Poor talkative Christianity and its discontenteds

 I found this informal survey being reported and the result seemed to me to be something really significant. Something that those of us interested in the future of Christian faith probably need to pay attention to.

We recently asked our Upworthy audience on Facebook, "What's something that you really enjoy that other people can't seem to understand?" and over 1,700 people weighed in. ... one answer dominated the list of responses. It came in various wordings, but by far the most common answer to the question was "silent solitude." Here are a few examples:

"Feeling perfectly content, when I’m all alone."

"Being home. Alone. In silence."

"That I enjoy being alone and my soul is at peace in the silence. I don't need to be around others to feel content, and it takes me days to recharge from being overstimulated after having an eventful day surrounded by others."

"Enjoying your own company. Being alone isn’t isolating oneself. It’s intentional peace and healthy… especially for deep feelers/thinkers."

I think this is significant because it sounds like it ought to be something that religious groups and organisations can offer, encourage and nurture. Yet I suspect that this is not how it's perceived. I suspect that Christians and our churches are perceived as rather talkative, noisy and not having much to offer the more contemplative or any real understanding of silence. 

This despite a history replete with silent, hermit-inclined figures and much teaching about the use of silence and the ways of meditation and self-understanding. What we appear to have managed to project to the wider world is rather more 'busy' and social. 

And it is fine to have that, but I can't help feeling that we could do with expressions of church that lead with the contemplative offer and give support to the intentionally solitary or the solitude and quietness that many people clearly crave.

There's a pitfall to this in terms of strategy. Of necessity a huge amount of what this would look like would not make it to the spreadsheets of church statisticians. It probably wouldn't show up directly in church attendance figures or similar measures of 'engagement' in church life. These might well be people, in the main, who would find many of the main services offered by churches to be too distracting and fast-paced, and find the sermons insufficiently reflective or supportive of meditative spirituality. They may well find the over-certain, and over-defined talkative kataphatic style of worship too hard to bear.

Maybe I'm projecting. But if I am, it's from a background of loving that noisy and social Christianity and now finding it doesn't nourish the deepest parts of my soul. I now find relative quiet and dwelling in the slow reflective sort of spiritual practice to be important. I suspect that this informal survey opens a window onto what we should be sharing from the churches in addition to the other offer.

I'd always felt some pull towards the more contemplative, even in my noisier days. And I do still find I can worship among the noisier and more content-driven. However, it seems like the balance has shifted. I do think we need both celebratory and quiet dimensions to our spiritual practice and we each need to find our own balance and be prepared for that balance to shift and its contents to change over time. There's a definite change in the relation to words in worship and reflection. At one point for me the language was important, it pointed me and helped me to home in on God (at least at its best). Now less so, and I'm more aware of how inadequate the words are; that they cannot contain God or the experience of God and God's world. Again, it's a shift of balance not a total dichotomy.

The other thing in that survey that I find interesting is the appearance of ordinary things (and the assumption that others will not understand the attraction). This is another element of contemplative spirituality:paying attention to 'little' and 'ordinary' things, discovering the joy or at least contentment in the mundane and appreciating it. Again, it's not unknown to Christian traditions, just not presented so much or signposted or even valued, it seems. But if we could simply help it to be known that there are Christ-following ways to integrate these appreciations of the ordinary into spiritual practice and awareness, we'd be a lot more use, I suspect.

Foundation, Empire -and the mission of the church

 I've been watching the TV series 'Foundation'. I read the books about 50 years ago (I know!) but scarcely now remember anything but an outline and some character names. A lot has happened in my life since I read the series and now watch it adapted to television. For one thing, I committed my ways to Christ and have a role which involves official ministry in the church's mission.

In the intervening years, a constant companion for me has been concern for ecology, for creation. Latterly this has become a more urgent concern and I have realised that we have collectively run out of time. We are living on borrowed time. In fact, some of us, globally speaking, are not even living on borrowed time. All through my adult life I have unconsciously (I now realise) assumed that we would have time, that there was time to persuade and to change and to head off the worst. That assumption, that naive hope, has now been stripped from me.

The situation of living on borrowed time  needs to be spelled out in greater detail. And this is where the connection in my mind with Hari Seldon and Foundation starts to kick in. In Foundation, the scenario is that the Empire is about to decline and collapse, giving way to a dark age, an age of vast human suffering and misery. For me that scenario has clicked with the likely paths our own current civilisation seems to be on. Whatever happens now, some global warming is 'baked in' and we have already seen the kinds of effects it is having. The prospect is that such effects will continue and worsen. How much worse is unknown. 

It seems likely that parts of the earth will become uninhabitable for humans. It seems that there will be greater extremes of weather, including drought and storms. It is inevitable that coastal and low-lying cities like London will have to find ways to cope with encroachment of tides or be abandoned in part or wholly. The clear implications of that basket of effects will be population movements, migration. We should also reckon on food supplies becoming erratic as land becomes unsuitable for cultivation. This "erratic" food supply will, as usual, be dire for the most vulnerable and stressful for those who are usually less vulnerable. More migration. These kinds of stresses in the past have exacerbated intercommunal and international tensions. We might be unsurprised to see wars or at least armed 'incidents' and also insurgencies, civil disorder and revolutions.

So, in many ways, it wouldn't be unfair to call what we are embarked upon, a "dark age". An age when more and more people die, suffer loss, are undernourished, unhoused and displaced, fall into servitude, are brutalised, exploited and traumatised.

None of this is to imply that things up to the moment have been idyllic (far from it), just to say that it could -probably will- get worse by a number of measures. This too reminds me of the Foundation story. The dark age is relative, the Empire is cruel and brutal in keeping order but one catches glimpses of many people living lives which are at least okay: materially speaking they are well fed, have homes and good things in their lives -provided they don't threaten Empire's power. However, the dark age multiplies the detriments. In both Foundation and in our real world trajectory now, the further dangers are that human collective knowledge and now-how are eroded making reconstruction harder. This can be further triangulated with the medieval period in western Europe -the so-called dark ages*- where the monasteries played a role in preserving information which could later be retrieved and added to. They also, let's note in passing, played a role in healthcare, agricultural know-how and sometimes, at their best, in protecting the interests of ordinary people or at least mitigating some of the worst effects of bad, venial, governance.

It has been interesting to note the portrayal of responses to the prognosis of Seldon and psychohistory in the Foundation story. Again, there are parallels. There is denial on the part of those in charge and a 'shoot the messenger' reaction. Tick: we are seeing that. There is a prioritising of dynastic concerns which minimises the responses. Tick. -Our billionaire overlords seem to be doing something rather like that, abetted (gaslit, cajoled, wealth-groomed) by those who hold the formal reins of governance.

As I've already nodded towards, there is a parallel too in the 'solution'. In the books and the TV series, the Foundation is set up to provide a repository of knowledge for reconstruction, and a means to help shorten the dark age. Interestingly, and making the parallel more visible, the Foundation spawns an order of monks, in effect, whose mission is to try to help shorten the period of darkness and to keep alive the 'light' of knowledge and humanity (in the sense of 'humane'). I can't help thinking that Asimov was giving a hat tip to the role of monastic communities in the European dark ages*.

This is what I think we need to take on board with regard to the mission of the churches in the coming century (or centuries). We need to be asking "what is God doing and calling us to collaborate with?" In answering that question, we may do well to consider the role of the churches (including monastic expressions) at their best during the 'dark ages' in western Europe. We would do well to consider also how they failed or fell short. In writing that, I'm also mindful that I have written 'western Europe' several times. I'm somewhat aware that we might also look at churches in other parts of the world during times of civilisational stress to learn from their experiences. And given that there are commonalities of desire for human flourishing and spiritual disciplines, it may be also that the experiences of people of other faiths can help us to consider our vocation as churches. And that's not to pass up that the encouragement to people of other faith traditions to similarly dig deep to retrieve their own resources to help human flourishing in such challenging circumstances. It wouldn't be the first time Christians have learned from other faiths. It is strongly arguable that the Renaissance was greatly indebted to the re-discovery of classical learning and manuscripts held and preserved by the Islamic nations which became available as a result of the Reconquista in the AD1400s.

We would do well also to consider the understandings we have amassed about sociology, economics, psychology as well as the physical sciences and their related technologies. It may be that capacity for advanced research in the latter is diminished but the ways of understanding and thinking can enable better adaptation for communities to changing conditions and harsher natural conditions. It is important also to consider that we have been coming to understand that some indigenous perspectives and accumulated understandings of biomes and skillful human living in them are worthy in seeking human flourishing. The collective wisdom and learning can inform people settling and/or adapting in new conditions. The attitude, at their best, of respect for natural process and reflexively understanding interconnection, an ecological instinct almost, is valuable. The attitude of considering how we might be good ancestors and trying to take the long view is one that we need to take on board. Not doing so is part of the reason why our civilisation is failing now.

As churches, then, we might consider our own part in Foundation. Not for a galactic empire, but for human flourishing in the long term on the only planet we have. The only planet we have been entrusted with. As churches, 'Foundation' means discovering together God's mission in the present keeping an eye on the likely future. It means adapting and renewing our discipling, our engagements with our communities, our structures (for surely we cannot continue as we are). We will need to listen to the Spirit and one another's discernments to "hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches". We will need to learn disciplines of simplicity of life, corporate discernment, and humble, patient learning. We will need to learn the discipline of sitting light to our preferences and to let of some, perhaps many, of the things we have grown attached to in the way that we 'do church together'. We will need to become peacemakers in earnest and set our hands to the plough of learning how to do that work (and find ourselves blessed in it!). We will need to face and process our own grief and bereavement of the kind of life we have come to expect and hope for, and our collective guilt in making the world worse for our afterbears (opposite of forebears). We will need to learn how to minister among the shocked and traumatised, the cynical and the dispirited (having faced those things ourselves).

I feel like this could be the introduction to a series of fuller considerations of those different dimensions to what I suspect we are called to. And probably some more too. Maybe I'll be able to do that. I'm sensing that the five marks of mission may be a helpful frame to hang some of that consideration on.

Well, a blog post is meant to be provisional, and that seems to be what this is! Let's see if I can pick up some of these strands in the coming weeks and months.

Footnote

*The term "dark ages" is contested by historians because there were at times some very good, hopeful and even progressive things occurred during the period often named such. However, as a label for a time when civilisational collapse, whether partial or more wholly, takes place, it serves. Especially as it is explicitly part of the Foundation storyline.

Blue Ocean Faith -book review and reflection.

I have to say that I'd never heard of the Blue Ocean network, and when I read what they were about I had a bit of a 'where have you been all my life?' moment.
So, what's the 'blue ocean' thing about then? Well, we're told neart the beginning that it's a way to describe churches who "fish where other churches don't and because it's the blue oceans that connect all people". I like the idea of fishing where other churches don't and I wonder how that really works out even while I recognise a real need to do so from a situation where I see rivalrous churches casting for the same kinds of people to form congregations of middle class soft-rock singing slightly multi-media soft-charismatic people. And while I get it that they'd want to pitch in where there is obviously some traction, I can't help wondering what about the huge number of people outside of that kind of demographic -is God's Spirit really not at work beyond it?

The movement is characterised by six things. First what they call a 'solus Jesus' framework and with that a centred-set mentality. They aim for a childlike faith approach to spiritual development and a third way for controversial issues. They aim to be ecumenical in relation to other churches and for joyful engagement with secular culture. All of these things I warm to and in many ways I would describe my own position in very similar terms. Of course those are the headers. What do the particulars look like?

Solus Jesus is looked at through a historical development lens, a trajectory from the Reformation (and worth thinking the more about given that we are in the 500th year since Luther's famous 95 theses) and in particular the Sola Scriptura approach that emerged from it. The point is well made that without inspired interpretation, it perhaps doesn't help us as much as we'd like to have a sola Scriptura thing going on. So the thought is to take our attention to the Jesus who speaks through scripture and to embrace the subjectivity involved in that. I found one quote intriguing and probably about right in this matter; "Neither Jesus nor Paul, nor Peter were sola scriptura people. Actually, their apponents better fit that description" (Loc.558)
I also liked the approach to subjectivity captured in this quote: "When Joan of Arc's opponents assert that what she calls the voice of God is in fact only her imagination, her response is 'Of course. How else can we hear God?' " Perhaps that is slightly undermined by the real doubtfulness of what she 'heard', but the point is well made that our human faculties are inevitably involved and interpreting scripture does not deliver us from that.

On the matter of childlike faith, it seems to me that the idea is to focus on faith as trust and counterbalance the inherited 'faith as propositional assent' that we seem to have got locked into in much of the west. There's a nice tour of scripture to show that this is really consonant with the experience of God's people and the thrust of a lot of scripture.

One of the things I'm left thinking about is the 'third way' approach to controversial subjects. It is based -rightly in my opinion- on Paul's approach to the meat offered to idols controversy and from that the basic approach of inclusion until clarity is found (and a historical point is made to say it takes a lot of patience and quite some time) is taken as well as the principle of respect for 'weaker' brothers and sisters -but the way that is done is worth considering. I'm not sure that it helps fully as the problem of identifying who is 'weaker' still complicates things -but the principle of inclusion as the default is definitely worth thinking about further as a principle based in a clear biblical strategy. For the record the 'weaker' here are identified as those who take the more restrictive role in a dispute. I think that this is probably right and a good way to approach things. However, it may just become a political football of a principle: I suspect we need to test it a bit more against some hard cases from history...

In some ways, apart from the third-way approach, I don't think there is anything radically new here, and that is fine. Similar things are said by others. But then they need to be said perhaps quite a lot to be heard: said by many people in many ways to get through (think advertising and political slogans). And not only said but, as we glimpse here, acted upon and made the heart of a curriculum of Christian formation. I think some of the ways these points are put over are likely to grab some people but maybe not others, but that's okay since the idea is to find somewhere to fish where others are not.

It's interesting to read too from the perspective of not being in the USA which is, of course, not nearly as far down the post-Christendom road as the UK and indeed western Europe. So I'm left musing about the fishing-where-others-don't motif. In England that probably means noting that the HTB church planting network will continue to do a good job of creating the kinds of church they tend to produce where there may be relatively good numbers for that expression of faith. However, there may also need to be room and encouragement given to those fishing in other waters where the results may be less spectacular and take longer (and indeed there are signs that the HTB folk are finding this at the edges).

I found, also, the question raised and partly answered here about how the hippy-like Jesus movement became entrapped by right-wing fundamentalism. I think that this book offers an intriguing answer to that but I suspect there is more to be said too. However, it is a question adjacent to my GB-centric question of how come the creative and radical Charismatic movement of the 70's in Britain became so influenced by fairly hardline and defensive approaches to Christian faith. Admittedly the GB scene has retained a great deal more openness to concern for the poor and for the environment, but still ...

There are some interesting glimpses of how this approach is fitted for engagement with post-modern culture. For example, "... what you're saying is that Jesus is for everyone, not just for Christians! I've never heard such a thing!" -Said by a previously-unchurched person wishing to bring similar friends to a set of workshops held at the church.

Link-Love: 
Blue Ocean Faith website
Blue Ocean Faith at Amazon
Blue Ocean Faith on Facebook
Blue Ocean World - Podcast
Hello Horatio - Website 

hashtag for this book is #BlueOceanSpeakeasy

I reckon it's only fair to let you know that I got an e-copy of this book as a deal: review within 30 days of receiving it. However, that is the full extent of the 'contract': I am not obliged to make the review favourable and there is no direction given to me whatsoever concerning the content of this review. the Only thing that is given is the 'Link-Love' bits above.

Church Army -or whatever: C of E's SJ?

There has been much soul searching in the Church Army over the last decade or so. I think that this could actually prove to be the definitely right thing for the kairos. I've thought for a while that the CofE needs its own version of the Jesuits: I think that maybe this could be it. The CT reports it here: Church Times - Tidying up the Church Army And the new head of the CA says: "The Church Army needs a new identity for the 21st century, although that’s easier said than done. I don’t think the militaristic image is always helpful. In some respects it is, because it talks about a bunch of people with an objective to defeat something, and, without question, I want to see us defeat poverty, injustice, and homelessness. But we’re not a church, and we’re not an army; we’re not a church in an army, and we’re not an army in a church.". Interestingly, the parallel with the SJ's is perhaps more apt than might appear at first sight: read Inaki of Loyola and you'll find his army background informs his choice of metaphor for the Christian life quite extensively ... I speak as a believer in nonviolence.

"I am both Muslim and Christian"

I think that this is potentially very significant. I'm thinking of using this article as a stimulus when I facilitate learning about Christianity and other religions. The article raises all the main issues, at least in embryo and should provoke a lot of potentially fruitful questions. The ending of the article pretty much sums it up symbolically: "In Redding's car, she has hung up a cross she made of clear crystal beads. Next to it, she has dangled a heart-shaped leather object etched with the Arabic symbol for Allah.
'For me, that symbolizes who I am,' Redding said. 'I look through Jesus and I see Allah.'"

Part of my interest is personal too, for two or three reasons. One is the issue of labelling and boundaries, another is the issue of personal spiritual experience and within that of my own spiritual experiences in relation to Islam.
The matter of labelling and boundaries is interesting to me in this case because the term Muslim means 'one who submits [to God]'. Indeed I have come across one Muslim group who label themselves 'submitters' in English. By that definition I am Muslim. I could go on and theologise somewhat speculatively and say that since Jesus is recognised as a Muslim and I am in Christ; then I could claim Christ's Islamitude is imputed to me (the same sort of thing as saying that the Torah is fulfilled ... I think). However, it's all very well to claim the label in some way, but another to find the majority of others claiming the label willing to recognise it: compare Mormons and JW's claiming the label Christian and Messianic Jews claiming Jewish status. By this test, my Islamitude would fail: I could repeat the first part of the Shahada but not the second (along with, it may be argued, the first generation of 'Mohammedan Muslims'); I cannot in conscience unreservedly say that Mohammed was God's messenger except perhaps in the way that Jonah was*. So perhaps I could still make the full declaration, but with a very minority understanding. In that respect it was interesting to read one of the Muslim reactions:

Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, agrees with Webb, and adds that Islam tends to be a little more flexible. Muslims can have faith in Jesus, he said, as long as they believe in Mohammed's message.

For me the issue would be identifying Mohammed's message, reasoning that it has to be compatible with Jesus's; ie the reverse hermeneutical flow to the normal 'Mohammedan-Muslim'approach which trims the gospels and the NT (and indeed the Hebrew bible) to fit the contours of the Qur'an and Sunna as we now have it.

So, what about the issue of religious experience? Well, there are two dimensions to this, for me. First is to say that I have never felt any real attraction to Islam as a religion. When I was in my existential-BC phase, Buddhism, Wicca and Taoism were all attractive. Islam always seemed too austere, legalistic and judgemental to hold my interest (rather like the Catholicism of my early upbringing, from that point of view). However, many years later, being exposed to Islam voluntarily at theological college, I heard the call of the minaret, metaphorically speaking (and using Kenneth Cragg's book title) and found the stark monotheism and call to worship God alone very resonant for me: of a sudden, I began to grok (grasp/understand from an intuitive experiential pov) some of the attraction of Islam, I think.

And it is that kind of spiritual experience that we have to theologise about. Now, for me, it was not an matter of conversion. I merely 'experienced' through studying Islam somewhat, a dimension of faith that was present in my own existing faith commitment but placed into stark relief by the context of Islamic thought and culture. So it was something I learnt from and integrated into my Christian living. However, it is this kind of experience that lies at the heart of at least some people from less definite faith stances (let's say) who convert to Islam (and other faiths, presumably). This raises a host of questions which I have some tentative answers for but I think it important to pose the questions as they stand for now: what explanations are to be found for these experiences? And how do we relate them to our view of God's action in the world? What relation do such experiences have to salvation? What do they mean for a theology of other faiths? The answers to these questions pose further questions and interrelate with each other. And then there is the social inclusion dimension: "To walk into Al-Islam and be reminded that there are more people of color in the world than white people, that in itself is a relief." Such factors rightly or wrongly tinge our appreciation of things (we might want to add that abolition of slavery is still an issue in Islamic fiqh, and still practised in the Arabian peninsula and parts of north Africa with religious licence and there are racial dimensions to it).

I note them because evangelicals are wont to dodge the sharpness of them usually by denying the value of the experience, but I'm not so sure that we can drive apart the existential and theological quite so blithely, particularly if coherent apologetics is to be done further down the line or if we want to be able to be missional about what we find in extra-ecclesial religious experience.

As to the story that began this musing. Yes, I think there are the problems outlined of irreconcilability of the beliefs of the religions as fully developed. However, being thoroughly grounded in an evangelical skepticism towards religious systems and institutions, I'm intrigued by the missional possibilities, centered-set-wise. So, I think I'm with her bishop for the time being in saying that this is something to explore further. "Redding's bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting."

*To explain a bit more: I think that Mohammed had a message from God for at least some of the Arabs he lived among. I am not convinced that this means he was in effect free from sin and I think that, like Jonah, he had moments where his attitudes and actions were decidedly not of God. I also tend to think that some of the things that are attributed to him should either not be assumed to be God's will or that we recognise that he sometimes mistook his own ideas for revelation (I think that among these would be sanctioning massacres and marrying a 9 year old). In fact I have a suspicion that the rot set in after Hijra and the 'Constantinian compromise' he made. That is, admittedly, a charitable interpretation. There are others! But this is all under review.

Local News | "I am both Muslim and Christian" | Seattle Times Newspaper:

The end of religion the beginning of faith

This is the point where the issue of religious pluralism founders ultimately. At least so I thought when I was reviewing a book advocating religious pluralism. The thing tends to want to accord religious institutions 'salvific' parity. But what if, as many Christian evangelicals do, you tend to think that religion is a flawed friend of faith, spirituality and salvation, at best?
It means that religious pluralism is flawed by the lack of means to critique religion.

Now this article is not about religious pluralism but rather non-religious Christianity. And it seems to me that such a thing could and should exist. I wonder whether the same shift is possible for other faiths?

What if “religion,” and by this I mean the institutional and organizational form around faith, is no longer necessary for the future of faith?
Religions exist in certainty and sanctity; faith lives in inquiry and fluidity. The reason traditional faiths are having a hard time of things is that the present situation is one in which certainty is suspect and sanctity is being redefined.

Actually, a very interesting mini article from Barry Taylor of Fuller. Another intriguing thing he writes is.

One of the most interesting dynamics of the present time is the collapse of distinction between the sacred and the profane. Contemporary society allows for the “holy” to be found in the most unexpected places. As Christopher Partridge writes, “The new spiritual awakening makes use of thought-forms, ideas and practices, which are not at all alien to the majority of Westerners. They emerge from an essentially non-Christian religio-cultural milieu, a milieu that both resources and is resourced by popular culture.” The future of Christian faith lies in its ability to inhabit this gray world, not attempting to “sort it out” as much as to be available to help others navigate and negotiate the complexities that such a dynamic raises. To “go with the flow” might seem a trite way of describing theological engagement, but a commitment to fluidity and a willingness to swim in the cultural waters rather than insisting on one’s own paddling pool is a necessary perspective.

The interesting thing is also the reactions to this opinion piece. Some people just don't seem to 'get' the idea of separating institution from faith, expression from basis...

Mission Shaped Church ebook -free

I hadn't realised that Mission-Shaped Church is available as a .pdf ebook. But now I do and so do you!


Sites Unseen - Earth's Mightiest Alternative Christian Link Portal

Technorati Tags: ebook, free, missional, emerging, CofE, Anglican, Christian

under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued

It's enough to warm the cockles of my heart: a list of "under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued" emerging church bloggers. And I made that list! I was just having to admit to myself the other day that my writing is unlikely to win me a wide readership: I suspect I'm far too eclectic and use a challenging range of vocab and draw from a wide range of subject areas to ever be 'popular'. So nice to have a little recognition. Anyway here's what it's about. Htt Matt Stone, The Blind Beggar and ultimately to Brother Maynard for starting it all off.

Brother Maynard has come up with the interesting suggestion of circulating a list of  under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued
emerging/missional blogs to help promote them in the wider blogosphere. Below is the list I picked up from The Blind Beggar.

• Emerging Grace



• Robbymac


• Lily


• Nathan Colquhoun


• John Smulo


• Todd Hiestand


• Theopraxis


• Chuck Warnock


• John Lunt


• Webb Kline


• Mark Wilson


• Rick Meigs


• Brother Maynard


• MakDaddy
  
  


• Glenn Hager


• Paul Mayers


• Jamie Swann


• Paul Walker


• Jerry Frear


• Phil Wyman


• Rainer Halonen


• Shannon


• Matt Stone


• Erika Haub


• John Santic


• Colin Lamm


• Julie Clawson


• Phil Johnson


• Andii Bowsher


• John Moorehead


• Paul Fromont & Alan Jamieson


• Steve Hollinghurst

To participate, copy this list into a new post on your own blog, and
add the names you have to the bottom of the list, and encourage others
to do the same. They should be people with under 150 links so we can truly scew the Technorati rankings. When you’ve done that, leave a
comment at Brother Maynard’s blog so he can keep track of who ends up participating.

Incidently, if you want to repro the list, you might want to view the source of the page and scroll down to the relevant bit to do a cut and paste. Certainly Firefox has that facility. Dunno about that other browser (ptui).

Technorati Tags: blogging, emerging-church, missional

Reenvisaging the CofE? [1]

I felt that I could do with writing down all the bits of reform and 'if-only's that I tend to have about the Church of England. Maybe I'll miss a few but then, I could always add later. So what would I like to see?
Equalisation of stipends across the board. If a stipend is a kind of allowance to make it unnecessary for a clerk in holy orders to seek other employment in order to free them up to do the work they are called to, then I can't really see why Bishops and Archdeacons are paid more.It smacks of hankering after an ungospel-like privilege, to me. It is an acknowledgement that the going rate for the market value of the skills exercised is not being paid so there's no real justification for differentials. Either that or come clean and change the legislation or whatever and have a proper salary system [which might be more flexible for fractional posts and for employment of lay people in some roles]
Ditch counting posts in terms of one stipend. We need ways so that clergy can be deployed perhaps part-time and so pursue other things, especially in parishes or posts where full-time is not appropriate; it may not always be best to try to combine things just to make up a full time equivalent on the off-chance that whatever is available at that time might actually suit. For example combining a half parish post with a part-time diocesan post -it may be right but perhaps not. Maybe best to make them available separately. In the appointment columns I do see signs that this is being done, so well and good.
Flexibility of deployment. Guarantee appropriate safeguards to clergy and local churches on the one hand and on the other make it possible for diocesan or area mission and pastoral deployment decisions to be made without having to wait for someone to move, die or be 'persuaded' out. The key issue to address here is that many clergy and parishes do not trust the diocesan layer of governance to act with due regard for humane, local and ministerial issues. Of course the flip-side of that is that a certain amount of heavy-handedness is brought about by the fact that the power that dioceses/bishops councils have is so circumscribed that they tend to try to achieve too much on too little a basis. This points to an overhaul of the whole system not a piecemeal reform.
Let Bishops be bishops, not civic functionaries. I would love it if bishops could be people who encourage, enthuse, plan with, and 'coach' the clergy they are responsible for. And if there is something that prevents that focus then, rather than hiving the pastoral/coaching role off to someone else, hive off the something else to non-bishops.
Let there be parish clerks. In a similar vein; lots of clergy complain that they get too bogged down in admin. So, how about we create an order of administrators who work with a group of clergy to make sure that basic admin gets handled efficiently, smoothly and free up the clergy to do what most of them are called to -most seem to think that the amount of admin is disabling. I think most would be happy to do some admin as necessary and right. However an auxiliary ministry of clerks not-necessarily-in-holy-orders might be a help. Is this something that a diocese should do?
Reform the diocesan and provincial structures Check out my post a few months previous to this. It seems to me that some kind of reform along these lines would help enormously in achieving the kinds of things I mention in this posting especially the role of bishops and the possibility of a better use of financial resources for mission rather than needlessly duplicated diocesan structures.
Allow different forms of local church governance. For example, cell-church models find it hard to have a form of church government under the present PCC rules whereby the cell-system is easily integrated with the legal structures of church government, which is a pity as it is a recipe for inefficiency and otherwise unnecessary conflict. Let's have the possibility of different forms; perhaps template-based or subject to approval by a diocesan or provincial group to safeguard the proper balance of powers, finance, mission and access by various stakeholders.
begin bottom-up diocesan governance. I take it that a good thing about the CofE is that the system of diocesan 'taxation' [usually called the 'quota' or the 'share'] plus contributions from the national church using historic resources and investments, means that churches in more mission situations which cannot support an ordained or similar ministry on their own, do get, in effect, a subsidy. And because this is administered at a diocesan level, it is means that some of the unfortunate consequences that could flow from theological differences or even apparent differences of 'fortune' are mitigated. However, it does seem that the system as it has evolved to this point is on the point of breaking down. Wealthier Churches are coming to the limits of their ability to subsidise the system without incurring too many losses of their own opportunities to finance their own parish mission. It is becoming more frequent that larger 'cash-cow' churches are capping their contributions [which are voluntary anyway]. The pattern of the diocese setting a budget and then asking on an ability-to-pay basis for contributions is no longer sustainable, I would say. Dioceses need to slim down even further to a bare minimum [and share with neighbouring dioceses -so a new provincial structure would make sense] and use the pledges of their parishes as the basis for budget. There may then need to be some hypothecation relating to projects that are done on a more diocesan or deanery scale. In this plan, the national church funding would relate directly to funding important areas of ministry that are intrinsically not self-supporting or have a low potential for self support or that is a kind of seed-funding for important missional projects. In the former I would include such things as HE chaplaincy where some funding may be possible in some places from other sources but where the national strategic importance is recognised and so it is supported from a national source by some mechanism or other [the exact nature of the local-national control would need to be explored]. In the latter case [seed-funding] we would be looking at church planting or other experiments with missional and emerging opportunities.
Vocation-shaped church. We need to be aware that one of the key indicators for planning and direction-setting lies in the sens of vocation of members. Surely God will be calling people to ministries for which there is longer-term purpose. We need to be discerning the collective sense of vocation and finding ways to use this to shape our direction collectively. I have written some about this elsewhere. I think the most important thing I wrote there was:
By listening to the sense of vocation of existing and potential future leaders in the church, we can gain an insight into the shaping of the church for the next generation. We need to allow a situation where the vocations of the members of the church determine the shape of the church rather than trying to force vocations on people to fit the felt-needs of an institution decisively shaped by a dying culture. In other words, before we can be a mission-shaped church we have to be a vocation-shaped church.
Humane MO. All too often the church fails to be humane. We need to learn to make sure that the sabbath or any other institution is made for human beings not the other way round [to paraphrase Christ and extend the principle somewhat. So this means not having guilt-driven ministries, or structures that suck the energy from creative and already overworked people. It means leadership ministry that has the time and ability to be people-centred within a God-centred framework and that therefore enables rather than disables the gifts and calling of the body of Christ. This involves far more flexibility of structuring and legal framework.
Sabbathing. By which I mean that we don't regard rest as an optional extra but as part of the essence of ministry. We run a system that seems to imply that our collective fear is that people will be lazy; when in actual fact the real issue we face is workaholism and burn-out. I want to see a church where those in paid ministry don't end up as cynical and tired place-holders in their fifties but remain creative and energised ministers who are able to synthesise their experience into wisdom and even if less energetic than in their thirties, are able to work smarter if not harder. I want to see clergy who are fun to be with and humane themselves not brittle and testy as a result of feeling guilty for all they cannot do. Some of the things I mention above would help in this also.

I think that I need to stop here and write some more in a few days or weeks, probably about training, creativity, coaching, the diocese as support-agency, and more on emerging church issues ...