Tag Archives: story

London Calling (part VI)

I am currently sat in the Art Cafe at St Luke’s Church, Redcliffe Gardens. Ambient music plays in the background as quotes from Bob Dylan, Charlie Chaplin and other artists inspire conversation from the screen. Every thirty minutes a short film (see ‘London Calling (A Little Interruption)’ post) punctuates the relaxed atmosphere with thumping beats of Moby and fast paced images aimed to evoke conversation. My remit for this afternoon, like yesterday, is to sit looking arty and relaxed to encourage any guests to do the same (maybe not look arty!)
It has been an interesting journey to this point (see ‘London Calling (part IV)’ post) and one that has made me consider where I am in terms of outreach and evangelism.

I have become increasingly aware that I speak from a very post modern mindset; one that sits within a place of questions, of suspicion to authoritarian proclamations and one who enjoys the process rather than the result. Outreach has become more and more about a relationship, and my passion lies in people experiencing faith rather than having it explained. Too often we revert to a mode of evangelism that explains how people can get faith rather than encouraging people to experience what we have experienced.

The Art Cafe, for me, should always have been a space to experience the peace of God, His fingerprints in the expression of His children and His love calling them in a time of quiet. It was not a place where we welcome people in to ‘explain’ our faith and tell people what we think. Charlie Chaplin, on the screen in front of me says;

‘We think too much and feel too little.’

It so true at this time. This culture is tired of hearing what people think, of what someone, who doesn’t know what we’re going through, what we’ve felt, tell us how it is. We shut our ears to the reason of others because it has been destructive in the past. We yearn to feel.

This is, of course, a very post modern view point and I am aware that many around me don’t believe the same but as I have struggled with the original vision of this Art Cafe, those who engage with art don’t want to be told what to think; the one right interpretation of a piece, they would rather discover for themselves the emotions being drawn from them. They enjoy seeing something for them, connecting with an expression of the human condition. What makes a masterpiece, a timeless classic? The multi-facetted nature, the expression of something that defies time and place and becomes something everyone can engage with again and again.

As ‘Charlie’s’ face, cheekily smiles down at me I think about his films and how every time i see them I capture a better understanding of humanity and myself and there’s a profound exchange taking place. I think of my process of preparation for a sermon/talk and how I long to express my passion or pain or emotional response to a passage or truth in the hope that God would make it accessible for all people who have known what it is to live. For me, it’s not about making cultural reference to explain a meaning in a passage it is more about me putting people in a place where they can experience the truth of the story to place their story into God’s story.

I’m going to make this short as I need to go and open the doors to the public and welcome people to come enjoy this space, explore their own creativity and engage in conversation with themselves and the art around them. May God bless everyone who visits here with space to ‘be’ and speak to them in their silence through the art.

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’.

Sacramental Theatre (part IV)

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

What is Moot?

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

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

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

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

Moving on…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Divine Director (part I)

My reading over the summer has been sporadic to say the least. I constantly jump from ‘Organic Community’, ‘The Empty Space’, ‘The Shifting Point’ (another Peter Brook book), ‘The Invisible Actor’ by Yoshi Oida and now into my more theologically heavy tomes, ‘God’s Theatre’ and ‘Transforming Fate and Destiny’. Books move from the top of the pile to the bottom frequently as my interest and whims change day by day. This reading is also interrupted by revision on theatre practitioner’s theories in preparation for ‘The Workshops’ running the first couple of weeks of term. Add to this the inevitable daily activities of a wife wanting to do those household chores put aside for the holiday season and you have all the ingredients for a mental meltdown!

There has been, however, some exciting and recurring themes coming through in my research and one of which is particularly helpful for me for a couple of reasons.

For those of you who have been reading for some months now will know, I have struggled with the idea of ‘God’s will’ and how one should discern it; the theological balancing of the providence of God and free will. My evangelical background has led me towards an understanding of God as having a plan for each of our lives and has a map of how our lives should be lived. This means that listening prayer becomes really important to discern which decisions one should make in order to be aligned to His will. This discernment is not a perfect solution as you can never be totally sure you’ve heard him right (if at all!) and so confusion and doubt creep in. The pray-er justifies decisions and outcomes depending on how confident they are that it was God’s will in the first place. This is an adequate theological standpoint and I’m sure there is some truth in it. It does lead to, however, some Christians proclaiming knowledge of God’s one and only will and leading many down destructive or damaging paths. I want to clarify, I don’t think everyone claiming to hear God’s voice in a situation is leading people into destructive or damaging paths but sometimes it has happened.

I struggle when new Christians come to this teaching. Having heard a gospel of grace and cleansing of bad decisions made, they are then pressured to hear God’s will in how to live their lives now and when they make one wrong decision then it’s hard not to feel like you’re not good enough to be a Christian because you’ve messed up God’s plan again!

Joseph Myers in ‘Organic Community’ suggests;

‘A theology of God as master planner implies that God has a purpose – even one purpose – for your life and it’s your lifelong job to pursue it, identify it, and live it out. The gospel becomes, “God has a plan for your life.” God has planned the job, the life partner, the house, the child, and so on. He wants nothing more than our cooperation with his plan. A theology of God as organic order, however, allows for collaboration with him. We are privileged to participate with him in the forming of our future. He invites our ideas, our energy, our creativity, our perspective. He gives up a measure of control to facilitate relationship with us and to demonstrate his love.’

In ‘God’s Theatre’ T.J. Gorringe dissects the main theological and philosophical thoughts on providence, walking his reader through Calvin, Augustine, Aquinas thought and many other historical heavy weights. He argues that you fall into the trap of saying human free will is always working contrary to God’s will and therefore we should cast it aside and be automatons or God works all things to good and so we can do what we like because God is going to fix everything anyway. There are other standpoints, as you can begin to discover, but I just want to give a flavour of the different and varied views. How do we balance God’s omnipotence and Scripture clearly proclaiming God having a plan for human kind and working in this world for the furtherance of the Kingdom and our innate free will?

Gorringe goes onto suggest an understanding of God’s work amongst human beings that has helped me to see more clearly how we can pick up Myers call for ‘organic order’ and see God as someone who wants collaboration rather than cooperation. Gorringe’s ideas come from none other than Peter Brook…

I was immediately interested!

He begins by retelling the story, originally told by Brook himself in ‘The Empty Space’, of one of Brook’s early directorial posts on Love’s Labour’s Lost for the RSC. I returned to ‘The Empty Space’ and read the account. Brook describes how he would have a scene mapped out before rehearsals; He knew where people should move and how and what every moment would look like. He would use cardboard figurines to move them about the stage at different moments and would have it all charted out. I was reminded, as I read this, of two things; firstly, how closely this describes my method of directing early on in my career and secondly, of this implement called ‘a director’s tray’ that was brought to my attention a week ago. This ‘tray’ marks out the stage into different areas and a director would move markers (signifying actors) around the tray like a general would in a war room. Brook, like many directors before and after him, discovered,

‘As the actors began to move I knew it was no good. These were not remotely like the cardboard figures, these large human beings thrusting themselves forward, some too fast with lively steps I had not foreseen…We had only done the first stage movement, letter A on my chart, but already everyone was wrongly placed and movement B could not follow… Was I to start again, drilling these actors so that they conformed to my notes? One inner voice prompted me to ddo so, but another pointed out that my pattern was much less interesting than this new pattern that was unfolding in front of me…I stopped, and walked away from my book, in amongst the actors, and I have never looked at a written plan since.’

I hope you can begin to see where Gorringe begins to see how God might work with human beings.

Join me tomorrow for part two of this post. Go and have a cup of tea or whatever your beverage preference is and I ask that you mull over how you see God working His plans in your life. Have you ever struggled with the idea of God having one plan for your life and that’s it? How do address life decisions? Have you ever struggled with discerning prayer?

See you tomorrow…

Riding Lights Theatre Church? (part II)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Theatre Church (part V)

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

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

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

Fresh Expressions: The agreed process of dividing the church?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back To Basics

As my placement in Byker finished I began to breathe a little deeper and slower and looked ahead at the wide expanse before me, otherwise known as ‘summer holiday’; two months of rest and recreation, a chance to catch up on personal fulfilments not dictated to me by college or the Church of England. What is it that a trainee vicar, who fills his work time with reading theological books, listening to different Christian leaders’ views and assessing what God is doing in the life of His church, does on holiday?

Read theological books, listens to some preaching from some Christian leader and assesses what God might be doing in the life of His church…of course!

As I have said before (see Reading and Telling Stories post) I have lots of books on the go, all of which are chosen by me with no pressure to write any essay on what I learn from them. I will, of course, be writing a personal journal and, if anything stands out, some posts here. Looking at the pile of books by my desk I can count eleven books not started and two books waiting to be finished. It’s not this that I want to talk about but rather the listening to the preaching of Rob Bell and Shane Hipps.

Rob Bell has been a very influential figure in my walk of faith. I know lots of people don’t like his style, they find him too ‘trendy’ and his style of writing and delivery can be slightly patronising at times but I find his passion contagious and his approach to his relationship with God is something that I would love to have. He is humble and honest about his ministry and I believe he has discovered a real balance between being ‘in the world’ but not ‘of the world’.

I used to listen to Mars Hill Bible Church’s weekly sermons online and found that they really spoke to me. They encouraged me to appreciate the greatness of God and the love he pours out to all people. When I started college I couldn’t find the time to dedicate to listening to them on top of all the work and time with my wife so I stopped. Now that summer is here (and I’ve just got an iPhone 4 with iTunes on it) I decided to download the last six weeks talks to enjoy.

Rob Bell and the new pastor, Shane Hipps, were preaching together for three weeks. Their aim during these talks was to share their stories and try and discover what God might be saying to the Church on the whole. What spoke to me was their description of Jesus and the Church. Their understanding of God and the Church is one that can encompass ‘all people’. It’s basic. They are becoming more and more aware, it seems, that Jesus is bigger than we could ever hope to imagine. They describe Him as a lion that cannot be tamed. He is beautiful only when He is un-caged and in the vast wild. They suggest that we as Christians want to ‘cage’ Jesus in a nice little box because we are afraid. We are afraid that something will hurt ‘the lion’, we are too focussed on ‘the lamb’ image and forget that Jesus is bigger than that, fiercer than that!

And this is disconcerting for us.

‘If you are not disconcerted by how big Jesus is, then you have shrunk him down… A lion does not make a good house cat.’ (Shane Hipps)

‘For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.’ (Ephesians 1:15-23)

It reminded me, as they spoke of the greatness and power and authority of Christ, of the people of Byker. The small, faithful congregations of St Michael’s, St Martin’s, St. Silas’ and St Anthony’s knowing deep down that Christ will always be in Byker; that there will always be a Church. It reminded me also of the latest episode of ‘Rev.’ (an astute comedy of ordained ministry!) where the main character struggles with the lack of numbers but stands in opposition of ‘selling out’ to hype and bribery (smoothies!) in favour of faithful worship and service.

The talks from Mars Hill reinvigorated my passion for God’s Church, reminded me that I worship a God who has fought the battle a lot longer than I have and that I am his servant. Rob bell reminded all of us, in his talk, that we do not need to agree on everything, we are not a cult! But we must centre ourselves on Christ, worshipping and listening to Him. He suggests we can disagree with our leaders because they are ‘interpreters’ of the Word, they are not God. He uses 1 Corinthians 3:1-9 as his basis,

‘Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.’

None of us has it totally together and none of us has the only way because if we limit God we limit his power and authority. I was challenged because I had found myself saying in Byker, “This is of God… This is not.” Who did I think I was? Yes, we have been called to claim God’s work but how do I know? I don’t have an answer. I’d like to suggest that if the action or behaviour is moving people closer to a relationship with god, if it is creating a sense of wonder and desire for God, if it is making people bring glory to God then it should be blessed and named as Christ… but am I in a position to do that?

I know I have fallen into the trap of domesticating Christ and shrinking my view of God and this time at rest is allowing me to see God as the awesome, fierce and all encompassing God that He is! We as His Church should be equally big and all encompassing. What happens, therefore, when real disagreement comes up? Take the situation in the Church of England at the moment where ‘division’ is the biggest fear, how do we remain the big Church who preaches to have a big god who can encompass ‘all people’? Unfortunately, we need to walk a careful, prayerful and steady walk together. We need to centre on Christ and re-centre on Christ again and again and again and again… We need to allow disagreements to be present as a reminder that we are not God but ‘servants’, none of us has the last word, only God. Division is not an option. To get to the stage where we, Christ’s united Church, say “I cannot be in the same room as such and such” “We cannot worship God because they are not ‘proper’”, is not unity.

Yes to have a gay bishop, is an issue for many Christians, laity and clergy. Yes to have a female, ordained leader, is also an issue for many laity and clergy, but none of us is God. None of our leaders is God. If we divide and start to say “I follow Forward in Faith.” Or “I follow Rowan” or whatever it is, then we are going against the message of the Church set out in 1 Corinthians 3.

I must remember, as I go into my placement in October, to ‘interpret’ in godly and prayerful way. I must not limit God’s all encompassing love. To allow ‘all people’, from whatever background, to encounter Christ for themselves and to be placed firmly in the position of His servant to do His will and to allow Him to be the ‘un-caged lion’ that He is.

Amen?

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!”

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)