Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

Tuffty and Clive

Posted on by
Reply

Congrats to Clive on her year 6 SATS, she received an award this week as she was the first student in the school to come top in all three subjects of Maths, English, and Science. Although rather embarrassingly as the head teacher noted the glass plague looked smaller in the catalogue, so she just needs to make sure she doesn’t leave it on the window sill and burn the house down one sunny day! Tuffty now is revising for his Maths GCSE course work but motivation for the 80 page workbook from the school is heavy going!! So glad I am not at school anymore!

Feeling the way – incarnation

Posted on by
Reply

James helpfully reminded me of the nature of the incarnation (the word became flesh) as way to feel beyond the words that probably lead us to inhabit a dualist way of being. As I have reflected on this in the past few days all sorts of connections spark off. I am reminded of seasons when I have religiously practiced spiritual disciplines, or times when I practice raising my general awareness to keen my senses to God and just simple things like ensuring I read the whole bible every few years. I have often existed between the extremes of discipline and relaxation but never really lost a sense of connection. I also don’t seem to reach the point where I feel I need to return a discipline or do a read through, it just sort of happens. This connection is not generated or sustained by the disciplines, nor does it wane over time. It is a relationship that is as much about presence as absence, as it is an experience of the swimming in the ether of the incarnation in every encounter, conversation, tree, leaf or young person.

“To indwell a story is to live so much within its framework that we are not so conscious of the story as of what the story allows us to see”

“Naming the Elephant” by James W Sir HT to Youthblog ?????? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ????

Pirates, orthodox heritics and mission

Posted on by
1

I have been following the discussion between Pete and Richard and in the process Pete suggests he would rather be “critiqued for not going far enough!”. For some time I have been thinking that actually he does not go far enough. (but having said that I am struggling to articulate why but hear goes)

I really enjoy Pete and Kesters stuff but the way they seem to construct their arguments reinforces and appears to be rooted in a dualist way of being. It has been great how Pete has brought new dialogical partners to the conversation, and particularly voices outside the church, but often could be seen as reconciling a sacred secular divide. (How not to speak of God is an important contribution and the reason it is needed is because it highlights how our language and approach reinforces dualism)

In response to Andys comment on the previous post i think another facet that is missing is about the difference between contextualisation and inculturation. This was a key issue for church on the edge. Robert Schreiter sees inculturation as “the dynamic relation between the Christian message and culture or cultures; an insertion of the Christian life into a culture; an ongoing process of reciprocal and critical insertion and assimilation between them”. The emphasis being the reciprocal nature that allows the process to question our current assumptions (answers) about what church and mission is.

So rather than seeing the community we interact with as another dialogical partner, we value the anti-thesis of the local community and adopt such a powerless position that we allow both messages (truths) to change. When we dialogue in a more abstract or theoretical way the process seems more about contextualisation to me that itself is rooted in a false dualist distinction. Dialogue outside of the missional community approach is Global and so will often be about reconciling the sacred/secular. However if we accept that the moment we engage with the other locally g-d is there then we have the potential for a non dualist glocal conversation that may help us really move on.

When I read that back I think it wont make sense to many people but when I asked James how progress he suggested we need to feel our way forward in the non dualist landscape so pulling together a nice logical argument has been hard sorry ????????? ??? ??????? ????? ??????? ?????? ???? ????????? ?????

missional discipleship

Posted on by
2

I cant make it to LICC where there is conversation on discipleship coming up. But Jason asked for few of my thoughts on the subject particlaurly around the shortfall between missional youth work and church i.e. Missional youth work hits a dead end if there isn’t a trully mission shaped community to feed young people into.

My main thought was that actually this is to avoid the real issue that a genuinely missional work would always seek to grow that community from the community it is serving. Whilst to an extent we are in an in between time (as christendom dies) the language of discipleship (into a mission shaped community) or even the notion that this is part of the answer reinforces a dualist divide that should not be present. If we do embrace a kingdom missional theology then we are already that community the moment we meet those young people. The way most seem to the use the word Discipleship reinforces this kind of dualism, as it usually refers to some sort of post decision idea. However if we are not about bounded sets and Christ centred (see Dave Andrews) and decision is more a willingness to journey together then the community can be formed and shaped together and then discipleship is far more reciprocal and I would argue real. I guess a key question in this would be; what are we (myself and the yp) being discipled towards? The old paradigm would put of primary the importance of orthodoxy where the missional community would be orthopraxis. In our experiences with the yp we see evidence of the fruit of the spirit and orthopraxis but none would call themselves Christians.

BCYM community week

Posted on by
3

I have just got back from a few days with the students where we explored the theme “community is a natural by product of people heading in the same direction” (Rohr) we incorporated silence throughout the week and build the length of time of silence up over the few days. It was real privilege to be with the students and particularly to give out the JNC certificates to the third years. There was a real sense of a growing missional community centred on serving young people, children and families. It was simply great just to be around these people – Thanks if any of you are reading this.

????? ???????????? ????????? ????? ??????? ????? ?????? ?????