I was going to blog about Christ’s scars from the cross being visible in heaven and when he showed Himself on earth and the challenges this presents to much of our theology about suffering and heaven. However Brian Bunny has his own site so I wanted to give this a link and show the latest edition which is just great.

Quick post as I am off to Denmark to do some stuff with youthworkers over there. Hoping I get there as there is heavy snow at the moment. It seems that where ever I travel I run the risk of getting snowed in at the moment. Last week I woke up to several inches of snow in Rugby where I was speaking. Maybe it’s connected but I have been thinking a lot about believing in God, and whether it is actually possible to believe in God and does that imply if you don’t believe He ceases to be, if so our current concept of believing in God is a bit of a non starter (feel free to comment or slate me on this). As God is fact in my view, maybe it is more about making space for Him in our lives (an old pre-Christian idea). This space may not be about the Christian ideas of inviting Him in, but more about the recognition of Him in all and through all. When we don’t don’t make the space does He snow us in so we can’t miss Him?Serenity film

I been reflecting a lot recently on my motivation and was reminded of this paraphrase. LOVE: A PARAPHRASE OF 1 CORINTHIANS 13

If I talk a lot about God and the Bible and the Church, but I fail to ask about your needs and then help you, I’m simply making a lot of empty religious noise.

If I graduate from theological seminary and know all the answers to questions you’ll never even think of asking, and if I have all the degrees to prove it and if I say I believe in God with all my heart, and soul and strength, and claim to have incredible answers to my prayers to show it, but I fail to take the time to find out where you’re at and what makes you laugh and why you cry, I’m nothing.

If I sell an extra car and some of my books to raise money for some poor starving kids somewhere, and if I give my life for God’s service and burnout after pouring everything I have into the work, but do it all without ever once thinking about the people, the real hurting people-the moms and dads and sons and daughters and orphans and widows and the lonely and hurting-if I pour my life into the Kingdom but forget to make it relevant to those here on earth, my energy is wasted, and so is my life.

Here is what love is like–genuine love. God’s kind of love. It’s patient. It can wait. It helps others, even if they never find out who did it. Love doesn’t look for greener pastures or dream of how things could be better if I just got rid of all my current commitments. Love doesn’t boast. It doesn’t try to build itself up to be something it isn’t. Love doesn’t act in a loose, immoral way. It doesn’t seek to take, but it willingly gives. Love doesn’t lose its cool. It doesn’t turn on and off. Love doesn’t think about how bad the other person is, and certainly doesn’t think of how it could get back at someone. Love is grieved deeply (as God is) over the evil in this world, but it rejoices over truth.

Love comes and sits with you when you’re feeling down and finds out what is wrong. It empathizes with you and believes in you. Love knows you’ll come through just as God planned, and love sticks right beside you all the way. Love doesn’t give up, or quit, or diminish or go home. Love keeps on keeping on, even when everything goes wrong and the feelings leave and the other person doesn’t seem as special anymore. Love succeeds 100 percent of the time. That, my friend, is what real love is!

Good detached work training session in Bishops Stortford yesterday with a fairly eclectic bunch of people. Off to do some stuff in Weston super Mare next week and at the MAYC conference the week after. One thing that was interesting yesterday was how easy it is to talk about issues without really recognizing the people they affect. I often use a worksheet to explore what people think about different issues eg giving out condoms to young people, but this time I included a story about the issue stressing that it was real young person, not just an abstract concept. It is so easy to detach real life from discussions and think theory rather practice. The way people engaged with the discussion in so much more depth and passion and way the dicussion changed reminded me of the difference between orthodoxy (believing what is right) and then when confronted with real lives the need for Orthopraxis (doing what is right, which can seem to conflict with one another. The Wickeds full

I have come across this prayer from Thomas Merton on several blogs recently.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

Nobody’s Fool movie download

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

I have been reading some stuff around Christian doctrine recently and a few things have come to mind. Firstly that when thinking about the historical context of Christianity that an important start point to remember is that “All Christian doctrine arises from Christian experience”(Richardson). This is important as it validates the praxis approach to mission and ecclesiology (the theology of church). It also gives space for developing doctrine and possibly theology in and out of the current context or experience.
Another Richardson quote that caught my attention was “the earliest doctrinal statements were thus missionary apologectic, not intellectual systems of theological speculation”. As well as reinforcing the above points I feel it raises some interesting points and questions for the emerging church scene.
The Wickeds video I have raised in earlier blogs (mainly in december) some concerns about the lack of theology of the emerging church with particular reference not to the practice of emerging church(as there is some good stuff around), but to the thinking about the concept of church. The conversations that are happening are great but more often than not concern what we do rather than what we are. Although it could be argued that the development of the label emerging church from Alternative worship has been part of the effort to understand what we are.
As you will be aware my startpoint is mission and therefore the theological startpoint is missiology, this has led me over the years to a new ecclesiology, and yet I always feel on the edge. I think Richardson helps me understand why I feel on the edge so much in this place, and the reason is that current doctrine has become detached from the “missionary apologetic” and is far dryer than it should be. It is almost as if there is a sense that we have arrived at a conclusion of doctrine, and yes it is okay to talk about contextualising this, and being creative but lacks allowing true praxis to take place where real growth, movement, and creativity can happen. As I write I feel like there is a tendency to treat missiology and the emerging ecclesiology like a bonsai tree. The roots (theology and doctrine) are set allowing the tree (mission) to grow to only a certain size or odd shape. When the tree does put on a spurt of growth and develops a new root, that root all too often cut back, whilst at the same time not necessary cutting back the growth because that is seen as good. I wonder will we become too top heavy with not enough roots to sustain us.