benedson

Sanctus1 and The Message

I was speaking at the Manchester Centre for Public theology last thursday, we were exploring how the church engages with young people. I spoke about Sanctus1 (although the average age is prob 30 and the oldest person is probably in their late 40's, but that's young in the eyes of the church) and Anna spoke about the Message and their work with the eden teams in manchester.

I've never been in a place where we're being compared with The Message before, mainly because we're a very different animal. However, Anna spoke well and, although i'm not a big fan of The Message's large scale events, i think that the work that they do with The Eden projects is fantastic.

Chris Baker from WTF, was summing up and had some really interesting thoughts, highlighting the difference but complimentary nature of Sanctus1 and The Message. The first one, and the one that I've been pondering on is that one is far more focused on 'the word' the other is focused on the image. The image can be interpreted in a number of ways, the word, in this example, is fairly straight forward. We are very image focused in Sanctus1, whether film or Art, and i think that that beauty of that is that we have a variety of interpretations. However, i think that we were all once individually in a place where we needed it straight down the line...

Technorati Tags: Manchester, The Message, Sanctus1

Just Fishing?

Yesterday's lectionary reading was Jesus calling the first disciples and telling them that he'd make then fishers of people. I had to preach at St. Ann's so thought that I'd share some of my thought here.

I find fishing a slightly crude metaphor when I think about mission and evangelism. I think mainly because, it requires taking away freedom and killing fish! I’m sure that fish preferred to be swimming free in the water rather than being caught in a net. I don’t want evangelism to be about taking away freedom or life.

Fishing with a rod is not much better either, it tricks the fish, it makes the fish think that they’re going to eat something when really they’ll falling into a trap. I remember watching a TV programme a few years ago about a Christian cult called ‘The family’ in the states, and their methods of evangelism. They employed a method called ‘Flirty Fishing’ where they’d use attractive young women to go out as bait to draw the men into their church.

So what then should evangelism look like? I find it really helpful to look at what our motivation for evangelism should be, and with this is mind I find John 10:10 helpful ‘I have come in order that you might have life - life in its fullness’. Our evangelism should be about giving life in its fullness, it should be about bringing freedom rather than taking it away. I therefore want to push a missiology that is about bringing life to people, about restoring humanity and about bringing justice to the world. My evangelism is motivated by a desire to see people living life in its fullness and I would suggest that this is the role of the church. The church should be a place where people come to receive life, a place of opportunity and place that celebrates the gift of humanity and also a place that recognises the injustices in the world and works to overcome them. Evangelism should be motivated by Gift. We have this wonderful gift to give, the gift of Christ and all we need to do is believe that that people want to receive that gift.

Technorati Tags: Discipleship, Evangelism, Fishing

missional and inclusive?

A few days Malcolm posted on the tensions of a missional community. I thought that i'd pick up on a few of his thoughts, really to question whether an ethical community can ever really be missional and inclusive.

An ethnical community needs definition and there appear to be two ways that this definition is sought, one relies on patriotism and the other on nationalism: Patriotism gives people a choice about joining the ethical community, to join the ranks all that is required is that one makes the right choice and remains loyal to it through thick and thin for ever after.

Nationalism, on the other hand, is more like the Calvinist version of salvation or St. Augustine’s idea of free will: it puts little trust in choice – you are either ‘one of us’ of you are not, and in either case you can do nothing to change it

There is a subtle but important distinction here; patriotism welcomes a diversity of people into the community and then assimilates them, nationalism, on the other hand, rejects people who are not like them. Whilst patriotism is, at least on the face of it, more hospitable and tolerant it still seeks homogeneity. Patriotism seeks homogeneity by assimilation whereas nationalism seeks it be exclusion. Both ideologies have a remarkably similar result as neither of them allow people to belong whilst staying attached to their differences; to belong you must become like us. You could argue that by being patriotic for the church you we are being missional - you are encouraging people to make life choices that affirm that they are like you: a follower of Christ.

However this is not how unity is best achieved. It is best achieved without nationalism or patriotism but through a process of negotiation and conciliation of our natural differences. Therefore, rather than seeking to assimilate or exclude others we except the diversity of living in a modern pluralist society and you become a totally inclusive community with no boundaries.

Which one should the church seek to be?

Technorati Tags: missional, ethical community

Alan Hirsh starts to blog

Alan Hirsh has started to blog, I'm sure they'll be some interesting posts over the coming months, see here.

Technorati Tags: blogs, Alan Hirsch

Manchester MBS Photos

And I've put the Manchester Mind Body Spirit fair photos on line too.

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Technorati Tags: Dekhomia, Manchester, Mind Body Spirit

Dekhomai - Day two

Today went well, I thought that I'd pick a card from the Jesus deck again to start the day. The verse that it referred to was Matthew 9: 36 which says 'When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd'. I couldn't help but make the connection between all these people coming into MBS, prob. over 12,000 and the fact that all of them are seeking a shepherd to guide them. The shepherd in MBS is the guru, the healers, the reiki practitioners, the healers...

I spoke with the people from Aura-Soma to start the day, I asked them if they'd had a good day yesterday and they responded 'yes, we made over £1000.' says alot really...

BTW faithspace is having an interesting discussion about MBS.

Technorati Tags: Gift, Manchester, Mind Body Spirit, spirituality

Dekhomai - Day one

it was great to be at MBS this morning, i went in early and set up the stand - we're next to Alison from Everyday Angels who i always have fascinating conversations with about the most recent angel that she has channelled. Her current angel is called the angel of truth...fascinating.

On the stand we offer prayer for healing, foot massage and we also use the Jesus Deck to explore peoples life stories through the gospel stories. The pack of cards looks like tarot cards with each card having an image and story from one of the Gospels on it, we get people to select a card and then share thoughts and comments around that card with them. It's just like opening the bible and randomly pointing at a passage of scripture...

Just before we started Laura picked a card out, and it was the story of the Inn keeper letting in the Mary and Joseph when there was no room at the Inn...a story of welcome, that ties in nicely with the theme of the stand...maybe there is something in pointing at random verses in the bible...

One again i was struck by the value of Gift in this context - in a place where everything costs money ther can be no greater prophetic criticism than a free offering of time, resources and prayer

Technorati Tags: Dekhomia, Gift, Mind Body Spirit, spirituality

Anti-intellectualism

There were a load of comments on this blog about intellectualism in the emerging church. I think that comments have been taken out of context and I feel that they need to be re-framed in their correct context. The comments 'encouraged an engagement with deep thinkers that connect theology and culture' but were simply questioning whether this particular event was the right place for that to take place. My reading is that the comments were not anti-intellectual but were wanting an event to be more inclusive.

My response is that each blah... cannot aim to reach everyone - if it does then each one will lack definition and focus. Different blah's... reach different people and granted this one may only reach 'middle class intellectuals'. If this was the case for all of them I'd be concerned, but it is not.

Technorati Tags: Blah..., emerging church, mission

New blogs added

Just added Matt Stone and Phil Johnston's blogs to my blog list...IMHO two of the leading blogs on missiology and contemporary spirituality.

Technorati Tags: mission, spirituality, theology

Spiritualities of Life, Religions of difference and Religions of humanity...

Since the MBS fair last week I've been thinking a bit about contemporary spirituality whilst reading 'Religion in Modern Times'. I'm trying to get my head around the process of sacralization and where the emerging church fits into the wider sociological framework.

Heelas and Woodhead identify three varieties of religion: Spiritualities of Life, Religions of Difference and Religions of humanity (these are then further divided down into a variety of sub-sections). Quite interestingly different stalls at the MBS fair would fall into all three categories but the majority would be 'Spiritualities of Life'.

This is an over simplification but:

• Within a Religion of Difference authority is attributed, first and foremost, not to human beings or nature but to the transcendent. Humanity is saved by a God outside rather than a god within.

• Within a Religion of Humanity great authority is attributed to humanity and the goodness of humans.

• Within a Spirituality of Life divinity is located within self and nature

Religions of Humanity are in decline whereas Spiritualities of Life and Religions of Difference are growing. Christianity falls into both Religions of Difference and Religions of Humanity - the Christian versions of Religions of Humanity are the ones which are struggling the most largely because they have sold out to a secular world-view that relocated God in the privatized realm.

There can be no doubt that the emerging church is a Religion of Difference (believing in a transcendent God) yet my perception would be there would be a rejection of the dualism within this thinking and also a positive view of humanity, hence we draw from Religions of Humanity. I think that we need to recognise the common ground with Spiritualities of Life, affirming the value of self and nature as being made in the image of God and yet affirming God's transcendence too.

At the MBS fair it is easy to walk around and unhelpfully spot 'heresy', however, I think that the missiological task is to recognise what God is doing in this context already and to work alongside God in his ongoing work. The next step is to attempt to explore what church looks like for people who follow a Spirituality of Life...I'm not yet aware of anyone who has established a Christian community with the MBS context...can anyone tell me otherwise as i'd love to chat with them!

Technorati Tags: mission, spirituality