A Juicafe in Lancaster

I'm ashamed about the length of time since i last blogged.... blah, blah, blah...

The good thing is that i'm in Lancaster for a few days this week on a retreat, staying in a lovely flat, playing on my computer, listening to music, reading & praying - really chilled out and informal. It has been great. I love Lancaster, it is rapidly becoming one of my favourite places - if the Methodist Stationing committee are reading this, please take note for the future! The last time i was here i was bereaved to find that the Juicafe had closed. It was a cool little wifi juice bar with a lovely atmosphere, friendly staff and a lovely quirkiness about it. A few times i even blogged from there such was its specialness!

How upset i was to find it no longer there on my last stay. Yesterday, by accident, i discovered that actually it still existed, just in a different place. I know this sounds ridiculous, but i can't explain how exited and full of joy i was to find it once again. And so here i am today, spilling my thoughts as i sat drinking a lovely latte, which was accompanied by possibly the nicest piece of toast ever in the history of the world!!!

This rediscovery of the juicafe made me ponder on a few things i had re-discovered over the last few days. Firstly, i had rediscovered my passion for Methodism. Now, please don't misunderstand me, i am a realist, (unlike my current superintendent). I don't believe our denomination is healthy, i don't believe it has direction or purpose, i don't believe it is following God's leading on the whole, i find our structures outdated, irrelevant and often hindering to the work of ministry today. I felt all this last week and still feel it today. What i've rediscovered is a love for it nonetheless. Perhaps it is that God is raising up more and more people who love Him and love His church and long to see it reformed and renewed. I count myself among those, and am passionate about it. Maybe God can still work something spectacular even within Methodism.

Secondly, i have re-discovered my passion for renewal. I have just read David Watson's autobiography and found it a bit like reading (through someone else's words and life) all of your own passions and convictions - its just that i'd forgotten them! I still long, more than anything else for God to renew His church. Where i've shifted is that, i often believed and longed for the renewal of our whole denomination. Maybe that will come, maybe it won't, what i do believe is that God can and will renew individual lives, whatever badge of Christianity they happen to wear. So i am exited and delighted in the lives i have seen changed throughout the duration of 'my' ministry and am exited about all the other lives that God will surely renew and touch. I find once again, that i have more passion for one person's faith to be rekindled and revitalised than i do for a thousand 'heathens' to come to Christ. Maybe that's slightly heretical, but that's where i'm at.

Lastly, i have re-discovered a challenge to discipleship. I shared with some colleagues this week that i felt God had shown me gently and mercifully that i had become so obsessed with building a good church, achieving growth and success as a church leader that i had lost any care for the individual lives that go to make that up. Now, almost every church i have been involved in has seen numerical growth, i expect that to continue, but for me, it must be through a focus on individuals finding transformation and hope for themselves and then joining the faith community, rather than just focusing on numbers on a sheet of connexional returns.

I was lamenting that i had somewhat wasted my time in Lancaster yesterday, but perhaps my rediscovery of the juicafe, prompted a closer examination of the things God is re-surfacing in me. At this rate, i should be fully recovered from the drab environment of theological college in only another 10 years or so!

MET

I'm rather ashamed as i looked at the last date that i posted on here. For anyone that is reading this and cares where i have been, we have had a chaotic summer in our circuit that only convinces me further how ridiculous and how limited our British Methodist Circuit system is.

Anyway, i'll take another time to rehearse my white-hot passion against Circuits, i want to try and be a bit more positive today. I've just come back from the Executive Committee of MET - Methodist Evangelicals Together - a group within British Methodism that prays for and seeks the renewal of God's church and a rediscovery of the wonderful timeless truths of Scriptures.

We gathered at Cliff College for 24 hours and i was amazed that even as we discussed our work in the context of a business meeting - not unlike a church council - what a difference it makes when each are committed to a common aim. Maybe i am being naieve, but i didn't detect much hint of people wanting to force their own agenda, people were curteous and there seemed to be a common commitment to love and serve our denomination. I contrast this with so many meetings at various levels within the life of the church that seem to forget the common cause of 'our movement' and descend into anarchic, aggressive confrontation!

I have church councils this week on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday and i wonder whether the same vision and desire for the Kingdom will be present in them? Will decisions be made in the spirit of prayer and openness? Will someone come and force their agenda on others?

The meeting did much to encourage a very disenchanted and disillusioned minister (me) who has spent more time looking for other jobs recently than anything else it seemed, and reminded me that i am not alone, there are others in our connexion thta fast, pray, preach towards and long to see God's church grow downwards and outwards, in depth and in number and believe that as we seek the empowering of God's Spirit, through Jesus our Saviour, then God will surely bless us in inumerable ways.

Lastly, the term 'evangelical' can often be a banner for some to wave or a barrier for others so i encourage you to check out the MET website and maybe get your hands on a copy of our magazine, MET Connexion and see whether this movement maybe a source of God's blessing to you and your congregation. www.met-uk.org

Baptism

Having exhausted all the various links and metaphors to do with sewing and the church i thought i would try and use this space to just share my thoughts and reflections on what i end up doing on a day to day basis.

In the last fortnight i have been contacted by four different couples all requesting a christening for their new-born child. Of these four, two couples have remote connections with the church and the other two have no connection at all.

I'm always grateful for the opportunity to have a cup of coffee with people outside the recognised Christian community. I nearly always find the conversation more real, getting to the heart of real issues and real views far quicker than i do with church members and far far more quicker than i do with fellow church leaders. The coffee is nearly always good quality, the baby nearly always is adorable and cute, and their ignorance of what they really want for their baby is nearly always the same. Or should i say, the churches inability to provide for what they really want and need is often the real issue.

As a Methodist we are thoroughly confused over our sacramental theology. We receive two sacraments, the Lord's supper (communion) and baptism. We believe in the priesthood of all believers yet for the sake of 'good order' only ordained presbyters have the automatic right to lead communion services. We see baptism as an equal sacrament to communion but anyone who has been baptised can baptise another - it seems inconsistent.

Then we get on to, what is for me the real crux of the issue. My experience tells me that people want a right of passage after birth to celebrate the new status of the family and the arrival of the new-born child. This is natural. Human beings throughout our existence have sought rites and rituals to mark significant events. So the church instead of offering promoting as the norm a rite of thanksgiving - where the child is acknowledged as a gift from God and God's blessing is prayed over the child, we offer this ridiculous, thoroughly unbiblical rite of Christian baptism. Why?

Why do we 1) expect and 2) pretend that this heavily Christian rite is suitable for non-church families? Where is the biblical precedent for baptising as a baby? Where is the biblical precedent for baptising those of no faith? The answer to all of the above is of course, nowhere. Yet we still use as the norm this rite of infant baptism that makes a total sham of the act of worship that includes it and causes the leader of worship, parents and godparents and often the congregation too to proceed in a service where everyone's integrity is questioned and compromised. Why, when Jesus was so concerned with honest and openness, exposing the Pharisees hypocrisy for what it was, bringing what was corrupt and hidden into the revealing light, do we continue to act as though integrity before God in worship doesn't matter? Why? Why? Why?

As a minister i pedal a very thin line sometimes on this. I offer as the norm a service of thanksgiving and blessing (based on the act in the Methodist Worship Book) and emphasise its benefits, and explain the potential compromises of integrity that a baptismal service would entail. I then make it clear that i leave the decision with the parents and if they feel they can say the credal statements, answer questions of faith and make the promises then fine - they take responsibility. I end up christening/baptising the majority - with a very heavy heart, utterly unconvinced of the appropriateness of what we are doing.

It is of course, the common understanding that all Methodist Ministers may not refuse to baptise. This, to my astonishment is found nowhere in CPD - the rule book of UK Methodism - and gives licence to refuse baptism and only offer thanksgiving where it is appropriate.

The only justification i can find at the moment to continue to baptise infants is that it opens a door to evangelism - it guarantees a number of visitors to church and gives an opportunity to speak of God's love and Christ to a fresh set of people. If evangelism is the sole justification i can find, i guess i have to always way up whether a refusal to baptise and an insistence on thanksgiving would do more to close the door of God's grace or open it.

3) A blend of the two

To all you dedicated followers of my ramblings can i offer my profound apologies for the lack of input. My job - as a Methodist Minister - has been causing me (and others) a lot of stress recently and so any thought of discussing or thinking about the future of the church has made me want to run away yet alone blog about it.

In my previous two posts i have continued this idea of the church as a work of cross-stitch. I have suggested that one option for the future of the church is to unpick the old design and completely replace it, another is to just keep things as they are, close our eyes and hope for the best - this incredibly innovative option the Methodist church appears to have adopted - but there is perhaps a third way.

As i consider my own working context and the churches that i minister with i am struck that neither of the previous options is workable. To leave things as they are fails to address the varying and transient needs of our community and the culture in which we live. Also though, to ditch everything without reserve will only seek to alienate another section of our community not to mention the people in the congregations without whose contribution anything new won't be possible.

I favour an option which i viewed in Utley, just outside Bradford in Yorkshire. This is a multi-congregational church without being massive. There are four separate congregations meeting (i think) on Sunday morning, Sunday eve, Fri eve and Tues morning. These congregations are individual, separate entities within the life of one church. They all are part of the one parish church yet exist as independent congregations. People are asked to buy into and commit seriously to one form of church - and one form only yet to view it all as part of the building of the Kingdom through this one umbrella local church community.

Sunday morning is fairly typical of British churches, the evening more contemporary and relaxed. Friday eve is totally different aimed at young adults and centred around food, film, discussion and Tuesday morning at parents and toddler bracket.

Within my own structures of the Methodist Church - it would be possible to release people for service and ministry within the context of their own congregation only. It perhaps frees people from the obstructions of wanting to progress and be creative and other people stopping that.

Surely this is one way in which the old pattern can continue as long as it does and the new is able to thrive and grow without the restrictions of traditional church but with the safeguards and experiences that comes from being rooted in an established church.

As the old pattern remains, new patterns are able to be stitched over. This will probably mean that in years to come the old pattern will be unable to be viewed - although glimpses of it may poke through from time to time, but is that such a tragedy. If God moves us to another phase of church and ministry which happens to look different surely that is OK?

I guess though some will be impatient. To unpick everything and re-stitch a new pattern is cleaner, more slick, and probably quicker than trying to stitch a new pattern over the top of an older one. There will be times in when new stitch is being sown over the old where it will be difficult, where the blend of old and new colours clash, times when the needle will find it easy and hard to get through the gauze. But isn't it far more in the nature of God for him to stitch a pattern that is eclectic and even at times looks completely random only for it to contain the genius of His innovation, creativity and planning.

If any of my church leaders at Wheatley Lane are reading this, then what do you think? If anyone else is reading what do you think? If God is reading - what does He think?

Come Holy Spirit, stitch something new in our midst and help us to work out something of what you are doing.

2) away with the old and in with the new

One of my friends said to me yesterday the church as we know it is dead. There was a sense of passion, conviction and certainty in his voice. It was in many ways a bit like a death-nell in the coffin in the church as people like me have inherited it.

A week before this i was talking to another wise woman in the faith and said to her 'if we were doing church from scratch - the way we do it in the Methodist Church would be the last way we do it.' She agreed and i then asked why on earth we continue to peddle this out-dated, out of shape way of being church.

One of the options then for the church is surely to ditch all the baggage and cumbersomeness we have inherited and start all over again. One option has to be to scrap the old patterns faithfully woven and displayed and replace them with more modern more vibrant designs and patterns of church that look contemporary, attract younger more driven people and generally reflect the energy and vitality of God more closely and clearly. One option is to move our resources in a heavily imbalanced way towards the emerging church for surely there is no hope or future in the current mould. To continue the imagery of cross-stitch church the time may well have come to unpick the current design and start all over again. Practically that means the closure of chapels and congregations with no purpose and vision and whose values and ethos reflects little of the DNA of the church as expressed in the New Testament. If people are going to be left astray or not come to church anymore then it simply confirms their lack of commitment or vibrant faith anyway. Something which seems all to obvious to me as a pastor all too often but which is never said for fear of upsetting people.

If the church is to be relevant, fresh, closer to Jesus and a better reflection of God the Great Artist's nature then the quickest and most efficient way is to agree NOW that the old has indeed gone and the new is come.

This IS an option for the church. Maybe someone will be brave enough to run with it someday soon. Maybe someone will be brave enough to unpick a cherished design and ask God what He wants to stitch now in 2009.

The Cross-stitch church - what will happen to the pattern? 1) Leave it as it is?

I'm reading currently Martyn Atkins' book Resourcing Renewal and have found it surprisingly optimistic in its view of traditional church or 'inherited church' as Martyn calls it. He tells tales of inherited churches that have found renewal and have therefore made strides towards actually living and breathing something of what 'real' church is about. For me, reflecting on the image of church as a peice of cross-stitch there are three main options for what could possibly happen next. Remembering the concept of the church being the pattern and design woven by God the Great Artist the first option is to leave the pattern as it is.

In a number of the homes of people in my congregation there are cross-stitch designs hung up on the wall, or propped up on the mantle peice, my own grandparents have many in their living room. They are of country scenes, maybe churches, maybe trains or other vehicles, but one thing is for certain the design has always been what the design is. It is no doubt an expression of creativity, a work of art, but once it has been created that is it - it will always be what it will be - a dormant, inactive work of cross-stitch. I guess this is the first major point as to why this image of the church as cross-stitch breaks down. God is consistently longing to remake and remould what He has created, it His plan for individuals and surely is His plan for communities of faith also. A peice of cross-stitch cannot be remade or remould, its exists as it is. Or does it? (i will reflect on this next time).

So we're left with the question - does God want to leave the church like those cross-stitch designs in old people's homes - left to gather dust, never changing or evolving? It is my firm conviction that to answer 'yes' to this question is to misunderstand the character and personhood of God fundamentally as revealed in the Scriptues and revealed in human experience. Surely churches that are content to let things be as they always have been will end up gathering dust, will decay and continue to function detached from an experience or understanding of who God is and what He is like. One option for the church is to leave things as they are, ignoring signs of decay, but surely this isn't really an option.

Also PS to Joe Hildred, i shamefully forgot again! But have put a reminder on my phone for sunday eve. PPS i stuffed Lincoln on Football Manager.

The Cross-Stitch Church - The Great Artist

Of all the great images of God in the Scriptures, in poetry or in fiction the one that appeals to me most at the moment is of God as the Great Artist. I love CS Lewis' portrayal of God as Aslan with all that that comes to mean for the Narnia parables, i love the Old Testament pictures of God as the 'Ancient of Days' or 'Fountain of Life' but at the moment the idea of God as the Great Artist is really appealing to me - maybe because much of my thinking is around the idea of the church as a peice of creative expression.

Following on with that theme, if the gauze is the world, the church the beautifully expressive design within that world or the thread, the needle the church leaders who pull the thread into position then there can be no other place to go than to view God as the designer par excellence - the Great Artist.

I have hope for the church, not based on it's beauty, not based even on its people (you should see some of the one's i have to deal with!!). My hope for the church is based in my hope and belief in a God who is creative, a God who loves to design, a God who loves to weave exiting and interesting patterns all over the place therefore reflecting His own image of beauty and dynamism. My hope for the church rests soley in my hope in the Great Designer. In the metaphor of the church as a peice of cross-stitch i believe the arist who holds the needle, who weaves the pattern onto the gauze is the the Ancient of Days, the Fountain of Life, the Living God mysteriously and wonderfully Three wrapped up in One.

Perhaps though, even though i am blantantly stating the obvious in what's written above, it serves as a challenge to each of us who are followers of Jesus and therefore a part of the church. If God is weaving a design, do i trust the future of the church to Him or continue to fret? If God is the Great Designer, do i as a church leader need to continue to run around in a mad panic subconsciously believing that the whole future and ministry of the church rests on me or do i relax and try to let the design unfold before my very eyes? If God is stitching the pattern what is it to be?

I guess its the last question - 'what is God doing?' that consumes so much of our thinking. Surely all of us in ministry - which means all followers of Jesus - have the task not of trying to drum up some action for God to bless, but to see where He is already at work, weaving His expressive and wonderful design and attempting to find ways to be a part of that. The question still remains though 'what is God doing?'. Again, i remind myself (even if no-one cares!) that i started this blog to attempt to try and unravel for myself some of my thinking about the church. Is the church of Jesus Christ in its traditional western form coming to an end? Is God doing a new thing? I hope to explore that more and more in the days and weeks to come. If you have an answer, me and i guess thousands of other church leaders would love to hear it.