malcolm chamberlain

'This' is an interesting article by Rowenna Davis from the Guardian comparing religion and environmentalism. Dave Walker offers some interesting reflections on it 'here', not least the observations that "many... find it important to combine religious belief with environmental action."

Labels: mission, politics, spirituality

Mark's in the news again!! This is a pretty interesting article from the BBC, looking at how the church in Telford is engaging (or not) with what it calls the 'spiritual-but-not religious brigade'. It features 'Safe Space' and even a quote from 'emerging church guru' Ian Mobsby (is that a title that he's been officially given?!)

Read the article and then go to Mark's blog to read his reflections on it...

Labels: emerging church, popular culture, religion, spirituality

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

here's something I wrote recently for our church magazine...

For us as a family the dominating item over the last few weeks has been the dreaded box! On the Tuesday after Easter the Pickford’s team arrived at our then home in Aigburth and began packing all our worldly goods into boxes – nearly 200 of them! Then, two days later, they delivered those boxes, along with our furniture, to the Rectory opposite St Mary’s – and so began for us the lengthy (and still ongoing) process of unpacking boxes and finding new homes for all our stuff (minus the things we’ve bravely thrown out!)

And all this has got me thinking about how our lives are so often characterised by ‘boxes’ of sorts. We all have our preferred ways of doing things and understanding things. And, of course, there’s nothing wrong in having those ‘boxes’ – they generally offer stability and security, our own little known world in the sometimes frightening and often-unstable big world. The problems arise when I think that my box is the only valid box or, more specifically, that God only functions and dwells in my box because he only approves of my box. Sadly, churches can be masters at trying to box God up like this – whether it’s in terms of tradition, musical style, doctrine, what is considered ‘reverent’, or a myriad of other ways.

The gospel writers tell us that as Jesus breathed his last, hanging on a cross on that hot dusty Friday afternoon, the curtain in the temple was torn in two. This ‘curtain’ was not some flimsy fabric, but a formidable screen that had previously separated the perceived place of God’s dwelling from ordinary people. In this dramatic action it was as if God was visibly breaking out of the box that religion had tried to put him in. The implication… God cannot be contained or, as C S Lewis’ Mr Tumnus says in the first Narnia film, “Aslan is not a tame Lion”! It became clear at Pentecost that this ‘breaking out of God’ was so that he could relate personally, through his Spirit, to all people. No longer can we presume to ‘house’ God in any one specific place – God is making his home in countless places, in countless lives.

As I write, we’re still finding new homes for the things we’re taking out of boxes at the Rectory. I wonder what new homes God may find in this season of Easter? Will he find a new home in someone’s life, maybe even yours? Will he find a new home in your conversations and relationships? Take courage and allow God to break free from the boxes you’ve, maybe unwittingly, attempted to contain him in – you never know, you may just be pleasantly surprised!

Labels: religion, spirituality, theology

"There are two kinds of spiritual journeys or two ways to "be on the way" as Caputo would put it, the first (which is all too familiar to many of us evangelicals) is to know the way ahead of time and then just try your hardest to get there, the second is to be on a trek to find the way but all the while being a bit lost. The postmodern person understands that being lost and at the same time being "on the way" are entirely compatible. Far from falling into the black abyss of relativity that some critics might fear, this kind of a spiritual journey boasts a healthy Christian understanding of the via negativa."

The above quote, which I find really helpful, comes from a post by Charlie Lyons Pardue engaging with John Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct? Read the whole post 'here'.

Labels: post-modernity, spirituality, theology

Every now and then you read something that could have been written specifically for you at the current stage in your life. A few days ago I came across the following blessing from John O'Donohue's Benedictus: A Book of Blessings. Given the changes in my life at the moment, it has really spoken to me and given me courage as I step out into new beginnings. John sadly died on January 3rd, so it seems fitting to post this as an illustration of one more life touched by his work...


hat tip... Paul Fromont

Labels: art, musings, spirituality

'This' is a great post from Matt Stone. In it he writes...

"Isn't giving what Christmas is really about? Giving? Do we think for one second that the magi that rocked up to the original Christmas gathering had their theology all straight? Particularly given their means of divining what was going on? Can you imagine Joseph at the stable door blocking their way with the words, hey, you guys aren't exactly kosher? Or Mary having a go at her Jewish neighbours for not celebrating the birth of her son in a suitably Christian way? By the same token, can you imagine the angels toning things down their heavenly praises to make them more PC?"

Go read...

Labels: religion, spirituality

Life just seems to be so manic at the moment that there's hardly time to read the wisdom of other bloggers let alone come up with something worth posting myself! Here are three posts well worth visiting though...

1. Ben Edson's provocative post that challenges our insecurities when it comes to faith and spirituality - not sure what I think though I'm hugely grateful for people like Ben who push the boundaries and make us think. Also see his follow up post 'here'
2. A refreshing and inspiring (for personal reasons that I'll post about when I get time!) post from Paul Fromont considering leadership, prayer and priesthood.
   
3. Another wonderfully creative piece of mission from friends in New Zealand.

Also, it's well worth mentioning the new double CD from Sigur Ros - great stuff! Looking forward to viewing their DVD too (it's on the birthday/Christmas present list!)

Labels: mission, musings, spirituality, worship

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 really enjoyed being at the Mind Body Spirit Northern Festival over the weekend. I spent much of my time talking to people about their spiritual experiences and searching, praying for people and explaining how we continue this tradition because we believe that Jesus the healer lives on and is with us by his Spirit, and (a new experience for me) giving readings from the Jesus Deck (a contextually appropriate form of applied Bible reading really!)

I think what struck me about the whole experience is how genuinely open people are to engage with 'the divine' and look beyond themselves in order to better know themselves. It's not stretching the point to say that I found a greater sense of openness to 'God' at this festival than I often find in many churches. In fact, people are so open that they are prepared to try all sorts of things and pay quite large amounts of money in the process (though we charged nothing at Dekhomai). I met and prayed with one young man who had already been to the Reiki healers and had his Aura read (at the modest cost of £25). It was the latter experience that was now concerning him as the 'reading' was not very positive. As we talked and prayed he expressed how he had felt a weight lifting from him - maybe a genuine activity of God.

I guess my overall reflection on the experience (and I'm sure it's overly simplistic) is that festivals such as this are in many ways an indictment on the Church, rather than an external expression of 'evil' competing with the Church. Many people I met had been raised through church or had some church experience in their background. For a whole range of reasons they were now continuing their spiritual journey detached from the Church. These people largely responded positively to Dekhomia because Jesus remained central to their spirituality, even though they had openly rejected the Church.

Which all raised a series of questions for me... what led these people to give up on the Church in their spiritual exploration? (I may have some handles on this one though!) More importantly, how do we (is it even possible to) enable people to freely journey in their own spiritual exploration within church communities, even if their present understanding is, in places, at odds with orthodox Christian doctrine and theology? Can we provide the space for such a journey centred on Jesus which will, potentially at least, negate the need that many feel to plough so much of their hard-earned money into Mind Body Spirit festivals? I'm reminded of an elderly lady who was a member of the first church I was a minister at who was greatly loved by everyone in the church and seen as a pillar of the church community. She had a strong belief in reincarnation... was it right that the church still counted her as 'one of us'?! Right or wrong (I'm not really into dogmatics) at least she was able to develop her relationship with Jesus alongside others who would challenge and encourage, rather than being cast into the void at the mercy of the multitude of confusing and contradicting messages.

But I say 'is it even possible to' because maybe consumerism has seduced our lives so fully that even spirituality and the search for God has been made an essentially individually 'purchased' thing. Many people I met over the weekend had 'consumed' several spiritual experiences through what was on offer at the festival and were still floating around, with little or no anchor points, looking for the next experience to 'buy'. If this is the case, then surely the Church has been complicit to some extent in this individualising of faith and spirituality, and must now find ways of being both contextually rooted (speaking the right language) and yet also counter cultural if we are to stem the tide and help people to (re)discover Jesus. I guess in some small way this is what Dekhomai and the stand at the festival was and is trying to do.

Labels: musings, post-christendom, spirituality

I'm at the annual Mind Body Spirit northern festival today and tomorrow on the dekhomai stand, offering healing prayer and resources in Christian spirituality. Dream is working with Sanctus 1 on this - check out the dekhomia approach by clicking on the below logo...

Labels: spirituality

Last Thursday's Dream in Liverpool City is well worth blogging about! It was led by one of the community members, Danielle, and was given the title 'ssshhh' - I knew that it was about the place of silence but didn't really know what to expect.

When we entered the worship space there was a simple set up - the room was dark, lit only by a projector-lamp, that lit up one of the walls with a slowly changing bubble pattern, and a candle in one corner of the room. There were cushions on the floor of the main space to sit on, and three smaller spaces - one with sheets of paper and pens, one with play-dough, and the other with candles to light - were set out at one end of the room.

We were told at the start that the entire service would be in silence - no background music at all (a bit of a departure for Dream!) At 5 minute intervals there were some passages (many written by Nenri Nouwen) projected on to a wall for us to reflect on - each collection of passages began with a screen stating how many minutes remained (i.e. "30 minutes left"... "25 minutes left"...). We were invited to use the space and quiet however we wanted, and to make use of the three set-out spaces as we felt appropriate (if at all). The service was to be 45 minutes long... 45 minutes of complete silence!

Now, I don't really do silence very well, so the thought of 45 minutes in complete silence was not a wholly welcome one. At first I wondered how I would use the time - should I go and play with the play-dough or draw pictures on the paper, or should I just sit still and read the projected passages when they came up? I resisted the temptation to move for a while and began to relax allowing my thoughts to be led by what I was reading on the screen... and time began to speed up! Sure, I made use of one or two of the spaces during the 45 minutes, but definitely not to fill the time - it all seemed to flow together (for me at least) as I engaged with God in a way that I seldom do when rushing from one thing to another.

Having struggled in the past with silent retreats, extended prayer times and the like, I came away from Dream last week thinking that maybe Henri Nouwen and others like him were on to something. Maybe silence is not such a bad idea after all! Thanks Danielle for taking a risk and departing from our norm, if indeed we have one!

Labels: alternative worship, Dream, musings, spirituality, worship

Ikon have now put all the words from their Greenbelt service (which I mentioned in this post) online 'here'. As Steve Collins said, it's great to be able to go back and spend time with the material that was densely packed into the experience that was 'the service'! In particular I'm glad that they have generously made available the text for the excellent 'where does your faith lie?' by Jon Hatch. It's well worth spending some time with.

Thanks Ikon for a thought-provoking service and for making it all available to mull over again!

Labels: alternative worship, Greenbelt, spirituality

"If I know God in a way that allows me to rest with this knowledge, then I do not know God, because God's life is infinite and impossible to possess. If I love God in a way that allows me to rest with the love, then I have tacitly believed that God's goodness is somehow manageable on my terms, that it is not a goodness that seizes me and continues to take me out of myself towards the divine life. So again I deny God's infinite life. But furthermore I cease loving. To love is to give myself away, but if I rest in a certain experience of God's goodness in this mortal life then I admit that I have no more giving to do, no more growing to do, no more dispossession that is required of myself. To love is to continue to go out of myself and to realize my present love, my present self-gift, as inadequate."

The above quote is taken from Jeffrey McCurry's paper, 'Towards a Poetics of Theological Creativity: Rowan Williams Reads Augustine's De Doctrina after Derrida' (Modern Theology, 23:3, July 2007). This may sound mind-numbingly dull to some, but the gist of the argument is that the 'true' and final meanings of the 'texts' of Scripture and church tradition are always both future (yet to arrive) and, subsequently, different to what we interpret and understand them to be in the present. Although this calls to mind Derrida's 'différance', a term he invented to mean both 'to defer' and 'to differ', Williams (and McCurry via him) puts forward a more robust theological framework of finite minds attempting to understand the infinite God.

"So what?" you might ask! All of this serves as a reminder to us of the inadequacy of our (current) understanding of God and interpretations of Scripture and tradition. Not that we cannot hold dear to certain beliefs and doctrines, but that we must do so always being aware of the limits of our own concepts and understandings when they come to describing the limitless God. When we approach Scripture do we come expecting it to confirm what we already (think we) know to be 'true', or do we come to it expecting it once again to unsettle our current understanding such that we can experience afresh the mystery of the infinite God?

I guess this is why I love contemporary parables such as this one, which cause us to read familiar biblical texts in new ways with previously unimagined twists and turns. Not to say that the parable is a more accurate (or 'true') reading of the text, but simply that it causes us to remain open to our own interpretations not necessarily being 'true' in any final sense either. I guess this places the Christian 'texts' comfortably within the analogy of journeying faith, in which we grow to know them and re-know them as we journey with Christ, as opposed to them being already arrived-at endpoints. As McCurry puts it, "Christian tradition is always undergoing a process of being re-imagined and even re-made in ways that are both profoundly discontinuous and continuous with the re-imagining and re-makings of earlier generations."

Labels: musings, spirituality, theology

'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

Matt Stone has two excellent, and very helpful, posts regarding incarnational missiology and incarnational pneumatology. Don't be put off by my 'theological jargon' way of describing the content of the posts - both are really accessible and raise some important considerations for anyone engaged in mission amongst (using Matt's own words) "New Age "whateverists," western Buddhists, yoga practitioners, NeoPagans, witches and goddess worshippers." His diagrams are particularly helpful summaries of the various view points under discussion.

Here's a taster of where Matt ends up in his second post, which may encourage you to follow the whole argument...

"being more engaged with the world than Pentecostalism, missional pneumatology is in a far greater position to speak intelligably back into cultures that practice channelling, holistic medicine and mantras. Furthermore, being more holistically informed by the pre-Pentecost pneumatology of the Old Testament, missional pneumatology speaks of the Spirit of God moving though all creation without confusing Creator with creation."

Go read... [1], [2]

Labels: mission, spirituality, theology

If you're not a fan of U2's music, then stick with this anyway (or skip ahead to 4:44) to hear Bono's inspirational words...



... the address that these words are taken from is posted in full 'here' - I know it's a bit old now, but it's still one of the most powerful, most biblical addresses on poverty and justice I've ever heard, so it's well worth watching again.

Also, if you've got an hour to spare (I haven't!) YouTube also has an interview of Bono by Bill Hybels which was aired at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit last summer. It's been posted in several parts beginning 'here' with Bill Hybels' introduction about Bono. It also features the video posted above. I haven't yet had the chance to watch it in its entirety, so can't comment on it, but thought it was worth posting the link anyway!


hat tip... Beth at 'U2 Sermons' blog

Labels: justice, politics, popular culture, spirituality

Matt Stone has written an excellent post on missional pneumatology 'here', which is bound to ruffle a few feathers and make many feel uncomfortable, but is well worth reading (perhaps for this very reason!). For those pressed for time, here's the gist of his argument (which is likely to make you want to read the full post anyway!!)...

"The most critical challenge as I see it is the demonization of world religions and irreligious spiritualities by evangelicals, especially the counter-cult and strategic level spiritual warfare leaders, but also by everyday believers. To be blunt, it is difficult to engage sensitively and incarnationally with alternate spiritualities where you are convinced they, and the spiritual experiences they testify to, are 100% of the devil. Of course, that statement proves nothing in and of itself, but if we loosen up and look at the Bible afresh, we may just be surprised by what we might find. I won't elaborate further right now, but just suggest that Acts 17 and the story of Balaam turn up some very interesting things.

This is one of the reasons I like to focus on engaging with Wicca. If you can find the Spirit at work even within Wicca, the perennial boogie man of evangelicals, well, where should you not expect to find the Spirit moving then?

This brings me to my essential challenge to Charismatics and the rest of the institutional church. Your Spirit is too small. Your Spirituality is too small. You think the Spirit only falls in the house of the Lord? Phah! You think there are territories where demons rule with impunity? Henotheism! Have you forgotten the teaching of omnipresence? The Spirit does not send us anywhere where he is not already at."

Read the post in full 'here'.

Labels: mission, spirituality, theology

I've just finished reading James K A Smith's Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church, and would say that it's essential reading for anyone who is engaged in the emerging church 'conversation' or is concerned about being missional in the culture(s) of postmodernity. Smith takes a fresh look at what he refers to as the 'bumper sticker' quotes of Derrida ("There is nothing outside the text"), Lyotard ("incredulity towards metanarratives") and Foucault ("power is knowledge"), arguing that by pulling these popular quotes out of the context from which they originate (the original texts of the respective writers) we have largely misunderstood the authors' intentions. As such, these insights, and those of postmodernism as a whole, far from being opposed to Christian theology, may act as timely catalysts for the Church to rediscover in practise what it means to be the church.

Smith resists popular calls for the Church to be 'relevant' and non-confessional, seeing such trends as merely extensions of the modernist world view. Instead, he argues that in order to be fully post-modern we must reclaim pre-modern practices and insights (especially those of Augustine and Aquinas) and take up the invitation, given by postmodernism, to articulate a robust confessional theology (the unapologetic telling of our 'story'). Further, he envisions a postmodern church that is rooted in history and tradition, and which fully affirms the physical body, temporal space and place, and the community, all of which have been sidelined or neglected by modernity (and, consequently, the evangelical church). At the heart of all of this, he argues, is the centrality of the Incarnation.

Smith writes in a pacey and thoroughly accessible style, drawing on the stories of recent movies to illustrate the points being made by postmodern philosophers. He is clearly sympathetic of the emerging church, but also raises a useful critique asking if even the emerging church is still unwittingly too tied to modernity. As you might expect of such a book, there is no shortage of quotable passages, but here's one illustrating how incarnation shapes ecclesiology, which has certain resonances with current trends in alternative worship and the emerging church...

"The story of God-become-flesh is best rendered by the poetry and painting of affective worship rather than the narrowly cognitive didacticism of Power-Pointed "messages." Properly postmodern worship resists such reductionism by reclaiming the holistic, full-orbed materiality of liturgical worship that activates all the senses: hearing (not just "messages" but the poetry of the preached Word), sight (with a renewed appreciation for the visual arts, iconicity, and the architectural space of worship), touch (in communal engagement, but also toughing the bread that is Christ's body), taste (the body and blood), and even smell (of wine in the cup of the new covenant but also the fragrance of worship in candles and incense). God's taking on a human body also takes up our bodies into worship and participation in the divine." (p140)

Labels: emerging church, popular culture, post-modernity, spirituality, theology, worship

'This' new blog from Jon Birch is well worth adding to your reader!

Labels: art, fun, religion, spirituality