March 2009 Archives

How would I explain Romans 8 to the people on this bus in a way that (a) made sense and (b) sounded relevant and life-changing to the 90% (at least) who have never been near church and heard a sermon?

Two rather different headlines from reputable news organisations...

New York Times

Prostate test found to save few lives

BBC News online

...prostate cancer screening could cut death rates from the disease by 20%

Remarkably, the two articles manage to come to completely contradictory conclusions from precisely the same sets of studies and data - and they were published the very same day!

Informed choice is valued above almost everything else - from schooling to hospital treatment, to the environment - but the contrast between these two reputable sources of 'information' points up two major trip hazards along the way:

1. Being 'well informed' is not the same as being right
   
   One of the hallmarks of the 'post-modern' mindset is a huge (and not entirely ill-founded) suspicion that we can ever really 'know' exactly the right answer to some of the most important life-changing/saving questions we can imagine.
   
   The problem is that this breeds a suspicion of experts, of claims to authority or certainty that can leave us either stuck with indecision, or to react against whatever view is mainstream, fearing we've been duped. The furore over MMR vaccinations is one obvious case where this seems to have caused real damage. The reaction against the faith-based assumptions of a Christian worldview is, perhaps, connected...
   
   
2. Choice itself can be the enemy.
   It's not merely the reliability of information that can scupper our decision-making, but the availbility of choice itself.
   
   Next time you're in a supermarket, just think how much simplet - if a bit dull - it would be to have rather less choice in the bread aisle, or amongst the 50+ butters, spreads and margarines on offer.
   
   We like choice, but choice itself can be so overwhelming and demand so much of us - that we become experts on everything - that we could wish it were taken away.

Both problems lead to a swing away from uncertainty and choice towards the certitude that comes from trusting an 'expert' and being told what to do - it's an undeniably safer and easier existence and the reason - at least one of them - why more 'extreme' forms of religion are making a comeback... as we mentioned briefly yesterday.

Time Magazine has just run a great piece - thought-provoking even if (perhaps especially if) you don't go with all their assumptions - about 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now:

There's some gloriously provocative stuff here that's endlessly quotable and could sustain several blogs for months, but I homed in (naturally enough) on:

3. The New Calvinism

Here's a flavour of the piece...

If you really want to follow the development of conservative Christianity, track its musical hits. In the early 1900s you might have heard "The Old Rugged Cross," a celebration of the atonement. By the 1980s you could have shared the Jesus-is-my-buddy intimacy of "Shine, Jesus, Shine." And today, more and more top songs feature a God who is very big, while we are...well, hark the David Crowder Band: "I am full of earth/ You are heaven's worth/ I am stained with dirt/ Prone to depravity."

Calvinism is back, and not just musically. John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.

Sadly, the 'take home' from the article is the backbiting between Christians (including the 'flame wars' in online forums!), but it's an interesting observation of the way religious movements often oscillate between extremes - and tracking them by way of their worship music is a particularly appealing method.

If you've been a church-goer for long enough, what have you seen change in the music focus of the churches you've been part of? And is it just the lyrics that are significant? I reckon you could track a lot by style/feel and even key?

Sitting here in London Diocesan Synod doesn't seem to be the most likely place to feel fear!

But we're listening to a presentation by Brian Cuthbertson who heads up the Environmental Challenge for the Diocese, so the figures, predictions and possibilities are nothing short of terrifying.

How do I react?

I read plenty on this subject, have preached on it and feel passionately about it - I think! I say, I think, because mostly I choose not to think about it at all. That's one of the most common reactions to fear, isn't it, 'denial' - and it's something I'm a great expert on (pretty convinced it got me through my undergraduate degree!!)...

Denial is one way - another is to think that it's all so beyond me that it's not worth even trying to do the little I/we might be able to do.

Panic is another - that it's all so bad there's no hope to be seen or imagined... this tends to lead to denial anyway...

Some good news: things are genuinely changing in the CofE.

The national church has apparently, a similar carbon footprint to a large national supermarket chain - and has very ambitious targets to reduce this.

London aims to reduce the carbon footprint of its churches by 20% by 2012 and by 80%+ by 2050... and remarkably the last two years have already seen a 10% drop. Things are happening - and churches are being encouraged to think very creatively. One church in the Diocese is about to commission a recently installed biomass heating system. Three parishes have installed solar panels - and many more have done the basic things of changing lightbulbs...

We're determined to pursue this in All Souls.

We're aiming to form a Green Team to help co-ordinate our action - both changes to our buildings and habits and also promotion and awareness of the global impact of the changes that we're living through - and causing.

If you'd like to be part of that team - or would like to find out more... or if you'd like to suggest ways we could change our church lifestyle... let me know!

I've been reading - for the umpteenth time - a book that's been a constant companion over my (very nearly) ten years as a pastor. Eugene Peterson is a prolific author (best known for his version of the Bible: The Message), but at his best, I think, when reflecting on ministry and leadership.

This particular book, subtitled "Reflections on Christian Ministry" was originally called The Gift, but for reasons unknown, it's now The Contemplative Pastor.

I ended up the other night, speaking to a gathering of local church leaders and representatives (Deanery Synod) on: Eight thoughts on encouraging giving to the local church..., promising them some notes online and resources.

I put notes about the first four online just before the weekend here - so here are the rest!

5. Inertia rules
   There's a big gap between deciding to act (i.e. to start to give or to increase a regular donation) that it can take weeks - and several 'nudges' - to encourage people from decision to action. Anything you can do, therefore, to make the process as easy as possible - from providing forms, answering questions (even before they're asked!) to giving an online 'button' to click and give (which we're looking into via justgiving.co.uk) - is worth the extra effort.
   
   Many people genuinely intend to get round to it, but just haven't yet... though making sure that reminders and help don't become annoying pressure is pretty key!
   
   
6. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
   There are few things worse than taking the plunge, either with a new standing order, or increasing a gift (especially when it's more than would have been just comfortable) and getting... silence. Just take the time to write a simple "thank you" note - it means that the gift is acknowledged and appreciated, just as it should be.
   
   
7. Don't take givers for granted
   I write to all regular givers twice a year with a letter that majors on thanks and which includes details of what the financial support for All Souls has made possible over the previous six months. It means that people aren't just presumed on, but get as much of an insight as possible into what their giving means in practice.
   
   Since I, as vicar, make sure I never see either who gives, or what is given, I write the letter and Sue (our administrator) sends them out for me - it's a slightly odd experience writing it 'blind'!
   
   
8. Handle with care
   Never under-estimate just what a counter-cultural and major thing it is for most people to give away money they could have enjoyed for themselves and their families - especially in the dire financial climate we're walking through at the moment. Every charity, church or not, has a particularly major responsibility to be 'good stewards' of every penny that comes their way.
   
   That means that the 'nuts and bolts' of financial planning, controls, spending and oversight aren't just an added extra for people who 'like that sort of thing', but a vital way of taking seriously the trust that's been placed in us by those who've given in response to the vision of the church.

Now over to you...

• What would you add as a 'ninth or tenth' thought on 'encouraging giving in the local church'?
• If you were the Vicar - perhaps you are in your parish if you're a visiting reader of this blog - what would you do or not do?
• And where could All Souls do better?

Tomorrow - the final part of this post - some resources for churches thinking through this area.

I ended up the other night, speaking to a gathering of local church leaders and representatives (Deanery Synod) on:

Eight thoughts on encouraging giving to the local church... (snappy-titles-R-Us.com)

I promised them some brief notes online and links to resources about giving. So here they are... A bit of a risk, I guess, publishing this in my own back yard - it's rather easier to "talk-the-talk" than "walk-the-walk", but if I'm not willing to test it out in front of the home crowd who end up on the receiving end of how we really do things here, then I shouldn't be saying it at all.

So, the briefest of notes to go with these deliberately provocative thoughts about giving - and ready for All Souls members to tell me/us how we match up!

1. Why "need" and "Jesus says" aren't enough
   This is where I started the other Sunday in my sermon on giving : merely stating "we need your money because we can't pay the bills" (or whatever), or using Jesus' teaching about giving (vital as it is to preach it) to tell people to give to church just won't wash.
   
   There are endless needs out there on which to practice the very important spiritual discipline of giving - why this church? The answer is that "giving should follow vision" - so we ask the question: "Is this your spiritual home and does the vision you've heard of our ministry alongside God at work catch your heart and mind?" - if the answer's "Yes!", then that's a good reason to give... nothing else!
   
   
2. Stories weigh more than numbers
   Which is why, of course, 'stories' are way more important than 'numbers'... If people want the budget figures then they can have them, but for most of us, we want to hear the stories of God at work that tells us this is a good place to "invest our treasure". Can you tell the story of what God's doing in your church and what we think he might do next?
   
   
3. Participation is everything
   Jesus pointed to the widow who put in a tiny coin and spoke of her as a great giver! For many people, even a tiny (seemingly) gift is a huge deal - either because times are hard or because, for many, it's the first time they've voluntarily given away that which they might have kept and enjoyed for themselves.
   
   In terms of the health of a local church, the most important thing is that as many as possible are involved in giving - before one ever starts thinking about the amounts involved.
   
   
4. Don't pass the plate
   Here's the thing I inherited at All Souls that I am most glad was done before I arrived - because I don't know I'd have had the guts to do it myself: we don't pass the plate! Why should visitors' experience of church be people asking them for money? And for regulars, why should we give the impression that giving is all about digging about for the change we happen to have in our pockets?
   
   By not asking for money week-by-week, it gives people who are becoming committed to church the space to ask (and they do) - how is all this funded? That's a good conversation to have... and it places the emphasis on those who are committed to the church's vision, funding it to make it possible.
   
   

More on Monday - the other four thoughts... and some links too... (and then I promise to return to thoughts on Romans as promised!!).

Honoured today to have taken the memorial service for a remarkable gentleman whose life spanned many decades of change and whose friends and family remember him with genuine affection and honour. We were hosted kindly by a central London church - a Wren building I'd never been into before.

Writing my talk/sermon, I sat with the second reading chosen by the family - not one I've preached on before in any context...

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Here's what I said (leaving out the gentleman's name) following on from the (very moving and beautifully put) eulogy delivered by a close relative...

"...it's true of all life, looked at a day at a time or a decade at a time: we realise that all of us live through experiences that can plunge us into the deepest darkness and at other times make days sparkle with the brightest of joy. We experience the pleasure of friendship as well as the ache of loneliness, trust alongside betrayal, times when we have felt sick to our stomachs with failure and others when we enjoy the giddy high of success...

It's that roller-coaster ride of life that the writer of Ecclesiastes picks up in the reading we've just had. He recognises that the life we lead - this time we spend "under heaven" - sweeps together the best and the worst: from war to peace, loss to gain, mourning as well as joyful dance.

And I want to suggest that the challenge he places before us is simply this - not to live life in compartments, but to recognise its wholeness before God.

It's a great survival mechanism, isn't it, to box off different areas of our life - family life, work, friendships of different types and depths. We can present ourselves slightly - sometimes radically - different in each one and bottle up emotions from one area that might spill over and damage another.

Hearing this passage, and remembering the book as a whole, I'm struck by the fact that the writer never winces at the thought that all this mess of life is lived before and, in fact, with God. This is no God just of high-days and holidays, of Sunday mornings at church, or Christmas in a Carol Service. The God he speaks of through his writings seems as interested in the darkness we walk through, at times in fear and confusion, as the light we enjoy.

And that's a pattern we see lived out in the life of Jesus: God made flesh - far from finding a pain-free well-insulated life of luxury, but walking the muddy paths and hungry days of a poor carpenter in first century Palestine - knowing deep friendships alongside heart-breaking betrayal; enjoying the sights and sounds of God's created world and weeping at the harshness of death and disease; experiencing the joy of seeing God at work, yet aware even of those times when God seems distance, even absent.

And in all of that, Jesus lived out a life stubbornly refusing to box things in - a life of wholeness before his Heavenly Father - knowing that God was not just interested, but utterly committed to walking with him through it all with a love stronger even than death itself.

As we remember today the richness of this particular long life, lived before the God who made and loves us, let's hear the challenge of the wise writer of Ecclesiastes to recognise the presence and love of God in Jesus, walking with us through the whole of live and hand-in-hand, even through death itself.

Making choices
A real mess and mix of emotions in preparing to preach on Sunday last week...

...excitement, even exhilaration, at digging into Romans and getting the excuse to read some stuff in depth that's arrived on my shelves since I last approached the letter - especially some typically lively and stimulating Tom Wright (Bishop of Durham and one of the foremost biblical scholars writing today),

...but also a growing sense of what can only be described as foreboding as it dawned on me just what an enormous mouthful I'd bitten off to chew in twenty minutes flat!

The problem is that you just can't preach Romans 3:21-26 in isolation. That's true of all scripture, of course (the old saying "A text without a context becomes a pretext" is spot-on here), but peculiarly true of a paragraph so dense in theologically rich terms ("justified", "righteousness") and that connects so thoroughly into the big story of the Old Testament people of God.

There's a controversy surround the interpretation of the big themes and ideas of Paul's letter that's becoming increasingly bad-tempered and is, sadly, between people that I've always looked up to, read with appreciation and identified with: the likes of Don Carson, John Piper on one side and Tom Wright (amongst others) on the other.

Here isn't the place to try and unpack the argument - and I'm hardly the expert to turn to if that's your thing - but it does put the week-by-week preacher in a tough position. It's hard enough to find the time and head/heart-space in a given week to understand scripture, listen to God and prepare something that nourishes and encourages, without having first to wade through books of finely balanced argument before you can even get going...

But that's life - and in the end, the result of the extra reading and thinking is being forced to think more carefully and deeply about things one might have taken for granted before.

For myself, I think Tom Wright's take on Romans is incredibly helpful and fruitful - though whether it bore fruit in my sermon on Sunday is for others to judge! - and connects Paul's Good News about Jesus with the whole sweep of the Bible's story of God loving and rescuing the created order and humanity.

Interested in taking things further?
I promised on Sunday some links you could follow if you'd like to read more about Romans, perhaps working your way through it during Lent...

My first suggestion is to go to Tom Wright's pair of paperbacks aimed at all Christians - part of his New Testament for Everyone series:

• Romans - Part 1
• Romans - Part 2

They are arranged such that the Bible's text (in his own, very readable and accurate translation) is set in manageable chunks followed by just 3 or 4 pages of beautifully crafted comment (mini-sermons effectively) from Bishop Tom. Wonderful stuff, very well applied to life and never pulling punches on the big issues.You can even read a sample before you buy on Amazon.

If you're intrigued by the debate I mentioned earlier, you could do much worse than go to Wright's latest book called, simply, Justification - it's a tour de force in making a case - not entirely without flashes of temper, but he's been pretty well villified by fellow Christians for his approach. It's a very readable book aimed at those who know their Bibles pretty well and want to dig in deeply into the heart of what makes the Gospel good news. If you want to read up the other side of the debate, John Piper's book on Wright is easy to dig out on Amazon too.

Over the next few days, I'm going to take a shot at writing up a few of my notes from the past week about some of the big ideas we touched on so briefly in the sermon itself...