malcolm chamberlain

this is brilliant...

Labels: fun, worship

Labels: alternative worship, Dream, Greenbelt, worship

Labels: alternative worship, Dream, Greenbelt, worship

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

Theo Hobson has posted an interesting (but not entirely accurate!) observation about the Dream flash mob on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' site, in which he states,

"This might sound like the trivial stunt of a few oddball God-botherers to you – I beg to differ. I think it the most significant bit of Christian culture I've come across in years. It's one of the first "alternative church" initiatives that has made me feel positive about this vague movement."

Sadly, some of the comments there are less than constructive so I added my own (under the user name 'foxile') - scroll down and contribute if you want! Read Hobson's post here.

Labels: Dream, mission, worship

Dream did their first Guerrilla Worship on Saturday in the new Liverpool ONE shopping mall in the city centre. The Times religion correspondent, Ruth Gledhill, writes that this is "thought to be the first time 'flash mob' has been used to generate a 'random' act of Christian worship." If you want to read more about it, go here, but take a look at the below video!

One Dream member who took part commented: I was on the middle level at 4pm and was amazed to watch almost the whole concourse clear, with people making their way up the steps, shoes in hand. Store assistants were coming out the shops pointing and saying "there's another one!" "what's going on?"

Great stuff!!




update... we've had over 1000 YouTube viewings in the first two days of the video being posted, and made it onto the TimesOnline website and the Church Times blog! Read all about it by clicking the links!

Labels: Dream, mission, worship

Jonny has posted some really helpful and challenging posts about worship, arising out of a symposium he was involved in at London School of Theology. He makes some pertinent points (and echoes those of others) about fully contextualised worship grown "in the soil of your local culture". Read his posts here, here and here.

Labels: alternative worship, church, musings, popular culture, worship

"Many faults are the result of an over-correction, or a hang-over from a previous dispute. In the 1500s, reformers could see that many people were worshipping the beautifully-crafted statues rather than the God who made all things. The statues weren't evil in themselves. But their beauty had, for some, become captivating and deceptive. So icons were removed, walls white-washed and incense burners extinguished. A religion of the eye and the nose became a religion of the ear and the brain. The sensuality of the faith had been lost. And it may be worth noting that Christianity, as a mass religion, declined in the following 200 years, losing much ground to Deism and Rationalism."

The above quote is taken from an article in the November 2007 issue of Third Way magazine in which James Cary comments on the extraordinary beauty of the earth as a pointer to the fact that "God's into beauty." I totally agree with James on this and lament the 'baby' that was thrown out with the reformers 'bath water'. Even today I find myself in conversation with some evangelicals having to justify the use of image and visual in worship - how sad.

Maybe, though, things are changing and the place of ascetic beauty is being rightly rediscovered in worship. James concludes his article by stating, "Things are beginning to change among evangelicals. It's taken 500 years, but fortunately that is like a day to God (although to us it seems longer). Ministers and pastors increasingly want to connect with the creative community..."

Labels: theology, worship

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

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

"The trouble with image-based perceptions of God and worship is that you're only one step away from idolatry" - so spoke a friend of mine who is also a pastor of a free Reformed church.

His comment came as part of a conversation we were having on Sunday, in which I was describing how Dream tended to engage people who felt that their artistic and creative gifts had more often then not been sidelined in worship they had experienced at other churches. I tried to explain how songs and words were often seen as 'central' to the act of worship while artistic expressions (painting, sculpting, modelling, fabric work, etc) were seen as peripheral. People who expressed themselves better through art consequently often felt themselves sidelined in worship. Dream (and other so-called 'altworship' groups like it) was attempting to redress the balance and see art as equally central to the act of worship.

And then came the comment... the implication: art can lead to idolatry! My friend's point was that in art we attempt to 'picture' God and so violate the second Commandment. My response was that in words we equally attempt to 'picture' God and so are equally likely to break the second Commandment. Plenty of 'graven images' have been constructed linguistically and presented as THE correct description of God - surely that's just as idolatrous as an icon or a statue (if not more so because of the intent - very few people regard an icon as THE correct description of God)!

The real issue here is how we deal with the images of God that we construct - be they visually, through art, or linguistically, through words. In word or picture we attempt to encapsulate God, and as soon as we have done so what we have encapsulated is, by definition, less than God. God is so much greater than any of our images or descriptions of God, and so whatever we can come up with is, at best, only a partial depiction of God.

And so word and image are equally useful tools and equally 'dangerous' (if you want to follow my friend's line of argument) tools in trying to get a handle on the Divine. Maybe this is why Jesus taught so much about humility and used so many parables to disrupt people's perceptions and teach new things about God and the kingdom (incidentally, what are the parables if they are not attempts by Jesus to 'paint pictures' in people's minds?)

So I, for one, will continue the artistic and creative quest in worship event though I am naturally more disposed to words! After all, didn't Jesus say "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul..." as well as "with all your mind"?

the above image is from poosk

Labels: alternative worship, musings, theology, worship

So here I am preparing my sermon for Sunday and wondering, as a result, whether I can really call myself 'emerging' (do I want to?... that's another post!), when I came across this great post from Maggi Dawn. I've been asked on several occasions if I think that the days of preaching are numbered, and my response has been something like, "no... but I think the days of unaccountable and unquestioned preaching are numbered." Maggi puts it much better when she writes...

"I'll tell you what - just for a minute, let's not call it preaching. Let's describe what it really is - it's talking and telling the gospel in an engaging and inviting way that draws people in; offers them treasures without insisting on how they wear them; gives them ingredients and invites them round to help you cook."

Thanks Maggi! Go read the full post...

Labels: leadership, worship

Click to read another thought provoking parable from Pete Rollins.

Labels: theology, worship

Have you any idea of the extent of God’s grace?

Look closely at your life;
Explore the dark places,
The secret aspects that are far from sorted…
Your attitudes
Your thoughts
Your desires
Your words
Your actions.

And yet, know this:
Though the secret places are not hidden to God
God accepts you just the way you are.
God loves you!

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…

Our story is one of unbelievable grace.
Why then is it so often proclaimed with anything but grace?
Why does our concern for truth and holiness
lead us into judgement and condemnation of others?
Why have we been so blind to the point of it all?
What was it Jesus said again?
"As I have loved you…"

Labels: worship

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

Holidays are wonderful things - change of scenery, plenty of rest, new food (I tried snails for the first time!) and quality family time... and then you come home! Actually, it's great to be home and getting back into the swing of things, it's just that I've found the mountain of emails (over 400 - and, yes, I know that's not many for some of you out there, but it's more than enough for me!) a bit draining to say the least. Some have been very welcome though, especially those from friends I've not heard from in a while. I'm also trying to catch up on over 300 blog posts that my Bloglines reader has stored up for me - I dare say I'll comment on one or two of them in the days to come.

So, with all those words of wisdom to catch up on, it's not easy to find time to post myself! But, I promised that I would today so for the one or two of you that might visit to see, here goes...

A few days before leaving for France, I had a meeting with my bishop and we had a great discussion about the place of the Eucharist in the emerging church (in fact, this seems to be a constantly recurring theme in a whole range of discussions over the last month or so, but that's for another post). This particular conversation with the bishop began with us talking about Dream and its development over the last few months.

He then asked if we'd had any baptisms or weddings connected to the Dream communities which led into a general discussion about sacraments (you can see how it could can't you?!) I spoke a bit about how the Eucharist was a key part of the worshipping life for several of the Dream communities, and then came the question... "what is your policy for admitting people to communion before they have publicly professed faith in baptism?" (or words to that effect).

Remember, the question came from my diocesan bishop and I must have looked slightly uncomfortable as I was desperately trying to formulate my response, because he quickly followed it up by saying... "don't worry, I'm not trying to catch you out, I'm just interested in how a community reaching unchurched people offers sacramental worship." He went on (and this is all paraphrased from memory but I'm confident I've got the gist right)... "I've been reading this book recently in which the author argues for a generous open policy on communion as a way into Christian community." He's lent me the book and I've just started reading it; it's called The Sign of Love by Timothy Gorringe. I'll post about it when I've finished it!

It was a great conversation because it carried a definite air of permission on the part of my bishop, which is always a welcome thing! His question is, of course, a very important one if we're serious about building open and inclusive community. My own church background and theological training led me to be quite protective of baptism and Eucharist, wanting to make sure that recipients had jumped through the various hoops of doctrine and belief before allowing them to receive, but in recent years I've become much more open and generous (some would say 'liberal') in my attitude. If, as I now think, the sacraments are gifts of God's grace and signs of heaven present in the ordinary and 'earthly', seen in the use of very 'earthly' things (water, wine, bread) conveying deeply spiritual mysteries, then who are we to withhold such grace? Who made us the gatekeepers of God's extravagant love, such that we deem some people able to receive and some not. Surely, the decision as to whether or not someone should be in receipt of God's grace is God's and God's alone, and as God's already so abundantly and openly offered it to us, that leaves the decision as to whether I partake of it mine and mine alone - no-one can withhold God from me, nor can I withhold God from anyone else.

So, in answer to the bishop's question, we never enquire of a person's faith or ask to see their baptismal certificate before 'allowing' them communion at Dream - we simply make the invitation to all and allow individuals to decide for themselves as to whether they want to join in at that time or not - some do and some don't.

Labels: alternative worship, Dream, emerging church, musings, theology, worship

a special network service (open to anyone) to celebrate the fifth birthday of Dream...
Sunday 29th April, 8pm, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral

P.S. check out the new-look (under construction) Dream website!!

Labels: alternative worship, Dream, emerging church, worship

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' is a great way of joining others in trying to make a positive difference. It began as a practical action after Greenbelt 2004 and now has over 1,200 members across the globe (see map).
You can be one of them!! Go see, join and live generously...

Labels: politics, spirituality, worship

I had a conversation this morning with someone about the dreaded 'all-age service' and why it always tends towards the lowest common denominator, which feels far more patronising (to all ages) than genuinely inclusive! My theory on this (for what it's worth) is that the problem lies (once again) on the tendency to reduce 'learning' in the context of worship to rational understanding. If this is all valid learning is, then the only really effective way to do it is through age-specific groups which target their 'teaching' at the intellectual level of the participants in that group. Any attempt at teaching everyone together is likely to feel 'childish' at best!

However, if we see 'learning' as happening through experience as well as rational understanding then we will start to look somewhat more creatively at enabling worship 'experiences' for people of all ages, through which they can make meaningful connections with the God who ultimately does the 'teaching'. This should prompt us to consider the use of space, atmosphere, the human senses, and a whole host of other things too.

Yesterday Jo (my wife) and I took our children to Sanctus 2nds in Manchester, which is creatively seeking to provide an all-age worship experience (an 'intergenerational service' is how they describe it on their web site). There's no doubt that some of what went on there sailed over my three year old's head but connected with my five year old. Some of it sailed past them both and some of it connected with them both (though I dare say in different ways). One of my favourite activities was a painting exercise where we were invited to add our creative mark to a canvas painting, and to use this as a window to reflection and prayer. What was great about it was that my children were able to make their contribution on the same canvas (the first time they've painted on proper artist canvas) alongside the contributions of somewhat more able 'artists', and that all of these contributions were equally valid and went together to make up the final piece of art that was offered in worship later in the service. To me this was an enacted parable of inclusivity and held a key to all-age worship!

By the same token, I was intrigued by the minister who spoke at the beginning of the service and later apologised for not making it 'child-friendly'. I felt like telling him that the all-age inclusivity was held in the space (while he was talking there were activities around the tables for anyone - children or adult - to engage with) and so didn't necessarily need to be held in the talk as well (I didn't tell him this because I hadn't thought it through by then!!) There was plenty for my children to get stuck in to through the stations and other activities, not to mention participation in the Communion, and so it really didn't matter that the 'talk' passed them by. I guess if we're being totally honest, good 'adult' sermons pass a significant proportion of the 'adult' congregation by every Sunday!!

I'm convinced that my children genuinely engaged with God in this act of worship (as did Jo and I), and when I asked them what they thought of the service on the way home they both told me they'd enjoyed themselves! That's a pretty good test of 'all-age worship' if you ask me!

Labels: emerging church, worship