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The Fantasy Cyle and Fresh Expressions: Nightmare

As we move towards the end of the cycle the nightmare kicks in.  However, I want  to say right at the start that the nightmare doesn't necessarily lead to death wish.  The cycle is still breakable and death is not predestined.  Nightmare comes on the back of frustration and I think that it is a stage that we need to go through - everything will not always be rosy...

It's hard to qualify what exactly a nightmare is, it could be caused by a variety of different things but my experience was that is was not one thing but a building of a variety of different factors, until the realisation hit that things were tough.  You'd been suspecting it for a while but all of a sudden you're fire-fighting and those hopeful dreams seem so far away.  I think that the nightmare is the hardest stage to break, because usually there will be pastoral crisis' that need dealing with as well. 

It's not simply a case of re-ordering, as that just papers over the cracks, it's doing the hard work with your community that exposes you to the brokenness of the cross. It's the time that you cry with people in their brokenness and your brokenness, it's the time that you realise that it's not all easy, it's when you encounter the cross. Yet, perhaps the hardest thing about this stage is that you still get the 'tourists', still get the people looking to see the dream and they don't find it.  They find a community working out it's identity in their brokenness...

I think that we hit the night-mare stage once in Sanctus and managed to move away from it into a new phase of life.  Yet, it was a tough, tough time but I learnt so much through it.  I discovered the church for the odd-balls, the excluded, the marginalized and the most broken.  In this brokeness the brand, the image, the gloss was just that, gloss.  I also discovered the loneliness of leadership and the cost of making hard decisions.

The night-mare is a real stage, we often move over it to quickly into death and don't really process the pains of it.  We want to die in a blaze of glory, rather than writhing in pain and struggling for breath on the cross. 

The Fantasy Cyle and Fresh Expressions: Dream

Just to remind you the cycle goes like this: Anticipation - Dream - Frustration - Nightmare - Death Wish



The dream stage is not when you're dreaming about all the possibilities, it's when you're living the dream.  It's all going so well that you can hardly believe that you needed to go through all that training, if an OPM, to do this.  The FX is flourishing, there is energy and excitement about what the future holds and all that you seem to touch turns to gold.  Please note...it doesn't last!

There are a great deal of opportunities in the dream stage as it is a time where foundations can be built for the future.  The dream time is when you get asked to do everything!   You're perceived as a success and it seems that the Church is attracted to success.  The temptation for the pioneer is to believe the hype, but as Public Enemy remind us don't believe the Hype, and more importantly make sure that the community doesn't believe the hype...

However, the problem with the dream stage is that it creates unrealistic expectations as to what the FX will be like in the long term.  People start to think that it will always be like this; always be easy and hence when things change - as they will - the memory of what has been becomes a powerful comparison to the present.  I would often meet people in Sanctus1 who would say, 'It used to be like this...' presenting a memory of a utopian dream that in reality was very different.  The dream is an unstainable phase, it attracts the consumer rather than the disciple and hence the dream needs to be a phase of high cost discipleship.

The dream stage is one that we encountered at different points in Sanctus1 as the cycle is more cyclical than the linear way in which it is laid out.  We'd hit frustration, and then we'd change things and for a while the dream would be reignited and energy levels high again.  Then due to the transient nature of the context and hence the community the dream would end.

The hard part is breaking the cycle of dream to frustration.  If this is broken the fantasy cycle gets broken and we move into something more permanent.  However in a transient context, where different people enter at different points, the dream and frustrations are different depending on the time you entered the cycle.

Frustrations can lead to real growth in a community, but I'm going to leave my thoughts on frustrations for another few days...
 

The Pope, Mission and Unity

The Pope has come and gone, and after four days of media focus on him I'm begining to articulate some of my thoughts about his visit. I was initially quite alarmed at many of the anti-pope comments that were posted of facebook, not by atheists, but by protestant Christians.  Many of these were due to the Pope's ethical stance on issues such as abortion, contraception and homosexuality and other comments due to the child sex abuse scandals that have rocked the church.  On these issues my socially liberal leanings, and desire for justice, I agree with the opinion that the the catholic church has got it very wrong.

However, I was still alarmed at the anti-pope rhetoric that was being used by so called missionally minded Christians.  I think that unity plays a very significant part in our theology of mission, and hence when I see division being created through language or action I have to question it.  My theology of mission says that mission is an overflowing of the love of a Trinitarian God, a love that grows out of the unity of the father, son and spirit. It is that unity that enables the mission to happen, enables the son to be sent, as without that unity the son is not sent from a place of love.  Mission and Unity go together. 

How then do I, as a protestant Christian, relate to the Pope?  Do I ask to be ex-communicated from Rome?  Do I insist on calling him Jospeh rather than Benedict?  No,I think that I strive for unity - unity in diffence - but in that unity I carry the hurt and the pain of the people abused, the gay people, those who have had abortions and I cry with them in their hurt.  I stand with the hurt people in the Catholic church feeling let down by their Priests, confused by their Pope but striving for a better world and a more just society.  Somehow I convinced that seeking a common sense of unity and standing with my rather conservative brother is what I am called to do rather than pointing the finger and saying that my denomination is better than yours.

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.

 


 
 

Facebook, memory and truth

I've been on facebook now for over six months now and a few things have happened recently that have caused me to reflect on the relationship between facebook, memory and truth. I recently made a facebook friend with a person whom I've not seen for about 28 years. It was the girl that I first kissed, so in some ways a very significant memory. When I saw that she had requested to be friends with me I hovered over the accept button wondering what this would do. By saying yes, there is the potential that my memory of that first kiss, will be changed forever, whatever I had constructed in my mind as the truth of that innocent childhood kiss would be challenged by this. Memory constructs truth, we remember what we want to in a particular way and suppress those memories that we chose to deny. By becoming a facebook friend with this person my memory was going to be challenged, and my truth of that particular moment would be altered.

Following on from my previous post regarding absolute truth I've been re-reading Miroslav Volf's stunning book: 'Exclusion and Embrace'. Volf explores the relationship between truth and memory and how those who hold power in the present have control on the memory of the past. History is almost always written from the side of the victor and therefore a certain deception takes place as marginalised voices are quieted and the losers voice is silenced.

When we apply this to our personal lives maybe our memories construct a truth of the past, of a particular moment and as that moment gets further and further away it becomes more idealized. It becomes a memory that has no real bearing to reality, yet in a strange way it still holds a very powerful truth within it. My memory of that particular moment is true, but the question is can we accept that as true without wanting to find out the actual facts of the situation?

This of course has massive implications on the way that we read particular religious texts, which were of course constructed from memory. Does the text become an idealized account of the reality of the moment? and when we look back on Christian history we read from the side of the people who constructed what truth was in this context. We read from the side of the powerful truth holder rather than the side of the oppressed. My question is: Is this a bad thing?

Should we always be looking back to try and find the true historical Jesus? Or can we accept the truth of the construct that we've got of him at this present time, that truth maybe idealized, it may not be historically accurate but it maybe that the truth of the memory is more valuable that the truth of the reality, and it could be that the idealized picture has a greater bearing on the truths that need to be challenged in contemporary society.

Moving back to facebook, it seems to me that facebook is destroying memory as a constructer of truth by allowing that memory to become a reality. What if i discovered that the person who I shared my first kiss with had then gone on and kissed one of my brothers, (she didn't btw), my memory of that moment would be warped, it'd be changed and perhaps that is not healthy. Perhaps idealized memories are better than the reality of a moment.

I don't think it's as simple as a straight divide between either memory as the constructor of truth or the historic reality as the constructor of truth. There will be times when we need to go back to the historic reality, times when memory can be used to oppress and therefore the historical truth needs to be discovered. But maybe just, maybe there are time when the memory as constructor of truth is a positive thing and the truth of the idealized account of the memory is a more healthy truth than the historical truth of a moment.

Technorati Tags: Ben Edson, facebook, memory, truth, Volf

The interpretation of the evolution of...

Here is my interpretation of the cartoon in the previous post.

Stage 1: I read a number of comments on blogs saying 'it's funny 'cause it's true...' I think I'd like to say that 'it's sad because it's true'. At the extreme the movement in theology, which is then outworked in worship, is from one position of power 'God told me so' to another 'Father knows best'.

I'm also wondering whether the 'alt-worship' guy is also a position of power within this...but i'm still formulating that.

Stage 2 - The arrow was added to highlight that the movement can go both ways. I read from left to right and therefore whilst this was no explicitly spelt out in the first cartoon it was implicitly there. The movement goes both ways...

Stage 3 - The cyclical nature of this evolution highlights that it is not an evolution at all. We start in the same place that we begin. A place where we are either defined against something, or our definition is so strong that there is a lack of integration with the previous way of worshipping. The movement can be either way and perhaps there can even be arrows connection all the stages.

Stage 4 - You break the cycle, you can worship authentically in a catholic environment and authentically in a charismatic one. You recognise the vastness of God and move beyond neatly defined worship styles to encounter God in a diversity of ways.

I know a nun. She loves and has a deep reverence of the sacraments, and she has an authentic catholic faith. Yet, I have been with her when she has been dancing in the spirit and praying in tongues for the healing of people. She is not defined by one or another but is humble enough to be open and respectful of both traditions.

Technorati Tags: Ben Edson, spirituality, theology

The Evolution of the evolution of the worshipper

Original cartoon from Dave Walker of course...

I'll offer an interpretation in a few days, and I'll never be a master of photoshop. And yes the final image does look like kali!

Technorati Tags: Ben Edson, theology

Hard Questions Tour: Angela Tilby

I've been at the Hard Questions day in Manchester today. Angela Tilby was exploring Catholic ecclesiology and contemporary mission. Here are my notes and thoughts on what she was saying.

I thought that the picture of the tradition church that she was painting was a utopian christendom ideal, it was a picture of a church that existed outside of culture, and culture did not have an influence on it. She felt that there was not much that we could gain from sociology and that we should be looking to the past more.

The church lives in time, it runs in time, history is formative, theme running through history from the beginning – history, church and mission go together. I wondered where the future hope was in this...

She commented that there seems to be either 'a theme park' approach to tradition, where we just pick at it without really understand it or a fundamentalist approach to it where it takes over and people become fundamentalist in their approach to history. She was looking for a third way...

She felt that Fresh Expressions were not liturgical enough and that the body of Christ is formed in it’s liturgy. Robust belief that worship and liturgy forms identity. However, I commented that i thought that she was being too narrow in her understanding of Fresh Expressions. She had not recognise the creative ways that the emerging church is engaging with liturgy.

She was calling for a disengagement with culture and paradoxically through that transform it. My comment would be that the catholic movement is not a disengagement with culture it is still engaged with the culture of christendom...

Technorati Tags: Fresh Expressions, Hard Questions Tour