Tag Archives: prayer

In The Minster (part I)

At the end of day two of my placement at York Minster there seems to be one big question running through my head and the conversations I’ve been having; “What’s the difference between Cathedral ministry and parish ministry?”

Canon Glyn Webster describes his role at the Minster as “The Parish Priest of the community” despite the Minster not being a ‘parish’. He sees his role as overseeing the pastoral needs of those who work and worship in the hallowed Gothic building in the centre of York. The staff here are amazed (and glad to tell me) that the Minster congregation is growing. Early morning Matins and Evensong every day and all Sunday services have increased their regular number over the last decade or so. This has not surprised me. Having spent the last two years working with Durham Cathedral and listening to many who work in Cathedrals across the country, this trend is shared by most of the Cathedrals. Why is this?

I had a very encouraging conversation with an ex arch-deacon of Cleveland, Ron Woodley today. He spoke passionately about parochial ministry and encouraged me by stating that “It’s the greatest life you’ll ever live. It’s hard but on balance I have never known of a more joyful life!” What a ringing endorsement from someone who had 40 years of active ministry. In the midst of our conversation he said something that rang true and has been helpful in my reflections. He suggested the difference between parish ministry and the ministry of the Cathedral is the Cathedral offers worshippers anonymity where parish life doesn’t.

I believe that to be true but is that a benefit or problem?

I have no doubt that there is a strong sense of community here in the Minster. I sat through a very touching funeral of a staff member and the sense of community was palpable. The packed quire at both the funeral service and at Evensong last night speaks of a committed worshipping community. During the worship, however, you just fade into the milieu of faces. I, personally, love that. I am not important to be individually picked out but I am just one, tiny speck, in a sea of people all worshipping and praising the almighty God.

In parishes, I have experienced a cry to ensure everyone is welcomed and identified and spoken to and acknowledged. This is very important if people are to feel part of a community. Too often we become insular and cliquey isolating and rejecting the new-comer. The sign of peace is a time to speak to and individually welcome each member of the community into worship. There is no anonymity. People want to and need to talk to you, know how you are, who you are before worshipping. There is no fading into the background and having time with God.

Here is the strange paradox; In order to have a personal moment with God, un-hindered by the concern that people might be looking at you, you need to fade into the sea of people. But to make people feel part of the sea of people we feel the need to personally meet and greet each person.

I find it interesting that Cathedral congregations are growing. Is it because that anonymity is important? That sense of a private experience in the protection of the mass of people is an aspect of our culture at the moment, is it not? In the development of evangelism of the last couple of hundred years we have seen a journey from up the front delivery to conversational, didactic forms of evangelism. The issue we face at the moment is no one even wants to ask the questions or engage in conversation. Many people have researched and studied the trends and we find ourselves in a culture that no longer asks questions of faith. I’m not saying that the Alpha model of evangelism, answering the questions of life, is outmoded but the research shows that it is increasingly difficult to get people wanting to even go to the meal!

What Cathedral worship offers which parish ministry doesn’t nor shouldn’t offer is the chance of a private, personal, surprise encounter with God. This may well lead onto the need for Alpha or any conversation with people of faith.

We have been trying to wrestle with this in our ‘Fresh Expression’ in Durham Cathedral (UR32B.wordpress.com). At the heart of this service is the desire to encounter God in the space; un-intrusive, anonymous, private encounters. We have struggled with the issue of how we create community with people who only want to experience God privately and not in community. How do you establish a Eucharistic community in this individualistic environment?

I’m not sure I can, yet, answer that question but what I can say is I believe that this anonymity in worship is what many unchurched people would be happy with rather than being thrust into a gathering where everybody knows everyone else and you are clearly the ‘stranger’; where in the worship you feel judged and on display. Where you are so busy worrying that you do and say the right thing that you don’t have the chance to experience something transcendent.

Cathedral worship allows you to ease into an experience of God whilst, at the same time, being part of a big group of people, all experiencing the same thing as you. Although nothing is said or physical contact made you still feel a huge sense of a united community, sharing the spiritual realm.

It is this truth that seems to be resonating for me at the moment in my last couple of posts. So I pray that as I continue on this placement that God will bring more revelations that will help me to articulate these thoughts!

MediaLit (part III)

Digital ‘space’?

In our final session on our final day at the MediaLit Conference we began a massive conversation with Prof. David Wilkinson. Although his seminar was on Theology and Apologetics it led to a heated debate about whether we can call the internet a ‘space’. We often use language of inhabitation of the internet leading to the image of a space in which to exist. Andrew Graystone, Director of the Churches Media Council, tried to helpful distinguish between digital ‘space’ and digital ‘environment’. He has stopped using the term ‘space’ as it leads to the confusion, but digital environment confuses me! How do I relate to environments? What is the analogy that will help in my understanding?

This discussion lead me to ask questions of the nature of ‘space’.

Earlier in the week we discussed online Eucharist. This is an online experience where people, inhabiting separate spaces join together through the digital media and share in the sacrament of Communion. This unsettled me from the start! Partly because one example was given that people broke their own, individual piece of bread, in their separate spaces. How our individualistic culture has even impacted the communal experience of faith!

Before anyone begins the discussion of physical restrictions on parts of our society through medical or circumstantial issues, I want to stress that I appreciate the complexities some people face trying to belong to a sacramental community. Allergies, Fears, Mobility; all of these shut down any possibility for some people to get to a certain space at a certain time to feel they belong and can participate in the life of a community. But there are big issues here!

Two main points to raise in the limited space and time I have had to reflect on this. One of them, interestingly, is about space and time.

To be ‘present’. What do we mean by present? To answer that I should ask it in a different way; what do we mean by ‘absence’? Absence is the state of being away from a place or person. In this definition absence is marked by spatial measurements, is it not? Let’s not begin to deconstruct it (at the moment at least) into the emotional absence of a person but let us affirm the shared idea that if I am not in the same geographical area as you I am absent. To be present, therefore, is, in some way, to share the same geographical location. This is a traditional understanding of the term. The problem arises when we try to experience ‘presence’ through digital media. Can this experience ever be achieved if people are separated by geographical locations?

In MediaLit (part II) we explored the idea that, through prayer we can become a community which is not defined by shared geographical space. This issue is compromised if we extend the same definitions into the sacramental act. My theological assumptions come into play here so I will state them clearly. I believe in the presence of Christ, particularly during the sacramental act. This presence is based on both a temporal aspect (i.e. He shares the time in which we exist) and spatial (i.e. He shares the space in which we exist.) Having said that, however, I begin to question what I mean by that. When we claim ‘His Spirit is with us.’ in the liturgy what are we proclaiming? That His Spirit exists in the same spatial reality as us? The truth of the incarnation ‘complexifies’ this by suggesting that God does not compete in space with us…

The Sacraments are both communal and reality changing. Reality is measured both in time and space. In order to change reality it must change both of these aspects. Christ must be present both in time and in space. This can still be affirmed within the context of the solo Eucharist. The communal aspect of the sacrament is important here. We are brought together, through the Eucharist, into the Body of Christ. What does this mean? Maybe I could be bold in suggesting that, He is present because we are present. I mean this in its widest possible way! Your physical presence changes the reality of the whole community and, likewise, the presence of the community changes your reality. Christ is spatial present through the Holy Spirit in the community, gathered in the same time and space (reality).

If we take out the spatial aspect of the Eucharist do we remove, in some way, the ability of reality to be fully changed ?

The second point I want to reflect on is the role that affirmation of self plays within the sacraments. I have begun to write a chapter on the need in community to affirm self-expressions by adopting them into communal-expressions (i.e. the expression of who/what the community is.) Our culture has reduced self-expression down to whatever you think or feel is truly authentic to you. This is impossible,

If your life is centred on yourself, on your own desires and ambitions, then asserting those desires and ambitions is the way you try to be true to yourself. So self-assertion becomes the only way of self expression. If you simply assert your own desires, you may have the illusion of being true to yourself. But in fact all your efforts to make yourself more real and more yourself have the opposite effect: they create a more and more false self. (Christopher Jamison, Finding Sanctuary)

Community is necessary in self-expression. This is, like a lot of aspects of community, both a potential blessing and a potential abuse.

Sacraments are communal events because any self-expression of faith needs to be affirmed by a community of others. This is highlighted in Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s latest book ‘A Grand Design’. where they suggest particles only have definition if they are observed where as the unobserved past is full of possibilities. It is the observation of reality that gives it definition. This has huge implications to the sacramental changes in reality.

I am suddenly aware of the hugeness of this issue. I don’t envy Dr. Pete Phillips as he discusses this at Methodist Conference later next week. I wonder if anyone is discussing it in the Anglican church?

MediaLit (part II)

Prayer.

As I prepared the Morning Prayer for yesterday’s MediaLit Conference I immediately decided to use the Northumbria Community’s liturgy. I was struck by the dilemma I faced; do I use the readings and meditations set down for the Community or do I choose ones that would lead people to reflect on our unique setting of the Conference? I thought about what readings would be appropriate and then it struck me. The monastic life is a reflection on social media, connectedness, communication and shared ethereal life which is not based on geographic location.
I chose to use the readings of the community and asked the gathered group, in the geographical location of that chapel, to hold in their minds that there are people across the country sitting in different places sharing our prayers and engaging with the same Scripture. This community (local) was being connected to a community (wider) through the means of a ‘media’; prayer.

What a lot of questions are rushing into my mind as I write that! Is it prayer or shared life, shared intentions, shared focus? ‘Shared’… Community is about gathering around that which is common to those people; the shared. Is this inclusive or exclusive? Probably both!

The internet and all forms of social media and broadcast media are open shared space. Anyone can access it (if they have the portal and desire to) it becomes impossible to police and to articulate the commonality. Can the internet hold a common principle? Is the internet community if there is not a commonality apart from the inhabitation of the same space?

But before we continue down this argument to end on the great proclamation that the internet is not ‘community’ let’s ask the question; Does shared prayers mean ‘shared’? or to put it another way; Can prayers ever be shared?

The Northumbria Community is a disparate community joined together by the Rule of life and the liturgical rhythm of prayer. The Rule of life consists of principles not prescriptive but more like a lens through which can guide you to ethical and relational decisions. The nature of the Rule, based around questions, allows for multiplicity of thought and articulation but the commitment to shared approaches and intention.

I wonder if we could discover something of the same within the internet.

The Early Church was made up of many expressions of faith connected by many things; apostles’ teachings, written communications through communication routes and a shared intention and approach to life. What is our ‘teaching’? How do we use communication routes to connect? and do we have shared intention and approach? And, I guess the caveat question is, do we need any of these?

We finished that same day with a prayer activity where we linked our prayers together visually with the use of wool. One person would say a prayer and throw the ball of wool to another. This created a web of the wool. Again the questions come; did I share all the prayers? Was that the point? What do we mean when we talk about being connected in prayer?

After all this I can be assured that the same problems surrounded the monastic life and the Early Church that face us now in how we connect whilst not sharing geographical location.

Monasticism and Asceticism (part III)

The previous year I spent the night reading the book of Isaiah, from chapter 1 verse 1 to its climactic finish in chapter 66 verse 24. Afterwards I read the book of Acts, went to an early morning prayer meeting then onto a the Quiet Day on Holy Island to read Peter Brook on Artaud. This year myself and TMBI (Monastic Ball of Intensity) decided to do a night of Psalms. We would start the evening by doing Compline and read every Psalm through the night interspersing them with prayers of Cuthbert. Having been inspired by the Northumbria Community recently I used the Compline for the day (Tuesday) which happened to be a compline in dedicated to St Cuthbert…this was apt!

There were four, barefoot men who took it in turns to read all 150 Psalms; some softly, others shouted. What struck me as I spoke out prayers, laments, praises and sorrows was how quickly the tone changes in the Psalms, one moment you’re proclaiming the love and grace of God the other you’re stating that God has left you.

The other interesting thing I discovered was there were several times when I didn’t connect, personally, with the prayers of the Psalmist. I wasn’t sure where I was spiritually or emotionally as I went into this vigil but I found myself expressing things and thinking “I don’t really feel this right now.” However, the more I tried to inhabit the Psalm the more I felt the pain or joy or whatever emotion drove the particular psalm. Reading them and inhabiting the prayers gave me an opportunity to develop emotional memory. I have never feared for my life like the psalmists have but by placing myself in their position and delving into their emotional prayers I was able to empathize with them. As the night went on I began to really connect with the sentiments and human experiences painted throughout this collection of songs.

When we got to the final 4 chapters at 3.30am the four of us stood around the Bible by candlelight, watching the light begin to appear behind the stained glass window of depicting the crucified Christ.

Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul.

As the praises built to their exultant crescendo, our voices raised to hoarse shouts as we all battled to shout louder than the others. The incense had filled the chapel, the candles’ smoke licked the air and we stood, four disciples praising God, cold, tired but joyful.

We left in the early morning light and walked home together discussing what we had experienced. Some common phrases came through for us. One was The Message’s translation of ‘his steadfast love endures forever.’

His love never quits!

Despite all the isolation, rejection we may feel from God ‘His love never quits.’ What remained for me, though, was how the prayers continually asked for mercy to be shown to us who have strayed or made mistakes and how quickly the psalmists pray that God shows no mercy to our enemies. I still find it difficult to pray that our enemies’ children’s skulls get smashed against the rock! As I arrived home I realized that the Psalms articulate every human emotion even vengeance, this doesn’t mean that God will answer those prayers but He will allow us to state them and for us to feel them because as soon as the psalmists pray for destruction on their enemies they soon realize that they themselves are also corrupt and deserve punishment and so the mercy shown to them is to be shown to all who are corrupt and,

Who is blameless before the LORD?

Sarah, not expecting me home, had left her key in our front door and I didn’t want to wake her up (I was also very tired and not thinking logically) so I decided to have a nap in our car. This was a bad mistake! I woke after a disturbed nap of an hour and rang our house phone (Sarah had turned her mobile off!) I was cold… really cold. I slipped into our bed shivering and with muscle spasms.

I woke again an hour later and got up to walk back into college to tidy up and prepare for the Quiet Day away.

When we got to Holy Island we were led through The Northumbria Community’s Morning Prayer and were re-introduced to Cuthbert and Aidan. I had spent the night with the memory of St Cuthbert but really felt called to walk this day with Aidan.

St. Aidan was called to Nortumbria by King Oswald after a failed mission trip by another missionary. Aidan became a popular and much loved Bishop because he focussed on relationship and meeting people where they were. Aidan was more of a missionary than a hermit but lived a life of balance; using his times alone to fuel his times with others. His life and prayers have been, in recent weeks, sources of great encouragement and inspiration.

I sat for some time on Cuthbert’s Island, the screams of the seals absent, staring at the mainland. I was struck, again, by the gulf of sea separating me from the millions of people living their life in England. I felt torn. Spiritually do I want to sit here, isolated and alone praying and ensuring my own house is sorted before heading out? Or do I cross the gulf and live amongst people? Aidan’s prayer (see Monasticism and Asceticism (appendix i) post) helped me to reflect on this. and again the psalms came to mind. I am a worm, nothing, but God’s steadfast love endures forever. There are times when people do my head in and I want everyone to leave me alone, stop demanding so much from me and give me space to be but as I pray for ‘justice’ and punishment to be brought upon them I remember that His love never quits!

Finding God at the Other Extreme


As I enter my final week of my second year at college and I begin to say goodbye to friends with whom I have shared my journey of training, I’m forced to reflect on the nature of our community these past two years. These reflections have been informed by the opening section of Pete Ward’s ‘Participation and Mediation’ where he describes different typological scales of theology (not worth explaining just forget that bit!). Here he describes David Tracy’s continuum stretches from ‘orthodox theology’ to ‘radical theology’

For orthodox theology, says Tracy, ‘the claims of modernity are not seen to have any inner theological relevance’. In fact a commitment to orthodox belief and expression is seen as a ‘bulwark’ against contemporary philosophy and criticism. At the opposite extreme lies radical theology. Radical theologians are aware of liberal and neo-orthodox traditions; however, they have taken the crucial step, says Tracy, of applying the dialectic of neo-orthodoxy to faith itself. The result is a re-expression of the Christian tradition, ‘which negates the central belief of that tradition in God.’

Whether you understand or agree with Ward, what struck me about this description, and his other outlines to scales of theology, is how separate the two ends of the continuum are to each other. Having said this, however, on further reflection I’m more struck how closely these two ends are. Here I hit upon my major thought of our community at Cranmer Hall for the two years Sarah and I have been here. Society seems to put things on a scale and thus separate the two extremes. This leads to two wrong assumptions; one, that the two positions are complete negations of each other (black is the complete opposite to white) and two, the ideal position is in the middle, “both/and”, “everyone’s sort of right”.

The truth is ‘extremism’ is a dirty word in a world where hate crimes, terrorism and political uprising is a regular occurrence. Extreme positions define the boundaries in any collection of people; no more so than in Cranmer Hall. My peer group for the past two years have been defining themselves, individually and collectively, on this scale. On one end is ‘Anglo-Catholicism’ the other is ‘Charismatic-Evangelical’. Already there is an issue! Is ‘Charismatic Evangelical’ the opposite? Is not ‘Liberal’ the opposite? The scale, however, seems to have been drawn and you fit somewhere on the scale.

My year, however, have experienced something new. Instead of the scale being linear we have discovered that the closer one moves to the extremes the more we move to the opposite extreme. This creates more of a circular ‘continuum’. We have discovered that the difference between the two extremes is smaller than the difference between the extremes and the ‘compromising central’. Maybe a diagram will help.

My peers and I have discovered that the more radical/orthodox we become the more we seem to find common ground. It highlights and intensifies the disagreements but the heated debates only help to shape and mould us to find the most radical/orthodox position beyond all labels.

Our democratic society asks us to find the synthesis between a thesis and antithesis but the synthesis loses all the definition of the thesis and antithesis. political parties are wanting to be in the middle and has diluted all opinions or definition. The more middle they are the more indistinct they become. How can we live side by side whilst holding onto the extremes? Not by canceling each other out but experiencing what can only be described in practice as the radical meeting of the two.

In our first year we worshipped with strong flavors from the different traditions. This enabled one extreme to experience the other and to discover God in that act. This same approach was clear in the many debates we had in our common room. The more passionately one spoke of their faith the more respect from the ‘opposite’ view grew. This is the most beautiful part of this community; that it is when we seem to travel furthest away from our ‘tradition’ that we find God and I will celebrate this discovery next week as we experience the death of the community.

Pete Rollins has spoken about the approach to conflict in this way.

When faced with such a confrontation (that society all too often attempts to protect us from) our primal response is often one of either,
Consumption – Attempting to dissolve their difference by integrating them into our social body (making them like us)
Vomiting – Rejecting them from our social body as a foreign agent that must be expelled (protecting the integrity of our body)
Of course, most educated and enlightened communities attempt to avoid these very natural tendences, opting instead for a more reflective position that gets beyond these extremes of consuming the other or vomiting them out. This more thoughtful position can be described as eating with the other. Here the community seeks to sit down with the other and seek out places of convergence.
However this third position still operates from the same underling belief as the others,
Consumption – We are right and you are wrong. We shall integrate you
Vomiting – We are right and you are wrong. We shall reject you
Eating with – We are both right in some substantial way. Let us reflect upon where we converge and move forward together
In each of these cases we seek to exorcise or downplay the monstrosity of the other (their bizarre practices and beliefs). But what if one of the truly transformative encounters with the other is not where we try to annihilate their monstrosity (by abolishing it, rejecting it or domesticating it), but by coming into contact with our own monstrosity through it? In this alternative type of encounter we glimpse how we look through their eyes and begin to ask whether our beliefs and practices are just as strange.

So let us not create a bland faith or tradition but let us embrace what my fellow ordinands and I have discovered that orthodox is radical and radical is orthodox and we encounter each other and God not in retreating to the safe middle but by delving deeper into our extremism and discovering something (w)hol(le)y other!

(Sorry for the rushed thoughts… weekend activities saying goodbye are pulling me away from writing!)

Monasticism and Asceticism (part II)

As I walked towards the place of wailing seals and separation I remembered that the tide was in. Do I turn back because the spiritual experience I had been waiting for for five days was not accessible or do I go and see what happens distanced from the detachment?

I plodded on round the houses to the back of the church and out towards Cuthbert’s Island. I stood on the coast, the North Sea filling the gulf between me and the ‘holy place’. I was last here in June (see Monasticism and Asceticism post) and as I stood, my feet on a shifting stone shore, I thought about the time that had past.

There, almost a year ago, I had a moment with God that punched me in the stomach. Now as I finish my second year at college I am well accustomed to that feeling. Over the year, almost incessantly, I have gone from one beating to the next. The story of Jacob wrestling with God has become more and more ingrained in my spirituality; the loving, merciful aggression of God always holding back from using His full force which would leave me reeling into an abyss of non-existence and yet interlocked in an embrace.

To be honest I’m knackered! The white flag is waving and yet He stares as I catch my breath, smiling at me.

“Finished?”

“Let me catch my breath, Papa.”

“We don’t have to…”

But as I signal the end, admit defeat, a new energy arrives. I can do another round. Why? Because I feel myself getting stronger, resilient, more able. This round will be mine! As I engage again I remember that with each round He up’s the stake and reveals His ever increasing ability to overthrow me.

As I think of the endless tussling between me and my Maker I smile. I think of St Cuthbert sat, alone on this island in front of me. The tide ebbing and flowing, at times allowing people to cross and speak with him and him needing a more deserted sanctuary to be alone with God and their wrestling matches.

I continue to reflect on whether I am an introvert or extrovert. The restlessness and banality I turn to after spending too much time in conversation with people; to the deepest battering I receive when I spend too much time on my own. When I went through a Myers Briggs’ evaluation it told me I was right in the middle needing both solitude and companionship.

My place was truly on that island. At times the tide high forcing me to be alone to face my sinfulness and my merciful King, at others the tide allowing a causeway to community, hospitality and friendship. This leads me back to my reflections on the Northumbria Community who I visited on the same day as my last visit to Holy Island.

I have organised with Pete Askew to go on placement with the Northumbria Community in September. Sarah and I had gone a talked with Pete the day before and I was struck by how much their approach to spirituality and living a Christian life fitted with my own discoveries over this year.

This is the Rule we embrace. This is the Rule we will keep: we say YES to AVAILABILITY; we say YES to VULNERABILITY.
We are called to be AVAILABLE to God and to others:
Firstly to be available to God in the cell of our own heart when we can be turned towards Him, and seek His face;
then to be available to others in a call to exercise hospitality, recognising that in welcoming others we honour and welcome the Christ Himself;
then to be available to others through participation in His care and concern for them, by praying and interceding for their situations in the power of the Holy Spirit;
then to be available for participation in mission of various kinds according to the calling and initiatives of the Spirit.
We are called to intentional, deliberate VULNERABILITY:
We embrace the vulnerability of being teachable expressed in:
a discipline of prayer;
in exposure to Scripture;
a willingness to be accountable to others in ordering our ways and our heart in order to effect change.
We embrace the responsibility of taking the heretical imperative:
by speaking out when necessary or asking awkward questions that will often upset the status quo;
by making relationships the priority, and not reputation.
We embrace the challenge to live as church without walls, living openly amongst unbelievers and other believers in a way that the life of God in ours can be seen, challenged or questioned. This will involve us building friendships outside our Christian ghettos or club-mentality, not with ulterior evangelistic motives, but because we genuinely care.

As I walked away from Cuthbert’s Island and into the town I thought about God’s call on my life. Who am I? What’s God forming me into? Is it God who is forming me or my own self-delusions? I am close to God or far from Him? Is this wrestling one of discipline or formation? But above all of these the question arose again, as I looked at the picture of the island cut off from the shore, Am I missing the tides that will unite me with a community and cut me off for contemplation?

This year has been a year of ‘right thinking at the wrong time’. I’ll catch a glimpse of God and rush to tell people but it’s too early because as I step onto the shore of others and the tide does its thing I find myself trapped and needing to go and be alone. Or I’m on the island too long and friends and family get worried and concerned by my isolation.

Is the monastic life one of complete isolation from the world? Where is the mission? The spreading the good news?

The ebb and flow of ‘the mixed life’ of the contemplative and active, of monastery and mission, withdrawal and engagement, solitude and Community, together makes the Northumbria Community ethos.

Thinking Outside of the Box


I’m fascinated by mother’s, when asked about the early signs of pregnancy, who say “You kinda know there’s a baby in there somewhere.” This sensation is, of course, always going to remain alien to me due to my lack of a womb but it’s interesting because a friend of mine said the same thing about writing books; “You just know you have a book in you.”

I love writing. I love to think through concepts and play with words and try and communicate the jumble of ideas going on in my head but I have to ask myself the question: “Do I have a book in me?”

I have tried, on a number of occasions to try and write books. When I was about 7, I remember sitting at my Nan’s typewriter writing out the title, centering and underlining it. Increase the font size, change the font, setting in place the right format to save me a job later. The title? Simple: The Vikings. I had done an ounce of research for a school project and read an article in National Geographic magazine my Mum collected. I was an expert! I was going to write a book on the subject and so I started. I had done this a number of times; The Aztecs, Incas, Egyptians, Victorians, Tudors. Gravity, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Oceans. Foxes, Voles, Whales, Sharks, Tortoises. Fiction, Non Fiction, Encyclopaedias (yes I was that ambitious!)

At school, each Monday, we would have ‘creative writing’ which consisted of us writing an acount of our weekends. I would begin with waking up on Saturday morning, an exciting time, the faint scent of anticipation, maybe touched with a tinge of frustration. The familiar smells and sensations of my surroundings all needed to be captured in this piece. My teacher’s began to get frustrated with me.

“He never gets out of bed in his creative writing, Mrs. Lunn. Look here.” My creative writing book, a small 30 page A5 notebook, was brought out. “He has filled this book with his contemplations while lying in bed on a Saturday morning! he spent an hour and a half writing about five minutes!”

The truth is I am a prolific writer already; I just can’t seem to finish them.

I’ve tried in recent years to split a book up into several smaller chunks. So, before I start writing, I think about what I’m passionate about and then split it off into sub categories. This has failed also to produce any finished work. I currently have three books two not even half way through waiting to be finished. Why don’t I finish them? Because by the time I’m two or three months into writing I’ve moved on. My brain is onto something else or I’ve changed my views on a subject that I stated at the beginning.

Do I have a book in me?

I have hundreds but I can’t write them quick enough!

I’m currently working my way through economic theory books on Capitalism and it has made me reflect on how I’m approaching this need of mine to write a book. I love the process of writing, I love the wrestling and coming up with ways of expression but I very quickly begin to turn my attention to the final product. I ask questions like: “What will the cover look like?” “What clever titles can I come up with for chapter headings?” “HOw will it look on the page?” “How many words do I need?” All valid questions but all of them stop me from actually fully participating in the writing process.

Blogs are much easier. Blogs can be written in half an hour and published. A complete packaged item with no stress. I write for as long as I want and then I finish when I finish. I can come back to an idea and develop it but I equally don’t have to.

I hate writing books because of the pressure to finish the product on time and packaged…sellable.

Do you have to produce art to be an artist?

Do you have to have a creation to be called creative?

These questions have plagued me for months. I have come to loathe the need to produce because it’s suffocating. People’s nice requests of, “Ned, can you come up with something creative?” I want to shout, “Not now that you’ve asked!” Don’t ask me to create something because the pressure stops me being creative.

To be nice I say ‘yes’ and go away. I struggle and wrestle; “What am I going to do that’ll be ‘creative’?” I end up just regurgitating some old piece of rubbish and updating it or changing it.

Take two recent examples:

I was asked to ‘do something creative’ for a conference. A set of responses to help people into worship. I sat and I prayed and I thought. I had nothing. I asked the key questions; “Why are we doing this?” “What are we doing?” “What does God want us to do?”. I came up with one answer which, in itself is a question: “Is just doing it normally not good enough?”

I guess what I’m trying to say is; is the need to be ‘creative’ actually just another way of saying “I want to be different because I need to be different.” The truth is when you’re being ‘creative’, ‘innovative’ for the sake of being ‘creative’ and ‘innovative’ then you end up doing nothing of the sort.

I’m asked all the time to ‘be creative’ and I’m getting to the stage where I want to say; “I am.”

I just ended up bringing out some old ideas and re-branding them. Is that creative? It didn’t feel creative. It felt like hard work.

In a Pioneer Ministry module this year we talk a lot about ‘being creative’ or ‘thinking outside the box’; “We need to be innovative, entrepreneurial, creative.”. It feels like, as new ministers, we’re being asked to ‘do something creative’. but what do we actually mean by this? What is creative? The big question is:

‘What is the box that you want me to think out of?”

This is a fundamental issue with the current ‘creative’ conversation. Lots of people sit around tables and say; “We need to think differently. We need something new.”

Silence.

To fill the awkward silence someone says those dreaded words; “I once saw… that seemed to work.”

And the ball is rolling…

Stop! Then it’s not new. Someone has done something like it before. “No but we’ll change the name.” “No. Instead of doing it for old aged pensioners we’ll do it for mum’s. It’s totally different”

Let’s back up a little more. If we’re sitting around and asking ourselves to be creative and new with the church then what about church isn’t working? What is the box that we need to think out of?

So we end up bringing out some old ideas and re-branding them. Is that creative? It doesn’t feel creative. It feels like hard work!

Two quotes have haunted me during this struggle:

If your life is centred on yourself, on your own desires and ambitions, then asserting those desires and ambitions is the way you try to be true to yourself. So self-assertion becomes the only way of self expression. If you simply assert your own desires, you may have the illusion of being true to yourself. But in fact all your efforts to make yourself more real and more yourself have the opposite effect: they create a more and more false self… people cannot simply assert their true self; they need to pray for the strength to find that self beyond their desires. (Finding Sanctuary – Abbot Christopher Jamison)

and

Many poets are not poets for the same reason many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get round to being the particular poet or the particular monk that they are intended to be by God. There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular – and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they are in such haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity. In order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted to be. (Seeds of Contemplation – Thomas Merton)

And so back to my issue of writing a book.

I haven’t written in weeks; due to essays, work, illness… the list goes on. I think I don’t want to write this book anymore because it’s not creative. I’ve put too much pressure to write a book. I want to write. If it becomes a book, then great. If I set out to write a book I’ll never write a book because that’s not creative it’s just feels like hard work.

You see, for me, the life, the excitement comes from writing, not writing a book. The process and not the product. I’m not suggesting we don’t produce but that our products come from our process and we relish and love and get life from the process.

Do I have a book in me? Possibly… I don’t want to push the comparison between conceiving child and a book too much but what happens to a process if you just focus on producing a product?

Theatre Church (part X)

I sat in Sanctuary 21 tonight waiting for the time set for the big introduction to this ‘thing’ that has been playing through my mind since Christmas to arrive. As the time ticked by and it got closer to the start, the big cloud of doubt floated into the space and hovered over me. “What if no one comes?” “What am I doing?” Throughout this all I remained optimistic “People said they’d come.” “This is clearly a need in this theatre community.” “People are excited about it.” The event was scheduled to begin at 6.45pm. Fifteen minutes after this time one person walked through the door.

Ministry training does not prepare you for this. One person! There are two responses to this fact; one, be positive or two, be disappointed. If you’re positive there’s plenty of Scripture that talks about persecution, the hard walk of faithful discipleship but then again, there’s of equal balance Scripture telling of God’s blessing to those who are faithful. I have spoken in the past about how to face disappointment and justifying reality til the metaphorical cows come home. This is not a time, while it is still raw and fresh, to justify what God is doing (or not doing). But I think it’s important to talk about failure.

In our church we hear success stories all the time, it’s not good for publicity or authority if we fail. Despite our deep understanding that for every good idea there are an average of 8 not so good ones. We push, as leaders and visionaries, our connection with God’s vision and God’s plans. In order to have the authority to lead a community one needs to have the discernment of God’s will and dream dreams and see visions. The truth is, we are not immune from spiritual confusion. But if I am to model authenticity then I need to tell the stories of failures or misguided vision as well as success and ‘wins’.

To be a pioneer is to take risks; to see an opportunity and to resolutely pursue it. I have taken a risk and it hasn’t worked so what is the response?

Return to the original, basic call.

What was it that God put on my heart that drove me to pursue this opportunity? My passion to connect with those involved in the theatre community, to offer them an opportunity to explore who they are and discover their creative voice; to give them a place where they can truly express who they are based on a knowledge of themselves.

Has that call changed? Is that not what is being asked of me now? No. That call is still there. What, therefore, is the next step? To continue and persevere with this idea or to change tact? Two interesting reflections; one, if I think back to my time in Byker (see ‘Death and Resurrection’ post) I am reminded of the power of continued presence in the face of so much temporary incarnations (quangos, consultants,etc) The second reflection is one that I want to explore in more detail and extends my reflections on the Cathedral Event that I’m apart of (see ‘Theatre Church (part VIII b)’ post).

In both the church and the theatre world the majority of thinkers and commentators would agree that to be product focussed stunts the exploration and deep reflection on culture and social movements. Both parties would bemoan the emphasis on being activity driven rather than the existence as good in and of itself. In the theatre, as the funding is cut, companies don’t have the luxury to explore, to research and develop ideas. There is no space, time or finances to allow the artists to explore, discover new things. Peter Brook suggests this replication, churning out products that are safe and driven by success, is ‘deadly’ and most people would agree. In the church, as we discover that creating a weekly event/service is sucking all our time and resources and distracts us from being community together, we speak about the ideal of being process, relationship based. The truth is, however, that processes, relationships, explorations cannot be measured. It is part of our capitalists’ mindset that if it has no profit, measurable success then it is worthless.

Success is measured on product shown, assets, ‘what have you got to show for this?’ The worth of something must be measured. Fresh Expressions are trying to counter this thinking but we can’t fight free from it. My latest experience would be measured as failure. If someone had invested in it then I would have failed and now would be the time to lessen the losses and salvage something from it. I want to shout from the rooftops “This is worth it! I have risked something, stuck my neck out and now I know what would happen!” To butcher a quote from Ernest Hemingway,

‘Only those who are prepared to go too far can possibly know how far they can go.’

I want to stay true to my call to process. To resolutely pursue this call to process, relationship and swim against the current of the capitalism that is a part of both church and theatre. I want to own my disappointment, yes, but to continue to explore the call put upon me. But how do you incarnate the importance of process in a world of product?

Well, like the Cathedral event, work with the current in order to subvert it. Sell a product in order to achieve a process and get people to explore and discover the benefits of the process. It’s a paradox that we exiles need to live in. In order to be counter cultural we need to be in the culture. To show the alternative we need to shine a light on the weakness of the option. Daniel, when in Babylon, lived the good Babylonian life and it was within this that he showed of the alternative way of life or the Pauline model, to become a Jew for the Jews, a
Gentile for the Gentiles all in order to show them the way of Jesus.

Connected with this is some thoughts on Fresh Expressions which were sparked by a fascinating conversation with Paul Burbridge from Riding Lights Theatre Company I had last weekend. He suggested the reason a theatre company cannot be church is down to the need for it to be inclusive of all people. If you limit the membership to those that understand theatre then it cannot be broad and inclusive. This is a very fair point. What makes a ‘theatre church’ church? Inclusion of those from all walks of life. Fresh Expressions need to embrace this inclusivity and not be limited to ‘skater church’, ‘curry church’, etc. Community must be defined by that which unites people in a group. These ‘expressions’ (skater, theatre, curry, etc.) gather people round something that makes them distinct but in order for them to mature into full expressions of church there needs to be deconstruction of that which excludes others.

It’s a paradox that one must define and sell the product in order to show that it’s not about the product; to show people that it’s the process of belonging that is more important than the product that you belong to.

Theatre Church (part IX)

I had sat in my tutors office with some fellow ‘ordained pioneer ministers’ students (OPMs) discussing how to establish a ministry ‘from scratch’. It was an interesting question in light of my tutors preparation on a sermon, preached last night, on Matthew 10. In this passage Jesus commands His disciples to go out in pairs to do the work of the Kingdom. My fellow OPMs, for their placement, were heading out as a pair to do ‘deep listening’ in an area near Durham. They were discussing the task ahead and how they, as a pair, were going to minister and be effective listeners and prophets. I sat in the room listening to their disucssions, how they were going to support each other, the importance of one playing the speaking role and one the listener, the model of Moses and Aaron and I had to ask; who was my fellow worker?

My wife is, of course, supporting me in my work but her own work means she cannot be actively present in the growth and foundational work of my placement. She will be a listening ear of my take on events but she cannot, by her absence, be as effective in listening to how God is moving. Who will be with me as I minister? Who will be the prayful partner or the active energy to balance my activity? Jesus sent the disciples out in pairs and it’s a good model but we must remember that most of the disciples will have been married, potentially with children. I am married but I don’t have a partner in ministry.

This has a knock on effect in terms of the changing shape that this community is taking.

The ideal leadership model for this placement, I believe, is a rotational leadership. Both Peter Brook, who I will be teaching tonight, and Jerzy Grotowski, who I explored on Monday, suggested a director should be a member of the ensemble and should not hold onto the power and direction of a groups discovery. This model of leadership is freeing for the whole ensemble, community or church but requires a great deal of trust and discernment. Both Brook and Grotowski, although proclaiming a collective leadership of the whole company understood the individual role and strengths of the seperate contributors. This rotational leadership doesn’t suggest that everyone, despite their lack of gifting or talent in leadership, should be forced into a position of power, but rather when someone has something to offer and a sense of leading the group into an area of exploration they will go ahead, blessed, of course, by the followers, the rest of the group.

As an individual ‘founder’ of this group I will, inevitably hold a great deal of power at the beginning. The members will look to me for direction, purpose, identity. My Christian walk, however, demands that I hand over that power quickly before, like Gollem in Lord of the Rings, it consumes me. My role as the ‘designated leader’ is not to hold power but to move the power round the group, discerning when its appropriate to weild it and when to pass it on and to whom.

Discernment is the role of the director. One person must be the discerner and watchman of the group. Jesus uses the image of the shepherd, who allows sheep to wander where the wish but to gently watch over them and go and find those that get lost. As a director who integrates themself into the ensemble, your role is to discern what is worthwhile to explore and what is not, when to step in and remind people of the direction and when to let that go. This is a balancing act and its not easy. As a leader of any group there is a call for one person to take on this task but it is important that that person handles power well. Which leads onto the necessity of a partner, an accountable persence to test the responses of this discerner. The group as a whole needs to play this role but too often people in the discerning role allow the power to speak lies and say “They don’t know all that you know. They are all walking off track and you know best.” To have someone marked out to be another discerner and to listen when one cannot and to speak when one cannot protects, in some way, the misuse of power.

Already I am struggling with the absense of another perspective on what’s being shaped and I need the eyes and ears of someone else to aid my reflections. Already I fell isolated both in my reflections and in the relationship building workshops. I’m meeting some fantastic people and all of whom are contributing to the shape of this community by their needs and interests and I don’t feel I have someone who can help me to remain faithful in the work set before me.

I could discuss the nature of accountability here and argue for the term ‘editability’ (see ‘Organic Community’ by Joseph Myers) but I don’t want to confuse the issue.

This past week I have been confirmed in the call to an apostilic mission of planting but the need for the support, not only of prayful communites and supporters but, of a partner in mission is important in all ministry. My next task is to discern who in the community gathering on Mondays will be my co-worker. I’m sure it will happen organicaly and until then I will remain patient.

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’.