A new way of being Christian and/or the ancient future faith (Sociological)

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It was good to do a lecture this week on Ministry and the Institution and revisit the notion of ‘Habitus‘ and particularly Bourdieu who sees us as part of and not just influenced by our sociological settings (family, geography, race etc) ie also influencers. Not rocket science I know, but I wonder how conscious we are of the potential interplay, and how controlled we allow ourselves to be due to how we were located and raised in any particular setting. This was why I used it the lecture as my experience is there is plenty of space to play and unfold a new habitus in the institution, but not everyone does. Indeed it is part of what we called to do as christians, so even when there are authority figures that seek to constrain, we can challenge or as Bob Marley might sing “emancipate yourself from mental slavery”.
One of the sociological (maybe philosophical) issues we need to unpack in this mini series is the notion of “other, and othering”. “Othering” is a term that not only encompasses the many expressions of prejudice on the basis of group identities, but we argue that it provides a clarifying frame that reveals a set of common processes and conditions that propagate group-based inequality and marginality.” Powell and Menendian. So whilst this a huge issue in society at large, and particularly in relation to groups, I would suggest it is rooted in the individual.

Othering is an issue for people generally (and perhaps particularly for people of faith) because we are not always that honest about the stories we tell ourselves. We talk a lot about wholeness and integration in faith terms (not just christian faith), notions of power, set apart, chosen, even redeemed buy into ideas that there is other, perhaps going right back to the garden, where instead of seeing ourselves as rooted, from and connected to the soil, creation and one another, we read the text to see ourselves as other. This lack of connectedness could be at the root of our othering so I think one way forward is recognise that we in ourselves are other. Lets be honest, if the me I think myself to be, and the me you think I am, and the me I actually am, ever met I doubt they would recognise each other. So lets co-create the new habitus, that recognises we can be influencers in how that unfolds, and our start point is not that we have the answer and everyone else is other.

Trying capture the pioneer dna

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How do we capture the pioneer dna to learn without crushing? Here’s my attempt for a local gathering based on something I did a while back anyone else got any ideas, about how the glean the wisdom without loosing the nuance?

I am experimenting with a new type of pioneer gathering called Cmpfire to replace the old Cumbria Pioneer Network. The first one will take place in Xxxx and I would love if you come and join us 9.30 – 12.30 with breakfast and plenty of coffee provided.

If you’re wondering why you are getting this email, its because I reckon the work you do and how you think about it is pretty pioneering and takes us a bit beyond the traditional ideas of Fresh Expressions and church, so it would be great if you can join us. Its not an exclusive gathering but we recognise that often it is helpful to meet with people where you don’t need to justify what you do, who you are and why it doesn’t fit the norm and we are only inviting a handful of people for this first one.

The aim is to create a space to hear stories, reflect and be, a bit like a chat around a campfire that goes late into the evening on a starry night where we can wrestle with what the pioneer DNA is really about.

Cmpfires are about getting practitioners together in a room with a couple of people with a bit of theological nouse and an artist who will somehow record and interpret the event. We will use an artist to capture the conversation as its not a training event, and we are not trying to fix anything. We don’t want to loose the nuance, the metaphor, the life and breadth of the pioneer charism and hope the artist will capture this better than notes. So you don’t need to do any prep just turn up and be yourself!

Xxx is doing the catering, so the food will be excellent, and I am planning the gathering with Annie Grey (Hospital chaplain) and Caroline Kennady (Uni and school chaplain), both of whom are doing some excellent innovative stuff. We will be joined by Jane Dudman who specialises in art and sound, so she will capture the gathering in various ways and we will make this available down the line.

A new way of being Christian and/or the ancient future faith (Leadership)

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In the previous post I suggested we needed to find a new way of being christian at all levels sociologically, functionally, eccesiologically, culturally etc. Today I am in a reflective mood as it has just been made public that John Wheatley is the new community leader with Frontier Youth Trust. I love John and having worked alongside him for several years am delighted he has taken on this new role. But more than that I love the way the FYT board, Team and John went about re-examining what kind of leadership was needed. I love that the board have been courageous enough to listen to the team and to move away from the traditional CEO type role, and start the journey towards a new way of being.
When the legend that is Dave Wiles, the enigma that is Andy Turner and I interviewed John it was clear John was a gifted young man, I think we even said that one day he would lead FYT. And fast forward 6 years John continues to inspire me as Im pretty confident that if it had been a standard CEO role in FYT he wouldn’t have applied for the role.

I think theres two really important lessons we can learn from this. Firstly there is deep level of vulnerabilty shown on all sides. The organisation/board of FYT is open and vulnerable, it knows the risk of moving away from traditional organisational processes, and equally recognises that as people caught up in the dance of the relational trinity and a desire to see shalom we are called to be something else. Likewise the journey of the team showed amazing vulnerability, jobs were on the line, change was afoot, and livelihoods at stake. Finally there was massive individual vulnerability, Debbie Garden (interim CEO) and John did an amazing job of helping both sides navigate this process, and I think that the open handed grace that Debbie always demonstrates cannot be underestimated, she’s a gem. I love it, and I love that in an age of institutional anxiety, there are still organisations and individuals that demonstrate the way of the vulnerable christ and are finding ways to root this in how they operate.

Secondly is was really hard for me to leave FYT, and whilst many organisations go on about giving over leadership to younger generations its never going to happen unless people like me in their 30s embrace, nurture and release younger leaders, and recognise in that they can go further, faster, deeper and eclipse us, and know that like Richard Rohr success can teach us very little, consequentially making sure we are hand over before its too late. So again I think the second lesson whilst still rooted in vulnerability to individual leaders and to leadership groups is pretty obvious GET OUT OF THE BLOODY WAY!

A new way of being Christian and/or the ancient future faith

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Instinctively I think we need to find a new (and rediscover some of the old) ways of being Christian, particularly if we are going to help people connect in the dance. I was talking about this on Facebook and a good friend asked me what I meant. My reply was it was at all levels sociologically, functionally, eccesiologically, culturally etc.
I don’t think we realise just how masked, how clouded and how hidden the message of love has become behind the layers poor behaviour, intolerance, judgment, harshness, unkindness, exclusivity, insistution, and general ineptitude.
The task of the Christian in every generation, in every culture, in every situation is to love. It is to start at the beginning with the words of Jesus and accept that no matter how hard they are they cannot be changed. To love our neighbour, to love our enemy, to forgive 70 x 7, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile calls us to find ways beyond judgement, unkindness, intolerance. I love the way Stephen Backhouse talks in the latest Nomad podcast states how when it comes to just war (and many other issues) we simply have to put Jesus in the “no column”. We might have great reasons, sociological, cultural, intellengence, for just war but you just can’t get beyond that Jesus says love your enemy.

The reality is that Jesus is the still point in the turning world, and his words take us far beyond just war. So we have to find ways to be honest with our selves and our neighbors about this reality but equally honest how we fail to live up to those ideals, how we come up with systems of thinking and ways of operating that help us function, acknowledge that whilst these might go someways towards love be honest that in many ways that are pale imitations of the words of Jesus. Honest that our walls are more about protecting us from the words of Christ that actually call us beyond. That our safety and security is still found in the paypacket, rather than like the birds of air somewhere else.
Perhaps when i can be that honest with myself, g-d and my neighbours i start to work out what this Jesus is really all about and call those walls to dust.

Keep pushing out 2

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There are many days I want to simply curl up. It’s takes energy to push out, to make preparations, to set sail. In the past decade or so it has been so encouraging to see the spectrum of churches wake up to breadth of the call of G-d. The gospel speakers increasingly act and the gospel socialists increasingly speak.
The motivation for these shifts can be legion, an aniexty, a new learning, a different perspective, keeping up with the Joneses, a fear of death. However I like to think it is out of genuine love as people recognise the needs around them.

In the midst of these changes it is easy to embrace the homogeneousisation and loose the distincitivness of the pioneer charism. I need to be in relationship with the wider church but I need to be me and I need you to be you. That is not to say we shouldn’t change but recognise the holiness to the process, that wrestling with who we are and what we do and how we act is a part of the Christian story we must never let go. Authentic questioning is a beautiful affirmation of life as it demonstrates we are alive. So as we grow, as we mature, give space for and embrace the difference, and those of us who seem to moving in from the edge dont stop kicking.

Keep pushing out 1

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A minister would eat breakfast each day in the garden. A moment of quiet, and chance to take in life, to see the detail of the flowers and nature. One morning she saw a beautiful butterfly emerge from its chrysalis. The next day she noticed a caterpillar climbing the trunk of the same tree, the minister thought to the caterpillar this trunk must have been a mountain. The caterpillar edged up and then along a branch finally reaching the succulent leaves. The minister was amazed at the caterpillars effort, persistence and encouraged to climb her own mountain, and edge further out. The next day the caterpillar had feasted it’s was through many leaves and the minister saw it start to form a chrysalis, and each day she watched it patiently as it hung on the branch. One morning she noticed the chrysalis start to twitch, and was excited to see the beautiful butterfly that was to emerge. The effort that the caterpillar seemed to be putting into emerging from its wrapping reminded her of the mountain it had climbed to get succulent leaves. So carefully she helped peel back the outer layers, to make the great emergence easier, but now when butterfly came forth, it was too weak to fly and devoid of all colour.

Beyond the argument to earthing

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As a sophisticated society we can construct many arguments against God, and apologetics can deconstruct some of these, and so we can go on round and round. Likewise people of faith can construct many arguments and others can deconstruct. The sophistication of humanity means either side this can construct seeming meaningful arguments for science and theology through logic and reason, and yet it is the development of science, philosophy and science that a over many years begins to pull the rug out.

I am a huge fan of CS Lewis but Maybe like Lewis moved away from apologetics into fiction and art, Do we need to let the theologian and scientist fade to help us earth lives of love?

Everything’s commodified

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Everything is commodified. The idea that happiness is just around the corner is so deeply embedded in our capitalist society and psyche, we seek the next thing and commodify not just stuff, but also ways of being. It’s so embedded that even the idea of living simply has been commodified. For me I often think if I could just shed this stuff, get rid of the clutter, live more simply then I would have the time do x or y. So in the end we commodify x or y and even time itself.

How do we break this circle, can we defend ourselves against idea that happiness is just around the corner? For many faith is the answer, it helps us debunk the societital myths around us. Yet for many faith itself is rooted in this commodification process, (at one level it’s what Nitchze was saying), we think we have replaced the capitialist system with a faith system, but we have not replaced the desire and myth that happiness is just around the corner, if we just pray more, if we just get deeper into the bible, or even at a more basic level; it will be okay in the end in heaven. That sort faith is rooted in capitalist desire and with a transaction at its core.

So now I’m stuck, as I’m thinking, is even the desire to break the notion of desire a problem….

Here’s everything

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Who do you hang out with? Who knows you? whose door can you knock on and say here’s everything? Here’s the joy here’s the crap, here’s behind the scene, here’s my heart on my sleeve. If you have that person, or maybe a few people that you share different stuff with, do they have the permission to ask about everything that’s behind the everything, the desires that have shaped the everything? Who helps you unpack the roots of your desires, your place in a system that promises more, (and if of certain faith traditions how they play into that) and even that maybe even the desire to be free is a product shaped by that system that says happiness is just around the corner if you just do this or that.

Does G-d exist outside relationships?

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Every now and then someone reports on if young people are interested in God, or spirituality, or something of that ilk. Good reports like Buried Treasure, in depth stuff like Faith of Generation Y, and recently a small scale research piece called No questions asked.

One of the questions I always come back to in this sort of research is where is relationship within the context of the research, and what role does relationship play in asking these sort of questions? I often test out the questions used with young people I have an ongoing connection with, and without fail get into great discussions around faith, spirituality and life. Often for obvious research reasons, the research is conducted outside of the context of ongoing relational youth work. So whilst I could argue about research paradigms and the role of researchers, the question I really want to ask is; does God exist outside of the context of relationship?

I am always fascinated by the communal nature of the trinity, the relational and incarnational aspect of God. It also seems from reading the various documents that more often than not when relationship is excluded as a variable, the god talk doesnt happen, but when included it does. What is going on here? Is it as simple as people need to feel comfortable or known to talk, or is it more?

It’s natural that young people don’t talk about about God in a vacuum, as for most people the natural evidence is that God doesn’t exist. So is it supernatural that people do talk about God in the context of ongoing relationship? Is God being made more manifest in those conversations? Are miracles occurring in the lives of young people, as despite the natural everyday evidence that God isn’t real, they want to talk?