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The new Global Missional Leadership Doctor of Ministry that I will be leading for George Fox Seminary, starts January 2010, and application deadlines are the 1st December.If your still thinking of applying, get those forms in asap. More details are below.
Continue reading »
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King’s College Lodon, have an MA in Contemporary Ecclesiology.
I’ve been asked to teach on the 9th December within one of the modules for this M.A. on the Emerging Church. I’ve just finished my outline and bibliography, details are below:
Aims & Objectives
Emerging Church: A survey of trends in thinking within the ‘emerging church’ network. This will explore theological themes underlying the movement, its relationships with established patterns within the traditional denominations, and the rediscovery and re-use of traditional forms within such churches.
Topics
1. ‘What is the Emerging Church’: An anterior history of emerging church, it’s current status and manifestations
2. ‘What lies beneath’: A theological mapping and critique of the emerging church
3. ‘The Market Driven Church?’: How far is the Emerging Church a critical response to the problems of ecclesiology being captivity to the logic of the market and how far is it a continuation of that problematic?
4. ‘The Renewal of Liturgy’: A theological examination and exploration of the renewal of liturgy by the emerging church, and of how far this represents a turn to traditioned understandings and imaginations for ecclesiology. Continue reading »
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Alban Books have been sending me great books to review for a while now.
They’ve just launched an academic mini site, with some promotions and special offers, with a range of books covering: Continue reading »
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When: 1 December 2009, 10:30 AM – 3:00 PM
Where: St Paul’s Church, Robert Adam Street, W1
Cost: £15 after 16 November, booking deadline 25 November
I was invited to contribute/input at this event but am away 1st December, otherwise I’d have been there. Contributors will include Maggi Dawn, Jonny Baker, Adrian Warnock, Mark Meynell, and Krish Kandiah
This should be a great event in terms of topic, process and people inputting. You can get more information from the EA even organisers here.
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One of my earliest TV memories is being aged 5 and watching the third Dr Who ‘John Pertwee’ become the fourth Dr Who ‘Tom Baker’ in 1974. I remember it like it was yesterday.
But I enjoyed a regeneration experience that was far greater this week, when I got to baptise 6 people from our church community.
Hearing stories of people finding faith, their struggles, confessions, and life changing conversion through relationship with Jesus and his church, then standing in water, baptising these wonderful people, knowing I was taking part in an experience of christian worship and regeneration, I felt pabably a connection to the body of Jesus, and the weight of a 2,000 year succession.
When people talk about how they’d like to die, quietly in their sleep, well mine would be in the waters of baptism. As the last candidate gets out would be one of my choices. Might be a bit dramatic, but it’s one of those moments for me, where I feel in touch with my faith and the meaning life it’s deepest level.
And it reminds my of why I got into church planting, and why I spend the time I do in study, reflection, ministry and work, to hear more stories of lives changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and Christ’s indwelling.
You can view more photos from the baptism here.
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I have two old friends from my early seminary days 20 years ago, who lead and work at the London Institute of Christianity (LICC).
I got an email from LICC with details of a role/vacancy for a Chief Operating Officer that they have available.
If you are interested you can find information on their site here.
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I was interviewed last friday by Alex MacManus for his blogtalk radio show, you can catch the interview here.
Then tomorrow, I’m being interviewed by Premier Radio, but I’m not sure when that interview is due to be broadcast.
Meantime here are the questions, I’m told I’ll be asked:
1. Is leading a church something you imagined yourself doing when you were at school?
2. What was your journey to serving with Sutton Vineyard?
3. You once hosted a website that aided a discussion around emerging church issues and have now moved on to consider the merits of what is known as ‘deep church’ Can you talk about your progression, what you are sure about and what questions remain? [we have considered emerging church on the show before, but please define – inasmuch as you are able!] Continue reading »
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The Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism in Britain Project is hosting a one-day conference for scholars, ministers and the interested public at King’s College Chapel, London, on Tuesday, 15 December 2009.
The conference will consider the ways in which Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism have expressed themselves in the social and historical conditions of Britain and engage such questions as:
• Who have traditionally been Evangelicals and Fundamentalists?
• What doctrines have they upheld?
• What attitudes have they maintained?
• Have Evangelicals displayed the anger often considered characteristic of Fundamentalists?The Keynote speakers will be:
* professor alister McGrath of King’s College, London -‘Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism and Science’
* Dr stephen holmes of the University of st andrews – ‘Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism and Theology’
* professor David bebbington of the University of stirling – ‘Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism in Britain’
For further information, including booking forms, please visit our website www.eauk.org/efb or email Andrew Tooley at efbproject@stir.ac.uk
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Now that the very fast-moving debate prompted by Kester Brewin’s series of blog posts, which accompanied an article in third way magazine and a talk at greenbelt festival, all entitled “A Plea for Christian Piracy” has died down, I want to take a moment to reflect on what we might learn from what Kester said.
In my initial response, I attacked the ‘valorisation of heresy’ as lacking a substantive vision of justice, partly in response to the fact that thought such as Brewin’s has been used as a sort of foil for those who leave the established church to do something new, despite that not being his stated intention, nor that of many others who aim to speak to the established church in a way which might help it to understand and embrace new movements among Christians.
In that article I proposed that the attempt to enact justice depends on a kind of collaborative vision which holds differences in tension rather than resolving them in a break (the pirates’ self-initiated withdrawal from society) but which nevertheless holds itself open to questioning, growth, change, and which values service over power in relation to others.
I want to speak now in defence of the piratical, in an attempt to draw out some of the more interesting aspects of this debate. The valorisation of piracy is paradoxical, and liable to be misunderstood, because in the conditions of modern capitalism heresy is the orthodoxy; that is to say ‘opting out’ of a shared vision is the normal way of things.
As Michael Sandel showed in his Radio 4 Reith lectures earlier this year, the Aristotelian understanding of justice as a shared and common good has lost ground to conceptions of ethics which depend on a kind of moral calculus that suspends the question of concrete goods and appeals to some abstract good (utility or freedom), which leads to an insubstantial conception of justice, and so to the subordination of questions of morality to market forces. Continue reading »
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I count Jim Henderson as a good friend, he’s had a big influence in my life, so the critique of his latest site re-launch ‘Church Rater‘, needs to be placed in that context.
Also that he asked me to post publicly my critique of it. Normally I don’t review sites/resources I don’t like, and just avoid them. But for Jim here are some of my thoughts about the site and why it’s problematic for me.
Most of these comments I have already run by Jim in private when we first talked about the site, that was eventually closed down in February 2008. So dusting those thoughts off and updating them for the Church Rater relaunch, here goes:
1. Why Focus on Sunday Services?: When Off the Map has sought to promote the notion that church is more than a Sunday Service, why the focus on reviewing Sunday Services? I’m sure many of the churches reviewed have a lot more going on in them than a their Sunday Service. How about the reviewers enter into the life of church communities and review things other than Sundays?
2. Consumerism: Then there is the nature of ‘rating’. I know I’m not interested in someone visiting one Sunday service and giving us a 5* rating. I fear it undermines something else Off the Map was set up for, deep and thoughtful reflection and critique of Church. Church needs critique and I love the kind that Off the Map introduced me to. However this way of assessing churches, seems captive to the problem of the way we select out church involvement, and undermines the best (at least for me) of Off the Map.
3. Polarisation: So those people who like their churches will get on the site and give glowing reviews, those who hate churches will give their scathing reviews, and maybe some thoughtful ones will take place in between. Because of no 1 & 2 above, I think polarisation is more likely the outcome of rating sunday services.
Perhaps, non emerging church fundamentalists, could set up a ‘missional church rater’ system, visit some non sunday service meetings of groups, and let slip that they are ‘evangelicals’ to see what happens. Then they could post the horrifying judgmental responses from the ‘tolerant’ missional people, and easily pour scorn on them, and miss all the good taking place in those communities.
I fear church rater as it is set up, preaches to the choir on both sides.
4. Location of ‘raters’: Now this isn’t an ad hominem argument I’m about to offer and remember the context of my friendship with Jim Henderson mentioned above, and this is something I have run by Jim before. Given Jim’s own post-church ecclesiology and non commitment to a local congregation (unless that has changed recently), what is the qualification for rating a local congregation? Again that doesn’t mean Jim and Off the Map can’t critique church in valuable ways, they do, but through so many other ways than ‘Church Rater’. Why would someone convinced that for themselves and for many others that the nature of church is non-particular, critique Sunday services when they don’t take part in one themselves, outside of giving a reviews or guest speaking at them?
Also Casper the Atheist. I’ve never met him, and I’m sure he is a great guy, and I’d like him. But once the novelty has worn off of an atheist reviewing your Sunday service, what is left? Has Casper become a professional atheist sunday service reviewer? Again I’m all for us understanding how church seems to people outside, especially those trying to find God and faith. But if Casper visited my community, I’d take his feedback with a pinch of salt.
I want Casper to find faith in Christ, to hand over his basis for reality to Jesus to order his life around the mission of Jesus with others, which our church is trying to do, and I’m sure get’s wrong many times. But I have no interest in a good write up from a professional atheist church reviewer, no offense Casper. I doubt if it would help people looking for a church to take part in our community, or atheists to give us a try.
Now if Casper visited us, I’d say please come to something other than a Sunday service, and don’t bother if the only reason is to put a review up on Church Rater of our Sunday service. Come along and see if you can find Jesus with us, and serve him with us, and write about your experience of Him instead.
