Deep church book idea
17 Mar 2008
Paul writes…Jason and I have been talking about writing a book about deep church. One of the practical difficulties of deep church so far is that it is:
a) primarily academic/rooted in the academy at present
b) dense
c) hard to imagine what this looks/feels/tastes like in practice and therefore why bother/get excited about it.
My own feeling would be to take a book idea like Doug Paggitt’s book on Church re-imagined and adapt it to write practically about what we are doing around the values of deep church that we have in our own church community/context. Not that I’m saying that we are the example of deep church in action just an example that people may find helpful.
In terms of content the chapters would echo the values, something like:
Introduction – theory and practice
Chapter 1: what is thing called deep church and why are we in it? (thinking/practice/acacemic context)
Chapter 2: our context: who, what, where we are and why this might not work for you or work differently (i.e. an example not THE example).
Chapter 3: Positive church not pancea church – rediscovering our churchianity, doing life together = best/worst of each other and how we connect that
Chaper 4: historical not hysterical – living out biblical/church history/metaphors/narrative that inspires/informs our reimaging/re-interpreting our heritage for our environment – for example if church is family then what do we do with kids?
Chapter 5: Practices of Personal/communal faith – weekly faith/orientation – the challenges/tension of Jesus, me and the church
Chapter 6: Creative/programmed – right and left brained, spontaneity, creativity and play in structures and programmes
Chapter 7: Our place amongst many – fitting in with and promoting other churchs/denominations
Chapter 8: Mission, participation and prioritisation – the ongoing process of re-orientation away from consumerism towards a communally practised christian faith
Chapter 9: conclusions/wrap up
Chapter 10/appendix: resources/share our stories
I’d love to know:
What do you think about the idea?
What would you like to know more about (certainly for instance what we do with kids and spiritual formation)?
What else would you like to see in or taken out?
Tagged: Deep-Church
25 comments
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Comment by Laura Anne
3.07 am on 18 Mar 2008
My question is what is deep church? I still don’t get this concept and how it is different to ‘church’.
Is it to do with deep theological debate? If so, then your audience are going to be academic, theorists and so on.
If it’s not, then perhaps there is need to look at putting it more simply for those of us not familiar with big words :)
Comment by Paul
12.43 am on 19 Mar 2008
Thanks Laura Anne, i sometimes feel its like platting fog! The temptation is to go back and talk about it in the abstract, or as what church should be like – withou ever having to make it concrete, flesh and blood, real etc.
Hmmm maybe a bit like ideas of God and then an incarnational God in the form of Jesus who everyone got to see/touch/hear etc.
So the idea is ground the book in reality of what we are doing as an example and to give people more of a clue of what we are bangig on about :)
Comment by Jonathan Brink
4.07 am on 18 Mar 2008
Paul, in thinking out loud I wonder if this is a language issue. Maybe deep church is too vague or mystical. I don’t know. Maybe the book will help create the distinction and help people understand it.
Comment by Paul
12.47 am on 19 Mar 2008
Thanks Jonathan, i hope so, or at least give some illustrations and inspirations for people to say what does deep church look like in my context/community…
Comment by D.G. Hollums
6.14 pm on 18 Mar 2008
love the idea!I would read it, and I need it! I tell others all the time about Deep Church.. actually we are changing it to deep Kingdom, but it would be wonderful to have a book to give to others that could read about it and engage into discussion.
Comment by Paul
12.50 am on 19 Mar 2008
Thanks DG – deep kingdom sounds interesting, how are you seeing that?
i think one of the themes we want to highlight is how we deal with church, i have a suspicion in my own life that i’m tempted to collapse my faith into some sort of vague kingdom (usually mine) and make it about me and Jesus. Thus cutting out the inconvenienece of church altogether…
Comment by D.G. Hollums
1.28 am on 19 Mar 2008
Oh yeah, I could see how you could take that one Paul… no the deep Kingdom, is the thought that in most Christian mindsets when the term church is hear, that tends to be the end goal of discipleship. What do you do with a normal person (non-Christian)? Well, you “convert” them to Christ, and then you get them into “church”… and most end there, but it has been my understanding that deep church allows for multiple expressions of church in the Kingdom of God, and so we are just thinking about allowing those expressions (high church Roman Catholic, Methodist, all the way down to small networked house churches) And it is also working on the saying, that “church” is the servant of and in the Kingdom. With all these thoughts, and the baggage that comes with the term church, we are attempting “Deep Kingdom”, but in no way ever making “Kingdom” a catch all for everything vague “me and Jesus”, heh.
Comment by Paul
3.20 pm on 20 Mar 2008
Thanks DG, that’s very helpful :)- it seems to me there is something in how we love each other as the church in the kingdom – kingdom is bigger than church, any church and none of us has exclusive access and understanding of it.
Comment by Josh Heilman
5.31 am on 19 Mar 2008
Paul and Jason,
This looks fun. I want to read it. I’m especially intrigued with “the kids” side of things. You’re right, we call ourselves family but the medium is the message: Sundays are divided; in many services, ours included, our kids do not sing with us, do not pray with us, do not interact at all as family until afterwards. We have “Kids’ Church” which is supposed to teach kid-friendly “Christian” values, but instead generally serves to domesticate gruesome Bible stories into fun legends (what kid doesn’t want to be David beating Goliath, doesn’t want to be strong as Sampson, doesn’t want to play Moses at the Halloween alternative party – at least how those heroes are portrayed?).
I for one look forward to that chapter and the thoughts and discussion I expect will precede it on this blog.
Kudos, cheers, whatever to you.
Comment by Paul
8.30 pm on 19 Mar 2008
Thanks Josh :)
heh i know a few grown up kids that want to play Moses too ;)
One of the challenges with the kids is finding material that embodies our values – it’s also an exciting opportunity to develop new stuff, hopefully in partnership with others to share the load (not to mention that bein a value :)
Comment by marc
9.52 am on 19 Mar 2008
I like the sound of it.
But what exactly is deep church?
It seems to me like a growth step of the evangelical church (well some anyway) combining the depth of the traditional Christian faith with the current evangelical faith resulting in a deeper understanding of faith/God/Jesus/Church both spiritually and historically.
Is this the step on from the emerging church?
Comment by Paul
3.17 pm on 20 Mar 2008
Thanks Marc, it’s a good Q :)
I think it is having an appreciation of all forms of church and learning from all forms whilst continuing to respect differences.
Personally i think this is a place where part of the emerging church might locate and form itself but it is not for every stream that is emerging.
Comment by Beth
9.25 pm on 19 Mar 2008
Perhaps the fact that we have no idea what the heck you’re talking about when you say “deep church” is strong evidence of the need for such a book. Only, if you plan to sell copies you may consider coming up with an accessible title. Something along the lines of (pardon my French)
“What the Phuck Is Deep Church
-and Where Can I Get Me Some?”
Comment by Paul
3.18 pm on 20 Mar 2008
lol, thanks beth, are you sure that’s french??? ;)
Comment by Laura Anne
11.53 am on 20 Mar 2008
I would read it!
Comment by Paul
3.17 pm on 20 Mar 2008
Thank you :)
Comment by Robin Parry
3.37 pm on 20 Mar 2008
Paul
it looks good. I would encourage you to develop the idea. You might be interested to know that Frog and Amy Orr Ewing have a book coming out for Soul Survivor in July which seeks to make Deep Church accessible and grounded. I have not read it (well, I skimmed bits of it) but it will be published by Authentic. It would be worth reading that so that your idea does not overlap with it too much (and not having read their book I cannot say whether it does).
Hope that Helps
Robin
Comment by Paul
3.46 pm on 20 Mar 2008
Thanks Robin, much appreciated. Thanks for the heads up as well on Frog and Amy’s book, will be checking it out :)
Comment by Adrian Roberts
8.19 pm on 22 Mar 2008
This is my first encounter with the phrase “Deep Church” and my reaction was “What the…?” I had the same reaction reading the blog on “Lectio ..(whatever)” (a fancy word for Bible Study), and this is also relevant to Lynn’s blog but I had to choose which one to contribute to.
If the Emerging Church is about using jargon which only its members understand, and navel-gazing about “what form is the church to take”, then it is going to make the same mistakes as the older denominations, only faster. The church is about relating to the world, not itself.
I recently left one of the New Churches (i.e. started in the 1970’s “charismatic” phase), partly because I found evangelicalism no longer adequate. If there had been an Emerging Church that I knew of close to where we live I might have considered it. In the end we have started going to the local Anglican church, partly because it is closest, partly because it is the nearest “lively” church with some degree of outreach to the community, and partly because Anglicanism is broad enough to encompass a range of views and doubts, which is more than you can say about many others. (And merely being close enough to walk to is not unimportant: I believe God is more interested in our stewardship of the world in terms of our carbon footprint, than “how we do church”).
I’m on a journey like all of us and don’t have all the answers. But coining new jargon and obsessing about the style of church is something I want to leave behind – and if the Emerging church doesn’t see that it will soon be retreating not emerging.
Adrian
Comment by Paul
10.34 am on 25 Mar 2008
Thanks Adrian, that is a valuable comment not least cos I agree with you – we can get obsessed about what is THE right way of doing church whereas often there is no right way, each way as its own strengths and weaknesses.
I do think that does not mean we should not think about the ways of doing church – after all your comment on carbon footprint can actually mean thinking about how we do church – if that is something that we value/believe in then how do we organise ourselves to do something around that as a community of believers gathererd in a particular locality/context?
The trouble with our world is that we all use jargon all of the time – i agree that deep church as it is presented at the moment is more an intellectual than practical exercise – the idea of the book was to put some flesh on the bone and give some examples of what this looks like in practice.
However, maybe it is part of our consumer mentality that we expect to get everything handed to us on a plate, maybe sometimes it’s good to have our curiousity pricked and to seek for ourselves, ask questions, explore further…
or maybe not :)
Comment by D.G. Hollums
8.33 pm on 22 Mar 2008
Wow Adrian
You feeling Ok? heh heh…
The term Deep Church was used by C.S. Lewis…originally and it has also been known as “deep ecclesiology”.
And it is not about the words, but the meaning behind them. This is not a term that I would see being used to talk to a non-Christian, or even a non-deep thinker (not trying to be offensive, just trying to find a phrase) But, sadly the terms that everyone “understands” like “church” comes with so much baggage and assumptions, that sometimes it is beneficial to rethink and come to a better understanding through discussion if a different way of thinking about the same terms is practiced.
I see great strength in taking a term that everyone assumes it have the same definition and then realizing that it is not the same. It is all of course for the Glory of God, and to see His Kingdom come here and now as well as in the future! Anyway that is my 2 cents.
Even Christ redefined terms over and over again that God’s chosen people over time redefined incorrectly. But your right that confusion occurs all the time…welcome to communication, but that is why the greatest importance is discussion so that everyone understands at least what each other is thinking when they say specific terms or phrases.
Comment by Adrian Roberts
1.30 am on 23 Mar 2008
Ok, so the phrase came from CS Lewis; sorry for jumping to the conclusion that the Emerging Churches had coined the phrase. But I clearly wasn’t the only one who hadn’t heard it. Jargon can be very excluding.
I don’t have a problem with rethinking what we mean by words or phrases, so long as this is not the main thrust of a particular church movement. I spend far too long navel-gazing, and not enough time reaching out to the world. But I know that some Emergent Churches are very outward looking. So all I’m saying is, lets get the balance right.
The duty of a church, or a Christian, is not primarily to establish the right way of thinking, about theology or anything else. The most important virtue is not Truth, but Love (1 Cor 13 etc). There are plenty of non-intellectual people in my church, who do not show signs of questioning their theology, or why the church does things the way it does, and to my shame I sometimes catch myself despising them for that. But they are wonderful, loving people, involved in all sorts of things that impact our community, and that is what matters most.
Comment by Helen
2.01 pm on 23 Mar 2008
Paul and Jason, here’s a quote Jim (Henderson) shared with me:
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
In other words, your book will be effective if it can get people excited enough about ‘deep church’ enough that they’ll pursue it until they achieve it.
That’s why personal stories often move people more than lists of ‘how to do this’. I think Diana Butler Bass’s book Christianity for the Rest of Us is a great book because of all the stories she shares. She mostly says “Come with me and see what’s happening here” and talks about person after person whose lives have been changed as they’ve become part of small but vital faith communities in mainline denominations.
Ok that’s all I have to say…I’ve never written a book so what do I know :)
Comment by Paul
3.28 pm on 25 Mar 2008
Thanks Helen, yes i think that vision casting is an important thing to do with it :). Then again we can talk about the sea until we’re blue in the face and miss the fact that we’ve got noway of getting there ;).
I guess this book is more about the reality of the voyage in the leaky raft with sails, which hopefully will reflect someting of the excitement and fear of the sea :)
Comment by Helen
5.00 pm on 25 Mar 2008
which hopefully will reflect something of the excitement and fear of the sea :)
…exactly Paul; I think that’s what the quote is getting at. Hopefully your book will convey at least as much of the excitement as the fear :)
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