What I learned about Church from going to see Rocky Horror Show Live!

As we walked towards the venue you could tell who was going the same way because they were dressed appropriately.  As you caught the eye of total strangers, you looked each other up and down and smiled in recognition.  You never met before but you already had something in common, you were already part of the family. You took your seat and the room buzzed in anticipation. 

The music started and the first song was sung.  You knew all the words and sang along with gusto, as did your neighbours.  As you sang and swayed you felt embraced by the warmth of a group of people coming together around something they love. 

Words were spoken and you joined in, shouting back, together making an event that belongs not just to the people in that room, but to similar people in similar rooms all around the world.  You can go anywhere in the world and find an event like this, with people like this, and you can join in and feel welcomed and included.

The story unfolded, a story so familiar that there were no surprises – in fact so familiar that we all know most of the words off by heart – that’s what unifies us, brings us together.  And the familiarity of the story doesn’t make it stale – the magic is in retelling it to one another and knowing that it means something to all of us. 

We learn and relearn that it’s important to love one another; to be honest about who we are; that no matter who or what we are, there is a guiding star.

The event reached its high point, we stood together, and as the music prompted us we moved as one people, again drawn together by something we know well and love to do.  As our eyes met we knew that we were sharing something special.  As we did this, we remembered all the other times we did it, the people we did it with, the things it has meant at different times in our lives.   And we took a jump to the left…

Musings on Memes

So I see my blogging rate is about one every 7 months or so...I'm not really going to change the world at that rate. The problem is that I'm often busy with doing other interesting stuff so doing writing in a focussed way has been rather pushed to the side.

But In recent days I've been reading some things that have stirred me up and then one particular tiny straw pushed me over the edge and I needed a place to howl.

Men, Women, Children and the new Bishop of Durham

It's a really big question: Why are there more women than men in the British church? I could, and have, write lots about this subject, but I was forcibly struck by one possible answer to it last Saturday. The occasion was the East Midlands Baptist Association Day and our main speaker was Bishop of Durham Elect, Rt Rev Paul Butler. This question was raised and he talked about reaching out to men, but stated very clearly that he didn't believe that the so called 'feminisation' of the church was the cause of the problem.

After the main session, I was leading a workshop on children's ministry and I think part of the answer might be found in that seminar. Of the twenty or so attenders only three were male. John Westerhoff talks about the 'hidden curriculum'; in other words our practice sometimes doesn't match our words, and it's our practice that teaches children what we are about. If little boys are taught that church is 'women's business' from their earliest days, they will struggle to see it as something for everyone regardless of gender when they are older.

It's a challenge to the men in our congregations: do you ever consider working in the Sunday School? Or is that women's work? Patterns of child care in the home are changing so where once men would actually be incompetent with children because they never looked after even their own children, they now regular care for, and spend time with small children. Is the problem to do with safeguarding? Perhaps men feel that they might be regarded with suspicion if they work with small children.

Whatever the problem is we need to address it, and we made a good start on Saturday. I'm pleased to say that one of the three men in my workshop was Bishop Paul. Given that he started his ministry in children's work with Scripture Union and has continued to prioritise this side of his ministry, I did feel pretty nervous about having him there - talk about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs! But most of all I think it sends a message that this workshop was as valuable and important as the others, because children are valuable and important, whether they are boys or girls.

A contribution to a debate about Empowerment and Theology

My friends and colleagues Becca Dean and Jo Dolby have been having some blog discussion about these topics here:

http://beccaislearning.com/post/34759763689/empowerment-and-theology-in-youth-work

and here:

http://beccaislearning.com/post/34772684733/jo-dolby-a-response-to-empowerment-and-theology

There were a lot of connections with some of the reading I've been doing so I thought I would put in my two penn'orth.

I’ve been thinking and reading about the end of Christian discipleship.  To clarify, when I say end, I don’t mean the finish of it, but rather the eventual aim of it, what is sometimes referred to as the telos.  I noticed that a lot of writers on Christian education were talking about different sorts of ethics and how at different times Christian discipleship had been shaped by different ethical styles.  Ethics is often divided into three styles: deontological or rules-based ethics, where behaviour is governed by a set of externally derived rules or laws; consequential ethics, where behaviour is governed by the outcome of a course of action, as in utilitarianism where the greatest good of the greatest number is sought; and virtue ethics where the character of the person is so imbued with virtues that in any given situation that person will behave in accordance with those virtues.  

In the Christian education context, the different styles have prevailed at different times, so at times Christians were taught that in order to be good they need to follow God’s rules, at other times they were taught that they needed to seek the good of others.  At the moment the underlying ethic seems to be moving towards virtue ethics and there seems to be some biblical warrant for the importance of shaping the character of a person so that they will then do what is right.  Educationalists such as Westerhoff and James K A Smith base their arguments on the originator of this approach, Aristotle, and it could be argued that the call to be transformed inwardly described in Romans 12:2 and Romans 5:1-5 is in line with it.

I think this is significant to the discussion Becca and Jo are having for two reasons.  The first is that it connects with the idea of absolute truth.  I think I agree that there is absolute truth; I’m just not sure that I (or anyone else) can be absolutely confident that I know what the meaning of that is.  I’ve noted elsewhere in my blog that Jesus says that he is the truth, and so I think my calling as a disciple is to know him rather than to seek for truth.  Absolute truth tends to fit more with a rules-based ethic and way of teaching; it suggests that if we could just know what the rule is, we could get it right, and we could then tell our children that rule and then they will be good.  It even tends towards a form of Gnosticism, which is not helpful (it’s actually heretical!) 

The second connection with Becca and Jo’s discussion is more methodological.  If the telos is to develop Christian virtues and character then we need to be equipping and empowering young people to develop those Christian virtues in themselves.  Aristotle develops his virtues based on Plato’s virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and prudence and suggests that these virtues and other minor virtues are developed in children by doing virtuous acts and thereby developing good habits leading in turn to human flourishing.  Wikipedia summarises it:  “people become virtuous by performing virtuous actions, which they might not have chosen themselves when young. They must develop proper habits during childhood and this usually requires help from teachers, parents, and law-makers.  A good community is normally required for the development of good people.”   This seems to me to connect with Jo’s scaffolding idea; young people need to be surrounded by a scaffold that supports them as they develop the inner habits of virtue.  These habits then become the ultimate empowering because young people are able to act in ways that make for the good life, for human flourishing not because of rules imposed on them, but because of their own internal virtue.

I’m still pondering the practical outworking of this, and my reading continues but I think it’s the beginnings of a paradigm shift for me in terms of my understanding of the task of discipleship which fits with the youth work value of empowerment.

p.s. In the interests of academic probity I should say that my thoughts and ideas at this stage are being shaped and refined by reading James K A Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, Samuel Wells’ Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics, John H. Westerhoff’s Will Our Children Have Faith, Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, as well as Wikipedia.  I also own a copy of MacIntyre's After Virtue...but I haven't read it yet!

p.p.s I am aware of the irony of using a pre-christian philosopher in my thinking but arguably both Plato and Aristotle have always been influential  on Christian education.

Handing on the flame Part Deux

On Saturday I blogged my reflections on the Olympic Opening Ceremony and had a few positive responses.  Since writing I’ve continued to think about what I mean and so I’m writing “Handing on the Flame, Part Deux” to carry on my internal conversation.  Feel free to join in.

Somewhere in the “Money” Chapter in Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster says (my summary) that Money has spiritual power because we want it and hold on to it.  By giving it away we break that spiritual power and free ourselves to have the relationship with money that God intended.  He suggests that we give away money not for the good it will do the people we give it to, but for our own sake, for our own spiritual health.  I think it’s the same principle that’s at work in the idea of the year of Jubilee.  If, every fifty years you have to give land back to the original owner you can’t become dependent on it for your sense of who you are;  you always have to know that everything we have belongs to God.  It forces a radical, paradigm shift in your understanding of wealth, power and privilege; it stops you from creating an identity based on what you can hold on to and instead forces you into a radical reliance on who you are in God.

I think that the model suggested by the Opening Ceremony has the same effect.  The Olympic heroes were in effect saying “This doesn’t belong to us; it’s bigger than what we have been and what we want” and the same would be true in the church.  We think that we can’t let young people be involved in the running of the church because they aren’t mature and wise; they don’t know enough to run it as well as we do.  What we’re really doing, though, is hanging on to our power and privilege.  Maybe this is why so many found the ceremony so moving, and why some others found it so offensive.  It was moving because it offered an opposite vision of what could be, and it was offensive because it challenged people’s ideas about a world based on prestige and success.

Cyd Zeigler on SB.com said this, which rather epitomises this attitude:

“The grand finale, the moment I was waiting for most, was the revealing of the lighter of the flame. So many great options were floated out there...and they chose one more boring and more forced than any other I'd heard: Seven no-name young athletes. I'm sorry, you've got to earn that honor. You've got to achieve greatness before you get to light the Olympic flame. You've got to inspire a nation. Instead, the event producers decided to hand the honor to a bunch of kids.”

I rather think he missed the point; that by giving away the honour to “a bunch of kids” Danny Boyle did indeed inspire a whole nation and maybe even further afield.

The Opening Ceremony programme says this:

“But we hope, too, that through all the noise and excitement you’ll glimpse a single golden thread of purpose – the idea of Jerusalem – of the better world, the world of real freedom and true equality, a world that can be built through the prosperity of industry, through the caring notion that built the welfare state, through the joyous energy of popular culture, through the dream of universal communication. A belief that we can build Jerusalem. And that it will be for everyone.”*

Maybe the same applies to the church: if we give the future of the church to our children, as terrifying as that sounds, the shift in our souls will be so profound that the church will be transformed into something we never dreamed possible. 

*Isn't it interesting that the image Boyle used is of Jerusalem, the city where God meets his people.

Handing on the flame

I watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony last night and was moved in many ways, but the part I found most moving and resonant was the lighting of the cauldron.  There has been a tradition of the person lighting the cauldron receiving the highest honour, and it is given to an individual whose achievement is above and beyond any other.  The British media and blogosphere has been speculating about who will receive this honour, with some cynicism.  The underlying feeling has been that it will go to someone who doesn’t quite deserve it but who has managed to somehow wangle it because of privilege and position, and I must admit to sharing some of that cynicism.

How wrong I was!  The flame was brought into the stadium by someone who is indisputably our great Olympian, Sir Steve Redgrave.  But then a miracle occurred.  He handed it to a group of young, unknown athletes.  The commentator Huw Edwards described it as “the transfer of the privilege and honour of lighting the flame.”  It was handed to seven unknowns, young people who are just starting out, as yet untried and unproven, but full of potential.  It was handed on by an older generation who recognised their potential and saluted and supported them in that.  The rest of us watched and cheered them on.  Huw went on to observe “Seven Great British Olympic heroes offering that honour to these young athletes”.  In other words it was freely given in recognition of hope in the future, offering, but not imposing on them, a vision of all that’s best in our life together.

It’s notable that it was given not to one, but to a team, as part of a ceremony that valued the contribution of not just the great and the physically able, but included the deaf, the old, the builders and plumbers, the Queen, children, nurses.  It was a ceremony that showed our pride in who we are and our hope for the future, served up with a dose of affection and humour.

It struck me forcibly that this is what the church could, and should be, in particular, and most importantly, the way in which we hand on the flame of faith to the next generation.  Let’s not wait until they have to tear it out of our cold, dead hands, by which time they have grown bitter and tired of waiting.  Let’s put our faith in them and the future and hand it on while they are still full of vision and energy, passion and life.  Let’s not keep the power and privilege to ourselves but lay it down in the hope that something new and vibrant will grow.  

I could go on about the changes that have occurred between how the Olympics was in 1948 and how it is now; training methods, the style of the opening ceremony, the nations taking part, the addition of technology.  Of course the 2012 Games don’t look like the 1948 games, but it’s still the Olympic Games and no amount of politicking or abuse of its values seems to damage what it is.

Paul said, in his letter to the Philippians: “…one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” And maybe this should offer a vision for us not just as individuals but as a whole people of God.

A modest proposal

A few years ago I read somewhere* of a proposal that when a couple with children split up, the house and the money needed to maintain it as a household should remain with the children, and the two parents should alternate which of them lives there.  This is in contrast to the current arrangement where two parents maintain households and the children move back and forth between them.

The thinking behind this novel idea was that if we say that the needs of the children come first, then what children need is a stable, consistent home environment, and the fact that the two parents no longer want to live together shouldn’t deny them this.  They should have their home, which is near their school and their friends, with their own rooms and possessions in one place.  The parents on the other hand, if they want to be part of their children’s lives, have to shuttle back and forth between their children’s home and any other home they might want to have.

You can see straight away that adults would complain that this idea is completely unworkable because parents would never know where they were, they would get confused, they wouldn’t have the things they need around them, they would never be able to relax, nowhere would feel like home, and they might have to spend time away from a new partner they love and want to be with.

But this is what children of separated parents have to go through all the time and it just adds to the pain and suffering that the breakdown of a relationship causes.

I’m actually not telling this story because I have an axe to grind about divorce, which is going to be painful and difficult no matter how it’s managed, but because I think our response to this proposal says something very important about the way we view children in our society.  We use a rhetoric of them being important and that their needs must be met first, but our actions say something different.  The axe I do want to grind is that this is what happens in church life.  We say that children matter, that they are important, but, when it comes to putting their needs before our own, we somehow miss the mark.

Us Baptists have been talking recently about re-imagining the future, but I wonder what church would look like if we wiped the slate completely clean and then started again with what children need to grow in faith?  Then fitted adult needs in after that…recognising that some might not be met because our best has been used for the children.  It would as startling and radical as the proposal I started with, but it might also mean that we assure the future not only of the children who grow up through it, but of the church itself.

How are you reacting to that???  What does your reaction mean?

*If anyone can tell me where I read or heard it I'd be grateful

Spiritual Director? Problem solved!

I’m doing a lot of extremely heavy reading about the theology of Baptist Church meetings for an essay and I need some light relief in between times.  I’ve returned, as I often do, to an old favourite; the Starbridge series by Susan Howatch.  This series of six novels portray the history of the Church of England in the 20^th Century through the lives of some fictional clergymen (they were all men in those days!) from different wings of the Anglican Church as they wrestle with the inner and outer forces at work in their lives.

I first read them probably in the late nineties and have re-read them regularly ever since with a growing sense of understanding.  When I first read them the human stories were gripping but I didn’t understand the references to theologians and theological movements, which didn’t matter in the least.  Now I have done a bit of reading and so when one of the protagonists protests about Karl Barth’s influence on the neo-conservative movement I actually get what they’re talking about and I feel a little frisson of pleasure about it (that’s how sad I have become!) as well as still enjoying the tales of people trying to serve God whilst grappling with their human failings.

In my minister’s cluster we were recently discussing spiritual direction; what it’s for, the pros and cons, how to find one and what to look for in one.  I said “Has anyone read the Starbridge novels, because if you have, you’ll understand when I say I want Jon Darrow for my spiritual director”.  A colleague started nodding and a side discussion of the novels ensued, with us discussing which character we would want for our spiritual director!

Who is the Ring Bearer in Lord of the Rings?

This might be construed as similar to the question “Who was the naturalist on the HMS Beagle”  to which everyone says “Charles Darwin”.  Of course he wasn’t the naturalist, someone else was;  he was sailing as companion to the captain. 

I started to think about this question because I was reading the blogs written in response to this blog: 

Rachel Held Evans on Masculinity in the church

One blogger discussed the meaning of the word “helper” in the phrase from Genesis “I will make a helper suitable for him” which turns out to be the woman.  The blogger said that the helper is not the subordinate sidekick the word suggests but rather someone who rides to the rescue.  Others have argued that it is the same term that is used for the Holy Spirit and therefore does not imply any sense of inferiority.

I can’t explain why but the image that came to me was Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings.  A very flat reading of the story would suggest that Frodo is the hero, the ring bearer, the main character, and Sam is the rather lumbering, loyal, servant and sidekick who follows on, doing as he’s told, cooking meals when necessary.  A bit like a wife, maybe?

However, my view has always been that Sam’s role is the pivotal one; in fact I would argue that he is the ring bearer.  Towards the end of the film Frodo is struggling to climb Mount Doom and Sam urges him to let him finish the mission and take the ring.  Frodo refuses, believing that he alone can bear the burden.  Sam’s response is to tell Frodo that he will carry him then, which Sam proceeds to do.  Finally the mission is successful and Sam carries Frodo away from the mountain.

My reading of this is that Frodo believes that only he is strong enough and capable of carrying the ring.  He also believes that he alone has been called to carry it.  He accepts Sam’s support but doesn’t really view him as part of the mission, in fact at one point he tries to leave Sam behind.  The story shows however, that not only is Frodo not the only one called to the task, he is not capable of carrying it out alone.  He is too flawed, too weak and too self-absorbed to succeed.  In the end it is Sam’s determination to carry out his calling to destroy the ring that enables it to happen; a calling that Frodo doesn’t recognise.

I would take this metaphor further and note that although it was Sam and Frodo who finally threw the ring into the fire, they wouldn’t have got that far without the rest of the Fellowship.  Each played a key role in the success of the mission, even though they were all flawed, weak and failing.  Each brought something unique to the mission, be it the warrior Boromir – lovely Sean, the king, Aragorn – lovely Viggo, axeman Gimli, the cheeky boys Merry and Pippin or whoever*. 

What a perfect image for the church; many different gifts, many flawed imperfect people, all called by God  and valued by him.  You could say I’ve made a perfect complementarian case, but actually I suggest that Frodo failed because he did the thing that the complementarians do; he dismissed the call on other people’s lives because he was too focussed on himself and his own call, rather than thinking about the best way to do the mission they were all called to.  So to answer my starting question: The ring bearers were Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Gandalf and Boromir.

*long blonde hair – lovely Orlando!

**It’s interesting to reflect that the women in LOTR tend to be in decorative and supporting roles.  I suggest this says more about Tolkien’s male dominated Oxford milieu than anything else.

The Feminisation of the Church

I’ve read a few things recently, and heard a few people argue that the church over the last decade/century etc has become feminised, and that this means we are losing men who don’t want to be part of something that makes them feel “girly”.  We must therefore stop this trend, they suggest, and start to make the church a bit more masculine so that young men in particular will be attracted back.

There’s something circular in this argument, and it occurs not just in discussions about church life but in society more widely and it’s to do with men’s response to the strengthening voice of women.  It seems to me that men often feel emasculated when stereotypically feminine virtues are strengthened, but that this emasculation is predicated on the idea that we are playing a zero sum game, i.e. that if women are strengthened then men are somehow weakened.  People like Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) would argue that oppression dehumanises both oppressed and oppressor and that when the oppressed liberate themselves they also liberate their oppressors.

Attributes such as gentleness and humility, patience, kindness and self-control might be regarded as feminine but they are also biblical, for all of us, not just women.  One strand of Christianity that would seem relevant here is the Vineyard movement with its emphasis on intimacy with God through worship and spirituality, particularly with songs caricatured as “Jesus is my girlfriend” songs.  My local Vineyard church is packed full of “manly-looking” men; are they seeking a kind of faith that means they can drop the macho act and admit to feelings traditionally regarded as female?

It’s a live issue in some areas of the Christian blogosphere because Mark Driscoll is a strong advocate of the idea that the feminised church emasculates real men, but he’s not the only one.  This blog was prompted by “alastairjroberts” comments to Stephen Holmes’ article here:

http://shoredfragments.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/old-style-evangelical-gender-politics/

in which “alastair” argues that nineteenth century evangelical gender politics “…led to a stigmatization of many stereotypically male traits, along with a celebration of many stereotypically female traits.”  He goes on to say that this led to a kind of “sticky” sentimentalism in church life.  

My critique of his comment lies not with whether “female traits” are better or worse, but with their stereotypical nature.  The traits that were stigmatised were to do with violence, aggression, and oppressive patriarchy and the traits that were celebrated were the biblical ones I mentioned above.  These traits have become labelled as masculine or feminine because of our cultural constructs, but they are stereotypes and it seems to me that the “up-side down” nature of the Kingdom of God demands that we reject them in favour of men and women seeking to become more Christ-like.  This might be very costly for some men but only in the short term; it was Jesus who said “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

p.s. I could get started on the way the church does have more women in the pews but that still most of the power lies in the hands of men but I won’t.

It's a numbers game

I’m reading this at the moment:


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gospel-Driven-Church-Retrieving-Ministries-Contemporary/dp/184227290X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300798109&sr=8-1

and I say AMEN to his critique of our obsession with numbers as the only measure of success in church life. We need to remember, as Mark Yaconelli pointed out, that Jesus only discipled 12 people, and one of them handed him over to be killed and another pretended he didn't know who Jesus was. In the end he died alone because they all ran off. This is true gospel success.

So here's a challenge to my youth ministry friends: try to stop using numbers when you talk about your work. It's very difficult because even if you can stop yourself it's very difficult when that's the only question other people ask you about what you do. And the next hard step is to stop asking your youth ministry friends how many come to their groups.

This is something I’ve been trying to do for a while and I have found it very difficult. That in itself is interesting. What is it in me that wants to boast of bigger? When someone does it to me I feel belittled and inadequate, or superior and puffed up, so why do I want to do that to someone else? And why do I speak about my ministry as God’s work, but if I have a big number to boast of, suddenly feel like it’s because of my own ability as a youth minister? It’s also very challenging when you talk to another youth minister and they ask “So how many do you get to that club” to look them in the eye and say “a good crowd” or “Some nice young people”. Why does refusing to say a number feel like such a subversive act? Maybe youth workers should practice it as a Lenten discipline.

Stackhouse argues that it’s a product of revivalist theology (he makes a very good argument; I would urge you to read the book). I agree with his thinking, but would also add for youth ministers two more pressures. Firstly, the secular model of youth work that demands quantitative data about youth work, rather than thinking about quality, has filtered into Christian youth ministry, particularly those of us who are professionally qualified and paid by churches. And that’s the second pressure; churches who see the youth minister’s job as filling the church, so who look for the proverbial “bums on seats” rather than the quality of discipleship, who see their youth worker lurking in coffee shops rather than herding great crowds of young people through the baptismal pool, and wonder if they are getting value for money.

It seems to me that that the numbers game, however it arises, is based on shaky ideas of what christian faith is, and more importantly, who young people and youth workers are. Fundamentally a young person, or a youth worker, is created in the image of God, and therefore is a unique, individual creation. When what is done with, to, for, or at this young person is looked at through a lens of numerical success, this image is distorted, because they become an object to be counted, not a person to be related to. This is why Jesus was so subversive; he wouldn’t conform to the pressure to achieve success. Every time it was offered to him he turned away from it. The story of his temptation that we reflect on during Lent is an example of this. If Jesus was a youth worker today, the Devil would say to him, “Bow down to me and I’ll give you a really big youth group”. Instead he prioritised people as individuals, meeting them in their need, sharing their pain and challenging them to a life of discipleship. This kind of work happens at meal tables, in coffee shops, walking along together, in sitting rooms, not in vast crowds where nobody knows anybody, but somebody knows the numbers.