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Out of the all the ecard/email online games in christmas messages I have received, this has been the most fun.
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On paper my life doesn’t have the bandwidth for a dog. I’ve often felt that my life was too busy for a dog, yet wondered if something was wrong if I was to busy for one? Dogs take time for walks amongst other things.
Yet three weeks ago a rescue labrador Charlie, joined our family. So far it’s been amazing the change it has brought to the rhythm of our lives. Instead of cramming extra work in between the space when I come home late before an evening meeting, I have walked the dog with my kids.
On my days off, instead of doing some extra work, I have walked the dog, and been discovering some of the beautiful countryside near to where I live that has passed me by until now.
Out for a walk one night, I heard my son talking to one of his sisters about how he would normally be on his playstation and how walking the dog was much more fun. My eldest daughter told us all that she thought we were all less stressed as a family the past few weeks.
In any event, it’s surprised me how Charlie with his always wagging tail, puppy dog eyes, and unconditional love, has become part of the family, and change our lives so much. The site of the rear end of Charlie chasing after two of my kids as they race him back to our house squealing with joy and laughter is something that lifts my soul, and makes me realise that making memories doesn’t take long.
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Last saturday our church took over an empty shop unit in our town centre, and did a free christmas wrap trying to gently subvert the normal shopping rhythm. We must have wrapped several hundred presents over the few hours we were there with the place packed the whole time with shoppers.
What was surprising was that people were more keen to have their presents wrapped than I thought they would be, and far less suspicious than I anticipated. It was wonderful to see so many people shocked that we weren’t asking for donations and trying to raise money, but offering them something for free.
We also made sure the wrapping was done with high quality paper and by people who had practiced wrapping. Being useless at wrapping I helped with lifting and lugging items.
Lots of our church folk had the most amazing conversations with people. We’ll be doing it next year but probably over two saturdays.
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I love advent in the rythym of the life of our church. Last sunday we listened to this poem by Jude Simpson from the rejesus site. There are 5 poems at that link by Jude that are superb.
It struck me again at the shallowness of consumerism, and how Jesus doesn’t fit into the consumer religion so many of us would prefer especially in the run up to Christmas. You can listen to an audio version of the poem here.
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Not cut out for religion
I ask you, what’s the answer, and you just ask me questions,
and I’m like, “hello, I thought you were God?â€
Can’t I just download you, pay-as-I-go to decode you -
a quick fix listen on my i-pod?I ask you, what’s the answer, and you say, “where does the wind blow?â€
Well, if Dylan couldn’t find it, then I won’t get too far.
What’s with all this mystery? How can you say, “follow meâ€
when I don’t even know where you are?
Continue reading »
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The London Institute of Contemporary Christianity has jut published a book, “Let My People Grow”. My copy arrived today.
There is chapter in the book by me titled, ‘What does disciple making look like in the emerging church?’
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My previous Doctoral cohort leader/superviser was Len Sweet when I was studying at George Fox UNiversity. Well there is a new podcast to listen too called ‘Napkin Scribbles’ from Len. They are billed as “Thoughtful sketches of God and life from thinker and author, Leonard Sweet.”
I only listen to a few podcasts but these will be regular items for me along with BBC4’s In our Time. Each podcast is short and excuse the pun ’sweet’.
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It’s amazing how the term ‘evangelical’ has been denigrated and developed into a pejoratively so quickly. Apparently the term ‘evangelical’ dates from the 16th century, originally used by Catholics wanting to be more biblical for beliefs and activities than much of the medieval church at the time, and pre-dates the reformation.
Then the term gained prominence in the reformation, until it reached its current Zenith in the western church and global south.
Yet in recent years the term ‘evangelical’ has become a word of revulsion in the media, and the doyen for most of the angst of the emerging church. And I must admit I have wrestled with and re-thought my evangelical roots and beliefs.
I became a Christian in 1987 at a wonderful evangelical Baptist Church in Luton, aged 17 through a dramatic conversion experience from a completely unchurched and non-Christian background. I entered into a life saving community from my abusive/destructive family. I went to an evangelical seminary/theological college, and joined a charismatic evangelical denomination for church planting. Yet like many I found myself struggling with my evangelicalism, like many of my friends.
I have seen friends lose their faith completely, some become liberal Anglo Catholics, some convert to other religions, or others slip into the agnostic religion of consumer media culture as a way of life. Some have become post church Christians, or a mixture of all or some of these.
I have been tempted to quit church as an enterprise many times, flirted and engaged with understanding my self as post/neo evangelical and emerging christian. But at this stage if my life, as I reflect on this process and journey, I see myself more and more as reforming within my evangelical beginnings and trajectory.
So in the brief space of this blog post here are few of the things that I have struggled with the most, and am finding I am engaging with the most with a renewed faith and hope (remember these are my issues, and all are brief headlines that need detailed outlining beyond this limited space).
Some Struggles
1. Gospel Reductionism: Too many years of having the gospel reduced to a prayer to pray to get to heaven when you die.
2. Foundationalism: An obsession with Cartesian foundationalism as a method for understanding truth, that replaces being in Christ, with ‘knowing’ about Christ. That Christianity is about being ‘certain’ and not about questions, doubts and mystery at the heart of faith.
3. Social Justice and The Environment: That these are optional add ons to discipleship and are not an integral part of what it is to become and be a Christian. A spirituality that is world escaping rather than world and life transforming, based around recovering notions of platonic ‘perfection’.
4. Errant Inerrancy: The straight jacket of the modern doctrine of Inerrancy that focuses on formulas about errors in the bible to the detriment of living in submission to it . To reject/be uncomfortable with the recent doctrine of inerrancy does not mean you think the bible is full of error!
5. Thin Ecclesiology: The arrogance of thinking we have the correct and best way of doing and being church and everyone else is wrong. A fear and ignorance of the past heritage of the church catholic.
6. Exclusivism: Distorting the imperative to help others know Christ by using our knowing Christ to exclude and judge others. Also the status of women in the church and leadership.
7. Personality & Leadership Cults: The lack of accountability in leadership with leaders living separate from the communities they lead.
Some Affirmations: – Things keeping my faith alife, with a slight nod to C.S.Lewis and ‘Mere Christianity’ for my list here.
1. Jesus:It’s about following, knowing, trusting, believing in Jesus, the incarnate son of God, divine and human who died and rose from the dead.
2. Scripture: That the bible is the supreme authority for my understanding of God, and my spiritual formation.
3. Trinitarian: That the Father through the Son by the Spirit, is reconciling the world to himself. The trinity is not just a metaphor but also a reality of the nature of God and his relationship to the cosmos and the means by which we understand and partake in our experience of God and his creation.
4. Ground of Being:That what we believe and how we live this life has eternal consequences. That the heart of the gospel is the handing over of my life, heart, soul, mind, spirit and body to the lordship of Jesus, for the transformation of the world with others.
5. Priority of Mission: That the church exists and is understood as a missional enterprise, to bring individuals into whole live conversion, and recruitment into ongoing mission.
6. Community: That the normal and natural habitat for all of this is in communities of followers of Jesus, learning and growing together, with the location of myself in the Church of Jesus.
If you have been through a similar process, or disimilar what would be on your list?
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My son had his first speaking gig a couple of months ago. Short and sweet, and enough to reduce me to tears hearing him talk about his faith in his own words.
Then yesterday in his kids group one of his age group leaders, a well trained educationalist, introduced the birth of Jesus – ‘The incarnation – God entered our world as a baby’ and tried to help the kids to get a grip on that (or as Piaget would say – as a ‘concrete operation’) by asking what could you compare that to – ‘what’s it like…………?’
Lots of amazing reponses from the kids (below***), and my son’s was ‘It’s like – putting a star in my pocket!’
Seeing my Son grow and form his own faith, is a privelege, and he is already teaching me. I hope we become life long learners together.
It’s love for your kids, that let them take floam and put it on your bald head for fun.
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1. Connect with People’s Feelings: Emotional intelligence is the right brained response the left brained rationalism of modernity
2. Be A Story Teller: We all live out narratives of what we think Life is about, so help people find their story in the context of God’s Story.
3. Be a Situation Learning Catalyst: Get beyond trying to transmit Intellectual information to people’s heads and facilitate Participation, questioning, interaction of people in self-directed learning for their hearts, souls, minds and bodies.
4. Participate: Do life with the people you are learning with, avoid the disconnected life of the ‘expert’.
5. Be Sacramental: Lead people into interaction, conversation, participation, and connection to God, each other, and the world, not just your own ideas.
