Somerset is a snapshot of English religion at the moment. And it's been raining on all of them:
- The 'atheist summer camp' at Bruton, with 24 children attending. I hadn't picked up that it was an American 'ministry' extending its reach to the UK. Less press coverage is being given to the thousands of children and young people on CPAS Ventures and Falcon camps - if you count Soul Survivor there's roughly 30,000. If 24 is a 'big following' (the Times) then I wait to see what adjectives are used of the Christian camps. To its credit, the Times has a couple of pieces on Christian summer camps too. (note to commentors: no rubbish about 'brainwashing' please, that's what happens in places like North Korea, please don't cheapen the term by applying to these camps, whichever sort it is you don't like).
- a few miles to the West it's New Wine at the moment, and tweeters have noticed the rain and mud, along with lots of other, better things. Thousands are there for worship, teaching and fun, and along with Soul Survivor NW pretty much takes over the Bath and West Showground for the whole of the summer holidays. For a flavour, the evening talks will be live on Hope FM next week (2-8th Aug)
- further along the Mendips, a witch has just been selected for Wookey Hole (local cave/tourist attraction) out of 50,000 applicants. The original 'witch' is a rock formation in the cave, but the Hole trades quite heavily on 'the witch of Wookey Hole' as a marketing snare. Some of the applicants were clearly practicing witches, rather than just folk wanting to dress up in black and cackle. Bizarrely, the job is supposed to give people an idea of what the caves were like in the Dark Ages. Erm, exactly the same, but without spotlights and handrails?
- just up the hill from Wookey Hole, the Big Green Gathering (an outdoor Green Festival, bit like a smaller Glastonbury with less music and more eco stuff) has been cancelled following some shenanigans with the police. It would have had a healing field, sweat lodge and assorted New Age stuff, along with a few of the Christians who've developed forms of prayer and outreach for New Age contexts.
- Back down from the Mendips is Wells Cathedral, which next week will be hosting a memorial service for Harry Patch, the last surviving WW1 veteran who died recently. Over 1000 are expected to attend.
So, what's the rain? Is it God's judgement on the atheists and the witches, or a trial to prove the faith of the Christians? Is it a succesful deluge to wash away some New Age claptrap, or a suitable sign of mourning to mark the passing of a generation?
Or is it just rain?
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Are Megachurches Christian?
Journalist Will Braun took a random Sunday, and downloaded the sermons from the 10 biggest churches in the US, and the 10 biggest in Canada, to see if there were any common threads in the messages preached.
Here's a bit of his commentary:
Emphasis mine. Braun concludes:
While these mega-churches are undoubtedly meeting certain needs, they are not, for the most part, geared toward the needs of the greater world. If you would have walked in the door of one of the 20 largest churches in Canada or the U.S. on April 13, 2008 you would have most likely walked into an other-worldly realm – something removed from the warming, starving, self-destructing world out there. And in that way it would have been kind of like walking into an amusement park
Our church has no pretensions to being a mega church. But the same infection lurks - the temptation to appeal to people's selfishness, to preach a gospel that 'meets my needs', to make church entertaining, fun, joyful, stimulating without crossing over the line into mere entertainment. Maybe this comes back to the problem with 'event' church over against 'community' church: if the life of the church is centred around a building and an event which you're trying to populate, then there's always a temptation to go for what will be popular rather than what will be authentic.
There's an even deeper question here: have preachers of self-improvement ceased to be Christian? We're so used to the old litmus tests - the bodily resurrection of Jesus, gay sex (?), who's allowed to pray at communion - that things like this seem to pass by without anyone noticing. But the fact is that a God who's prime purpose in sending Jesus was to aid human self-improvement is not God, it is an idol. A gospel of self-improvement, no matter how many times you quote John 10:10 , is a false gospel.
Ht Danielle Strickland via Sheepspeak.
Update: Tim Chesterton, from across the pond, has some more reflections on this.
Here's a bit of his commentary:
...with sermon titles like “Thirty Days to a No-Regret Life” and “I Want More . . . Self-control” as well as emphases on overcoming difficulties and attaining goals, many of the preachers covered terrain similar to Oprah.
Of course the preachers add a Christian discipleship dimension, but it’s still a smiley, energetic approach to making your life better and more meaningful. Just look at the glowing face of Lakewood pastor Joel Olsteen (who wasn’t preaching on April 13) on the cover of his book, Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day.
The point here is not that self-improvement is inherently problematic but rather that it is, by definition, self-centred. It’s about you and your happiness and your success. Fifteen of the 20 sermons would fall in the category of “improving your life by the power of God,” without ever expanding beyond a sort of me-and-my-Jesus world view. Three made brief forays outside the gates of self-help land (mentioning creation care and sensitivity to the poor) and two placed church solidly in the context of a global community.
The issue is about what wasn’t said. What was not said in any but two of the sermons was anything like: The church is in a better position than anyone to stop the genocide in Darfur. When we participate in an economy dependent on exploitation, we erode our souls in the process. The indigenous people in the Arctic, whose way of life is melting away beneath them, are our neighbours.
For most of the preachers, the church is not cast as a collective force of compassion and change in a violent, warming world, but rather as a vehicle for individual betterment and eternal bliss, with care for the needy sometimes tacked on as a religious duty.
Emphasis mine. Braun concludes:
While these mega-churches are undoubtedly meeting certain needs, they are not, for the most part, geared toward the needs of the greater world. If you would have walked in the door of one of the 20 largest churches in Canada or the U.S. on April 13, 2008 you would have most likely walked into an other-worldly realm – something removed from the warming, starving, self-destructing world out there. And in that way it would have been kind of like walking into an amusement park
Our church has no pretensions to being a mega church. But the same infection lurks - the temptation to appeal to people's selfishness, to preach a gospel that 'meets my needs', to make church entertaining, fun, joyful, stimulating without crossing over the line into mere entertainment. Maybe this comes back to the problem with 'event' church over against 'community' church: if the life of the church is centred around a building and an event which you're trying to populate, then there's always a temptation to go for what will be popular rather than what will be authentic.
There's an even deeper question here: have preachers of self-improvement ceased to be Christian? We're so used to the old litmus tests - the bodily resurrection of Jesus, gay sex (?), who's allowed to pray at communion - that things like this seem to pass by without anyone noticing. But the fact is that a God who's prime purpose in sending Jesus was to aid human self-improvement is not God, it is an idol. A gospel of self-improvement, no matter how many times you quote John 10:10 , is a false gospel.
Ht Danielle Strickland via Sheepspeak.
Update: Tim Chesterton, from across the pond, has some more reflections on this.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Cricketing Graces
Test Match Special supremo Jonathan Agnew has put out a plea on Twitter:
To brum for start of fortnight that could decide ashes. Strauss at 12. MC lords taverners dinner tonight. Never said grace before. Ideas?
To brum for start of fortnight that could decide ashes. Strauss at 12. MC lords taverners dinner tonight. Never said grace before. Ideas?
Wedding March: Remixed
brilliant way to start a wedding celebration. Ht Bosco Peters, Greg Kandra. I guess anyone who doesn't want to do this at a wedding shouldn't be there in the first place....
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The Tweeting Civil Servant
A Whitehall chappy has produced a 20-page guide to Twitter for fellow mandarins. Some of it is quite sensible:
... once anyone does follow a Whitehall Twitter stream it recommends they should automatically be "followed back" on the grounds that it is not only good etiquette, but could result in a poor Twitter reputation if not done ‑ and in extreme cases could lead to the account being suspended.
In urging his fellow Whitehall civil servants to use Twitter, Williams sets out several grounds rules for the kind of content that needs to make it work:
• Human: He warns that Twitter users can be hostile to the "over-use of automation" - such as RSS feeds – and to the regurgitation of press release headlines: "While corporate in message, the tone of our Twitter channel must therefore be informal spoken English, human-edited and for the most part written/paraphrased for the channel."
• Frequent: a minimum of two and maximum of 10 tweets per working day, with a minimum gap of 30 minutes between tweets to avoid flooding followers' Twitter streams. (Not counting @replies or live coverage of a crisis/event.) Downing Street spends 20 minutes on its Twitter stream with two-three tweets a day plus a few replies, five-six tweets a day in total.
• Timely: in keeping with the "zeitgeist" feel of Twitter, official tweets should be about issues of relevance today or events coming soon.
• Credible: while tweets may occasionally be "fun", their relationship to departmental objectives must be defensible.
Alongside the promised tweetable content of minsters' thoughts and reflections following key meetings and events is something rather more sinister sounding called "thought leadership". Also known as "linked blogging", the idea is that by highlighting relevant research, events, awards and other action elsewhere on the web, the department's Twitter feed gets a reputation as a reliable filter of high quality content.
whole piece here at the Guardian. The full document is here, composed by Neil Williams, who works for Peter Mandelson covering 'digital engagement' (and I just thought that meant shaking hands).
Do we want our taxpayers money spent on this?
... once anyone does follow a Whitehall Twitter stream it recommends they should automatically be "followed back" on the grounds that it is not only good etiquette, but could result in a poor Twitter reputation if not done ‑ and in extreme cases could lead to the account being suspended.
In urging his fellow Whitehall civil servants to use Twitter, Williams sets out several grounds rules for the kind of content that needs to make it work:
• Human: He warns that Twitter users can be hostile to the "over-use of automation" - such as RSS feeds – and to the regurgitation of press release headlines: "While corporate in message, the tone of our Twitter channel must therefore be informal spoken English, human-edited and for the most part written/paraphrased for the channel."
• Frequent: a minimum of two and maximum of 10 tweets per working day, with a minimum gap of 30 minutes between tweets to avoid flooding followers' Twitter streams. (Not counting @replies or live coverage of a crisis/event.) Downing Street spends 20 minutes on its Twitter stream with two-three tweets a day plus a few replies, five-six tweets a day in total.
• Timely: in keeping with the "zeitgeist" feel of Twitter, official tweets should be about issues of relevance today or events coming soon.
• Credible: while tweets may occasionally be "fun", their relationship to departmental objectives must be defensible.
Alongside the promised tweetable content of minsters' thoughts and reflections following key meetings and events is something rather more sinister sounding called "thought leadership". Also known as "linked blogging", the idea is that by highlighting relevant research, events, awards and other action elsewhere on the web, the department's Twitter feed gets a reputation as a reliable filter of high quality content.
whole piece here at the Guardian. The full document is here, composed by Neil Williams, who works for Peter Mandelson covering 'digital engagement' (and I just thought that meant shaking hands).
Do we want our taxpayers money spent on this?
The Weddings Project
Last weeks announcement on joint weddings & baptisms (summary of media coverage here - in the main fairly positive) is one of the fruits of The Weddings Project, a piece of research aimed at finding out what people think of church weddings, and how they rate their experiences.
There's more on Paul Bayes' Start the Week site, which summarises the project thus:
This Archbishops' Council initiative aims to increase the number of church weddings and to find ways of encouraging more people to stay in touch with the Christian community after participating in or attending a wedding. The third aim is to increase in the public mind the sense that the church of England is an enthusiastic believer in marriage (about 15 million adults in today's England either don't believe this or don't know).
From a research seminar earlier this year, here are some of the other findings:
- the number of weddings done in Anglican churches has dropped by 2/3 since 1970. 65% of weddings are now civil weddings. 11% are done abroad
- The vast majority of people think marriage is important to society (86% of marrieds, 64% of unmarrieds)
- Marriage is still seen as the best indicator of a committed relationship, ahead of having children together, moving in together, and a joint mortgage
- for men, their main reasons for getting married were to be 'more committed' and to 'complete the relationship', though 17% cited peer pressure. Women cited completing the relationship, and starting a family, though 12% just wanted 'to have a wedding'!
- the main reason for a church wedding is to have a 'proper wedding' (is this people trying to say something about God but not having the words?), and various other spiritual factors are important too.
- many feel nervous in approaching the church, and talk of "the fear the church instills in those who approach it", and that the vicar will "do an ofsted inspection on your life"
- over 90% are positive about their first contact with the vicar, and nearly 100% are happy with the wedding day itself. 78% found their vicar 'inspiring', and more than this rate the vicars words 'very appropriate'. We seem to be doing a good job. One researcher noted "these are the kind of figures Stalin used to get!"
it's also clear that many couples expect the church to keep in touch with them, something we're a bit mixed with. How we do this is another question!
Plenty to chew on, and I look forward to seeing what else the project uncovers.
There's more on Paul Bayes' Start the Week site, which summarises the project thus:
This Archbishops' Council initiative aims to increase the number of church weddings and to find ways of encouraging more people to stay in touch with the Christian community after participating in or attending a wedding. The third aim is to increase in the public mind the sense that the church of England is an enthusiastic believer in marriage (about 15 million adults in today's England either don't believe this or don't know).
From a research seminar earlier this year, here are some of the other findings:
- the number of weddings done in Anglican churches has dropped by 2/3 since 1970. 65% of weddings are now civil weddings. 11% are done abroad
- The vast majority of people think marriage is important to society (86% of marrieds, 64% of unmarrieds)
- Marriage is still seen as the best indicator of a committed relationship, ahead of having children together, moving in together, and a joint mortgage
- for men, their main reasons for getting married were to be 'more committed' and to 'complete the relationship', though 17% cited peer pressure. Women cited completing the relationship, and starting a family, though 12% just wanted 'to have a wedding'!
- the main reason for a church wedding is to have a 'proper wedding' (is this people trying to say something about God but not having the words?), and various other spiritual factors are important too.
- many feel nervous in approaching the church, and talk of "the fear the church instills in those who approach it", and that the vicar will "do an ofsted inspection on your life"
- over 90% are positive about their first contact with the vicar, and nearly 100% are happy with the wedding day itself. 78% found their vicar 'inspiring', and more than this rate the vicars words 'very appropriate'. We seem to be doing a good job. One researcher noted "these are the kind of figures Stalin used to get!"
it's also clear that many couples expect the church to keep in touch with them, something we're a bit mixed with. How we do this is another question!
Plenty to chew on, and I look forward to seeing what else the project uncovers.
Monday, July 27, 2009
All Quiet in the Cathedral
The Cathedral tour guide who never once mentioned God, Jesus, or the Christian faith during a tour of Salisbury is the topic of a couple of threads, one at Cranmer, and the original by Tim Montgomerie at Conservative Home.
Sharing the same tour was American blogger CrunchyCon, who also takes a dim view of the bookstore. He notes that during some recent time in England, there was increasing despair about society in general, and the church's response to social breakdown.
His post is not the whole story, but it's part of it.
I note in passing that there's a vigorous debate about assisted suicide going on at Conservative Home as well. I'm struggling to think of anything equivalent on a Christian-run blog. Maybe this backs up CrunchyCon's point - the moral discussions are, increasingly, bypassing the church. That's partly because we don't play knockabout/rentaquote, but it might also be because we're too scared of offending people to make clear and unequivocal statements.
Sharing the same tour was American blogger CrunchyCon, who also takes a dim view of the bookstore. He notes that during some recent time in England, there was increasing despair about society in general, and the church's response to social breakdown.
Tim's post brings to mind several conversations I've had with English Christians of various traditions on my travels here this summer. There is among them a very deep concern about the moral direction of this country, and what role exiling Christianity from the consciousness of the nation plays in this.
His post is not the whole story, but it's part of it.
I note in passing that there's a vigorous debate about assisted suicide going on at Conservative Home as well. I'm struggling to think of anything equivalent on a Christian-run blog. Maybe this backs up CrunchyCon's point - the moral discussions are, increasingly, bypassing the church. That's partly because we don't play knockabout/rentaquote, but it might also be because we're too scared of offending people to make clear and unequivocal statements.
Worship: Fridge or Radiator
Everybody Welcome is a new resource from Bob Jackson on making newcomers welcome in church. It's arrived just in time to be imbibed before Back to Church Sunday, and looks really good. It asks some basic but important questions:
- How many people 'try out' your church each year?
- Do they feel welcome?
- Do they come back?
- What would happen if 10%, 25% or even 50% of your visitors became regular members of your congregation?
Those last two are so important: what proportion of our visitors come back? Have we got used to it being 5% (or even worse 0%), when it could be much more than that?
Everybody Welcome is a 5 session course to help churches become more welcoming. There's a CofE news release, with outline of the course, a preview of the DVD (see below), and a substantial chunk of the accompanying book here. I was spoilt for choice for things to quote, but settled on this:
Not sure how much of this you'd guess from the coverage in the Telegraph 'Church tells worshippers to give special treatment to overweight or bald people'. I initially wondered if this was a story about bishops, but discovered it wasn't (bang goes my preferment!)
- How many people 'try out' your church each year?
- Do they feel welcome?
- Do they come back?
- What would happen if 10%, 25% or even 50% of your visitors became regular members of your congregation?
Those last two are so important: what proportion of our visitors come back? Have we got used to it being 5% (or even worse 0%), when it could be much more than that?
Everybody Welcome is a 5 session course to help churches become more welcoming. There's a CofE news release, with outline of the course, a preview of the DVD (see below), and a substantial chunk of the accompanying book here. I was spoilt for choice for things to quote, but settled on this:
So the question is this – how can we make our worship warm and genuine? This is not just a question for the vicar or the worship leader or the choir master. It is for all of us because the spiritual temperature of the event is mainly controlled by the spiritual temperature of our own hearts. How can I best allow the warmth of my own relationship with God to shine through my worship?This is about how I sing, how I pray, how I respond to the preacher’s joke, how I relate to people before the service, during the Peace and at the end. But it is also about how my relationship with God is nourished and sustained during the week. If I am used to praying and reading the Bible, and if I arrive a little early in order to prepare myself, then it is much more likely I will be one of the spiritual radiators in the church rather than one of the fridges.
Not sure how much of this you'd guess from the coverage in the Telegraph 'Church tells worshippers to give special treatment to overweight or bald people'. I initially wondered if this was a story about bishops, but discovered it wasn't (bang goes my preferment!)
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