Hospice

 

One of the churches I serve marks its eighty-second birthday this weekend. St Nicholas’ was dedicated as a place of Christian worship in the early days of the Second World War. One member of our present congregation was there, as a choir boy, on that first day.

The congregation is struggling with the challenges of aging. In fact, of dying. Across the West, the Church is dying. Here in the north-east of England, 1% of the population belong to a church congregation, of any denomination. Very locally to us, the Methodists have just closed three of their churches, for ever.

I was asked, earlier this week, if I take this reality personally, if I feel that it is due to my failure. No. My ego is not that insecure. That the church is dying is not due to my failure, any more than, if the church were strong, it would be due to my success.

It is a reality of the natural order that every living entity dies. Trees grow over many decades, die, and can remain standing, dead, for a long time, before the wind topples them. Due to environmental factors, a whole forest can die at the same time. Cities, too, grow and die, often over centuries, with periods of accelerated growth and decline.

The same is true of the supernatural order. Jesus said, unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains but one seed; but if it dies, it bears a harvest. He also said, anyone who would follow me must take up their cross and die. The Church proclaims that God leads us not from life to death, but from death to life, through death into life. Our Scriptures chart the history of many communities, across centuries, who experience the end of the world as they have known it, only to return, renewed.

The Church across North Africa and the Middle East has been dead for centuries; and is now bursting into new life. The Church in much of Asia is in its infancy; in much of Africa, a confident adolescence; in much of Latin America, a maturity; and in the West, approaching death. I have no doubt that the Church in parts of the world where it is currently at other stages will get there in time; and that the Church in the West will be reborn. But not without passing through death.

Is that sad? Well, yes, just as the death of any person is sad, for those who knew them. Does it distress me? No. It is the Way. Would I rather be living out my calling in some other time or place? No. This is what God has prepared in advance for me to do.

If the church were simply a gathering of individuals, we might expect to see every stage present at every moment in time. But the Church is not a collection of individuals, it is a living entity, within an environment. Not every congregation is in exactly the same place, but, nonetheless, the Church moves through the stages of life on a larger scale than the microscopic.

I am committed to proclaiming the gospel, in finding ways to help people to connect, with greater confidence, with the God who is already present in their lives. In fact, this is my everyday experience. But I do not expect that to result in the growth of my congregation, or to the rescue of the Church.

Why not? Because our congregations are hospices for the dying. In many cases, for those living with Parkinson’s or dementia or cancer. And it takes an extraordinary person to choose to join a hospice community, to be a doctor or nurse or cleaner or groundskeeper, or to be a palliative care nurse in the community. Of course, their work is valued, and people will take part in sponsored activities to raise funds for just such charities. But, to join them takes more. My sister was a hospice doctor. I have sat beside hospice beds, and I know that I could not work in such an environment. It takes someone quite extraordinary. By which, of course, I do not mean that the rest of us are bad people; just that most of us cannot bear to be faced by death so imminent, or life so raw and, in a paradoxical sort of a way, so very alive.

I am committed to proclaiming the gospel. But the death of the church does not scare me. Resurrection lies beyond. I resist the temptation of the death-avoidant culture around me, to desperately attempt to push death away. The Church, in the West, is a hospice. There is no cure. But there can be dignity, and a good end. And, outside of the Church as we have known it, there is still faith, hope, and love...

 

Octogenarians

It is a fascinating experience to journey with a church that is eighty years old this year. Unlike a church that is one-hundred-and-eighty, or a church that is one-thousand-and-eighty, a church that is eighty years old likely displays the likeness of an eighty-year-old.

This church is unlike others I have known: churches full of young adults, wrestling with who and with whom they are; churches with significant numbers of mature adults, wrestling with how to give away who they have become, to invest in others. But this is a church of seniors, wrestling with senior concerns.

This is not an exhaustive list, but observations in progress. Not the last word, but first words.

[1] The primary concern of an eighty-year-old church is its own impending death. This is in no way a criticism. It is, in fact, a great opportunity. The church itself, of course, has every chance of life beyond this death; but for now, it is facing congregational death for the first time. Dying is not something we do well by accident; and a good death is our last and greatest gift to those around us. It involves learning to be fully present to life, perhaps for the first time since childhood. Simultaneously, it involves a letting-go, that, again, does not come naturally; and a profound (need for) making peace. A church learning to die well is an incredible gift to its neighbourhood, in a society in which death is taboo.

[2] Their relationship with children will be nostalgic. Not, of course, for every individual. There will be many younger, and not so young, members of the congregation who are actively involved in caring for their grandchildren. But, for the church as a collective entity, they are of an age where they have moved beyond having something to give children to needing something from young children. In both directions, this is passive, simply being rather than doing—fully present—and, in both directions, this can be wonderfully beneficial.

[3] It is not for them to take up the battles of our time, let alone the future. From climate change to food and farming to urban living to waste, environmental issues are the greatest concerns of our day. It is unfair to expect eighty-year-olds to engage. When they do—usually prophetic voices who have been seeing and speaking for a longer time—they are a gift to be cherished. Nonetheless, their memory of a time before the great acceleration of consumption in late modernity may help us reimagine a liveable future. Possibly.

As I said, not the last word...

At Sixes And Sevens With You

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare, As You like It, Act II, Scene VII

Men and women move through stages of life. And this is as true of communities as it is of individuals. Think of a neighbourhood, or a city, or a local church. To borrow from Shakespeare’s insight, they start out with the dependency and mess of infants; must learn certain core lessons from those who are further along; consider themselves special, and perhaps misunderstood; go in search of adventure, and reputation; consider themselves one from whom others can learn; shift into decline, becoming a shadow of their former self; lose need of, and use for, reputation.

Some, who care about the church, worry that the church as we know it will have died, in the West, within a generation. Others dispute that idea. I would suggest that both are wrong. The local church progresses through a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. It always has, and it always will. The church as we know it, at any moment in time, is playing a part; and if we will commit to one community over a long length of time, we will experience the changing seasons. On a regular basis, in big-picture terms, any local church dies, and a new local church rises from its tomb – and the people who make up that church at that time experience the pain of decline and death and the mess of new life – a new life that might be as unrecognisable as the resurrected Jesus, with only the marks of his suffering to identify him.

It seems to me that the temptation of the missional movement within the Church – a passion with which I identify, and a network within which I participate – is to believe that a healthy Church would always look like youthful energy and confidence, and to see churches that are moving through the sixth and seventh Acts of life – whose energy and capacity is failing – as failures.

And it seems to me that such a view would be more conformed to our wider society, with its obsession with youthful vitality and vigour, and attempts to reverse the aging process at all costs, than it has to do with being conformed to the mind of Christ.

The lesson we need to learn is that the God who is faithful in the mess and vulnerability of infancy; and in the stubbornness of childhood; and in the self-absorption of adolescence; and in the naïve confidence of young adulthood; and in the limited wisdom and far wider folly of maturity; is also faithful in the humbling shrinking of aging, and in the mess and vulnerability of dying.

We are invited to discover God’s faithfulness in every stage of communal life, by responding to the invitation and the challenge to be faithful to God and to one another through every stage of communal life.

Each changing season comes with its difficulties to be faced, requires re-ordering life. But there are things beyond all we could ask or imagine to every stage, things that we can only receive in their rightful Act.

We need to learn our parts in Acts 6 and 7, learn to bring these lines to life with sensitivity.

This, too, is something we might reflect on between All Saints and Advent.

Family Business

This post is written with friends who are developing incarnational and missional principles within traditional church contexts in mind. If that is you, I hope the post is helpful. If that isn’t you, it might not make a lot of sense. As ever on this personal blog, I am expressing personal views and not necessarily speaking on behalf of any corporate identity.

In Acts chapter 16 we see the establishment of two Christian households in Philippi: the household of Lydia, and the household of the jailer. In each case, the household is an extended community of blood relations and employees, an economic unit (oikos) with a particular family business - a ‘fashion house’ (or perhaps a ‘sweat shop,’ waiting to be redeemed), and a ‘security firm’ (again, a context ripe for transformation). It is these households that experience salvation, and become ‘local churches’ - epicentres of a cultural earthquake that will transform the cultural landscape. This is a pattern that will be repeated across the Greco-Roman world.

My observation is that our family business at Sunderland Minster is heritage. We are custodians of a building that records 1200 years, not only of Christian worship in Sunderland but 1200 years of the settlement that is Sunderland.

For some of my friends, the idea that our primary business is heritage is problematic: the church is not a museum. But for me, this is to misunderstand the role of heritage, or the place and value of museums. Museums exist to help us make sense of who we are by understanding how we have come to where we are; to draw on our history in order to resource our present and shape our future.

Heritage can be incarnational, because it is grounded in the wider community; indeed, it grounds the community. And heritage can be missional, because it shapes the context for engagement with the wider community.

Our family business is heritage. The Minster is located within Sunderland as a place of meeting, learning, belonging, and celebrating.

Our family business is heritage. This means that our closest connections are with those who connect with heritage. School groups who are looking for help to deliver their curriculum, whether in relation to religious education or history or art. Artists who are looking for a venue in which to put on an exhibition. Musicians - from opera to rock - looking for a concert venue. Business people looking for a unique setting for a charity fundraiser or an event promoting the economy of the city. And, in particular over the next four years, an opportunity to engage with the centenary anniversaries of the First World War, alongside the city council, library, museum, local historians, and others.

Heritage is our fashion house, our security firm. And just as being in fashion afforded Lydia’s household opportunity to share their life, shaped by their faith, with her suppliers and clients, so being in heritage affords us opportunities to interact with education and art and commerce. An exhibition of photographs or sculpture breaks down the false sacred/secular dichotomy and opens up all kinds of conversation about life.

This means that a key question for here is, how can we equip our people to play a part in the heritage business? That part might be as an interpreter of the building; but there will be other roles too.

For some of the people who relate to us, the relationship will go no further than a business transaction. Surely there were those who simply bought cloth from Lydia - or tents from Paul. But some of those relationships become personal, become being there for one another in good times and bad. Some of those relationships become transformational - and in both directions.

Because we are a baptised household, we set aside certain times in the week to gather together for prayer and worship. But this is not our family business. Because we seek to follow Jesus we find ways to respond to the needs of the most marginalised. But this is not our family business, either. Because we seek to follow Jesus, we must take up the commission to make disciples. But making disciples is not our family business: making disciples takes place within the spheres of our family business. These are things that will find expression, one way or another, in any Christian household. But within this city there are several churches, each engaging with different communities within the life of the city, according to the calling to which they have been called. Heritage is (clearly) not the family business of a great many churches; but it is quite legitimately the family business of others.

Part of our call as the Dowsett family has been the call to movement from place to place. In each place we have become part of a local extended household, and in each place the family business has been different. In Sheffield the family business was an urban monastery. In Liverpool, it was helping people escape from debt, or rebuild lives broken down by addiction. In Southport, it was to offer a parish community centre and community garden.

Each time we have moved, this has required us to learn new skills, and to find ways to bring our gifts and skills and experience to the service of something that might lie outside of our existing experience. I am not an expert on heritage - far from it! But I am learning. And I am asking the question, how might we make disciples within the context of heritage? Including, how might we nurture a particular ethos, and teach particular skills?

Are you (personally, collectively) clear as to what your extended family business is?

What constraints do you need to accept, in order to embrace that family business?

What training might you need, in order to invest in your family business?

Jesus-given : Teachers

Over the past year, I have been writing a series of six papers entitled ‘Jesus-given’ in which I have been developing a nuanced understanding of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers (Ephesians 4), as set out in the first paper; and exploring how we might disciple people in their particular gifting, or given-ness.

It was my hope that I would be able to complete these introductory papers before moving on from Southport, and I am very pleased to have done so, with the paper on teachers.

Thanks are due to all those who have encouraged me to write, especially Alan Hirsch; and also to those who have let me know that they have been encouraged by what I have written.

The full series can be accessed from the ‘Papers’ page at the top of my blog (just underneath the header), or below:

‘Jesus-given: living the life you were called to be’

‘Jesus-given: apostles’

‘Jesus-given: prophets’

‘Jesus-given: evangelists’

‘Jesus-given: shepherds’

‘Jesus-given: teachers’

The Household Of Peace : Part 2

I'm continuing to reflect on Luke 10, a passage which has received particular prominence within the missional church as Jesus' (timeless?) model for mission.

This passage is a particular moment within a bigger Story. I'd suggest that the Story be framed like this: of all the households on earth, God chooses the household of Abraham through which to bless all households.

God, in the visible form of three persons, goes on a journey and comes to the door of Abraham's tent, to an extended family of blood- and non-blood relations, nomadic herdsmen. And there, they receive a welcome, are shown hospitality, in marked contrast to the lack of hospitality shown them by the people of the cities of the plain.

Abraham's family are incredulous to the message brought to them, of God breaking-in to their lives, even though it is not an entirely unfamiliar word. Abraham's family are creative in their disobedience, in trying to bring about their own interpretation and fulfilment of God's plan. Abraham's family get themselves into various troubles - divisions within, deceit in their relations with others. And yet. And yet, Abraham's household has welcomed God's messenger; and God works with and through that: he does not go from house to house.

From then on, we see a recurring pattern. Abraham's household (which grows through the generations) is to be a house of peace; and out from that household, certain members will be sent out to other households, to extend that peace where it is welcomed. So Joseph ends up in first Potiphar's and later Pharoah's household. So David takes for his capital the City of Peace. So God sends prophets to Abraham's household again and again, when the household forgot its calling. So Nehemiah and Esther and Daniel, among others, find themselves serving a the heart of households of Empire.

And these stories don't have Happily Ever After endings: they are stories of divine rescue, of peace triumphing over hostility, of life triumphing over death...but not for ever. These stories have a localised place and a limited scope, within a larger Story. Joseph's life-saving rule in Egypt gives way to the oppression Moses must lead the people out from under.

Within this Story, Jesus sends out disciples to search out households of peace. Within this Story, in which the household of Abraham has been divided and (repeatedly) conquered, Jesus is sent to call the household back to its own calling: to be agents of peace in the world.

As the Story continues to unfold, beyond Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension, the same pattern continues. Abraham's household - into which the Gentiles have now been incorporated - is to be a household of peace, made up of households of peace, from which some will be sent into other households of peace in order to extend peace. And, again, these stories have a place: a time and a space.

Missional church thinking tends to view Christendom as a massive defeat from which the Church, in the West, has yet to recover. Accepting that this may be polemic, I'd want to say that Christendom was a continuation of the Story of Abraham's household - an incredulous, disobedient, divided, deceitful household that nonetheless God has committed to and will not abandon; through which God has brought about triumphs of peace over hostility, albeit not yet the universal and with-out end reign of peace. Within this part of the Story, the Church has nurtured peace, blessed and been blessed by peace-makers; and has regularly needed to be called back to that calling, having forgotten it. And the story of the Church post-Christendom will be a continuation of that same Story...

What implications does this have for us?

If Luke 10 is to be taken as model for mission (and I think that it is), then:

the household - a gathered social unit that is bigger than the nuclear, let alone atomic, family - is central. This is an extended household of peace working together, strategically, to identify and encourage other households of peace. We will see this in the way Paul works too, as he imitates Jesus;

the household does this in the context of telling and participating in the Story of a God who called a particular household through which to bless every household. They are going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, to remember how after God used Abraham's household to bless the surrounding nations through Egypt, he liberated them from the subsequent captivity that prevented them from carrying on that role at another given time. We see this too - retelling the past, participating in the present - in the way Paul works, as well as in the model Jesus sets;

the household of peace in search of households of peace is not perfect: it hasn't arrived yet (pardon the pun). It is made up of squabbling siblings who vie for best place and fall into the trap of relating to other households as a household of hostility, not peace. And yet this is the household Jesus gathers and sends out. Again, we see this imperfection - by which I mean at times total contradiction - in the households of peace Paul was a father to;

the synergy of two households of peace coming together - in passing - results in a breakthrough for peace in the wider community, expressed in a variety of tangible ways. But this breakthrough is for a particular episode in the Story. Some episodes go wider and are sustained for longer than others; some are very localised; but all are a small part in the Story, the Great Drama;

'sent-ness' is not a matter of permanently being on the move (Jesus wasn't; Paul certainly wasn't) but participates in receiving others (as host) and going out as those who are dependent on the hospitality of others (as guest). One is embedded; one is transitory (and each might be a better fit for particular types of person; though all are called to both). The one is just as 'sent,' is as much an expression of the missio dei or mission of God in the world, as the other.

Jesus-given : Shepherds

Over the course of the past year I've been working on a series of papers on discipling apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds (pastors), and teachers.

Here is the latest: my thoughts, for what they are worth, on shepherds. For those who are pastoral types, and those discipling them.

Crossing Cultures

People connect with other people, in groups of different sizes, each with its own particular strengths, and weaknesses.

There is public connecting to others. We do this, typically, as part of a large group sharing a particular interest-based experience: going to a concert, or watching a sporting event. We experience being part of something bigger than ourselves. Though most of those present are not principally involved – not performing in the band or orchestra, not playing in the team – they are, nonetheless, an integral part of what is going on. Typically, we stand, or sit, side-by-side; and do not expect to have a conversation with those around us. And we don’t do this weekly: even if you are a season-ticket holder for a team or concert hall, and you attend every event (which you probably don’t), it takes up certain times of the year.

Christians connect publically, in worship services where most of those present are not performing, but are, nonetheless, an integral part of what is going on. But we ‘aim for’ weekly attendance (they weren’t here: do you think they are ill?); and we (good Anglicans, at least) throw in an awkward Sharing the Peace moment.

There is social connecting to others. We do this, typically, in recreational ‘third places’ – co-workers in the bar for Happy Hour; children in the park after school. Here, movement and interaction are fluid, as we encounter people and make first-impression decisions on whether we want to get to know them better, or not. It is a smaller crowd than our public belongings, and involves a certain degree of conversation.

Churches tend not to connect socially so much. Where they do, they typically do so over fairly rigidly brokered terms, such as the Summer Fair – they don’t tend to be fluid – and churches tend to be so focused on their own programmes that they don’t get involved in the social connections going on in the neighbourhood around them...

There is personal belonging to others. We do this, typically, with friends, people we have some degree of shared – and growing – history with. They could be people we went to university with; they could be neighbours. We tend to get together as and when we can. In a highly mobile society, we might now live a long way apart and not see each other face-to-face particularly often. Getting together is precious; we might go away on holiday together; we probably keep in touch through social media. When we do get together, it is relaxed: there is no set agenda. Some of us might go off and do one thing, while others do something else; or, some of us might end up in the kitchen, while others end up in the garden. We probably don’t meet up in one another’s homes as much as in the park or at the beach. We talk about...anything and everything: what is going on in the news, what we are up to...

Churches are big on personal connecting. We typically do that in small groups that meet - a weekly diary appointment, a scheduled business meeting - in the home of a regular host, and sit in a room doing a Bible study.

There is intimate belonging to others. That is, friendships where we can – and do – share our secret hopes and fears, the things we need someone to know but wouldn’t want most people to know. This might be a sexual partner, or a parent, or sibling, or a longstanding friend or very small and tight circle of friends. Typically these friendships have grown over a length of time; they have not been engineered by anyone not in the group.

Churches are not as big on intimate connecting as they are on personal and public connecting. Some fear the very idea. Some put people in such positions, and hope it will work out.

What is interesting is this. People connect with other people publically, socially, personally, and intimately. This goes on around us, and may go on within our church. But the form such connections take in Christian circles is typically very different from the form they take in the culture around us. For ‘very different,’ read ‘totally alien.’

I watched an insightful talk on the Verge Network website recently, in which Todd Engstrom asked, If a missionary is someone who leaves their familiar culture in order to take the gospel to people who don’t know Jesus – people who have no hope of salvation, who aren’t empowered and sent by the Holy Spirit – then why, in seeking to bring those people into our cultural forms, are we expecting them to do the work of being a missionary, not us?

Afterword : Afterward

One last observation to make about having welcomed so many people into ‘Sacred Space’ this week: what do I hope will happen as a result?

Well, I don’t hope that those people will turn up, and keep turning up, to a Sunday morning worship service. That was neither the intention nor the expectation. I don’t want people to turn up then, for several reasons. For some, because they are members of another local church, and my hope is that they will go back and share what the Lord has done for them so that others might be blessed; not relocate, leaving others cursed (the opposite of blessed). For some, because I know that such an expectation is too great a burden, for all kinds of perfectly legitimate reasons, and it tragically misses the point to add religious burdens to the burdens people already carry. But more than that, the aim is not to grow the church; the aim is to spread the word...

My hope was this:

that the building we have been entrusted with would be used to the glory of God, to point people to Jesus, as it was intended to do;

and that the people who encounter God there would go out and tell others what the Lord has done for them.

Both these things have happened, again and again, this week.

So what do I hope will happen as a result?

I hope that God’s renown is told in this community.

I hope that the local church in this place will gain confidence in, and a reputation for, creating the kind of space in which people can find that they have been found by God.

And I hope that some of the people who have encountered God this week will not give up; and that some of the people they share their story with will not give up.

This way, I hope that we will avoid filling the church for the sake of filling the church; but that, in time, starting small – no, smaller than that – those who are seeking to be found, and to see others found, will grow, and grow. Then the alongside-effect will be what we cannot bring about: that Jesus will have grown his church.

Sacred Space : Part 3

Over the past five days, St Peter’s Church and Prayer Garden have been open 9:30am-3:30pm, as a Sacred Space. We have offered prompts – making use of the testimony of the building itself as an Ebenezer (a reminder of an encounter with God in the past) and the testimony of several Psalms – and given people as much room as they have wanted to spend time with God. We have had conversations with, and/or prayed with, those who have wanted it; allowing others to slip in and out anonymously.

We have been absolutely thrilled by the testimonies we have heard throughout the week. Firstly, just the right number of people came through the building: never so many at once that the space was too busy, but a constant trickle through the week, and a large number in all. People engaged with the five prayer stations – it was great to see people engage in ways we hadn’t suggested, as well as ways we had, taking an ownership for responding as the Holy Spirit prompted them – and really appreciated the opportunity; and afterwards, several told others, who in turn came themselves.

But over and over again, it was the Labyrinth in the centre of the building which people found to be the most profoundly moving experience. As they had moved from place to place around the building (a journey that was not dissimilar to a Labyrinth itself) they had opened themselves to God; and again and again experienced God’s Spirit speak to them, or minister deeper than words, most personally in that central space. Again and again God spoke through the twists and turns of the path.

So who came? Some were members of our own congregation, who came in two-hour blocks so that the church could be open, and found the experience deeply healing. Some were members of our sister church, who encountered God in a way that they would not at St James,’ and discovered that there are ways in which the two churches can work together and complement each other in mission. (In my opinion, this may well turn out to be the most significant lasting impact of the week.) Some visitors had historic connections with the church, such as the woman who had been christened here some seventy years ago. Others had a pastoral connection – such as the couple who came in this morning to pray before going on to the inquest into their baby daughter’s death, whose funeral I took last year (I had not known, when I sent them a personal invitation, that the inquest was this week: but God knew). Others walked in off the street, passers-by, such as a Polish man with hardly any spoken English, and his young daughter. Some were deeply distressed but knew that peace is found where God is met. Many attend external groups that hire our Parish Centre throughout the week.

Some had faith as robust as a mustard bush; others, faith as tiny as a mustard seed. Most, if not all, were in the midst of uncertain times, seeking God’s leading, one step at a time.

Sometimes we think that we need to speak on behalf of God. This often sets up a dependency between those who understand and can communicate what people need to hear, and those who lack understanding/are not eloquent speakers. It raises the educated up and puts the uninitiated down. The irony is that this is utterly opposed to Jesus, who came to set people free.

Our job is simply to take every opportunity to bring Jesus and people together;

to allow God to speak for himself (the Holy Spirit – poured out on all flesh since Pentecost – is a more effective communicator than me, and though he might speak through me, he might need not to);

and to have the same confidence Jesus showed in the Gospels in people who had just encountered him and knew nothing else going and telling others what the Lord had done for them...

Learning Together

One of the things that I get to do on a regular basis is preach a sermon. Sermons provoke various expectations (such as, ‘this will be boring’) but perhaps the most dangerous is that I am the ‘expert’ with a level of theological knowledge that the congregation cannot hope to aspire to – and indeed don’t need to because it is the specialist knowledge of my profession, the equivalent of what doctors know about the workings of the human body or civil engineers know about sewers or motorway flyovers.

That is not the expectation I want to be working with, or want anyone else to have; but it is insidious. Rather, my expectation is that my role when I preach is (or should be) to draw out the lived experience of the people of God.

Why? In part because the hope in preaching is not to impart information but to catalyse or to nurture – and perhaps to narrate – transformation. In part because the lived experience of the people of God has been lived longer and experienced deeper or wider by different members of the Body. And in part because some have lived so long and experienced so much that they have forgotten things that need to be drawn out of them once again.

When I read scripture, I listen for what the Spirit of God wants to say to my spirit about who God is, and therefore who we are (for example, the revelation that God is our Provider contains the revelation that we are those provided for: this is covenant relationship); and/or about what God is doing and wants us to join-in with (this is kingdom partnership). But that listening process is best done corporately.

This Sunday, I will be preaching, reflecting on Isaiah55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9.

I will offer my observation that the Isaiah passage reveals God’s playfulness, both in terms of how God wants to relate to us and in terms of how God chooses to teach us.

Then I will ask, does this idea – that God is playful – ring true with what we know about Jesus? Here I will suggest that the Luke passage presents Jesus responding to Big Questions (raised by the abuse of political power and culpable negligence; questions such as Why does a loving and powerful God allow suffering? Do bad people experience judgement, and good people reward?) by playfully telling a humorous story (of a man so diligently focused on what he thought was required of him that he failed to notice something else, until it was indirectly brought to his attention in a way that did not chastise or humiliate him).

I will also ask, does this idea – that God is playful – ring true with personal experience? And here, I will share stories of my own experience.

But that is by way of setting something before everyone, to say, amongst other things, what can you teach me? What have you learned of God’s playfulness that I can learn from you; that we can learn from one another; that we can learn together?

My sense is that this is something important, that we are tempted to trivialise; that this is the word that God wants to speak not only to me but to this community at this moment. My role is to give a steer. Not to impart the Right Answers.

Sacred Space : Part 2

“The job of the church is to create the space in which people can find that they have been found by God.”

I love this quote, which was recently tweeted by Bradford Diocese. Of course, that ‘space’ is in fact many spaces: the way in which we inhabit our own homes, and shape public spaces – both physical and discursive – as those who have been shown hospitality and so extend hospitality to others. It will take people discovering their calling to shape culture in particular ways, offering their particular gifts and partnering with others who have different and complementary callings and gifts. This space is far more than our own church buildings, of course; but it should never be less than that.

I often hear people say that church is not a building but the people. They are wrong. This is not an either/or reality, but a both/and reality. Historically, church buildings helped people encounter God. I think many Christians have forgotten that, choosing instead to meet in (what we mistake to be) ‘neutral’ buildings that point to our own skills and not beyond.

I serve in a place where the church as people has very little resources with which to help people encounter God. But we do have a building: a building that points to and nurtures connection with God...a building many local people have an attachment to, through family baptisms, weddings and funerals. Most of those people won’t come to a worship service – there is too much baggage, too much bad experience, or too much that is unknown and fearful about such a prospect – and yet the building itself can be missional. With appropriate direction and sensitive prompts, this sacred space may indeed be one in which people can find that they have been found by God.

I have created a (cruciform) trail around the building, and asked the congregation to give two hours of their time in order to have the building open during the day, each day next week, to welcome people and to talk and offer to pray with people if they would like, while respecting their space in this sacred space. Listed below are the prompts that will be offered, on laminated card, at each station. The ideas are specific to St Peter’s, but the principles are transferrable.

The Font

Think about the family you belong to, in all the joy and sorrow of human relationships. Hold their faces in your mind’s eye, before God.

If you are baptised, you might like to dip your finger in the water in the new font, and mark your forehead with the sign of the cross, to remind yourself that you are part of God’s family.

You might like to write a short prayer for anyone in your family or among your friends who is at (or hoping for) a new beginning: a new baby, newly-weds, a new start, a new job...

Leave your prayer in the old font.

Here are some Psalms you might like to read, on the theme of the beginning of life, and of belonging to God’s family:

Psalm 67 (page xxx)

Psalm 91 (page xxx)

Psalm 127 (page xxx)

Psalm 139 (page xxx)

Psalm 145 (page xxx)

The Lady Chapel

Sit awhile before the stained glass window depicting the empty tomb. Jesus has risen from the dead; but the women who followed him do not yet know: an angel waits to tell them. Their response would be fear and hope, uncertainty and trust.

How might we hold before God those we have loved and lost? How might we place our own lives, our own inevitable dying, in God’s hands? With fear, and hope? With uncertainty, and trust?

As you look through the stained glass, ask God to breathe his comfort and reassurance into you.

Before you move on, you might like to light a candle in remembrance of a loved one who has died.

Here are some Psalms you might like to read, on the theme of loss and living in the face of death:

Psalm 23 (page xxx)

Psalm 91 (page xxx)

Psalm 116 (page xxx)

Psalm 130 (page xxx)

Psalm 143 (page xxx)

The Choir

The universe is vast, our Earth a blue jewel teeming with life. Some things are so far off, we need a telescope; others, so small we need a microscope. The wonder of it all has inspired poets and scientists and artists and songwriters and astronauts and – well, every one of us at some time or another!

The Choir stalls are surrounded by angels, spinning in infinity, looking down on us. Sit in this space. Look up. Look around. Let your imagination take you deep beneath the ocean waves, or to distant galaxies. Do you feel small? Do you feel alone...or loved? Is this all chance? And if it is, is it meaningless? Are God and our world really incompatible, or are we held in the hands of a Creator who still sustains life?

Here are some Psalms you might like to read, on the theme of the wonder of creation and the mystery of the universe:

Psalm 8 (page xxx)

Psalm 19 (page xxx)

Psalm 93 (page xxx)

Psalm 147 (page xxx)

Psalm 148 (page xxx)

The War Memorial

Sit beneath the list of names, young men of this parish who did not return from war – from The War To End All Wars, and The War (So Soon) After That. Consider the tragedy of war, and our inability to decommission our weapons and turn them into agricultural implements (an image from the Bible). Pray for peace.

You might like to light a candle, as an expression of prayer for someone known to you who is serving in the Armed Forces: that they may be a light in the dark corners of the world; and that, fragile though they are, they might not be extinguished.

Beneath the Roll of Honour remembering those who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars, we have left a large piece of paper on which you might like to add the name of someone known to you who is serving in the Armed Forces today – a Roll of Honour for the living, who give their lives for others on a daily basis.

Here are some Psalms you might like to read, on the theme of enemies:

Psalm 3 (page xxx)

Psalm 9 (page xxx)

Psalm 37 (page xxx)

Psalm 43 (page xxx)

Psalm 46 (page xxx)

The Labyrinth

A Labyrinth is a path that leads, by a circuitous route, into a centre point and back out again. Unlike a maze, there is only one path, and you cannot get lost. It is an ancient Christian pattern of prayerful walking: away from the concerns and distractions of life, into God’s presence...from where we return to the things that concern us, strengthened by God.

If you have never walked a Labyrinth before, it may seem strange at first. Walk slowly, don’t rush. As you walk, imagine leaving behind the things that trouble you, not in search of escape – you will return – but for a while. At the centre, imagine placing those things at Jesus’ feet. Listen for any sense of what he might say to you about them. Stay as long as you need. When you are ready, walk back out again, following the path. Don’t take any shortcuts!

As the path loops around, at times you are closer to the centre and at times, further away. It is not a direct route, not an efficient route: it is a route to aid meditation. At times, our goal seems within our grasp, only to be pulled away. We set off, in search of God...and just might find that he is our companion, every step of the way.

Read Psalm 25 (page xxx).  Read slowly, take your time.  When you are ready, take off your shoes, and step into the Labyrinth...

Translators : Midwives : Convincers : Enthusiasts

Here is a link to my latest paper in the ‘Jesus-given’ series, looking at discipling evangelists.

After Al Hirsch et al, my premise in this series is that the primary vocations of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd and teacher are each nuanced by our secondary preferences, resulting in great diversity. In this case, I explore the cluster of evangelist expressions, which I term translators (Evangelist-apostles), midwives (Evangelist-prophets), convincers (Evangelist-shepherds), and enthusiasts (Evangelist-teachers).

The Next Instalment

Here is the next instalment in what I am writing – this paper on discipling prophets.  (I think there will now be a much longer gap until the next paper in the series.)

One of the things that is hinted at throughout, but which I don’t explicitly state (and perhaps need to in a revision) is this reason why we need prophetic intelligence:

We live in a society where certain voices – both for and against religious faith – are insisting that only the literal form of ‘truth’ (and, in fact, only a particular kind of literal: what is measurable) is ‘real’ truth, or at least it is the highest form of truth. This ought to be patently nonsense to anyone who has ever read a novel or been moved by music – but sadly is not – and what is most ridiculous of all about it is that it renders everything produced by humanity prior to the Modern Era as untrue.  What is literally true is true, of course: but it is the lowest and most empty form of truth, not the pinnacle. This is why we need the storyteller, the songwriter, the artist, to help us to explore the significance of the life we have learnt to measure but failed to interpret, to the extent that we can create for ourselves anything we want but fail to share with our brothers and sisters...

Writing Projects

One of the things I attempted to do in 2012 was to write a book manuscript, on vocation: the calling on each one of us to be someone in particular and to do something in particular; to receive ourselves as gift from Jesus and to offer ourselves back as gift to him and for the world.

This was a fascinating learning experience. I learned that I have allies, who believe that I have something to say that is worth saying – indeed, I embarked on the project not out of some need to do so, but because I was encouraged to do so by others whose opinion I value. I learned that people in the publishing world might take me seriously. And I rediscovered just how short and wide my attention span is, flitting from one thing to another. That I am not likely to write a full-length manuscript (at least without a sabbatical from any other commitments); and that a series of papers might in fact be a better way of saying the things that I want to say, creating a little reference library, each volume being a conversation-starter in its own right.

And so as the year comes to a close, I have put out the first and second in a series of papers online (with a permanent link from the sidebar of this blog).

The first paper is perhaps the bones and internal organs, as yet lacking the flesh we recognise as familiar; or the foundations and core structure, the visible building yet to be entered: things that are essential, but will remain hidden to most.

My intention over 2013 is to produce several much shorter papers, filled with stories that illustrate what different kinds of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers look like – to help us to see ourselves, in the nuance of our calling; to receive ourselves as gift from Jesus and to offer ourselves back as gift to him and for the world. The second paper looks at apostles.

Understanding Strength And Weakness

In Ephesians 4:1, Paul urges the believers in Asia Minor to live a life worthy of the calling they have received.  What is that calling?  Certainly, he speaks of unity and of maturity, but that is not our primary calling: rather, Paul goes on to speak in terms of specific calling – to be an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a shepherd or a teacher – a calling which is to be expressed in unity with the specific calling of other believers, for the purpose of attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  Paul knew his calling – to be an apostle – and urged others to discern their calling too.  How can we live a life worthy of the calling we have received if, unlike Paul, we don’t know what our calling is?

Here, at least in England, we run into a particular difficulty: a pious obsession that our gifts, strengths, and areas of competence are at worst a trap, causing us to operate without God; and at best irrelevant, because God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.  After all, didn’t Jesus say this very thing to Paul himself?

No, he did not, and this pious obsession is a gross distortion of the passage it cites (2 Corinthians 12).

The weakness Jesus refers to in addressing Paul is a position of weakness that is caused by external opposition.  Writing to a church he established and where, in his absence, others have come in who oppose him, Paul recognises that this has been a recurring pattern in his ministry.  Indeed, he had broached the subject with Jesus no less than three times, making use of a scriptural phrase - ‘barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides’ (Numbers 33:55, 56) – referring to people who, unless driven out, will lead God’s people away from him and into trouble.  In the past, Paul had followed the instruction of Numbers 33:55, 56, in persecuting the dangerous followers of the Way.  Such action is no longer open to him; instead he pleads with Jesus to intervene on his behalf.  Jesus responds (on the third occasion? repeated three times?), “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  That the weakness he refers to is external is clear in Paul’s response, to “delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.”

Commentators have tended to ignore the plainest meaning of Paul’s case, engaging in speculation as to the possible nature of a bodily condition that afflicts him (an eye complaint? malaria?).  While such suggestions are still distinguished from personality preference, they are sufficiently internalised as to facilitate the interpretation of ‘weakness’ as being ‘those things we are not gifted in’ and the case is therefore presented that God is more able to work through our incompetence.  If I had a Pound Sterling for every time I have heard such an argument, I’d be a rich man.

This may well tie in with a very English unease with competence (though if we are ever going to address that, the summer of our best ever Olympic performance – not to mention, delivering a spectacular Games – is as good a time as any).

Throughout history, God has looked for people to partner with him.  The idea that he would make you as a person with particular gifts and then prefer to ignore what he had made is ludicrous.

God will invite you to step outside of your comfort-zone, the sphere of your present competence, for a number of reasons including these:

because discovering what you are not gifted for is one of the ways in which we discover what we are gifted for;

because experiencing those things we are not gifted at is one of the ways in which we grow to appreciate the different gifts of others;

because persevering for a season in what is not our best preference adds depth and roundedness to our strengths;

because the starting place for all competency is incompetency.

However, Jesus’ intention for you is neither naive incompetence nor omni-competence.  It is that you discover your calling and grow into it, so that you can live a life worthy of that calling.  It is that each member of the body of Christ should fundamentally be the particular gift they were created to be, learning to work together as opposed to trying to be and to do what someone else was given to be and to do.

Too often we ask people to operate in what is not their calling, because that seems easier than identifying the person whose call is best suited (and, after all, Jesus’ power is made perfect in weakness).  It never seems to work in the long-term, but if we just do a better job of explaining why we need them perhaps we can keep them in that role longer...

When Paul wrote to the church in Asia Minor, he was experiencing the particular weakness of another external constraint: he was in prison.  This, however, did not equate to an undermining of his internal strength, his calling to be an apostle.  It simply meant that how that calling was worked-out looked different from when he was free – writing rather than travelling.

Right now, your external circumstances might be such as to put you in a position of weakness.  If so, know that Jesus’ grace is sufficient for you.

But that is not the same thing as having no regard for strength, for the gift Jesus has given you to be.

Play to your strengths.  Invest in them.  Allow the Lord to train you in them.  Let other people seek to constrain you with weakness if they so choose; but don’t give weakness your energy.  To paraphrase Jesus, “let it go: you attend to whom I have made you to be, and do it to the fullness of the gifting I have given you.”