Tag Archives: God

Death and Resurrection

I decided to train at Durham, not because of the beautiful and inspiring cathedral nor the excellent theological and academic study programme but because I wanted to go into a rough, working class setting and show myself how much of a spoilt middle class boy that I am; hence why I find myself nearing the end of my time in Byker, one of the most deprived areas of the country. I chose Byker as my Mission Study Block because of the reasons above. I knew nothing of the place itself except of the famous TV programme that spawned Ant and Dec.

As my colleagues and I walk around the estate and hear stories of community breakdown and regeneration project after regeneration project I am struck by how comfortable I feel here. Admittedly we are walking around during the day in the glorious sunshine but I’ve met some members of the residents here and they all seem nice enough. I would like to visit at night and walk the streets to see how the place changes but at the moment I don’t hear horror stories of rough neighbourhoods, I hear stories of isolated, disillusioned and disposed individuals trying to escape the situation they find themselves. Byker is a place where you get dumped; either as an asylum seeker or as one of the people who are not needed by society anymore.

The history of this estate is long and complicated but here’s my basic understanding of it:

It grew in the industrial revolution as the centre of the glass industry. All the accommodation was built to house the workers of the factories and the subsequent industry that filled Tyneside. Byker became a place where families grew up living together, everyone knowing everyone else; a real working class community. As time went on and industry came and went the housing began to look and feel dated and so it was decided that a revamp was in order. People moved out of their houses and the place was knocked down and the terrace houses were replaced. It was done in stages and people were moved and removed and, by the end of the last set of building works, the community was, as you can imagine, dispersed. Some returned but many couldn’t afford the new housing or didn’t want to uproot again. The housing became home to the only people who could afford them; those on benefits. The community was subject to many concepts and consultations from council and committees. Plans were thrown at these people but funding and planning permission all slipped through. What is left now is an area where no one has any hope, probably because they’ve had them broken so many times, where no one knows if they belong here because it’s not clear what ‘here’ is.

As the six students from Cranmer walk and talk lots of things are coming through and it wouldn’t be right for me to try and voice them all at once (I wouldn’t know how to sew them all together anyhow!) But one thing for me seems clear…

This is a place that needs a new story and I think we can find it in an old one. The story speaks of death and resurrection.

Parallel to my time in Byker I have continued to read ‘Organic community’ by Josef Myers. At almost every meeting and conversation I’m reminded of Myers thoughts on how communities are built and sustained and I’m struck by how much Byker has been failed by those who believed they were creating community. The councillors came into Byker with grand plans and ideas of how Byker should exist in post-industrial age. What’s the problem with that?

Some quotes from ‘Organic Community’ may help,

‘people are not primarily looking to co operate with our plan for their lives.’

‘Organic community is not a product, not an end result. Organic community – belonging – is a process… it is not the product of community that we are looking for. It is the process of belonging that we long for.’

We love to fix things, don’t we? Why? I suggest we are all scared of failure. We idolise success, we are told, again and again, that we need to reach excellence, personal bests and achievements. If you don’t attain what you set out to do then you are weak and dependant on those who have. Our society is structured so that those who succeed give support to those who haven’t ‘made it’.

The situation in Byker is so complicated I can’t go into it all now but the impression I get is that the rebuilding and all the subsequent regeneration projects that have taken place have been master plans of fixing the ‘issues’ of Byker. Good willed people trying to bring life to this community by papering over cracks and thrusting false hope into a community hungry for some light.

‘Dying to live’

This is the phrase that’s been buzzing round my head as I reflect on the situation in Byker. What follows is only an impression and my reflections. To believe that i have the answer is foolish and naive but I have been hearing and seeing some profound things and I’d like to share them in the hope that they may be of some help.

The church of St Michael’s is a group of people who have moved from their building to a shop front and they don’t know whether they’ll ever return to the empty shell on the hill and if they do what happens to the shop front? How can they invest in a space they don’t know if they’re keeping? The church of St Anthony’s is a group of people who find themselves in a ‘fortress’, fenced in and separate from an evolving resident community not willing to let go of relatively superficial factors. What are they holding on to and why? These are communities that need to embrace death, knowing trusting in God who has conquered death!

This imagery of death and resurrection is everywhere.

The church of St Martin’s has experienced a death of their building; it has been taken down, every brick, and replaced by a community centre which doubles up as a worship space. A wonderful concept but this has come with some great heart ache. This community experienced a death of an old way of identifying themselves. They are now in a new stage. I feel like God is leading them through death into resurrection hope.

St Michael’s are in an Easter Saturday moment. All around them is uncertainty and ‘death’; death of a building, of their identity, of cohesion. The last thing they need is human beings giving them a metaphorical plaster to ‘make it better’. They need God’s power to bring about resurrection. They need to be reminded that in God we have hope and it is only in trusting in Him that His power is made perfect in weakness.

The Byker community, at large, needs to hear this story as well. That, in Christ, death is a victory, that it is only Christ who can turn failure into hope. Unfortunately, as I look around Byker, I see death and then human beings trying to imitate resurrection. John Sadler, vicar at St Michael’s, suggested that ‘regeneration’ is like ‘resurrection’ and I would agree with him. The impression I get, however, is that this ‘resurrection’ plan is more the work of man than of God. Yes, God will use it but I don’t feel the power that brought Christ back from the dead is at work in some for the regeneration work that is going on. At St Martin’s there is a tangible hope in and around the ‘St Martin’s Centre’ and I put it down to the faith of their new Centre manager and the relationship she has with the vicar. This partnership, a long with the congregation there, are actively seeking God’s power to bring resurrection to this community. At Kid’s Kabin, in Walker, Catholic nuns pray and discern God’s will seeking to follow where He leads them, knowing that it is only this way that will bring new life. I have seen in other areas well meaning people try and create new life without God. Yes they have some success but there lacks any meaningful hope. What they produce is resuscitation not resurrection… temporary not eternal.

What is it Byker needs? Real Hope. How will they find this? I believe in modelling the gospel message of resurrection. “Show us Christ risen again!” We show them through real new life like the one modelled in Kids Kabin and proclaim God’s marvellous works. We show them community centres like St Martin’s when God has brought about real powerful resurrection in community.

Byker needs to be helped to embrace death, in its many forms, and be shown hope of resurrection. The Church in Byker needs to be reminded of resurrection hope, the heart of our faith. They need to be encouraged to remember what we have to offer that no one else does, eternal life in resurrection hope.

This isn’t the most clear and concise explanation but I hope you can hear my excitement for this area. I know God has the power to breathe life into Byker. I have seen His power working but I also can feel darkness trying to get in.

I pray for the Christian community in Byker for the courage to stand up and proclaim from the rooftops and in every alley way of the estate,

“Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!”

Wrestling With Truth (part VIII)

Sorry for the delay. As you scroll down you’ll see this is a bumper edition! I have been on holiday and have tried to resist writing too much. But what a week!

After our time in Isle of Wight, my wife and I travelled to my home town of Tunbridge Wells, nestled in the Kent countryside. This time was to catch up with friends and family because, being all the way up in Durham, we don’t get any time to visit and be present with them and for them.

On Thursday night I went to the National Theatre. I travelled up to London on my own due to the fact that the play I was going to see, ‘Love the Sinner’, was definitely not my wife’s cup of tea. It also gave me loads of time to be by myself for the first time and to catch up on some reading.

The play promised much! It was about church politics and debates. A group of church ministers gather to discuss policies of the church. With this backdrop we a faced with the life of Michael, a church volunteer, who has joined the council as a scribe and who gets sexually involved with an African boy who is a porter at the hotel. Back home, with his wife, Michael faces questions within himself of ethics and how he lives his life as a ‘Christian’. The African boy then turns up at his home and throws his world into chaos.

The play was great, well executed and full of subtlety. There’s always a certain standard you can expect from the National Theatre and if it meets it there’s nothing of note to say (if that makes sense). The set was clever and simple. An office-like blind replaced curtains at the front of stage meaning you’d get glimpses of the set changing when a breeze caught them. The lighting was nothing amazing but nor was it distracting and the music that accompanied scene changes was a shrill African voice that worked well at keeping you on edge and uncomfortable.

And that’s what I felt through the whole play… uncomfortable. The topic being discussed was well researched. The play opened with a debate by Bishops on homosexuality and there were the liberal Bishops (mainly from the States) and the conservative Bishops (mainly from Africa) and the discussions were funny in their truthfulness. During the debate, however, I felt myself growing tense inside. I suddenly realised that the debate going on onstage was the debate I have with myself on every issue.

I grew up with a liberal mum (see Wrestling with Truth (part VII) post) and I can see how this approach and mindset is helpful in discussions and how it can be embracing of many people. My desire is always to bring people into a relationship with Christ because I believe it makes a person understand themselves and the world around them. The liberal approach to major ethical issues allows as many people come to that relationship and breaks down barriers. There is, however, a strong problem I have. I don’t believe Christ made it easy for people to follow him. He always challenges and always asks for more. For me, the heart of Christianity is the cross; to die in order to live, to allow all that you want and think is best to die and free yourself from self sufficiency. This call is not easy, it’s the hardest thing you can do.

There was a scene in the play where Michael, the volunteer, returns home and gets into an argument about squirrels with his wife. She asks why he’s reading his Bible more at home, he says he wants to take his faith more seriously. She doesn’t understand. It then turns out the wife wants to try IVF treatment and Michael is unsure and says that He doesn’t think it’s right and that they should ask God if its right. The wife gets angry and says that God wants her to have a baby and asks why God would want to stop her from being happy.

This standpoint made me really upset. I know several couples who have used IVF and are now expecting children. I am overjoyed with this and am praying for them continually. Do I, therefore, believe that IVF is always right and is blessed by God? No. For the couples I know and for countless others I know IVF is an answer to prayer. God gives us what we want. So why did I get upset with the character’s understanding of God? God gives some couples babies through IVF not because it’s their right to have children but because they understand the wonderful gift they are from God. My friends didn’t demand babies from God and expect them. They didn’t say “If God doesn’t make this work then I refuse to follow Him.” They prayed that God would bless them and if it be His will then babies would be given to them. The character in the play demanded God give her what she wants; she was putting God to the test saying her belief in Him is dependent on Him giving her what she wants to make her happy.

Too often I see the world demand they get what they want. God gives good gifts. Yes. But God isn’t our slave or our genie in a bottle. “If God is good, then he’ll want me to be happy and what will make me happy is…”

I find myself quoting that well known philosopher, Mick Jagger,

‘You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need.’

Too often I find people listen and can’t believe God wouldn’t want to give them what they want. I believe God gives us first and foremost what we need and we discover that actually that’s what we want. Only sometimes does he give us what we want because, we discover, it’s what we need.

Love the Sinner demanded much of me as a Christian audience member. Having seen Peter Brooks’ play ’11 and 12’ about tolerance and being challenged to see my faith differently this play asked the opposite. The Bishops at the beginning talked about the battlelines. Are we, as a faith, willing to sacrifice the things that define us to slip away in order to allow people to get on board with us? Are we sacrificing the cross in order that people don’t have to make too much of a life changing decision to become a Christian? At times I feel the liberal side of the church demands too little of people. Then again, the conservative side of the church demands too much and continually trip up over hypocritical statements. The liberals get grace but the conservatives get sacrifice.

Usually this is something that people can wrestle with for ever and never come down on one side or the other but the issue for me is I’m becoming a leader and it’ll be demanded of me. “Where do you stand?” What are my battle lines? Where are my boundaries? For many of us struggling with ethical issues in relationships we must ask what does God want? Some many people say they pray and feel God wants them to be happy. That may be what God wants but how do we know? Are we just hearing what we want to hear? Where is the prophetic voice of Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah saying “This is not what God wants” It’s a tough message to hear and it sometimes sounds like a roar (see Reading And Telling Stories post) but it needs to be said. God demands alot from us and His way is not always our way. Where has the prophetic voice gone?

The play was deeply upsetting because it hit me right in the heart. It made me sit up and listen to God. Too often I jump from liberalism to conservativism and I do it so that God thinks what I want Him to think. Underlying my viewing and my thoughts was a Bonhoeffer quote;

‘We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale, we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unmasked and without condition. Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and unbelieving. We poured forth unending streams of grace. But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard’

As I left the theatre i walked through the streets of London and saw poverty, anger, misery and was deeply troubled; so many people needing to hear that god has a way of life that brings peace but it’s a narrow path. In the play the African boy who lives a life of real poverty and violence and he turns up at Michael’s house demanding help. Michael was frozen in fear. “It doesn’t work like that!” I saw a guy begging under a bridge near Waterloo. I thought to myself, “There are a hundred and one reasons why I don’t invite that man to come and sit with me and have dinner. There are countless reasons why I can’t help that man but Jesus did and demanded I did.” We sit around and argue our standpoint on issues of sexuality and politics but every day we do people die and starve and miss an opportunity to know peace.

But there are a hundred and one reasons why we can’t make a difference…

This is a big topic and one which continues to divide the Church but it’s important that we all know the strengths of both sides and also question and allow God to challenge all of us in our views.

My mind is in turmoil about all of this (as you can probably gather) all I know for sure is I want to follow Christ and to have boldness not to sacrifice his powerful life changing word for cheap grace!

Reading And Telling Stories

I love reading, always have. Give me a good story or clever use of words and I’m a happy man! Ideally I’d get paid to read. I’d have a large high back armchair in a study full of books, a small table beside me with four or five texts awaiting my perusal and a constant supply of good quality tea in a china cup.

When my wife asked me what, for me, makes a good holiday, my response was easy; time to read, time to sleep and some historic or cultural excursion thrown in for good measure. Having just returned from a week in the Isle of Wight, I can say “She listened well!” Although I didn’t get the high back chair or the good quality tea, I did take some good books and managed to collect five great second hand books for just over a fiver!

I was re-reading ‘The Flood’ by David Maine and was struck by how well the translation of an ancient story has been done. The final chapter sums up my thoughts well,

‘…what’s the point of telling a story if we can’t even get it right?.. Of course people will tell something, it was the end of the world after all. A story like that won’t be forgotten. But things will get added and left out and confused, until in a little while people won’t even know what’s true and what’s been made up…When the story gets told, and told again and then again, things will change. They always do. Not on purpose, but just because people don’t ever really listen. So we should at least make sure we understand what happened to begin with.’

Looking back over my reading this week the theme of ‘story’ has come up again and again. It’s caused me, due to the story of Noah in ‘The Flood’, to consider the stories of the Bible and how they are told and, having received some comments on the last post (see Monasticism and Asceticism post), how prophets like Isaiah are seen as anti ‘loving God’. On our way to the Isle of Wight my wife and I were listening to the audio book of The Magician’s Nephew. At the end, Digory asks why Aslan can’t comfort his uncle and speak to him. Aslan explains that he can try and comfort Digory’s uncle but it would be no good, as he would only hear roars and growls. As humans we come across stories like Noah and Isaiah and we question the God in the passage, we hear roars and anger. Maybe we, like Uncle Andrew, aren’t tuned into the voice of God at times. Maybe our ancestors have heard the story changed and have changed it themselves (it’s bound to happen). We hear the story wrong or we tell it wrong.

These thoughts remind me of the feeling I had during Durham Mysteries last month (see Wrestling With Truth (part IX)). How, then, are we to know the story? If we assume the story has changed, how do we understand what happened to begin with? There’s no real way of knowing, except that we know, or at least claim to know, the God who’s in these story. Digory and Polly hear Aslan’s voice because they connect with him and so, when Digory is tempted by the White Witch, he is able to stand against lies or misconceptions of Aslan.

I’ve also been reading ‘The Passion Drama’ by Hugh Bishop. It contains six sermons on Holy Week. Like most sermons, it tries to help us, the reader/hearer, to place ourselves in the story of Christ’s Passion. It’s textbook in it’s structure and content but really made me reflect on how powerful this style of preaching is. All we, as Christians and therefore missioners, are called to do is to tell the story and to help people connect with the story. This is why the theatre needs to be at the centre of the church’s ministry because it has at its core an understanding of the art of storytelling.

This leads me onto the final book I’ve been reading; ‘Organic Community’ by Joseph Myers. Two quotes have stood out to me in this book so far. The first helps me to understand the role of artists within the church.

‘An artist is someone who enables art to emerge from a canvas’

You can’t manufacture art. Art is not painting by numbers, it’s allowing a story of emotion or something essential to emerge from within. Theatre practitioners have a way of allowing a story to emerge, to fully participate and communicate a story and bring others into the story. Yes you can all learn the technique of good storytelling but for some it’s natural, organic.

The second quote leads us to something powerful that I, like other church leaders, need to remember.

‘Story is the universal measure of life.’

How do we measure a successful ministry? By counting how many people turn up? How many bums made contact with the pews? No. Listen to the stories. How do we know if someone has ‘come to Christ’? Asking if they have been splashed with water? Or said the simple prayer? No. Listen to their story.

I must remember that next year I will have the privilege of joining with other people to tell stories. My job is to listen carefully and remember them and to see where they fit with the big, meta narrative, the greatest story ever told which is still being told and, with each breath we take, we participate and engage with it.

Wrestling With Truth (part VII)

Currently heading down to London to ‘celebrate’(?) one of my best friends stag do. I’m travelling there and back in a day, which means I have over 8 hours on a train… Just enough time to write some thoughts and reflections on the Durham Mysteries 2010 which I saw last night.

In order to comment and reflect on what I witnessed last night I should outline my understanding of Mysteries cycles. The concept dates back to medieval England where professional theatre was not understood and the theatre was done by the Church. The earliest forms were extensions or visual depictions of liturgical text; as these were often Latin it helped to engage the common people who couldn’t read (English or Latin!) The Pope in the 13th century then banned clergy from acting in public and the mysteries, now a regular event on festival days, was handed over to guilds and crafts to oversee.

The Durham Mysteries were organised and created by Simon Stallworthy, Artistic Director of the Gala Theatre, Durham. He wanted to make this cycle as truthful to the original cycles of medieval England in organisation and style, and the fact that he is not part of the church system aids this comparison. After the Pope banned involvement in mysteries for the clergy, the guilds and crafts took charge and in so doing lost some of the theological understanding of the texts and stories. The problem with this modern adaptation was the same. These modern retellings, however, unlike medieval England where the stories and images were still relatively common and were learnt by most of the population, in 21st century Durham, are alien. Stallworthy comments,

‘Greek, Elizabethan, Restoration and Victorian drama are still a staple of our repertoire, because we are exploring the same questions and looking for similar answers.’

I would agree, but the Mysteries need a different approach. The questions asked may still be the same but in the original Mysteries there was an implicit framework in which to ask and wrestle with those questions. There was an understanding of God, what He is like, without this then you can come to conclusions about God which are not true although they may be logical.

The creative people involved in responding to the biblical stories were, from the product they showed, not all from a Christian background. This is (and I want to stress this) not, necessarily, a problem. Those outside the Christian faith can speak, prophetically into our understanding of God and challenge aspects of our faith but it is dangerous to presume that their understanding of Scripture is healthy and/or godly.

What do I mean? Well take the some examples from last night. A god who demands praise and sacrifice in order to gain a boost in his ego. A god who has to be told that he must love the world He created by angels and/or humans. A god who on His ‘day off’ goes to have a look at his world and hates all that he sees. A god who can’t be bothered to look after or guide His people. This is not God. The early plays in Durham mysteries were created, from what I saw last night, by people who have little understanding of the whole story or of the things involved. The Mysteries of the 10th to 16th century were grown out of guilds and crafts who had an established understanding of the Christian story and often spoke prophetically into the theology of the Church. Some of the plays last night had lost the prophetic because they lacked an understanding of the God who was involved in these stories.

Having said all this, once we started the steps towards Jesus, starting at ‘Abraham and Isaac’ through to the ‘Harrowing of Hell’, then God was someone I could get on board with. The depiction and understanding of Christ was profound. The questions asked in the latter parts of the cycle were important. Christ is still the way most people understand God. This is great news! Why is it, then, that most people understand Jesus but can’t believe in the God of the Old Testament? Certainly, there’s a deep assumption that the God of the Old Testament is all angry and disappointed and the God of the New Testament is loving and kind, but I think this is the heart of the issue.

I spent two days this week in a primary school and during my time I watched a very good assembly. The teacher was asking about having God/Jesus with us when we are facing difficulty and the joy and peace of being in relationship with Jesus. At other times, however, I was struck by the simplistic description of the Christian faith. You may be thinking, “But Ned, they’re only children.” I think we underestimate our children if we do not think they can handle an understanding, for example, of painful sacrifice, of difficult decisions, of accepting our weaknesses. What is the Christian message? One of triumph and success? One of we can all get on if we try harder? At the very heart of our message is that we let go of all we are and die to ourselves, our wants, our comforts. This is a tough message but, I say again, we underestimate our children if we do not think they can handle this lesson.

It makes me question how we teach the faith; how we tell our story to those outside of the faith. People get Jesus because he is some perfect guy who loves and is tolerant but, actually, he isn’t. We need to see the whole story. How tolerant is Jesus? God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and God can seem harsh, strict and angry in the Old Testament but actually, he is still love. We need to ask that difficult question; How is the Old Testament God ‘love’?

The final five plays of the cycle were powerful retellings of the biblical story and asked profound questions. As a Mysteries Cycle, Durham Mysteries was a success. It gathered together the communities of the North East. It was profoundly local, in it’s content and approach. There was a real sense of celebration of the local culture and heritage and the language was colloquial and contemporary. All it needed was someone who could ask those important questions of the creative team behind the earlier plays to help tell the true and real story and to show everyone the God of creation and love in Genesis.

I pray that in 2013, when the next cycle is performed, that God will send His people to help people engage with the real story and that God’s glory will be shown and many will come to know their part in ‘his story’.

(Sorry for the final pun)

Cathedral Event


I was involved in a contemplative, informal, space exploring evening at Durham Cathedral last night. This event has been embryonic for the last six months or so and it was exciting to see its first outing. The night was a ‘rehearsal’; however, this was a strange concept in itself. How can you rehearse a service? God is there, present in the sacrament (which was shared).

Michael Volland has written a post on it on his blog.

The night was useful in that it served its purpose of showing us what worked, where God moved strongly and areas that need more prayer and reflection. I’m loathed to share my personal reflections at this time (see Theatre Church (part II)). All that needs to be said is that this is an exciting team to be a part of and there was real potential in areas of the evening. Lots to consider to make it honest and true to its calling but God is moving and answered prayer.

On a personal note, it confirmed a passion for Fresh Expressions and creating spaces in which people can encounter Christ and to subvert previous conceptions of church and bring many to know the personal Saviour… We didn’t fully reach this ideal last night but, after some constructive reflection, we may yet grasp the full reality God has in store.

Exciting times!

I will add more later when the group has discussed the evening.

Impossipuzzle

What do you do when all your work is done and you have a week to breathe and start to relax?

Do a jigsaw called ‘Impossipuzzle’.

I love to do jigsaws… with a blanket over my knee and my denture soaking in a cup of water! I know that the analogy of a jigsaw and life with God has been done before but it has really struck me how, whilst doing this jigsaw, I have been trying to piece together what God wants me to do in preparation for next year’s placement.

When I started this jigsaw I had a vague sense of what it was of (I don’t look at the cover, it’s more exciting then!) but it was only after I had started and got pieces in place that the pattern became clear. It’s so satisfying when you find the piece that fits and even more exciting when you get lots of pieces fitting in quick succession. It’s frustrating, however, when you cannot find the piece you’re looking for. You try every piece (or at least you think you do) but none of them fit. Is the jigsaw incomplete? Have you lost the piece on the floor or under the sofa? Chances are you’ve not study the pieces close enough.

It’s the same with fitting together this placement. I have a vague sense of what it may look like but as I put things in place and start mapping out the framework I see a clearer direction and focus. It’s satisfying when things fit together, you meet just the right person at just the right time. Sometimes these things happen in quick succession and then there’s a huge gap and you can’t seem to see the next step forward. You question whether you’ve lost your way, or this is not the direction you’re meant to go in. Like the jigsaw piece, you’ve probably not study the pieces close enough.

This week as I try and make preparations for the start of next term, before students head off on holiday, I’ve faced gaps in the vision. The first was a supervisor.

What’s a supervisor for? To speak into and support the placement. This needs to be someone who will open my eyes to things going on outside of my bubble, who will critique and oversee the work. It needs to be someone who has experience of this sort of ministry and who will be there if and when I panic. My tutor has experience of this sort of work and will inevitably support and encourage me, critique my ministry and have a prophetic element to the community. He can’t, however, remind me of the world outside of college as he is part of that and has associations for me. I asked him for his advice and he happened to have had lunch with a guy in Durham that day who has also had experience in community building and Fresh Experiences and was a professional story teller. God’s timing and guidance, or what!

The second gap was a confirmation that I’m being called into Pioneer Ministry. This is a strange gap to have but whilst I happily prepare for next year’s placement, jumping from excitement to sheer anxiety, I have forgotten the practical excuse for doing this at college. The excuse is different from the reason but both are valid. The reason is because I feel called to the theatre community here in Durham and potentially in the future. The excuse, which I need in order to be given time to do it, is to test my vocation in Fresh Expressions.

What would a confirmation of Pioneer Ministry look like? I would like to suggest a clear confirmation would be to have someone come up to me and call me a ‘pioneer’. What is a pioneer?

‘We’re looking for people who combine Christian maturity with a concern for those outside the Christian community; ministers who are willing to learn as they go, try new things and have the vision and skills to develop new communities who do some things differently.’ (Steve Croft, How Do Pioneers Learn?)

This week as I have been praying for a reliance on God and renewed vision for what I’m doing here, I have had one person come up to me and affirm my vision and creative approach to ministry, I have had another person who envied my ability to be shaped by new understanding and learning, and one other person who actually called me a ‘pioneer’ (we were discussing my questions over my gifting for next year…so it doesn’t really count. Shame!) Throughout it all many people have been passionate about the possibility of next year and, although no one can walk the journey with me, i feel really supported by the community.

As I finish the week, having stepped a few more pace down the path marked out for me, I’m aware of the loneliness of this style of ministry and the risk but of equal measure the support, love and prayers of a whole cloud of witnesses; to tip the balance a pleasure and delight of God bursts my questioning bubble again and again and I take each step holding the hand of my Father.

I finished the puzzle tonight! Nothing is impossible, it seems, when you have endurance and take things one piece at a time.

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…

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?