Session One – Loving People

The situation facing the church in the UK is not unlike that which faced the Jewish people dragged off into exile in Babylon. Read Psalm 137, and you quickly get a sense of how painful their loss was. Consider the emotions which are expressed in this psalm – bitterness, loss, injustice, humiliation, a desire for vengeance. The presence of the psalm reminds us it’s ok to bring such feelings to God in prayer, but we need to think seriously about how we process such feelings.

We are now a minority. Only 6-7% of the British population are involved in churches, and we don’t feel ‘at home’ in our society like we used to. This leads to a strong desire that we have to blame certain people and groups for what is happening in our culture.

Think about the people we struggle to love:

The growing Muslim community

Secularists/the ‘new atheists’

The media

We need to think seriously about how we love ‘the other,’ those who are different to us. We also need to understand that to love others is to pass on the love we ourselves have experienced on God. You might it helpful to reflect on a passage Sian read, John 15:1-17, which speaks of the centrality of love.

You may also want to take time giving to God the people you find it hard to love, reflecting on the following questions:

Why do I find it hard to love this person?

What does their presence do to me/

What thoughts and feelings do they raise in me?

What do they teach me about myself?

How do I feel about that?

Church weekend 2012

We’re just back from a wonderful church weekend in Cleobury Mortimer, spending time in the company of Sian and Stuart Murray-Williams, who were so helpful to us in thinking through the themes of loving people, forming habits and challenging powers. I’ll be posting notes from each of these sessions. It would be wonderful to hear your feedback on the ideas we discussed, how you were encouraged and challenged, and the ways in which we can live out these values in our YWBC.

Worship - looking for the next hit?

Now I know where I’ve been going wrong. All the time I thought I was leading a church, but have just discovered that instead I could be running ‘powerful purveyors of emotional religious experience.’ Puzzled? Let me explain...

An intriguing new piece of research, reported last week by Christianity Today makes the suggestion that the experience of many worshippers at American megachurches is akin to that of addicts looking for their next high. You can read the full paper, written by University of Washington research staff here.

The article draws on previous work by American sociologist Randall Collins, and begins with the hypothesis that what drives and motivates humans is their desire for ‘emotional energy,’ defined by Collins as ‘confidence and enthusiasm.’ It’s important to note that EE is not presented as just a narcissistic quest for warm and happy feelings; the writers also note the theories of Emile Durkheim, suggesting that EE has a ‘powerful and motivating effect upon the individual,’ which could lead to a change in moral behaviour.

But the Washington researchers also  offer the theory that our feelings of EE are closely linked to our levels of oxytocin, a hormone related to a variety of actions including social recognition, pair bonding and tribal behaviour, including bonding with insiders and the distrust of outsiders. And having established these factors, they then get to the heart of their argument, with the suggestion that megachurch worship effectively offers an ‘oxytocin cocktail’ to those attending, through its carefully choreographed blend of a large number of people, the sharing together of an intense emotional mood and time spent in the presence of a charismatic senior leader.

The sort of techniques referred to in the article may be familiar to many of us. The music is upbeat and loud, not unlike a concert, the lighting is low, all around people will be raising hands and swaying along. In some venues, large screens will even project images of the most intense worshippers in the auditorium, reminding those present of the appropriate response to be making at any given moment. The impact on those present is often deeply intense, and reflected in the testimony of many interviewed for the purposes of the research: ‘Expressions relating to the sensory experience were common—tasting seeing, feeling, touching, listening, feeding, thirsting—and words related to the emotions—loving, longing, feeling, moving, vulnerability, wanting, crying, joy—were not only peppered throughout the interviews, but rather were the driving force behind nearly every description and often the punch line to every story.’

But it also needs to be noted that the article isn’t just about the experience of gathered worship. Those attending megachurches speak passionately about the friendliness and love of others in their community, and also bear witness to a strong sense of purpose they’ve found concerning their personal morality.

So are there any lessons we can learn from this? The suggestion that emotional hysteria, and even manifestations which could be labelled as ‘signs and wonders’, can be generated through manipulation techniques is hardly new news. Inducing fear, failure or hopelessness before introducing the answer, the effect of a large crowd, these are techniques which have been employed by some of the most cruel and unscrupulous political regimes our world has seen. There’s no place for such practices in Christian worship.

But we need to be careful not to dismiss the experience of megachurch worshippers too readily. Reading their stories, I was reminded of the words of Barth in Church Dogmatics, VI/2: “The Christian community, can and must be the scene of many human activities which are new and supremely astonishing to many of its members as well as to the world because they rest on an endowment with extraordinary capacities.”

This doesn’t mean that the experience of church is reduced down to offering an intense hit for spiritual adrenaline junkies. Discipleship, of course, needs to consist of the death of self and the forming of disciplines, as well as the ability to think in depth about issues of faith. In his moving book, A Churchless Faith, Alan Jamieson has chronicled the tragedy of those who have walked away from apparently successful evangelical and Pentecostal churches, disillusioned and stifled with no safe place to talk about their doubts and questions. But surely Christian worshippers also need to feel some sense of intimacy with God, some inkling of having been in his presence, when they gather with others in the community of believers. This doesn’t have to mean making judgements on the worship service on the basis of ‘how I felt’ or ‘what I got out of it.’ But if we’re called to love God with our hearts, souls and minds, our emotions need to be impacted by our faith as well.

I’ll leave the final word to James Smith, from his excellent book on worship, Desiring the Kingdom: ‘While Hollister and Starbucks have taken hold of our heart with tangible, material liturgies, Christian schools are “fighting back” by giving young people Christian ideas. We hand young people (and old people!) a “Christian worldview” and then tell them, “There, that should fix it.” But such strategies are aimed at the head and thus miss the real target: our hearts, our loves, our desires. Christian education as formation needs to be a pedagogy of desire.’

What message are we communicating?

Last night we had the first meeting of our new Communications Team at YWBC, a thoroughly constructive time spent trying to get to grips with a variety of issues in our church. The meeting has provoked action (the need to start blogging again!), but thinking as well. While discussing our church website, we hit upon the question which always arises in such discussions: Who are we communicating to? Those within or those outside our church? The issue is so complicated because I’ve been increasingly struck by how these different audiences seem to want to hear different messages.

Perhaps my point is best explained by an analogy from politics. Those of us keeping an eye on the US elections will be aware that opinion polls in key states suggest Mitt Romney’s plans post-November are increasingly likely to comprise an extended vacation. Those ‘47%’ comments are looking more costly by the day. But behind the debacle surrounding Romney’s ill-judged remarks at a fundraising dinner for rich donors there’s a bigger problem. To become acceptable in the eyes of many people in the Republican Party, increasingly a group obsessed over a handful of issues that polarise opinion (think small government, gun control, abortion), Romney ends up becoming unacceptable to the majority of US voters.

Could it be that we risk the same thing happening to us in the church? A few weeks ago I heard Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali promoting his new book Triple Jeopardy for the West. I came away unconvinced by his thesis, as robust a defence of Christendom as you’ll ever hear with a clear desire that the church should still be able to dictate terms to the rest of society. But drinking coffee with various members of the congregation afterwards made me aware I was in the minority. Lots of people were clearly pleased to have heard someone unafraid to ‘speak out for the truth.’

But the problem here is that truth is again seen as boiling down to a number of touchstone issues – just a few days ago, I had a conversation where someone complained to me that ‘we need to be speaking out’ on the redefinition of marriage debate. That sort of tub-thumping will certainly win preachers some kudos from some in their congregations even if it is breeding more and more of an unhealthy siege mentality among some Christians.

These conversations have reminded me of some words of Walter Brueggemann, in one of his most recent books on preaching, The Word Militant:

There is a long tradition of so-called prophetic preaching that is filled with anger, indignation, and condemnation, so that the preacher’s own juices of anger can run loose in the process.’

I suggest that we need to unlearn that common notion of prophetic preaching... it is clear that some of the most effective “prophetic preaching” in our time by such dazzling voices as Desmond Tutu… comes across as utterances of hope-filled, compassionate truth-telling largely free of rage. I suggest that we have misread the prophets to think them voices of simplistic rage, for hard truth can be told quietly if it intends to evoke a response rather than simply be an imposition of rage on the listener.

So what lessons do we learn here regarding communication? I offer two tentative conclusions.

• Our gospel is a large story of fall, redemption and recreation. It’s that big story we need to proclaim, over and above any ‘little stories,’ which often reflect our own vested interests. That doesn’t mean we never speak out on political or human rights issues, rather that we don’t define ourselves by the stances we adopt. Our posture must be one of love and not anger.
• Our message needs to be one of integrity – the things we say to the outside world are the same as the words spoken inside our walls.

Rob Bell, preaching and the local church – some reflections

Like many others in recent years, I’ve been stimulated and positively provoked by the ministry of Rob Bell. I’ve enjoyed his books (albeit with an increasing sense of frustration that he’s often better at deconstructing than providing answers) and also found his Nooma DVDs to be beautifully evocative, touching the heart as well as the head as all good preaching should. And I’ve even had the privilege to hear him once in the flesh, on his Drops Like Stars tour which explored the theme of suffering. I came away dazzled, impressed and frankly a little jealous – I doubt my communication skills will ever scale the heights I saw him attain that evening.

But I have to confess to being disconcerted and disappointed by some comments made by Bell in a recent interview given to promote his next book due out in 2013. You can read the interview here – what caught my eye was a section where he commented on the new freedom he’s found since leaving the local church setting of Mars Hill in Grand Rapids to become a freelance writer and speaker. The interviewer comments on how he’s able to speak more openly on a controversial issue and then says:

DAVID: What’s most remarkable about that segment of the video is: You seem so relaxed in saying that simple yet important thing. You’re smiling. You’ve got to be breathing a sigh of relief that you’re able to say this now without a panel of church elders to whom you’ve got to answer—or other critics in the church. So, what I want to know is: Does it feel good to get that off your chest?

ROB: I am smiling right now at that question. I am smiling.

It was a joy and honor and privilege to be part of a local church. It was absolutely amazing through all those years, but believe me—I know what you are describing here on a cellular level. Yeah. That’s all there is to say—yeah. I am smiling.

Reading these words makes me want to make a plea to preachers everywhere. Let’s never reach the point where we see the local church as something which cramps our style or limits our freedom. Every time I step into the pulpit I see a group of people with whom I’m in a covenant relationship, the leaders and members to whom I’m accountable. When I feel frustrated and I’m on the verge of ‘letting rip’ I hold back because I’m conscious that what matters most is sustaining those relationships. When I’m tempted to say something controversial or provocative I’m forced to weigh up whether the impact will be worth the upset, hurt and division which could be caused in this local expression of the body of Christ. Sometimes our critics are God’s gift to us.

And just one more plea, to the folks like Rob who’ve earned themselves the status and authority which goes with this kind of speaking and writing ministry. Remember that when you throw a hot potato, there’ll be someone somewhere still leading a local church who has to catch it and deal with the fallout...

The Olympics and the ‘healing of the nations.’

We’re off this afternoon to Olympics football in Coventry, having been genuinely impressed and uplifted by Friday night’s opening ceremony. The spectacular transformation from a rural scene to the industrial revolution was brilliantly executed, and I thought it was great to see the NHS given pride of place in an event designed to showcase the achievements of modern Britain.

But the part of the evening which got me thinking most came when the competitors from all 204 teams took their time to process into the arena. I was reminded of John’s vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21: ‘And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations.’

Could it be that the scenes we saw on Friday were so uplifting for us, because they point forward to something we hunger for deep down, an eventual healing of relationships as people are gathered by God in a new world free from war and violence. I realise that so much of modern sport falls short of the ideal vision many of us would wish to see realised. There’s too much money and too many egos, but there’s also a lot to celebrate, not only the individual performances of people who have trained long and hard to get to the games but the way sport unites.

Perhaps this is the reason why the more I think about it, the more astonished and offended I am about MP Aidan Burley’s now notorious tweet about "leftie multi-cultural" rubbish. The whole point of 204 nations gathering together to compete is that the games will be multi-cultural. What else but sport could bring about such a diverse and vast set of people and unite them in an atmosphere which allows a brief respite from political agendas? Let’s put our cynicism on hold for just a little while, and also look upon the games as a brief but tantalising foretaste of a longer-lasting unity God will one day usher in.

Presenting the Gospel to the Austerity Generation

A busy couple of weeks has meant no chance to blog recently, but a lecture on faith and the Big Society at a recent event at Bristol Baptist College has got me thinking about changes which we might see (and which we’ll almost certainly need)in our approach to evangelism over the next few years.

The session in question was led by Phil Jump, Team Leader of the North West Baptist Association. Phil made a passing comment on the way the Gospel has been presented differently in different decades reflecting the zeitgeist of each period. For example, during the years of relative prosperity of the ‘noughties,’ the primary evangelism tools of UK churches have tended to be courses such as Alpha or Christianity Explored. I have more recent and firsthand experience of Alpha but I think it’s fair to say that both courses tend towards a cerebral and modernist approach to Christianity. That’s an opinion that seems reasonable in light of the subjects addressed.

The topics covered by Alpha, for example, are:

1.  Is there more to life than this?
2.  Who is Jesus?
3.  Why did Jesus die?
4. How can we have faith?
5. Why and how do I pray?
6. Why and how should I read the Bible?
7. How does God guide us?
8. Who is the Holy Spirit?
9. What does the Holy Spirit?
10.  How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?
11. How can I resist evil?
12. Why and how should I tell others?
13.  Does God heal today?
14. What about the church?
15. How can I make the most of the rest of my life? 

Compare and contrast, if you wish, to the hot topics covered by Christianity Explored:

1. Good News
2. Identity
3. Sin
4. The Cross
5. Resurrection
6. Grace
7. Come and Die

So the question arises... who would be interested in thinking through these sorts of issues? During the 1990s and 2000s it may well be that for lots of people in comfortable, middle-class jobs, wondering if there was more to life than two cars, a semi-detached home and foreign holidays, these courses had an appeal. Memories come to mind of watching Nicky Gumbel on video at HTB, putting across his case with compelling logic, week by week, to lots of beautiful people who presumably stopped off at Alpha on their way home from high-powered jobs in the City.

But in the years to come, are these topics going to pack the same punch of relevance? For many of us, the questions we’re asking are different. We’re no longer concerned with the emptiness of our comfortable, if mediocre, existences. We’re anxious about the state of our economy, angry at the bankers and governments who’ve brought us to the edge of the austerity abyss, fearful that we may not be able to retire in comfort. And if we feel less apprehension for ourselves, we certainly ought to concerned about the plight of our children. The old social contract of ‘work hard, play by the rules and you’ll get a good job’ has been torn up.

So does this mean there’s another kind of course waiting to be written, which poses a different type of question? Why is the world so unfair and does God care any way? What will my life amount to? Can we really make a difference about injustice? Are there any alternative visions for society and the world, which offer something more than our current economic and political models?