Tag Archives: church

London Calling (part VII)

As I see the end of my time in London taking large strides towards me like a long awaited loved one, their arms wide open to embrace me, I am struck by the loud crashes behind me forcing me to look back. I am stuck now between turning and embracing the rest and peace after a long a difficult journey and the need to see the explosion behind me to ask “Was that me?” On my journey I have, like all journeys, made decisions to take certain paths and they have all been made with honesty of the situation and with integrity. My decisions have effected people and situations and not all of them were positive.

In my last days of this journey I have found myself asking an important question, which, by me writing this, answers in part.

To blog or not to blog, that is the question?

I have been created as an honest, undivided person who’s principles in ministry is a desire for holistic, raw and real experience of people. If I, as a leader of a community that wants people not just to profess a faith but to live it, allow it to seep into every crevice of life then I need to embody that. If I want people to tell me what’s on their heart, to ask deep and important questions of themselves, of me and of the world around them, then I too need to do so. If I want to preach that Christ ministers to those who can face up to themselves as fallen and broken people then I want to encourage people to see me facing up to myself as fallen and broken.

Journalling,as a spiritual discipline, is important to people like me for whom this is the way that we process experiences. No-one is in doubt of the strength and purpose of this spiritual discipline. How is blogging different from journalling? Blogging is making that which is private public. Blogging is like writing your journal and allowing others to see it. This leads, obviously, to some difficulties in terms of relationship with others. We all have disagreements with those around us. We all struggle to see eye to eye with those who, on the face of it, we are meant to be united with and when someone journals, it is natural to vent, rant and explore those feelings. No one is in doubt of the strength and purpose of this. To blog, however, is to make public that which was private.

As a future, Christian leader, there’s a strange struggle between what I make public and that which I keep private. There are, as usual, many different options of handling this struggle; to keep everything private, to make everything public or various shades in between. As a person who desires, unmasked, raw, real relationship I will naturally side with the not with-holding of information; not to put on a mask. I am fully aware, however, of the need of privacy for others and agree that it is an individual choice whether to make something of individual importance public or not. To put someone in a situation where they are forcibly unmasked in public is pastorally insensitive (I have fallen short here before and for which I am truly sorry!)

So why do I feel the need to make public that which is private?

In lots of instances I choose not to for reasons such as the privacy of others, the safety of others and my understanding that people need to control which masks are worn when.

Why do I feel the need to publish my inner thoughts?

Partly, it’s a pride issue. I own that, acknowledge it and this is a thorn in my flesh; that desperate need for people to look at me and pay me attention. I’m sorry for that but I am human and I need God’s grace afresh. But when it comes to my masks, I want to embody what I believe and get rid of them. I talk a lot about asking questions, of heading into an understanding of faith that does not have one answer but one that is relational and explorative. I want people to know that I am genuine in my search and for people to be encouraged to engage with me in questions and and discoveries.

I don’t have the answers. I am human. I am fallen and broken and I struggle with life. Why do make this public? Because I want to boast in my weakness. I don’t want to be a different person at home than I am in a church community. If this means it’s complicated and difficult then that’s what it’s going to have to be. If this is scary then that’s what it has to be. Jesus’ struggles are public, Jesus’ crucifixion if public, Jesus’ identity is questioned by Himself in public (My God my God, why have you forsaken me?) My personal leadership style, and it is my personal style so I don’t want people to think it’s the only way, is to be the same person behind closed doors as I am in open ones. I want people to see me broken, in pain and struggling in order that they can appreciate my God who makes me strong. I want people to truly know, through my example, that they, broken, lost, confused can experience God and be loved by Him. I want, more than anything else, for people to know that God wants us for who we are not what we’re told to be.

Faith is not a set of doctrinal beliefs but how you live your life. I can agree that money doesn’t make me happy but does it stop me seeking after financial gain? I can agree that God is my refuge and my strength but I can’t say it if I struggle when I’m not at home or with my wife. So do I continue to profess these things when I know I don’t live them out? Sometimes. Should I? No.

My struggle with life and ministry continues. How I work as a leader with both a public life and a private one is a continual struggle. How I earn the right to meet with people and share my faith is ongoing. To blog or not to blog… I want to make public my private struggles because I hope they are an encouragement. I hope they prompt questions in your mind. I hope that by witnessing struggles of faith you will know that you are not alone and that those people you put on pedestals are actually disciples of Christ. I hope that my blogs allow you to turn, face up to your own questions and say

‘To doubt is Divine.’

A lot of the thoughts and reflections I am having in this wrestle come from an interview with Peter Rollins when he visited Mars Hill Church. The recording is below and is 45 mins long. It’s well worth a listen and will piece together, I hope, many disjointed and rambling approach to articulate my current train of thought.

Power of Story

Next time I will try to tie together my reflections and feelings of my wonderful, powerful, difficult and life giving placement in London!

London Calling (part V)

Two weeks into my placement and I’ve had very little time for personal reflection but the time I have had has, looking back, a very similar thread: ‘home’. I have tried, as much as possible, since starting this blog, to keep my personal life and personal spiritual journey separate from my ministerial reflections. At times this is very difficult but at this time the two reflections have collided and so I’ll be sharing some personal feelings and how it relates to the theatre community and the call of the Church.

Growing up I was always a ‘nester’. When going on holiday I liked to take all my clothes out of the suitcase and put them in the drawers and cupboards. I’d take out the book I was reading at the time and put it on my bedside table and I’d try and take with me as much of ‘home’ as possible. I didn’t cope well being away from home for long periods of time. Being an introvert I treasured my cave to retreat to, the place where I could be myself and say and think all the things I wanted to.

As I grew up this became less important and I adapted to be more relaxed about home and, as a teenager, it wasn’t cool to be so attached to home. While my brother, sister and friends dreamt of leaving home, I was there forcing myself to want to leave the familiar. In the end I did leave home and set out on my own and it was painful as I tried to make completely new things, familiar and to find a place where I was given permission to be myself. I put on personas that allowed me to be accepted and lived a life that meant I survived in the outside world.

After a period of time I was alone, confused and desperately ‘homesick’. ‘Home’ had become not a stationary place but an ideal a state of mind. It was now a memory of that feeling where I knew who I was what I thought and felt and the knowledge that, in the end, I was safe and… complete? Yes complete. In Hebrew thought there’s the understanding of ‘shalom’ which is not just peace but it’s wholeness, rest in completeness. Home was ‘shalom’.

In my desperation I returned to the house I grew up in, to the town of my youth in search of ‘home’ but it wasn’t ‘home’ anymore, life had moved on and I was left, homeless.

When I discovered God, in Riding Lights Summer Theatre School, I found a home; a place in the immaterial. At the same time I found relationships that were ‘home’, where I could kick off my immaterial shoes and relax in safety.

‘Home’, this ‘shalom’, these relationships where I can take off the masks and pretense and be real and honest are very important to me and, I think, to all human beings. As I spend time, separated from my wife, away from the familiar smells and routines of my house, parted from the community that has begun to sustain me in Durham, I find no rest; I’m exhausted but I can’t sleep.

I walked around Earls Court on Saturday and was reminded of my initial feelings about this part of London; there’s no sense of ‘home’. This community, along with large parts of the capital, is made up of people for whom other places are home, be it another country or another part of this one, or where they have yet to find a ‘home’. The word used to describe the people living in this area was ‘transient’. You look at the buildings and they are not cared for they are sleeping pods for people working or spend long times away. The scripture that came to mind as I looked at the people and the buildings and their relationship with each other was.

‘My soul find rest in God alone.’ (Ps 62:1)

In most of my conversations with vicars, members of communities and friends what they want in a church is ‘home’. This is particularly important for members of the theatre community (see ‘Theatre Church (part VII)‘ post). As the church here in Earls Court steps out in mission, to some extent, this creation of ‘home’ is something that has been sidelined slightly.

I visited ‘grace’ on Saturday night. ‘grace’ is a community in Ealing who are striving to be a real, honest community. Jonny Baker, whose blog can be found in my blogreel, has been a part of the team at ;grace’ for some time and his reflections on it would be worth reading. On Saturday night I stepped into a foreign space with strangers all around me and I was amazed how much of a welcome I felt just being in the space. There was no specific ‘welcome team’, there was no big pointing at the newcomer and asking everyone to make them feel welcome it was an acceptance of a fellow traveler allowing me to be me in the space for the time I am there and them engaging in conversation as much as I wanted to engage.

The whole experience of ‘grace’ reminded me of needing sanctuary, rest, ‘home’. For me this is the central, most important part of a community, acceptance of the individual and allowing them to be real with themselves, with each other and with God. Unwrap your bandages and and show your wounds. It is interesting that it is Jesus’ wounds that make him recognizable to his disciples.

Part of the evening at ‘grace’ was spent traveling around three stations; cave, refectory and road. The idea, admitted by Jonny, was stolen from Ian Adams’ book named after these three principles. In the book it looks at the monastic tradition of needing a cave, a refectory and a road. The cave is a place of sanctuary, where you rest, where you are alone and refreshed. The refectory is a place where you can share stories with others and the road is a place of work, of journeying and of striving towards a goal with others.

I made two commitments on Saturday; one was to commit to working from a place of ‘home, rest, ‘shalom’. I have found being away in London, separated from my wife, without the familiar smells and routines of my house, distanced from the community in Durham which have sustained me, difficult because these are things that make ‘home’. ‘Home’ is being in relationship, in a place, where I am known and loved. I’m exhausted because I have no home here. The second commitment was a commitment to the new community that will be forming in Durham. I committed to creating a ‘home’ with and for them. A place which can be both a cave for some and a refectory for others so all can face the road together. I love the fact that we will be meeting in a place called ‘Sanctuary 21’. I hope and pray that we will remain a place of sanctuary and a ‘home’.

Theatre Church (part VII) (London Calling)

Yesterday was a real milestone on my placement. It was a day which started early with prayers, worship and a walk around the area then straight back to the office to work on preparations for the Art Cafe and my sermon on Sunday. Real break-throughs on both of these and lots to reflect on but the real major event was a meeting with Rob Gillion who I spoke about before (see ‘London Calling (part III)’ post) and the Bishop of Kensington, the bishop overseeing and sponsoring my training. Both conversations led me to reflect on my personal ministry and on ‘theatre church’.

As I met Rob, rushing back from a hospice visit, I was struck by how much respect I had for him despite only having met him once before. I have been impressed by his humility and honesty of weaknesses and ‘failures’ of his past ministry as well as the strengths and ‘successes’. It helps, of course, that our hearts have been set to beat for similar things and there was, as we walked side by side towards a Knightsbridge brasserie, a real sense of a partnership forming, two men passionate about God’s involvement in the theatre and a call to go into those places and be representatives to those communities.

The conversation buzzed with questions, discoveries, sharing ideas and concerns and there were moments of silence where I felt God sitting smiling at the two of us. I felt like we were two actors discovering truth in the script we’re working with and asking important questions, all the time the director sitting quietly observing and posed to step in at the right moment.

The work of InterMission has the same principles, from what I can gather, as the community I want to establish in Durham and I use the word ‘principle’ intentionally. Rob (and I agree) strongly believes that the Kingdom of God will not be built by master plan or blueprints but by organic principles. Throughout our conversation I was thinking how much Rob would love to read ‘Organic Community’ which has led me into a journey of discovery. The principles that InterMission are based upon are hospitality, exploration and rest.

What struck me about InterMission was there was a real sense of creating a home for people. Church should be a place where you are yourself where work stops and where rest begins. This challenged some aspects on ‘Theatre Church’. Do actors need to engage in faith through what they ‘do’ for work? InterMission is looking at how we make a ‘home’ for artists. Thiis really resonates with the cultural situation in the theatre at the moment.

With the funding cuts and the real shift away from traditional ways of ‘doing’ theatre, companies which have a core membership of artists are shrinking and actors are needing to ‘float’ around various companies; for one season they’ll be with one then they’ll move on. This means that they are settling in a pattern of life that requires little commitment because no company ask commitment of them, and they are without a solid home. Friends of mine struggle to settle down roots because the work calls them away to different places all the time.

Rob has struggled with these issues. Church demands commitment. Commitment is needed in order for growth in discipleship to occur but with people who can’t commit due, not only to some personality types, but mainly because their work demands that they don’t commit. Church should also be a home, a resting place, a place where they take off masks and become themselves. Actors find this difficult. Theatre is a holistic vocation; it becomes your social life, work life and, sometimes, your spiritual life. How could ‘Theatre Church’ effectively speak into this? Rob is attempting to create a home where actors can rest but he has struggled.

My challenge is whether doing church in a rehearsal structure is too much like work? Am I creating difficulties by attempting this format? From the experiences of intermission I am aware that this type of work is useful but it needs to be balanced with a real sense of the calling to be ‘home’ and to challenge the actors to embrace themselves and allow themselves to discover who they are.

The final thing that I took away from my chat with Rob is not just encouragement that this work is worthwhile but that this work is difficult. The type of ministry that this is shaping into is not ‘successful’ is not immediately fruitful and is counter-cultural for both the Church and the theatre and so where is the support? Who will ‘get this’? This work is experiential not quantifiable; you see the worth by experiencing it rather than weighing up the pros and cons. This work is a risk and, I believe, a risk worth taking. Sound familiar? Jesus’ call to disciples is not quantifiable but experiential…

London Calling (part II)

I’m sat in the basement flat of my dear friend Jay. He is currently working as Worship Pastor of St Luke’s, Redcliffe Gardens. He’s working on some new worship songs, singing praise and getting lost in melodies. He is carefully constructing phrasings and chord progressions to communicate, to the best of his ability, his love and praise of God.

I met him two years ago when we both worked for St Stephen’s, East Twickenham, he as the Worship Intern and me as a Pastoral Assistant. Our friendship was one that was both a blessing to me and a source of real inspiration. Jay’s major strength, amongst many, is his unflinching love of God and, despite struggles and frustrations he feels, when he approaches the throne room of God he is freed, releasing his infectious, childlike excitement for his God.

As I watch and listen to him constructing songs of praise I got to thinking about the creative process and how we remain in the tension between spontaneity and polished performance. How do you capture the moment of inspiration, work it through to a concrete idea and not lose the power of the original emotion?

Peter Brook comments,

Here, the French word for performance – représentation – contains an answer. A representation is the occasion when something is re-presented, when something from the past is shown again… It takes yesterday’s action and makes it live again in every one of its aspects – including its immediacy…the more we study this the more we see that for a repetition to evolve into a representation, something further is called for. The making present will not happen by itself, help is needed…We wonder what this necessary ingredient could be, and we look at a rehearsal, watching the actors toiling away at their painful repetitions. We realize that in a vacuum their work would be meaningless. Here we find a clue. It leads us naturally to the idea of an audience; we see that without an audience there is no goal, no sense. What is an audience? In the French language amongst the different terms for those who watch, for public, for spectator, one word stands out, is different in quality from the rest. Assistance – I watch a play: j’assiste à une pièce… An actor prepares, he enters into a process that can turn lifeless at any point. He sets out to capture something, to make it incarnate…When the actor goes in front of an audience, he finds…an audience that by chance brings an active interest and life to its watching role – the audience assists… Then the word representation no longer separates actor and audience, show and public: it envelops them: what is present for one is present for the other.

For the person who leads worship there is a need for the corporate worship to assist them, it can’t be just them trying to repeat a song. The problem with this, however, is that the personal relationship with God remains (or should remain) constant and so the re-presenting of worship is not as clinical as the performance put forward by Brook. For the actor, also, there needs to be a personal response to the action, an internal memory of the original emotion. The issue, I think, is when you no longer feel the same way; in Christian worship terms, when you’re not in a ‘praisey’ mood but rather struggling through the mire.

Here is the point at which corporate worship helps. Jay admits

Seeing one other person responding to God reminds me that God is bigger than I know.

The importance of corporate worship is to witness God moving in other peoples lives. This reminder drives us to respond afresh to Him and re-present our worship. For the worship leader, in particular, an initial inspiration for a worship song may be long forgotten as (s)he repeats it in order to perfect it but when they see God moving through other people in worship then this will assist them to engage with the original emotion, reminding them of who it is they worship.

This quote also helps us to understand how we engage in worship. It is easy to blame the worship leader, the preacher or whoever on our lack of engagement and, at times these have some validity, but we come to encourage each other, to remind each other of God and thus it is our responsibility to ‘assist’ the saints in worship.

A word from Steven Croft (whose book, Jesus’ People, I still recommend)

Intercession and individual prayer are important but…Again Luke is referring to something the Church does together: the evolving rhythm of worship and common prayer, which has always been at the heart of the Christian community… You might think it would be normal for any Christian team or group or church to give careful and regular thought to the way in which it prays together. In reality it is surprisingly rare…

St Luke’s needs to hold onto their passion to pray and worship together, that it is the heart beat of all they do. For, as Steven Croft continues,

The road for renewal for many congregations does not lie in doing more but in reconnecting again with Jesus, the source of the Church’s life: through retreat, word and sacrament, and the fellowship and the prayers.

London Calling (part I)

I landed in Earls Court on Sunday being heralded as an inspiring preacher with prophetic insight and wisdom. It would have been dangerous if people believed it but something much more destructive happened… I believed it! In the cold light of day, of course I know that I am none of those things and the man who said these things was just being kind but how easily the seductive voice of temptation digs deep within my soul. My ears stayed too long upon this melody and it’s paralysed me at times during my first days of my visit.

Subsequently my prayers have been for humility in my approach to discipleship; again and again I have been reminded that approaching our walk with Christ must start with humility. The words of the first Beatitude (see ‘Theatre Church (part VI a and b‘ post) is still bouncing around my head.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. (Mt 5:2)

Interestingly, however, in my more sober moments, I have felt a real sense of the same prayer being for the community I have entered. A brief history of the congregation (as I have heard it) may be useful:

Prior to the arrival of their current vicar, Adrian Beavis, the congregation was made up of a large cohort of Koreans and an equally large community of Russians with a small part of ‘other’ nationalities. The Koreans had brought with them a rhythm of prayer that was typical for their culture, twelve prayer meetings a week; every morning before work, every evening and the weekends! Fervent prayer, underpinning their whole lives… who wouldn’t want this of their community? What it meant, however, was there was little time for outreach and mission and so, on the arrival of Adrian (an evangelist by nature), the balancing act of mission and prayer began. As I have begun to scratch the surface of this community I have felt the tension between whether they want to be a Benedictine styled community or a Franciscan. A Benedictine community will pray for those around them in silent, contemplative, ritualistic prayer. A Franciscan community will go out and serve those around them prayerfully. These are large generalisation but I hope they are helpful in seeing the difference.

I was immediately aware of the place of prayer in this community and finding myself reflecting on it. Prayer meetings have gone down from twelve to five; three mornings, a weekday evening and Sunday. When I asked why this decision was made I was quite rightly informed that, there comes a time when prayer needs to move into action and the sheer amount of prayer meetings was taking the energy away to do mission. What was being built up, previously, was a group of people who loved being together and praying but they did it so much no one new was being welcomed in or even found. The model of church being built now has been described as one that prays first then turns to mission, like two feet; one-step then the second then the first then the second. They felt now was the time to use the large and passionate prayers of the last generation to step out into mission.

I would agree that prayer should not be a hindrance to mission and outreach. Jesus called his followers to ‘Come’ and to ‘Go’ something that I have been wrestling with in a talk for 12th September… more on that later. This community, obviously, has not cut all prayer in favour of mission, they merely cut back in order to refocus some of the resources into outreach but what has been left?

From my first impressions of this community the gatherings have lost some vitality from what was being painted by older members of the congregations. There seems to be a feeling of laying down the passion and drive to pray in favour of mission. I don’t think the ‘refocusing’ was meant to have this effect but I think it may have done so. How has this happened?

I suspect (and I want to stress that word!) that in the communication of the movement towards prayer and mission that some may not have heard the ‘and’ that they felt the prayer life was no longer needed or wanted. They may have heard “This prayer has served its purpose let’s go out to mission.” I don’t think this is what the leaders in the church said because I know that’s not what they believe but, from what I’ve witnessed, there’s a subtle communication happening and it returns us to ‘humility’.

In the times of worship and prayer that I have been a part of I felt a desire to communally recognise that even to pray and praise we need God. God draws from us praise and the Spirit leads us in intercession (Rom 8:26) and we desperately need God to do mission. The prayers are focussed on God’s blessing on what we will do rather than on having an attitude of humility. We do not do mission, we engage with God doing mission. We come, therefore, before the Lord in humility, acknowledging our weakness and incapacity to achieve anything without Him. We work with Him but we are the secondary party.

As I prepare my offerings towards the church’s mission to Earls Court I am returning again and again to the knowledge that it is those who know their weaknesses and failings that will enter the kingdom of heaven. I have little to give but, by Him, all things are possible.

And I pray again;

Take what I offer, paltry as it is and make it last. Take these loaves and fishes that would just stretch to a snack and make it a feast for thousands. I want to join in your creative action for You are making a Kingdom that will last.

Theatre Church (part VI b)

Welcome back!

Sorry for the lateness of the last post but I am a night owl and do a lot of my thinking when everyone is going to bed! I’ve tried to make this one slightly earlier.

Where were we?… Oh yes…

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
(Mt 5:7)

You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full’, you find yourselves cared for. (The Message)

Blessed are those who know forgiveness and extend it to others. We don’t just need to know the need for God but we must be reminded of what it is He gives us; mercy. I’m trying to shake a very bad rendition of ‘Mercy’ by Duffy out of my head shown on X Factor this week, despite its awfulness it had a message behind it; “Release me… Release you… we all need release.” Forgiveness is something liberates people again and again.

Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘You’re sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’?
(Mk 2:9)

Well actually this needs a little more thought. Forgiveness, at times, is much harder than even miracles! It is, however, at the very centre of our faith; our sins are forgiven. Forgiveness is not about forgetting but it is about loving and being hospitable to those who hate you or you have hated.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
(Mt 5:43)

Welcome, hospitality and friendship this is what being Christ-like is, particularly to those who experience so little of forgiveness and mercy. It’s a real blessing to be growing a community from scratch because there are no cliques, no traditions, no ‘norms’ and so the doors are flung open to all and any to come and shape the community. This is something that we will need to revisit after a year to see how we welcome others.

We give you thanks and praise, that when we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home. May we extend the welcome of Your home to others. Remind us, continually, that the final judgement is Yours and Yours alone and that You see everyone as they will be and not as they are.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (Mt 5:8)

You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. (The Message)

Blessed are those who single mindedly strive after holiness. How do we balance our distinct holiness whilst, at the same time, being merciful and forgiving? Too often we become Pharisaical in our approach to this beatitude but we must be shaped, evenly, by all eight not just one! The only way to live by the, seemingly, impossible standards set in ‘The Sermon on The Mount’ (Mt 5-7) is by living in the holiness of the ‘Holy’ Spirit who transforms us from within. Living in purity is  not self-achieved but rather fruits from being rooted in God. When you dwell in the Spirit then you will see God, moving and working in our lives. There’s a quick point here about the Eucharist which is important; To attain purity we must return to the sacrifice of Christ to be led into the presence of God with mercy and humility. As a community striving for purity of heart we must be cleansed, again and again, and so there needs to be a sacramental aspect if we are to be Christian. Here’s where the Christian aspect of the community comes undone for there must be intent in the sacraments and so, like the previous beatitude we must revisit this. We can, however, be people who encourage purity and holiness. In our reflections on ourselves we must see the areas which lead us into pain and ‘darkness’ and allow God to prompt us onto another path.

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts that we would look directly at Your face and be transformed. We are not worthy to be close to You but we are washed clean because of Your Son. Help us to be prompted and directed by Your loving hands into paths of righteousness and holiness.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Mt 5:9)

You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family. (The Message)

Blessed are those who face conflict without fear and steer through difficulty. Conflict is difficult! Let’s admit it and it arises in every walk of life and it will even breach the walls of Christian communities.Let us prepare to discern the difficult situations and model reconciliation. As we near the end of The Beatitudes I begin to see repetitions occurring but, as I said, it is all eight working together that shapes us into Jesus’ disciples. As a new community forms a leader must prepare the people for conflict and difficulties and model peacefully facing conflict themselves. Here we return to handing power over while, at the same time, discerning the time to stand firm and strive for holiness.

Prince of Peace, we long to be Your children. Remind us of the peace that passes all understanding particularly at times of difficulty, stress and conflict that we may steer through it with right thinking, pure heart and love for those we face.”

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 5:10)

You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom. (The Message)

Blessed are those who are a challenge to others and who are challenged in their walk with Christ. A strong link with the previous beatitude and the final one of eight leads to an inevitable conclusion; persecution. Immediately, I think of physical violence and underground meetings; thankfully this is not the case but there is the difficulty of living differently. If we have shaped our communities around the example of Jesus then this final beatitude is not only inevitable but modelled in the Passion He endured.

Prepare us for our crosses. Lead us the difficult road to Calvary. Be with us in our suffering for walking with You and show us Your glorious kingdom. For this hope sustains us always.”

I’m at the stage of starting a community and already I’m considering those leaving but I continually find myself stuck between two thought processes; one, in the present where no one has heard of let alone shown interest in this community and the second the future, what will this lead to? Where is it headed? This is a confusing place to be in but here I stand waiting for them both to meet…

If you’re the praying sort then please do pray for October, for the people who will join, for a genuine interest in the community and that I will have wisdom as to how to communicate the vision.

Thank you.

Sacramental Theatre (part IV)

I have recently discovered the back catalogue of the ‘Moot’ community blog!

What is Moot?

I have known about Moot and Ian Mobsby for some time now and have been tentatively reading round this community. Their website (www.moot.uk.net) is packed full of information about them, their philosophy and their approach to ministry. A summary of what they are;

‘Moot is a London-based community of spiritual travellers who seek to live in a way that is honest to God and honest to now.’

I’d encourage you to read through and discover what this ‘alt worship community’ are doing. I’m hopefully meeting up with Ian Mobsby, the minister in charge of Moot, in September so will be able to comment more on the community as whole then.

I have subscribed to their blog, written by Mobsby, and have been reading through some of their back catalogue. I passed on one of the essays on Twitter (A Theology for the Emerging Church) which outlines the type of church I would like to attempt in next years placement. Again, I can’t begin to add to or make significant comment on this essay; all I will say is I agree and would like to discover more! The theology helps me to understand and find peace in the tension I feel between my desire for both the incarnational theology of my former Catholic faith and the redemptive theology of my current evangelical faith. I find that I want there to be both and to hear this being fleshed out in such a way is encouraging.

Moving on…

The discovery which has excited me the most so far is a talk Mobsby made at ‘The Alternative Worship Conference‘ in Southwark Cathedral on 30th September 2006. Mobsby focuses his discussion on the alternative worship style of the club and dance genre which I have no experience or passion for. He does, however, give some general descriptions of what the alternative worship communities are doing. If you don’t read the whole article then I encourage you to go to the end of page 5 where he begins to answer the question “why is alternative worship important for the church to understand?”

‘[a] massive factor of why alt worship is important is to understand the hugely reinvigored interest in spirituality. Many people are spiritually searching, and seeking spiritual experience by trying lots of things out –although generally not traditional parish churches… Alt worship and emerging church communities, through relationship and worship seek to assist such people to shift from being spiritual tourists to being spiritual pilgrims through encountering God through people and worship.’

If I were to see my placement this year as an emerging church community then how would it ‘through… worship seek to assist such people to shift from being spiritual tourists to being spiritual pilgrims through encountering God through people and worship.’? I can see how ‘such people’ could encounter God through relationship with people but how do they do so in worship? What would worship look like?

‘So many alt worship groups put on worship events – where worship and mission blur to assist people in their experiential journey to God. So alternative worship seeks to provide opportunities for people to explore existential questions such as why am I hear, what does life mean, where is God and so on.’

Worship, for Mobsby, is an exploration of existential questions, it is experiential. What does this look like in a community of theatre practitioners? How would they encounter God through experience? Mobsby goes on,

‘stories or narratives are vital for people to engage in narrative forms of truth, and meaning. Story and story telling has a key place in our postmodern culture. So for example, people will use things like Godly Play in an alt worship way, or use bible stories to convey meaning. For example the story of the Prodigal son in its narrative form conveys more meaning to a postmodern culture than telling people the 10 commandments about what you should or should not do. The narrative is far more powerful than the propositional. And this is used in alt worship.’

Worship, therefore, is a chance to experience a story, to reflect on an experience lived out.  To ‘perform’ or to tell the story of the last supper and allow the community to participate in the story opens up a way of being sacramental (see Sacramental Theatre (part I) post) and move this community closer to, potentially, being church. Mobsby opens up some more ideas when he discusses how alt worship communities do sacraments,

‘Sacramentalism is about the gift of grace God gives of being made present through the sacraments – usually communion or eucharist, or baptism etc etc. Alt worship takes this further. It draws inspiration from scripture about when it says where two or three are gathered I am there also, to see that God is made present sacramentally in many different ways and not just through priests but through the activities of Christians interacting with each other, other people, and the world. For example having a profound conversation with a few people in a pub when someone gains some form of eureka spiritual insight…In these holistic sacramental moments God makes God present in very secular places and makes them sacred moments or fragments…For me this is the essence of the power of alt worship. That challenges the church not to think it controls God or how God chooses to interact in and with the world in prescribed ways. God is not controlled through our rules, and alt worship playfully seeks to follow a God that is always slightly ahead of us and out of reach. It is a corrective to putting God in a box or believing that God can only work out of a book of authorised worship expression.’

I still struggle not to see some of the emerging church stuff as being manipulative. ‘Manipulative’ may be a strong word for it but Mobsby himself uses the word ‘subversive’ when talking about the approach to mission. I know of many times when I have been surprised to encounter God where I wasn’t expecting him but does this mean that we can get people into a room and surprise them if they don’t want to encounter God? What is evangelism if not allowing people to encounter God? How blatant must the intention be? As a missional alt worship community we can’t be secretive about our intention nor do we want to scare people away before they have the chance.

I have imagined, up to this point, that the relationship comes first in this placement. I want to work with some creative people and have some interesting chats and do ‘presence’ more than ‘proclamation’ but there is a nagging voice in my head that says this isn’t ‘proper’ until they have experienced God. I guess I need to learn to balance the passion for redemptive theology with my instinctive incarnational theology.

Mobsby’s views allow a theatre church to ‘be church’ and recognised within the Church of England but do I want the community this year to manipulate it’s participants? By no means! How, therefore, do I advertise? How Christian do I want this to be? I definitely don’t want it to be ‘Christian’ but I want all the potential members to know that they are coming as a form of spiritual seeking. Is this what the DST want? Are these people spiritual seekers? Thee only way I’ll find out is by trying it out.

Riding Lights Theatre Church? (part II)

I’ve just returned from the Riding Lights Summer Theatre School which I go to each year. This week is very special for me as it is where I began my relationship with Jesus, where I met my wife, where I proposed to her, where I found a lot of my closest and dearest friends and where I feel most at home with the worship and approach to ministry. I want to talk a bit about the community of this summer school and  how it might be developed into a year long life enhancer.

There are countless testimonies, like mine, where people have arrived at summer school from a local church where they don’t feel they belong for one reason or another and feel a strong sense of ‘homecoming’. It’s difficult to put a finger on what causes this feeling to happen with so many people. Is it the shared passion for theatre? Is it the intensity at which relationships are formed? Is it the deep challenges of the week that ask each member to search the depths of their souls for truth to communicate on stage? It’s all these things and many more.

The summer school models an approach to Christian discipleship that is attempted week in week out across the country in small groups, cell groups, house groups, etc. Riding Lights Summer School, however, is unashamed to ask deep and important questions of the participants; why? There is an inherent pressure to produce a performance at the end of a week and so time passes quickly and every moment in rehearsal counts. Therefore, participants, if they are to fully engage with a performance must offer their whole selves in order to communicate truths on stage.

I had an interesting conversation with designer Sean Cavanagh, who has worked with Riding Lights for many years. He suggested that our culture is so interested in making everyone feel like they need to express themselves that people don’t give much thought to what they are expressing or even to who they are that they are expressing. Those involved in encouraging self expression may believe that everyone knows themselves but actually self knowledge should not be assumed. What this problem leads to is people believing they are expressing themselves when in fact they are merely copying someone else in the hope that they will become what they express.

Walking around the Summer School and watching people interacting with each other I saw a lot of people desperate to express themselves but unsure as to who they actually are. Summer School encourages these people to discover who they really are because the company and those working on the courses are not interested in superficiality, they actively seek truth and real people. Your story will not be shared unless it’s truthful and honest.

In the middle of the week, the young people hold a service for the wider community. There is always a slot for testimonies and this year there were three. Two of them were honest and real and powerful and one was not and you could tell which ones meant something by the impact they had on the congregation. I felt a real sense of the possibility for churches to be this honest and frank with each other; the need for unashamedly seeking truthful engagement rather than allowing people to wear the masks for long periods of time. Church should be a place where people are almost forced to take off their masks and superficialities and be released to be ‘themselves’. Yes, it’s painful. Yes, it’s risky but while churches allow people the time and space to feel accepted with the masks on the more painful it will be to persuade them to take them off.

All the testimonies of people feeling they belong with Riding Lights Summer School continue on to tell of the difficulty of going back to the community where they came from having experienced the naked, raw honesty of Riding Lights Summer School. They return and soon forget the freedom and liberation felt and return to the masks that they put down. the summer school becomes a yearly chance to allow the air to get to the wounds only to return to covering it up until the next year. How could Riding Lights continue this ministry into the other 51 weeks of the year?

I’m beginning to feel that Riding Lights is an important tool for modelling church (see Riding Lights Theatre Church post). The network that they have across the country and beyond is a community of people who are passionate about telling truthful, risky and powerful stories; they are a group of people who are not satisfied with expected and safe. I know that Riding Lights Theatre Company feel they must appease the members but I think  they can be honest and bold at saying “We do not compromise the truth.”

There are people out there who are not members of Riding Lights but who have this same passion. It would be great to show them the power of honest and raw storytelling and invite them to participate in the work. The summer school is a place where Riding Lights concentrates on what it does best, drawing out truthful stories from all people and shows them their true reflection. This work is important for everyone.

The company is asking “How do we involve the members more?” I say “Do what you do best… invite them to tell stories, honest and real, to share themselves with others, unmasked and painfully raw.”, “How do we do this?”, “To ask, unashamedly direct, for people to do it. To say to each member “We want your story? Who are you? How does your story fit with ours and God’s?””

My placement this year will help me to see the power of discovering where our personal stories fit into something bigger releases and liberates people and that they are encouraged to step into reality and ask big questions of themselves. This, I hope, will feed into the powerful ministry of Riding Lights.

Their work is essential for the Kingdom of God and to consider this wealth of experience and gifting and passion to fade away is unthinkable. If the company stops I will only reinvent the wheel in the future!

Theatre Church (part V)

On the eve of my birthday BBC 2 was showing a programme called ‘Things to do before your thirty’ I’m willing to put money on my list being slightly different to theirs; Getting ordained is not as popular as it used to be!!! As I edged towards my quarter of a century landmark on Sunday and prepared myself for the onslaught of many people surrounding me on the eve of this momentous occasion for the sole purpose of celebrating my passing of time, I decided to meet up with a wise, sensitive and lovely friend (who also happens to be my brother in law) and who has started his walk towards 30.

One thing I love about my brother in law (among many!) is his intellectual engagement on a plethora of subjects. He invests his thought time in any topic that takes your fancy and he does so, not in a arrogant, intellectually superior way in order to show off, but in a caring, selfless way that says “I care about what you care about.” It means you can guarantee a great conversation with him and you leave feeling like you’ve learnt something new about yourself and the world around you… or at least about obscure music that’s played on 6 Music (one of his favourite topics!)

Of the many topics we discussed one stands out as particularly significant.

Fresh Expressions: The agreed process of dividing the church?

We began to discuss my placement next year and trying to work out if it could ever be ‘church’. I told him about my current thoughts on how theatre and church inter-related and where there may be potential of creating an expression of church through the theatre company model of relationship. I also started to try and formulate some thoughts on the dispersed community model of new monasticism and its potential for creating a worshipping theatre community made up of nomadic actors, directors, designers and technicians (see Riding Lights Theatre Church post). I talked about this image I was once given of a man dressed in tribal garb standing in the middle of a wilderness, underneath him it read “I am part of a tribe”. Next to this picture was an image of a block of flats, people crammed together in pokey bedsits in rows and rows, underneath it; “I am so isolated”. We both agreed that society in this country has a culture of opting into ‘community’. Centuries ago communities were a natural part of life and they weren’t created around a hobby or approach to life but around the desire to be in community. Now we join communities that share our values or approach to life, around a common interest such as a sport or leisure activity. We go out and find other people who are like us. Communities are rarely about different people coming together to be in community for the joy of being in community.

The church, surely, should be a place where people from all walks of life come together and grow alongside each other; where we learn from each other and where differences grow us rather than destroy us. I reflected, after our conversation, on the recent Synod centring on the consecration of women bishops in the Church of England. How do we live together with such opposing approaches? The concept of community seems so simple and yet we can see how difficult it is. I feel i need to say something, I won’t linger on it more than this one statement, the two Arch Bishops, Rowan and John, acted with such Christian integrity striving for the minority group at Synod to feel loved and respected.

The church should be a place where people can come together and not share cultures, interests or approaches but who all worship Jesus Christ… but most churches today fill its Sundays with ‘Family services’, ‘Youth services’, ‘Informal Service’, ‘Formal Eucharist’, ‘BCP’ and any number of Fresh Expressions or creative approaches to worship. Is this diversifying our worship and giving people the many different options of how to meet God, catering for all tastes, actually the way forward?

My brother in law and I discussed the term ‘tribal’. Are all these different groups meeting in one churches actually creating different tribes? Is the ‘tribal’ approach to worship dangerous?

The term ‘tribal’ brings to mind gang warfare, conflict, disagreements and friction but my brother in law commented on the Biblical narrative and how God worked within the tribal system. He called Abraham to be a tribe, Israel was divided into tribes and in Revelation there is no mention of destroying tribal boundaries but it claims that all tribes and all nations will have the Good News preached to them. The Bible seems to suggest that cultural divisions are ok, God knows that we are all different and that He can work with that but division is not good.

‘Unity does not equal uniformity and diversity does not equal division’

As I think about how a Theatre community could be an expression of church or ‘tribe’ I must remember its unity to the wider church, not just around the world but through history as well. Fresh Expressions could easily be seen as more opportunity for people to make a value judgement on the worship a group of people and to create ‘the right way’ but God’s church is bigger than that and Jesus is bigger than that. Fresh Expressions are not about doing new things for the sake or doing new things, they’re not about being ‘trendy’ or pandering to the whims of some. They’re not about short changing the gospel for the sake of getting people through the door but they are about creating communities that are organic and natural… I guess, like Abraham and the Levites, tribes are called out from a larger whole to be a certain thing for the good of the whole and for the glory of God.

I pray that there may be a theatre community called out to dedicate itself to communicating the story of God to all tribes and nations and tongues so that all knees will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!

Theatre Church (part IV)

Mrs. Lunn has gone for a retreat at St James’ Hospital, a bi annual time of pampering and drugs! which leaves me home alone. After my deep disappointment as I woke looking at my wife’s empty pillow, I got up and had a quiet breakfast and headed out for a run. As I jogged around Durham and listening to music, I prayed about my placement; the big practical issue still needing prayer and discernment is the need for a regular space (see Theatre Church (part I) post) It’s important that the space is private and ‘holy’. I have spoken before about the need for preparation of space and it has been an issue to find a space which will enable and facilitate good and holy discussions without being a chapel or overly religious space.

I headed into college to pick up some things and on my way back home my route was blocked by builders and found myself heading towards the city centre. At the bottom of Palace Green the Salvation Army have recently opened up a ‘Boiler Room’ called ‘Sanctuary 21’ and I was compelled to go in and spend some more time praying about space. As I entered the ‘Prayer Room’ I discovered two people in the room chatting. They welcomed me in and we got chatting.

It turns out that the two people are Gary and Dawn Lacey who have been sent from Liverpool to set up a 24/7 prayer room in Durham. They have both been praying for two years about how to go about setting up and I was so impressed with the way the two of them have approached the whole process; spending every day in the Cathedral praying, making contacts with the churches in the area, listening to the needs of this city. They were keen not to storm into the city with ‘the latest thing’ and proclaim “we’ve got it!” Gary showed me round the facilities and I was so impressed. Having spent six years previously setting up a ‘Boiler Room’ in Liverpool, it would have been easy to come into Durham and replicate but Gary is sensitive to the particular needs of Durham. Yes, there are similarities about Sanctuary 21 and every other ‘Boiler Room’ but how best to serve this community and their needs. Gary wants to unite the different churches and their mission, so he isn’t doing ‘services’ or setting up a congregation or ‘sheep stealing’. He wants to bless all the churches and resource them with spaces to pray and worship and hold events for their church. He is also wanting to reach out to the students at night and help to support the Street Angels initiative.

Through our conversations I felt that familiar tug on the heart… was this the space? Gary showed me upstairs and told me that they were looking to hire out the space for people to use for prayer and events. I asked him whether he would be up for having a weekly workshop for students and he was positive. We discussed, briefly, how it may work and I became really excited. The space is light, airy and beginning to feel like a really holy place. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been into a place which feels ‘thin’? This place has that.

I need to pray and listen and ask God to open and close doors appropriately to lead me to where He wants us to go but this place already seems God lead; it’s central, it’s free, it’s filled with prayer and it’s private (as we would have the building to ourselves). Also, on a side note, it’s equipped for presentations and performances so it could also be a space, if we choose to create some product, to perform.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a timetable for next year yet so this all must wait. In the mean time, prayer… and now I have a place for that!