Oh Dear. I'm too old. :-(

Personally speaking, I love the idea of 'cafe church', where people gather in a coffee shop to talk about God and the 'spiritual' side of life (for want of a better term).

One of the aspects of my former job that I really miss is having the opportunity to talk about God to people who don't go to church. I used to go out to lunch with people and, very often, they would turn the conversation to God. Why did I believe in God? Why was I a Christian? Often times people would tell me their thoughts on God. I loved these conversations; they were a lot more real than many we have in church.

So I was quite keen on the idea of cafe church. Some colleagues (both older than I) mentioned the idea when I moved here and I recently saw some information on the internet about forming a 'cafe-church' and forwarded it on to one of my colleagues. I've come to find out that they have been to a training session on cafe church, so I made it known that I am interested. No, I can't get involved, because I'm too old. They aren't going to be 'targetting' churchgoers and they aren't going to be 'targetting' middle-aged people. So-and-so (in her early 30s) is the sort of person who they want involved, not me.

So, darn. Fifty years olds are too old to talk about God in a coffee shop. And in church we're the young whipper-snappers.

Faith

I wanted to share the following thought on 'faith', written by Ally Barrett in Reflections for Daily Prayer:

Faith asks a great deal of us. It asks us to stand alongside the weak, even though we could make allies among the powerful. It lets us make fools of ourselves in obedience to God, trusting that one day our actions will bear fruit. It persuades us to take risks and to betray previously deeply held alliances. And it asks us to do all this for the sake of something intangible, but much more real. So, how hard it is for us to trust God enough to let him do unexpected things in our lives. How hard it is to let our obedient faith overcome our fear, our instinct for self-preservation, our independence and even our desire for a quiet life.

Reflections for Daily Prayer follows the scripture readings assigned for morning prayer in The Common Worship Lectionary. This is only the second in the series, but I think it's well worth checking out if you're looking for some short, thoughtful daily meditations that avoid being twee ('twee' = 'cutsy and sentimental' for North American readers).

The Passion - BBC Style

The BBC are going to be airing a mini-series dramatising 'the passion' of Christ during Holy Week.

'The Passion' is a term that has been used by Christians for many centuries to refer to the events leading up to Jesus' crucifixion. The story of Jesus' passion usually includes his entry into Jerusalem, his trial by the Jewish leaders, his trial by the Roman Legate Pontius Pilate, the beating and humiliation he endured before his execution, his crucifixion and his burial.

The English word 'passion' derives from the Latin word passionem, which means 'suffering' or 'enduring'. So you can see how the story includes everything that Jesus suffered and endured on the cross and on his way to the cross.

You can also see that the term 'The Passion of Christ' has a long history before Mel Gibson! And this particular telling of the story by the BBC has nothing whatsoever to do with Mel Gibson. It is the BBC's own production and telling of that story.

Here is the timetable:

Episode One: Sunday 16 March, BBC ONE, 20:00 (60 minutes)
Episode Two: Monday 17 March, BBC ONE, 20:30 (30 minutes)
Episode Three: Friday 21 March, BBC ONE, 21:00 (30 minutes)
Episode Four: Sunday 23 March, BBC ONE, 19:30 (60 minutes)

And here is a link to the BBC Website on The Passion

[Post edited on Friday 14th March, to add the time of Episode Four]

Church and Evangelism

I might be being foolish by publishing another post on this subject, but a short exchange with my friend Sally in the comments section of my post Minister as Evangelist? got me thinking.

I think I might be on to something here and I throw the question open to you:

I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a difference between: 1) Telling someone the Good News of the gospel and 2) Getting them to come to church.

I actually do wonder whether the bigger 'conversation experience' in today's culture is the church-going bit.

I suspect that, in the past - even in my own lifetime - people attended group activities outside the home for recreation and entertainment. Nowadays, recreation and entertainment are much more 'private' - me and my friends or me and my family. This is what's foreign: belonging to civic and cultural organisations. And the 'foreignness' of group activity is why people find church so uncomfortable.

I do genuinely find it easy to talk to people about God, about Christ and about the Christian Gospel and about my personal faith. I'm not, however, convinced of my ability to 'get people into church' who don't want to be there.

Over to you.

Clarification

One of my Methodist colleagues apparently thinks that, in the post below, I'm claiming that as a minister I have no responsibility to do any kind of evangelism. I think it's fairly obvious that I'm not saying that at all, but let me state it explicitly:

Preaching, witnessing and spreading the Good News are most definitely my responsibilities. They are the responsibilities of all Christians. But as a preacher and a minister, yes, spreading the Good News is especially part of my ministry.

Is that clear enough?

The context of the post below was a context in which someone was claiming that ministers should be hired and fired mainly on their ability to increase church attendance and where the idea seemed to be that the state of the congregation didn't have a lot to do with whether or not attendance increased. This, of course, begs the question as to whether attendance increases because of 'sheep stealing'!

The Minister as Evangelist?

The idea of 'the minister as evangelist' seems to have been floating around cyberspace for awhile. Specifically, the idea that a church (a congregation, a fellowship) is 'successful' when it is winning new converts and 'unsuccessful' when it is not and that the minister's main task - what we employ her/him for - is evangelism.

I have some thoughts on this but I want first to stress that I'm not responding to a real life situation; I'm not being told that I'm a good or bad minister on the basis of my conversion statistics, so no need to email me and give me pastoral care.

First of all, making converts isn't the job of the minister, it's the job of the congregation. Theologies about 'the priesthood of all believers' aside, research shows that people join churches primarily because the congregation strikes them as a place where they can make friends.

When I first started going back to church in my early 30s, this was the big hurdle I had to overcome. How did I overcome it? By the grace of God, I told myself 'Well Pam, you'll probably have to go to church for about two years before people treat you in a friendly way and stop shutting you out.' And that was pretty much my experience. For the first two years, people were wary of getting too close or being too friendly.

I wonder how many people new to church - or coming back to church - would stick it out for two years feeling that people in the congregation didn't particularly care if they were there or not? Not many people, I reckon. Maybe this was a particularly bad experience and maybe I only stuck it out because I expected to do so. But I think it's something to learn.

Also, research shows that one of the biggest reasons people leave congregations is feeling shut out by cliques. That's basically the opposite of staying because they make friends.

Additionally, I do believe that there is a huge cultural barrier to church with many young people not even wanting to go into a church building these days. Try herding the baptismal party into church; I've learnt to start 10 minutes before the service because people unused to church really don't want to enter the building. I don't think most church people appreciate this phobia.

The purveyors of what I call 'The Spiritual Prosperity Gospel' repeat the mantra 'If you preach the Real Gospel (tm), people will flock to your church. ' It doesn't work like that. If the church is short of ministers and it wants more people to serve as ministers, making a realistic job description is a good way forward. Don't expect every minister to be Billy Graham and Mother Teresa rolled into one. Don't expect them to single-handedly defy cultural trends. And don't expect them to singlehandedly 'do' discipleship for the entire congregation.

Jesus Loves Me?

This video over at Bible Versus would be funny if it weren't so sad.

What I find 'amusing' (if that's the right word) about this video is that I've always paraphrased the 'Gospel' (Good News?) that I learned as a child as being: 'The Father has to send you to heaven because Jesus died for your sins, but the Father is really angry about that because he hates your guts.' Obviously, I'm not the only person who got that message!

We Christians really do seem to be terribly afraid that God will love people we don't approve of. Grace is great when God loves me. Not so great when he loves people who I don't like.

Too Compassionate?

Many people get the message, one way or another, that God is both angry and vindictive and that one of the things he gets angry at is wishy-washy Christians who don't lay down the law and demand that others are scrupulous in their obedience to God.

I found this post by Rev J extremely helpful. (Hat tip to John at Come to the Waters)

Another thing my mentor said that will stick with me forever is that he has seen nothing in the Bible about people getting into trouble for having too much compassion. He said, “When I die and I meet Jesus I can see him upset that I judged too much but I cannot envision him telling me he is angry because I had too much compassion.”

Too Intelligent to Lead?

Around cyberspace these last few days, there seems to be a lot of blaming of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the content of his lecture entitled: Civil and Religious Law in England: a Religious Perspective.

The most reasonable criticism to my mind is one that says he ought to get more media-savvy and to feed the press his message in language the reporters and people can understand. Fair enough, that's probably a pragmatic statement.

Extending from this view, however, there seem to be a lot of people blaming the Archbishop and saying that it was 'his fault' that the media falsely reported his message. It's his fault, people are saying, because newspaper reporters don't understand theology and Rowan Williams is too intelligent for the common person to understand him. I have to confess that I find this astounding.

First of all, I think that reporters reporting on theology and religion have a responsibility to know something about the subject on which they are reporting. No newspaper would tolerate a business reporter who didn't understand basic economics and although I've seen a lot of bad reporting of financial news, I've yet to hear anyone baying for the resignation of the Governor of the Bank of England on the grounds that the 'person on the street' doesn't understand monetary policy.

Secondly, it really beggers belief that a society is baying that a national leader knows his subject too well and that he is too much of a careful thinker to be a good leader. People seem to be essentially saying that we don't want intellectually brilliant leaders who engage in complex thought but we want leaders who divide the world into simple categories of black and white and go after the 'bad guys'. Girardian theory at it's finest!

The Archbishop and Sharia Law

Let's get the facts lined up first:

First the Archbishop was invited to give the foundation lecture at The Royal Courts of Justice.

Second A Press Release dated 7 February 2008 (before the event) indicated that: his lecture was going to:look at 'what space can be allowed alongside the secular law of the land for the legal provisions of faith groups.' In other words, this was the subject on which the Archbishop was asked to speak.

Third
The Archbishop denies that he is calling for the institution of Sharia law:

The Archbishop made no proposals for sharia in either the lecture or the interview, and certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law.

Instead, in the interview, rather than proposing a parallel system of law, he observed that "as a matter of fact certain provisions of sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law" . When the question was put to him that: "the application of sharia in certain circumstances - if we want to achieve this cohesion and take seriously peoples' religion - seems unavoidable?", he indicated his assent.

The Archbishop of Canturbury did not issue a statement 'out of the blue' promoting the institution of Sharia Law in the UK. He is not promoting the implentation of sharia law by the UK government. Those tabloid rags that are claiming that he did are engaging in irresponsible journalism. As Christians, we are guided by the commandment not to bear false witness; it's not rocket science to understand that twisting someone's words is wrong by Christian standards. The Sun should be especially ashamed for it's 'Bash the Bishop' campaign (I'm not providing a link as they don't deserve one).

Euro Fun

The following opens an animation with sound that lasts several minutes.

An Italian friend sent this to me. Hope you enjoy this clip on Italians and Europeans.

Children and Communion

For a number of years now it has been mandated in the Methodist Church that we offer communion to any child who wants to partake and whose parents or guardians agree.

The following is a very simple observation, not a reasoned argument.

The churches in our circuit are doing a review of congregational and circuit life. As part of this review process, we focussed last Sunday on the Beatitudes and we asked people to get into groups and answer two questions: 1) How does God bless me in this congregation and 2) How can this congregation bless others? ('Bless' was changed to 'make happy' for the children.)

The first item on the children's list was: 1) When we have bread and wine - to feel strength and God's spirit; 2) God wants everyone to come and bread and wine to help them.

These children are between the ages of 7 and 9. This is as great an 'argument' for children's communion as I can think of - along with 'Let the little children come to me' of course. And I have to say that I was blessed by reading these contributions!

How not to read the bible

I came across and interesting post and I think that the following text is worth considering.

Netiquette demands a citation, otherwise I would be plagiarising. I do want to state the following: that I don't like the language of the first paragraph of the post and that I think it engages in a 'them and us' dualism that is unhelpful.

So why am I quoting the text? Because I do actually think that the 'it's all about me' approach to reading the bible is a huge problem.

The author suggests that many of us have learned to approach the bible in the following way (I know that I have):

1. It is about me. Whatever the book, be it Pentateuch, prophets, psalms, gospel or epistle—it is talking about me.

2. It tells me what to do or what not to do. An action is required on my part. My ability to do or not to do what the bible tells me is equal to my goodness or wickedness.

3. It condemns those that are different from me. People who are non-Christian (those who freely admit their lack of faith or worse profess a false faith) or unchristian (people who say they are Christian but demonstrate their lack of salvation by their actions, whether it be thinking premarital sex is not bad or going to an Episcopal church).

4. It implies the opposite. Every pronouncement of grace points to my own condemnation if I fail. Every promise is a threat. Everything that God does, reveals what I must do.

Consumer Church?

Kathy has written a post - from a US perspective - that raises a lot of questions for me: How the Church is Training Consumers instead of Disciples. This is very interesting in light of my previous post: Reasons for Giving Up Church-Going.

I've just ordered the book that I referred to in the previous post but I haven't read it. However, the suggestion that churches 'multi-plex' strikes me as incredibly consumerist. The review suggested to me that the conclusion of the study were something like: 'I'm only attending church if I get the style of worship / liturgical tradition / kind of teaching that I'm interested in. Otherwise, I'm outta here.'

If people in our society are used to being able to get 'what they want, when they want', how does the church 'compete' with other Sunday activities? Should it compete? I think the dilemma here is: What's the difference between being 'In the world but not of the world' and 'Being in the world as well as of the world'? Many people seem to use the criteria of 'bums on pews' as being a successful indicator of a church that is a good witness for Christ and is making disciples.

It seems to me that the activities that Church is competing with - on Sundays or on other days - aren't activities that are going to help people find the meaning of life or love their neighbour. The activities are largely short-term and pleasure-inducing: sleep, sport, shopping, eating out, country walks; with apologies to those who have to work on Sundays or until 9:00 or 10:00 on weekdays! For church to compete head-to-head with these consumerist or consumerist-led activities, it has to become even more entertaining and gratifying. How does that square with learning to love God and love our neighbour?

I expect that some will see this post as an excuse not to change anything. In fact, I think it's vital that the church change and I agree that discipleship has to have a measure of fun and joy; but I do worry very much about the issues Kathy raises and whether we'll still 'be church' if we pander to all consumer whims.

Reasons for Giving Up Church-going

This week, both The Methodist Recorder[1] and The Church Times[2] contained articles about a study done by Leslie Francis and Philip Richter on the reasons that British people have given for giving up on church-going. It was infuriatingly frustrating that The Methodist Recorder only reported the existence of the study and gave no indication of its contents.

The reasons cited for leaving add up to more than 100% presumably because individuals were allowed to give more than one reason. The top reason given by a 'high proportion' of church-leavers was 'Church irrelevant'

The second most important reason given for leaving - cited by half of church leavers - won't be surprising to anyone who goes to church but it is rarely cited by people ranting about church decline: about half the church-leavers said they gave up going to church because they were excluded by cliques.

Social exclusion was one of the most important reason people gave up church-going! What a challenge to all congregations. Exclusion is so easily done.

Other reasons included:

• Churchgoing was part of growing up (40%)
• Moving to a new area and family commitments (33%)
• Tensions with work (25%)
• Church was too feminine for some men, and too difficult for those sexually active outside marriage.
• Inadequate return for time and money (40%)
• Disillusionment
• Hurt by pastoral failure (14%)
• Disliked change - e.g. of hymns (20%)
• Worship too formal/informal and teaching too high/low (33%)
• Church leader too authoritarian (RC) or too unclear (Anglicans) (25%)
• Church was too conservative (20% to 33%)
• Lack of boundaries between the Church and the world (25%)

The authors suggest that churches need to 'multiplex' - to meet different needs, but people need to work together.

I wonder where this leaves small churches?

The study is called Gone for Good and is published by Epworth Press. Cost is £19.99.

[1] Does not carry the article online.
[2] Article online for subscribers only.

Dualism?

A weird sort of brainstorm at 11:00 at night and a question:

In a Christian theology which uses Girardian paradigms, is dualism in and of itself a manifestation of sin?

If human sinful nature is all about creating categories of 'them and us' and about expelling 'them' in order to keep 'the in group' pure.....Isn't this process exactly what dualism is about?

I always thought of dualism as being an overly simplistic analysis which failed to see the complexities of any given situation. But I wonder if it's actually our need to scapegoat others that is at the heart of dualism?

For example, why have UK children's reading abilities dropped down the European league tables? The actual answer is probably quite a complex one with no easy answers. But if we can apply a dualistic formula that 'It's because of lazy teachers' or 'It's because of parents who don't want to spend time with their kids', not only do we have an apparently simple remedy ('they' just need to behave more responsibly), we are also able to say 'It's nothing to do with me'.

It's a scary thought with respect to the media as well; dualism sells.

And, as Christians, how do we guard against this when much of Christianity seems to function in the dualistic categories of 'me good, you bad if you don't think like me'?

A Good Time Away

Well, I had a good time away. I won't call it a 'retreat' because we talked and talked and talked. Including me. To the blogger who suggested I go around saying 'I thought this was a silent retreat!?!' that would probably get me another year studying Methodist history and practice! ;-)

What was different this year from last year? First of the the space. It was mainly because we were at a place where there were lots of rooms for spreading out and having quiet conversations. We were at a hotel last year; I won't mention it's name because it was a good hotel and everything was excellent but hotels' public spaces don't really lend themselves to the kind of conversational space that we had at The Ammerdown Conference and Retreat Centre. We filled all the residential rooms but there were plenty of peaceful break-out rooms where you could go for conversation with a few other people. The food was truly the best food I've ever at at any retreat centre and the grounds were lovely for walking. Highly recommended.

Secondly, I simply went on this expecting that it would be a 'talking thing', so I wasn't disappointed. To be fair, we didn't have to join in any of the discussions, but who could resist?

Can't we Shut Up and Listen?

OK, I think it's a bad idea to complain about 'real life' things on one's blog, but I'm going to take a small risk here as this isn't really the end of the world.

I'm going off on a retreat for Probationer Ministers over the next few days. Last year it was a total talk-fest and I came back absolutely shattered, totally drained and feeling grouchy and out of sorts.

You understand that I hope that by posting this, I'll have to report to you at the end of the week that actually everything was utterly wonderful and that I'm totally refreshed.

But what is the deal with Methodists and talking? Why do we think that if we talk, talk, talk, talk that somehow we'll have fellowship with God? What gets me is that we seem to have absolutely no respect whatsoever for theology ('God talk') as a way to encounter God, but we think that if we get together we have to talk our heads off. Why? I just don't get it.

I'm not that introverted. I'm actually barely introverted on the Myers-Briggs scale, but I do have a need for a bit of quiet and a bit of space to 'just be'. Why do we seem to think that listening to God instead of telling him what to do all the time is next to demonic?

I'll let you know how things turn out. I hope to come back with egg on my face reporting that we had lots of quiet time and space to encounter God. Chance would be a fine thing.

Buy Less, Live More

The Methodist Church has launched a campaign for Lent entitled ‘Buy Less: Live More’ and this campaign has got me thinking.

Here’s how it works. You get a pink credit-card shaped card and, rather than being embossed with a credit-card number, it’s embossed with the scriptural reference: ‘Mark 10:17-27,’ the story often entitled ‘The Rich Young Man’. The idea is that you place this card in your wallet in front of your credit cards and that during Lent you think twice before buying any unnecessary item.

In my view, this is campaign is a good idea but I think that there are two big issues about money from a Christian perspective that could be communicated in a stronger way.

The first issue is that of the growing use of credit cards and of consumer debt. If you work in retail, it’s a common sight to see young people buying luxury items on credit. Increasingly in our society, borrowing and credit cards are seen as ‘a right’ and retailers often encourage consumers to borrow money for non-essential purchases. For many people, there seems to be no idea of saving to buy something in the future and we are constantly bombarded with advertisements for expensive loans and advertisements to buy now and pay later.

The ‘Buy Less, Live More’ campaign wants to encourage Christians to opt out of the consumer culture and that can only be a good thing. But I believe that Christians can also help people to understand the consequences of borrowing money and the heavy financial burdens that this can place on families. It may very well be that borrowing on credit is to our generation what excess consumption of alcohol was to earlier generations. One of the issues surrounding alcohol consumption in the past was the effect it had on the family finances; credit abuse may be equally harmful to the family purse!

The other issue that could be more strongly communicated is the economic divide between rich countries and poor countries. Unlike cutting back on borrowing which we have direct control over, this might seem a more difficult issue for individuals to tackle. But there are things we can do. We can continue to support Fair Trade and work for its expansion. We can continue to support ‘Drop the Debt’ campaigns. We can write to our MPs and oppose international trade initiatives that favour heavily-subsidised imports from rich countries over self-sufficiency in the developing world. And, of course, we can continue to pray for trade justice.

The story of the ‘Rich Young Man’ often gets spiritualised in Christian circles, but I think that Jesus did mean to say something about riches, even if his comments were made in a somewhat overstated way. The message that we can ‘Live More’ if we ‘Buy Less’ is certainly a message that has become counter-cultural, but it seems to be one that Jesus would have agreed with.

Information on the ‘Live More, Buy Less’ campaign can be found on: www.buylesslivemore.co.uk. The cards can be ordered free from Methodist Publishing House in packs of ten with a £1.50 fee for postage and handling (Methodist Publishing House, 4 John Wesley Road, Werrington, Peterborough PE4 6ZP; or at www.mph.org.uk)

Prayers for Christian Unity

I love our week of Prayers for Christian Unity. A service is held in five churches in the town over the week and each service has a visiting preacher, so no one preaches in his or her own church. Four of these services are lunch-time services and we all share a simple meal afterwards.

Today, I preached at the town-centre Anglican church. I was totally chuffed that two members of the Anglican parish in my neighbourhood turned up to the service saying 'We came here to show our support for you.' Lovely. Ecumenism at the ground level.

Here is my sermon.

Oh, and on the subject of singing hymns that everyone knows, when we came to sing the last hymn, someone raised his hand and said 'Would you like organ accompaniment with that?' I joked that it never occurred to me to think that there would be an organist in the congregation.