You’ve gotta serve somebody

Title today is taken from Bob’s dodgy christian period. It’s on the better of the 3 albums he released at this time, Slow Train Coming, but nonetheless, compared to most of his work, it is decidedly dodgy.

So why did I choose it? Well in the past few days I have had 3 separate conversations on what shape a church of the future should take. This has me thinking what the shape is now and why it’s not working.

I think the basic problem is that the model we have (not yet) inherited from our parents generation is one where the organisation is at the centre and it is that which we serve. This leads to problems. The main one is that we don’t really know what we are doing things for. Questions such as ‘what are we here for?’ and ‘what is our mission?’ are very common in churches and have been for some time now (though probably not in the higher churches). It also leads to restrictions being placed on those working within the organisation where creativity is stifled as it gets in the way of the organisers. The organisation rules and must be preserved so we can do nothing (like interacting with children in a healthy normal way) that might endanger it.

This is why it is imperative that the organisation of the church has to undertake an absolutely radical change. We need to divest ourselves of all but the barest minimum of structure. I have suggested in the past that current church structures could be preserved to provide some training and administration, I’m not even sure we need that now. We need to get rid of buildings. They are a drain on us in both time and money. I know some people feel called to mow the lawn but there are plenty of lawns they could mow (like mine) instead that would be much more of an out reach than doing the one at church. (that is an example, I have nothing against gardeners). We need, we simply must, start building ourselves and our faith/spritual communities around the activities we undertake in our geographical communities. In the parks, the pubs, the community centres, the restaurants. As long as we have a safe haven we will stay there.

So sell your church and go find Jesus, he’s out there somewhere, and start to serve someBODIES!

When Ruthie said come see her

BCLC resumed near normal operations yesterday. We have had something of an extended Summer break. This month we are looking at Ruth. Interesting biblical character. For those of you unfamiliar with her story I will briefly tell it now.

A family move to Moab. Ruth marries one of the sons. The men die. Naomi (mother-in-law) moves back home. Ruth goes with her. Gleans some wheat from Boaz’s field. Lays at Boaz’s feet one night. Boaz marries Ruth.

It’s a good story about family, loyalty, community and belonging. Ruth is a strong female biblical character but not one you hear an awful lot about. Indeed there are many strong female biblical characters but the one we generally hear most about is (Holy) Mary (mother of God). I wonder why that is. Could it be that Mary, as a virgin mother, represents a version of woman that is so perfect it is completely unattainable by ‘normal’ women. Is she so venerated that she (and subsequently all other women) is unable to be involved in the manly business of running the church.

This representation of women – failures who needn’t worry their pretty little heads about man-stuff – is contrary to a lot of stories about women that can be found in the Bible. These stories were written at a time when women had no standing whatsoever in law or very much else and suggest that women, far from being air-headed failures are in fact very capable, practical and smart.

The very fact that some streams of the church still see women in this way is yet another reason why the church will die.

Congratulations

Well done the BBC. Well done Radio 4. Well done the Today programme.

Yesterday we heard that Northern Rock was getting an emergency loan to ensure (insure) that they don’t go belly up in the fall out from the US mortgage crisis. Everyone that knew what they were talking about said that this was prudent and people had nothing to worry about. Time and again the question was asked by John Humphries et al, should people be worried – “NO”. Should they panic? “NO”, really, are you sure? “YES”. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Same questions, same answers over and over. The trouble is that the BBC could smell (create) a story here and left everyone far from reassured.

I wake up this morning to find that there has been a panic amongst NR customers who are taking their money out in droves (some sort of a wheelbarrow I presume) causing more panic and, ultimately more problems for NR and it’s customers. Even today the story from NR is don’t panic. However some anal reporter at the BBC has calculated that they will probably, maybe, possibly (actually) be ok if everything went belly up.

Financial crisises are caused by people getting jittery and panicking.

So well done the BBC, you have your story, you have your financial panic, you have your people queueing outside NR branches with their droves in hand.

And if you play your cards right you will have a bankrupt financial institution and a lot of people seriously out of pocket.

A triumph for british journalism.

You can call me Al

I am pleased to report that our new prospective minister to be is no longer such and as a result of his ordination on Saturday he now our new minister. He will be sat at his new desk now ministering to our every need. Unfortunately that is minus his new laptop because some fool (me) couldn’t get his finger out and order it in time (well I only had 4 months to do it in).

There was a sermon on Saturday (it was a 2 hour service so there was a bit of everything in there). I will overlook the feeble comparisons of life as a christian being like that of a city fan and the accompanying jokes but only because there is a whole lot of other stuff he said that have had me thinking all weekend.

The first thing he said as he stood up bothered me quite a lot. He said “this is not a job, it’s a calling”. First of all, it quite patently is a job, he is doing work and getting paid, it’s a job. Secondly, and what I want to talk about more fully, is this notion of calling and that somehow ministers have a more important (louder) calling than the rest of us.

Consider your average minister in the church, by average I meant the type that you most often come across, not the ones that are average in the performance of their duties. I must stress at this point that I do think that ministers seem to be people of great integrity all of whom do genuinely want to make a difference and see their ministry as a way of doing so.

The thing is a lot of people want to make a difference in this sense (I am not going to be more specific than this on what the ‘difference’ is here, you will have to decide for yourself) but don’t want to be ministers. Are they not getting the call or are they not hearing it or is God not calling them at all?

Why does God chose some people over others to call? Let’s go back to our average minister. This person invariably has a strong church background. They will have grown up going to church, they may have done some youth work in their late teens and early 20s. They may have flirted with not believing for a year or two but in essence church life is in their blood. They will then embark on a career of some description, probably a profession (they are almost certainly middle-class) or will have spent some years bringing up the children. As they get into their thirties they become more involved with church work, possibly doing a bit of preaching or, again, youth work. They start to wonder whether the career is really for them, can they see themselves being a (insert your own favourite profession here) until they retire? They’d really like to do more of this church work what are the opportunties for a 30/40 something to get more involved and feed the family? Exactly, they can become ministers, God is calling them to leave the job they don’t really like too much or the family home where the kids no longer need them because they are at high school or university, and do a job in the church.

Look at it from another angle, how many currently serving ministers in the URC (or many of the other denominations) had absolutely no experience of church before God called them to stop doing the job they loved and become a minister of the word and sacrament? Not many.

I am not, as you might think, having a go at ministers and accusing them all of mistaking a mid-life crisis for a call from God. What I am doing is suggsting that their calling to get paid for working for the church is no more important than my calling not to do that and to put in all my church hours for free.

And as for the robes, well don’t get me started on that…….

He not busy being born is busy dying

I have always liked that line. It’s from one of my favourite songs of Dylans off one of my favourite albums. I remember as a youth that it was the tag line to one of those athena posters that used to be everywhere, this one had an image of a dandelion.

It came to mind after a conversation with our new soon-to-be-minister last night. Anne and I went round to their house to  enjoy a very pleasant evening of beer, curry and chat. They seem to be a very nice family and I am sure we will be friends for many years to come (just as long as he doesn’t read this:-)

We were talking about the future a bit and moving up to the Meths buildings and he said something like “we have to make sure we keep BCLC when we move”. I know exactly what he meant by this, BCLC is a very positive part of our church and as such needs to be nurtured, cherished and enjoyed. BUT anyone who has read this site extensively will also realise that  BCLC works because it is of it’s time and place. Remove the place or the time and it potentially becomes something else.

This led me on to think more generally about how churches (and this is not exclusively their problem) still persist in judging the success or failure of something by either numbers or longevity. A church group or event is successful if they geta ‘large’ number of people there or it lasts for a billion years (if it does the latter then the numbers can go down to single figures, you only need to satisfy one set of success criteria). We did the holiday club last week and the first thing I was asked was how many people came.

If, as is inevitable one day, BCLC ceases to be when we move churches then so be it. There is no shame in it. It will have served it’s useful purpose and died allowing something else to be born in it’s place (or another place).

With God on Our Side

I have a problem with God. Or rather I have a problem with some of our notions of God.

Take the whole parent non-intervention malarky. I am a parent and there are times when it is a good idea to let your children try something and potentially fail at it. It would be a fairly harsh regime if I continually let them fail without lending a hand here and there or maybe doing it for them so they know the pitfalls now and again. So why doesn’t God jump in and help out now and again? What’s that, he does intervene, did you say? Well then why does he let bad stuff happen to seemingly good people? You can’t have it both ways.

Then there is the ‘he shall be praised at all times’ approach to worship. Can we really only ever find good things to say about God? Doesn’t he just annoy the hell out of us once in a while? Of course He does so why then don’t we tell him?  Someone I read once described their relationship with God as being like living with a abusive partner. She was always making excuses for the bad things or the things He didn’t do and saying things like, ‘he’s not like that all the time’, or, ‘I must have upset him’.

Is it time to start telling it like it is?