Tag Archives: theatre

Theatre Church (part V)

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

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

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

Fresh Expressions: The agreed process of dividing the church?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Theatre Church (part IV)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wrestling With Truth (part VIII)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reading And Telling Stories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Story is the universal measure of life.’

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

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

Wrestling With Truth (part VII)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Sorry for the final pun)

The Magician’s Nephew

Prior to the Cathedral event on Sunday I went to help some friends paint their house in Leeds. Travelling up the A1(M) as the sun set to the left of us, my wife and I listened to Kenneth Branagh read C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Magician’s Nephew’. It’s been ages since I read the prequel to his more popular and famous books in the Narnia series. I was enjoying the my trip down memory lane when all of a sudden a felt that heart tug when I realised this story was speaking to me about ministry.

In the early chapters Digory and Polly stumble upon a secret and forbidden study of Uncle Andrew, a self made magician who had discovered some magic powder to transport people to another world. He had developed two types of rings, one yellow and one green. He tricks Polly into holding the yellow ring which transports her out of this world and into the new world. Digory is left with his uncle. His uncle tells his nephew that the only way he was to see Polly again was if he travelled into the new world with her green ring that will bring her back to this world.

So what?

As Digory and his uncle discuss the merits of travelling into the unknown to collect Polly, Digory begins to realise that Uncle Andrew was too scared or cowardly to travel into the unknown himself but wants all the praise and congratulations if the trip is successful. He keeps himself safe while encouraging others to take a risk. This really encouraged me in my wrestlings with theatre and ministry.

I’m currently standing in the Uncle Andrew position; talking and imagining this new world. I have the way marked out and all I need to do is grab hold of the yellow ring and see what happens. I have even got a green ring, in the shape of boundaries marked out, if this community doesn’t work out. In order to discover the joys and/or the troubles someone needs to grab the ring. C.S. Lewis clearly believes that it is cowardly for Uncle Andrew not to take the risk upon himself and instead gets two children to be his ‘experiment’. I refuse to implement any other person in my ‘experiment’. I need to be Digory and step into the unknown in order to collect my friends.

Unlike Uncle Andrew, Polly and Digory, however, someone has been to this place before, someone is there waiting. I still need to take the risk and just jump into the world and discover what it holds but I also need to remember that God is waiting and has the story thought out.

When Digory arrives in ‘the wood between the worlds’ he discover it’s a portal to all sorts of different worlds and the jumping into one world actually becomes only the start of his risk taking and adventure. I wonder what adventures this one jump will bring. In making this first step I’m opening up a different ministry of exploring new worlds and new challenges. I feel, at the moment, I have the courage and passion for adventure of Digory but, like Digory, I need to also remember to mark out the pool which leads home.

Sacramental Theatre (part III)


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So where is the apt liturgy in the theatre community?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sacramental Theatre (part II)


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Claim innocence and worship God.

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

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

Or not…

Sacred Space


I just came back from a service set in a school. I know of several church plants meeting in school halls up and down the country. The service was informal and charismatic. It is a lively community who are passionate at proclaiming the good news in their locality and are very welcoming. The worship was honest and sensitive and we heard from an ex member of their congregation who is now training to be an evangelist with the Church Army. Having missed my normal type of worship for some time this was a lovely service where I could really relax and meet with God.

So where’s the usual rant, Ned?

It was difficult, being in a school hall, being surrounded by huge banners proclaiming (not Jesus Christ as Lord) but Year 11’s GCSE success with loads of pictures of celebrating teenagers. I engaged with the worship when I closed my eyes! It reminded me of something Angela Shier-Jones wrote in ‘Pioneer Ministry and Fresh Expressions’. She highlighted the importance of doing a space audit where you go and take note of distracting and unhelpful aspects of the space you’re using for worship.

A worship space must be holy, set apart, sacred. Like a rehearsal room, it needs to be prepared for its use. A rehearsal room must be conducive for the creative purpose. Yoshi Oida in his book ‘The Invisible Actor’ talks of how the Japanese Noh artists would sweep and cleanse the room before a rehearsal to prepare themselves and the space for the holy work they will be doing. This set a brilliant model for Fresh Expressions of church. To pray as they prepare the space for worship. Established churches with their holy buildings sometimes take this for granted but it is clear in Fresh Expressions that preparation of the space is vital.

The impact the space had on the holiness and sacredness of the service came to the fore at communion. At first I thought it was lovely how the distribution of communion was so relaxed and informal. I felt like the community were bonding as they approached the Lord’s table. The unity of the church was celebrated. As it went on, however, the chaotic nature of this sacrament became more and more informal. The holiness and sacredness of this act of worship; the centrality of this celebration and its power was lost as people queued up like it was a fast food joint. This may be too harsh but I felt a lack of respect or understanding of what communion means.

Maybe I’m slowly returning to my Catholic roots… It will please my mum!