malcolm chamberlain

Greenbelt begins at the end of this week - I can't quite believe how quickly it's come round (did I say that last year?) but I'm really looking forward to it again. This year there's a pretty good music line-up too with Athlete heading the bill on Monday night. The new Greenbelt iPhone app has really helped in trying to work out which things I'm going to try to go to - I've got loads of stuff on my 'favourites' page, though I know realistically I won't get to half of it!!

Labels: churchless faith, emerging church, Greenbelt

This is a good thought-provoking post from Richard Sudworth. Maybe with his 'IS, NOT and BUT' statements, Richard has made some profound (and not always comfortable, depending on where you're coming from) observations. Inclusion, community and equality are concepts I warm to, and I love Richard's appeal to 'the story' which transcends narrow doctrinal prescriptions and, at the same time, embodies certain themes which are to be embraced in remaining faithful to and journeying in the Christian tradition.

Labels: churchless faith, musings, theology

Ok, so it might just be a pretty long (7 minutes) advert for this book and course (which I haven't read/participated in, so can't comment on), but it is worth a watch all the same...

Labels: church, churchless faith, post-christendom, spirituality

I'm involved in the following things, so catch up with me here...


Sunday 24th August

from 12pm (ish) - Spontaneous Worship with Dream (it's meant to be a surprise but we'll be somewhere youthish!)

5:30pm at the CMS venue - Spirited Exchanges


Monday 25th August

2pm in New Forms - Dream at Dawn

3pm at the CMS venue - Spirited Exchanges

7pm in The Kitchen - Out of Body Experiences - leaving church, finding faith? (interactive seminar/discussion/panel) with Spirited Exchanges


Apart from this, I'm looking forward to hearing Brian McLaren amongst other things (a bit disappointed that 1 Giant Leap are no longer appearing though). Of course, I'll frequently be around the organic beer tent too!! If you're going, have a great festival!

Labels: churchless faith, Dream, Greenbelt

Tracey Messenger, from Church House Publishing, has written a helpful and in-depth review of Leslie Francis and Philip Richter's 'Gone for Good? Church Leaving and Returning in the 21st Century' (Epworth Press, 2007)

You can read Tracey's review on the Spirited Exchanges UK website 'here'

Labels: churchless faith

'This' is great - no need to apologise Jon!

Labels: church, churchless faith, fun

'This' is a wonderfully honest and challenging post from David Hayward, which resonates with some of the ideas that Pete Rollins and the Ikon community are wrestling with. An example of David's shifting paradigm...

"Since the mind incessantly manufactures the god it wants to worship, then I am hopelessly idolatrous. As soon as my mind conceives of God, that is not God. There is something beyond which the mind cannot conceive."

This realisation can be both unsettling (since to recognise it is to lose any sense of control) and liberating. In relinquishing our certainty that the god we conceive of is God, we are led into the possibility of a deeper engagement with the God we cannot possibly fully know.

Read David's honest reflections for yourself...

Labels: churchless faith, musings, spirituality, theology

warning... long post!!

I've recently been in email correspondence with someone, concerning Fowlers' stages of Faith development and how faith stage transition impacts the church. With his permission, I thought I'd post the first two email (one each) that started the discussion, to see if anyone else wants to join in and add their perspective!

It started here...

Hi Malcolm,

Following your recommendation I've been reading Fowler (Stages of Faith) and also found your blog today. You mentioned some reservations that went with your recommendation of Fowler - I'd be interested in hearing them sometime.

One thing I found was your reference to Fowler's Stage 5 & emerging church..

(see post on Wednesday, August 02, 2006)

Fowler also writes : "Stage 5 also sees, however, that the relativity of religious traditions that matters is not their relativity to each other but their relativity - their relate-ivity - to the reality to which they mediate relation. [..] Conjunctive faith's radical openness to the truth of the other stems precisely from its confidence in the reality mediated by its own tradition and in the awareness that that reality overspills its mediation" (Stages of Faith, chapter 20).

My own experience in transition from stage 3 to stage 4/5 faith involved discussions in which I was accused of eclecticism, which I regarded as miles from reality, but it is interesting to note that it was perceived as such by someone in stage 3. Looking back on that period, I realize the extent to which what I inevitably found myself saying was both misunderstood and generated a fearful response.

Is it possible that some of the criticism of emergent church might in reality lie in a frightened response to the challenge to conventional stage 3 faith by those in conjunctive stage 5 faith? If so, then how does emergent church dialogue with those at conventional levels of faith?

Is there not a greater danger than "slipping into an epistemology without any convictions" inherent in "building authentic faith communities for people operating at Fowler's stage 5 - 'Conjunctive Faith'" that this merely becomes, for some at least, a continued search for an idealized church community of the like-minded, one in which people selfishly fail to engage rightly with those at earlier stages of faith.

(Although Fowler does not shy away from averring that his stages of faith represent advancement, I see this in a very limited sense - there's absolutely no room for pride or even complacency here - a stage 3er can be considerably more faithful in his or her stage 3 than a stage 5er in his).

For Fowler also states of stage 5 :

"And with the seriousness that can arise when life is more than half over, this stage is ready to spend and be spent for the cause of conserving and cultivating the possibility of others' generating identity and meaning" (ibid, chapter 20).

Does not a stage 5 faith demand an unselfish, selfless commitment to those in earlier stages of faith? Is there not also a requirement to be part of and contributing to "a faith community that provides for the nurture of ongoing adult development in faith (which) will create a climate of developmental expectation" (ibid, chapter 24)?

How can emergent church realize this if it consists solely of "people operating at Fowler's stage 5"?

Colin

--------

Colin

thanks for this - excellent questions that you ask. I think you're right when you say "Does not a stage 5 faith demand an unselfish, selfless commitment to those in earlier stages of faith?" and I would reply 'yes it does!' The problem is not so much relating stage 5ers with stage 3ers, but more relating those in transition from stage 3 to 4 to 5 with those in stage 3. What tends to happen, especially in more evangelical churches, is that those in transition are seen as 'backsliders' questioning the great unquestionables of evangelical faith, so making it next to impossible for those in transition to remain. This turns things on their head a bit from what you point out in that it's not those who are moving beyond a stage 3 faith who separate themselves off from stage 3 churches, as much as them feeling pushed out or excluded from those churches. Evidence shows that many churches who operate at stage 3 (and most do) are unable to accommodate those who are in transition beyond this. And the more 'certain' the faith being held in the church (for this you could read 'the more theologically conservative the church is') the greater this problem seems to be. What the emerging church and Spirited Exchanges type groups have provided for such people is a place to process faith safely - a place to de-construct and reconstruct faith if you like.

What often happens is that when a person has made this journey and owns a more conjunctive faith (I say 'a more...' because, like Fowler, I doubt that many of us actually get to that point) they often find that they want to re-engage in a community of faith with a more varied 'congregation', i.e. a 'normal' church, though interestingly it may not be of the same 'flavour' as the church they left in the first place.

I think it needs to be stated, though, that the emerging church (to use a label) is not only functioning in this way - in Dream, for example, we do have people who are in faith stage transition but we also have engaged (and do engage) people who are exploring faith, people who still belong to other (more structural) churches and so on. If the emerging church were only a processing space for faith stage transition I wouldn't be advocating it as a missional response to postmodernity in the same way, and its raison detre would be very different - more akin to Spirited Exchanges groups that are, by definition, more temporary places of belonging.

Maybe if we could find a way of being church that allows for faith processing and deconstruction alongside a framework that positively supports and teaches those in stage 3, without judgements being made in either direction, then there wouldn't be a problem!

I don't know if this helps at all - keep your ideas coming and let me know if you want me to open up this discussion on the blog!! (he did!!)

Cheers
Malcolm

Labels: church, churchless faith, emerging church

Today feels hectic in the extreme as I'm getting stuff ready for the weekend (as well as other things coming in!) but I know it's all worth it because I never fail to enjoy Greenbelt. As always, I'm looking forward to this year's festival, to catching up with friends and to getting inspired again! Check out the festival website for up-to-date news about the program.

I'm involved in the following two things...

Friday evening, 7:30pm
Panel: "Supporting Church Leavers"
programme blurb... "Building on the work of 'A Churchless Faith' and 'Spirited Exchanges' in New Zealand, a UK network of groups for church leavers has been growing over the last two years, with strong connections to Greenbelt festival. This seminar will provide an opportunity to meet a panel of people involved in 'Spirited Exchanges UK', and discuss with them relevant concerns and issues, as well as giving an experience of the 'Spirited Exchanges' ethos."

Sunday evening, 7:00pm, New Forms Cafe
Dream worship: "A life more ordinary"
programme blurb... "An invitation to fishermen, shepherds, vicars and tarts, and all other extraordinary people with ordinary lives: to explore the presence of God and reality of heaven in your story."

Hope to catch up with some of you over the weekend!!

Labels: churchless faith, Dream, Greenbelt

"We are the people formerly silent… now speaking with our feet."

'This' is a striking and thought provoking post from Brother Maynard, which captures some of the reasons why people leave church and stands as a warning to those of us in positions of leadership...

Labels: churchless faith

Those who have followed the SE UK journey so far, will know that the inspiration for a UK network of church leaver groups came from the work that Jenny McIntosh has been involved in in New Zealand as a response to Alan Jamieson's 'A Churchless Faith'. (The story of the first five years of Spirited Exchanges in New Zealand is told in the follow-up book, 'Church Leavers, Faith Journeys Five Years On'.) The aim is to connect church leavers with each other so that they can meet in a safe agenda-free environment to talk openly about their faith journeys post-church.

At Greenbelt 2005 Jenny inspired a number of us, who attended her seminars, to work towards realising a network of similar but contextually appropriate groups in the UK. It's not been a speedy process and hasn't revolutionised the world, but there are now a handful of pilot groups meeting across the UK, feeding back how this is (or isn't) working in their locality, as well as a growing email database of people who want to keep in touch with SE UK. The development of the website is the next stage in this evolution!

There is no agenda to begin a new brand of groups or roll out a marketable program. Part of what we're discovering is that some SE-type groups have started organically and been going for some time. They may not be called Spirited Exchanges but may want to be part of a wider network so others can know of their existence. If you belong to such a group and would like to feed in to the SE UK network or are interested in being connected as an individual, visit the website and let us know!

Labels: churchless faith

'this' is an amazing discussion thread started by a woman (Jaqueline) who had began a process of deconstruction regarding her faith in God. It's well worth reading (and gets much better as it progresses, so stick with it!) for the vulnerability and honesty it contains, and for the various responses which are often profoundly moving, sometimes deeply frustrating, but always (it seems) coming from a desire to 'help' or to 'accompany' Jaqueline on the journey she is on. 'Colonel Henry Blake', who joins the discussion at post 20 and is a frequent contributor from there onwards, has recently joined the steering group for Spirited Exchanges UK and often posts comments on this blog. As you read, it may be worth asking yourself the question 'how would/have/do I respond(ed) to people asking similar questions of faith?'

Labels: churchless faith

Alan Jamieson, Jenny McIntosh and Adrienne Thompson's Church Leavers: Faith Journeys Five Years On is now published in the UK and can be ordered through SPCK 'here'. It's a valuable piece of research that revisits the stories of about half of the original church leavers in A Churchless Faith to see if the findings of that book still hold true. The biggest surprise is that, instead of there being a wholesale 'progression' through Jamieson's faith stages, he found that most of the respondents actually showed a stability of faith and a small number had moved to faith positions theoretically 'before' that of their previous one. It demonstrates that the faith journey outside the church is not necessarily a neat linear one and will come as a relief to some church leavers whose experience resonates with it.

The book also charts the development of Spirited Exchanges and the role of spiritual directors. To read what Alan Jamieson says about the book, see 'here' and 'here'.

Labels: churchless faith

Labels: churchless faith, Greenbelt

In preparing for the 'Faith without church' seminars at Greenbelt, I've been gathering some stories (and story tellers) of faith journeys outside the structural church. Mandy Wright has written part of her story and submitted it to the SE UK web site (you can read it in full 'here'). In it she speaks of having a waking dream in which she saw 'huge fortified cities' in the desert; one for those who call themselves Evanglicals, one for Catholics and yet another for Liberals. Alongside these were smaller cities for those who held to a particular doctrine or way of believing. Occassionally the cities would exchange hostile fire over the walls, but generally they looked safe and secure for those living in them.

Mandy continues...


These reflections seem to touch on the discussions about 'conjunctive church' (see my posts 'here' and 'here') - it seems that, in Mandy's waking dream at least, the conjunctive faith community (that operates beyond the old polarities represented by the cities) is the nomadic one; the community/ies of tent dwellers. Such communities will necessarily be transient, as people feel the need to pack up the tent again and travel on, but they are no less genuine because of this. I guess this connects with my post on longevity 'here' too.

One of the oft-cited marks of genuine community is an ongoing sacrificial commitment to one another in the Acts 2 sense or that of Bauman's 'ethical community' (see my post 'here' for more on this), so the question naturally arises... are nomadic communites capable of this? For my part, I would argue that yes they are, and maybe in even more significant ways than the settled (citadel) type communities. If you've ever been back-packing then you will be aware of the sense of community that can exist amongst nomadic people. Several years ago when I was travelling in India I was staying in a back-packers shack on the roof of a tower block in New-Delhi when, one night, I developed pneumonia. It was great to see how people who I didn't know helped in that situation, giving me advice about how to deal with it (sometimes from personal experience), where to go for medical help, how not to get ripped off when doing so, and so on. I can't even remember the names of some of these people, and will probably never see them again, but, for that night at least, I felt like I was in some significant relationship of community with them.

Can the 'Church', whatever we understand that to be, take the risk of moving out of and beyond its citadel strongholds, be they those of tradition, theology or whatever, and facilitate genuine community for the spiritual nomads? What will this look like? Where will it lead us?

While on the subject of community, Paul Fromont has posted an interesting article 'here'.

(sorry for the numerous links in this post - have a good time travelling around them!!)

Labels: churchless faith, community

Looking forward to Greenbelt in 2 week's time - I've been a GB regular for 19 years now and can't keep away from it. It may sound trite, but to me GB is a taste of heaven! Anyway, this year I'm involved in the 'Faith without Church' seminars, with Spirited Exchanges UK (web site soon to undergo a radical re-design!), and the Dream-led service - 'Travel notes for a rescued people'. The seminars are on the Saturday and Monday at 2pm and the service is on the Saturday at 12noon - all in the New Forms Cafe. If you're at Greenbelt, it'd be great to catch up with you at one of these points or at the Global Zoo.

After Greenbelt I've got 2 days to get the washing and packing done before flying out to Pakistan on 1st September with a small group of students, graduates and generally younger-than-me people! We're going to be in Pakistan for three weeks, spending time with the Anglican diocese of Peshawar and CMS mission partners in Islamabad, as well as visiting the relief work in the earthquake and recent flood affected areas.

But before all that... a week's holiday on the south coast with the family! No blog post next week (my wife tries to keep me away from computers when I'm on holiday!) but hopefully I'll return to these pages before Greenbelt and Pakistan!

Labels: churchless faith, Dream, Greenbelt

Had a great time in London today with about 50 others, listening to Alan Jamieson talking about his latest research revisiting the stories of some of the church leavers he'd initially interviewed for 'A Churchless Faith'. Alan's latest book on this, written with Jenny McIntosh and Adrienne Thompson, will be published in August (hopefully) in the UK but has just hit the shops in New Zealand - you can read more about it here. If you weren't able to get to the session at lunch time today, Alan's talk is available to listen to or download in its entirety here, so go enjoy! (to download, right click on the web link and chose 'Save Link As' (forefox) or 'Save Target As' (MS Explorer))

The session also gave us an opportunity to share something of what's been happening with Spirited Exchanges UK. You can read about it and sign up for the email list at the website, but if you're going to Greenbelt in August look out for the two sessions we'll be doing in the new worship cafe venue and find out more there also.

Labels: churchless faith

Alan Jamieson, author of 'A Churchless Faith' and 'Journeying in Faith', is in London on Tuesday (2nd May) speaking about his latest research (and book) revisiting the stories of church leavers five years on. The blurb he has given for Tuesday's gathering is...


SE UK is linked to the amazing work that Jenny has been involved in over in New Zealand, and shares the same ethos (emergingchurch.info have a great interview with Jenny about this here). The intention is to facilitate and resource a network of groups across the country that will provide safe space for people who have left church to process their developing faith without feeling they have to tow a particular party line. Several such groups are already informally meeting in the UK, and SE UK is gathering info about them so that others in a similar place spiritually and geographically can find out what support is available. There's no big hidden agenda to revolutionise the church or change the world - it's simply about enabling people who feel they can't belong in church to find alternative places of belonging (at whatever level they're comfortable with) and support.

Tuesday's gathering with Alan Jamieson is from 12.30 to 2pm at CMS (157 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8UU) - a free sandwich lunch is provided! If you'd like to come along, please email spiritedexchanges@btinternet.com to register.

Labels: churchless faith