Don’t follow leaders and watch your parking meters

Today’s title has nothing to do with what I am going to write about but anytime you can get Dylan into one’s blog has got to be worth going for. I am qute a Dylan fan, I use the term fan in the more modern sense in that I like his music (well some of it) but not that I am fanatical about him.

We were discussing something along these lines at BCLC yesterday. The theme for this month is worship and, as usual, we started to look through the eyes of the world to contextualise our subsequent discussions. We wrote down things that we thought that people think are precious and might, therefore, worship in some way. What we found was a little startling in that our group felt that most people don’t actual worship very much and it is only people who are seen as somewhat fanatical that took their liking/following/admiration for something or someone to the point of worshipping it or them.

Hang on, you’re all thinking, so if people that practice some sort of regular worship are seen as a bit wierd then that might help explain why Christianity isn’t doing so well of late as most of what we do is defined by that hour on Sunday we call worship. In actual fact the thing that we are trying to encourage people to join us in the particpation of is the very thing that they are constantly discouraged from doing.

So what is the ‘natural’ state do we think? Is it natural to lose oneself in worship of some other or is that a tendency we should try to curb and control? Society is telling us to take control of ourselves and yet it seems that young people in particular are desperate to lose control of themselves whenever they get the chance.

This is to be a very interesting month. I will keep you all in the loop.

Still Excited?….

You bet I am, more so. We had a good session at home last night working out the finances and they are, for once looking ok. All bodes well for the next couple of months at least. And we have our Solar Panels in and working now so how piping hot was our water this morning? Well not very to be perfectly honest but it will take a few days for the system to bed itself in. I suspect we could do with some warmer weather as well.

Of course that leads me a little into what I want to write about today. I know this must seem like I plan these entries like sermon planning when the thing I open with leads me into the main theme but really I don’t, it just seems to happen that way, honest, I have never written a sermon in my life and I have no intention of starting now.

Sunday sees BCLC looking at worhip and what we hold sacred and deem worthy of such treatment. I am looking forward to it, I can’t really say much more on that as we start planning it on Satruday night. Should keep it fresh. What did occur to me though was this; the style of BCLC and, I suspect, much of the emerging church tends to appeal to young people. I know this is not exlcusive so don’t start shouting at me, bear with me on this one. It occurs to me further that this might be because like young people, the emerging church is trying to define who it is. Once upon a time the URC or the Methodists or whoever would have been sitting around saying ‘we’re not happy with what’s happening and we need to change it, we need to redefine ourselves’ and they created whatever they created. Now, however, those churches think they know who they are and why they do things the way they do and therefore attract people who think they know who they are. This is as much a mistake, in my view, for the church organisation as it is for the individual. How often do we hear of marriages failing after 20 years apparent bliss and contentment? Too many. One of the reasons, I reckon, is just this, the people think they know each other and themselves and don’t have to try to keep that process going. Of course if one person changes then the whole machinery for dealing with that doesn’t exist in the relationship and they end up parting.

I know of a lot of people who are disillusioned with the church and, although they share some beliefs with the people there, don’t feel they can buy into the whole message the church is puporting to tell. So they leave. Now the ‘emerging church’ offers a good alternative for these people but once we have spent a few weeks/months/years deciding where we stand on the big issues how do we keep re-addressing them without sitting down every year and saying, ‘right it’s january so we talk about who is God’. Big challenge. This is very much a work in progress in my head so I have no answers but I will come back to this issue again in the future.

In the meantime, my only suggestion would be that we do keep coming back to the big issues, we do constantly try to work out who we are and what the nature of our relationship with God is but we do it in different ways and at different times. If not we will end up the same as the thing we originally tried to move from only with powerpoint and a couple of Graham Kenderick songs (no offence Graham)

I think I will start a campaign to make Sunday ordinary, only I will call it ‘Keep Everyday Special’.

Weekenders tonight, no sleep for the past 2 nights… not an auspicious prospect. I will let you know how it went next week.