But what if rather than expecting people to ‘join up’ we simply made it possible for them to ‘join in’? Being a Christian is not about being a Christian on Sunday morning between 11 and 12 (or whenever). I know it’s about that faith ‘ethos’ infusing all that we do, but often that’s not too visible. If Christians were seen to be at work or play in their community, not doing Christian things, but simply doing things, is that a way of enabling people to join in?

It would, I think, need to be something that was done regularly to avoid becoming that one-off event. And it would need to be something that wasn’t already happening otherwise you end up competing and setting a tone of ‘joining up’ rather than joining in. And it would need to be something that facilitated relationships rather than just doing the ‘thing’, whatever that might be. And it would need to have, I think, some sort of Christian ‘context’, otherwise you’re just doing stuff that is no different from the stuff that everyone else does.

So what sort of thing might work in this context? Some sort of regular ‘clean-up’ walk around a community? A bunch of families meeting up in the park to play games? I don’t know, but there’s got to be something that enables joining in as a means to establishing relationships and relevance between a church and the community.

Share/Bookmark

It usually starts with the question, “What sort of place would you like to end up in?” Or words to that effect anyway. I’ve always been somewhat cagey, or at least non-committal, with my answers to that question. My journey to this point has been along a path littered with the plans I have made and then had to cast aside.

But, of course, it’s a subject that cannot be ignored and I’ve attempted to discern something of the nature of where that first call might come from and what sort of place I think I would settle into. Many moons ago I made the somewhat rash statement that you would never find me in an Urban Priority Area charge. I don’t think that’s changed any. I freely acknowledge that it’s not where I’m gifted and simply have no sense of ‘call’ to such a charge. I’ve also said/thought that I wouldn’t want a large town or city charge, preferring perhaps to be the only church, or at least one of few churches, in an area. It’s not that I don’t get on with people, just that that was what was in my head of where I could see myself. That, in many respects, narrows the field somewhat and I felt that a rural or semi-rural parish would be an obvious choice. I even mentally reviewed my background and gifts and abilities and felt that they wouldn’t be too bad a fit in such an environment. But I never really felt enthusiastic about it, so I still didn’t really know.

A while ago, someone made a comment to me about a particular charge. It was too early in the process for me to take it seriously and when it was mentioned more recently, I still didn’t pay much attention. There is much to commend the charge, despite some obvious, pending, issues. What’s more, it didn’t tick many of my boxes (or so I thought) and, indeed, sits firmly within one of the categories I had already dismissed (not the UPA one – that still stands). There are all sorts of other ‘issues’, both personal and associated with the charge, that perhaps ought to ring warning bells and yet they don’t. (It would be inappropriate to discuss these openly at this stage, so forgive me for being vague.)

Yet, despite all of this, over this past week there has been a growing sense of conviction that this might be ‘the place’. It makes sense in so many ways – both personal and ‘professional’. As I’ve already hinted, it also doesn’t make sense on both of these grounds, and yet there is a sense of ‘don’t worry about these’ as I consider them. As a choice, and also as a ‘revelation’, it follows the pattern of getting here in the first place and on those grounds alone I cannot ignore it or dismiss it easily. If I’ve learnt nothing else over the last few years, I’ve got better at listening to God. And this has all the hallmarks of direction from Him – at least when I consider previous experience. Timing and ‘modus operandi’ are just so blatantly obvious, at least to me.

But what I do need to discern is whether it is this place or whether it is a way of nudging me away from my ‘preferred’ choice and style and towards somewhere like this place. And there’s something about this line of reasoning that is appealing: not getting my hopes up; not getting fixated; not exploring more thoroughly. And yet there is also something that generates a spark of excitement when I think about it, that appeals beyond the rational. Is it just a sentimental view of the place (despite not having such strong connections with it) or is it the assurance and reassurance that ‘it’s right’ and will be right?

Time to think (and pray)!

Share/Bookmark

Discussing reshaping the presbytery and dealing with the ’1000 ministries’ issue was always going to be an emotive subject anyway, but that didn’t stop it being a frustrating discussion. Actually, that’s not entirely fair. The discussion was generally impassioned, but gracious. At least once it it was beyond the attempts to delay it all yet again.

And that’s really my bugbear. There is still a small, but vocal, group who seem to think that it will all go away if we keep ignoring it. Actually, what is sometimes said is not for public airing here.

But one person stood up and reminded everyone that there was a need for a ‘reality check’ and if they couldn’t see that, then they really had to take a think to themselves. It’s interesting, having been in industry for so long, that such issues and such ‘reality checks’ are not any surprise and there is the understanding, over many years, that such situations need to be managed and not simply given a knee-jerk reaction. But it’s easy to say that from the benefit of a bit of distance. I was also struck by a comment that ‘turkeys don’t vote for Christmas’ in reference to some of the hard decisions needing to be faced, and yet I had several bosses who, when redundancies were announced, always felt it was their place to put themselves in the firing line. They did it out of a sense of loyalty to those who who worked for them – both as an indication of solidarity and as a way of ‘sacrificing’ themselves in order to possible allow one of the ‘workers’ to retain their job. Sometimes their offer was accepted, often it was declined. And, of course, there were others who would never dream of doing such a thing and looked for ways to ensure their own survival.

Within the church, that whole situation is compounded. The minister is probably involved in, or at least aware of, a greater part of a parishioner’s life than a work boss might be. And so there is a greater sense of care and concern at the thought of a congregation being left without someone in the position of ‘shepherd’. And there is the whole issue of a congregation’s attachment to the building. However much we may say that the church is the people, the deep-rooted reality is that that ‘people’ are deeply attached to the building they worship in. It has a history and a sentimental attachment we cannot easily dismiss.

So what then is to be done? I think the reality check is definitely needed and probably long overdue. But it has to happen at the very grass roots levels. That, of course, is what the presbytery plan is aiming to encourage – dialogue about how to tackle the current issues. And that means both within congregations and between congregations. The problem is that the ‘between congregations’ part is seen as the most threatening and so it will inevitably loom larger in people’s minds. But I hope, and pray, that there is sufficient time and application given to the former. If a congregation is much more confident and aware of what its own (realistic) purpose and calling is, then it can engage far more effectively with others. And that might mean a long hard look at what it does and is able to do and ought to be doing. That, quite frankly, is a far more difficult and challenging task. It requires an honest look at every part of the congregation, asking hard questions of itself. It also needs to be looking outwards, asking how it is (or isn’t) engaging with the community it serves. In many ways, that’s where the reality check really needs to happen.

I can post this with the relative luxury of distance and no strong ties to a congregation. But it’s a situation I may well end up having to pick up the pieces of in due course. A daunting, but not unexciting, prospect.

Share/Bookmark

The ‘blue parakeets’ of the title are those loud, squawking, irritating bits of scripture we prefer to gloss over or ignore – or, as McKnight puts it, tame and cage. They are the bits of scripture that don’t fit neatly into our own system, that challenge our preferred understanding and generally run the risk of putting holes in our favourite arguments.

The first half of the book sets out the various approaches typically taken by Bible readers and interpreters. It’s a necessarily condensed characterisation but the general thrust is that there are those (at least among those who still take scripture seriously) who stick with what the Bible says as valid for all time, those who read the Bible through the lens of their particular denominational or theological ‘creeds’ and those who seek to read scripture in a way that is sympathetic to their tradition but acknowledge the need for ‘contemporising’ their understanding. He offers further, narrower characterisations within, particularly, the first category – for example, those who read the Bible as a ‘rule book’ or those who see only a series of blessings or rewards.

It is into the last category (the contemporising one) I would place myself. And in particular, a preference for what might be described as a fairly post-modern approach. However, I don’t believe that that has to mean that the Bible can be interpreted in any way one chooses. I’ve written about this before and mentioned my appreciation for the literary approach of Stanley Fish and his ‘interpretive communities’. In essence, our interpretations of any literature will always be coloured and bounded by the community within which we find ourselves reading that work. In other words, our church upbringing is going to place the limits on our interpretation of the Bible – always allowing for a bit of pushing the boundaries of course.

Although McKnight doesn’t mention ‘interpretive communities’, that would be my understanding of what he is getting at. But the point McKnight makes takes it a stage further, into an area I hadn’t really appreciated but see as being a necessary and logical extension. Not only does our interpretive community provide the ‘boundary’ conditions, if we are honest in our intention of being part of that community, we must use that tradition actively in our engagement with scripture. But that active engagement is a two-way street. We must bring our faith tradition to bear on our Biblical interpretation, but also allow our reading of scripture to push the boundaries of that tradition. And the crucial thing is that that faith tradition is one which is also affected by and interacts with contemporary culture and society and cannot help but be shaped by it.

Sympathetic contemporising is done with regard to the faith tradition, but acknowledges its changing nature – changes that come about through its mission to remain relevant in a changing world. And the point that McKnight makes is that this ever-changing re-interpretation of God’s will is the story of the Bible. It is a book, or series of stories, which charts the continuing reinterpretation of God’s guidance and will in ever-changing circumstances. Of course there is the unchanging meta-narrative of creation, fall, exile, reconciliation but all else is contemporary re-interpretation.

The second half of the book uses the issue of women in ministry to show how some interpretations of scripture have failed to appreciate this changing interpretation and have made the Bible into a stagnant rule book. I won’t rehearse the arguments here, but I believe them to be fair.

But it leads me to the point I really wanted to make and the point which has struck me as I was reading the book.

If we accept that the Bible is the witness to a continuously-varying contextualisation and contemporising of God’s will (and I am persuaded that it is) then it places in interesting imperative on the church, its leadership and its theologians.

It seems to me that the purpose of the Bible then is not to be a source of blindly-applied rules, but rather a model for sacrilising the profane. In other words, in each and every age, we need to look at contemporary culture and work out where God is in that. The places we find God must then be celebrated, applauded and encouraged. And, of course, where we don’t find God, we seek to effect change.

But what are we looking for?

Once again I find myself in agreement with McKnight as he points out what God is ‘about’ – restoration to wholeness of individuals with themselves, with each other, with creation and, of course, with God.

And he makes one further challenging point – our model for wholeness is pre-fall (however we wish to read Genesis 1 & 2). Everything else up until Christ is a fallen model – so why are we using it? With Jesus, we are renewed, in a new community, enlivened and encouraged by the Spirit, who gifts us with discernment – discernment to see God at work in creation, in relationships, in communities. Again, why reduce that to following a set of rules from a fallen era?

Share/Bookmark

The scripture readings should not be ‘attacked’ in a sermon.

Christian is an adjective, never a noun.

The response to decline is not to build a fortress.

The clergy need to learn to be quiet.

Share/Bookmark

The first one was delivered today and I wasn’t entirely happy with it. Too long, to overstuffed with information and didn’t flow very well. The main issue was that I now have a very different theology to my home church and I felt I needed to explain and ‘justify’ some of what I was saying and proposing, so there was more padding than absolutely necessary. But such is the main pitfall of one-off services. I feel the need to cram too much in rather than just delivering something that’s to the point but ‘lightweight’ (in my opinion). Today’s sermon should really have been delivered over no fewer than four or five sermons. Which says (to me) that it was the wrong sermon for the occasion.

When I got home I decided to ‘polish it’ from the thoughts I had as I was preaching. It now flows better but is still too long (certainly for next week). But then next week’s pulpit supply is the lectionary-following place, so some of the background will already be there. Mind you, I still need to sort out their dodgy theology (not really, just poking fun – a little). It means that I need to whittle down the sermon and can probably remove some of the explanatory padding. It’ll be interesting to see how that one ends up and how much, if anything, is ‘lost’ because of that.

The third one will be similar to today, albeit with the more polished version. Again though, I’ll be curious to see how it changes in the two week gap.

One thing I did notice today was that my voice is out of condition, not having been used very much for a couple of months. Too much time spent typing and not enough time chatting with real people. Unfortunately, until the dissertation is done, I can’t do much about that. I’ll maybe need to put some music on and start singing along.

Share/Bookmark

Now, one of those churches uses the lectionary and the other two don’t so that sets the agenda for at least one of the Sundays. All three churches are geographically diverse and so there is virtually no risk of ‘being followed’ from one to the other. So, given that it’s unlikely that the lectionary passage is going to crop up in the two other churches any Sunday soon, why not make life easier and use the same sermon and order of service for each church?

It’s probably what I’ll end up doing (with variations to allow for the different length of sermon anticipated at each), but part of me still thinks that it’s ‘cheating’. Mind you, a few years ago we were on holiday and happened to catch a visiting preacher in the church we went to. Soon afterwards we heard that same person in another church and, surprise! surprise! heard the same sermon.

Maybe I should look on it as way of reflecting on how the same text/message is received differently in different contexts. Or maybe it’s an opportunity to present the same text in different ways and so experience the richness to be found in scripture. The next question though is whether I start with the short sermon and pad it out or do the long one and trim it down.

Anyway, as I was saying…

Share/Bookmark

Share/Bookmark

Unity does not mean uniformity; diversity does not mean division.

It seems to me that one of the main challenges the churches and denominations face, perhaps moreso in this time than any other, is to work with greater integrity and grace with one another. As the Christian faith suffers at the hands of an increasingly secularised society (and, indeed, an increasingly more apathetic society – perhaps the greater danger), the public perception of division and disagreement within the Church (upper-case ‘C’, no one denomination) can only hasten its marginalisation.

The answer, of course, does not lie in creating uniformity and stifling diversity. I can’t think of anything more dire than an army of Christian clones who all act the same and think the same. And indeed, does creation itself not argue against such an approach? How easy would it have been for God to create each person in His own likeness, in exactly the same way, over and over again? Yet that is not what we have. Instead, there is an enormous variety of gifts and talents, of creativity and uniqueness.

Our trip included a visit to the World Council of Churches and it was fascinating getting a first-hand account of what their aims were and the challenges they face. Here, perhaps more than anywhere, the reality of unity without uniformity and diversity without division ought to have been clearly seen. And yet, we still heard stories of disagreements, but also some interesting little hints of change, of long-standing barriers gradually being broken down and challenged.

Of course such changes take time and there will always be voices who oppose such cross-denomination activities. But we were reminded one evening that the Reformed church’s cry of ‘semper reformanda’ is so often mistranslated as ‘always reforming’. Rather its more correct understanding of ‘always in need of reform’ seems to be something that we need to grab hold of as relationships with others develops. It says that we don’t have all the answers or the correct way of doing things. And this, of course, is another cause of Christian ‘clones’ – a sense of having the correct answers and the right way of ‘doing’ church means that one never questions, but simply adopts.

Isaiah 53:6 tells us that we have all wandered off the path, like sheep. We may well all behave like sheep, but with the exception of Dolly, even sheep aren’t clones. Time to stop behaving as though we need to be.

Share/Bookmark

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us. Thus I suggest that prophetic ministry has to do not primarily with addressing specific public crises but with addressing, in season and out of season, the dominant crisis that is enduring and resilient, of having our alternative vocation co-opted and domesticated.

The italics are Brueggemann’s and state the hypothesis for  the book. The extract, I believe, succinctly states the mission and problem for the church. The church needs to be counter-cultural. And that doesn’t mean that it decries culture, rather it should always be asking if this is the ‘best’ we can achieve. And by ‘best’, I would suggest that that means being more ‘Christ-like’; being fully human and fully spiritual creatures, living life in its fullest measure without fear of discrimination, oppression and injustice.

But the extract also highlights the biggest danger the church faces – becoming ‘co-opted and domesticated’. (The phrase, “Aslan is not a tame lion” has just sprung to mind). My biggest fear of Emerging Church is that the Christian distinctives get subsumed by a desire to be ‘relevant’ – faith and worship are co-opted to suit a context, rather than that happening the other way round. Domestication comes when the church is no longer proactive but reactive and is ‘used’ to provide social services or a place where religious-types can go on a Sunday morning. Or perhaps domestication has come through the church becoming a useful branch of Historic Scotland responsible for the upkeep of a bunch of old buildings. I’m sure there are many ways in which we have become ‘co-opted and domesticated’.

How easy is it though to rediscover our revolutionary voice?

Share/Bookmark