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Book idea..?
Paul writes…Jason and I have been talking about writing a book about deep church. One of the practical difficulties of deep church so far is that it is: a) primarily academic/rooted in the academy at present
b) dense
c) hard to imagine what this looks/feels/tastes like in practice and therefore why bother/get excited about it.
My own feeling would be to take a book idea like Doug Paggitt’s book on Church re-imagined and adapt it to write practically about what we are doing around the values of deep church that we have in our own church community/context. Not that I’m saying that we are the example of deep church in action just an example that people may find helpful.
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DEEP CHURCH SEMINAR
By Rev Dr Steve Croft. Director, Fresh ExpressionsPrior to taking up his post with Fresh Expressions, Steve was Warden of Cranmer Hall in Durham and before that a Vicar in Halifax. His books include:
-Ministry in Three Dimensions: ordination and leadership in the local church
-Transforming Communities: Re-imagining the Church for the 21st Century
(both published by DLT).He will be giving a paper discussing emerging churches.
27 Feb, 11.15-12.30, Waterloo Bridge Building, King’s College London. (There will be a sign with the room number on the door)
Map link: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/campuses/waterloo-det.html
Do bring a sandwich or stay for lunch afterwards in the canteen.
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Exploring new monasticism - conference
The Northumbria Community and the Anabaptist Network will be exploring ‘new monasticism’ in a day conference in Coventry on 3 May 2008. Through plenary sessions, discussion, worship, workshops and conversations with a wide range of resource people, we will assess its potential for the church in exile.
See here for more details and a booking form.
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Reconstructing worship…
There has been some really interesting pieces written on worship of late.Please do check out this really awesome article by Dan Wilt on the rise of the worship artisan
Jason wrote a great article on recovering liturgy and ritual in the emerging church
I’ve written about exploring worship (including the singing) and the emerging church
And for a practical/experiental example of deep church practised in the community of our church: Vineyard Sutton: Marc has posted the ash wednesday service that we participated in last night and Jason and I have posted our reactions/experiences/actions as a result of that service
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Innovative returns to tradition…
Great article from US News here: A return to tradition. This echos in many ways the themese of deep church and what this site is looking to exlore. Here is a taster…“Something curious is happening in the wide world of faith, something that defies easy explanation or quantification. More substantial than a trend but less organized than a movement, it has to do more with how people practice their religion than with what they believe, though people caught up in this change often find that their beliefs are influenced, if not subtly altered, by the changes in their practice.
Put simply, the development is a return to tradition and orthodoxy, to past practices, observances, and customary ways of worshiping. But it is not simply a return to the past—at least not in all cases. Even while drawing on deep traditional resources, many participants are creating something new within the old forms. They are engaging in what Penn State sociologist of religion Roger Finke calls “innovative returns to tradition.”
This also seems a good time for Jason and I to wish you all of a wonderful blessed christmas and thank you for your readership and participation with us in exploring deep church together!
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Listen to the Deep church lectures
In case you didn’t know you can download MP3 recording of any of the talks in the deep church lecture series from the Westminster Theological Centre website. -
What does deep church mean to you?
Over the last few months we’ve been very glad to have had an awesome group of guest writers here, sketching out for us a whole range of different areas, contributions and impacts that deep church can have. A big thank you to them for their contributions!We hope you have enjoyed the painting of such a broad landscape but we are also conscious that Jason and I now need to present our own concrete thinking of how/where/what of deep church. Specifically where we see this fiting in with the emerging church conversation that we are already part and the vision we have for the deep church going forward.
We we would love your ongoing involvement with the site and therefore would love to hear your thoughts on what deep church means for you? If deep church is a blur we would love to listen to any specific thoughts, questions and concerns that you may have? I’m not guaranteeing you that we’ll be able to answer them but it would be great to listen and talk with you more…
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WTC: Deep church conversations…
UPDATE: the next Deep Church session - is being held on the 30th October at St Marks Church (245 Old Marylebone Rd) from 7:15 - 9pm. The Talk:’Would Jesus tolerate politically-correct tolerance?’ [More details in the text below]Exciting times, Westminster Theological Centre have a programme of Deep Church conversations this autumn and next spring terms, with the first one starting on Tues 16 October…
Deep Church
Deep Church events usually start with a brief worship time, followed by the main talk. There is then a break (and a chance to enjoy some free wine and refreshments!), after which there will be the opportunity for questions and discussion. However, this is flexible and subject to variation.Each event is free and open to all, no need to sign up, just come along and bring your friends!
read on… -
New series of deep church seminars…
14th November - Pete Ward. ‘Eucharist as Production, Text and Audience’ King’s College London, Franklins Wilkins Building, Classroom 2.4327th February - Rev Dr Steven Croft, Fresh Expressions
21st May - Rev Dr Steve Griffiths, Ridley Hall’s Director of Youth Work
Training / Editor of The Journal of Youth and Theology<Time: 11.15-12.30 (bring a sandwich for lunch afterwards!)
Location: Waterloo Bridge Building, King’s College London Map link: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/campuses/waterloo-det.html read on…
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Is there still a need for church - true, deep or otherwise?
The Pope recently reconfirmed the Roman Catholic’s church position that only churches with apostolic succession are true churches, for those of us in the protestant tradition we are ‘ecclesiological communities.’ This may lead some to wonder whether we as protestants/evangelicals can have any truck with our Catholic brothers and sisters and perhaps deep church is at best a sticking plaster for ecumenicalism or at worst some sort of consipiracy/cover up/hush up/suck up?In these revolutionary post-church/pathological-church times I wonder if we need to move beyond arguements of legitimising our existence as gathering of Christians and instead address the question facing us in the west of why we should bother gathering at all?
Do we still resonate with the thoughts of Ignatius, from the 2nd century, that ‘where Jesus Christ is, there is the universal church’ or Irenaeus, ”where the Spirit of God is, there is the church and all grace’ or does that church now only consist of an audience of one - namely me (as pope, priest and parishioner).
Is chosing to be an independent/individual Christian a contradiction in terms? What can the deep church/deep ecclesiology response be to the question of not just defining “church” but addressing the questions of church: “so what?” and “then what?”
Whilst acknowleding the dangers of blueprint church and the romantic quest in vain for the perfect church - I think we also need to critique our own western ecclesiological lens and inparticular the underlying theme of individualisation/self-determination. My own suggested sketch for this critique for me would be for a Trinitarian lens - one informed by a 2/3 world view [where they have the opposite dilema an emphasis on the many but not so much on the individual].
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Listening to Deep Church Conversations: hosted by WTC
Just a reminder that the deep church conversation series continues on tuesday evenings for the next couple of weeks - see here for details. The session on 26/6 had to be rearranged due to flooding, so tonight is session 2.If you are unable to get to any of the sessions WTC is kindly recording them and they are available here from their site.
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Real life Deep church conversation…
Here are details of an imminent WTC mini-series – ‘Conversations in Deep Church‘ If you’re near London on any of those dates come along and join the conversation at these free events.
If you are going to any of them would you like to write a summary to be posted here for people who couldn’t make it?
The theme is worship though that isn’t clear from the blurb.
Week 1 (19th June): Dr. Graham Tomlin - ‘Luther, the Cross and the Christian Life‘
Week 2 (26th June): Dr. Chris Joby - ‘Why do Christians worship’
Week 3 (3rd July): Dr. Alan Spence - ‘The humanity of Christ‘
Week 4 (10th July): Dr. Douglas Knight - ‘The people of the Spirit in the Body of Christ ‘
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conversations in deep church…
Come along and join in these free sessions.
[click on the image of the flyer for details or see here…]
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The submerging church: how deep church and the emerging church can help each other…
It used to be about ‘hand-me-downs,’ items past down through the family but now we are entering a world of ‘hand-me-ups.’ Phones, cameras, mp3 players are now being given to parents by their children as they upgrade to the next new thing [no doubt the parents are grateful for the on-tap technical support!].
The emerging church in many ways is a positive and exciting move of God that is engaging a generation and is resulting in many valuable ‘hand-me-ups’ to its parent church, in its exploration and engagement with the ‘post’ generation.
However, is there a danger that we in the emerging church forget also the tradition that has been handed down to us? What happens as we as a conversation grow, as the novelty of the ’post’ world wears thin, when the rest of the church has caught up with us ‘early adopters’ and a new generation has overtaken us with the latest of church engagement:
- are we destined to become a novelty seeking, emotional, reactionary movement, defining ourselves by our angst with the modern church? or
- are we able to mature grace-fully rather than stagnate - to continue to blend the best of the Spirit inspired new things with the best of the Spirit inspired past?
This article will explore some ways in which the emerging church can recognising our place in the chain of faith past down to us through the traditions and practices of the church and taking in our place in handing on a deeper faith, blended with our own unique contribution, to those who will proceed us… It is a recognition that whilst we have ‘deep’ pools of life to contribute we also have our own shallows as well and therfore I think we need to be connected to the an ongoing cycle of handing on, handing down and handing up of the christian faith, practices and traditions…
This piece has been particularly inspired by Luke Bretherton’s chapter in ‘Remembering our Future’ on the emerging church and by Andrew Walker’s essay on paradosis in the same book.
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welcome
Welcome to Deep Church. We hope to bring you shortly a number of guest authors, from a variety of perspectives to kick off the conversation on Deep Church.
In the meantime if you haven’t checked out the book, ‘Remembering our future - explorations in Deep Church,’ I can recomend it to you as a great book to begin exploring with.
