The problem with culture
So Saturday seemed to be spent grappling with the problems of culture. More specifically where the church sits within modern culture and how the church speaks into modern culture. Acknowledging that we now live within post-Christendom the latter is increasingly hard to do. The church is no longer an influence on many peoples life. As a minister I suppose that I should grieve for that day but to be honest I don't. In fact waking up to that fact I believe can liberate the church or more importantly set faith free.
This is not an issue of theology of ecclesiology but one of faith. We as Christians I believe are charged with making disciples. Encouraging others to share a journey that is walked with Jesus. Studying his life trying to understand how God wants us to live alongside one another. Understanding that God wants to have a relationship with us.
So much of what we do in the church has nothing to do with this, yes some of the other stuff we do is important and I guess the statement I have made above is not all encompassing but it is a starting point it gets us to the heart of what matters.
Sadly, the church seems to have exalted itself above Christ, it has fallen into the trap of thinking that it is the church that is important, not the faith it gathers to proclaim. If we can get back to sharing faith and not maintaining institution, if church can once again be the place where we give praise and thanks to God, feel encouraged and equipped and challenged as to how we should serve and share our faith, then surely we will then be more authentic towards our own faith and be better placed to share it in the culture that we all are, after all, part of. Or as Paul puts it:
It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
Labels: Church, Faith, Ministry, Mission, MSM
Failing Forward
I started the Mission Shaped Ministry course last Tuesday. They encouraged us to keep a journal. Many have gone before them and encouraged me to do that and they didn't succeed. Perhaps I'm mellowing. perhaps I've run out of the energy to argue, perhaps I'm just putting off that which I really need to be doing who knows? Regardless of the reason here I am, my attempt at recording my thoughts.
It is two hours before the church weekend at home, we are looking at mission, how it has changed in a post modern, post Christendom society, what should the response of the church be? Perhaps I'm in the wrong place, my glass is half empty. I just can't help shake the feeling. What is the point, why go through the motions, what will change as a result of our efforts. People will still argue over chairs, flowers, coffee and the myriad of other tiny insignificant details and fail to argue or debate the challenge the gospel presents. Mission will still be how much we should give to Christian Aid or the church on the council estate down the road.
The MSM course on Tuesday encouraged us to be prepared to fail. Fail but fail forward for failing forward means we learn from our experience we grow, we carry on trying new initiatives because of our past experiences and not despite of them.
So I'll go tonight, I'll offer my presentation I'll argue in favour of the large body of evidence and hope that by Sunday lunch time God may just have challenged some people to think and act a little differently. At least if I fail I will have done going forward!
Labels: Church, Faith, Hope, Ministry, Mission, MSM
It's been a while........
..... since I posted anything on here. In a sense I'm almost reluctant to do so now, however, I need to regain the habit of undertaking thoughtful writing (yes believe it or not I have put some thought into it).
I guess what has really prompted me to write was reading a story about how the rural communities of Cumbria have coped in the wake of the atrocious shootings that took place last week. In it a local GP said this 'we're not Northern Ireland, we're not Moss Side, we're not used to dealing with major trauma and yet we have to deal with a gunshot wound'.
Now please don't misunderstand me I am not diminishing in anyway the trauma that he and others have faced in anyway. I am not really picking on his words, words that were no doubt spoken in the middle of crisis. However, they do highlight the general perception that because a community deals with trauma on a regular basis they are somehow better equipped to deal with it.
I had the privilege of spending a couple of years working with the communities of Moss Side. It allowed me an opportunity to talk with them, journey alongside them and gain a small insight into the feelings of that community. It is a community who are desperately proud, a close community, a community where neighbours still talk to one another and develop friendships. In many ways if you forget the the post industrial landscape in which Moss Side sits you can see many similarities between here and how we are led to believe the communities in Cumbria relate to one another.
The problem is, as the GP in Cumbria points out, at times of tragedy everybody hurts. When a young man or woman is shot on the street, people know them, they have friends, neighbours and family near by. The community grieves, they are no more equipped to deal with it just because it happens more often. They still have to wait for ambulances (at least 30 minutes because ambulances need to be taken in by armed police) they still long for it to be different.
However, it is out of their experience they can help the community of Cumbria. For the people of Moss Side refuse to allow the young men with the guns be the only ones allowed to tell the story. They live everyday to retell the story of a different kind of community. A community which has at its heart the principles of love and concern for one another. They are people who stand side by side, who try to teach their children, their future generations that only when we set to one side the ways of violence and hatred will we truly grow and flourish.
Cope? No they don't cope any better, they have however, learned how violence and tragedy will never be allowed the final say.
Labels: Church, Ministry, Moss Side, Student
Guillemots - Take Me Home
When all the world's been dreaming
I've been burning all my feelings
I wish that I was dreaming too
I wish I was asleep
Oh, take me home
Take me home
Take me home
Take me home
Take me home
Been a strange day today, all I have wanted to since I got up was to go back to bed. Not really because I was tired rather because I didn't want to engage with the world. I just wanted to shut the doors, draw the curtains and hideaway. Instead however, I had a meeting all morning followed by lunch, the meeting was ok but still I wanted to be at home. This Sunday's reading is Mark 6 v 30 - 34, 53 - 56 Jesus and the disciples withdraw to pray, perhaps this is where I am at. A busy few days with work and family and perhaps now I need to recharge physically, emotionally and spiritually. Instead tomorrow I have a plan setting meeting and then into school for a meeting with the headteacher. Perhaps I can find time to be still at some point, I know that I need to spend time being and not just doing but at times if someone would only just Take Me Home.
Lord God, in the busyness of our days help us to stop and listen for your voice. Remind us that it is your strength we serve and not in ours, so help us to learn to rest in your presence and find refreshment in you.
Labels: Church, Faith, Life, Ministry, Soundtrack
The Kooks - Shine On
Shine, shine, shine on
Yes
Wont you shine, shine on
(Sha la la la)
Shine, shine, shine on
Yes
Wont you shine, shine on
The coming weekend see's a church social and bbq for one church and a gardening afternoon and bbq for the other. The first hopes to raise funds for a Romanian family we support, the second came out of our alternative worship where we thinking about how we could show our neighbours that we cared. I hope that the sun will SHINE but having seen the weather forcast perhaps my prayer should be along different lines.
Lord God, we pray that you will SHINE on our lives, bless us as we share fellowship together and remind us always to be an inclusive community ready to welcome those whom we meet on our journey.
Labels: Church, Soundtrack, Weather
And Some Say I Only Work One Day!
Saturday back down to earth with a very big bump.
I was running an elders training day here at Whalley Hall.
The surroundings were superb, the food great and the Church I was working with were eager. I was running the presentations and talking and a colleague was facilitating when they broke up into groups. This meant I had time to do a little exploring of grounds and pond.
Eventually after a lot of hard work(and I mean hard work) I think we left having made a decision!
Labels: Church, Ministry
Fits and Starts
...........would be a good way to describe how I have blogged latley and in truth since I started. I have considered knocking all on the head on more than one occasion but still decide to come back. So I guess what I am trying to say is that you will have to live with my erratic behaviour.
Had a really busy day today so not going to write much but just leave you with some pics,some are from my birthday at the beginning of the month others just give a sample of the month that was.
My Pressie from Sally (It was the bunny salt and pepper grinders not the breakfast)
My Pressie From Liz (You can change the slogan on the t shirt)
The Windermere centre (U.R.C training place where I went on a conference)
Millie the Mad Dog
The Lent Bible Study (Lunch With Luke)
Comic Relief Cakes
So that was the month that was!
Labels: Blog Stuff, Church, Lent, Ministry, Stuff
Speechless
I feel
this story needs little comment, just read it and you will see why. The church often wonders why it cannot attract anyone towards the love of God and the Gospel which has at its heart, love and justice, with actions like this, is it any wonder?
Labels: Church, Faith
These Mean Streets
*Warning Serious Post on its Way*
Many others of you cannot have failed, just like me, to have been shocked by recent events on the streets of London concerning the deaths of teenage boys. The levels of violence seen over recent weeks surely will have shocked even the hardest hearts. However, the sad thing is for London read Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham, many of our major cities have experienced similar problems over recent months, years.
It will sadden at least one who reads this blog to know I’m not a huge David Cameron fan, however, I read a quote today that I could not help but agree with he says
“This goes beyond any one policy or any one government. I think what we need is to recognise our society is badly broken and we need to make some big changes, starting now." I find myself for once agreeing with his words if not perhaps all the sentiments I suspect that may lie behind them.
The problems we are seeing today across our cities are much bigger than individual governments or policies. I wonder how much it has to do with the nature of a keep itself to itself society. I know that often fear (and with good justification) prevents us from becoming involved, however, there becomes a stage when we need to stick our heads above the parapet and say enough is enough.
For those of us with faith are we not indeed called to this way of life. When Jesus calls us to follow him, it is a call not into a comfortable existence but rather to costly discipleship. It is not as many would have us believe all about raising our hands in the air in constant worship. Rather we are called to roll our sleeves up and get stuck in. These problems are not ones we simply can throw money at or send a couple of youth workers out in a gesture of mission. These problems exist across our society and require us to become involved with our neighbours.
I spent two years working with and worshipping with the people of Moss Side. Moss Side, Manchester famous for its own drug and gun culture, yet strangely they are not my lasting memories of the place. The lasting memories I have are of the people and their struggle to let the world know that there is life behind the headlines. That beyond the newspaper stories and human tragedy is a community struggling to live alongside one another.
Within the churches there are people who daily witness to the kingdom of God, who live that costly discipleship not afraid to engage with those around them both young and old in the hope that they can witness to another way of life. When I went to minister among them I wonder what contribution I made but have no doubt about the impact they had on me. This is not a community that is unaware of its problems or a community that is afraid of facing reality. It is however, a community sick and tired of the rhetoric and empty words delivered by politicians (now matter if for once they are right or well meant).
The problem is the very society these politicians now create, a society that we also have to blame ourselves for. A society of increasing personal wealth and greed, a society where individual status means value. A society where power equates to having a voice, a platform, a medium in which to be heard and therefore to have an opportunity to change your circumstances.
Working in the prison has brought me into contact with members of ‘The
Gooch’ and ‘The
Doddington’ two of Moss Sides infamous drug gangs; they have all shared the same characteristics. Just below the
façade of bravado and strength lurks the fear of a small child. When a Twenty Seven year old gang member (he had done well to make it to such a grand old age) was asked “how do you live every day looking over your shoulder wondering if it will be your last” he broke down in tears and replied “you just gotta be tough”.
Have you, is this the society we have created, where kids from the age of nine or younger need to be tough and carry guns in order to be heard. I hope those of us who hear the call of God in our lives and indeed those who don’t have the courage to stand up to the way of costly discipleship and enable glimpses of how the kingdom of God could just look. When Jesus was asked what should be done to receive eternal life he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ Is this not what lies at the heart of the Christian gospel, at the heart of the Good News we are called to proclaim and live?
I want to finish this post with the story of Patsy
Mckie. Patsy
Mckie lives in nearby
Hulme. She is a member of New Testament Church of God and chair of an organisation called Mothers Against Violence. One day in 1999 her son Dorrie left home to play basketball as usual, however he never returned. Dorrie died after having been shot three times in the chest. Whilst it would appear that he was not involved in a gang, he had through association (he lived in the area and had friends) become mixed up with the drug culture that exists in this part of South Manchester.
Patsy told me, “The Church needs to become involved with the community. Too often we become hung up about places, but it is the people that matter”.
Her belief is that the church needs to be involved in bringing about social change not just spiritual change. “In Matthew 25 Jesus tells us that when he was hungry we fed him, naked and we clothed him - the church has a responsibility to feed and cloth the young people of our community.”
Patsy continued by saying, “The Church needs to pray, support and educate these young people”. She finished by telling the story of a young man who, when asked “Why do you carry a gun?” answered, “People don’t listen to me, when I carry a gun everyone listens”.
*Post Script*
By the time I had finished writing this post and came to link the Cameron quote it had been moved, to be replaced by more news worthy stories like Celebrity
BB's Danielle having got back with Teddy
Sheringham, need I say more about our society and our media!
Labels: Church, Faith, Ministry, Stuff
Here Are The Results From The Stockport Jury
Blogger tells me this is my 100th post kind of appropriate I think.
Well following my final preach with a view today, following a weekend of meeting with the church, following the same procedure the week before both churches met this afternoon to decide whether to call me as their minister.
I am pleased, no ecstatic to say that you are now looking at the new minister for The Heatons and Edgeley Road URC's with some involvement at Christ Church Reddish.
This is for us the end of a long journey thank you for those who have been praying, please do not stop because I believe that this is where the real hard work starts.
The last few years have been a roller coaster, but then the thing about roller coasters is once you get on them you don't want to get of. So our journey continues with a God who continually disturbs, challenges and unsettles us from our complacency. Long may it continue!
Labels: Church, Ministry
