a blog by howard jameson @ gatheringgrace.org

Fed up with a Church Times article...

...and no, it isn't Word from Wormingford this time.

This week's centre page spread is taken from a new book A history of the Mothers Union: Women, Anglicanism and globalisation 1876-2008 by Dr. Cordelia Moyse. (Its about £50 from Amazon so I will be venturing no further - even if the article encouraged me to). I am not really quite sure how to clarify my thinking about this. For example, Dr Moyse has no compunction about stating that

the Clergy often feel no shame in articulating hostility to the MU

although no evidence is quoted, but so that I am not seen to be articulating hostility let me say that I think there are some good things in the MU; the work in the Third World is excellent (we locally support work in some quite poor places through an MU personal link) and our local branch does a good job of bringing some people who would otherwise be on their own together for lunches.

There are several other points that cause me concern too. Dr. Moyse credits the MU for having 'contributed to the notion that what makes an Anglican is being a communicant at a local Church'. Sadly, I think this is nothing to be proud of, and seems rather at odds with her claim that the MU is devalued because the Church focuses so much on its Clergy. Membership (whatever that means) is based on being baptised into the whole Church. The simplistic fixation upon the continued receiving of bread and wine alone has done the Church of England more harm than good because it has devalued laity as people who can lead full, complete and satisfying acts of worship themselves and it has also created a culture of dependency upon a fixed pattern of worship without any need for the person receiving something we regard as a token of God's Grace to grow and display any of that Grace at work in themselves. Yes, Communion is very important, but it is meant to be the engine room of change and growth in the people. Surely even my colleagues with a much higher theology of what happens at the Altar Rail would be unhappy with such a description.

MU members are praised by Moyse for their involvement in things such as Church Fetes and so on, which is true as far as it goes, but I understand the MU restricts their members involvement in fund raising to things which support only MU projects.

I would love the MU in this country to engage fully and clearly in Mission (as part of the wider Church), and I would be interested to hear ways in which this is happening (lunches for people who would be alone is one good example). As Moyse describes until fairly recently the MU was seen as a rather moral reactionary organisation with its opposition to divorce, and even so I find some of the MU prayer material difficult to use because it portrays a rose-tinted view of marriage and relationships. (Having said that I think their material for bereaved children is excellent).

Perhaps some of my Clergy colleagues could chip in with their opinions and experience on this, or perhaps MU members might want to clarify some of this.

Surprised that I am once again surprised by grace...

...I know I shouldn't be.

I had been wresting with what the right thing to say this week was going to be. I knew that, in some way, I had to offer a microphone round and let people respond verbally to what I said, not just in some pre-defined action but real, live, unrehearsed response. Yikes.

I also had an inkling of what I had to say, but several goes had never made it quite hang together as it sounded in my head when out running. I needed to give a glimpse, I felt, of the next few steps for us as a community together - what might our Church look like if Christ was allowed to be King?

Several strands of what this might be were in my head, but it felt like pulling teeth to make them comprehensible. In summary, therefore, I wanted to describe a Church which;

a newcomer would enter and encounter people whose Church life was characterised by joy and liberation, and

those who have been coming for a long time are encouraged to become mature disciples

I described how often our Church life seems to be made up of quite a few sub-groups who each buzz round in their own activities, and I spoke of how I would like to do an Alpha Course. I have been talking to a group about this, but don't want to do something like Alpha if it merely feels like another group doing another thing. Rather we need to engage in an act of Mission in such a way that it unites us in the doing and supporting and celebrating.

On the way over to coffee somebody spoke of this sense of distinct groupings in the Church and how this had been something my predecessor but three ago had wrestled with. This person was glad that I had brought this issue out into the open - and the fact that it came from this person in particular felt like a real act of grace. Thank you.

There was also, for me, some grace in the way people responded to my offer of a microphone...

somebody encouraged us to be thankful (which we then went on to do)

somebody read some verses from Ephesians to encourage us

somebody told us of the gentle welcome they had encountered with us and how much that had been appreciated

There was also a significant amount of grace in the opportunity to have a sleep this afternoon as I was done in by the end of it...

I love the internet when...

...I get an email from somewhere else asking for permission to use some material I have produced.

So prayers for blessing on those planning to walk an Advent Labyrinth in Milwaukee. I've asked for a photo if possible to see what they make of it.

Doing a lot of work for charity...

...but we don't like to talk about it.

Great night in, although we were out. We were in Church for our Children in Need Joint Youth Clubs Talent Show - and boy did we see some talent. Awesome guys - I think we raised a couple of hundred to send in, which seems to be more than many of the people being interviewed by Wogan and co.

What do you really want for your children?

Another snippet inspired by last night's session at School.

His first question related to what we, as the parents, wanted for our children. He had a list of possible answers about succeeding and achieving which we all, of course, nodded with in agreement.

But this was the sucker punch, as he then went on to describe more of the learning skills that children need. Ultimately, though, he returned to his first question with a pretty provocative statement. I didn't write it verbatim, but it went something like this;

think of those things that you have achieved that have been most important to you - and which of these things hasn't been achieved without there being a significant element of distress and failure along the way

therefore, what we want for our children is the ability for them to learn how to cope with the distress and occasional failure so that they are able to dust themselves off and grow by giving it another go until they achieve for themselves something that is really important to them.

If I remove the age element in the equation I think there is a real parallel here with how we are called to Pastor our congregations so that they grow into Disciples (mature, resilient and so forth - all the values we would love our children to inherit or learn) whereas by trying to make them as comfortable as possible our children will not learn these things - so why should members of our Churches?

Is that an unfair thing to say? One person reading this will probably be aware of our conversation recently where they (you) said almost this exact thing.

Our session yesterday finished with a quote from Goethe

too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them

and so I think it is reasonable to make a parallel here with the work of the pastor. It might sound uncaring, but we are in such desperate need of disciples!

Resilience

Had a fascinating session at the boys' school this evening aimed at parents and helping their children to learn effectively.

One thing that popped out for me was in the context of children who succeed in education - a key factor is that they have

a close connection with at least one committed, concerned, totally supportive adult.

I wonder for those of us like me who managed to survive all the Church could throw at us in our teenage years and yet still claim to belong (resilience) how important such an individual was in a "spiritual" sense. I certainly lay the blame, I mean I certainly would want to mention one person (I think he's now a Bishop so they obviously never explored his past very deeply).

As we re-think our own Youthwork project I find resilience is still an important value for me - most of our teenagers will depart sooner or later for college or similar, and will have to learn how to thrive for themselves...or wither, if we are honest.

So step forward you committed, concerned, totally supportive adults and make yourselves known - we need you.

Thanksgiving prayer for a child

Visual Liturgy (aka Virtual Lethargy) has suggested this prayer to start a Baptism Service on Sunday morning

God our creator,
 we thank you for the wonder of new life
 and for the mystery of human love.
 We give thanks for all whose support and skill
 surround and sustain the beginning of life.
 As Jesus knew love and discipline within a human family,
 may these children grow in strength and wisdom.
 As Mary knew the joys and pains of motherhood,
 give these parents your sustaining grace and love;
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 All Amen.

Well that's all neat and cosy...unless you think Joseph ought to get a mention too. What's going on with this?

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...