benedson

40x40x40: Day 9

the liturgy of life patterns my day
moments of quiet
moments of chaos


within all this
a pattern

a pattern that gives meaning
that shapes my identity
that sustains my soul


the liturgy of life
the pattern of the ordinary

 

40x40x40: Day 8

the days gather pace
habits form
patterns develop
momentm is established
should this be easy?

and yet i know

this
is
temporary

without expectation
i grind to a halt
in the middle of a thought process
my words fail me

40x40x40: Day 7

the monotony of the journey starts to bore
7 days gone
33 to go...
i'm counting down

yet there are glimmers of meaning
sparks of light
moments where i see you.

fracturing the monotony
and bringing light to my path

40 x40x40: Day 6

vanity, vanity, my blog is vanity.
what is gained from all my toil?
visitors come and visitors go,
all is vanity.

the quest for hits
the quest for links
the quest for a HT
vanity, vanity my blog is vanity.

ht - David Keen

40x40x40: Day 5

40 images:40 videos:40x40 words:40 days:day 3

Solitude.
time for me,
time for God,
time to be,
time my most precious friend.

.....

the hours slip away and I mourn their passing,
my solitude is gone,
my time is gone.
my most precious friend has become my foe.

Church and Spin

I met up with Tim Synder this week, and had a great converstaion with him about church, justice and mission.  He was interviewing me for a piece of research that he is doing and finished the interview by asking me, what is it that  going on under the surface that is not being said?  Great question, and one that had me pondering for a while.  I responded and have continued to reflect on my response since. 

Firstly, I am supportive of the movement formerly known as the emerging church (maybe we need a symbol), I still think that the term has validity, but think that we are going through and important maturing process.  During that maturing process I would suggest that alot of the hype will be pulled down and communities will get on with what they are about: mission.

However, my first comment refered to the self-referenial and self-defining nature of the emerging church. This was most apparent in the Gibbs and Bolger book where leaders of emerging church communities told the researchers what they were like, we self-defined, and this self-definition also refered to people within the movement.  Gibbs and Bolger concluded, for example, that we were centered aroun Jesus because we told them that they were.  This maybe factual correct but it is lacking a critical voice.

This self-referencing happens online aswell, I publically say that 'so-and-so' is a great prophetic voice, they then say that I am, others chip in and gradually we build the one another up until we believe the hype...but there is a danger that it can be self-generated spin...I can publically associate myself with a person because I want to be seen in the same light as them.  Peer review seems to be the way that we gain credibility and whilst peer review is valid it is also homogenous and is not as critical as it could be.

I also commented on the place of justice with the emerging church.  Whilst in my final year with Sanctus1 I used to walk from a Church in a UPA in inner city Manchester to the affluent city centre.  10 minutes walk but world apart, there is something profoundly wrong sociologically when these two exist alongside each other.  Every time I made that walk I knew that Christ would be walking with the poor and marginalised, obviously the rich have a place in God's kingdom, but in my reading of the text God sits with the poor and marginalized.  The emerging churches that are seriously engaging with issues of serious social deprivation are minimal and should cause us to self-reflect on our priorities.

 


 
 

Sacramental Missiology

I often talk about God being present and active in the world; I cannot believe that there are no-go areas for God. I believe that God is in the darkest places. However, I have always had a tension about this approach, which is quite simply: ‘If God is everywhere then conversely God is nowhere’.

There is a real statement of hope in the idea that God is in all things, but at the same time there is also a deep naivety to it. There was a time when I was in Namibia, 100 or so miles south of the Angolan borer and we had to go to a water hole to collect water. People travelled from miles around to be there, I encountered real poverty and malnutrition there and this had the potential to crush any sense of hope that I had…And yet deep within me is the theological conviction that God was there; that God can be and is revealed in the hardest places. To distinguish that flicker of light would distinguish the light of the world.

So I’m caught in a place of dialogue, a place where these two, perhaps opposing ideas, need to work out how they can co-exist. As I reflect on this I’ve been reading about the sacramental potentiality of the universe, and this is enhancing the dialogue and helping me as I explore missiology. If we have a missiology that is focused on the belief that everything has the potential to be sacramental it significantly opens up this conversation. By becoming sacramental the objective reality becomes a window into the sacred – a piece of music has the sacramental potentiality within it, but it needs to be recognised and named. Even in the darkest places there is the sacramental potential and often this sacramental potential is bursting to be released.

I’d suggest that sacramental potential is always there but it can be latent. The sacramental potential of the ordinary is always there, and the role of mission is to name and open the sacramental potentially in the ordinary everyday. The role of the missionary is not to take God to a new place, the role of the missionary is to open people’s eyes to see the sacramental nature of the ordinary, and through gazing at the ordinary the extraordinary person of Christ.

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Hookers for Jesus

Porn-again ex-sex workers save souls...

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Virginity the last taboo | flirty fishing

On Sunday I got a copy of The Observer. There was an article in called 'Is Virginity the last taboo?' Fascinating piece about Christianity, virginity and 'beautiful people'. The article contained a number of images of attractive Christian women who had chosen not to sleep with their partner, or potential partner until marriage. I read the article, recognised a few names and then a church was mentioned - St. Mary's, in London.

St Mary's is a very media-savvy church and I started to think about how the article came about, did a reporter see all these beautiful people and want to write a piece about them? Did a freelancer submit the article? Did the church think that this would be a good way to promote itself? I wonder...

One of my favourite Louis Theroux episodes involved a time when he went Flirty Fishing with a Christian cult in the US. Flirty fishing involves taking your most beautiful women onto the streets and using them as 'bait' for the gospel. Is the article a a media-savvy version of flirty fishing? I wonder...anyway watch the clip below, it's rather amusing!

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