Category Archives: Community

RE-Centre

Posted on by
2

Sorry for the confussion Phil.
What I wondered or questioned is many people say due to post modernity there is no overarching meta narrative but I was questioning this assumption and think the metanarrative may have been replaced with a new overarching story that is mosaic of popular culture. eg in the past people found their place by how they related to the meta narrative of the time and now people find their place in relation to pop culture, ie we use it to help us interact with one another, people define themselves by the latest produce or band or music they adhere to. So whilst the metanarrative is less clear there is commonality to it. Does that make sense?

Hot Shots! the movie

Communicating with/within the Church

Posted on by
2

We, the church, are the Bride of Christ. What I must remember is that the church is not my ‘bride’, it is not an extension of me.

When I interact with the church, I can interact with it in two ways:

  1. as individuals to whom I am accountable and am in relationship with.
  2. as an entity.

I suspect that I can only treat it as an entity when I bring prophecy to the church. Whilst I can bring my own ‘chat’ to individuals with whom I am in relationship, if I bring comments to the church surely there is much more of an onus on me to bring God’s word, to bring prophecy?

Most of our communication is within our tightly knit groups. Only some is ‘broadcast’. When we ‘broadcast’, both the purpose and responsibility is different. When we broadcast we are not seeking one to one discipleship, encouragement or accountability, we are surely bringing an edifying message of God to the church?

Anthropomorphising The Church

Posted on by
17

Whilst the Bible illustrates the church as the Bride of Christ, we must recognise the metaphor and not put too many ‘person’ characteristics on the church. The church is not a person, we are not hive!

I keep hearing about:

  • The will of God for a local church.
  • The specific mission of a local church.
  • The purpose of a local church.
  • etc.

Whilst I cannot knock these things absolutely, I do wonder if they illustrate our institutionalisation of the church. Hand in hand with institutionalisation come many characteristics that would normally only be applied to a person – the institute begins to have a character, a vision, a purpose, not enough time, not enough resources…

My concern is that we aren’t individualistic enough!!! OK – cringe in horror BUT:

  • We have to ‘work out our own salvation’.
  • Each of us has the Holy Spirit.
  • We are each a priest.
  • We each have to take our own responsibility to be obedient to God.
  • etc.

If we institutionalise the church and treat it as an autonomous entity then:

  • It is easy to ignore our personal responsibility.
  • We end up putting expectations on the church – which actually means putting the individuals under pressure, and because ultimately we don’t treat the entity that is church with the same loving care and attention that we would give an individual – we are insensitive to the entity that is church and therefore insensitive to the people in it.
  • We form structures to pass the ‘will of the church’ down through to the people who we expect to do the work. These structures enable distance to open up and can negate the need for intimate relationships.
  • etc.

So, let’s assume that there is a need to de-anthropomorphise the church, to deconstruct it’s structs and to de-metaphor our over literalism!

Isn’t individualism a crime?!

Sure, individualism that is self seeking is – sure it is. But what about taking our individual responsibilities seriously, not putting too much pressure on others, not making the excuse that something is ‘their’ responsibility.

We see throughout the New Testament plenty of teaching. This teaching is aimed at the individual, it is talking about our responsibility as individuals, our relationship as individuals with a God who loves each of us, as individuals. New Testament teaching isn’t full of stuff about how to control others, it’s about how to control oneself… and submit to others.

The individualism that we see envisioned in the Bible is a personal love. A love that we gain as individuals from God’s action on our individual hearts. Out of that love we sacrifice ourselves, as individuals, on the cross of love. Love for others. We are united as church, not by control, but by love, love for God and love for others.

Let’s stop palming off our individual responsibilities on the church, let’s stop trying to control each other through the structure that church has become. Let’s look to the fundamental property of church, that it is a network of individuals, concerned for each other and having varying depths of relationship with each other, ranging from the intimate to an awareness of our brothers and sisters around the globe, whom we have never met.

Travellers (and the) Rest

Posted on by
Reply

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1)… and gave it to oil barons, multinational mining corporations and property tycoons. No, seriously, it was not God’s intention that a powerful minority would control access to the earth’s natural resources – land and its natural deposits being the most obvious.

One example of sharing the land is that of nomadic tribes who do not recognise private ownership of land but see it as the inheritance of their society to be shared fairly. Another alternative pattern was laid out in the laws of Jubilee in the Old Testament (Lev. 25:10) where land was to return to the original family every fifty years.

We see today that it is the landless who are least able to lift themselves out of poverty. To merely exist they have to pay those who own the land. To work they have to use someone else’s land, either paying them rent or working for that other person on that other person’s land. I cannot imagine that many of you, the readers, have not had to pay someone (usually over a long period of time) for the land you live on. It is also likely that you work on either someone else’s land or land that you have paid for.

For some of us an inheritance in middle age is as close as we come to getting on a level playing field; a point in time where we can stop paying others for the privilege of merely existing.

Travellers are a continuation of the nomadic way of life and set of values, where access to land is a societal right. Those of us who participate in the system of property ownership (whether we are paying rent, paying off a mortgage or own our ‘patch’) find it easy to resent those who have managed to have access to land without paying for it. Perhaps we should question the nature of our land ownership and think about what we are doing to our children who find themselves landless and having to exchange their labour for someone else’s land.

Better to be Killed than to Kill

Posted on by
2

We are called to change ourselves and to show love. We are called to be Christ to others. We are not called to force others to behave in particular ways.

Also, when we believe, life takes a very different context – life on this planet ceases to be all important as we see what is beyond. We also know a God who gives justice even amongst what seems to be so unfair and unjust. Ultimately justice is that God will judge us fairly – justice between people in this life takes a different place. Justice in this life is something that we should seek to provide, reflecting God’s justice.

When we seek our own survival above the survival of others we fall back into the failed way of living, we fall back into a self centred life which doesn’t look beyond to God’s provision. Attempts at self survival are doomed – we can’t do it – only God can give us our survival as we give our lives to him.

If we back war, police with guns or any kind of ‘self survival over love for our enemies’ then we are reverting to (human) type and we deny Christ’s provision and Christ’s message of love. We will continue to be responsible for the circle of violence and for the death of the innocent.

Why I’m Not Going To Vote!

Posted on by
3

The General Election has been announced and I am, admittedly, following it with interest. However, I am not going to vote. This may surprise you, but I have good reason to take this course of inaction.

Society needs government to ensure order and prevent anarchy. We even see that God is behind the appointment of governments (Romans 13:1 – Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.).

The rule of government is the establishment of laws which must be obeyed by the society. In the case of democracy it is the imposition of rules by a society upon itself. Such rules only have relevance because of the power behind them – the power of punishment. After all, if there were no punishments then laws would only be suggestions! Ultimately punishment is only enforceable because of the threat of violence to those who do not toe the line. Even if you do something as small as shoplifting the only way they can stop you from walking away free is to use violence against you, in order to apprehend you and then punish you. Violence is only unnecessary when the kindly criminal is happy to co-operate – and if there is no threat of force then the criminal will happily walk free.

I am a pacifist and therefore refuse to participate in physical violence. I see no record of Jesus being physically violent or even encouraging it – in fact he is recorded to have opposed violence.

Christ did not come to free his people from the Roman occupation. There were many injustices in his society and Jesus did not participate in those injustices, he practised justice. However, he did not spend his time trying to force change on society, instead he invited individuals to change. He did not come to set slaves free in the natural sense, only in the ‘real’ sense of setting people free (by opening up the possibility of us a relationship with God).

Christ did not come to establish a moral law in society which everyone would have to abide by. Christ came to establish the law in our hearts, to change us from the inside – he recognised that change could only come from God in our hearts and not by law from the outside. He recognised the failings of ‘The Law’ and came to make the most incredible change in the history of mankind, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Democracy is the idea of finding a common morality to abide by. All members of a democracy are prevented from doing what they want to do – whether that be speeding, murder, being noisy, dropping litter, meeting in large groups etc. Democracy also imposes taxation on the society – money is redistributed according to the democratic choice. I’m not hear to make enemies by forcing people to do my will, or even by forcing people to do God’s will (is that even possible?). I will make enemies if I impose morality on people. Why do you think politicians are widely despised?

We have a tendency to judge how ‘good’ a society is by our own set of human values. ‘Good’ however, is in God’s eyes, not ours. ‘Good’ is only when we do God’s will. People cannot do God’s will by following ‘Christian’ laws, they can only do it by knowing him and loving him. Our mission is to show God’s love to people and be an example of this counter cultural way of life.

I am not going to vote in the elections. I am very happy for society to decide for itself what they want to do, but I’m not here to be part of that system. I am in society, but I hope that I’m not of it.

Vote for God’s love – don’t vote in the elections! Serve, don’t rule.

Pontiffication (sic)

Posted on by
Reply

The Pope is dead, but is it worth pontificating about people that we don’t know? It is a common phenomena to ‘judge’ celebs (whether Christian or secular), but is it relevant?

Surely the important thing is that we are careful about who we get into deep trusting relationships with? We don’t have to judge people whom we don’t know, usually based on hearsay.

That’s my 20,000 liras worth anyway…

Exploring dissatifaction

Posted on by

Apologies for the lack of blogs, half term and not been around much. Been looking at John Walkers post on the 24th Oct some great comments and posting, all sorts of stuff about motivation and new. I am astounded by the constant push for new when we haven’t really got our heads around the opportunities for personal growth in the present, let alone the past. John’s post (please read and the comments by following the link) reminded me of an artist friend of mine who adapted a piece of art he heard about (don’t you love third hand stuff). Anyway my mate turned his shed into an artwork. He cut a square hole in the roof and framed around the inside. Put a reclining chair in the shed, so when you sat down and looked up you saw this patch of sky framed as a picture. So often there is so much out there we miss how amazing each part is, or become dissatisfied with our part and fail to realise the value it has. Whilst this may be vague I cant help but connect it with Johns story in the Indian take away, and how much depth there is still to be explored from where we are, if we take the time to frame the right questions, and meet with others who may help find the answers, or at least help with more questions.