Bishop's Got Talent - NT Does Dylan

N.T. Wright Sings Bob Dylan from Thomas McKenzie on Vimeo

Former Bishop of Durham ends talk with Dylan, wonder if he will do this at Greenbelt this year?!

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The end of the C of E as we know it...

'I don't care about the Church of England' is an obvious soundbite that journalists will inevitably latch onto that Bishop Stephen Cottrell proclaimed during the Chelmsford Diocesan Transforming Presence event this Saturday 21st Jan. I first encountered Bishop Stephen's inspirational style at another conference, Transforming Worship, at Chelmsford cathedral when he was still serving as the Bishop of Reading. Then he encouraged us to think much more creatively and holistically about the experience of what it's like to attend a church, explaining that planning services must go way beyond simply preparing for a liturgical, lectionary based hymn, prayer and reading sandwich.

The Transforming Presence event was convened to draw together around 1,000 people from all over the Diocese, which covers all of Essex and East London, to discuss the pressing issues facing the C of E in terms of attendance, finance and clergy. The process was one of structured discussion and feedback gathered from delegates grouped in tens around circular tables. We were guided through a creative SWOT analysis exercise, each topic culminating in filling out conclusions onto friendly and varied 'homely' forms which were collected and then displayed around the venue.

However, the overall experience was very much like church, a see-saw of good versus the uncomfortable. On arrival at the Brentwood Centre it was a joy to see the Bishops modelling high-vis fashion (see photo above) and directing the not inconsiderable traffic. Regardless of whether some thought that was, maybe, a tad contrived, it positively demonstrated the 'renewal of the mind' from the day's familiar reading, Romans 12, as a way to think in reverse of the expected.

Next one of the truly saddening moments! Depsite the church banging on about the 5th Mark of Mission drinks were served in polystyrene cups with plastic teaspoons... To some that may seem insignificant, but surely a powerful 'evangelistic' message was missed because of that lack of joining obvious dots?

Moving along the next uplifting moment was hearing Bishop Stephen's opening remarks as he unpacked the vision for the day. Sadly this was then swiftly followed swiftly by another downer as the first hymn we sang, despite having great words, was set to the wretched tune of Danny Boy. I must stress this was an exception in the day's liturgy as a whole. However, to me it was such an irony that, as the Brentwood Centre stages professional boxing tournaments, I kept imagining everyone else at the Centre, those making use of the usual sporting facilities etc., must have been left wondering why such a strait laced bunch was so robustly endorsing Fighting some sort of (good?) Fight? OK, I'll fess up, I only see and hear Barry McGuigan's dad singing whenever I hear that tune!

The main part of the day then ensued, with the aforementioned discussions. My table had a good mix, clergy were in a minority (3), our geographical locations and church types were varied. Despite having to bite my lip (a lot!) it was a good process and although, overall, I felt we were somewhat parochial, there were some surprising contributions along with some changes of heart as the day progressed. To generalise, I don't think we were realistic. For example, am I cynical to not expect an imminent revival?

This process was interspersed with other elements, including sharing lunch on the table and simply wandering around to meet acquaintances. A Twitter hastag was running, #timetotalk, which both started to produce some good comments and enabled a Tweetup moment for those of us who partake to meet in real life (ie non-virtually) ;-)

After the lunch break we were called back by singing 'Spirit of the Living God', played most sensitively by Elwin Cockett, now an archdeacon, no less! Next came a really weird moment... We were shown a new video of some relative youngsters, I assume teenagers, talking about church and what it meant to them. Frankly it was dreadful, and that is a gross understatement. It was typical of something a church / Diocesan committee would produce. Great content, awful production. In the car one of my buddies proposed that the way the contributors had delivered their pieces to camera was the result of some rendition process deep within the Guy Harlings complex! In line with the rhythm of the day, and another irony, next up was an interview by BBC Essex broadcaster Ian Wyatt who demonstrated how much better professionals handle things. Ian's programme covering the conference is on iPlayer for a few more days.

So, back to our table and the mission thereon. We resumed by filling out a mythical edition of Diocese's publication 'The Month', predicting the content for the year 2020, fleshing out a Headline we had invented in the last pre-lunch session. My question here is why were we even talking about the print edition without at least acknowledging on-line or mobile / tablet apps and media that we would most likely consume in 8 years time? With converging of Internet and TV technology it is likely everyone will have access to some sort of online media, even without broadband. Of course, it is not the point that was being sought, the possible stories were, but it does show a lack of vision for it not to be even mentioned. Equally not actually having the #timetotalk hashtag displayed anywhere seemed a bit of an omission as people were trying to figure it out.

And so on to the closing remarks that Bishop Stephen gave. He started by giving his imagined headline for 'The Month': 'The Church of England ceases to exist' explaining whilst we have too many churches his solution is to actually have more. He qualified the daring opening statement in the first sentence of this post, 'I don't care about the Church of England', as he concluded, 'but what I do care about is the Gospel of Jesus Christ'. There ensued a passionate rallying call about how inevitable a terminal decline of the C of E will happen, in the short term, unless we engineer radical changes, starting now, which he summarised as 'I do not want to manage the graceful decline of the Church of England'. He added an even more daring thought when he said 'the C of E may still decline, but that's up to God'. His call is for all of us to be transformed, to let go of our preferences and desires, for the church to break from the cultural constraints that may have worked well in the past but do no longer, and to develop such that we, as both disciples and as the church corporate, are distinctively Christian.

It was a priviledge to be at the starting point of this vital and prohetic initiative. Of course, I will not be the only one to have found some niggles but if this collaborative approach is an inkling of real transformation in the way things move forward from now on, that is refreshingly good. Yes, I was pleased to feel part of the day and whilst still harbouring concerns about how big an ask this may prove to be it is one giant leap in a brave direction.

And one more thing... I had one of those weird 'moments'! Whilst visiting the rest of the Brentwood Centre complex to avail myself of the facilities I felt assailed by the loud 'piped' music. It was a strange contrast to be part of what I can only describe as a quite a noisy 'holy hubbub' yet to still find that bit of the outside world so strident when, normally, you wouldn't even notice?

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BBC's Rev Series 2... can't wait!

The new series of Rev returns to BBC2 next week... Episode 1 transmits at 9:00pm Thursday 10th November. Forthcoming episodes feature a trip to the Greenbelt Festival and none other than Ralph Fiennes as the Bishop of London.

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Stages of Faith...

Things you see on a church bookstall that make you ever so grateful your mobile has a built-in camera...

Wednesday Wisdom...

Some recent links that caught my attention (and that, maybe, have yet to write about!)...

Music:
Mike Rimmer's eulogy for Gravy Train's guitarist, Norman Barratt
Have to confess the news of Norman's passing came as a tough one. Here was one of my contemporaries, we played many of the same stages, I admired his never flashy, expressive technique... The image of him playing his favourite cherry red Gibson 335 (special edition with Bigsby tremolo!), always reaching for the controls betwixt every phrase, while carefully chosen notes swooped and soared above everything else going on... He was a true musician's musician and a special guy.

Education:
Shane Claiborne and the Simple Way guys give out packs for school kids... click to help

Quirky:
A brilliant set of online jigsaw puzzles

Money:
Financial Times comment on the C of E's money troubles

Faith:
St Luke's church Kentish Town gets, ahem, born again

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Rupert Murdoch and the Bible...

The Bible Industry. From Geez magazine, Fall 2009. Credit: Darryl Brown and Aiden Enns.

Seems some Christibods are in a bit of a panic as this article by Canadian author Will Braun first published in Geez Magazine receives greater coverage having been re-run in Sojo.net. Not only are Zondervan the biggest publishers of the Holy Bible they also carry books by leading authors like Rob Bell and Shane Claiborne, who will both speak at the Greenbelt Festival this year. It is Shane Claiborne's wisdom that puts things in candid perspective in these couple of paragraphs:

The Zondervan advantage
'I want to have the broadest readership possible,' Claiborne says by phone, 'I don’t want to be someone who just speaks to the choir.' He says smaller publishers have their advantages but the books he has written for them cost 'two or three times' more than what they would if Zondervan published them.

To judge, or not to judge
The ongoing News Corp scandal concerns him. 'The current issues ... in England raise all kinds of ethical questions,' he tells me, 'and I would hope that a company whose mission is explicitly Christian, as Zondervan’s is, would take the opportunity to bear witness and to speak into the culture which is so terribly fallen.'

Claiborne is not sure if he will write for Zondervan again. He doesn’t rule it out.
There’s good and bad in each of us, he says, 'we are called to work on the log in our own eye, and I’m sure as heck trying to work on the compromises that I make so that those are minimal when it comes to integrity.'

Whilst this must be a dilemma for Claiborne, he is a great voice in the very media everyone is apoplectic about, for example, I blogged about his article in lads mag Esquire here. To conclude buying from Zondervan is contributing directly to the devil incarnate, we'd should also stop using the Interweb, oh yes, and stop going to church!

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Losing it in church...

Received a link to this video today and felt considerable resonance to thoughts concerning church worship and services that I have been struggling to articulate after much reflection. It seems what happens in churches is often very inflexible and Mark Pierson, author of The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader, unpacks that concern in a compelling and concise way...

h/t Clayfire Curator

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Greenbelt Festival 2010 perspectives

 

Greenbelt is always a sea of surprises and stimulating encounters... 2010 was another great year and re-inforces my determination to never miss it!

Here are my initial responses:

Highlights:
1) Fr. Richard Rohr on the church
2) Watching the preview of the film 'Africa United'
3) Revd. Dr John Smith's talks which emphatically restated Greenbelt's original vision(s)
4) Shlomo's mainstage mini-set
5) The start and end of the communion service (i.e. unaccompanied singing with no band)

Surprises:
1) Giles Fraser on The English Civil War and the future of the Church of England
2) Martyn Atkins on Methodism and discipleship
3) Foy Vance bumped up to a mainstage set
4) How many talks I managed to attend!
5) Bumping into Clare Short and having a good chinwag

Lowlights:
1) The weather prior to the festival during set-up and the cold in the evenings!
2) Rock band style music in parts of the communion service
3) Many of the mainstage music acts
4) Confetti cannon during the communion service
5) Sensing 'beer and hymns' becoming more organised

Despite being involved as a contributor this year I did manage to attend a couple of Tweetups and was delighted to commune with some of my virtual 'friends' yet missed others altogether. Otherwise it was great to bump into friends from across the years and actually meet, for the first time, folk that I knew about and that knew me too, but until now...!

However, I do think Greenbelt needs to look carefully to ensure that aspects of the original vision that are still valid and distinctly 'Greenbelt' as some of this is in danger of being sidelined. I don't doubt the Greenbelt 'powers' will already be aware of this so I am not going to witter on here!

Greenbelt is for everybody... unless they're not keen on a bit of heaven?

Here's a perspective from a first time visitor: Do Christian Music Festivals Make You Want to Switch Religions?

And on the Greenbelt Blog today a gorgeous poem: 'If heaven (2)' by Rosie Miles

Cigarette Vicarage? Rev mini review...

Cartoon from The (very wonderful!) Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus

Well, have to confess I really enjoyed the recent BBC series, Rev, and yet to find anyone other than 'vicarage' types that didn't which, in turn, adds to the amusement value! Of course the ending was really special and each episode had a bit more momentum as the series progressed. bearing in mind that blog discussions earlier in the year seemed to bring the sermon out as the best element of a service this was also reality check time, generally sermons are dire too, so a score of -1 would be high praise indeed!

In the last episode there was a classic representation of the church carrying on with all its frippery whilst effectively shunning the young guns cavorting around the war memorial. What an opportunity to join things up by linking the current conflicts our soldiers endure with some war history thereby making the act of commemoration meaningful for everyone rather than just themselves? That's just one example of where the series was hard hitting and justifiably so.

Anyway, a great series, lots of profound and challenging moments...

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We all fall short of glory...

The 7 Link Challenge

1. Your first post - Seeing a No Entry sign and chain right across the entrance to a local church cracks me up (and saddens me) everytime I drive past. Managing to finally have photographic evidence was the incentive to start blogging! Next post showed how the pub approached it
2. A post you enjoyed writing the most - Having listened to the Podcast called GodPod #53 I saw an opportunity to respond and release my thoughts about art, music and have another pop at modern worship music.
3. A post which had a great discussion - My heartfelt post about struggling to understand Anglican obsessions Let me Through I'm an Anglican provoked comments with concern and resonance. The picture is not about voting with feet and more about our when offering resource(s) is turned away by attitudes of the 'shouty loudest' minorities.
4. A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written - This has to be an articulate outburst by musician Steve Lawson taking the greedy record companies apart as a result of the threat of the Digital Economy Bill. Steve's post also includes his favourite post of 2009.
5. Your most helpful post - Slightly tricky to determine so probably embedding the very clever World Cup Planner I tracked down, lots of return visits to check updates and results.
6. A post with a title that you are proud of - It's got to be Spinal Tap meets Chequebook Worship.
7. A post that you wish more people had read - It was one of those Memes that I pondered over muchly: I need(ed) some Time to Think...!

From: ProBlogger h/t The Church Mouse

Bastions of Boredom

Was reminded of this Video recently from 'Work of the People' and so post it to respond to Lesley's post earlier today: 'What do you think of Jesus and the church'. Also, in some way, to give some background to another reason why people land up leaving church, when they just give up on attempting to contribute. This adds to Suem's post a little while ago on the 'Leaving Church' topic.

It seems the world of blogging which ordained folk have so taken to heart is populated by alarming entries wondering what the church can do to arrest the problem of declining numbers and also delusions that sermons are actually good because a survey revealed they were the least unpopular moments in a service!

Whilst it is always easier to suggest solutions rather than fully defining what the problems are, it is becoming increasingly obvious that letting go of traditions, rituals and preferences (and all the etcs.) that, in the main, are held onto by clergy, is actually both the problem and the solution.

So many of the issues with church come down to the 'what' and 'how' we do things rather than the real meaning contained in the 'Why'. A key lies in re-developing a sense of curiosity and imagination in all of us that longs to share Why?

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The Anglican Matrix

Some of the things I'm beginning to learn about the Church of England with help from various sages:

clergy	jews
laity	gentiles
choirmaster	god
choir	trying
robes	robes
flower guild	see above
psalter	rare book
book of common prayer	red book
common worship	read book
hymn book	new book
sunday school	lambs
baptised (C of E only)	sheep
the rest of us	goats
administrator	donkey
treasurer	bankrupt
PCC	deluded
eastenders	never watch it
cleaners	angels
wardens	heroes

With respect to the lamented Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley

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Blessed are the poor...

 

Let me through, I'm an Anglican...

If, like me, you are NOT a member of the Anglican / C of E clergy, a fairly stalwart church goer, even serving on various committees, then I expect you are pretty fed-up with most of what is going on in Anglican world. Part of the trouble is that it all seems so inward looking and therefore exactly opposite to how we are supposed to be as followers of Jesus, caring for the poor and challenging the status quo... I, along with many others, simply don't get what's happening!

Today I heard a friend recite the famous poem, 'The Vicar of Bray' which implies that fickleness has been around for a while amongst clergyfolk and I will return to that later.

I am now struggling to recall the innocence of my faith... at the moment so much of what has just transpired in the recent Synod seems to bear little relationship to real church. Additionally, the recent research which revealed the sermon is the 'best bit' of a church service even skirts the point that church services, generally, are very, very naff!

I know there are some churches that are exploring new ways of enhancing worship (Fresh Expressions being one such initiative) and I think that is brilliant, however, where the church is really part of (or becomes) the surrounding community that is what really encourages me to think all hope is not lost. Ok, there was a Synod presentation about Mission covering Fresh Expressions and there was Revd David Gamble's interesting 'offer' from the Methodists, which actually hid both a reproach and a challenge of priorities.

But whilst endless debates continue about all the current obsessions (whichever way you look) then us 'lay' folk lose more faith, both in the established church and the clergy. The trouble is the whole system is run by differing strata of... yet more clergy, ranging from humble deacons to Archbishops. That immediately means there are issues to deal with including:

• Inequality: This is usually manifest in the clergy / non clergy divide.
• Superiority: Why do C of E clergy give out the impression they are 'above' other ordained clergy/pastors in other denominations (except, maybe, Catholics priests?!!)?

And there is the theology! I am an avid reader and love listening to audiobooks. I have enjoyed many great talks at Greenbelt and at other 'thin places'. Those talks capture you within the first few minutes, frankly the 'sermon' style in most churches, regardless of Biblical content, simply does not challenge or inspire and is a mixture of platitudes and anecdotes.

At the risk of sounding old (rather than mature, of course!) I used to love going to conferences and gatherings where we listened to a proper preacher and sang our hearts out! I now learn the evangelical nature of those meetings is seriously frowned upon by Anglo-Catholics and Liberals... it seems faith has to be liberalised, have more doubt, more skepticism, no longer enjoyed, kept to one denomination and it seems we are not even allowed to describe ourselves as a 'Christian' anymore. Don't completely dis the evangelicals, though, they come in many shapes and sizes!

This leads me to my final point: why is the church so demonstrably partisan? It seems the C of E thinks it is different to 'free' churches and the mounting divide between those declaring Catholic 'tendencies' and steadfast C of E communicants is hardly new? The Vicar of Bray actually kept his post through a series of major varieties of governance, perhaps, after all, he was more of a servant to his flock than the humour in the poem implies as he 'cheerfully' reversed his principles?

I have never felt I was one denomination or another, despite worshipping in various denominations as geography dictated. I cannot understand why some folk filling forms with 'C of E' in the 'Religion' field? Surely we are simply Christians? So why does it feel as though I have to declare I am Anglican / C of E? Nope, that is never going to happen!!!

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To go or to be... that is the question

 

Whilst the General Synod rolls on... the sense of thinking 'outside the church' gets stronger. Last night in our Home Group we debated the question: "How would you answer someone who said: 'I can be a Christian without being a part of a church'?". My immediate thought was one of enormous sympathy! Overnight I mused that it is actually the question that is wrong, it should be about 'being church' rather than being 'part of', then I would field a completely different and affirming response. Then this morning I was intrigued to read David Keen's blog which had a link to 'Don't Go To Church Sunday', the content with which I obviously concur.

Earlier in my blog I drew attention to Walthamstow's Farmers Market run by a church, they moved their regular Sunday service to a different day to enable them to serve their community better. recently Joe Haward picked up the BBC story about a church buying the local ten pin bowling alley.

Above all this over the last year I have met and shared fellowship with committed Christians who simply don't attend church... the scary thing was that even though I am a regular churchgoer (a Church Warden has little choice!) I am possibly more cynical than they are... shame on me, in a way, but while the C of E and the Anglican Communion seem intent on beating themselves up, what would anyone expect?!