just took delivery of...

'Small is the New Big' and 'Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us' by Seth Godin

Seth's blog is well worth checking out. He's writing for business but a fair chunk of what he writes is a) fascinating and b) fairly easily translatable into concepts worth throwing around in our musings about church.

Here's a little example from his blog that I liked:

'It turns out that a fast-growing trend is also likely to become a fast-fading trend. My analysis: the people who jump on a fast-moving trend are fickle early adopters. This group is most likely to race on to the next thing, and is also least likely to want to sign up for something that feels tired.

Another way to look at it: if you want to stick around for a while, you need to make the difficult sales to the middle of the market or have a ready supply of new stuff ready to entertain the never-satisfied early adopters.

That sounds pretty obvious as I write it, but I wonder why marketers everywhere ignore it? We say we're eager to build a brand for the ages, but we spend all our time and money launching it to the early adopters instead of patiently earning the trust of the middle.'

Plenty right there for stimulating a conversation about fresh expressions of church...

crucial

Why-o-why someone never told me to read this book before is a mystery to me.

I'm pretty sure it should be a standard, not only for theological training but for every Christian who is seeking to be part of a healthy, Christ-centered, mature community.

Jean Vanier gives the church a great gift in this book.

Certainly as feig (or any other community for that matter) feel their way towards the future, the reflections in this book would be well worth pondering and discussing.

Too often we root our opinions (on everything - but I'm referring particularly to community) simply in what we feel - in a fluctuating sense of what might work for us at a given time - and we fail to recognise why we might feel a certain way, or to acknowledge that for our opinions to have real weight and wisdom they need to be rooted in a much deeper soil of ongoing prayer, critical reflection, and information drawn from a wide range of sources (in other words, we should be reading widely!).

Vanier's book is a great starting point.

feig in Coln St Aldwyn

A good few of the members of feig spent the weekend in the Cotswold village of Coln St Aldwyn - country seat of the Earls St Aldwyn, stunningly beautiful, peaceful, and one of the parishes being looked after by my mate Craig.

Craig lives in the vicarage and has a large garden (as is only fitting for a country parson...) in which we camped, ate, played, laughed, and bonded.

Various members of the feig community went to each of the three church services that Craig leads in various villages.

Instead of a sermon, Craig pulled a feig-er out of the congregation and interviewed them at the front - in order to give his regular parishoners some insight into another way of being church.

It all went very well - even in the parish where one of the congregation stood up and gave an impassioned response in defence of his prefered style of worship - saying the church shouldn't use buzz-words and that for him, BCP (1662 Book of Common Prayer) was fresh every morning - which is great - and I am very pleased for him (not least because if the church had more people like him, passionately announcing the joys and benefits of BCP, more people might come along to see what all the fuss was about).
However, the point we had been making in the interviews was that, as BCP doesn't work for everyone, and as the church is called to engage with those outside its doors, some of us might need to be involved in worship that looks slightly different, whilst continuing to affirm BCP.

It made me think, once again, that our language is slightly problematic.

The very use of the phrase 'Fresh' expressions can't help but infer that other forms of church life and worship might be somehow 'stale', which is not the point at all.

It also means that there is a pressure on those involved in Fresh Expressions to always be pushing to do something 'different' rather than simply doing whatever is faithful to the context in which they find themselves...

Surely the whole point is that whatever we do, it is infused with the life of the Spirit and enables us and others to engage with God and to live as people who are good news in the places in which we find ourselves...

light and space

Whilst I was setting up for the last feast in the cathedral, the sun was busy streaming into the building. I thought it was worth a couple of quick shots...

floating in the ether

The feast last week was excellent.

We had about 40 people along, around half of whom would probably not describe themselves as 'Christian' - We ate good food, had some deep conversations and reminded ourselves once again of how amazing it is to be able to use the cathedral.

As I am moving on, we had to make sure that the link between feig and the cathedral continued in some way - so that the feast events and anything else the community dream up, are able to happen.
Big G expressed an interest in being the person who dealt with this - so he and I met with two of the cathedral canons on Sunday and they have agreed to sign a key over to him and recognise him as the link between the two communities.

There are lots of interesting conversations going on at the moment, within the community itself, and with the bishops, and senior staff, and my Council of Reference about how things will continue for the community - where they will meet, who might replace me etc etc. All very important. But what has also been important is for us, the community, to keep focused on the fact that we meet to worship the risen Christ, and that we don't want to become defined by an ongoing conversation about what we might look like at some distant point in the future.
So, we are talking and praying about our evolution, but we are also worshiping and enjoying each other.

Speaking of which, we are going away together camping this very weekend. This will be lots of fun, but much more importantly, it is a chance to bond, to share an experience, to go deeper with each other - to have the kind of conversations that only happen around fires late at night. We need to do things together if this emerging community thing is to be real. It's no good just showing up for a meeting now and then. That is not church and does not enable anything of any depth to happen.

There has to be shared experience. But we all know that, don't we...

The end of our time in Gloucester draws ever closer...

the blog will also be coming to a close.

I think I will probably leave it up here in the ether as a sort of floating record of the development of the pioneer project and feig as it began to take shape.

In the next few days I'll stick up a post that has all kinds of links to resources for emerging and fresh expressions of church. And that will be it.

For the blog I mean.

Hopefully not for me. And certainly not for feig.

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feast

this evening we host a feig feast in the cathedral.

it will be the last one for Rachel and I. sad and exciting all rolled into one.

the feasts have been a big highlight of life in our little, emerging community and will hopefully go on long after we have gone under the direction of those who love them as much as we do.

if you're around this evening and have nothing booked in, and fancy food, and conversation, and music, and contemplative space, then get in touch and come along...


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lonely..? don't go to a chat room...

read this in the Guardian a week or so ago...

'In a just-published study of 21-year-old students, all had feelings of loneliness artificially activated by writing about a lonely experience.
They were then subjected to five different situations to see what helped to make them less lonely.

Those who were asked to spend 10 minutes chatting online felt lonelier afterwards than in any other situation, such as chatting face-to-face, being alone or watching a video.

Most significantly, those who had already been measured as being very prone to loneliness felt even lonelier after online chatting, more so than if they did anything else.'

I guess people need to be part of a real, physical community with real, present people in real time...

if they're not going to be lonely that is.

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Terminator Salvation

I went to see Terminator Salvation last night.

It didn't beat Terminator 2, which in my view is a complete classic of the highest order, but it was still worth a watch.

The action gets an unreserved 5 stars - it's quality carries the film through one or two rather cheesy moments and compensates for a not-so-brilliant script.

As a theologically-minded viewer, I'm seriously fascinated by the 'religious' terminology and references (judgement day, salvation, one man coming to save everyone, false prophets, etc etc) not only in the Terminator series of films, but also in the whole apocalyptic genre that seem to be so popular. It's pulled out of any Christian context, obviously, but it's something with which people feel some sort of connection and makes me ponder long and hard about making connections that go from that as a starting point to something resembling serious discourse about faith, life and God.

Fresh Expressions phase 2...

Last night was a big night for Fresh Expressions as 'Phase Two' was launched.

The press release reads:

'The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, last night commissioned the team which will oversee Phase 2 of the Fresh Expressions initiative.

Dr Williams was joined by ecumenical guests at Lambeth Palace for a service celebrating all that has been achieved so far and offering prayers for the next important phase.

Bishop Graham Cray was commissioned by both Dr Williams and the President of the Methodist Conference, Revd Stephen Poxon as Archbishops' Missioner and Leader of the Fresh Expressions team along with Revd Stephen Lindridge who is the new Connexional Missioner for the Methodist Church.

Other members of the core team were also prayed for.

Fresh Expressions, initiated by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Methodist Council in the wake of the Mission-shaped Church report, is gaining increasing recognition both at home and abroad.

Dr Williams said: "God has blessed our church through the work of Fresh Expressions". The General Secretary of the Methodist Church, Dr Martyn Atkins, said he was delighted with the work of Fresh Expressions so far and that "the best still lies ahead."

Earlier this month, the United Reformed Church with its 1600 congregations, 100,000 members and attendees and 700 ministers, joined the initiative.

The Moderator of the General Assembly of the URC, Revd John Marsh and the URC General Secretary, Revd Roberta Rominger were also at last night’s event.

The Fresh Expressions initiative is spreading internationally too. Fresh Expressions Canada was launched earlier this year and Bishop Graham Cray has recently returned from a visit there.

The Protestant Church in the Netherlands and the Church of Scotland have recently adopted the language of fresh expressions and pioneer ministry and there is an increasing stream of visits, enquiries and requests to speak overseas.

Notes for editors

Images are available:

The following partners are taking part in Phase 2 of Fresh Expressions:
The Church of England
The Methodist Church
The United Reformed Church
The Congregational federation
Anglican Church Planting Initiatives
Church Army
CMS
The Lambeth Partners and the Lambeth Fund

www.freshexpressions.org.uk'

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Nightchurch

I traveled down to Exeter yesterday to meet with Steve Jones who runs Nightchurch - a weekly Friday night 'event' in and around Exeter cathedral. (link here)

Excellent to be able to listen to the story of the vision and subsequent evolution of a seriously creative and exciting venture.

I came back with several pages of notes and some interesting ideas for using cathedrals creatively - speaking of which, we have a feig feast coming up this Thursday at Gloucester cathedral - if you're around you'd be very welcome to come along.

Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

I reckon this, by Henri Nouwen, is worth your attention.

the back says:

'This spiritual classic began as a simple request from one friend to another. Fred Bratman, a secular journalist and writer, asked Nouwen to write a book explaining the spiritual life in terms that he and his friends could understand, avoiding theology and technical language. Nouwen's answer has become one of the most cherished books of our era. "All I want to say to you is, 'You are the Beloved."

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forum

I was in London yesterday for a DMin seminar at Kings.

The current module is about Christian education. At one point we turned to discussing the fact that the God many atheists dis-believe in is not the God most Christians believe in. It is a deistic, angry, vindictive god - (a caricature much like the god Dawkins rages at).
The problem, we agreed is that there is no forum for people to learn anything about what the Christian God is actually like, what Christians believe about him, or what it might mean to live a life focused on him.

The answer could come back 'the church is the forum'.
But this is problematic as: i) few people with questions about God would assume that church was the place to air them, ii) they would be right because many churches don't give space for questions / discussion, iii) churches tend to focus on 'answers' rather than questions and discussion is undertaken in a way that seems far from open.

The answer could also come back: 'Alpha is the forum'.
But this is also problematic because, although Alpha has been hugely successful at attracting a certain demographic it is less accessible to other demographics (non-professional, non-literate, non-diary-owning folks), and once you've done the course, unless the church that runs it is able to facilitate an ongoing forum of a similar nature, participants are left to choose between going on into 'real' church (where the opportunity for questions and discussion is small) or carrying on as they were but with a bit of new information about Jesus.

So where is the forum?

In Acts it is in the temple - which is a public space, and in the market place - again, a public space.

I wonder how we create public forums for genuine engagement between Christians and those with questions (that does not involve running a tent mission or whatever), but instead is about genuine discussion and rigorous interaction.

This morning I went to lead matins in my clerical gear - black suit with dog collar.

Once in the cathedral I realised that I should have been at the cathedral's homeless breakfast club so off I toddled - kitted out like a 'real' priest.

I never made it into the dining room. On the way in the three guys smoking outside started up a conversation with me.

The first said 'Alright boss, are you a Reverend or a Father?'

His friend helped with my answer and then said - 'You're holier than us aren't you?'

At which point I let go of the door handle and got stuck into a conversation that drew in several of the other guys who had come for breakfast.

I would say it was potentially the best conversation I've had about God, Jesus, the Christian faith and the nature of life in the whole of my time here in Gloucester - and it started because I was wearing my vicar-gear.

This morning wearing my collar in public created a forum for talking about Christian faith...

Lots to reflect on.

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according to the Guardian...

by 2050 the following things are likely to have occurred:

1) The world's population will exceed 9 billion

2) Humans could be altered by genetic and cyborg techniques

3) CO2 concentration will be twice the planet's pre-industrial levels

4) Greenland's icecap may have melted completely (presumably meaning less land into which to squeeze more people with greater demand for fewer resources leading to more conflict...)

5) Computers may achieve full human capabilities (although, what with having to exist alongside 9 billion humans, hopefully they won't take up too much space or want feeding...)

6) Our entire solar system will have been explored and mapped (presumably offering the possibility of somewhere else to go once we've well and truly wrecked our own planet??)

These are factors that the church in mission will need to be paying increasing attention to as we step towards the future.

Obviously.

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Questions...

A friend of mine from college just mailed me to ask if I could fire back rapid answers to four questions he is considering with some other clergy in relation to Fresh Expressions.

Thought it was worth pasting up the questions and my gut-instinct answers:

1) Does an Anglican fresh expression need to be celebrating the Eucharist to be Anglican?

'Yes. Absolutely. Well, if it is to be church, at any rate. If there is no sacramental ministry, one could argue that it is simply a group of Christians meeting to encourage each other - nothing wrong with that but it falls a little short of a fully orbed 'church'.'

2) What are the challenges & opportunities faced when celebrating the Eucharist within a fresh expression?

'The Eucharist is stuffed full of evangelistic possibility. To ignore this is tragic. In a culture that is very competent at reading signs and symbols it is sheer stupidity for the church to miss the opportunity for evangelistic engagement and genuine transformation offered by encouraging people to be regularly engaged in a Eucharist. if you want to grow your church celebrate the Eucharist regularly (and creatively) The challenge is in the creativity and in genuinely including everyone in the preparation.'

3) How can clergy work ‘legally’ – what are the challenges?

'You need a bishop who holds in creative tension an understanding of the reality of the missional situation we face in the UK and who also has a high regard for Anglican sacramental ministry.
Such bishops are rare but they do exist (we have one in Gloucester) They both give permission and remind us of the importance of what we are doing...

4) Are you being resourced with appropriate liturgies or the tools for developing your own?

'Pioneers have to do their own digging. Common Worship and BCP are good starting places. It's all about context - music, setting, etc etc. There are stacks of resources. You have to go and find them...'


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