Affirming Liberalism

Check out the two podcasts at 'Affirming Liberalism', particularly the one by Martyn Percy. He argues that churches grow, not by having the right theology (whether Evangelical, Liberal, Emergent), but by getting the simple things right (a warm welcome, relaxed environment, good music and children's work). It gave me hope that an alternative to the churches is possible. What do other people think of his podcast?

The Parable of the Lost Sons

There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate. So he divided his property between them.

Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him; he ran to his son, raised his hand then stopped himself, he tore his robe and began to weep.The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

So the father said to his servants, Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

But first, said the father *, bring the fattened calf and kill it. No, wait, that is not enough. Before we feast and celebrate this son of mine who was dead and is alive again there is one more thing to be done.

The older son was in the field. When he was brought near the house, he heard loud wailing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. Your brother has come, he replied, and your father wants to see you.

When the older brother realised his father’s intention he became distraught and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. You never even had to sacrifice a young goat for me. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill for him!

My son, the father said, this is the way of the world.

* Some early manuscripts include the phrase ‘with a grievous sigh’ others record ‘with a solemn determination’

The real story is here

Beer AND Hymns

If you came from Homebrewed Christianity then Chad nearly got it right - it's beer & hymns... click to find out more from the Jesus Arms and thanks to Eliza for getting this video up so quick - you know you want to be at Greenbelt next year. Tripp and Chad - your tickets will be on the door my friends and perhaps a deacon discount should be arranged?

If you didn't come via the brew boys latest podcast feat us in the intro and then the man LeRon Shults... you should have

Proper festival reflections including the Gooder, Bell and Ugly after I pick up my laptop bag inc ipod etc that I left in Subway in Cheltenham - doooooohhhhhhhhh!

If you were there - what was your Good Bad and Ugly of Greenbelt 09?

take every thought

'take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ'

From my evangelical background I have always read that in the richness of a devotional tradition that taught me to use this to banish the sinful desires of the flesh. It's a great hook to meditate on when temptation strikes and you need the spirit to bring the focus onto what is good and true and noble etc.

I am thinking now though that there is more to it. Who usually keeps our thoughts and mindset 'captive'. Perhaps it is also a reference to the powerful imperial theology of Rome the was so ubiquitous for these early Christ followers. How easy to forsake 'the way' and be led like a captive in the victory parade of another ideology....for me now as I am captivated by the idea that my value is bound to my consumption, that my own freedom to choose / consume is just and my right, when really it is paid for by the sweat and blood of another.

Its seems now that this is not just about my own 'thoughtlife' (especially the sexual) ie separate from my actions in society but about my mindset in engaging the whole world and the systems of domination that surround us.

So then, I pray the thoughts of my heart may be brought captive, may follow the train and walk to the beat of the liberating love and life of Christ, and enable me to follow the way of transformation, for me and for the world.

selling...buying?

You may be selling but I ain't buying
You make out it's true but I know your lying
What good it stuff when your crying
What good is consumption when the world is dying
I don't know if I can live up to this
but I'am up for trying

I am mostly thinking...and you?

Apologies for posting being so infrequent.

At the moment I am most thinking....

Guilt / retributive Justice is not transformational, Grace and distributive Justice is. Not just at systemic level but personal level - walking 'in Christ' in the spirit' is transformational in every 'now'.

How to interpret the poss pseudo Paul bits on the NT where we encounter not the radical Paul but the conservative and anti Paul's

About the wonderful possibility of being 'Called Again' by God in a desert/post-critical place

Revisiting Hosea teaching I did a few years ago and poss sharing it at new Church to inform need to 'green' our big list maintenance work

I am mostly reading/sucking up podcasts on bizarre array! -

John Stott, Process Theology, Bent down Jesus, Paul Riccour, Alan Jamieson, Rita Brock on prostitution (gee arn't I the proud/sad pomo eclectic), Fresh Expressions in Sacramental tradition

Also digging the Israeli funk of The Apples (inc their sweeeet cover of 'Killing in the name of') who are playing...

Greenbelt - really looking foreword to it and catching up with folk over beer & hymns. Also won't miss hasidicish magic of UK's finest, as feat here in 2007 Dan le Sac & Scroobius Pip

Whats going on for you?

Maybe see you at GB

Rediscover Bible in Community

Check out great interview with Tim Conder on Homebrewed Christianity about 'Rediscovering the Bible in Community' and some stories from his church.

Felt big echo of my own dream of church - an open and authentic, contemplative and sacramental community of grace and peace in action.

Love the stuff around on:

Place of christ/spirit/text in community (u know we love respecting the text (God of) round here)

Provisional humility and providing space for faith not control to coerce

Church as transformative organism

Shape and form of Emmaus Way similar to lots of my experience but also combines open ethos, self aware deep church and human diversity and sacramental patterning of life - all of which are kids I would chose to hang with (tooooo.....many.....y...ank....podcasts..lea....ding to 'impiremergant' hegemony....and....use ...of...strreee...t...talk!)

So hey, big up Tripp and Chad (must get us deconsied soon) for continued interstellar blue snowball goodness (just listen a bit) and peace to Emmaus Way. Go buy the book - the angels of amazon are winging mine to me as I type (click book above for link).

Shalom

Anabaptism Today in Yorkshire? 12th Sept

click logo for details

Care to dance - BMC's recent take on evangelism

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5745330950759630992&hl=en

The Man in the Mirror

The sound of Thriller still haunts my every move around the grounds of our school. Any doubts about the survival of worship in the 21st century have been firmly put to rest by this latest outpouring of affection that I still witness on a daily basis.

School children manage to make an emotional bond with someone they have never met - thanks to the global media. And we all feel able to act as judge and jury - weighing up the pros and cons of a man because we feel we know him.

And isn't this precisely what has torn the man apart - amongst other things our obsession with commenting (judging). He has to either live up to hopelessly unrealistic expectations or feel the gaze of the world on every silly, unwise or possibly 'criminal' act (and there have been plenty of them).

Instead of gazing intently at this celebrating we don't know, maybe it is about time we took a look at "the man in the mirror". For me, Jacko is the Demoniac of Gerasa in Mark 5. Like the demoniac he has been demonised and deified in equal measure and has felt the full isolation of being so treated. Both tortured themselves - Jacko's re-enactment of racism on himself is quite extraordinary. Both were ultimately the victims of what society made them. Only when Jesus started to speak to the demonaic as a human being - neither god nor demon - was he rehabilitated. Maybe we should have given Jacko such a luxury. Instead, his death marked just another opportunity for all of us to worship at the cult of Michael Jackson.

Maybe it is time to stop gazing at the man in the tabloids and do what Jackson himself asked and "look at the man in mirror". Maybe we will disocver that our worship of celebrities is not as harmless as we like to think.

Incidently, did you know that Jacko was a JW and he based the song "man in the mirror" on James 1:23 - "anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away immediately and forgets what he looks like." Lets not forget the man in the mirror!

What is Fundamentalism?

Here are a few suggestions I quite like:

"a greater concern to provide evidence for the authenticity of biblical passages than to discover their religious significance." (Barr)

fundamentalists "emphasis rational apprehension of the biblical text over subjective apprehension of the divine." (Boone)

"fundamentalists are evangelicals who are angry about something!" (Marsden)

10 times the food!

If you give to World Vision's campaign to feed the people of Southern Sudan, the World Food Programme will match it tenfold!

Serious hunger is affecting the people of Southern Sudan as a result of a civil war and natural disasters. Amina Ahmed is 15 years old and has 7 brothers and sisters to look after. They ended up in a refugee camp having been forced to flee their village by the conflict. Her father is missing and her mother is ill. So, it is up to her to feed her family.

I couldn't find anything about this on the net, but I am making this our school's fund raising this term. So, if you want to give as part of that, you could let me have a cheque and I will include it. Otherwise call 0800 088088.

Alternative worshippers look down on church!

Us bloggers love to sit behind a computer screen in our 7th floor vacant rooms and look down on church goers, alternative worshippers, other bloggers, and generally treat the whole world with disdain. How easy it is to be a blogger!

Stop the Settlements!

Why not support this campaign by Avaaz?

President Obama just made a remarkable speech in Egypt, committing personally to building peace in the Middle East. Unexpectedly, his first move is to directly challenge the new right-wing government of America's ally Israel - pressing them to stop their self-destructive policy of settlements.

Obama’s bold strategy is facing powerful opposition, so he’s going to need help around the world in the coming days and weeks to strengthen his resolve. Let’s start right now - by raising a massive global chorus behind Obama’s statement that the settlements in occupied territory must stop.

We’ll advertise the number of signatures in key newspapers in Israel, as well as in Washington DC (where some are trying to undermine Obama in the US Congress). Read Obama’s words now and add your signature to them at the link here.

"Israeli Settlement Growth Must Stop, Says Clinton":

Saying something positive about charismatic worship!

I've spent the last few months absorbed in a study of the Spring Harvest 2008 songbook - mostly in order to confirm all of my prejudices about charismatic worship - and yes, most of them were confirmed!

Its lack of engagement with contemporary issues is quite shocking. Only one song, for example, out of the 120 songs, mentions ecology! Only 6, in my opinion, really engage with issues such as poverty or oppression. Yet, in these 6 songs (by 3 authors), I detect a change. Particularly when you consider that the 1994 songbook had no songs about any of these issues and had a picture of Christians dressed as the Crusaders! Certainly, these 6 songs are framed in the typical charismatic ways (not always helpfully), but their presence in the songbook is worth noting. They are marked by an engagement with contemporary issues, a concern for justice and the oppressed, an integration of God with the day-to-day and a recognition that as Christians they participate in the bringing in of God's kingdom to the earth.

I think this is the best lyric. There are some aspects of the song I'm not a fan of, but here are some good charismatic lyrics:

"Bring heaven to earth, Lord,
... You invite us to partner with you,

to see your kingdom come.

...Bring home to the homeless,
...Bring worth to the purchased,
and touch to the shamed,
...bring truth where there's spin
...bring justice to profit,
bring patience to growth;
bring wisdom to progress,
...bring freedom from debt, Lord,
an end to excess."

Listen to the full song here.

VOTE (Don't let 'Christian Values' kick Jesus out of the country)

Its elections today - GET OUT AND VOTE - otherwise, certainly in Sheffield and many other towns in the UK there is a real risk that the BNP might get in.

What's that on Nick Griffin's lapel - why a cross of course - because the BNP supposedly stand for 'Christian Values', good old England and all....

So Nick, this Jesus of yours, was he a swarthy skinned Palestinian Jew and one time asylum seeker in Egypt? Would you even let him into this country....

Sentamu even took out an ad in his paper

Guantanamo Reversal?

“Now some have suggested that this represents a reversal on my part” – Barack Obama.

Those were the words we really didn’t want to hear from Barack’s lips about his pledge to close Guantanamo, but we always feared that hidden in the fine print and the practical details, would be a reversal of sorts.

First, he has decided to revive Bush’s practice of trying terrorism suspects in military commissions. Whatever happened to a fair trial?

Second, he blocked the release of photos showing abuse of detainees. Whatever happened to justice for victims?

Third, “prolonged detention” of terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to the US, but who cannot be tried, because the evidence is “unusable” having been got under torture. Isn’t this just moving Guantanamo to the mainland?

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty, right to a fair trial, right to a lawyer?

I have some sympathy with Barack’s position, having to make the real decisions, but am I too harsh in seeing this as a reversal of sorts?

It prompts me to remember to pray for a man with tough decisions to make and that he wont go the way of practically every person I know who has power.