a blog by howard jameson @ gatheringgrace.org

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.

Too much going on (again)

Too much going on at the moment to think, although much going on that is worth reflecting on - not least the problems of communication, and how easily we slip into the language and patterns of communicating during stress that are set by the world of politics and the media and, sadly, not by the Kingdom - but we refuse to shut the door on grace.

Slipping out for a celebratory slap up meal to coincide with 50% of major exams for number one son now being complete.

Pass the lime pickle!!

When did we get so old all of a sudden?

When trying to describe some aspects of postmodernism I have sometimes described the phenomena whereby when I was 13 my Dad would have been around 40, by which stage he listened to classical music virtually exclusively (bar the odd bit of Andy Williams) and he was broadly content to dress in a style similar to the generations older than him. However in my mid-40s I think I am fairly representative of my generation in a desire to still listen to music that is in the charts (ok, predominantly the album charts), go to gigs and dress like people in the generations below me.

So I was really struck the other evening at a "do" with mostly my generation present. We were all in various degrees of smart/casual (jacket and open neck shirt with jeans, or something expensive with our designer spectacles)...and boy did we look old all of a sudden. Thinning grey hair, jowls and bags under our eyes despite our best efforts to conceal that we are probably all over half way there. Why did this spring upon me as a surprise, after all I know how old we all are?

I was looking for some reason at the Friends Uninvited web site recently and so updated my profile photo with one of me mucking about with the boys (we'd found my old School cap somewhere - I never once wore it for School, I might add), and somebody from School has just posted a note to me about still looking the same.

Well today I feel old. I can only assume that after 90 minutes of 5-a-side last night I went to bed without eating very much, and I woke early this morning with an industrial scale thick head which I am putting down to low blood sugars.

Post-modern morality

I have been working on a major presentation I am doing in a couple of weeks to Clergy around the Diocese - my usual hobby horse; why do people my age not go to Church? So I am trying to expand and spruce up from previous outings.

This will be the first time I do a presentation using my Mac, and being an Apple fan-boy I do have to say that Keynote is awesome and knocks Powerpoint into a sea of bullet points.

Morality is often quoted as one of post-modernism's weak spots; relativism and amorality reign...apparently. But I found something a little puzzling as I was watching possible film clips to use. When I am trying to understand a worldview or a group of people then I find it informative to look at who it is that they select as their heroes or icons. In the era of high Victorian Modernity I would look at characters like Sherlock Holmes. In the sixties and seventies I would look at James Bond or some of those swinging London people played by Michael Caine (they all sort of blur into one). In contemporary culture I think Jason Bourne fills a similar space in popular fiction.

Both Holmes and Bond operate with some sort of ethical framework; they are both against evil (Professor Moriarty or Blofeld). Both of them operate as individuals beyond the moral boundaries of mere mortals. Bond has his licence to kill and Holmes his opium addiction, and in some stories Holmes allows the culprit to escape the courts when he sees fit. The motivation of neither is based on a moral decision, Holmes sees solving crime as a way of avoiding the tedium of daily life and Bond is the blunt instrument of a democratic state.

Bourne works very differently. Dragged from the sea with bullets in his back it is in the middle of the first film that he starts to understand who he was, a highly trained assassin for the CIA - a discovery which appals him. At the end of the first film he finally recalls being sent to kill an African leader, but finds him lying on a sofa with his children and it is the sight of the children which brings about a moral crisis causing a breakdown in his programming. Earlier in the first film Marie wakes to find Bourne standing over the beds of her relatives' children and saying he no longer wants to know anymore about his CIA past. At the end of the second film Bourne travels to Moscow to apologise to the daughter of a politician who had been Bourne's first victim, thereby exposing himself to enormous risk. From then on in the trilogy Bourne kills very few people (only the other assassins sent to kill him as far as I can recall) as Marie, his murdered girlfriend, wouldn't have approved. Rather his quest is to discover who he was so that he can lay his troubled memories to rest.

Here is somebody wrestling with guilt and trying to discover who he really is in a world of blurred boundaries and an aggressive urban environment. Rather than being a high profile individual Bourne's survival depends on his being able to blend into crowds' hidden amongst the masses from the prying eyes of CCTV cameras and telescopic sights. But as Bourne struggles with his past it is the rediscovery of his humanity which overcomes his blood lust and desire for violent revenge, his enemies dying either at their own hands or brought to justice with the testimony of Pamela Landy as Bourne disappears once more.

Modernity and post-Modernity: individualism and community

I think enough has been written to show that there has been a shift of focus towards a community in the transition period we know as post-Modernity. However, when I tried to explain this recently I don't think I did so clearly enough.

When Modernity is described as being individualistic I do not, I think, mean that old people are selfish. Indeed there is talk of the those who are in their retired years being the last of the "civic generation", that is people who were minded to look towards a responsibility to the wider world and who would therefore get involved. We see less of that these days. Partly, I believe, because people do not seek involvement beyond their own self-determined (and ever variable) boundaries, but also because the civic world has become professionalised.

Where we used to be the Churches produced, for many years, a regular newsletter going out to every home. This leaflet was called Focus. Then the Liberal Democrats started producing a newsletter and there was a gentleman's agreement that they would not call theirs Focus. However eventually party politics dictated a common image and brand across the whole country, so they started calling theirs Focus as well. Similarly we see a decline in the philanthropic independent candidates of yesteryear, politics too is a professional industry.

So when I described Modernity as being individualistic I did not mean that it was a more selfish generation. What I think this individualism means is that encounters and transactions are only rationalised as an encounter or transaction with an individual, and the ultimate example for my mind is the difficulty in explaining what happens at the Eucharist as any other than God meeting in some way a series of individuals.

In post-Modernity we see the rise of the communal group and the willingness to consider that when Grace is bestowed onto people there might be a multi-person dimension to this; that the community might be transformed.

However it is interesting to ponder the question - why, if post-Modern people are so community oriented, are they also so flaming selfish?

I would like to suggest a couple of rather anecdotal ideas and invite people to pick them up and run with them a bit further.

The first is what we talk about as the London scenario. This is easy for us because we are outside observers, only loosely connected with London, but we see the effects the City has, even at this distance. One's community is the most powerful validator and identifier of who we are as people. Generally most of us have more money than we need and therefore the choices from a generation ago about how one's status was displayed by one's purchases and this need for status has shifted to be described by our contacts.

The second follows on from this. London epitomises this country at its most compressed, and I think I read somewhere once that if I went up to London I would meet more people in one day than many in previous generations would meet in a lifetime. We need to protect ourselves from some sort of sensory overload by strictly limiting the access that people have to us beyond the superficial (I mean in London who makes eye contact?). Again our tightly defined and limited communal group provides a structure for us to keep the majority at bay, particularly those who might want something from us. I struggle with some forms of drinks parties where one feels one is on a beauty parade for the few who can work the room in such a way as to gauge what benefit one would make to their company's share value.

In a church environment as well one hears all too frequently that somebody goes elsewhere because there suits them more than here. We work hard to try to meet the needs of many and focus on mission and worship, so it is particularly irritating to feel that someone has written these attempts off without actually seeing what is going on. However, I digress.

So my generation is looking for community and, despite the examples I give from film clips such as Four Weddings or About A Boy, people are quite fussy about who is in their community and who is not. This reminds me of an essay I read once by C.S. Lewis (The Inner Ring?) where he argues the stupidity of cliques. A clique is easier than a community proper and so it is to be expected that some resort to this lowest common denominator of relationship.

So I thank God for those in my generation who are willing to look outside their immediate groupings and take on the challenge of mission to a wider world. I also thank God for Churches in which weird and wonderful, eccentric or troubled people find themselves at home.

Heroes

Finally watched the first episode of Heroes which was on BBC2 the other evening, but I've only just got round to sitting in front of.

First impressions are that it is a mic of the "mystery" of The X Files with the puzzled plot of Lost plus the comic books of my youth. Certainly the characters are as everyday as the producers can make them; a cheerleader, an on-line stripper (not sure of the technical term if there is one) who is in serious debt, a druggy artist, a nurse who has nightmares about falling and a geeky Japanese man who sees no irony in his descriptions of himself. Added also is the X Files type mysterious people following others around.

The thing which struck me was the interconnectedness of the characters, even though they were not aware of this. The male nurse is caring for the dying father of the girlfriend of the druggy artist, the geek Japanese man ("Hiro") is best friends with somebody who is watching the on-line stripper and the taxi driving Indian man is being followed by the father of the cheerleader.

The second thing is that if these people are the heroes of today just how messed up their lives are. Gone are Superman's boyhood good deeds in Smallville, or Peter Parker's care and respect for his Aunt (good ol' family values). These are replaced by suspicion and an awareness of something wrong with the world. This mixes in some of the Morpheus stuff from The Matrix.

In September I am doing another talk on the cultural values of today and I am planning to start by using the video for Danny California by the Chilis. What Heroes reminds me of (ok, after only episode one) is the self-containedness of contemporary culture. It has jettisoned many of the reference points of the culture within which Church as we know has developed in the last four hundred years, and needs no outside triangulation points by which to navigate its course for the future.

I did enjoy the first episode and will watch the next one (also recorded). I did a talk some time ago based on The OC (subject given me rather than chosen) and I struggled through half an episode of total garbage to work out the characters. With Heroes I suppose my comic reading youth has some common ground.

We fall while we aim so high...

I found myself listening to some progressive rock (of sorts) this morning as I walked the dog. Surely there isn't just me with a soft spot for Northern Lights by Renaissance? Ok it is just me, that's fine.

In these days of music so often and quickly recycled I find it interesting that prog-rock has so little underground cache.

Prog rock seems to have grown out of the advances in studio equipment in the late 60s. Following the ground-breaking first concept albums, Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys and Sgt. Peppers by the Beatles, bands spent more and more time experimenting in the studios, and the increase in the number of recorded tracks available meant that it was no longer a case of recording a live take and then adding a layer or two of extra instruments. It was now possible to record each instrument separately and overdub to one's hearts content. I guess the equipment for live performances also improved, so that by using reel to reel tape machines bands like Pink Floyd were able to perform complex pieces of music like Dark Side of the Moon as one complete piece in concert.

Prog rock itself was a fusion of rock and the Western symphonic tradition within Classical music, usually with a bit of folk thrown in for good measure and songs grew in length with several parts segued into one piece. Tubular Bells is a prime example, although just about anything by Yes is also typical.

However prog rock seems to have had a very sudden sell-by date, coinciding almost exactly with the arrival of Punk in '76. The increasing complexity of the music meant that gradually it became more and more esoteric and divorced from the heart of what it meant to play rock and roll, 2'59" of direct emotion with a beat to make your feet tap. But the more high brow direction being taken didn't please those who preferred Classical Music as it was played by long haired yobbos with electric instruments.

(At this point I suddenly remembered a blazing row I had with my Dad because he saw the cover of a Black Sabbath album I'd borrowed from a schoolfriend. Dad insisted they were punk rockers "just have a look at them!" - you try explaining this sort of thing!).

So prog rock disappeared up a cul de sac of its own creation, and lies forgotten and unloved where it fell, with the exception of a few strange people with little dress-sense.

Why do I find myself thinking about the Church here?

Blogging about...nothing much

I still love blogging, although I am reading far more than I am posting.

I do feel a little side-lined, though. I simply don't appear to have the energy to invest in new stuff with everything going on at the moment. I don't seem to be able to write stimulating threads which attract links from other blogs and I'm certainly not doing very much at the cutting edge (any edge really) of alternative worship. I have been doing this for nearly three years now, so number of readers per day no longer matter, just that some read here regularly and value it (as I know some do).

But I am ministering to people and trying to be faithful and hold integrity with the values of 'emerging Church' (things like community, holding an honest connection with life in the real world, working with people where they are rather than where a Vicar might want them to be and so forth). I am also dropping the usual quantity of clangers. Life is real and pretty full on.

I have been working really hard (honest your Grace) to get boring, lifeless institution stuff out of the way as speedily and efficiently as I can so that I can do life-enhancing people stuff too. I think I have some bloggable material on this when I can get time.

I refuse to offer this as an apology although I long for time and space to do more alternative worship and make communities.

In this place of hard work and long days I would value the encouragement of knowing I am not alone.

Social network fatigue...

I was interested by this article. The trend is for us to be part of so many independent social networks on the net that we become tired and irritated (always logging in as different identities and so on) that we turn off.

I have noticed a similar tend with my news aggregator. I am now using my third or fourth different bit of software for doing this. I start one, and then add sites as I find interesting links and new issues to follow. Eventually I get swamped by the amount I now seem to have to read every day and I give up, not by trimming the number of feeds I track, but by ditching the software altogether and going to a new reader. Its a bit like we used to get a daily newspaper and then realised we were recycling something we hadn't properly touched.

I had a phone call the other day from an old friend, probably the single person who (outside my family) has known me for the longest. We didn't need to log in or remind ourselves of passwords, we just talked. What an innovation!

Perhaps it is the 'ease' of joining a social network (relationship or community) on line which makes withdrawal similarly easy. Nobody checks up on you to see how you are. Proper long term relationships are different the shared past means there is something shared (a historical 'cookie'?) which is harder to shake off, although the known-ness of oneself in such a relationship may make for a greater sense of on-going effort and commitment. Maybe Church relationships too easily slip into social network mode, certainly when Church is seen as a lifestyle choice and one can Church-hop to ones' heart's content (obviously with good theological reason, he adds sarcastically). Real relationships go deep and stay deep.

I thank God I am known and that I am loved by some in spite of that.

The values of faith and society: creative relationships

Caroline (non-updated blog alert!!!!) has added a comment in a previous post about people wanting more from their relationships, and the way in which acts to generate the current emphasis on community.

I need to think about this. We all, I believe, seek relationships which give us a security of knowledge of acceptance in one form or another - we want to have a group of people within which we know how to easily fit in. The protocols of the community have already been agreed and accepted and we don't need to keep reinventing the wheel. If we look at those indicators of the desire for community in the media, and for this I tend to look at films such as those by Richard Curtis (Four Weddings...etc), we see the desire for a community to be this place of acceptance. "Redemption" (the final reel) is achieved by coming to terms with the existing foibles of the community members in some way (yes, I know that this is not redemption as we would recognise it in Christian terms, but that is because there is no expectation in those films of a means from outside to achieve the required change in a person or a relationship).

I also agree with Caroline that traditional patterns of Church do not accommodate this, the structures are already in place and solidly defined, thank you very much. The incoming person is required to fit any hole in the existing social fabric ("I say, would you care to join the bellringers?") and not seek to add something new.

However, when I compare this with patterns of Emerging Church I see a lot of communities based on highly creative relationships expressing the postmodern worldview of the participants which correpsonds more with Caroline's point about people wanting more from their relationships. The creative spark is a result of the coming together of the community, and makes the community greater than the sum of its parts, but I'm not sure I could say that these EC members are representative of the postmodern generation as a whole. We do see a lot of creative sorts experimenting and creating liturgies and stations in alternative worship (and this is totally commendable and a sign of vigour and health), but I think the type of creative communities we see in contemporary Church circles are more closely akin to internet start up companies than to friendships. I think that this correspondence does not disqualify creative communities from being either healthy or viable as we would expect any Christian community to be (or perhaps I should say that they are as equally dysfunctional as any other gathering of sinful people).

Perhaps this difference is due to the make up of people minded to seek to be able to exercise creative gifts within a community, and be sufficiently affluent and educated to utilise technology and liturgy as an expression of the creativity within the community. I think this is still one of the greatest challenges to these hip (and believe me I want to be a part of one) gatherings of Christians; where do the misfits fit in? Where do those who are seeking acceptance but who are not able to be a cool creative sort fully engage and be an accepted member of the community. I have to say this is one of the things I look out for in any group of Christians, and is something I see in many traditional-as-they-come village Parish Churches (I also see quite a lot that don't, of course).