More wisdom of Eugene Peterson

Yet more quotes from the excellent 'Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places'

“It is the devil's own work to detach the language of salvation from the setting of salvation, to separate words from personal relationships, to make salvation a ‘cause’ or a ‘project’ that can be conducted as efficiently and impersonally as possilbe. But the gospel will not permit it.”

“For a people like us, trained in a culture of getting things done (pragmatism) and taking care of ourselves (individualism) sacrifice doesn’t seem at all obvious, neither does it seem attractive....(but) the way we share in Jesus work is to live a sacrificial life in his name. "

“I didn’t come to the conviction easily, but finally there was no getting around it: there can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion and embrace of community.”

“People can think correctly and behave rightly and worship politely and still live badly – live anaemic lives, individualistically self-enclosed lives, live bored and insipid and trivial lives.”

“Sectarianism is to community what heresy is to theology, a wilful removal of a part from ten whole. The part is, of course, good – a work of God. But apart from the whole it is out of context and therefore diminished, disengaged from what it needs from the whole and from what the whole needs from it… we wouldn’t put up with an art dealer cutting up Rembrandt into 2 inch squares and selling them off, so why do we so often positively delight and celebrate the dividing up of the Jesus community into contentious and competitive groups?”

“The impulse to sectarianism has its roots in selfism, the conceit that I don’t need others as they are but only for what they can do for me. Selfism reduces life to my appetites and needs and preferences.”

Peterson argues, in section 3 of the book (on 'Community') that our preferences for sects of the like-minded over communities (which are much messier) is just an expression of our individualism, and the idolatrous belief that we can organise community better than God can. If we gather with others in the name of Jesus, but restrict who we gather with in accordance with our own preferences and prejudices, then this is simply narcissism - self-love - worked out in relationships. It's not real community, and it's not real church.

The trouble is that the internet makes it easier than ever to join communities of the like-minded and find reinforcement for our own points of view (or prejudices, depending on how you name them!). As such, whilst facilitating debates between people who'd not otherwise have met, it also makes it a lot easier to organise partisan groupings. The Anglican church already seems to have more of these than it has members (Forward in Faith, Affirming Catholicism, Modern Churchpeoples Union, Reform, New Wine, Anglican Mainstream, Accepting Evangelicals, Church Society, to name just the ones I can think of off the top of my head). I accept that some of these have roots in other things than just espousing a particular point of view (e.g. New Wine, which I belong to), or predate the internet, but I can't help thinking that the Paul who wrote 1 Corinthians chapter 1, with it's stern rebuke of partisan groupings in the church, would be less than impressed.

Blog and Politics links

Following the party conference season, a couple of interesting links:

Cranmer, widely respected Christian/political blogger, has some thoughtful comments on the Conservatives, Islam, and the mixed morality of John Prescott

Peter Ould has got hold of a video shown at the Tory conference, very well put together.

I have to say I find what Cameron says about a 'broken society' and about the environment much more on the button than Labour, but against that is all the work Brown has done on poverty relief and debt cancellation for the developing world. I'm just sad there won't be an election, I just love opinion polls. Yes, I'm that sad.

Happy Birthday

Both to my Dad, and to a yearsworth of blogging here. According to the stats, there are 242 posts up here, and 2,444 folk have visited so far. Whoever you are, have a nice day and God bless you.

Dangerous dog collars

Several people had a word with me this morning after hearing the news item on clergy and how wearing dog collars makes us a target for attack. An organisation called 'National Churchwatch' is recommending that clergy don't wear collars unless necessary to minimise the risk of being attacked. There is the serious point of 5 clergy murdered in the last 10 years, and the high level of attacks on clergy in certain areas (a prominent vicarage - often the only sizeable home in a neighbourhood - can be an easy target. I knew a vicar in Nottingham who'd been burgled 70 times in 9 years, and a curate in the same parish had bricks thrown through the window, narrowly missing their newborn child).

I guess I'm fortunate in having a vicarage that is just a normal house in a normal (ish) street, nowhere near the church, so it can function pretty much like a normal family home. We're also in a good neighbourhood, so there isn't the sense of siege that I know some clergy families experience. But there's something else here, which is about a culture of fear and whether to succumb to it - I don't want to be walking round wondering who's got it in for me, it builds a barrier between me and other people, and sets me against the community I'm trying to serve. I won't be wearing my dog collar any less, but that might be because I don't experience any sense of threat. Also, there are Christians in other countries who face a much higher level of danger than I do for their faith. For example in Sudan, Christians are denied food aid unless they convert to Islam, and then they are victims of a punitive law which forbids Muslims converting to other faiths. In Burma, Christian villages are routinely raided by the gun squads, and thousands of Christians have ended up in refugee camps along the Thai border.

Meanwhile, I think bishops lifestyles put them in the high risk category...

cartoon originally posted at Dave Walkers blog

Bear with me

It's been a pretty mad week, I've taken on far too much and am suffering for it, thankfully by this time tomorrow it will be over and things will be much quieter next week. Lots of stuff to blog about too - great church planting conference on Thurs, stuff about the Anglican church, various links etc.

Just for today, here's one I've been feasting on for visuals for tomorrows talk on creation. It's the Hubble Space Telescope site - the link is pix from 2006, but there's lots from every year, and some blurb to go with them. The cosmos is such an amazing place, and to think that God made it all then chose to focus his attention and love upon us is just mindblowing. It must be great for God too - here are views that only He has been able to see, for billions of years, and now he can share them with us. I love sharing the stuff I enjoy with my own children and seeing them enjoy it too (got them cheering the rugby today - England were fantastic). How much more fun must it be for God......?

National Estate Churches Network

Just had a flier emailed about a conference on ministry in housing estates, organised the National Estate Churches Network. Not come across them before, but they seem to specialise in supporting work on council estates, urban ministry, and urban renewal. The conferences are coming up in the next few weeks in London, Bristol and somewhere else I can't remember.

Here's an extract from the blurb
This year the National Estate Churches Network is holding a conference with a difference. The event is being offered in three locations to make access easier for everyone. The unifying element will be the main speaker Rebecca Tunstall, London School of Economics, author of “25 years on 20 Estates: Turning the Tide?” Each event will illustrate Rebecca’s insights with local experience and stories. Our second speaker in Bristol is Sarah Turner from Birmingham who will speak from her experience of the churches’ role in acting as agents of renewal.

More details on the website, if this is your thing.

Musical Bumps

Cracking debate going on at the moment on Damian Thomsons blog about contemporary church music. It's from a Catholic perspective, but hearing some of the samples posted on his site might actually make traditional Anglicans glad that they only have to sing Bowater and Kendrick in the 'its time for a modern song' slot.

In the meantime, a Bristol choir has put itself up for auction, because they're upset at changes in church life aimed at attracting newcomers. The link takes you to a news clip from the 'points West' local news bulletin last night. Worth watching. The 2nd church featured in the site, Woodlands church, has an interesting website here. What struck me most was how young most of the staff are compared to many Anglican churches. It was hard to work out what sort of church it was, as they use a traditional church building but don't seem to be part of any particular denomination or network.

The other interesting thing is that they are one church with several congregations, each with its own congregational leader, all of which meet in different places. My local is facing the issue of how do we grow beyond the limitations of a building which can only seat 80-90 people. We had, it turns out, 12 extra people on 'Back to Church Sunday', but there literally isn't room for the whole congregation in the church. Doubling up on a Sunday (or, more radically, a 2nd congregation on a different day of the week), is one of the obvious options, though it also involves extra work. There's then the question of whether you have a particular leadership team for each congregations, and how that works alongside trying to remain a single church with a single vision.

They came back

Though I wasn't there, I gather we had several extra people at our 'Back to Church Sunday' service yesterday. One person I asked said she couldn't tell whether we had many new faces because she was in the side chapel - which is where our overspill seating is! It seems to have encouraged a few folk to come along, but will they be there next week......?

Bit of a mad week this week, lots of things which are a bit out of the ordinary, and involve extra thought and planning:
- this morning, 'start the week' prayers at our local primary school, which started up today, a mixture of parents, staff, governors and children, praying for the school community for 10m before the Monday morning bell.
- this evening: a 'vision evening' at a local village church which is trying to come to terms with life without their 'own vicar'.
- tomorrow evening: speaking to the church council of one of Yeovil's larger churches about our plans for mission in new housing areas, and encouraging them to think about whether folk from their church should be part of the mission teams.
- Saturday morning: harvest service at a local garden centre
- Saturday evening: our first church 'film night', using Al Gores 'An Inconvenient Truth', I'm hoping to lay hold of an easy-to use carbon footprint calculator, to help folk think about ways they can green their lifestyles.

So, a fairly quiet week.....