In my day to day blog about what it's like to be a new Methodist minister, I've moaned about preaching and how I am seriously questioning its value. I even wrote an assignment on it for my MA. I came across this today from Jonny Baker which resonates with my own thinking.
What I want to do is to take this theme but take it further; to make theological reflections on a daily basis and to throw ideas around for each of us to consider then and ask where is God in my life today? I'm hoping that one of the things we do is to look at who we are - you know, answer those important questions...'who am I?' 'why am I here?' 'what's the meaning of life?'.
Somehow, I want to give us the opportunity of breaking out from a closed mindset of who God is because of what church is. I want to stop equating God with the worst aspects of church and rediscover him again in a new light.
I am also very anxious. 'Two degrees either side of the cross is a heretic' and I don't want anybody to fall away from God because of what I do but I do want to look afresh at the God of creation, the Holy spirit of new birth and the Son of life. So we will try to do what I pleaded for in my preaching assignment and that is church which is based on theological reflection. It's a tall order, but we all know it's an experiment, so let's give it a go!

In deciding what my aims are here, I am already defeating part of the object of the experiment. It's been my experience that some Christian leaders seem to mess up people's lives rather than help them on their way, so my aim is to steer people to what God is already doing in their lives, which means a differnt type of leadership. My hope is that in all of this, God meets us in the everyday events of life and in each other's lives. A personal text for me here is John 4 - meeting Jesus at the well.

So far we have a wide range of people interested and what was originally intended for busy people has attracted those for whom conventional church does not always currently provide the answers to questions, so before we begin, we have changed a little from the original plan - I will have to expect that if I am holding this loosely.

Objectives:

1. Try to establish a living community 7 days per week that doesn't have to meet weekly


2. Consider an embryonic dispersed monastic community with a rhythm of life


3. Become missional, incarnational, and discover Christian spirituality


4. Be as leaderless as possible


5. Encourage everyone to participate with the Starbucks mantra, 'The Way I See It'


6. To discover that God is active by seeing Him at work in others

There are alot of objectives here and I do not anticipate that they will be met in everyone, but rather that everyone can access them if that is their need. Some of us have been Christians for a long time and others of us would not consider ourselves Christian at all but are critical of Church. We are a broad group but if God is real, then He is active in us all - right here, right now at this time.

Not long now

Just a few weeks away now. I don't think I've had any response to the advertising in the village magazines (with the exception below) nor to the ad in the library. What I did was to leaflet houses in a particular village and now I have had two firm responses. Someone from the other side of the world (literally) phoned me as they had received the village magazine and wanted my e mail address, but I haven't heard from them as yet.

My hope was not to get people who are already active in churches as they bring with them lots of preconceived ideas of who God is/isn't. My hope is to get people who are interested in (re)discovering God in a fresh new way. In fact, I want to do that too. This means that we will be relying on God to lead and direct us in a new way. In the next post I'll outline what I want to achieve, but it really is up to God.

Can I do this with two people? Is this Church? Can it survive with so few people? I hope we will have two more people to start with, but I'm not in charge here.

Where?

Beckie's question (27 Sept) is a good one - where will it be? The tricky thing here, is that I've no idea yet. What I want to do is to see if we can look at leadership differently for this experiment. Consequently, it's the people who will decide where and when we meet...exciting! If I had my way, I'd like to meet in Starbucks, but only because it sets the scene. They enculturate this idea of the 'The Way I See It' and it's on their paper cups. I want us to discover and share the way we see God and what he might be calling us to rather than me dictate my own ideas. I'll post my aims later for the experiment, but for now I'm trying to hold this very loosely.

The advert is also going into the local village magazine which is widely read. I still think I won't get anyone like this, but I'll give it a go. I'll start to ask people directly from now on.

So where do I find these searchers? Not sure. My feeling is to keep on keeping on. It feels right to pursue this line even though my head tells me that in less than two months we need to be up and running and it's not looking likely. So what I've done is put up an ad in my beloved library. The library is one of those central meeting points in the village. Mums and Dads come in with or without their children. Old and young pop in and there's free coffee and tea on a Friday afternoon. It's a focal point for the community... The library manager will look at my ad tomorrow to see if it's suitable and hopefully put it up. Am I being faithful to scripture here? Well, Paul goes into the market place and engages with the locals who on the face of it seem to be strangers. He adapts his message accordingly by reasoning with the Stoics and Epicureans. More importantly perhaps, he engages with the culture of those he wants to reach...so into the library I go! Provided it's legal and not immoral, I'll do whatever it takes to see if I can get a few intrepid souls to give this a go. My concern is that people will think it's a process evangelism course and will givbe it a very wide birth.

Who?

At last, September 1st has been and gone. I've moved into the manse; started to understand more about what it means to be a Methodist minister in a rural location; learning the ropes and discovering the people in my three churches plus those in the other six in the circuit. So where do my people for a 'church' for the too busy come from? The reality is that I don't know anyone here well enough to know who is too busy. In fact I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that no body here is too busy to go to church. So what do I do? I'm re-thinking this whole idea...is it a good idea? Well, I still think it is and I am sure there are loads of people who are otherwise engaged on a Sunday morning doing things like having contact time with children and visiting elderly relatives. Sundays are nolonger free; they are already accounted for in daily living and if you want to see someone on a Sunday you need to book it up well in advance.

I recently had a Churches Together in Shepley meeting where I said that we were going to do a Cafe Christmas service - on a Saturday night. It was met with much encouragement. Sundays will not do! However, where will the people for this new community come from? Do I follow the example of Jesus and go looking for them? Not really. I don't know them (yet) and Jesus appears to have known his disciples for a long time. I am tempted to advertise in the local paper/village magazine. The problem is that it might end up as a group for new Christians and the reflection might just suffer for it. I'll think about it, but if you have any ideas, let me know.

It's been more than a month now since my last post. Not surprising really since very little is planned to happen before September 1st. But that's my issue: Time and Control. In our lives of perpetual motion there has to be time to stop to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying; giving up control for the Trinity to have their say. So do I say, 'right this is what I am going to do'? or 'this is what we have decided to do'? or 'this is what God has said we should do'? or maybe it should be some where in between (I hate sitting on the fence!). I think my question is how should this begin?' and it feels like trying to ride a bike for the first time. Looking at one of the traditional texts on this subject, Avery Dulles in Models of Church critically looks at different models of church that have evolved over time. So should we start off withthe intention of being a Herald or Servant or Sacramental or something else? As I write, Florida is the buzz word. It seems that most of our emerging churches have their heritage in charismatic renewal but it is something which has been formative in today's newer churches rather than intentionally practised. If God is on the move again in a very obvious way, I don't want to miss out and ignore it. Does Todd Bentley's involvement here need to be more seriously considered? Or does it require a mix of Pete Ward's Liquid Church (which he says he has never seen) and something else? My only limitation at this stage is that it has to be an emerging 'church', so does emerging church have to emerge again into something quite different and what does that mean for this pioneer attempt? If you are thinking that I am asking more questions than I am answering, then I think Jesus did the same, so I'm on firm ground here - at least for the moment!