Category Archives: Church

Longing to belong

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Following on from Richard’s ’ thread, I haven’t attended a traditional church in a committed way for the last 10 years and I have often asked myself what I miss from not going. My answer to this is the group experience , being part of a social network which I have struggled to find since leaving. I am aware that many people join social clubs and create social networks that can often give some of the same benefits but I suppose I long for some spiritual connection. Since that time I have been part of many starter things but have all failed for various reasons and I know that in some ways I have been the problem leaving me to do much soul searching and self-reflection.

Hidden within the longing to be part of a group is that I have a need to belong. Belonging to me is a sense of ‘being known and knowing others’ in an authentic way. I sensed this to some degree in the traditional church and especially with the vitality of meeting with people of difference especially the broken. I also felt that many in the church could not accept difference or be authentic and vulnerable – therefore I was unable to get to know them.

My journey has taken me to a place of stepping out of the church framework that I have found difficult and painful provoking some fundamental and raw questions about faith, gospel, church, salvation, sin, love, grace etc. Part of me longs to go back to those days, but I know I can never return, but I know and long to be part of a community of people who want to explore humanity in a real and loving way.

The closest I have got to this dream, has been in the Counselling and Psychotherapy community. It has given me a place to be me myself without judgement, a place to explore my flaws without condemnation and a place to learn to listen to others with empathy without the need to provide the answers or try and fix them.

I suppose that old U2 song is still very relevant for me, “I still havn’t found what I’m looking for� but the journey has taught me so much and taken me into areas of my own pain that I would never have explored without this experience and I feel I am a better person because of it. But I still long to be part of an authentic community, I long to explore faith in humanity, and ultimately I still long to belong.

Desert and in between time

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I have to admit I am really struggling again

The Onion Movie on dvd

with the church stuff. Living and working in the in between time is hard. I asked Mark about some of the recent posts and his view based on their experience in Telford, his post was helpful particularly when thinking at a trans-local or global approach to church and enagagment. The harder issue is the very local involvement in local church. Several times I have withdrawn from traditional local expressions and now really only go for the relationships and for the children who enjoy it, I guess I don’t see the thing that I go to on sunday morning as church. Maybe that is part of the in between time.

We are an in between people, living in an in between time.
A people between two worlds, and two times.
A people of hope in a land of pain.
A people of pain in a land of hope
A people who see and read between the lines,
embracing the good of the old, discovering the space of the new
As culture shifts and changes the in between people move and grow,
We are an in between people, journeying in an in between world.

Being in the Church, Not of It

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I Got this today from the Henri Nouwen daily meditation

Often we hear the remark that we have live in the world without being of the world. But it may be more difficult to be in the Church without being of the Church. Being of the Church means being so preoccupied by and involved in the many ecclesial affairs and clerical “ins and outs” that we are no longer focused on Jesus. The Church then blinds us from what we came to see and deafens us to what we came to hear. Still, it is in the Church that Christ dwells, invites us to his table, and speaks to us words of eternal love.

Being in the Church without being of it is a great spiritual challenge.

Labelling Church

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I’m following the comments against Richard’s Fresh Expressions post with great interest.

I’ve just had a look on the Fresh Expressions web site and peeked into their directory of fresh expressions of church. In it I note what appears to be a 100% tendency to label one’s church. Now, in a way that is a stupid thing for me to say, because if they didn’t have labels they wouldn’t be in the directory.

Whilst I don’t think that labelling yourself is wrong – after all it is quite a handy way for people to refer to you (and it helps if you want a web site) – it is interesting to give labelling some thought. The points that I’m tending to ponder are these:

  • Do labels tend to straightjacket your practices? e.g. ‘Baptists’ aren’t ever going to not Baptise are they?
  • Do labels tend to limit your mission to a particular demographic? e.g. pensioners aren’t going to turn up to ‘Loud Rave Church’ are they? Does this make us exclusive rather than inclusive in mission?
  • Do labels enable you to exert controlling power? After all, if one person is the founder, inventor and owner of the label, aren’t others more likely to go along with what they say, so that they can retain some of the benefits of that label? Having an ‘owner’ of the label can surely get in the way of God raising up other key figures within that group.
  • Do labels tend to go hand in hand with formalised procedures?
  • Weren’t labels first applied by those outside of the group? People who looked at the church, from the outside, and found a way of referring to it.
  • Do labels push you towards becoming a legally recognised organisation? Whilst this may give benefits (e.g. Gift Aid tax reimbursement) does this then put you in a position of subservience to societal law?
  • Do labels enable us to shortcut relationships? If we have a label is there then less need to know each other so well?

So, whilst I don’t want to argue for not having labels, I think that we have to be aware that our natural tendency can cause negative things to arise from having a label. In my mind we constantly have to fight our temptation of implement rules and routines that will suffocate the movement of the Holy Spirit.

USA: The Religious Right and the Liberal Christian Left

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I really don’t get it!

This week, Jim Wallis of Sojourners, is discussing politics with an ex-leader of the ‘Religious Right’ Ralph Reed. Jim seems disappointed that Ralph seems to prioritise working against legal abortion and homosexual marriage. Ralph claims that the ‘Conservative Coalition’ et al don’t just focus on those two issues but work on many (which is the ground that Jim wants to claim).

What I don’t get is why they both want to impose their moral views on the USA. They both think that the US needs moral guidance from the top and that it needs to be legislated for. It’s as if they want to usher in a Holy Kingdom of America.

Whilst a great set of laws does seem to create a lovely society to live in, I can’t get my head round the idea that we, as Christians want to impose our morality on people who don’t want it. I mean, it’s not like it makes people better at the level of their relationship with God. It might seem, from a human point of view, that it is a good thing, but the only good thing is to have a relationship with God and to do his will – that is the only good in our world, everything else is a cheap imitation that doesn’t really bring life at all.

Jesus lived in a country that was occupied by foreign forces. Did he bother himself with that? No, he knew that freedom wasn’t in the laws of the land, but could only be found in a relationship with God. Did he try to control people by imposing laws? No, he came to make the law (and indeed laws) obsolete – to bring God into our hearts. He worked from the bottom up, not the top down. He aligned himself with the downtrodden. Even when he did get to talk to the most powerful men in Israel, he didn’t try to get them to alter their laws, he stood quietly, a testimony to the new Kingdom that he was ushering in, a Kingdom that stood in contrast to their kingdom.

Have a look in the ‘Government’ category of this blog for more on this topic.

Meals for Families

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Following on from my thoughts that lead to this idea I would like to explore a measure that might help and also encourage families to spend more time together.

What I’m imagining (speaking as a non-cook! Oh dear!) is the provision of cheap, reasonable quality meals, for families. To qualify for access to such meals you would need to turn up as a minimum of one adult and one child. The meals would be on one or more weekdays and would be available between 5pm and 8pm. Payment for the meals would be necessary except in exceptional circumstances. It would be attractive because the family would need to make less effort to have a meal and yet still have a meal at a very reasonable price.

This would appear to improve contact between family members (addressing the issues outlined here) and also be a way to create relationships between church people and non-church people.

Would be interested in your comments.

What Poverty Today?

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If we strip out the UK government definition of poverty as being those households with an income of lower than 60% of the average UK income, then we are left with the question of what poverty is there in the UK today?

In theory UK welfare and bankruptcy laws should provide for the needs of daily life, such as food and shelter. However, I do recognise that the application of this theory is fraught – I have personally had to spend time helping a friend claim what was due her (after she had suffered injuries that had made her unable to work). It’s as if our society wants to make it as hard as possible to keep one’s head above water in difficult circumstances.

So apart from money troubles due to the lack of help available to get the benefits of bankruptcy or welfare (and these are far from insignificant matters) what poverty do we have today?

My post the other day about the well-being of our children made me think that perhaps a large problem was the amount of time that family members spend with each other.

This is essentially what is behind the ‘Keep Sunday Special’ campaign – the idea that families need to spend more time together. However, because I don’t see any theological reason for Sunday actually being a special day, then I would rather tackle the issue directly rather than attempt to tell people that they shouldn’t work on Sunday. The church needs to wake up to the needs of those that work on a Sunday and change from having what is generally regarded as a key time within the church on a Sunday morning.

So I guess it comes down to providing for people’s poverty. If the poverty is a lack of quality time together then do things that enable people, from diverse backgrounds, to be able to have that time together.

Whilst I’m not sure that I would back a ‘keep dinner special’ campaign or a ‘play boardgames instead of watching TV’ campaign there are surely things we can do.

What are the things that are eating into people’s family time?

  • Sports
  • Watching sports
  • TV viewing
  • Ready meals and easy snacking
  • I’m sure that there are many others…

… but that last one gives me an idea:
Meals for Families

I think that that will need to be my next post!

Serving Up the Communion

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Suddenly it dawned on me this morning during communion at church how odd it was that they only had appointed deacons serving communion to the congregation. I guess that this is a legacy of the Old Testament ‘High Priest as intercessor to God’ thing.

To be honest all they do is go to the end of the row so that it can be passed along – it’s not even as if they have some magical incantation to make as you receive the bread or the wine.

Seems a shame to keep this tradition – which seems unnecessarily exclusive.The Last Seduction full

Criticising Other Christians

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Jonathan at Ekklesia has just accepted a news item from me about one group of Christians criticising another group of Christians over the issue of support for Israel.

This has got me thinking about criticism between Christians. I’m fine with the idea that we should be able to criticise each other and hold each other accountable (1 Corinthians 5:12) but should this just be for those you have a close relationship with and the context to crticise constructively with a positive outcome? Or should we be able to criticise more widely – perhaps a bit like Old Testament prophets or Jesus destroying the market stalls in the temple – within the church?

Any thoughts?

Tithes (and where they go)

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Heard someone comment the other day (and I really ought to be able to attribute this to someone, but can’t remember who it was) that in the Old Testament the tithe was for the poor and that somehow the church today has managed to divert it towards other stuff, like expensive buildings etc. This kinds of relates to my finishing paragraph on this post.

It’s not that I think that the tithe is for today anyway (10% seems a bit odd considering our whole lives ought to be a sacrifice), but it was a great comment!!!

Oh, I know, it was Shane Claibourne speaking at Greenbelt.