written on 'Missional Communities' In it he talks about some of the helpful things about missional communities, but also makes note of the problems he sees as well. One of the problems he highlights is 'The death of public space.' I've been thinking over this for some time and it would be good to see what some of you think!
He writes...
The death of public space
Many missional communities pride themselves on being hard to find, having no advertising, no teaching, minimal programmes, no obvious leaders. To attend one is to run the risk of being subjected to uncertainty, food and relationship. Missional communities are in danger of inviting people into their worst fear, forced intimacy, sharing, and lack of public space. People want to be able to watch, listen, observe, without pressure to be involved. Yet missional communities by their nature make this very hard to do. People who visit and don’t stay, can be seen and labeled as “consumers”, whereas the group validates people not joining by seeing themselves as committed and “real” Christians. In fact missional communities have always been small, as they have always been hard to join.
My worry is that rather than being open communities, they can become closed and as culturally exclusive to people around them as the modern church. The term “missional community” means nothing to the average un-churched person, but is a signifier to other Christians of the nature of the group.
Rather than new communities that are full of new believers, they often become small communities made up from tired and burned out Christians, fed up with church, finding the new community a place of idealism where everyone is practicing hard core Christianity, compared to the compromising modality of the main church they have left.
Just to let you all know the The sequel to "A New Kind Of Christian", is now in print
The Story We Find Ourselves in: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian - get your copy from Amazon.co.uk today!
Synopsis
An inspirational, fictional tale with off-beat characters and strange locales from the Galapagos Islands to the Baltimore suburbs. The characters take on challenging themes including evolution, death, evangelism and the meaning of life. This tale captures the spirit of a relevant Christianity, where traditional divisions and doctrinal differences must give way to a focus on God and God's dream for the world. It is a sequel to Brian McLaren's book "A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey".
I'm feeling crap...................
I don't want to do this anymore... it's to hard... it's to life consuming. All I want to do right now is go to church somewhere and forget all this stuff that's messed up my brain (thanks Todd!) I'm sure I'll feel better in the morning, but right now I want to give up!!
Found his via Matthew's House which Jason found on Joe Boyd's blog. I don't know if it makes me feel better or not!
Attn: Future Simple Church Planters--Count the Cost:
Expect pain.
Expect to be misunderstood.
Expect to be persecuted and expect it to come first from those who follow Jesus.
Expect to be maligned, attacked and ridiculed from all sides.
Expect to grow tired and weary.
Expect to want to give up.
Expect to lose many old friends.
Expect to lose all of your friends where the "church" is the central reason for your friendship.
Only your deep and Christ-centered friendships will endure.
Expect to be labeled. (a freak, a hippie, a cult leader, a quitter, a fraud, an idealist, a purist, a heretic, a divider, a communist, a jerk, an egomaniac, a devil worshiper)
Yes, I've been called them all to my face.
Expect to weep...deeper and stronger than you ever have.
Expect to doubt your calling, your convictions, your path, your faith, and your life.
Expect to be lonely.
Expect to be seen as utterly unsuccessful.
Expect to die...nothing will be left of you. You will cease to exist. The last things in you to die will be your desire to be great for God and your desire to be happy.
And then, you will finally... Live.
Expect life.
Expect meaning.
Expect to finally understand the prophets and apostles.
Expect to know Jesus and his life...for that is all that you will have...and that is all that you need.
The last couple of days i have discovered Leonard Sweet. I know, I am a bit slow. There is some great stuff on the leonard sweet website [although to name your website after yourself seems a little much?!].His learned to learner litany of transformation is epic - one for the office wall, take a look.
Personal faves:
"When I was learned, I had something to teach everybody. Now I am a learner, everybody has something to teach me"
"When I was learned, I thought that all knowledge was a form of power. Now that I'm a learner, I suspect much knowledge is a form of weakness"
Whatever is inside there always is more room to create the space to be a learner.
By the way, one of the joys of my rather low-key provision of work is that I can have our conversation always just a click away!! Hence my more rampant blogging/commenting. Graham, what's your excuse??!!
I’ve been thinking recently about the issue of *commitment*. Churches in recent history have made a big deal out of commitment. Are you a ‘member’? Have you signed a piece of paper. Or publically stated you intentions. Something you can be accountable to. In the New World commitment, accountability, signing on dotted lines doesn’t really sound very pomo. Add to that the seeker friendly emphasis and it is positively off putting for people. So should we forget any talk of people ‘committing’ themselves to a church?
I got to this after thinking about most church members consumerist attitude to church. I.e. church is just one activity amongst a million others in my life – it is a pressure. Therefore we judge church [meetings] on their benefit, their return; whether it was a good use of time. If the answer to those questions is “no” then we seriously consider whether it is worthwhile next time. “do I get anything out of it” – if not I vote with my feet and find somewhere else with more entertainment value, value for money etc. The meeting focus of church has led to the need to entertain attenders. So then we are asking the wrong question: “ask not what your church does for you ask what you can do for your church”. Ask not “did I get anything out of it” but “did I fulfill my responsibilities to my fellow sojourners”. The issue is responsibilities not rights. That must be the case for a church formed around the Lord’s Supper – the model as building principle for Christian community: “laying down my life for my friends”. Maybe then commitment, accountability, responsibility are still relevant concepts for authentic church. But not to a meeting, or to a programme, or even to a vision; but to a group of people that form the community – a commitment to self sacrifice. An authentic expression of Christian discipleship. That is why I cannot go with ‘church where u are’. Christian community is built around long-term Christian relationships where growth occurs through mutual self-sacrifice. And that effects meetings: we gather together ‘cos it is great, but even when it isn’t we gather because I am my brother’s keeper – and I am going to fulfill my responsibility.
Ok, I’m back from the Vineyard Leaders conference managing to escape the formidable “how big is your church” questions. (I think my brother Rob got hit with it a couple of time). Over all it we had a really good time. Stuart Murray did a really good job talking about the death of Christendom and what church may look like in a post Christian world. He also managed to upset a number of pastor’s with his views on Tithing (anyone who’s read his exceptional book ‘Beyond Tithing’ will know what I mean). He asked some hard questions, like how do we communicate the gospel to the “happy modern secularist” or in other words how can we present a gospel that is motivated from a place of guilt to a world that doesn’t feel guilty?
The other theme of the conference was a reflection on some of the things that are rooted in the Vineyard movement, namely power ministry or to use a Wimberism “doing the stuff”. Steve Barber (Southend Vineyard) made an interesting point about not knowing if he is post-Christian… post-modern…or even post-office but wherever he is. There is a need to remember that a demonstration of the power of God kind of crosses the cultural barriers we face. I kind of agree with this statement and I don’t. Yes I believe a demonstration of the power of God is bigger than the posing threat of the death of Christendom, but I also think we need to seriously try to understanding the world we live in. A world that doesn’t know our story anymore, as Murray illustrated:
There was a 9 year old boy in class at school who heard the Christmas story for very first time… after hearing this story he had two very pressing questions, firstly why hadn’t he been told that story before and secondly why did they use a swear word for the baby’s name? That's what a post Christian world looks like!
I think (and this is just me thinking ok!) that the danger for the Vineyard (or any other new church network) is to think Christendom didn't affect us in the first place… that it’s just something for the more traditional churches to deal with, yeh right!
(I’ll try and write a more full report of the conference some time this week)
Space
Last night in our midweek church meeting someone led an activity where you came up with a word each in your group then tried to write a 'psalm' with them all in. We certianly had a laugh!! My word was 'Space'. Let's just say I had to change it fairly quickly when it came to writing in a sentence!
Space. There isn't a lot of space these days. The country is getting filled up with people, cars, buildings; life is getting busier and faster, no space. Sometimes it gets a little claustrophobic - give me room to breath. What makes it worse is that there is no space inside either. I let my brain get so caught up with working it out, getting answers. I wake up thinking, I drift off at family meals, thinking. I gotta make some space. And then I realise - that God is found in the space. Somehow my self is full of stuff, and God is squeezed into a corner. I realise the real issue about space is not life so much as self. To fill the space is to fill with pride - my reasoning, my resources, my solutions. I need to enjoy the space of not knowing. (and allow for a different kind of knowing).
The problem is that space is emptyness, loneliness, it is breezy. I think with dreamy soft hazy vision of wide open spaces, but know when I get there I feel the relaity of my existence, my smallness and mortality. But there is room to breath, room for God. It seems we must face our aloneness to acheive the solitude of being ourselves with God. All our filling of life can be a hiding from who we are, from our pain. The drive of time - a moment spare is filled with TV, radio. The insecurity of time to sit is filled with just one more check of the e-mail. What am I running from - reality.
Create space - space not to think, but space to know [and not that head knowledge stuff] and to be known.
