Category Archives: Life

Anthropomorphising The Church

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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.

Blog the whole

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There has been quite a bit of discussion in blog-land on the Spirituality of blogging much of which was sparked off by TSK stuff from Greenbelt . Phil has looked at the holistic blogging. At the moment I have been thinking a lot about the old Christians mystics who would pray to rid themselves of the god they knew, for any god they knew could not be God as He is so much more (apologies for my crap paraphrase of an ancient spiritual truth). As I think of the mess of life and what it is to blog the whole, I was sparked by Frederick’s about the death of his father, to rethink the place I have come to in relation to my fathers death. My hope is that this blog is about blogging holistically but a kind of holisticism that moves me (and maybe others) on, to discover more of God and to loose sight of the god I know. So THANK-YOU to those who share the journey.

Part of the journey for me at the moment are the questions I posed here. Thanks Annie and Charlotte for the thoughts, more comments welcome

To lose someone close

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Sorry, but it was a while since i posted.

The summer has been quite turbulent for me. My father died in the middle of June. First I reacted very strongly – but then it has been quite okey. But now the last couple of weeks the lost of my father has come over me again – in another way. I really miss our conversations and his presence.
My father was just 61 years old – its not that old I think. He had a lot of friends and I come to realize that he was appreciated of many in the town were he lived. One of the question after the funeral was – who gonna be standing at my grave and say that my life meant something for them – will it just be the same kind of people as I am or will it be – as in my fathers case – people who he gave dignity because of the way he treated them. My father always took the poor and disadvantage side.

I often understand my life through the texts of U2 so also in this case. In the lyrics of “You can’t always make it on your own” (a text which doesn’t explain the our relationship very well in every aspect) there is a passage which is something like – “can you here me when I sing – cause your the reason that I sing.” I came to understand due to these lyrics that I will miss that my father was proud of what I did. My be it sounds ridiculous – but it is the way it is. I am an academic, he wasn’t but he was proud over what I accomplished and tried to understand the paper I wrote. His life was more down to earth – and I hope I will learn from that.

Peace – “the swede”!

Travellers (and the) Rest

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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.

Greenbelt, cyclists, and seminars

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Rob and Maz arrived about 10pm on Friday Night and were surprisingly relaxed and healthy. Seeing them around site over the last few days they looks refreshed and revived.

The festival was as good as ever. I went to two brilliant seminars Pete Rollins on The Third Mile arguing that Christ was opposed to ethics, 14 pages of notes in a hour, when I get the tape I will be re-listening for about a month; and Jonathan Bartlet on post Christendom politics and the church as a movement for anarchy, great stuff and is the follow up of Stuart Murry’s post Christendom books.

The Frontier Lecture with Bob and Annette Holman went well with over 150 people attending. One excellent point raised was the use of the word integration in the Green paper and that this was about structures rather than relationships and process. A challenge for use is to re read the paper replacing the word integration with the notion of shalom and see how this impacts our practice.

Green belts and papers

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Getting back in the swing of work except the problems with email when you are away, over 200 to sift through on Monday! Sorting Greenbelt stuff is my main task. Bob and Annette Holman are leading the first Frontier Lecture at Greenbelt this year and will be speaking in The Club Venue at 1pm. NOT TO MISSED part of what they will do will be comparing successful community based mission with the new Green paper (not rizla) Title is Towards a new frontier: Issues that don’t promote shalom. Come along and say hi if you are around.

Better to be Killed than to Kill

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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.

Holiday

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I am off on Holiday tomorrow or supposed to be. Jo is not too well, which is a real downer as we have been looking forward to going away. Could do with a small miracle tonight so we can all go and selfishly I could really do without the hassle. It was due to be the first time in years that I had actually gone away for a WHOLE week and was really looking to it. Good time with the FYT team last week and got several loose ends for CYM tied up BUT I had really built up going away in my head as I have been so busy. I even decided against taking any theology books to read. Now just want it to come together and get away with Jo being better. HELP

At last

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The Governments Green paper on Youth has finally been published and a link to the summary can be found here.

This year also sees the launch of The Frontier Lecture at Greenbelt where Bob and Annette Holman will be reflecting on long term Christan community based mission and youth work and compare this to current government policy including the new green paper.

The Frontier Lecture aims:
To provide a focused well thought out, original, insightful talk around the issues of social justice, and frontier theology. A prophetic call towards a community of Shalom.

Objectives
1. To provide fresh insight on the interaction of faith and justice.
2. To highlight policy and practice within the Christian community and government, that does not promote Shalom.
3. To broaden the variety of people able to hear the message by holding an Annual Lecture at different Christian events, e.g. Greenbelt, Spring Harvest, Youthwork.
4. Raise the profile of FYT’s contribution to issues of social justice with young people and communities.