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Thy Kingdom Come

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Today is Pentecost Sunday
The last of the questions I’m thinking about is:
How do we allow God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven – in this place?
I’m coming to the end of the book ‘Church After Christendom,’ and I’ll just have a few thoughts here.
1   
De-emphasise worship, and make Mission and Community Building just as central
2   
Reduce the number of church focused commitments to allow congregation members to be involved in other activities and mission opportunities outside church.
3   
Cultivate simplicity – which does not necessarily mean blandness or lacking in creativity.
4   
Take a long look at ourselves, using tools that are there to help us identify areas of strength and weakness – especially in areas of conflict within the church.  Use resources such as Appreciative Inquiry, The Healthy Churches Audit, Bridgebuilders.
5   
Promote lay participation and become less ‘leader centric.’ Encourage multi voiced worship.

7   
Refocused commitment – we live in an age when it is often said that people do not want commitment – yet movements like extinction rebellion show that where people see something worth struggling for, they will do it.

I love this prayer, with four words that are used to describe the way we are called to be … full of generosity, joy, imagination and courage

Living God, draw us deeper into your love;
Jesus our Lord, send us to care and serve;
Holy Spirit, make us heralds of good news.
Stir us, strengthen us, teach and inspire us,
to live your love with generosity and joy,
imagination and courage;
for the sake of your world,
and in the name of Jesus, Amen.


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That reminds me

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… Of the blog by Jonny Baker, which I haven’t looked at for ages.


In his blog post on flipped church, he refers back to some questions he was asking himself nearly 15 years ago …

can we imagine…
church beyond gathering?
church beyond once a week?
church as always on connectivity to christ and one another?
church where community is the content?
theology and resources of church being open source?
church valuing the wisdom of the crowd rather than the knowledge of the expert?
our church/spirituality being easily found by seekers because we tag it that way?
an ethos of low control and collaboration?
an economy of gift?
church as spaces for creative production and self publishing?
church as providers of resources for spiritual seekers and tourists?

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What are the temptations we need to avoid – as a church ?

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There might be many temptations to avoid, so I’ll focus on the one that comes to mind, the one closest to my heart.  My fear is that as lockdown eases, we will all breathe a sigh of relief and go back to the way we were.

Here’s a quote from Bishop Nick Baines blog, posted recently:

“Christian faith does not assume a life (or world)of continuous security and familiarity. It is fed by scriptures that speak of transience, mortality, provisionality, interruption and leavings. But, they also whisper that the endings are always beginnings – the leavings open a door to arrivals that could not have been experienced otherwise. In other words, the loss can be seen as a gift – what Walter Brueggemann calls ‘newness after loss’.

The temptation at the moment is to want to move on too quickly from our experience of loss, and so lose things of immense value that we can learn.

Back to Nick Baines again, who has a useful tool for helping us examine ourselves at this time:

He has suggested to clergy in the Diocese of Leeds, that it might be helpful to ask these four questions:

(a) what have I/we lost that we need to regain in the weeks and months ahead? 
(b) what have we lost that needs to remain lost – left behind in another country? 
(c) what have I/we gained that we need to retain in the future? 
(d) what have we gained recently that was useful for this season but needs to be lost if we are to move forward?”
My last post was Song of the Day #4, home, by Foo Fighters.  I chose it before I decided what to write here, but it does seem appropriate.  What we all want is ‘to be home.’  To have a sense that we are exactly where we belong.  To be in a place – maybe, but not necessarily geographically – where we can grow.

But to find the road home we will have experiences of what the Bible calls exile.  Where we are far from home in order to learn what is really important.

This prayer, attributed to Sir Francis Drake, is one of my favourites.

DISTURB US, LORD,
When we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

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Song for Today #4

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Here is song no. 4
Wish I were with you
I couldn’t stay
Every direction
Leads me away
Pray for tomorrow
But for today

All I want is to be home

Stand in the mirror
You look the same
Just lookin’ for shelter
From cold and the pain
Someone to cover
Safe from the rain

All I want is to be home

Echoes and silence
Patience and grace
All of these moments
I’ll never replace
No fear of my heart
Absence of faith

All I want is to be home
Ooh

All I want is to be home

People I’ve loved
I have no regrets
Some I remember
Some I forget
Some of them living
Some of them dead

All I want is to be home

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Song for Today #3

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I’m back with another song suggestion.  Another artist who gets me in the gut, as well as the brain and the heart.
I don’t need to add anything to these remarkable lyrics.
Take a picture if it helps you sleep
Then expose me as your royal creep
For now I’ve torn it we are not the same
There’s a sun that’s breaking through my window pane
It’s burning up my face yes it’s doing it again

No cover up, no room for hiding
No cover up, my faith is sliding
No cover up, just sharp reminding
Of the fake I was

There are faces that we should not know
There are places we’re not meant to go
If you try to find me you will never win
For behind each layer lies another skin
I’d love to let you near if you find a way in

No cover up, just so much trouble
No cover up, I’m bent in double
No cover up just wreck and rubble
Of the person I was

I am broken and I stand accused
Is there someone who can let me loose
If you find the answer make a careful note
I could use your pardon and a lot of hope
I’m getting to that part at the end of the rope

No cover up, I feel the burning
No cover up, nor time for turning
No cover up I hope I’m learning
Some honesty, some honesty

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How is God asking us to reach out ?

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This is the seventh question to think about as our church is called to think and pray about the future.
I’m reading a book by Stuart Murray – Church After Christendom.
It has some really helpful things to say about what healthy churches might look like in a Post Christendom world.
The thing that struck me in relation to the above question is a passage from Paul’s letter to the early church in Ephesus.
Ephesians 4:11&12.

“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,  to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ….. “

The passage does not mention leaders, but gifts.  it is clear that these are ‘leadership’ gifts, but we have identified gifts almost exclusively with officially recognised and often paid leadership roles in the church, requiring years of training.  In my context, it is clear that the vicar/minister is the main pastor.  A Lay Reader would usually be one of the main teachers.  I’m not sure where the other three gifts mentioned here appear. 

There are several passages in the New Testament that talk about the gifts that are needed for a healthy church.   In Christendom, the gifts that were prominent were Pastors and Teachers.  In Post Christendom, we can no longer rely on people being familiar in any way with the Christian story. Gifts that take the faith beyond the bounds of the Christian community become vital.  That means that our very structures need to change to allow this to happen.

“Ephesians 4 focuses not on church leaders, but on a harmonious church.It is the empowered community that engages in works of service.Its multidimensional activities result in the church functioning properly and becoming mature. It is a long way from this to the clerical (i.e. top down – my addition) models in which the laity support gifted clergy who perfom the worls of service. These models exalt or exhaust those designated as leaders and disempower community” Murray p. 189.

When thinking about the ‘How’ questions, like the one I’m thinking about today, it might be easy to draw up a list of actions a local church might take to reach out to their community.  That’s fine, but there might be other ‘how’ questions that precede these very practical ideas – questions that are more fundamental to enabling long term change.

For example:

How can the church be less hierarchical, and promote and encourage a much wider participation, as envisioned by Ephesians 4.

How can churches be better at exploring difference, and resolving conflict, and so be the kind of communities that people want to join ?

How can funds be redistributed so that reaching out becomes a major item of expenditure in a church’s budget ?

…. perhaps you might make up a question …





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What could we hold onto ?

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This question is posed to us – a church community in the middle of the coronovirus lockdown.

What might we hold onto from the experience of the last 9 weeks or so ?

I think that is such a big question.  For me the bigger question that it leads to is
How can we learn from both the inherited church, and the emerging ‘new ways of being church’ to enable us to be a church fit for a post Christendom world ?
But for now, I’ll focus on what have I learned from lockdown, especially with regard to worship.
So – for the last two weeks, our ‘zoom church’ has been like this:
Short ‘hellos’ and a prayer
* Brief reading of and introduction to one of the Bible passages for the day. (Usually, but not always the Gospel).
This has been done in a way that is accessible to all ages from pre-schoolers up.  E.G Godly Play.
* Some open questions to think about what might emerge from the introduction.
* Break out groups of 4/5 people.  This for me has been great, because I have ‘met’ people who I have known a little bit before, but got to know them much better through these small zoom groups.
* Come back together for some prayers.
* Close and further chat over coffee etc.
I would like to hold on to this much simpler approach to worship.  I like the way it has given us something to reflect on, rather than a sermon with a possibly complicated train of thought.
It’s very ‘word light’ in the sense that we don’t have a lot of the quite wordy prayers and responses typical of Anglican worship.  This is good for inclusivity.  Some prayers that we all can learn off by heart would be good to give structure and stability.  (But not too many, or prayers that are too long)
I like the way that it invites everyone to contribute.  This makes it more empowering and engaging.

Maybe there are some principles to draw that can be adapted back in a church setting.  In fact this is something we were beginning to experiment with before lockdown, with the time to break up in the middle of the service to respond to the opening introduction in a variety of ways. 
The drawback is that it’s harder to be a bystander, which can be quite threatening/challenging, so there should always be the option of using this time for personal reflection.
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Song for today #2

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Song for today: Nahko and Medicine for the People.
We saw Nahko a couple of years ago at the Greenbelt Festival.  They are one of the special bands that I remember for the power of their performance, which was intense and spellbinding.
Other people in the same category of amazing live acts will appear, no doubt in days to come.
This song calls on the wisdom of elders. Oh how we need that wisdom now.
“Directions”
(feat. Joseph)

For the West
For the North
For the East
For the South

Grandfather, I’m calling on you
Need your guidance now
Grandmother, I’m calling on you
Need your guidance now

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In a time of Coronavirus

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We walked past the church today
the grass
usually neatly mown
but left to grow for weeks now
is full of colour
blood red poppies
growing where they will
We saw someone with a posh camera
he’s stopped and set it up on a tripod
to capture that moment
before
the grass is cut
and everything looks tidy and ordered once again
We walked past the church today
the door
usually open and inviting
has been closed for weeks now
the seeds of faith
now dispersed
growing where they will
I’m writing this with my posh fountain pen
in the A4 spiral notebook where I jot down ideas
to keep this memory alive
before
the doors open once more
and we go back inside.
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Today’s song

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I’m going to add a song each day if I can.
Here’s today’s:
A very simple song lyrically and musically, but played and song so wonderfully, and expressing a yearning for life in all its fulness.  More love, more joy, more peace.  Amen to that.
Lyrics:
Well there’s a bright side somewhere,
there’s a bright side somewhere
Ain’t gonna rest now, ’til I find it
There’s a bright side somewhere
There’s more joy …
There’s more love …
There’s more peace …