Risking Failure

I was asked to submit some reflections on an Urban Expression value:

We recognise the importance of taking risks and the demands of mission in the inner city, and we believe that it is acceptable to fail.

I did this in the form of the following mind map, which you might need to click on to view:

Church Meeting

As many of you know I’m part of a small community of ‘Jesus followers’ living in Shard End and officially we are a church planting team…what this church looks like or who will be a part of it we have no idea…but on this road you have to ask yourselves some questions, you may not want to, but I think I’m finding they are necessary…recently this small community went away for 24 hours to ask ourselves these questions…

Again those of you who know me know I’m not fond of the structures and the institutions that are part of church and we as a community have been tiptoeing around them but as we have delved deeper we have had to hit them straight on…we’ve had to learn that in some strange way in order to be something you need some formality. I thought about it like this: what you believe (in my mind) has to be accompanied by some kind of action – otherwise you don’t really believe it, you just want to believe it, like the budding environmentalist with a 4×4 who leaves the heating on through the summer obviously isn’t much of an environmentalist – and action, not always but especially collaborative action, will require some kind of organisation, that is some structure or form…

We have been pushed over these 24 hours to discover our form. To answer: what does your community look like? What makes you distinctive? If someone wanted to join your community what does that mean for them? These questions lead you into a structure of sorts…

For me this discussion was both exciting and repelling. It was exciting because we were saying ‘well, what does Jesus’ message look like in Shard End’; we were bringing Jesus to a new context. It was repelling because we were essentially have a very long church meeting and it felt a little like we were repeating a convocation that many new denominations would have had when they first started and the last thing we want is another denomination.

Another denomination we are not, another expression we are. We would never hold on to our structure so tightly to say that this is the only way. Our structure is loose so that we don’t become bound by it; it is up for debate and change and it will change. Our structure isn’t built with solid exclusive boundaries but with hazy lines and shades of grey so hopefully there is a place for all.

Advent Space

Advent for me has always been about calenders, maybe a picture and maybe a chocolate.

This year a group of us have agreed that daily, at least one of us, would hold 30 minutes of ‘space’ – space to think, reflect and ponder. Space to perhaps be silent, read, draw, light a candle, think or sleep.

We’re not going to be to legalistic about it, we take weekends off and I’m sure we’ll miss a few days here and there, but I offer it up to you to join us. Can you find half an hour in your day, we start at 8pm, to put everything down, stop and just have 30 minutes of ‘space’…

On the road again…

Yesterday I was prompted to write this at the Urban Expression Associates Day, so thought I’d share:

 

How long is the road ahead?

How deep does the rabbit hole go?

How clear are the signs in front?

How muddy do the waters get?

Show me the way o Lord

Guide me to your path

Lead me to your narrow way

Steer me in the right direction

Though I know not the destination

The journey is more than enough

 

Re-Imagining Hope

This weekend I was at something called Crucible (http://www.urbanexpression.org.uk/crucible), a training weekend for those who are beginning to re-imagine church. The theme of the week was re-imagining hope.

 

It’s interesting to consider what is it we hope for, what we are striving for.

 

Our hope was encapsulated in the concept of Shalom.

 

Shalom is a Hebrew word often translated as peace, but it is not a passive word and extends well beyond peace as we know it. It is better understood as ‘whole’, ‘complete’ or ‘Harmony’ or the phrases ‘everything in its right place’ or ‘everything as it should be’.

 

Shalom is concerned with the individual, the other, the natural cosmos and God.

 

Recently I have begun to see a picture of the future that I can get excited about, work towards and hope for. It is the vision I think the prophets and Jesus talk about in the Bible – a vision of Shalom, of the Kingdom of God. A vision that we are in partnership with God working towards (or against)– he needs us and we need him…

 

But I hope this vision isn’t just idle theology and not just a place to go to once I die. The new vision I see is of a re-newed Earth.

 

Is it really to hard to perceive that as a global community we could eradicate extreme poverty and give everyone access to clean water? That we can defeat HIV/Aids and cancer? That we might no longer resort to violent negotiations and inhuman sanctions? That we can live in a way that restores and respects the environment? And that we can live in neighbourhoods full of friendly and trust worthy communities?

 

Perhaps these things are only as hard to imagine and hope for as it has been for our ancestors to imagine a black president or a woman prime minister, or the abolition of slavery, or near eradication of cholera and TB, or diverse communities home to the church, mosque and synagogue, or woman votes, or the implementation of just war theory and the Geneva convention, or vast complex sanitation networks, or democracy itself…

 

You see the human race has come so far already and we have so far to go. If we keep perusing Shalom who knows how close we will be to putting everything right by the year 2050, or 2500, or 3000…

 

Hope is a powerful thing and this is a vision I would like to hope and strive for. It is the people of hope, those with a dream, who cause the tipping points, the revolutions, the changes…and I’d like to be part, albeit a small part, or the cure rather than the disease…wouldn’t you?