Missional Viewpoints 3: Mission and Healing

How does the image of mission as healing affect the way we understand the mission of God?

So, after a long sabbatical it’s time to resume our Missional Viewpoints series. I almost let this series go, but I still think it’s something worth continuing so it’s time to revisit it and press on further. Just to jog your memory, here’s what I wrote as the brief for this series last Summer:

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Fresh Expressions Vision Day

Was in Cardiff today for a Fresh Expressions vision day to chat a little about the Lab, ideas we're exploring and things we've learned from the whole process. Hi if you found the blog from the handouts I gave out – and feel free to look around and check out my thoughts. In particular, you may be interested in the Lab, Mission and Church categories of my different posts.

Affirming the sacred or emphasising the secular?

Just caught a LeadershipJournal article  in my feedreader – What the Unchurched See in a Building:

Does "sacred" space appeal to or repel the
unchurched? A recent survey probed 1,700 unchurched American adults,
putting photos of four different church exteriors in front of them.
Respondents indicated their preferences by allocating 100 points across
the four images, based on the appeal of the appearance.

The Gothic look averaged 48 points, more than double
the next-highest finisher, a white-steeple-and-pillar exterior that
averaged about 19 points. The other two churches, with more
contemporary looks, averaged 18 points and 16 points, according to the
study, commissioned by Cornerstone Knowledge Network and conducted by
LifeWay Research.

So should churches opt for the cathedral look as a way to attract the unchurched?

 - Matt Branagh, Leadership Journal: http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/003/8.67.html

Obviously this is USAmerican research, but seems to agree with a general trend – especially with young people (with younger people in the research, the tend towards traditional Gothic architecture was even higher). This is true of my limited experience as well, that "unchurched" people (I love the way the article refers to "the unchurched" – it's like the new PC term for "the lost") are searching for a spirituality with truly emphasises and provides space for the sacred. Missional and emerging church leaders have been reporting this for the last five or ten years.

If young people are going to get inside a church building, they at least want it to be a spiritual experience.

The interesting irony is that there is a trend amongst the "churched" to want to de-emphasise the sacred within their own spirituality. Hence the change from church building which look like churches towards ones which look like theatres or gig venues.

Alan Hirsch reckons that the modern seeker-sensitive church only attracts or connects with between 10-20% of unchurched people. I know we're only talking architecture here, but the parallel to this research is interesting.

Closing this gap between these two polarising viewpoints will be an interesting one. It is made a little easier, I think, by an increased in "de-churched" people and a new emerging generation (the beginnings of which I am seeing in students I work with) of Post-Charismatic young people who are coming out of churches which are heavily invested in the charismatic movement – not necessarily closed off to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but very aware of it's drawbacks and failings in recent times.

Especially in the area of whole-life discipleship and incarnational living (you know what I'm hinting at).

I think that it is a dialogue between these two groups which will hold the key to the direction of the Church over the next ten-twenty years.

Finally, it's interesting in the article that the one person interviewed – who obviously has a personal investment and bias – straight away attempted to de-bunk the research, and question its relevance.

Church Discipline 2

Thinking a lot about this last post, especially after reading back over Kester Brewin's book
about organic models of church. I think I might be able to begin to
re-construct some ideas to do with discipline and accountability within
an "emerging" or organic model of church.

1. Discipline comes from the bottom-upwards.
The main reason that terms like "church discipline" seem to leave a bad
taste in my mouth is because they bring up images of discipline enforced
by authoritarian church leaders in order to control their
congregations. One of the main images of an emerging church community
which Kester mentions is a self-organising system – like a colony of
ants. If this model of church organises itself from the ground upwards,
then this is the direction that any discipline should be enforced from.

2. There should be some rule/structure to govern the process.
Organic means to lie in between the lines between order and chaos – to
tread as closely to the chaotic as possible, without the entire system
falling apart. There needs to be some rule which will hold the system
together – although I guess how loose this is will depend on the
volatility of each individual system itself. For the church community,
this means we need to have some kind of rule by which bottom-up
discipline and accountability can happen to avoid things like abuse of
power, trust and relationships.

3. Rather than structuring the system, the "rule" enforces equality and prevents the system from being abused.
At the moment, I have absolutely no idea how this will work
practically. In the modern world of the machine, equality was enforced
by regulating the way the entire system would work. In a post-modern
world, we need to explore some other way in which to maintain our
church discipline, but without controlling the whole system itself -
allowing room for self-organisation, discretion and relationship. Does
the rule need to be static, or is there some way in which to make it
dynamic – allowing for different outcomes in different circumstances?

4. Discipline (and accountability?) is a shared community responsibility, rather than a one-to-one individual task.
This is probably the idea I am most split on. But I think that with a
model of church which seeks to return to a communal, corporate
spirituality and away from individualism, discipline should also be a
corporate, community responsibility. This would mean a huge change in
the way that most church's structures of accountability work -
accountability becomes a groupwork exercise rather than about one or
two close friends. Group accountability does work – our student
guys have an awesome accountability group which I am part of – though
it does make the whole concept of confessing to each other more
daunting.

So, there's some starting points for re-construction. I've challenged
myself to write a positive, reconstructive post for each negative,
deconstructive one – it's often much easier to criticise than to
present an alternative. I'm quite excited to see this concept evolve as
I reflect on it more.

What do you think about accountability and church discipline? Do you
agree or disagree with me? That's what the comments form is there for
;-).

Of course he’s not safe…

Spent yesterday mainly studying the Anabaptists in college. They probably have the closest theology/ecclesiology to the majority of the emerging church. A lot of what the emerging church seems to be about is a response to the ways in which the reformation over-compensated in it's response to the problems with Catholicism – where as the Anabaptist radical wing of the reformation seemed to already have some of this sorted – especially the preservation of mysticism and contemplation as part of their faith and the emphasis on works as the evidence/results of a soul justified by faith. Think I would probably be an anabaptist if I wasn't such a good Anglican boy ;-)

Key to the Anabaptists understanding of what it meant to live a Christian life was the concept of the Fear of God as evidence of a converted, Christian life – the idea that a real fear of the Lord result in a lived-out, radical way of living. When Chris (our theology tutor) was teaching us about this, one of the questions from my classmates was how this can fit in with a concept of a God who is all loving? Found a completely unrelated blog today, which quoted CS Lewis' Narnia books and got me thinking.

I love the image of Aslan in the Narnia chronicles – the idea of this strong, courageous, unpredictable figure, but who also is gentle and comforting and noble.

Love the way Mr Beaver speaks of Aslan (cribbed from that blog entry) – "Course he isn't safe. But he's good."

So much today we try to rationalise God – we listen to speakers who say "if you do this, then God will do this in return" and "if you don't do this, then God will do this". What happened to this picture of a God who is unsafe?

I love that my God is unsafe, untamable, as unpredictable as the world he created. And yes, that means he's going to be a little scary.

I don't want my God to be imprizoned within a cage of human logic. I want him roam free all-powerful, all-knowing, but never predictable – so that all I can do is find myself lost in awe and fear, clinging to the promise that he loves me and his plans are to prosper me and not harm me.

Equality (or “why doesn’t everyone get to do stuff in church?”)

If we really believe that everyone is equal, then what huge effect would that have on the way we are and do "church"?

Talked a little about equality at the Lab last weekend, and this was the main question that hit me from the point of view of someone who has the privilege of leading and shaping our church community.

It would be silly to try and convince ourselves that every has the same level of skill and ability in every area – sure some people are better at speaking and some at playing instruments and some at making orange squash, but what if we really decided that everyone’s contribution was of equal importance? How different would church look to the way it is now?

Rather than a worship gathering which is lead by and organised by a small number of people and presented to the masses, what if we could find a way where the whole church could contribute to our time spent worshipping together? Surely, that’s what Paul is really getting at when he says "everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction,
a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation."

If he was speaking to the church today, wouldn’t he be telling us to produce worship times where the goal is for as many to contribute as possible in as many ways?

The old idea that if everyone was at the front then there would be in the congregation doesn’t seem to wash – it misses the point. And you could argue that some people are called to the behind-the-scenes stuff – and technical stuff and cleaning and squash-making is important – but when Paul says hymns, instruction and revelation isn’t he talking about the up-front stuff?

What does that kind of worship gathering look like?

Are we too far gone in the modern church to achieve it? Or does it just not apply anymore?

(written to The Album Leaf, which may explain the slightly depressing tone ;-)

Also syndicated on Anglimergent – a network of Anglicans across the world engaging the emerging church and mission. To join in the discussion there click here.

Stations on Equality

Last night as the Lab we looked at equality – what does it mean to live as a community where we are equal, and what does it mean to take that to the world, the community, outside as well?

Maybe post some kind of reflection on that whole idea from some of the thoughts on Sunday later in the week, but here are the three stations we used to reflect on and respond to the thoughts which Louisa shared on Equality. The stations are taken/adapted from bits and pieces on the Dream website, where there is a whole treasure trove of brilliant resources for emerging churches.

Faces
Needed: A collection of pictures of people of different races, backgrounds, sex, etc… as diverse as possible.

Look at some of the faces in the photographs.

Pick an image. Think about your emotional response to it and feel free to use this in prayer.

Does that face have equality? Is there something that has stopped them getting the equality they deserve.

Pray about it.

Place the image in the light as you commit them to God’s love and care.

Blessed
Needed: Prayer wall/floor and drawing materials

• If you have food in the fridge, clothes on your back,
  a roof over your head and a place to sleep,
  you are richer than 75% of this world.
• If you have money in the bank, in your wallet,
  and spare change in a dish somewhere,
  you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy.
• If you woke up this morning with more health than illness,
  you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
• If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment,
  arrest, torture or death
  you are more blessed than million’s of people in the world.

  we are hugely blessed…

… do we keep this in our perspective?

Use the prayer wall to thank God for some of the huge blessings he has given you.

Power
Needed: A large candle, and a box of tealights. Floorspace.

The large candle symbolises God. The source of all true power.

What experience have you had of the power of God? What images does it bring to mind?

Take some time to reflect on ‘power’. Call to mind images of the people and things that are seen as powerful.

Where does power touch you? People who you exercise power over or who have more power than you. Habits, desires and ambitions that are powerful in your life. Take some time to bring each to mind.

Take a tealight and light it from the large candle. Invite God to teach you his ways of dealing with power. Ways that seem upside down to a power-drunk world.

Weekends away, new phones and Flickr

Umm… just got myself a Flickr account to put all my photos in from my camera, as well as my beautiful new camera phone, which is incredible.

Seems like ages since I last blogged – been caught up in college work and Lab work and all sorts, and then just seemed to have so many ideas swirling around my head that I couldn’t get them all down – but this week is hopefully going to be a slightly slower paced one, so hopefully I’ll get the chance to work out some ideas and put down some thoughts this week on different things.

Also really want to get to grips with my chaplaincy blog, which I’ve neglected really badly – really want to give that another go, maybe with some more comtemplative stuff or meditation or something.

Had an amazing weekend up in the Peak District with some other guys involved in missional community and emerging church in the UK – was exactly the chance to relax and slow down that I’ve really needed over the last couple of week. The surroundings were incredible, as the photo bears witness – there was just an incredible sense of encountering God in the beauty of nature. And the company and conversation was amazing as well – so much I want to explore and to blog about.

Oh, and thanks for getting your fingers out and rating some of my posts – it’s great to get some feedback… think my next mission with the blog is to try and provoke some conversation and build up some comments…

The Art of Language

This came up on my RSS reader – made me think of a discussion we had in our Lab team meeting last night about language.

Last night, we were talking specifically about financial giving, but this idea of language is something that I’ve been talking about for a while to the couple of people who’d listen. I encountered the concept first in one of Dan Kimball’s books about the Emerging Church.

Kimball talked about how our language of church will go on to define our attitudes towards church, and so as church leaders the way we speak about church will go a long way to determine how our congregation views it. So, if we consistantly talk about church as a thing that happens, if we talk about services which people come to enjoy and consume – then this attitude will spill over into the attitudes of our church members. On the other hand, if we talk about church as a community, as something we are all a part of and contribute to, as a network of relationships rather than in terms of service provision, then that positive attitude to church should spill over into our congregations (or I should really say church communities).

Perhaps this explains a little about the place Willow Creek now find themselves in – church as a programme of activities rather than a community.

In terms of the Lab, I think that our change in language has been at least part of the reason for our increased sense of belonging and community. I won’t get all philosophical and psychological, but language is really the "verbal filter" or "verbal lens" through which we experience the world – surely the language we surround ourselves with must affect our worldview and our perceptions.

So our challenge with the Lab is now to let our "community language" settle and to consolidate it, and now to really think about bringing giving into our vocabulary – especially in the language of our worship. We need to bring giving out from the locked filing cabinet where we keep all the utility bills and other things we don’t especially like and reconnect it with our worship vocabulary.

So if you hear us talking about giving a lot at the Lab this term then you know the reasoning behind it ;-) We need to bring it back from just a way of paying the bills to its rightful place in the context of our worship as a community and as a church. Hope that made sense.

Soul Survivor, Emerging and Newport

Just got back from Soul Survivor yesterday with all the guys from home, after a looooooong 5 hours on a coach (made a little shorter by watching Evolution, Ghostbusters and MiB on the coach DVD player). It was amazing, as always, although this year seemed a little less magical than previous years – maybe because I’m growing up. Found myself totally fired up and longing the week to finish so I could get on and actually start doing something in Newport.

Bought a load of books as well mostly on the Emerging Church and Post-Modernism etc. which are incredibly cool, currently devouring them one-by-one.

So now I’m sat here in Newport at G’s house, where I’m staying this weekend. Move into Newport properly a week on Monday.