Jul172011
Jul132011
A Dead Church?
It isn’t often that I stick my head up and make comment on something like the synod of The Church of England but here goes. There was a report that prompted Dr Ruth and I to talk for a couple of hours this afternoon about the nature of God, The Church ™ and our place within it.
“The Church of England will cease to exist in 20 years as the current generation of elderly worshippers dies, Anglican leaders warned yesterday.”
This is a truism. For my beloved Church of England to continue witnessing into the future there needs to be a recognition of the changing world in which we minister. In the rhetoric that has been reported there have been some unfortunate soundbytes such as the need for a “recruitment drive”. There has also been the use of business model type language to describe the impending fall or rise of the good old CofE. This type of discussion has prompted me to a key theological question:
What is the role that The Church of England is called to within the missio dei?
To see our primary motivation to mission as merely “perpetuating The Church of England” as a goal in itself then we have missed the point. God is on a mission and invites us to be involved with it. We need to reexamine the true nature of our call as a church to go into the world as followers of the way. Along the way we need to keep pointing to our destination and call others to join us on the road. If we believe we need a “recruitment drive” then we may as well pack up the shop and go home now. We need to empower people to live out their baptism call corporately as the body of Christ.
How can i try to paint a picture of the problem as i see it? Lets imagine that The Church of England is transported to a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. When Luke landed on Degoba he met with a little muppet called Yoda. Yoda did not turn to Luke and say “welcome to Degoba, you’ll love it here. Pull up a rock by the swamp, please stay”. Why would he stay in a place that is completely alien to him? Where is the desert he knows knows so well from his homeworld? And once he has crash landed here he meets someone who is completely alien to him. Yoda doesn’t speak the same kind of language as him, the lifestyle is completely alien to him. Luke almost walks away and fails to recognise that Yoda’s advancing years have given him an ancient wisdom. Ironically, Yoda tries to dismiss Luke for being too impetuous, youthful and “not the right kind of person to be one of us”.
When Yoda was talked around by Obi Wan he did not point to all of these differences and the settings around him. What he did was point towards something much more significant than himself or the place where he found himself. He pointed to something much more profound and something much deeper than Luke could imagine. He prepared Luke for the journey that he was on and eventually sent him off to fulfil that journey.
How can we as a church get beyond trying to recruit people to man the jumble sale and become more like Yoda?
Or as @emptybelly tweeted a couple of days ago:
If the 21st century church took Jesus as seriously as the 1st century church, this world would again be turned upside down for God’s kingdom
Jul72011
The Sun
Science is awesome!!
The creativity that is emerging around the globe is staggering. No longer are people constrained by the companies who sell ideas, they are free to explore the possibilities. This is the beauty of the digital revolution.
I was given the opportunity to speak about alt worship/emerging church/culture with a group of people exploring their vocation to ordained ministry on Tuesday night. In a short act of corporate worship I showed the Vodafone advert*, “Dad he’s left me”. I used it as an introduction to The Lord’s Prayer. Later on we discussed the concept of the advert as a group. It is essentially based around two emotional responses it elicits from the viewer, identity and empathy. “This is how a Father should act, wouldn’t you like to be like him”? By sticking the vodafone logo at the end of this short story, we are invited to identify the product with the good guy – and they tell us nothing about their product.
The above video is amazing. If you had asked me half way through what it was about, I would have guessed that it was a bunch of mates who thought it would be really cool to slow motion capture an exploding hydrogen filled balloon. I wouldn’t have thought it was a company called GE trying to sell the US some solar panels.
No longer are people constrained by telling us about their product, they are trying to capture our imagination. They are telling us a narrative and inviting us to identify with it. With that in mind, I’m off to make a cup of Gold Blend.
*sorry, it seems to have been eradicated from the internet so if you haven’t seen it before, my apologies.
Jul22011
The Story of Everything
One of the best things about the social media explosion is that talent is no longer confined to a local area. Jonny Baker has shared this video by a guy called Rich on his blog. It is awesome and I plan to show it tomorrow morning as part of our service.
It has also given me a bit of a kick up the bum with an audio project I did with a mate for Biblefresh. Must upload it and get it out there!