Category Archives: emerging church

Aoradh @ Greenbelt, ’09…

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I finally managed to get our booking form into Greenbelt yesterday- with a day to spare! Last minute as always!

This year, Aoradh are going to do some worship in ‘New Forms Cafe’- a space that is used as an alternative worship space for various groups. It looks as though about 7 of us will be going, and setting up an installation based loosely around a theme of ‘time’.

We will also be setting up some kind of poetry graffiti, on boards around the site- based around the ‘Ecclesiastes 3’ theme. Some of this poetry I have used on the blog, and will be part of a new book called ‘Listing’, published by Proost, hopefully out before the festival.

Speaking of Proost, Jonny tells me that they will be setting up a couple of evenings where Proost contributors will be doing their thing. I will probably be contributing to these in some way.

If you are going to Greenbelt, and read this blog, it would be great to say hello!

It is a considerable undertaking to get down to Greenbelt from Scotland. The distance is quite something, and it does not fit the school holidays up here- we have to take the kids out of school. But for me, the journey is made worth it for these reasons-

  1. Our group is small and isolated, and needs connections with the wider movement of God in our time
  2. We also need ideas and inspiration, and to connect with the creativity of others
  3. It is a safe place to continue exploring faith- full of people who adventure outwards in their engagement with the Word and the world
  4. It is a way that our ‘small theologies’ (worked out in small community) connect with ‘big theologies’ (worked out in culture)

hope to see to see you there!

Poverty and the emerging church…

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So- are ’emerging churches’ and the people that use the label middle class and self absorbed with their own little slice of post modern spirituality?

Check out this discussion thread, in which Paule Ede, who lives and works in a tough part of Glasgow as part of an ‘Urban Expression‘ church plant. I think the discussion rapidly got a little heated, which is a shame as it seemed to be digging into something that is very important. I have a lot of respect for the things that Paul was saying, and for the challenge it ought to bring to those of us whose lives are led in a different direction.

Poverty is not romantic. It is rarely a choice, and always brings the aspiration of escape. It brutalises and robs people of health and opportunity. But the presence of such inequality in our world is as much as anything, our shame. It’s presence in our streets and cities is a sign of our failure.

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A consistent theme on this blog has been that of social justice. I have lived my life convinced that the call of Jesus is perhaps first and foremost towards the poor, broken and hungry. It pushed me towards a certain understanding of spirituality, and into a career in social work, and mental health work in particular.

But we can be creatures of contradiction and self congratulation in the face of contrary evidence. I live in a big house in a beautiful place. I have a fairly new car, and a well paid public sector job. Like most men I have a weakness for gadgets. I have accumulated lots of STUFF- most of which I do not really need. In short, I live a life like most of the other people in our affluent suburbs.

I discussed this with friends in my small ’emerging’ community the other day, and my thinking changed a little.
My own group is in Dunoon. Dunoon is a fairly affluent area, although has a significant underclass of folk who ended up here, almost washed up ‘doon the watter’ from the big city. We too have lots of difficulties- drugs, under age drinking. We also are a culture that has more than it’s fair share of loneliness, isolation and brokenness.

Last week we watched a Mike Frost DVD as part of a study we are doing around the book ‘Exiles’. Frost was thundering eloquently and movingly about the nature of our calling as Christians to get into ‘Dangerous criticism’ of the empire we are part of (Subordinate and secondary perhaps to our call to BLESS the empire where we can.) He spoke a lot about consumer driven over consumption, and the poor. Following on from the discussions on this blog, I began to shrink a little into the chair I sat in, in my big house, well heated and full of my friends.

But during the discussion that followed I looked around the room with tears in my eyes. Three of us have had serious mental health problems, two addictions, several have long term chronic illnesses, others carry other wounds. Some are on benefits, others are in work. Some will have a posh holiday this year, others will go camping when they can. But we have found a place of friendship and acceptance from which we are seeking means to bless others- particularly the poor.

Then there is the work and activity we do that is a direct result of the faith within us and the call of Jesus. I started to make a list of things that we are connected with-

One of us volunteers on the committee of a local addictions charity.

One runs the ‘time bank’
One supports volunteering opportunities and helps small community groups
One manages a charity that helps homeless young people
Two others work as life coaches and run stuff for young people
Another does suicide awareness training
Another is a counselor and has a particular interest in bereavement issues
Another is seeking to get allotments established to allow folk to grown their own food
Another has set a local charity to refurbish play equipment on the west bay
Another works in Greenock to help kids get some meaningful work experience
Another is a volunteer at a local old folks home
Another is a student who is studying addictions
Another is a reporter in the local paper, campaigning around justice issues

Does this get us ‘off the hook’ then?

Well, no.

I think the call of Jesus on our lives is always destabilising, always calling us out of comfort into the journey with him. As soon as we think we have it sorted- no matter how challenging the context, then we are destined to fall flat on our faces, or descend into mundanity. This is challenge for those of us in the emerging church as much as it is for any other church grouping.

And one of the ways that people who have lots of stuff are always going to be challenged is in relation to our comfort and wealth. We are challenged not because these things are bad, but because they can so easily be idolatrous and ensnaring.

So for those of us with big houses and cars- what use are we putting them to? How dependent are we on stuff in the chase for happiness and fulfillment- whether or not we have it, or just WANT it?

These are not easy questions, but Jesus knew that- remember the rich young ruler who Jesus ‘looked at with love’.

The emerging church, in it’s theologising and pontificating is indeed a middle class phenomenon. Perhaps it’s true test will be how it lives out the call of Jesus towards the poor.

Post emerging church…

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I have been part of a discussion on the Emerging Scotland Ning site about the challenges facing those of us who are part of the Emerging Church conversation in Scotland. Check it out- but I thought it worth reproducing some of the points here.

One of the bits of the discussion as been about the new boundaries that what ever forms of church that emerge may well face. This list is far from exhaustive, but here are some of the issues that are developing;

SMUGNESS AND ELITISM
I think most radicalism has to deal with this- we tend to think we have it made. And then we realise that we do not, and indeed, other people have been doing the same as us for years!

LACK OF SUPPORT
I first floated the idea of some kind of Emerging Network in Scotland for this very reason. But many of us have a fear of hierarchy and restrictive structure. The model of facilitated network seems an important one.

STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE
I do not care how you worship, where you meet, whether you swing incense or swing your cat. I believe that the time has come to find old and new ways to worship, and engage with passion and creativity- using all the arts, not just guitar driven soft rock!

THE MISSION OF GOD
I grew up with a view of the gospel that I now see as limited. ‘Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand’ takes me in many new directions, but like you, i am coming to see that the old directions are still valid too- namely saving souls. How we do that is the stuff of much discussion however!

LIMITED PERSPECTIVES
I suppose we need to localise AS WELL as globalise. I need to start with my community, and together we then look outwards first into the locality, and then into the wider world. Limited perspectives, it seems to me, are inevitable. What we need to ask the Spirit of God to show us, is where the bridges are that we can walk on into new places, new ideas. For me, this is exactly what the EC discussion has been so far- but there is so much more!

CONSUMERISM
The spirit of the age? It is certainly an interesting time for capitalist expansionism! A time perhaps for church to raise voices that propose a different way of being. But what this looks like locally is the interesting thing- because it will probably be different for you than for me.

DOUBT
It may not be normal for you- but it is for me. I make this statement not as a theological one, but as an honest starting point. I know people who never appear to doubt. I know others who can not bring themselves to admit this lest the whole edifice of faith comes crashing down. Doubt is not the absence of faith for me, but the place in which it is tested and developed. It is not an either-or, but a both-and. Does this make me a syncretised post-modern? Perhaps, but I have tried the alternative, and it was dishonest. And i suspect that Thomas expressed the opinion of more than just himself when he doubted- and indeed that he continued to vacillate through his life!

THAT ‘POSTMODERN’ word.
It is just a set of lenses to examine stuff with. Limited and incomplete. I think it is a healthy thing to have an understanding of the thinking behind it, but then let us forget about it, and just get on with living and loving!

TRUTH
‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free’. Hmmm. I struggle with this.
Whose truth? What about the Bible and the uses we put the words in it to? Is truth something we take into us a we encounter Jesus through the Spirit?
The nature of truth and the discussion surrounding it could take up this whole site.
Perhaps it should!

POWER/DOCTRINE
I would agree that powerlessness is not necessarily the same thing as having no power- particularly when used as a challenge to the miss-use of power (if you see what i mean!) So the example set by Jesus and followed in Modern times by Ghandi, King etc- was a use of powerlessness, in a powerful way. The problem for me is that the church plays a different kind of power game too often- both politically, and more crucially, in the use of doctrine. All doctrinal statements are incomplete, and may even be wrong. So I am all for doctrines- particularly ones that are anchored to the church fathers- but I still think we should hold them lightly and use them softly. Apart from in application to OURSELVES. Accountable to our community. Accepting that we need to learn, but we also need to start from a firm place. There is that bit in Romans 12 (or is it 13?) about ‘disputable matters’…

INDIVIDUALISTIC FAITH
I think that Christianity without community is not Christlike- but I suppose there have always been others who have followed a different calling- a poles or into caves for example. I also believe strongly in the idea of small theologies, worked out together- that relate to the big theologies, but chew on them within a local expression of faith.
However- the language of church that you use is too much like a triumphalistic version of empire-christianity that i am happy to leave behind! That said, and setting aside my developed prejudices, the very ideas of church as the Bride of Christ also seems to me to be a discussion thread worth starting in it’s very own right…

DISCIPLESHIP

I am sure you are well aware of the mis-use that we have put words like ‘discipleship’ to.
I do not fully agree that the EC is about ‘maturing out’ of Church-  but neither do I accept that the models of church that predominate do not need the challenge of radical outsiders who will plot a different and dangerous path.
This is not necessarily what I feel called to- a have a skew towards the making of safety nets. But I welcome the hope and challenge brought by others.

That familiar question- what is emerging?

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Like many others, I have been participating in the emerging church ‘conversation’ for a few years now.

It has been wonderful.

It has transformed the way I think about and understand faith, and brought me again to a deep love of Jesus and all he calls us to.

It has brought me into contact with wonderful people who are traveling in the same direction.

It has given me a genuine hope that things are changing- that something NEW is happening.

The Lion of Judah is circling again…

But it has also brought me into conflict with others- whose core beliefs lead them to adopting different positions in relation to some of the building blocks of faith. And within me, after these years of discussing and blogging and reading- I also wonder where we are up to with this thing.

I particularly wonder where we are up to in Scotland, 2009.

So- some questions!

Where are new forms of church emerging and in what ways are they different?

Where are the agitators, the innovators, the people who pioneer new (emerging) forms of church?

The term seems to be used too as a way for traditional churches to seek renewal. Is this genuine change, or is it merely an attempt to do the same things, but be a bit more trendy?

Where is leadership coming from? Do we need it, or is there still a reaction against centralisation and control?

How do we find mentoring and companionship? Do we still need sympathetic and skillful people who will hold us accountable? Where are these people?

These seems to me to be a difficult, but very important questions. Our reaction to them will no doubt very much depend on where we start from.

I am part of a small group of people outside established church. We meet in houses and celebrate in non-religious environments. We form partnerships where we can, and have many friends, and some folk who view us with at best considerable suspicion! Groups like ours have many advantages- freedom, mobility, passion and excitement. But they are also fragile and ephemeral. They tend to depend on a small group of innovators, and are held together by friendship. When the storms begin (as the surely will) many things can simply destroy such gatherings.

This may be the natural order of things. Perhaps what survives is what is of worth. But perhaps too, like me, you are hungry for connection and for ways to seek and to provide support. Perhaps you are facing a difficult situation, and just need to speak to someone who has been there before.

Perhaps too you are, or have been, part of church situations where you no longer feel at home, New ideas and ways of doing things are in your mind, but the leadership of the place where you are is not open to such things. Perhaps what you need is to find others who have adventured still within such a situation.

There is a discussion thread that digs into some of these things on the Emerging Scotland site.

Church attendance on the rise in the UK?

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Well I never.

There has been a bit of a buzz around that church attendance figures in the UK are on the up! This after decades of dropping like a stone. These are the sorts of stats we have become used to (from here)–

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Of course, the picture was never simple- some individual churches are growing- the odd American imported super church, Black Pentecostal churches, and Orthodox churches- these have all been on the increase… albeit from a low base.

But statistics- they can be very misleading, so I did a bit of searching to see if I could find specific details of the studies.

The first one concerns a study done by Tearfund- mentioned in the Telegraph here.

A survey of 7,000 people by Tearfund found that 26 per cent say they went to a church service in 2008, up from 21 per cent the year before.

In addition, the proportion who say they attend church every month has risen from 13 per cent to 15 per cent, while one in 10 claim they go at least once a week, up from 9 per cent.

These are the highest figures recorded by the development agency for more than three years, contradicting research that has claimed churchgoing is in steady decline across Britain.

Young adults and pensioners are said to have taken up churchgoing in the greatest numbers, with a 10 per cent rise in attendance reported among the over-75s. Geographically, the biggest increase was seen in Wales (12 per cent).

It would mean that 7.3million adults now go to church – excluding weddings, baptisms and funerals – once a month. Official figures show that only 1.7m people attend Church of England services every month, while a further million attend weekly Mass at a Roman Catholic church.

The full details of the Tearfund study can be found on their website- here.

Another Telegraph articles makes the link with the deepening economic crisis- here.

Numbers of people attending Cathedral services have been on the increase for a while- see here and here.

So what are we to make of this? One swallow does not make a summer, but the numbers quoted in the Tearfund study are significant- as is the year on year 4% Cathedral attendance increase since 2000.

I think we people of faith should pay little heed to these figures. Let us instead remember some lessons learnt when church attendance figures looked like the charts above, which I think should include some of these-

  • We can no longer expect ‘attractional’ models of church to fill the pews.
  • Church is not about sacred buildings, but about letting loose the people of faith into the towns and cities about us.
  • The new context requires new ways of interpreting the gospel, and a re-examination of how the enculturalisation of church has contributed to a lack of relevance.
  • But the old mystical/contemplative traditions have much to teach us too.
  • Faith is discovered through action and interaction, not through didactic teaching.
  • Doctrine is not the most important thing.
  • Love is.

ER does post modern Christianity- apparently!

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Michaela is a big fan of ER. You could say she watches it religiously.

So when I came across this clip on you tube I had to have a listen. Apparently the painfully trendy ER staff had to call in the chaplain to speak to some bloke who was seeking forgiveness for his crimes at the end of life.

Evangelical shock jock radio station Way of the Master Radio enjoyed it, and took the opportunity to take a pop at liberal post modern trendy folk who they see as populating the ’emerging church’. Have a listen- its fun!

It kind of raises the question of how Christians are portrayed in the media. In the UK, for the most part- they are not. It is perhaps a different story in the USA…

There was another programme this week on Radio 4 called ‘God and the movies’. You can listen again on this link.

Apparently Hollywood has woken up to the marketing opportunities of targeting the 200 million or so Evangelicals in middle America.

So Mel Gibson’s film ‘The passion of the Christ’ spawned a line of other movies- many of them very bad… some quite good.

There seems to be a move towards low budget ‘Godsploitation fims’ (I kid you not!) Check this out- BIBLEMAN!

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But there is this other return to films that contain strong moral themes- films like Iron Man or Superman, which seem shot through with references to Biblical themes- redemptive messianic moments set to stirring music, and displayed by beautiful polished people…

Is this a good thing? Surely using mass media to convey something truthful about God is a good thing?

I confess to cynicism. Hollywood is about manipulating images for profit. Do we really want to sell Jesus in this way?

But then movies remain the shapers of mass consciousness perhaps like nothing else…

I think I will steer clear of Godsploitation movies- unless to suck from them some emerging-post-modern humour. Call me shallow if you will!

On being thankful to those who walk in a different direction…

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A friend told me this story recently (Thanks Audrey- or Alistair?)…

Inside Victorian prisons, a regime of order and control regulated every aspect of the lives of the inmates. There was a way of doing everything- eating, sleeping, talking/not talking, working and…exercising. In this way it was hoped that people would find redemption and restoration to the society that the grew from.

Exercise was important- to escape the harmful miasmas lurking in the damp prison air- to fill the lungs with clear clean (but regulated) air. Exercising was done in in the exercise yard, and like all things, there was a right way to do this.

Men walked in clockwise circles, one behind the other.

Apart from the lunatics. For prisons then, like now, contained many folk who had mental health problems.

The guards discovered that trying to control these folk was a waste of time, and so they were allowed to walk in the direction that suited them- even anti clockwise.

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I have been thinking a lot about change recently.

How do things change? How do we take something that seems like it has just always been- and move on to something new?

Perhaps most of us are like me- we simply do not change things easily. Stability is our goal- a maintenance of what is, lest the future bring a feared but undefined consequence. Better to walk in the circles that are trod by others, and leave the wandering to the lunatics.

Except that as much as I worry about change, I am also drawn to it.

I am tired of walking the same circles, and long to wander free- to adventure…

So it occurred to me again how grateful I am to those people who dared to defy convention, and show another way.

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I have to confess that the image of prison described above brought to me the image of institutional church. Not bad– well regulated in fact, well thought through, run by fine upstanding people in the pursuit of a worthy goal.

But somehow stuck. Held in by walls- made of stone and doctrine. Built on a solid foundation of faith and fervour, but now somehow set in cold stone. An organisation that grew in reforming zeal, and remained anchored to the culture that formed it whilst the world drifted away…

And let us not kid ourselves that only traditional ecclesiastical forms of religion fall into this category- because I would dare to suggest that almost any organisation (perhaps especially faith based ones, for all sorts of complex reasons to do with the mixing of organisation and ‘election’) will concrete itself into an exercise yard within 30 years of its inception.

I have walked those circles for too long. Time to find a road that goes somewhere else…no matter how uncertain.

And that is where I still find myself- on the road. It does not come easy to me, as I am happiest at home with the people I love, and love me in return.

But there is this thing that draws me onwards.

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But back to the point of this post- those folk who walk in other directions.

I confess to doing this reluctantly myself, and with considerable caution. And so I am very grateful to those others who first broke away from the circle, in the face of approbation and punishment. Risking the label of the lunatic, or worse, heretic (they still burn those don’t they!)

Because where would we be without our agitators, our eccentrics, our malcontents? Where would we be without our lunatics (if you will forgive the use of such a pejorative word?)

So thanks Rollins, Maclaren, Bell and Pagitt. Thanks too those countless others who stand up and say that there is MORE. There is a better way to be in this place we find ourselves in.

We can follow after Jesus.

But I suppose the lesson to all of us is that in about 30 years, it will be time for others to break down the walls we erected.