Author Archives: Richard Passmore

A new way of being Christian and/or the ancient future faith

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Instinctively I think we need to find a new (and rediscover some of the old) ways of being Christian, particularly if we are going to help people connect in the dance. I was talking about this on Facebook and a good friend asked me what I meant. My reply was it was at all levels sociologically, functionally, eccesiologically, culturally etc.
I don’t think we realise just how masked, how clouded and how hidden the message of love has become behind the layers poor behaviour, intolerance, judgment, harshness, unkindness, exclusivity, insistution, and general ineptitude.
The task of the Christian in every generation, in every culture, in every situation is to love. It is to start at the beginning with the words of Jesus and accept that no matter how hard they are they cannot be changed. To love our neighbour, to love our enemy, to forgive 70 x 7, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile calls us to find ways beyond judgement, unkindness, intolerance. I love the way Stephen Backhouse talks in the latest Nomad podcast states how when it comes to just war (and many other issues) we simply have to put Jesus in the “no column”. We might have great reasons, sociological, cultural, intellengence, for just war but you just can’t get beyond that Jesus says love your enemy.

The reality is that Jesus is the still point in the turning world, and his words take us far beyond just war. So we have to find ways to be honest with our selves and our neighbors about this reality but equally honest how we fail to live up to those ideals, how we come up with systems of thinking and ways of operating that help us function, acknowledge that whilst these might go someways towards love be honest that in many ways that are pale imitations of the words of Jesus. Honest that our walls are more about protecting us from the words of Christ that actually call us beyond. That our safety and security is still found in the paypacket, rather than like the birds of air somewhere else.
Perhaps when i can be that honest with myself, g-d and my neighbours i start to work out what this Jesus is really all about and call those walls to dust.

Keep pushing out 2

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There are many days I want to simply curl up. It’s takes energy to push out, to make preparations, to set sail. In the past decade or so it has been so encouraging to see the spectrum of churches wake up to breadth of the call of G-d. The gospel speakers increasingly act and the gospel socialists increasingly speak.
The motivation for these shifts can be legion, an aniexty, a new learning, a different perspective, keeping up with the Joneses, a fear of death. However I like to think it is out of genuine love as people recognise the needs around them.

In the midst of these changes it is easy to embrace the homogeneousisation and loose the distincitivness of the pioneer charism. I need to be in relationship with the wider church but I need to be me and I need you to be you. That is not to say we shouldn’t change but recognise the holiness to the process, that wrestling with who we are and what we do and how we act is a part of the Christian story we must never let go. Authentic questioning is a beautiful affirmation of life as it demonstrates we are alive. So as we grow, as we mature, give space for and embrace the difference, and those of us who seem to moving in from the edge dont stop kicking.

Keep pushing out 1

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A minister would eat breakfast each day in the garden. A moment of quiet, and chance to take in life, to see the detail of the flowers and nature. One morning she saw a beautiful butterfly emerge from its chrysalis. The next day she noticed a caterpillar climbing the trunk of the same tree, the minister thought to the caterpillar this trunk must have been a mountain. The caterpillar edged up and then along a branch finally reaching the succulent leaves. The minister was amazed at the caterpillars effort, persistence and encouraged to climb her own mountain, and edge further out. The next day the caterpillar had feasted it’s was through many leaves and the minister saw it start to form a chrysalis, and each day she watched it patiently as it hung on the branch. One morning she noticed the chrysalis start to twitch, and was excited to see the beautiful butterfly that was to emerge. The effort that the caterpillar seemed to be putting into emerging from its wrapping reminded her of the mountain it had climbed to get succulent leaves. So carefully she helped peel back the outer layers, to make the great emergence easier, but now when butterfly came forth, it was too weak to fly and devoid of all colour.

Beyond the argument to earthing

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As a sophisticated society we can construct many arguments against God, and apologetics can deconstruct some of these, and so we can go on round and round. Likewise people of faith can construct many arguments and others can deconstruct. The sophistication of humanity means either side this can construct seeming meaningful arguments for science and theology through logic and reason, and yet it is the development of science, philosophy and science that a over many years begins to pull the rug out.

I am a huge fan of CS Lewis but Maybe like Lewis moved away from apologetics into fiction and art, Do we need to let the theologian and scientist fade to help us earth lives of love?

Everything’s commodified

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Everything is commodified. The idea that happiness is just around the corner is so deeply embedded in our capitalist society and psyche, we seek the next thing and commodify not just stuff, but also ways of being. It’s so embedded that even the idea of living simply has been commodified. For me I often think if I could just shed this stuff, get rid of the clutter, live more simply then I would have the time do x or y. So in the end we commodify x or y and even time itself.

How do we break this circle, can we defend ourselves against idea that happiness is just around the corner? For many faith is the answer, it helps us debunk the societital myths around us. Yet for many faith itself is rooted in this commodification process, (at one level it’s what Nitchze was saying), we think we have replaced the capitialist system with a faith system, but we have not replaced the desire and myth that happiness is just around the corner, if we just pray more, if we just get deeper into the bible, or even at a more basic level; it will be okay in the end in heaven. That sort faith is rooted in capitalist desire and with a transaction at its core.

So now I’m stuck, as I’m thinking, is even the desire to break the notion of desire a problem….

Here’s everything

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Who do you hang out with? Who knows you? whose door can you knock on and say here’s everything? Here’s the joy here’s the crap, here’s behind the scene, here’s my heart on my sleeve. If you have that person, or maybe a few people that you share different stuff with, do they have the permission to ask about everything that’s behind the everything, the desires that have shaped the everything? Who helps you unpack the roots of your desires, your place in a system that promises more, (and if of certain faith traditions how they play into that) and even that maybe even the desire to be free is a product shaped by that system that says happiness is just around the corner if you just do this or that.

Does G-d exist outside relationships?

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Every now and then someone reports on if young people are interested in God, or spirituality, or something of that ilk. Good reports like Buried Treasure, in depth stuff like Faith of Generation Y, and recently a small scale research piece called No questions asked.

One of the questions I always come back to in this sort of research is where is relationship within the context of the research, and what role does relationship play in asking these sort of questions? I often test out the questions used with young people I have an ongoing connection with, and without fail get into great discussions around faith, spirituality and life. Often for obvious research reasons, the research is conducted outside of the context of ongoing relational youth work. So whilst I could argue about research paradigms and the role of researchers, the question I really want to ask is; does God exist outside of the context of relationship?

I am always fascinated by the communal nature of the trinity, the relational and incarnational aspect of God. It also seems from reading the various documents that more often than not when relationship is excluded as a variable, the god talk doesnt happen, but when included it does. What is going on here? Is it as simple as people need to feel comfortable or known to talk, or is it more?

It’s natural that young people don’t talk about about God in a vacuum, as for most people the natural evidence is that God doesn’t exist. So is it supernatural that people do talk about God in the context of ongoing relationship? Is God being made more manifest in those conversations? Are miracles occurring in the lives of young people, as despite the natural everyday evidence that God isn’t real, they want to talk?

Does G-d exist outside the context of relationship?

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Every now and then someone reports on if young people are interested in God, or spirituality, or something of that ilk. Good reports like Buried Treasure, in depth stuff like Faith of Generation Y, and recently a small scale research piece called No questions asked.

One of the questions I always come back to in this sort of research is where is relationship within the context of the research, and what role does relationship play in asking these sort of questions? I often test out the questions used with young people I have an ongoing connection with, and without fail get into great discussions around faith, spirituality and life. Often for obvious research reasons, the research is conducted outside of the context of ongoing relational youth work. So whilst I could argue about research paradigms and the role of researchers, the question I really want to ask is; does God exist outside of the context of relationship?

I am always fascinated by the communal nature of the trinity, the relational and incarnational aspect of God. It also seems from reading the various documents that more often than not when relationship is excluded as a variable, the god talk doesnt happen, but when included it does. What is going on here? Is it as simple as people need to feel comfortable or known to talk, or is it more?

It’s natural that young people don’t talk about about God in a vacuum, as for most people the natural evidence is that God doesn’t exist. So is it supernatural that people do talk about God in the context of ongoing relationship? Is God being made more manifest in those conversations? Are miracles occurring in the lives of young people, as despite the natural everyday evidence that God isn’t real, they want to talk?

All models are wrong

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It seems that the church is looking for answers. The decline and subsequent issues have undoubtedly created a level of institutional anxiety, and in that seems to be casting around for answers, so at one level is asking great questions, but at another level looking for quick fixes. In this process I keep getting asked about the models we use up here, which in itself is problematic as I agree with my colleague who says “all models are wrong but some are helpful”. I like this statement as an activist it means we can get on and do something, but as a practical theologian and change advocate also means we need to ask some questions. Which I want to suggest is really critical if we are not going to be swept along with the organisational anxiety.

There is critical question often overlooked in the process that people seem to fail to ask which is “what does success look like?”. and I don’t mean this in terms of short term numbers, but more in terms of wider culture change. In part success for me means building a culture where people are confident with change, ready to give things a try and learn and grow as they do so. Success measured by numbers and targets is a short term fix, we can resource models, franchise programmes, and grow projects, if we are given resources. The challenge is to do those things critically and playfully to promote a wider change. If you were push me on it I would probably add that anything less is empire building rather than kingdom. It goes back to what ABC said at synod about faithful improvisation, but I think it is also about balancing evidence with making sure that we not looking for success in our own image or short terminism.

Perhaps we too easily see success in the stuff that is more like us, and then these become the models we champion. I would like to think I have a bit of grasp on the emerging church youth ministry scene, and a reasonable track record. Recently I have raised a few questions about the duplication of a model based approach, not because I don’t think these models being looked aren’t good but because on balance I think there is stronger evidence for investing in a wider non mainstream approach. For example I know the stats coming out about of some of the church army youth projects like Sorted, or FYT and StreetSpace, or God for All and NYC are amazingly strong, they are faithfully improvising approaches to mission and church that are hard to believe. However they all take an all models are wrong approach, so whilst they bear some family resemblance they are perhaps not in the image of church that the powers that be want to see, indeed they may even be asking bigger questions which is why in part they are faithfully improvising so well and seeing good results. Most people do good things, but when it comes to a wider shift we need to make sure we do the right things. It is no good just duplicating models even if these are the ones I like! We need to be better than that.

The easiest way I can illustrate it is with the current conversations around Resource Churches. A High investment, High Impact approach to mission, some of the recent stats suggest a good track record of around a 30% increased connection with people without church background, with a reasonable but fairly narrow cross section of engagement. Fresh Expressions on average are more culturally diverse and 75% engagement with people with no church background but smaller and more niche. BOTH ARE EXCELLENT BUT ALL MODELS ARE WRONG THOUGH SOME ARE HELPFUL. So why are we not making it a condition that if a Resource Church is funded that a local pioneer is appointed and connected to the resource church, and be line managed by an authority dissenter, so they the freedom to work alongside and outside that resource church. Perhaps this is the type of faithful improvisation we need from the hierarchy.