a blog by howard jameson @ gatheringgrace.org

Of history, origins and authenticity

Spent the first hour of a delayed day oeuf watching BBC Four's History of Christianity on iPlayer. Some really interesting stuff, and a really good change to have something about Christian origins with a degree of academic integrity (as opposed to the usual Good Friday documentary exposing Jesus' first followers as charlatans etc).

Certainly some fascinating questions arise out of this. The emphasis on the Eastern element in the early Church is certainly a good balance to the usual Euro-centric histories, and the interface between Christianity and Islam is intriguingly more subtle and complex than our contemporary reading (based on ignorance and Islamophobia - the armies of anarchy are at the gates!).

Interesting also that most if not all styles of Christianity make some claim to being authentic; whether that be the language of the Syrians, the authority of Rome or the anti-institutionalism of the Free Churches. If we are to live truly Incarnate lives then I wonder what is authenticity - surely it has to be maintaining a much deeper DNA of Jesus (the dangerous memory of Christ as +David recently quoted somebody as having written). Thus values such as mission, compassion and living the Gospel (again the famous quote from Newbiggin about the best exposition of the Gospel is a group of people living it out) seem far more important than continuity of succession or style or liturgy (and indeed continuity of having none of these).

Certainly I found MacCulloch's distinction between Eastern and Western traditions as being as much about the embrace in the West of wealth and power as the theology of Nestorius quite fascinating, and the lead on from that with the start of the Monastic tradition; a tradition that the West soon seems to have adopted until, here in the UK, the monasteries were asset stripped by Henry VIII so that today we don't have to speak French or Spanish (or whoever he was fighting at the time), although here in the West the monasteries may have celebrated asceticism within the cloister, but they seem to have held considerable power in the local areas too (as well, I am sure, of doing a great deal of good in terms of education and health care in their time).

Fresh Expressions and Pioneering Ministry...and Traditional Church too

It does feel as if Society and Ministry have changed quite dramatically in the very brief time since my time at college. As if everybody would still be talking about The Matrix and Losing My Religion...

I thought Mission-Shaped Church was a breath of fresh air, even if it was an incomplete work in lots of ways, and is only just catching up with expressing itself in language that others within the Church of England can relate.

A slightly frustrating debate at Synod yesterday, because there seems to be something about Fresh Expressions that causes some people to be quite happy to expose their ignorance. We got a bit stuck on whether if Exhibit A is a Fresh Expression of Church, does that make Exhibit B a Stale Expression of Church, and then (without even considering whether something that a group of people do on a Sunday morning is even a Vague Expression of Church - come on if Church is the people then there has to be something defining about who they are or what they do!) non-Fresh Expressions of Church became Mature Expressions of Church.

We then got side-tracked onto the issue of money (Fresh Expressions always cost money, whereas you could have been mistaken for thinking that Traditional Church came for free) and enculturation (an Expression of Church in, say, a Cafe is de facto sold out to contemporary culture, whereas an Expression of Church that is, for all intents and purposes, identical to attending a classical concert isn't) - "we are incarnate, they are enculturated".

These bugbears were more than made up for by the preceding three presentations - 

the Children and Family worker in Devizes

the Missional Community growing in Poole Town Centre

the Project in Weymouth that is always portrayed as being about Street Pastors, but (as Tony showed) is a lot more

Lots in these that struck real chords with me about what I need to spend more time doing. Mission, community and being outside Church - but also lots about what Church should be like. I particularly liked the phrase about Church needing to find itself as the place where people can come and be themselves.

Several comments focussed on the difficulty in additional workload required by Fresh Expressions of Church, but I think there has to be a response to this that Traditional Church will happily consume 110% of all available resources given it, so we need to be honest about priorities. There will never be space to add something like this on.

I think it was Bishop Graham Cray who then said that he envisaged the majority of Fresh Expressions of Church to be Lay led, but I think unless (in Anglican contexts) Clergy get involved in at least the start - permission, boundaries, priorities, theological reflection and so forth, then (in Anglican contexts at least) it ain't going to happen.

Tempus fugit

One of the things about being a Priest which catches me out is the sense of being part of several rhythms of life; weekly, seasonal, annual, and also those which crop up from being in and part of a community. My brain is still somewhere in early September, but my diary is firmly in November. And then I opened yesterday's paper to look at anything we might watch on TV tonight and the Review section has a list of films that have shaped the decade...

The decade!!??!! Where did that go?

I made a joke recently that the last nine years were probably the result of the Y2K bug - it was real after all! But it hasn't really been that bad...

We had a lovely Millennium evening in our old village. A service in Church early on, then people went to different parties around the place, but many came back together and stood outside Church at midnight to hear the bells rung and celebrate together. Perhaps in preparation for what was to follow I went into Church the next morning to pray quietly on my own...

...only for the resident cheery Yorkshireman to hail me loudly up the aisle.

By the summer we had left that behind us and moved to Bristol for two academic years of theology (and other things). It was a big change, and the boys took a while to adapt. I always think of our six terms at college as being great...but! The first term (readjusting) was pretty awful, then three terms through to Christmas 2001 were really good (a long summer holiday - what a gift!), and then two final terms as we were preparing for our next move were unsettling - college is only ever meant to be temporary.

The next three years were interesting, joyful and frustrating in pretty equal measure. The gift of being able to learn and be formed, some really lovely people (who it broke our hearts to have to say goodbye to) and a whole host of things that irritated - too little of what is important about Church for me was evident in much of what I had to do.

And then here with boys rapidly growing up - and I hope I am too...

Arius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In about the year 318, he was involved in a dispute with his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria, maintaining against him that Jesus, "the Son of God," was not consubstantial or coeternal with God the Father, but that there was once a time, before he was begotten, that he (Jesus) did not exist. Arius, with a following of other priests, was excommunicated, but debate continued throughout the Eastern Roman Empire. Many bishops, particularly those who studied under Lucian of Antioch, agreed with Arius. By the time Constantine I took over the East in 324, debate was fierce, with various councils condemning and approving Arius's views on the Son.[citation needed]

via en.wikipedia.org

Not sure if the place in Constantinople where Arius' bowels gave way is still there...

I am just a simple Rural Parson (ha ha)

I know some like being thought of as a simple Rural Parson (in the rose-tinted George Herbert sense - have you actually been to Bemerton?), but it doesn't do it for me in the least. Having said that, though, I like the countryside and I do rather like villages - so am happy to look after two quite small ones.

I was in one this morning for a catch up with some folk and they introduced me to some old friends from Australia who were staying.

I left to go and see if I could catch up with somebody else before my working lunch, only to meet them at the bottom of the drive - walking along towing a pony with their lovely little girl on top. It was good to chat, but before long the cameras were out catching the scene for posterity, and I am convinced the Aussies will be going back telling their friends about the charming life back in Blighty...

...oh no! this is giving entirely the wrong impression!

This could well be worth going over to Rome for!

Have been browsing Tomtom's turn-by-turn prat nav options for the iPhone. The one for WEstern Europe lists coverage as being...

Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Gibraltar
United Kingdom
Ireland
Italy
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Monaco
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
San Marino
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Vatican City State (Holy See)

The Vatican City??!!??

Is it worth 'going over to Rome' to see what anybody would need need a sat nav for in the Vatican? (unless Dan Brown has something to tell us in his next offering).

Google maps shows some streets here...

View Larger Map

but if you click on the satellite view they seem to be mostly paths around the gardens.

Dedicated to the one I love...

...or rather, dedicated to the rather large and grumpy van driver who didn't give way as I ran along the lanes in the wet!

Does anybody make a T-shirt that says...on the front

Hope I'm not in your way
as I run along this lane...

and then on the back

...but I'm hoping not to be in your way
when you need a Hospital bed!

or is that a bit harsh?

Not too fussed about the material, cotton or one of those fancy new materials, and colours not an issue either.

Church - what's the big idea?

I found a link to this page. (ht dmk I think - thanks).

A strange idea for a web page; how to deconstruct your Church, and I trust David is happy for me to recycle his list below as it struck me as so pertinent.

1. Determine in your heart that you will do all things out of love, compassion and patience.
2. Make sure this is what you want no matter what the cost (because often the cost is high).
3. Are there any leaders or elders who are in agreement with you and will endure with you for the long haul?
4. Start speaking honestly about what you are feeling and thinking. Begin with your closest group and move out to the whole community.
5. Allow people to see you at your weakest. Then allow them to reveal themselves at their weakest.
6. Let things die that require coercion, manipulation, begging or controlling others in order to live and continue on.
7. Welcome diversity in belief, thought and lifestyle (they are already diverse, you are just welcoming its open expression).
8. Change the teaching/ preaching time to a shorter teaching time with discussion following. This is scary at first, but you’ll get used to it and eventually prefer it. This levels the playing field really fast.
9. Challenge only those who are judging, abusing, and controlling others.
10. If people decide this is not for them, bless them as they go (because they will eventually go).

Much of this is that sort of old-fashioned common sense that only seems like common sense after somebody else has written it. Not sure that I have ever tried number 8, mind you. Reading that, though, drew my attention to his next post, stripped bare. Again, common sense, but the sort that needs somebody cleverer than me to work out. 

What does it take then to find out the big idea behind Church? Well it is obviously built upon and with people. However there is much more to it than this. I can search the web for a neat recipe that I'd love to cook - I could use all the same ingredients, but I would put money on it not tasting quite the same as [insert name of famous chef here] would make it. But even my second rate attempt would taste better than tipping all the ingredients into a bowl and letting them get on with it (unless its a salad, of course - but who wants to be in a salad?).

So what is the big idea about building Church?

If I go back to some of Paul's lists of Gifts, such as 1 Corinthians 12, we get something about being 'for the common good' (v7), but we know that anyway, and we can also see that each of these gifts gets less than a verse each, whereas love gets a whole chapter to itself. What is not necessarily clear is where Paul sees this list (and the others dotted around his writings) as a definitive list, or even a list written in some form of priority order. I wonder (following something that Prof Jimmy Dunn said) whether we read this in a too individualistic way - we tend to read something like 'to each one...is given' (v7) as some form of permanent transaction, whereas Dunn seemed to argue that it is in the moment of grace (the root of the word charism) that a "spiritual gift" is received by a person for that moment of grace being passed on to somebody else (although there must be some sense in which a person who "has a gift" needs to grow in the maturity of their use of it - surely, although the upper echelon's of some Churches seem to have something akin to bed-blocking and gifts are held back further down the supply chain). 

Is Paul's list definitive? Well, perhaps not, elsewhere in Scripture other gifts are noted. Two people (not necessarily unrelated) have said to me at different times "where are the prophets in your Church?". A very good question, and certainly the gift of prophecy is on Paul's list, but quite often I feel that we are in desperate need of some artists as well (not on Paul's list, but you can read something about the Spirit and artistry here, for example). Yes, I would love an artist "filled with the Spirit of God" to be in my Church.

So long hauls, costs and an awareness of things we don't have seem to be filling my horizon...

Surprised by thanks

I was caught out this morning - big time.

We had a secret plan to thank two couples who have been hugely involved in the Redecoration - rightly so. On cue I handed out flowers and a bottle of bubbly and people applauded (which in itself was wonderful to see) - but then I turned round and they'd got some flowers for me too.

I had already confessed that if it had been down to me then the Redecoration project would be represented by an 18" pile of incomplete paperwork on my desk and not a lick of paint in sight - it simply wouldn't have happened. I had intended to say that I saw my part as simply being like the boys tennis coach on holiday, lobbing up a few balls to see which ones get hit - so I had lobbed up some ideas and it was Redecoration which got hit.

So thank you those who worked hard, and also to those who appreciated what I did as leadership.

For all the saints...

...who from their labours rest...

(isn't that what most of Church is like normally? - joke! - well, sort of)

Thinking about tomorrow, the Feast of All Saints, and the readings in particular (the new heaven/earth scenario and Lazarus). I read some slightly differing opinions about the purpose of John's Gospel and also the understanding in Jesus' time about resurrection.

I think there are quite a few cases in the Gospels where people think of resurrection in some sense as the return of one of the "giants" of the faith; so for example some people seem to have thought that Jesus was Elijah (although the means by which this might have happened is not explained). In that sense perhaps we are meant to take comfort from the story of the raising of Lazarus - here was an ordinary bod a bit more like me and he got raised simply because Jesus loved him (although there were no doubt symbolic reasons why Lazarus was raised on that particular day as Jesus approached Jerusalem).

I find describing the Revelation bit about a new heaven and a new earth a bit more challenging to talk about in a way that can be understood, but I take real comfort from the promise of God wiping every tear from our eyes. I think this was meant to say more than the simple point we draw out when this reading is used at funerals; grief is only one of several different things that will have passed away. Or perhaps if the style of literature known as Apocalyptic really is about describing present tense stuff that is obscured from our view then I ought to use the present tense in the previous sentence too - these things are currently 'passing away' too.

I don't go particularly big on Saints in the stereotypical way they are represented - if somebody is humble enough to be considered a giant of the faith then I imagine they would be uncomfortable at being held up in such a way as some do. Too much saint stuff seems to be a means of defining very tightly what it is that a Christian is meant to do or to endure.

So I doubt a Church or a day will ever be named after me - I'm quite happy with that actually.