Here’s the deal…

I sit here in front of my PC and compose this blog on a semi-regular basis or when something strikes me. It feels like I am writing it to myself. That is one of the main reasons I do it, I record what I think about something so that I can organise my thoughts and opinions. I try not to pick on individuals but where possible I do like to point out where I think that institutions or organisations are behaving in a way that I find strange or amusing or, sometimes, just plain stupid. I don’t know who reads this. I know people who have read it but only once have I ever written anything deliberately for someone else to read. I thought that people understood that, I thought that people got what was going on here. I am not writing the editorial for anyone’s publication, I have no party line to stick to, I say it how I see it and then hope that someone else either sees it the same or sees it differently and comments to that effect. That’s how it works. Agreed?

Long Weekend

It’s good to get away from it all. We went camping this weekend with some friends of ours. Bit moist in places but a very pleasant time was had by all. The really great thing about getting out of routine is that it makes you think about things differently. It has only just occurred to me that this reflects very well my experience in BCLC. Getting out of the routine of what we did before on a Sunday morning I am now looking at my faith and what I believe in a different way.

So there you are, another way of ’selling’ new styles of church – who doesn’t like a holiday, and who hasn’t thought that they wish they could keep that holiday feeling throughout the year? Well at BCLC you can!!!

Fresher Expressions

i was looking at the fresh expressions web site the other day, for those of you that don’t know this is the initiative from the Anglican and Methodists church to look at new ways of “being church” (don’t you just love that phrase…..). Now I may be missing the point here, and I hope someone can explain it if I am, but I have always attempted to describe the emerging church using words like, how can I put it, emerging… starting out… diversifying… breaking the rules…. subverting, and yet when I look at that web site I find blueprints for how to set up what appear to be established forms of church. If they are established then are they not part of the establishment and therefore not part of the emerging ‘movement’?

Truly emerging churches are doing just that, emerging from whatever context they are in in response to the needs of the people involved. Leaders will emerge and the ways of doing things will emerge and they will both be appropriate. There must be a danger of looking at, say, the cafe church examples on the web site and think that you like the sound of that and trying to replicate it. I can’t help thinking that this is as likely to fail as it is to suceed.

what’s in a name

ok how does ‘time out’ sound?

doing a new thing

we are planning something new for bclc. following our trip to the cwm window on the world conference we have been thinking how we can expand what we do on a sunday morning. we have come up with the idea of doing a monthly digest of the content of our sundays together. this will take place in a cafe/pub/restaurant in edgeley or cheadle heath and will be very informal and open to anyone in the area. we will target particular age groups. it will be ecumenical but we hope that given the relaxed nature of the surroundings etc that we can entice people who have never been to church at all to come along and share with us. we still need a name for it. any suggestions?

in addition to this we will be trying to do a monthly sunday evening worship that is very multi-media, multi-sensory, a bit like the stuff that david and zam did last week. i think we chould try to do it in the sally army building as that is the biggest and most modern. we shall have to see.

all in all very exciting and has taken my mind off the methodists stuff…. oh well back on my head as the old joke goes.

bringing it all back home

just back from hols and since we got rid of the estate car and downsized to the Prius bringing is all back home isn’t as easy as it was. we are back safe and sound. katy is back at work (meeting her later to watch city beat chelsea in the first shock of the new season), anne is at the gym trying to shed a few holiday pounds. tom is in bed. dylan is catching up on cartoons and i am going to write up some initial thoughts from the week at llangrannog.

first things first, it was a great week (we have to go back there next year, we simply HAVE TO). seeing old friends making new ones etc. the worship, led by david coleman (no not that one) and zam walker was really stimulating. they use so much multi-media and multi-sensory material but not too much and it doesn’t get in the way (unlike a lot of ‘power-point’ usage in churches with only one screen that not everyone can see). trish watts led early morning and evening worship though i have to confess i didnt manage to attend any of those. we (anne and me) were doing the eveing entertainments. part of this was a daily soap that i wrote each day to reflect what was going on in the main conference. this was quite an undertaking but it didnt half mean that i conentrated hard on the main theme speak each day. this was conducted by alternately andrew williams and his wife katalina. if you read this desert article you will see what he is getting at with his theory that whilst the church is in the desert, this is not necessarily a bad place to be and perhaps we ought to get used to it, even enjoy it and take something positive from it, rather that trying to get through it as quiclkly as possible.

this is what i want to mention today really. i attended a really interesting workshop led by the excellent michael heaney centred around the church idol programme off of channel 4 and looking at whether we can tart up what we do a bit or whether we need a more fundamental sea change in what and how and when we do stuff. sounds familliar? it should it is what we talked about last year with john and olive drane and what we started bclc for really. what struck me most about the group is that some of us undoubtedly get it in that we can see that the current model is dying. others still seem to think that small successes like the church featured in the programme are signs that we can still make it work as we are. these people are deluding themselves. have you seen those films where people are stuck in the desert and they see what they think is an oasis only to find they are hallucinating? that is what is happening to a lot of churches. run an alpha programme that will bring a few in, patch it up a bit, sing a few new songs, show some power point slides and hey presto, the holy grail is ours, a couple more in on a sunday morning.

sorry but that way leads to death. don’t be fooled. there is a way to survive in the desert but you have to start by not trying to live like you are still in a land of plenty. you arent, we arent, get over it, get used to it and get on with it.