malcolm chamberlain

Things have been very quite on this blog front recently, but I'm breaking the silence (!) to post this interesting interview with the three main Political Party leaders concerning their attitude towards the church. It's well worth a watch...

Of course, this isn't the only, or maybe even the most important, issue that should concern us as Christian voters. The people at the 'Robin Hood Tax' have made it easy to canvass our politicians views on that issue, which could well expose their attitudes towards poverty and wealth more generally. I only sent the email yesterday and have already received an extensive reply from our local Green Party candidate. Click 'here' to send it to your candidates.

Finally, in the wake of the controversy surrounding Gordon Brown's inadvertent cock-up yesterday, Kester Brewin has written a great parable with tongue only slightly in cheek. Find it on his blog 'here', but it's worth reproducing in full...

Labels: church, community, justice, news, politics

I've been asked to write something about sacraments for some pioneer ministers in Liverpool to comment on as part of their networked learning, but I’m keen to open the discussion out more widely, so feel to comment whoever and wherever you are! Be warned, this is quite a lengthy post for this blog!

I’ve blogged before about Eucharist 'here', following a conversation I had with my Bishop about what policy I practiced in admitting people to Communion who have not been baptised, let alone confirmed. I remember feeling a bit uncomfortable with the question until he assured me that he wasn't trying to catch me out! He went on to recommend a book by Timothy Gorringe called 'The Sign of Love' and lent me the book, which I reviewed 'here'. The gist of Gorringe's argument is that the Last Supper was, for Jesus, a continuation of the table fellowship that had so characterised his ministry, and through which he had included those often considered outsiders by the religion and culture of his day. Gorringe sets out a clear case for Jesus using table fellowship redemptively, which culminates in the Last Supper. Therefore, he suggests, Communion should be offered widely and becomes, for many, the means of connecting with God's grace and the community of faith. Rather than admission to Communion following on from baptism, Gorringe argues that the Eucharist should be offered unconditionally to all, and may itself become a significant part of a person's story leading them to a fuller identification with the community of faith.

For some time I've been unsatisfied with the Evangelical Anglican fudge concerning invitation to receive the Eucharist! I used to trip off the standard "if you love the Lord and know him as your saviour then you are welcome to receive", thinking I was being radically inclusive by not demanding that participants be confirmed. But I've become dissatisfied with this because it is still surrounding Jesus' unconditional table fellowship with certain requirements, those being ‘loving Jesus’ and ‘knowing him as saviour’, so why not go the whole hog and demand the traditional Anglican line of confirmation?! Nowadays, in my parish ministry as well as in pioneer ministry, the invitation I give is totally open – something like "if you'd like to come and receive you are welcome to do so - this is not my table or the church's table, but Jesus', and he welcomes all." I'm not sure how this would go down at a Bishop's team meeting, but given the fact that Eucharistic ministry seems to be so central to emerging churches because, in its mystery and non-cerebral engagement, it is missionally attractive, it seems that the Spirit is leading us to step down from our hierarchical protectionism regarding gifts of God's grace and get back to the Jesus way of offering hospitality to all.

In a similar way, my position on baptism has changed over the years too! I used to want to put baptismal candidates (or the parents and godparents of children being baptised) through a thorough course to ensure that they properly understood ‘the gospel’ (or, at least, my version of it) before going ahead with baptism. Now, as with Communion, I have a much more open approach. There is a significant difference with baptism, however, and that is that the candidates or their sponsors are making some public statements of belief and intention regarding life direction (turning away from all that is against God and turning to Christ). For this reason, I like to meet up with parents and godparents to go through the words of the service, so that they know in advance what is being asked of them, and try to answer any questions they might have, offering in the process alternative arrangements (such as thanksgiving or dedication services) if they felt unable to make these statements with integrity. But that said, I don’t see it as my role to ‘judge’ whether they are taking the rite seriously or being completely honest with me. If they say they are ok with all this and that they want to go ahead then that’s good enough for me – after all, baptism too is a visible sign of God’s grace, so who am I to ring-fence it or deny access to people? Surely it is between them and God, and the sacraments are God’s initiative and invitation, not ours.

In pioneering mission all of this takes on a sharper significance in that we want members of the new emerging community, who may not yet have owned faith personally, to be fully included in all aspects of community life and worship. What do we do if we are involved in taking a baptism and someone else in the community shouts out, “I’d like to do that too”? Do we insist on a future baptism after some instruction or do we simply baptise them there and then? It seems that the way of John the Baptist, and Jesus following him, would have been to simply get on with it!

And what about the words we use? At Dream we often write our own Eucharistic prayers, rooted contextually in the community and the occasion, but that has gotten us into trouble in the past! Should pioneer communities be restricted to the authorised form of words that the Church of England (or whatever sponsoring body) has decreed acceptable or should there be liberty to reframe sacramental worship in the culture of the host community? And I haven’t even touched on the ‘lay’ or ‘ordained’ question! When it’s a recognised and often stated fact that many ‘fresh expressions’ are lay-led (surely a cause for celebration!), what is gained by shipping in an ordained person from outside the new and fragile community just so that the community can experience the grace of Jesus’ table fellowship? If the Eucharist is a visible demonstration of the physicality of God – God incarnate, flesh and blood, bread and wine – why can’t we allow it to be fully incarnate in a community that has no ordained person present?

This is a splurge of thoughts and I’m looking forward to the comments, but just to finish it’s worth mentioning that I am seeing people beginning to identify with Christian community and own faith for themselves through their experience of the sacraments, be it in emerging church or conventional church communities. Being welcomed into the mystery of the Eucharist, or being trusted to take on the promises of baptism without a faith grilling, has enabled people to feel included and a sense of belonging - that they are a part of what God is doing, that they matter. My fear is that our past (and still current) attempts to ‘uphold the integrity’ of the sacraments, by building walls around them, have only served to undermine their integrity as tangible vehicles of God’s grace and unconditional love.

Labels: community, emerging church, mission, musings, theology, worship

In preparation for a round table discussion with Tom Sine, that I'm involved in tomorrow, I've just read the first two chapters of The New Conspirators (I thought I'd better!)

The chapter 'Emerging, Missional, Mosaic and Monastic' is an excellent, and pretty up-to-date, overview of what Sine describes as 'four streams of renewal' in the church at present (the four streams being those in the chapter title).

Last Friday I was interviewed by BBC Radio Merseyside as part of the run up to 'Back to Church Sunday', and was asked if I was concerned by the state of the church and, in particular, by its decline. I said that I wasn't, because I was hearing so many stories of new life and (to use the phrase) 'fresh expressions' of church that were much more rooted in the realities of communities, cultures and real life. I mentioned that, for me, a faith that didn't touch base with, and affect, reality was a faith not really worth having!

For people who are concerned about the state of the church, the first two chapters of Tom Sine's latest book will come as both an encouragement and a challenge. An encouragement as you read of the many ways in which new communities of followers of Jesus are taking root and making a difference, and a challenge as your eyes are opened to these new realities and your existing church (and faith) paradigms are shaken, even subverted. The kingdom of God is, of course, so much bigger than what we've allowed it to become in our Christian sub-cultures, and Sine's book is a wake up call to join in with the missio dei.

I love the invitation at the start of the book to "become a part of something 'really, really small,' a quiet conspiracy that is destined to change our lives and God's world." (p23) I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the book and to meeting and discussing with Tom Sine tomorrow.

Labels: church, community, mission, post-modernity

just trying out an idea here...

I was in a discussion earlier today in which we were comparing Jesus' non-directional teaching and non-hierarchical 'church' structure to that which we find in Paul's letters. Where Jesus seemed intent on rejecting status (see Matthew 23:8-12) and on asking more questions than he gave answers, Paul seems equally intent on introducing structure, firming up theological convictions and making requirements of 'leaders' that set them apart from the rest (e.g. Titus 1:5-9, assuming Paul wrote Titus which I'm happy to accept). This cursory reading of both Jesus and Paul has led many people to set them up against each other and plump for the teaching of one as their 'key texts'.

As we were discussing this I started wondering if it could be argued that Jesus was engaged in deconstructing the inherited religious patterns, by his teaching and example, subverting the status positions found in his society and the powerplay of directive teaching. If so, can we argue that Jesus was intentionally engaging in encouraging people's faith journeys on from a stage 3 inherited faith (using Fowler's model) towards stage 4 and beyond?

Following this through, we could then argue that Paul was merely beginning the process of reconstruction, trying to make sense of his own religious heritage, the teaching and practice of Jesus and the social context(s) in which he found himself. At times Paul can seem a bit confused with himself - not surprising for someone moving through a stage 4 towards a stage 5 faith!

If this were the case, we could draw a couple of interesting implications...

1. Paul's project was not contra to that of Jesus, but was a development of Jesus' own ministry. It is desireable (or is it?) that deconstruction leads to a reconstruction where the latter takes account of the journey and the changed perspectives and so may look very different from the pattern held prior to deconstruction, whilst having some similarities. Compare Paul's church structure and pattern for leadership with that of 1st century Judaism - similarities and radical differences.
2. Paul, in reconstructing faith and community structure was doing so for the 1st century world(s) in which he lived and travelled. He wasn't necessarilly setting a definitive pattern that has to be adhered to by all people of all nations in all times.

Is it then the task of the church in every new context, be it cultural, historical or whatever, to be both allowing Jesus' teaching and ministry to deconstruct inherited patterns of faith and community, keeping us centred on the teacher rather than the teachings, the divine rather than the institution, whilst at the same time engaging in reconstructing new patterns of church and ministry that take into account the story so far and the social context in which we currently live? This sounds a bit like N T Wright's 'faithful improvisation' arrived at in a very different way!

This is clearly not a thought through theory, just something I'm mulling over! Any comments?...

Labels: church, community, musings, theology

a great little post from Ben Sternke on missional church.

Labels: church, community, mission

A conversation I was engaged in last night has got me thinking some more about missional church commmunities. It was a fascinating discussion in which we voiced the tension between the 'ideal' Christian community and the 'reality'. The ideal community is one where members are so committed to one another and to journeying together in relationship with Christ that they are able to put up with one another, 'warts and all', tolerating and even embracing differences. Furthermore, the 'warts and all' are not hidden behind the facade of false 'Christian smiles' and utterances of 'everything is ok', but are public and worked through in an environment of honesty and unconditional acceptance. And so, the ideal Christian community will be multi-generational and multi-cultural, where everyone is open to learn from and engage with the people and things they don't particularly like (music, traditions, beliefs, etc), as well as those they do.

The reality of course is always different to this - generally people belong to their particular faith community because it best expresses the kind of things they do like, and includes the kind of people they can relate to. And woe betide anyone who comes in and tries to change this balance too radically to a different way of doing things. Generally we don't put up with 'warts and all' because we tend to keep them hidden, and when they do rise to the surface we simply resort to criticisms usually behind the backs of the people concerned!

So how do we move from the reality to the ideal... is it even possible? It dawned on me (rightly or wrongly) during our discussion that to try to 'create' the ideal is always doomed to failure. It's not good enough to expect people to put up with stuff they don't like or people they don't get on with, and to judge them as not committed enough if they don't. Our Western culture is fragmented, in the sense that it encompasses countless sub-cultures within it, but one uniting facet is consumerism. Christians often start talking about consumerism very critically as if we've managed to escape it, but the truth is that we are all consumers, me included! It follows that in a fragmented consumerist society people will tend to only engage in voluntary activities that they want to be a part of, activities that they enjoy or get something from. We generally don't chose to do things that we don't enjoy unless we're paid to or have to.

If then, we want community to be missional - if we want to encourage people to identify with and belong to faith communities, these communities have to, first and foremost, be ones that people can relate to and so want to belong to. Gone are the days (thank God) of people rolling up to church because someone says they ought to, and enduring it because they have no choice in the matter.

It's true that at work or when shopping (two examples raised in last night's discussion) we may encounter and tolerate annoying people, but at work we are paid and have no choice but to get on with the job regardless (apart from resigning that is), and when shopping we're either shopping for essentials and so have to put up with the inconveniences, or our desire to shop in that particular store outweighs the inconvenience so we simply try to avoid the nuisance. Work and shopping for essentials are not really voluntary activities and the leisure shopping we do because we enjoy it - if we didn't we'd likely stop shopping in the places where the annoying people were.

In the case of church we have a very different dynamic - it's generally a community where we can't avoid people (except in very large congregations) and where we have to put up the things that annoy us. My (educated) guess is that many people simply vote with their feet when they encounter uncomfortable differences, thinking 'why should I go to church to put up with stuff and people I don't get on with?' Of course, in all this we must still hold on to the ideal, but we can't engineer it and if we only operate in that model we're unlikely to engage anyone new, especially people with no previous church background. The level of selflessness needed to be committed to a community 'warts and all' is probably a fair distance down the discipleship path for most people - indeed many people who have been 'going to church' for decades have still not reached that point and hold out for what they prefer above any missional concerns. So why insist that people newly engaging with a community should be at that point immediately, and should 'shut up and put up' if they're serious about following Jesus.

So maybe this becomes an apologetic for culture specific communities, at least as a place of first connection with followers of Jesus. I guess the introduction of 'clusters' in some church models (e.g. "here') is an attempt to provide such spaces of belonging. These are not intended as end points with respect to engagement in Christian community, and are certainly not seen as exclusive 'clubs'. The intention is to allow the organic growth of safe and attractive community in which people can engage in the journey of discipleship with others, because they actually want to be there. At some point on the journey they may well begin to realise that they do actually need the 'warts and all' after all.

Labels: church, community, mission, musings

A friend emailed me this morning and told me of the following recent experience...

...in Starbucks yesterday [I was] reading Gordon Lynch's new book when 'Imagine' comes on over the system. I'm thinking, 'Actually that's no different to Revelation: no sun and stuff. Lennon's doing the same thing as John.' The old woman in front starts talking to the young guy passing her with his coffee:
"What's that song? I've just been writing about it all and there it is in words... No heaven... a perfect future... "
The guy doesn't know, so I pipe up, " The song's Imagine"
The woman and the guy fall into conversation about the song, and I return to my book. And the woman says, "When things like this happen, they're a sign... lots of signs". And the guy says, "In the end, it comes down to the individual. Do you know Jesus?" And the woman says, "Of course, Jesus is among us..." And I think, 'Here's the book, alive in front of me: the traditional individualistic religion meeting the progressive searching community model...'

I wonder which model you most easily relate to?! It seems that the more 'churched' we are (especially in the evangelical tradition), the more we will struggle to relate to the progressive searching community model, in favour of the safer confines of individualistic religion with its neat theologies. And yet, it's the more 'messy' model we find in abundance all around us (expressed most explicitly in places like 'this'), which doesn't seem a million miles away from the approach taken by Jesus, along with his 'searching community' of 12 (plus extras!)

Thanks Steve for the story and for your permission to post it here.

Labels: community, religion, spirituality

I've just read the book that I mentioned in 'this' post, where I blogged some of my own reflections about having an open policy towards sacramental worship on the back of a conversation had with my diocesan bishop.

I have to say that in just 87 pages (I love short books) Timothy Gorringe manages to pack a lot of material in! In six highly readable brief chapters he discusses the concept of 'sign', seeing the eucharist in that context; the historical development of eucharistic practice from the simple table fellowship of Jesus to the protected 'ritual' of church worship; the economic and political implications and demands of eucharistic observance; the eucharist as a fashioning of new community; and the centrality of the picture of the Trinity, explored through the lens of Rublyev's famous fifteenth-century icon (used as the image on the book's cover), which demands that eucharistic worship be earthed in relational reality.

Gorringe also addresses some of the great issues of our day - the environment, international debt and trade justice, and human sexuality; and finds keys to understanding these in the eucharist. Not bad for 87 pages!!

For me, though, the most exciting and illuminating insight Gorringe offers is in his sketch of how (what we today understand as) eucharistic worship was deeply rooted in Jesus' ongoing table fellowship. Gorringe reminds us that it was at table that Jesus showed grace and acceptance to 'tax-collectors and sinners', earning him criticism and accusations (Mark 2:16, Luke 7:34, Matthew 11:19), and argues that at the Last Supper Jesus simply continues in this vain of using table fellowship redemptively. As such, it should be a rite offered by 'the Church' to anyone who wishes to partake, as it becomes a means of connecting with God's grace and with the community of faith - a sign of the gospel being proclaimed. Rather than admission to communion following on from baptism, Gorringe argues that the eucharist should be offered unconditionally to all, and may itself become a significant part of a person's story leading them to baptism and identification with the community of faith.

For the record... I'm with Gorringe here! It seems to me that closing the doors to the eucharist runs counter to the grace with which we see Christ opening the doors of table-fellowship to (literally) all and sundry! We've taken a redemptive sign of the kingdom and turned it into an exclusive and solemn ritual, which can only damage our witness to a culture that is rediscovering the significance of symbol and participation. As Gorringe writes...

"If the eucharist is, then, rooted in Jesus' table fellowship with sinners, not exclusively, but as importantly as it is rooted in the Last Supper, what an irony it is that receiving communion was hedged about in the way it was with dire warnings to 'the wicked'. If we eat and drink unworthily, according to the homilies in the Book of Common Prayer, 'We eat and drink our own damnation ... we kindle God's wrath against us; we provoke him to plague us with divers diseases and sundry kinds of death.' This is a far cry from the meal with Zacchaeus indeed!" (p21)

We talk of 'celebrating the eucharist' - maybe we need to rediscover that celebration at the core and throw the party doors wide open.

Labels: community, musings, theology, worship

this picture tells many stories...

it is a picture of one of the stations from the network service celebrating 5 years of Dream, that was held in Liverpool Cathedral at the end of April. The station began as a single-bed white sheet with a spray-painted line down the centre divided into the years from 2002 to the present. The idea was to construct a time-line of the Dream community over that 5 year period, consisting of the key events in the lives of community members. The notes that accompanied the station read as follows...

Labels: alternative worship, community, Dream

Mark Berry writes...

"I'm feeling stirred to ask some questions... what is our sense of communitas? where is our sense of shared liminality and spirit? how can we abandon the need for "huddle and cuddle" and truly embrace the dangerous journey? For me this means that we shouldn't be expending our energy creating gatherings to which the needy will be drawn, this isn't about creating safe spaces in our places but is about creating safe space between me and another... safe not because it is risk free, but safe because it is open and honest, safe because ALL are vulnerable not because none are."

There's a lot of talk about communitas in the emerging church, and a lot of discussion about how Victor Turner's findings and theories can inform and shape missional communities in liminal (post-modern) culture. There is a danger, however, that all this can become simply a conversation about semantics - 'let's call it communitas instead of community' - rather than praxis. I think Mark hits on an essential insight here... what distinguishes communitas from structured community is the 'space' in which it occurs - the 'dangerous journey' as Mark refers to it. Communitas is, by definition, organic and undefined; it is built around relationships and assumed roles, rather than programs and structured hierarchies. It may also, as Turner strongly argues, be temporary, and inevitably give way to structure at some point (and this tendency is evident in some more established emerging church communities currently grappling with questions of leadership, pastoral support structures, etc).

Communitas or not, I'm drawn to Mark's comment that I've highlighted in bold. In my own journey I've valued the 'spaces' (by that I mean relational spaces as much as physical spaces) where I can be real and honest about my faith and my struggles, and that hasn't always been possible in church communities. Mark calls for a space that is safe not "because it is risk free, but safe because it is open and honest, safe because ALL are vulnerable not because none are." I couldn't agree more Mark!

Labels: community, emerging church, mission

Just time for a quick post to point you to Ben Edson's provocative post 'missional and inclusive?' which is in part a response to my earlier post 'here' about the tension implicit in the notion of 'missional community'. Ben asks whether an ethical community can ever be truly missional, arguing that it will be defined through either nationalistic or patriotic tendencies, each in their own way negating any sense of genuine inclusivity.

While I'm not sure that I agree with his premise that ethical community demands definition in one of these two ways, Ben does ask some important questions about community 'gate-keeping', especially those of how we understand what identifies and unites the community, and when does this becomes exclusive of others?

Christian communities that I have been a part of in the past have usually had clear ideas of who is 'in' (= 'saved' or 'Christian') and who is 'out' (= 'unsaved' or 'non-Christian'). 'Outreach' events are then put on as a way of engaging the 'outsiders' and bringing them 'in' through the act of conversion. Such communities are never truly inclusive (and, to be fair, don't claim to be) as they operate from the nationalistic or patriotic foundations that Ben mentions.

However, my experience of emerging church groups is that, to some extent at least, they do exhibit inclusive community by replacing the primary concepts of doctrinal assent and conversion with that of journeying in faith. This 'journeying' metaphor enables anyone (who wants to journey) to join the community. However, having said this, the experience of many who have tried to join emerging churches is that it's still not easy to penetrate such communities, and can at times be intimidating and isolating. This is perhaps an indication of the presence of unintentional marks of exclusivity coming from close friendships (dare I say cliques?) and shared stories that such communities engender. In other words, the theological and ecclesiological shift may have been done, so resisting the nationalism or patriotism of Ben's post, but human relationships are still, with the best will in the world, exclusive.

Can we ever get around this or is the first step towards genuine inclusivity simply acknowledging this and being aware of it?

Labels: church, community, mission

I had a great conversation (with my MPhil supervisor!) earlier today about the research I've been involved in, and especially about my reflections on the fieldwork so far. As we were chatting it became clear to me that the issue I keep coming back to in relation to the emerging church (see, for example, my previous post 'here') is the nature of community evolving and, in particular, the implicit tension found in the oft-used phrase and fundamental value 'Missional Community'.

Why is this a tension? In short, it seems that as community becomes established it can very quickly settle into a 'comfort zone' of sorts that detaches it from the initial missional value. The tension arises when a group begins to become a place of natural openness, vulnerability and mutual responsibility for its members (something that is, in itself, highly desirable and a mark of what Zygmunt Bauman refers to as ethical community), but in doing so inadvertently starts to close the doors of entry to the group. The arrival of a new face can upset the balance and so lead to ill-feeling on the part of existing group members towards the newcomer (although this is rarely voiced and usually very well disguised!) and even to a shutting down in some people who were, prior to the arrival of the newcomer, open and 'at ease'.

I wonder if this has parallels with Victor Turner's description of communitas and structure. Initially, it seems that new emerging church groups, fuelled by a missional and incarnational ethos, take on the fluid and undefined characteristics of communitas; evolving communities that are attractive to, and shaped by, people who wouldn't connect with the structural church or who find themselves on the edges of it. However, once community starts to be built and members start to feel a sense of belonging, it isn't long until the settling process begins, with the establishment of values, models, etc. to 'protect' the way that things are. This can become an unintentional gatekeeping exercise that keeps those who don't 'fit' on the outside. As such we come to realise, without being aware of how or when it happened, that the fluid missional and incarnational communitas has become a new structure with its own 'insiders' and 'outsiders'.

Of course, 'tensions' like this are not necessarily bad or irresolvable. I tend to think that the tension found in 'missional community' is an incredibly creative one that gives much of the energy to emerging church groups. Even so, the question remains: how do we maintain (or is that in itself a form of control and structure?) the church on the edge - the communitas that remains truly missional and open? Does the structuralising of an emerging church community necessarily spell doom and disaster for its missional aspirations?

Labels: church, community, mission

Andrew Jones (TSK) posted two articles earlier this month that are well worth reading:

• tiny is the new small
• massive is the new big

I love the balance that Andrew manages to strike in these posts between resisting the constant pressure towards building big church communites as a mark of 'success' and remembering that all Christian communites belong to something so huge (with its positive and negative facets) that we'll never fully get a handle on it.

Dream in Liverpool City has recently been reflecting on its own size and future. Members have commented on the fact that they value being small and enjoy the real relationships that can develop as a result. Alongside this, though, is the realisation that its often only in the larger gatherings, where people can be more anonymous, that many feel able to connect, at least initially. The Belonging-Believing-Behaving process that is so often talked about should also include an initial 'Being' - sometimes people simply need a place where they can be, and, in being, can connect with God and with others before committing to belong. Dream is geared towards 'being' in its open approach to worship - there is no compulsion to join in all (or even any) of the activities offered but simply an invitation. People are invited to be themselves and to engage as they want. However, when a group is very small in number it is difficult for someone to come and simply 'be', as they are so visible to everyone else.

So, how do we keep together the small and the large whilst remaining a missional community rather than a closed community that does large 'outreach' events?! Answers on a postcard (or reply post) to...

Labels: church, community, Dream, mission, musings

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

Yesterday I was having a really interesting email conversation with Laura from Sanctus 1 (who often blogs 'here') about gathered worship in the emerging church (EC). As with all of these impromptu discussions, it would have been great if we'd been having it in the blogosphere so that others could have joined in! It's not really possible (or necessarily desirable) to rehearse the discussion here (short of simply posting all the emails) but maybe I could pick up on one strand of it, and that's the tension (perceived or otherwise) between creativity and the need for some level of familiarity.

At Dream in Liverpool City we have an open invitation for any member of the community to 'lead' the worship the next time we meet. This is done sometimes by individuals or by people working together, but the strength of it is seen in the variety of 'styles' of worship reflecting the characters of the different people bringing the worship. It also enables an active participation of the members of the community that goes beyond simply joining in with what's been prepared by someone else. One of the most memorable Dream services for me was one that I would never have come up with myself! We entered a room scattered with 'stations' of different coloured beads and were invited by Nicola (who was leading the service) to make a prayer bracelet out of the beads by following a set of instructions that outlined a meaning for each of the different beads. It was a service in which I prayed more than in any other, and which allowed for a great freedom whilst also giving gentle direction. I've still got the bracelet and the explanations sheets and use them in my own prayers from time to time.

Of course, such an invitation carries a level of risk - the risk that the worship one week may not be very good (by one's own always-perfect standards that is!), or that it may be too heavily 'led', or too controversial or too evangelical or too... However, it's a risk that's well worth taking, not least because it ensures that the same individual or group of individuals are not always tasked with leading, but more because it genuinely opens up a whole world of creativity.

The thing that unites these differing expressions as 'Dream' is the core values that we have identified as a community. In this, permission is given for creativity and fresh approaches to gathered worship whilst we uphold the 'familiar' in the values underpinning it all. So, for example, in any service there will always be a focus on engaging with Christ, always be a high level of participation, always be an invitation to explore at a personal level, etc. I guess this approach has prevented Dream from slipping into a comfortable formulaic approach to worship (yes, this is possible with altworship too) whilst maintaining a fair degree of 'I know what Dream is (and is not)' - i.e. the familiar. On being too formulaic, I still remember a seminar discussion at Greenbelt a few years ago, about AltWorship, when someone unwittingly described a service they'’d been to as "“not traditional alternative worship!"” Laughter broke out at this comment but there was a slightly uncomfortable edge to the laughter.

Lord, spare us from creating and getting stuck in 'traditional alternative worship'’!

Surely, the adventure of gathered worship is to be found in the creative energy of a community and in genuine faith exploration in that community, not in discovering a formula that becomes the diktat.

Labels: community, Dream, emerging church, worship

At the beginning of 2004, 'Dream in Liverpool City' (then simply 'Dream') took the decision to step back from organising monthly labour-intensive altworship 'events' in city centre bars to focus on building genuine community. Prior to this we'd been gathering anywhere between 40 and 70 people on the first Thursday evening of each month, including several who had little or no prior contact with the 'Church'. However, we were aware that, despite the event having the appearance of being succesful, there was little or no relationship building going on - people came with a bunch of mates and stayed with those same mates. What's more (and I guess this was a bigger 'problem') the core group of about half a dozen people, who had been meeting regularly as a community for a year before starting Dream and had given birth to the vision, had become nothing more than a frantic planning group for the next Dream service, so running out of energy, inspiration and ideas. During a Dream event we would spend all night running around to make sure the increasingly ambitious services went smoothly rather than chatting to the people who came, and when we met outside of the Dream services it was with a tight agenda to plan the next one. We weren't building community... or were we?

Zygmunt Bauman, in 'Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World', outlines two types of contemporary community. Dream as described above could arguably be identified as Bauman's 'aesthetic' community, with the altworship service being the 'peg' around which we gathered. In line with Bauman's description of such communities, there were no ties or obligations being formed for those who were coming - they could simply peg into the event and then forget about Dream until the following month (although this was not the case for the core planning group). Indeed, this may have been the attraction for many of those who came along to Dream.

Now, two years on from the decision, Dream in Liverpool City looks much more like Bauman's 'ethical' community - a small group of 6-10 people who meet more regularly for worship (still creative and open, closely identifyable with what might be termed 'altworship') as well as some social events. It's now feels more like a community, in the sense of members knowing each other better, supporting each other in the faith journey, and forming ties outside the gathered events.

All of this begs the question... is the Dream of 2006 better than the Dream of 2004? Is community more authentic now? How do we determine what is and what isn't community? Was the aesthetic community of 2004 a pretence of community, or was it authentic in a different way?

Steve Taylor has a great chapter on this in 'The Out of Bounds Church', where he argues that in an age of spiritual tourism both of Bauman's community types are essential to our missiology. He writes that in some sense, the church is both peg and ethical - "The love of God demands ethical discipleship within an ethical community. The love of God offers a place to gently explore that love in a peg community." (page 129)

But is the aesthetic without the ethical genuine community? What about virtual internet communities? Acts 2:44-47 may give us reason to argue for the primacy of ethical community but does this render other types of community substandard or even worthless? Do we have a 'meta-narrative' of community or can we accept all forms (virtual and physical, permanent and transitory) as equally valid? When is 'community' community?

Labels: community, Dream