I was privileged to be part of the Incarnate Gathering last week, and whilst I was asked to speak I received far more than I gave. The theme was Other and I shared around Other as the space between us. It was great to meet Abdul Rehman Malik who is a journalist, speaker and part of the Radical Middle Way. Abdul spoke on “Everything Perishes Except the Face of God: Seeking the One in a Hyper Diverse World”. His shared stories from the Muslim tradition offered some great insight into notions of Other.

In my usual way this ended up with me putting two and two together and coming up with five. The weekend started me wondering about how notions of Other connect with the ongoing story of fullness of life. We know there can be no fullness of shalom for us, when there is poverty, oppression and disparity for others, when we cannot break bread with others who may differ in perspective. It started me wondering about the points of tension, in the Christan faith that separated myself and Abdul, and the particularity of communion.

One person shared a story of how they had had a passover meal, with people of different backgrounds and faith stories and towards the end had moved into another room to take communion. On the table the symbols the bread and wine were surrounded by the everyday life objects that had unconsciously been placed on the table, a nappy, keys, bags, etc. It was a wonderful image of community and incarnation, yet they were conscious that as they shared communion no matter how inclusive their language was, some would be excluded or exclude themselves from the table.

Now I know I am dangerous ground playing with the Sacrament, but what if communion is another part of the ongoing story. More than that what if by its very nature it has the possibility to include rather than exclude, to help us towards the redemption of the whole of creation, not by seeing other as something that may taint, but as a resource towards wholeness and shalom. Something that helps both us and another creatively hold the space between us, something that recognises difference but imagines and commits to a new way of being.

We need to remember communion has never been a static thing, it is different in different traditions, its elements have changed over time and with different cultures, as have the liturgy and words. BUT Imagine the passover was just the start, the last supper a step along the way, and that the christian tradition thus far has helped us, but now communion once again needs to be re-imagined, perhaps it even needs to be liberated from the christians. It will not be an easy journey as we are both part of a radical monotheistic tradition, but I long for the day when Abdul and I can wrestle in the space between us and perhaps work out what it means for us break bread together.

I have been privileged to hang out with a load of baptists for the past few days looking at Other. I was asked to share a little but loved the input from others in particular Abdul Rehman Malik’s session Everything perishes except the face of God. I wanted to blog the thoughts but I cannot find an order of logic so hear goes a splurg.

I long for the other, I want to explore, I let myself breathe and jump in with both feet.
I find my self caught not by the person but by the space.
The encounter with other brings realization that no difference is found.
A visceral awakening that this space is beyond, a space in between, and space that is clean.
The other is self and together we are held.
The holding amplified, so our uniqueness remains
It is a feeling that cannot be conveyed
but it is feeling that must be expelled.
The other is no longer a stranger in this space that held.
Beyond the words of stranger, of difference, and other
we move towards wilderness, home and mother.

Over the past few weeks I have playing with TaiFlow and developed a move that holds the space, it builds on the thin place idea where heaven and earth come close. I kind of move arms in opposite directions coming together at my core but not quite meeting. It reminds me of the space between us, and the spaciousness g-d offers and holds us within. So it was a joy to get into discussion with Al Barrett, Tim Evans, and Janey Barrett, as we pursued ideas around innovation in the previous post. Al shared the concept that Jesus through the temptation in the wilderness demonstrated that we need to renounce the power of the provider, the power of the performer, and the power of the possessor. As we explored this, it connected so well to the space I was seeking to hold in the TaiFlow move. The incarnation is more about the space between us that our presence creates than our simple presence. The incarnation takes us beyond us and the stranger/other, calls those walls to dust and refuses to colonise the space left, where too often the church seeks to perform, possess, or provide so it becomes a space of intercarnation. (Once again a word Al found)

I am interested in what it means to translate or map the concept that, Innovation is different to adaption, to the idea that church seeks a paradigm shift. adaptation tweaks what is already present, it is part of series is of evolutionary moves. innovation goes back to the drawing without pre subscribed ideas. I have written before on the need for revolution over evolution but I wonder if all the emerging churches talk of paradigm shifts are really just adaptations as still haven’t gone back to the drawing board of who or what is G-d and then really innovated from there.

I came across this poem via a friend of a friend that may help you get where I am coming from

Have you considered the possibility
that everything you believe is wrong,
not merely off a bit, but totally wrong,
nothing like things as they really are?
If you’ve done this, you know how durably fragile
those phantoms we hold in our heads are,
those wisps of thought that people die and kill for,
betray lovers for, give up lifelong friendships for.
If you’ve not done this, you probably don’t understand this poem,
or think it’s not even a poem, but a bit of opaque nonsense,
occupying too much of your day’s time,
so you probably should stop reading it here, now.
But if you’ve arrived at this line,
maybe, just maybe, you’re open to that possibility,
the possibility of being absolutely completely wrong,
about everything that matters.
How different the world seems then:
everyone who was your enemy is your friend,
everything you hated, you now love,
and everything you love slips through your fingers like sand.
(Federico Moramarco)

Last week a I wrote the final report to a brilliant trust that has funded StreetSpace for the last few years, and was simply astounded at all we achieved going from 3 to 62 projects in under four years. I sent the trust pictures from the amazing StreetSpace projects working day in day out in with brilliant young people who really need us.
This week I did our budget for the coming year. As the trusts support is ending and I never let money stop me supporting a potential StreetSpace project, helping young people, we are facing a shortfall and I want to raise some funding to directly support my post and the core work to keep StreetSpace going.
So I am asking friends to help and I am setting the target of raising £2000 a month through regular donations, This might seem like a lot of money but if just half my FB friends donated £10 a month we would hit the target… if every FB friend donated we would smash it and I could spend less time on budgets and more time making work on the ground happen.
I know some of you already support the work, or are committed to local projects, or youth workers themselves but those of you who know me well know I want to change the world, lets do this….please consider a monthly donation – please download and use our response form: HERE

http://www.fyt.org.uk/…/wp-co…/uploads/FYT_Response-Form.pdf

This horizon scanning paper on the social attitudes of young people is interesting. Looking at how social attitudes have changed it explores several key areas including
Values and personal autonomy
Aspirations
Attitudes to society and government
Wellbeing

Last week I was speaking in Holland at their YFC conference. Whilst they certianly do things differently (ask me sometime about angels massaging volunteers) they were a great bunch of people to be around and share with.

Over meals and conversation it quickly became clear there was a distinct difference in how people were approaching the edgy topics around mission I was teaching. In the uk I am often pinned down by people wanting to argue the theological toss, or perhaps I should say nuances but in holland there a different conversation. It was about how does this connect, how does it help me serve the young people I work with. I think it is in part a cultural openness and difference but more I think it is precipated by their closeness to the edge, their connection on the streets and in the community, where they know things have to be done differently. I was humbled by how even the younger volunteers wanted to grapple with the how the talks should change their practice and structures, how it build community in their context, deep specific and searching questions, that I simply rarly get in the UK.

My post grad work was around how Christian workers/ missionaries responded to the emerging missiology I was developing. one of the interesting things was a link between how open a person is to new ideas that push our orthodoxy around church and how experienced they were in relational based mission. The more embedded people were in the culture they were serving, the more they recognised that old ways of thinking and working werent cutting it and were more open to new ideas around eccelesiology. Yet somehow in the Netherlands even those less experienced recognised and had the desire for change. It was an honour to sit around with so many young people under 20 who are willing to grapple with the real stuff and such a contrast to my experience of similar age groups in the church in the uk.

I have started a blog I cannot finish please help…

‘Incarnational mission’ is a myth. Over the past few weeks I been exploring the connection of kenosis and incarnation, and begun to think that the language of incarnational mission has taken us down wrong track. The word “mission” is an anathema to the word “incarnational” and the twining of the two has precipitated a false understanding and often maintained a practice rooted in power, masked as doing good, humility, and service.

Years ago myself and many others shifted our language away from evangelism, towards mission, then towards missional, then towards emerging, all the time complicit in a power play, that we failed to recognise we were caught up within. Each shift of language was an attempt to move beyond the confines we discovered, and the boundaries we placed around us. Often helpful and well meaning, but rooted in a bankrupt paradigm.
Mission the act of being sent seems counter intuitive to the incarnation. Being sent to another so often comes with a sense of the need of the other. The incarnation was not about choice, it was beyond being sent, is was a vulnerable move of self emptying, an embedding of the word that was already present in the beginning.

How we connect to the word, that was and is present in the community, is key breaking the power binds we are caught up within. Our incarnation must stem from our recognition of the interconnectedness of all humanity, thinking we are sent to empty ourselves in service to others is vanity. Instead we must…..

It really isn’t rocket science. The erosion of basic day in day out youth services and shift of funding to targeted work is an oxymoron. For the most needy, most at risk, toughest NEETS, you cant have one without the other. Young people who struggle to relate appropriately to adults, systems, and structures need to use the relationships of trust and support built up between them and youth workers to access, utilise and be encouraged to stick with the targeted services that are there to supposedly help them. It is about basic equality of opportunity.

In the past few weeks I have come across countless small organistions struggling to keep basic services going, whilst target ted providers cannot get young people onto courses. Often these targeted providers are the bigger players who hear about the latest funding stream, or pot of money, they come to the week in week out community groups, to get their places filled, meet their stats, publicise the latest idea, and only those with enough social skills, where-with-it-all and confidence access these schemes, and even then the drop out rates are pretty high. As they do not have the relationship base they fail to present a genuine equality of opportunity to those most in need.

So why aren’t funders, funding those with a 100% success with getting NEETS into training or work? Or 100% success in helping those with mental health get back to work. Why wouldn’t funders bite their hands off? Because these REAL results come from small local community providers who build the relationships week in week out. After three years of building real relationships with NEET young people it is not surprising that when they volunteer on our Zine young leaders programme, they grow in confidence, we know them well enough to address the barriers they face, and they all go onto to employment or training. It is not a surprise that a peer group of people with mental health issues support one another to access employment, make community connections, and so improve their prospects, confidence and employ-ability. It is about a basic understanding of equality and taking the right steps to address the issues faced.

The local schemes work because they address he preexisting issues of inequality, by the relationships built up through regular services. Those on the ground struggle to stay afloat at the coalface as they work day in day out with young people, achieving so much with so little. BUT they dont have the time to keep up with the fast changing funding priorities of the latest government fad, so it is often outside agencies, larger providers, who sweep in to grab the funding, without the ongoing context of regular provision and achieve so little with so much.

So here is a call back to equality of opportunity, opportunity for the small grassroots organistions, that create opportunity for the most in need. A call to see the basic connection required between regular work and targeted work, if we are going help break the cycles of deprivation and poverty that are increasingly taking hold in our communities.

The space we inhabit with young people and the community is a contested space. Young people are unfortunately negatively stereotyped and scapegoated and so The council like to own the positive change stories that spring up around the work. The institutional church like to own the good news stories, but we refuse to pimp out the lived experience of young people to earn a
supposed place at these tables. Like any project we could tell these stories that would have you weeping in a quiet moment, or shock you with stories of daring do and risk, it would certainly grow our profile and funding base. but paying these games to illicit a response simply builds walls of us and them, both for us a teller and you as a hearer so instead we call these walls
to dust.