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Sacramental Theatre (part III)


Bishop Steven Croft came to college last week to give the annual Michael Vasey Lecture. Bishop Steven headed up the Fresh Expression initiative before becoming Bishop of Sheffield. He has a great knowledge of the mixed economy church and has written widely about the subject of the emerging church. He also was warden at Cranmer Hall and trained here himself.

He entitled his lecture ‘Searching for Simplicity Beyond Complexity: Developing Liturgy for a Mixed Economy.’ He certainly had a stab at posing some ideas in this direction and there are blogs cropping up in response to this lecture both positive and negative.

I’d like to start by quoting the monastic ball of intensity:

‘It was like listening in on a council meeting.’

I’d agree with this view point. This was a great opportunity to inspire and add some dynamism to an area of the church that can seem to be laborious and stuffy. As a charismatic Christian I have struggled with liturgical forms, not because I don’t appreciate them when they are done well but so often they’re not. Set structures and regurgitated responses are not freeing and lack some personality. Services should encourage a personal response to God and a deeper relationship with the personal God.

During my training I have come to appreciate a well thought through and structured liturgy but it always needs to be led by the Spirit. The use of liturgy needs to be ‘apt’ to quote Ann Morrisey and this is what I want to reflect on.

The theatre is a place where scripts and set words are bread and butter and so the use of liturgy should be a simple addition, shouldn’t it?

Theatrical artists understand the use of script and the need for structures be it Shakespeare or Brecht. The scripts and set words, however, are always a character’s words. It becomes difficult when you ask actors to come up with their own words and to express their thoughts and feelings with a script. They can understand why a character feels or says something but they become suspicious when they are being told to own and believe the same thing as a character. It’s a strange dynamic. I’m not saying that they can’t or won’t but it’s not an easy jump as you may think. The relationship between character and actor needs to be marked out carefully or it can become dangerous emotionally and psychologically.

If the theatre ‘do church’ where is the space for liturgical forms? Where is the time for set responses?

My tutor said something to me in our tutorial last week which made me ask some serious questions of where my thoughts and ideas are heading. He said that an emerging church may not need to take up old forms and structures if it is not needed or if it is restrictive. Am I trying to force old church ideas into a space where it is not needed. Am I forcing complexity into my ideas for theatre church? I think my reflections on the sacramental has led me too much into finding how I can force set forms onto a community who struggle to engage and is the very reason why they don’t go to church. If I were to introduce lots of liturgy and set structures because it’s what church does then surely I’m just doing exactly what this community don’t ‘do’.

So where is the apt liturgy in the theatre community?

Bishop Steven set out five reasons why liturgy is important and should be taken into the future.

1. it provides a balanced diet;
2. it offers a deep engagement with scripture;
3. it allows expression of deep emotion;
4. the liturgical year is beneficial;
5. it’s the work of the people.

Let’s look at each point and make some responses.

1. If a community only ever celebrates where is the acceptance of disappointment. Life is not all plain sailing and a church needs to engage with all aspects of life and to be with people in the sorrow and the joy.

2. As a church we need to engage with all of scripture not just the bits that are nice. Liturgy gives us the engagement with Scripture.

3. Some communities struggle to voice deep emotion. I don’t think the theatre struggle we have a bank of deep emotion and I think this can help the community connect with liturgy. Can Shakespeare be used in liturgy?

4. The liturgical year takes people through the story of Christ from before He was born through to the looking for His Glory. For the theatre community, if they only ever performed Act 2 and never got to Act 5 the play never makes sense. It gives them a story to follow.

5. There needs to be a personal involvement in the life and worship of the community. It cannot be the leader or minister it needs to be the work of the people.

There are a lot of questions surrounding the use of liturgy in theatre church which I can keep pondering on. Until the community actually gather I will not know for sure what is ‘apt’ for them. It’s good to know liturgical forms that one can draw on but it needs to be led by the Spirit if it is going to connect with the people you are leading into worship and engagement with God.

Any Given Friday (part VII)


What a week this has turned out to be! Having given God an ultimatum He has blessed me with a full cast and opportunity to meet some wonderful actors. I am left with one part un cast. I have a friend on standby, I just need to contact him and confirm.

I’ve had three meetings today with different actors and talked through their monologues and all have been productive. I also asked about future work and opportunities to meet and get involved in projects.

I also had a tutorial today which was very helpful to talk out thoughts on this project next year. The proposal needs honing as it is too vague. My tutor talked about the criteria for ministry, that the church of England require you to have thought about before going into ministry; is the call, realistic, informed and obedient. He said the same is true with this potential ministry in the theatre community in Durham.

Is it informed? Yes. I have reflected and researched the lay of the land. I am experienced in the theatre and the context. I’ve asked and tried out some ideas and all have been met with excitement and interest. Any Given Friday is a testament to the need for this ministry or something like it.

Is it obedient? As you have read you can see I have always had in mind God’s plans and God’s agenda and left aside my thoughts and ideas. I have covered this thing in prayer and always spent time listening and following God’s prompting. I have reflected constantly on where God is leading.

Is it realistic? Here’s the rub… my tutor also posed the following three questions to the ministry next year: What? When? Where? He also asked “Do you have space, time and energy?” I’m a busy husband, ordinand and friend and this will take considerable energy and time to build and sustain. It led me to ask important questions of pinning down what it is God has in mind. Although I want to remain open to the Spirit, it’s important for accountability that I set boundaries and parameters to keep myself healthy and to not over commit to this and keep a balance in my life.

This week has seen many, unknowable, barriers spring up to stop Any Given Friday running smoothly; barriers and frustrations that have sapped my energy and distracted me. It has fully taken over my life and this is not a healthy model of ministry. I think the loneliness in this endeavour has been the reason for this and I have not remained accountable to people. For future I think I need to gather people around me who can be present and helpful in times of surprises in order for decision to be well informed.

The ministry next year is really exciting and there are some real God finger prints in the preparation and thinking through. I can’t go into much detail as things are not set in stone yet but there’s real solutions being put in place by God and this is exciting to see. Any Given Friday and the friends that I’m meeting through it have really helped today and I’ve had a chance to ask their opinion on possible starting places for this.

The one thing I can share is the idea of holding workshops at the start of the academic year for ‘freshers’ and continuing students to give them a theatrical vocabulary on practitioners. This would be purely theatre workshop and it would serve to establish myself in the community to get known and to know others. Through this I can gather people around me who would be interested in future work and start those relationships of support and incarnational ministry.

I also saw Bishop Steven Croft give a lecture on liturgy in mixed economy church. This was a real inspiring and helpful lecture but one that needs more reflection before sharing any coherent thoughts on it. Watch this space!

Any Given Friday (part VI)


I gave God an ultimatum!

This is His event. He called me to it. He inspired me. He never calls people to things they can’t do. At the beginning of the day I was missing four actors and if no one came forward I would need to rethink the whole thing. So I sat with some friends and said “There’s nothing else I can do except wait for people to come to me with interest.” I held out hope for one person who, unfortunately can’t perform as he’s in a show next week. This was it. God needed to provide or I’d take it as a prompting to re-look at the event.

‘Do not test Lord your God’ (Deut 6:16)

I know, I know! But how else are we going to find out what He’s doing? I wouldn’t even call it testing. I laid the situation at His feet and said “I can’t do anything without you and I trust that your way is best.”

Silence from God was kept until lunch time when I went home to do some work and preparation for a meeting. I sat down at my computer and cried out “Ok. You can do anything you like. It’s the silence that’s killing me!” I logged onto my emails and there was one email from an actor in Durham interested in the piece. I have heard about this guy and he’s doing a whole heap of work in the theatre scene in Durham. He reminds me of a younger me when I was writing, performing, directing, producing, touring and studying all at once (those were the days!) It was great news he could be involved in the piece.

It was also a great encouragement. God’s silence was broken and I reflected on this for a bit.

My major problem is I can rely on myself too much. I’m skilled at things and can do things to high standard without much trouble. The question is: Is this a talent or a gift from God. Some would argue that God creates all people and gifts them with everything. Whether you are a Christian, Muslim, Jew or Atheist, God has created you and given you giftings and talents. So what’s the difference between God’s spiritual gifts and God’s talents? God gives good gifts to all people. God blesses those gifts with power for eternal significance by His Holy Spirit given to those who accept Him.

Before I gave my life to following Christ I was good at things. I was intelligent, talented, charming. Most things I did went well and I worked hard and saw results. I could carry on boasting of achievements and that’s the point. I didn’t need God. I could live a successful life without Him. Then I realized that my drive for success and fame was damaging my relationships with people and destroying friendships. I was rude, harsh and cruel to people around me. I’d use people and manipulate them so I could further myself. It was through this that God revealed my need of Him.

Now that I am a disciple I struggle to keep dependant on Him. I rely on my strength and my skill to get things done and to do them well. But I want what I do to have eternal significance to last, to effect people in a deep way and there’s no way I can do that without God. I’ve tried and I’ve failed, every time. Plays I have directed and produced, poems, articles I have written all well structured and well done but none making a lasting impact on people’s lives. It was when I started relying on God that this added dimension to stuff I did started occurring. I know how to use environments to evoke responses from audience (see Manipulating Response post) but to make an eternal impact and evoke a response on a deep level I have to leave it to God.

With this event I could create a great performance and give people a nice warm fussy feeling during it. I could get people to think about stuff and they can make some intellectual jumps but I want people to see God. To achieve this high aim is difficult if not impossible because only God can reveal Himself and only God can bless the event and only God can give it its eternal significance. I felt it was important that I didn’t use members of the college community (see Any Given Friday (part I) post) and so went to the theatre community in Durham. This could have been the wrong choice and I prayed about it a lot but God has a plan.

I’m thinking a lot about how theatre can do church but I must also remember how the church can speak into the theatre world. God uses theatre to change peoples lives; I’ve seen it happen. God uses the skills of actors, designers, writers and directors to give the Word, to embody Truth and to connect with people’s deeper recesses of the soul. But it is God who does it! There’s no way we can do it. In this piece God will bless the actors and use them and in using them reveal Himself.

God’s hand is moving in this piece, in the preparation and the friendships that are starting. I continue to pray that I will rely on Him and look forward to seeing Him reveal Himself again to all who meet next week… next week!!!!!!!

Sacramental Theatre (part II)


I had a lecture today on the covenant theme in Exodus and we looked, as background, at the covenants made between God and Abraham. If we look in the Old Testament we discover there are two types of covenant between man and God; unilateral and bilateral. A unilateral covenant is an agreement between two parties, but only one of the two parties has to do something. Nothing is required of the other party. A bilateral covenant is an agreement that is binding on both parties for its fulfillment. Both parties agree to fulfill certain conditions. If either party fails to meet their responsibilities, the covenant is broken and neither party has to fulfill the expectations of the covenant.

I was reminded of a lecture last week where the question of ordination was discussed and its similarities with baptism and the Eucharist. (see ‘Sacramental Theatre (part I)‘ post)Is baptism and ordination bilateral or unilateral covenants.

Due to the promises made at both covenant services they are clearly bilateral covenants. This means, therefore, that if one party does not fulfill the expectation then the covenant is broken. This is, however, not in the understanding of these sacraments; there is the understanding within the church that once you’ve been baptised or ordained then you can’t be undone. ‘What God has done cannot be undone.’ So has our language for this covenant relationship changed? Or have we misunderstood the nature of the covenant we are signing up for?

Let’s suggest, for a moment, that baptism is actually unilateral then it is a free gift of God’s grace given with nothing expected of us. This fits with the justification by faith teaching of Luther and other reformation thinkers, it also helps to argue in favour of infant baptism and for the continual mercy of God on His people who cannot keep their side of the covenant. This does, however, beg the question what are with the promises made at baptism? It is understood that baptism is based on the circumcision covenant of Genesis 17 rather than the original Abrahamic covenant of Genesis 15 and the sign of baptism is the like the sign of circumcision. In many scholarly circles the circumcision covenant of Abraham and the Jewish people is a bilateral covenant. If were to suppose, however, that it is an extension of the original Abrahamic covenant then the sign or ‘seal’ of this covenant is nothing to do with the actual contractual covenant. Baptism and Ordination, therefore can be unilateral and they are merely a sign of acceptance. God makes promises to do something and is not reliant on us to fulfill anything in order for that covenant to be made. So what of the promises made? What of the response to this grace? We see the mixing of two types of covenant.

The similarity between these covenants and marriage is, again, helpful. It can be bilateral nature and yet be unilateral in practice. As humans we can make promises and intend to fulfill them but we don’t have the strength to change ourselves. Israel learnt that in the wilderness. God, however, in His great mercy never broke off the agreement. He sent Jesus to be a saving clause.

Mike Pilavachi uses a helpful illustration. He says God started the relationship with His people with a marriage contract but through His Son He gave them a final will and testament and all we have to do to recieve the gift is to turn up and collect.

My strange fascination with covenants started by trying to understand sacraments in the theatre church setting. Can this work and what does it look like?

The Eucharist marks a change in the covenant understanding of the church and beautiful illustrates the change from bilateral covenant to unilateral while keeping the need for a reponse on the other party (us). God gives His son freely to all and, therefore, all are welcome to take part but it requires people to ‘turn up and collect’. There needs to be intent.

What does this understanding mean in terms of open and closed table policy?

To do Eucharist in this theatre community would need to involve the whole community and not be selective. All would be welcome to partake of the meal. There would need to be intent in the hearts of the participants and they would need to be aware of what was going on. There would need to have an understanding of what they are recieving and what responding to it means. It is not just a corporate meal; it’s an individual meeting of Christ for Him to give His gift to you.

It would fit nicely into a space where we tell stories of God’s grace and ‘claim innocence and worship God’ and I have heard many stories of how people entered the Eucharist for the corporate and were deeply impacted with the personal. To introduce a meal surrounded by the story of God’s grace and love and to invite the group to enter into this story; to share a meal with each other in peace and community is not alien to the imagination of the theatre community. The impact and awareness of the personal involvement in the story must come only from God. What’s the intent in the Eucharist? To recieve the gift of Christ’s sacrifice and to hold it inside of yourself. Have we, therefore, lost the corporate response to the sacrifice for all and it was done for everyone whether you know it or acknowledge or not? How do we explain the power of the Eucharist on a personal level without giving people experience of it?

I finish on some reflections on the power of experience. While in the prison, over the weekend (see ‘Any Given Theatre (part V)‘ and ‘Wrestling With Truth (part III)‘ posts), I found myself saying to a prisoner, “We can talk and describe and use imagery. We can wreslte with these ideas until the cows come home but at the end of it all we need to do is experience it and we get a glimpse of something unspeakable. We struggle to communicate our faith because words fail.”

Claim innocence and worship God.

This is not a get out clause. We are invited to wrestle with it but we are wrestling because God wants to embrace us. He’s always got something up His sleeve which will remind us whose boss!

To share Eucharist in this theatre church would be a corporate involvement in a story; playing a part but we pray that in that moment God will reveal Himself and the personal connection will be made and the Eucharist maybe used as the key to unlock the life changing power and grace of God.

Or not…

Any Given Friday (part V)


A short post today to keep you updated…

Had a meeting with the Succentor today (“one who sings second”… In English cathedrals today the priest responsible for liturgy and music is usually the Precentor, but some cathedrals, such as St Paul’s and Durham, retain a Succentor as well.) He is a lovely man and one of those people who holds both authoritarian persona with love and calm. I needed to go over the event planned for next week to check the practicalities with him and to get his ‘blessing’ on it. I was worried that this meeting may be the end of the plans and I would have to go back to the drawing board on the whole thing. He was very positive about it! The whole meeting was easy and smooth, no compromises were needed. I left thankful for God’s provision.

I went straight to email the college chaplain with the publicity and check it through with her. She was very excited about the project and was very helpful.

So why does this all need to be said?

I’m still struggling to get a cast. All the other aspects of the event are fitting together smoothly and people are excited about it. So why is it difficult to find some people to perform the monologues. I’m keen to get students from outside the community to be involved due to the potential impact that that may have. The emailed I received over the weekend (see Any Given Friday (part IV) post) encouraged me and seemed to hint to me I was doing the right thing but I maybe wrong. In the past when I have faced difficulties in projects it has turned out that it was a warning to stop but other times they have been something I needed to work through. It comes down to your opinion on opposition to God’s will.

God gave humans free will in order that our love would be genuine. There’s a story I always find helpful in explanation:

There was once a king who ran his kingdom with strength and peace. Once, when travelling through his kingdom, he saw a beautiful girl in a village. As he passed by he couldn’t take his eyes off her and when he got back to his palace he couldn’t stop thinking about her. So he called his chief counselor and said, “I have fallen in love and would like her brought to me so she can become my wife. Go and find her and bring her to me.” The counselor turned to the king and said, “Sire, if I may say; I will go and get her for you and you will get married. In a few years, however, you will begin to ask the question, “Does she really love me?” She may love you but you will never know as she didn’t have the choice.” The king thought for a moment and then said, “Very well. Go and find her and ask her if she will marry me. Then she will have the choice to marry me or not.” The counselor again said to the king, “Sire, if I may say; If I go to her and ask she may say ‘yes’ and I will bring her back to the palace and live here. In a few years, however, you will still begin to ask the question, “Does she really love me?” She may love you but as you are the king with all this finery and power you will never know if she really loves you or if she is scared of saying ‘no’.” The king again thought and asked, “What should I do?” The counselor said, “Go yourself, to her village, take off your crown and all your power. Get to know her as a person and allow her to get to know you. Then when the time comes, ask her.” “Good” said the king. “Oh, and Sire,” said the counselor, “If she says ‘no’ do not tell her who you are.”

This story paints a good understanding of why God gave us free will.

What’s this got to do with anything?

With free will there is some opposition, therefore, with God’s will and design. We could get into a discussion about pre-destination and free will but this is not the forum to do so. What I want to say is, when praying for an outcome, you need to hold in tension the idea of God’s will and human will which may or may not be aligned. We can almost never guarantee God’s will (we can have an educated and prayful stab in the dark!) so when opposition to mission comes about how are we to respond? Give up and claim it’s God’s will to go in another direction? Keep going and claim it’s a test of faith? Or is there another way?

I have been watchful during this process to take one step at a time and respond to God’s prompting. I have been blessed with encouragements and a strong sense of blessing on it. This, as we have seen, could easily be misdirected. We can get in such knots about hearing God’s voice. What is the right response? Do I hold out and continue to pray? When is the right time to stop praying for people and try and discern what God is doing?

I’m going to spend some time this evening praying and listening, taking in all that’s happened, look back over this account of the project and see where God is directing me to. I will continue to pray for people to come forward, as I believe this is what God is wanting, but I will be prepared for God to step in and give me a fresh glimpse at His vision for this event. In the end its His and He can do it, I’m just blessed enough to be invited along for the ride.

Onto my knees I go!

Wrestling With Truth (part III)


I went to see a show last night called ‘Spring Awakening’ with a friend from college. We had both come from a day in the prison as part of our ‘Faith Sharing Weekend’ (see Any Given Friday (part IV) post) and had both found it really tough. As I sat in the auditorium (which was a converted lecture hall in our college) I tried to search my memory as to when I have seen this play before. I couldn’t, and still can’t, remember but I remember finding it hard to follow. The play is a typical Germanic text of the 19th century. I say this because it was like watching Woyzeck by Buchner or a Brecht play done in a naturalistic style. The Germans in the 19th century and beyond produced work that wrestled with ideas and intellectual rationale. To translate these texts and to keep the poetic nature of the original is extremely hard because the ideas are confusing enough without having to deal with translation.

I reflected on the way home on my day in the prison and in particular a conversation I had with one of the inmates there. We discussed at length our different beliefs and he strongly believed in honour and protecting your own. He was a religious man and his faith believed in ‘a brotherhood’ As we discussed and wrestled with ideas I became increasingly aware that we were flinging hypothetical ideas around and trying to find the rational and concrete.

‘Spring Awakening’ is more like watching an argument being set out than a play about characters. Each character comes to represent a certain view point and they are all shown on stage and, as an audience member, you need to pick a side. The Germanic plays of the past have often erred on the side of the Brechtian ideals of being separate and rational from the story, even before Brecht came along. It meant that the characters weren’t having normal conversations people questioned and argued their view of the world and engaged in huge topics. This is well and good but there comes a point where you end up going round in circles.

I found myself in this conversation with a prisoner and we were going round in circles trying to understand in our heads. He talked about how to ‘survive’ prison. He believed it was done by a strong mindset and focussing your mind. I’m sure this is true and he finds that useful but there will come a point in all our lives when we a pushed to the edge and we’ll crack. We’ll all get to our Calvary when everything is too much and we can’t rely on ourselves any more. It’s at this moment when Christ is at His most powerful. This is the moment when He says “I’ve been here and I’ve got through this. Only me. Come and I’ll give you strength to face up to this.” This is the moment when all words fail, when all rational argument and well thought out philosophies fail and it comes down to experience of grace. For the moment this prisoner can handle life with his philosophy but the Christian faith tells us that philosophy is great to a point but there are moments in life when those need to be tested and all fall short. The only thing that can stand is glory of God. Philosophy, ideals, structured arguments all of them are man made and none will defeat the pain of death only God can do that.

The play is a mish mash of arguments and I’m not sure what the playwrite was siding on. I left the play feeling confused as to what I was to think or feel. I felt depressed about the nature of the world as we saw it, everyone trying to argue their point of view and each one failing. I walked through the streets on a Saturday night, came across fights outside pubs, drunks vomiting in alleys, I was reminded of the stories in the prison and wanted to scream “All have fallen short of the glory of God.”

More and more I think of the words of my monastic ball of intensity who I shared this play with and the meal last week (see Wrestling With Truth (part II) post)

Claim innocence and worship God.

As for my ministry in the theatre… I’d love to be able to create a space where we come to realise that arguments are nothing compared to the experience of God’s glory and power in the face of death. I don’t want the worship/ workshop room to be a place to sit around and argue (it has been found wanting) rather to sit around and tell the stories of how we found our Calvary and discovered the only hope for salvation is the risen Lord.

Here endeth the lesson.

Any Given Friday (part IV)


I’m currently in the middle of a ‘Faith Sharing Weekend’ which is a chance for students to engage in mission in a more focussed way. My group have been sent to Durham Prison. When I am finished I will write some reflections but at the moment it’s still raw and a haze of activity; I’m sure you’ll understand.

So why am I writing?

I received an email today from the guy who auditioned for Any Given Friday. I want to protect his privacy so will be vague about specifics. The e mail came after a day in which I collapsed on my sofa after a very intense day in the prison and was overwhelmed with… ‘darkness of the spirit’? I want to just dwell on this for a moment before moving onto the email, if I may.

In the ‘Faith Sharing Weekend’ I’m going to be performing three sections of a short play that myself and a colleague have written. It looks at the thief who is crucified next to Christ and is the first to be welcomed into paradise. It takes in the morning he dies, the road to Calvary and on the cross. It’s a complex piece with sensitivity needing to be given to the audience of prisoners. The character is manic and aggressive and as the day goes on will ease into the moment of his proclamation of a belief in Jesus. As my mind is cluttered with three separate large events bubbling away in my head and some essays on the back burner, I’m finding it difficult to get my head into the script, which is also still in a fluid state. Yesterday I was positively freaking out about not remembering the lines and this made me completely deaf to the needs of everyone I came into contact. I became completely self centred and most conversations revolved around my problem (which is extremely minor compared to others!)

At the end of the afternoon spent in the prison the group and I gathered round a meal to gather our experiences and to pray for the people we had met. I was struck then, as I was during the afternoon, of the gifting of my group. Several of them are really good at starting conversations with strangers, something I struggle with, and most of them are great encouragers. For me, a person who struggles with pride, is extremely attracted to this elements of people and I often fall back into, particularly when I’m tired, manipulating people into encouraging me.

When I got home I rang my wife (who was away visiting family) and spent some time reflecting on my day. I was so aware of my many failings and how I had acted all day. I had not been following Christ, I had manipulated people, missed out on opportunities on sharing in other people’s lives, lacked faith in God’s provision, panicked and basically hindered God in my life. As I started to beat myself up I slipped even further into this ‘darkness’. I condemned myself and this made it even worse.

I opened up my emails and found this guy’s email. It started by giving me his choice of monologues for Any Given Friday but then quickly moved onto explaining that he wouldn’t consider himself a Christian and he had concerns about being involved in this event because ‘I’m not sure if it would be sacrilegious for someone who’s not a Christian to be so involved in celebrating such an important event?’ What sensitivity! When I first read the email I was so encouraged and really felt like God was encouraging me in my ministry and was showing me that He was with me. Then the questions, paranoia and self centred condemnation started again… What if this is just an excuse to not be involved and the voice inside saying “He’s wanting to find the way out of this project and, although, he expressed interest in exploring faith he’s not interested.”

I was struck by how all of us face doubts about ourselves and it’s a fine balance between knowing our own weakness in order to rely on the strength of Christ and the feeling of being convicted of sin and the need of repentance. As this ministry begins to move onto a new stage in its existence is it any wonder that I’m feeling ‘under attack’. The Bible teaches that the forces of this world will fight against the Kingdom of God being grown and I feel like yesterday was a day when I gave up the fight and was battered by them.

I ended the day with prayer… I felt a little better but I left the time with God in faith that He will work.

Let’s hope that I can regain some strength today to do God’s will, to die to myself and take up my cross for Christ…quite literally!

Any Given Friday (part III)


I held auditions tonight for the Lenten reflection ‘Any Given Friday’. Despite a rather poor turn out (1 male and 1 female) it was an encouraging meeting. The poor turn out was due to three issues; 1. The student theatre community is very productive at the moment and so everyone is involved in a show. 2. Not enough preparation and notice given for potential participants. 3. Not a clear communication of the vision. I’ll talk about each of these and what it means in terms of future ministry.

First issue. The theatre community in Durham is very active and is doing some amazing work and great choice of plays. The standard, from what I’ve seen, is very high which is exciting and a great thing to be a part of. This does mean there is an awful lot of competition for people’s time and commitment. If I am to build a community of people who will be committed in some way then what I am doing needs to grab them and excite them. It also means that there needs to be a great deal of time of supporting the work already going on and the people involved. I was involved in a workshop/audition for Durham World Heritage Day today with some members of the student theatre community. It’s a very exciting project and there was a real buzz about the room. It was a great opportunity for furthering my contacts in this community and my name is beginning to be known. The Lenten reflection is a great time for bringing in people who are interested in my ministry and what I am doing with the theatre community. I’d love to be able to make plans for the future so people can start thinking about it now.

Which leads me to my next issue. Because of work and time management issues, I was unable to dedicate my time to the publicity of auditions. This meant that the notice that went out was unclear and mediocre. The other issue was that I started creating this about two or three weeks ago when I was asked. In the theatre world that’s a rehearsal period and so if I was to get a group of actors from a community that didn’t know me I needed to be doing the ground work in January at the latest. Now that I’m getting my name and face around and people are beginning to discover that I’m a Christian training to be a minister, then, if I were to begin something, there would be more chance of people getting involved. As it is, this project had to stand on its own if it was going to attract attention from a busy student theatre community.

Which leads on to my final issue. The vision, in the audition notice, was not communicated clearly. Angela Shia-Jones talks at length about communicating the vision. It is simple marketing of an idea. People need to glimpse some excitement if they are to buy into it. I have never been good at expressing a vision in words. Let me talk and I can paint wonderful pictures and give someone a glimpse of the vision; that’s why preaching, for me, is at the centre of my ministry. I can communicate face to face but in the distanced word plays I struggle. For future ministry there is a necessity for me to meet with people face to face rather than communicate through email or facebook. (Ironic that I’m choosing words to communicate my vision to you!)

Having said all that, the meeting was a real encouragement. Both people got excited about the project and were enthusiastic. One asked if she could invite her friends to come along even though she knew it was a worship service. She is a Christian and is involved in an Easter service so this is a great encouragement and a wonderful new friend who I can talk about theatre and faith with. The other interesting thing about the meeting was the other person who joined us.

Last term I was introduced to this guy in the bar. He was directing his first show at his college and he invited me to come and watch and give him some advice. I duly went and watched. During the performance I reflected on how I was going to do incarnational mission to all these student actors. I could continue to hang around bars where they go after rehearsal but, I thought, in order to talk to them about deeper issues and get to know them and how to minister to them I would need to create a forum for those discussion. The place? The rehearsal room. And so it was, in the darkened theatre during this guy’s show my mind started on a journey which has led me to exploring this relationship between theatre and my ministry. Here he was, sitting, getting involved in my first steps of this journey and he was a catalyst for it.

God’s moving in these people’s lives and I saw a small glimpse of it tonight…

Praise God!

Sacramental Theatre (part I)


In my lecture today on Ordination we were discussing whether ordination was an ontological change or a functional change. I want to reflect briefly on what stood out, for me, as an important point and then move onto something slightly related about ministry in a theatre setting.

We were discussing the nature of ontological change and what the church meant by it. We were given a short introduction on Platonic and Aquinas thought on ‘substance’ and ‘accident’. My lay-man’s understanding of it is this: Everything has an accident and a substance. Take, for example, bread and wine. It’s accident is bread and wine as it looks like bread and wine, it smells like bread and wine, etc. It’s substance is also bread and wine. During the Eucharistic prayer, however, the Catholic church believe that the substance changes into the body and blood of Christ. It’s accident is still bread and wine but it’s inner substance is body and blood; hence why it’s called ‘trans substantiation’ The same could be said about a person in baptism and in ordination. That we still look the same (our accident is the same) but our substance is changed.

Confused?

I was.

Then a colleague offered the following thought. In baptism, our status before God doesn’t change, we are still loved fully and accepted by Him but we have gained responsibility. In baptism and, in the same way, ordination, we enter into a covenant with God. We make vows to do certain things. Baptism and ordination then become functional but also involve a different relationship with God. It makes baptism and ordination a big deal and something that shouldn’t be entered into lightly. The language being used reminded me of marriage. We are married when we make vows and sign a contract. As a husband I don’t always fulfil those vows and sometimes I do the opposite, that doesn’t stop me from being married. I am married because I’ve made the vows not because I fulfil them.

I hope some of that makes sense. I’m not sure I completely understand it yet. This is, however, not what I wanted to write about.

During the lecture the idea of sacraments kept coming up. Having grown up a Roman Catholic sacraments become an interesting topic as to what constitutes a sacrament and why. The understanding that to be ordained is to take on responsibility for ministering sacraments put into my mind the question; How could the theatre do sacraments.

I’ll start by defining what I understand as the sacraments. As an Anglican I would say, Baptism and Eucharist are sacraments. I’m slightly flexible, at the moment, on my personal opinion and I can see why matrimony, holy orders and others could be seen as sacraments, particularly if we use Augustine of Hippo’s definition

‘a visible sign of an invisible reality.’

Let’s not get bogged down in semantics right now!

Article 19 of the Articles of Faith says this:

‘The visible church of Christ is a congregation of believers in which the pure Word of God is preached and in which the sacraments are rightly administered according to Christ’s command in all those matters that are necessary for proper administration.’

If I am to explore how theatre can do church then the theatre community are going to have to engage with administering sacraments. Baptism is not, as yet, an issue for this hypothetical community. Eucharist, however, is. How often would Holy Communion need to be done? What needs to be said? How, in a workshop or rehearsal space, could this sacrament be given due reverence and holiness? (see ‘Sacred Space‘ post.) Could Holy Communion be a meal with some prayer said at the beginning? What counts as Eucharist and what is a meal with a community? What would this sacrament look like within the theatre context? Is there already some sacramental element in the theatre?

To answer one of the many questions, I’ve been thinking about the idea of the meal. The theatre community loves meals. We love sharing good food and wine, we love to chat over meals. This is not an alien concept to understand that meals are holy moments. The Communion liturgy is also about remembering a story. The presider tells the story and frames the moment by it. This would not feel out of place in a workshop setting. It just forces me into the understanding that if I am to think of this exploration as building a Fresh Expression of church then there needs to be an intent on all those present that this is an expression of faith.

During the lecture today the word intent was used. The church gathers with the intent to ordain someone. The Bishop comes with the intent to ordain someone. You’d hope, that the candidate comes with the intent to be ordained. Is this the same with worship and the sacraments? You come, with the intent to worship God. You come with the intent to share in the death and resurrection of Christ. I think there is an essential need to have intent. The theatre community needs to know that the service has the intent to administer the sacraments.

So one question still remains for me; how often is enough?

Wrestling With Truth (part II)


I went to see a play that was part of the Durham Drama Festival tonight. I agreed to go and see this show as a new friend of mine, who I have had the privilege of meeting and chatting with, was the lead. The Durham Drama Festival is a forum for new writing from Durham students. Unfortunately, due to my hectic schedule at the moment, I was unable to see any other shows in the festival (which runs till tomorrow night.) As I sat, alone, in the auditorium fifteen minutes before the show started I started praying. My prayer was that God would speak. I have tended to pray this since becoming a Christian when I go and see shows. I sat and read through the programme for both the festival and the night’s event. I was disappointed when I read:

A Note from the Director: I have decided to stage this play entirely in the nude for the following reasons: to place this production in the great theatrical tradition of on-stage nakedness; to shock complacent and smug audience members such as yourself from the bourgeois assumptions regarding theatre, clothing, propriety, and their habitual juxtaposition; and most importantly, as a gratuitous act of pure theatre, one which has no bearing whatsoever on the plot, character or themes, and is all the more effective because of it. Enjoy.

Oh great, some pompous attempt at edginess! As I sat there and the student populous entered into the auditorium and I saw the relationships and the identities mixing. I heard conversations and caught glimpses of whole worlds as they interacted. At the back of mind I was thinking “What have I got myself into?” I have never been a natural student (partly why I never went to university!) and the student culture and lifestyle is not where I feel ‘at home’ with. There is a big corollary between this community and the acting community; pretence. I guess it’s in all parts of society but in these communities, the student and the arts, it’s flaunted and engaged with, questioned and abused. What do I mean? Well people know the conversation they’re having is fake and they are fake, they are nothing but words. We all (and I involve myself in this)use big words and attempt to prove that we know about things beyond our own intelligence or understanding. They complicate things even further, however, by admitting they know they are fake and are attempting to break with the cultural norm. It gets very confusing!

When I was immersed in the theatre scene I used to feel suffocated with this ‘networking’, lingo, “everyone is performing all the time” attitude and I despised it. Everyone knew they didn’t know who they were and they carried stock personas around and pulled them out at given moments. You could be having a conversation with someone and they were playing the part. It meant relationships were always questionable. You didn’t know where you stood. You judged all conversations: “Are they performing? Are they trying to subvert the knowledge that we have no language in which to speak? What game are they playing?” You tie yourself in knots at the flaunting of philosophical ideals which you don’t understand.

I found myself sitting in a theatre with students who had a passion for performing. I found myself judging each one as fake or phoney and then it hit me… I am just like them! They are searching for who they are and, as a crutch for finding no answers, have decided to embrace that we are nothing and play a game with it to be clever in an attempt at finding meaning. We play games with each other to forward ourselves. We twist convention and play with these rules but we play in order to be edgy. I read again ‘Notes from the director’ and cringed inwardly at the prospect of the attempt that would follow…

The lights fell and rose on a fully clothed cast.

What followed was a fascinating, funny, intricate script being performed by competent performers who added subtlety and depth, never straying to into comedy or tragedy but balancing it nicely. Most impressively, however, they were clothed.

So why the ‘Notes’? It must have been a typo. Maybe it was meant for the next show. Maybe they chickened out of the shock factor for a more real performance… or it was a joke. I read through the ‘Notes’ again and realised the director was satirising the directors who genuinely think that it is clever to just add nudity for no reason… Why did he do it? A joke. It was confusing as it was not in line with the play that it was attached to.

I reflected again at my prejudice on this use of big ideals and philosophical thought and on the people I was among, and myself. We’re all attempting to better ourselves in search of who we are. We play games with life and language in search of something. This whole post, for example, is wrestling with ideas far beyond my intellect and there are seeds of truth in it but it’s far too complicated.

What’s the answer?

Simplicity.

After the show I went to dinner for a friend’s stag do and sat with a fellow ordinand and a new friend of mine who I met at the meal. He is an actor and a Christian. We talked at length about theatre theory and practitioners we liked or didn’t like. We dipped in and out of philosophy and the concept of metaphor in both Shakespeare and the Bible. At the end of it I came away with one conclusion… Claim ignorance and worship God… or as my fellow ordinand rephrased it: Claim ‘innocence’ and worship God.

For the students and the theatre community we can play at intelligence, we can try gain a better understanding of the world but in the end it is nothing compared with the greatness and splendour of the Truth. We cannot contain the Truth merely be blessed when we, by chance, happen to have the privilege of embodying it, something we can not find by a formula or rule. It is grace.

The theatre may be able to speak into the church but theatre needs the truth of the gospel… unless you become like children you will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

And what of God’s current tugs on my heart? It also struck me that if I am to minister to this community of student theatre then there are two elements: yes, there is the theatre aspect to explore, but also the student facet to work into the mix as well. I need to remember that, for this time and in this place, it is students who will be the ones shaping it. What this means in terms of the ministry, I do not know but I must continue to listen…

So Did God speak to me tonight in the theatre? I think so! What did he say? Not absolutely sure but there’s stirring in the heart!