“Mum and Dad, you know what God is doing?”

Well I was about to host the church gathering, so I was pretty intrigued at that level.  On a more macro scale, I was pretty intrigued too … wouldn’t it be lovely to know what God is doing?  In our family?  In our city?  In the church?  In the world?  I would love to know what God is doing …

“He is making people better!”

It is so simple to a 4 year old.  But just maybe he is on to something…

I only came across the post on a blog today, when someone clicked through and the incoming link came up on my statcounter.  The actual post is a year old, but I didn’t clock it then.  Providential?  Maybe…

So they are quoting my bio, as evidence that I am an emerging village idiot.  It has to be said that my bio is not the most original, nor the best.  When setting up my blog, I needed to write something, and that was it.  Perhaps it is time to change it…

I do love the the title of the blog post … very clever.  Shame that isn’t true.  But there again, when should we allow truth to get in the way, of a good story, good post, or good laugh?

For the uninitiated, Emergent Village is a loose organisation in the US.  Tony Jones is the national coordinator, and perhaps most well-know would be Brian McLaren who is on the board of directors.  It is a wide coalition of people, including Scot McKnight of Jesus Creed fame, who could hardly be described as an idiot.

For the record, I am not a member of Emergent Village. I do read some of the blogs and books of people connected with Emergent Village, and have found them stimulating and interesting.  But just because I read a book or blog doesn’t mean that I endorse all the views … yada, yada, yada…

Moving on the term “idiot” … actually lets not …

However, this is the funniest bit – a comment from someone after the post…

Ummm, this is an interesting comment thread … First, I’m wondering why you’re picking on this guy, Rupert Ward. I’ve never heard of him, but apparently he’s a big enough figure for you to critique the “about” page on his blog?

So I have finally made it!

And good question: why are you picking on this guy, Rupert Ward.  I think they could have found someone who fits the bill a bit better than I?

Following the previous post about my visit to the house of Cantle, the website for Daybreak has now gone live.  All the detail, timetable, and instructions for booking can be found there.

I really recommend the weekend course (14th – 16th November).  For Christian courses, £60 can seem more than usual, but as Jim normally charges around £2500 for a four day course in the business and industry world, it is a bargain!  Don’t let the cost put you off though; there are always ways…

If you are planning on coming from outside Edinburgh, do leave a comment; it would be lovely to connect at some point over the weekend.

It was good to see Jim again.  He is a renowned executive coach, trainer and facilitator for some pretty well known businesses, but also a very committed man of faith too.  His mix of Psychology, faith, gestalt therapy, and just some wacky stuff makes him stimulating and interesting.

Jim is doing a weekend, in our church building in a couple of months time (14th – 16th November).  He ran me through the material, which is top notch as usual.  In a nutshell, it is learning how to move from fear to love, but he will lead us through it in his own inimitable style of teaching and learning exercises.  I will post more when I have the details.

Wiff waff, as Boris correctly identifies, is a nickname for ping-pong or table tennis, and did originate over the dinning tables in England.  So now it is coming home for the next Olympics in 2012.

Boris is a genius.  Sure, he can also be a buffoon, and put his foot in his mouth, but as a public speaker, he is a genius.  We can’t compete with Beijing in terms of spectacle or money, but we can make it great fun, especially if Boris is still mayor in 4 years time.

It is much better watching the video, but if you can’t then here is part of the relevant speech:

I say this respectfully to our Chinese hosts who have excelled so magnificently at ping pong.  Ping pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th century and it was called wiff waff.  There I think you have the essential difference between us and the rest of world.  Other nations, the French, looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner. We looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to play wiff waff. That is why London is the sporting capital of the world.

On another humorous note, on Sunday at church this video was played.  Not sure there was much connection with anything, but it was fun…

"God doesn’t make you ill.  In fact, God is very sad that people get ill."  I said.  I wish I had left it there.  "When he first made the world, no-body got ill".

My first mistake.  Big mistake.

"So how did people start getting ill?" said Toby.  Good question, Toby.  Very good question.

So how would you describe to a 4½ year old about the origins of illness?

For my response … click on "read the rest" …

Mind working fast:  How do you tell a small person about sin, and rebellion, and how sin brings in death and decay?

"Would you like me to tell you a story Toby?"  "Oh yes Dad, please".

"Well, a long long time ago, when God made the world, it was a very good place to live.  For all the people who lived there, no-one got ill, no-one would die, and nothing would break"

"What ‘nothing’?" exclaimed Toby.  "not even toys".  (you can see what is important to him!)

"No, net even toys!  Now there was a man called Adam and woman called Eve, and they were husband and wife, like Mummy and Daddy.  And they lived in a beautiful garden, with lots of lovely places to explore and different things to eat.  But there was one tree that God said you must not eat from: it would make them sick.  You know the plant in our garden, Toby, with red berries on that Mummy and Daddy say that you mustn’t eat because you would be ill?  Well it was like that.  If Adam and Eve ate the fruit from this tree, they would be sick."

"And guess what Adam and Eve did?  Well they ate the fruit from that tree, and they got sick.  And that is how people started getting ill.  But God is working very hard to make the world a better place, where people don’t get sick or die, and things don’t break."

"Oh that would be wonderful" grinned Toby.  Yes it would!

And here is my thought that emerged from this interaction with Toby: that "story" moves beyond the questions of a literal (or otherwise) interpretation of Gen 1 – 3, because story connects profoundly with our human experience.  We find our own lives and experience mirrored in the story, and somehow it really doesn’t matter if it was 6 days or not etc., because we find at a much deeper level that the story is true, shedding light on God, ourselves, our experience and longings as we navigate our way in this world.

It made me laugh!

Brian McLaren in recent Blog Post

But no, apparently NT Wright himself is admitting that he won’t be going to heaven. Is he admitting that he is woolly liberal after all? Perhaps admitting that he doesn’t take the atonement seriously? Or perhaps that Bishops themselves are somehow barred?

No, even more shockingly than that, the Bish says that no Christians will go to heaven and perhaps surprisingly to some of our evangelical brethren that the Bible doesn’t ever promise that we will!!! In fact he says the Bible says that Jesus is coming here to earth, to “join together the heavens and the earth, in an act of new creation”.

Perhaps we have the beginning here of a worldly spirituality?

See the article on N.T. Wright’s new book, Hope, where he expresses these views.

Tags: NT Wright, Surprised by Hope, Heaven, Christians

I read somewhere that it is impossible to blog, read other blogs, and have a job and a life as well. Well the last couple of weeks I have been concentrating on job and life, and blogging and blog reading has fallen completely by the wayside.

On holiday, my wife and I talked about some changes that we want to see in our lives. We don’t have any solutions yet, but do want to spend less time working and doing jobs. So I have been trying to work a little less late, and consequently blogging has gone out of the window.

We have had quite a busy family time too over the last month, with visits from both sets of parents, and in the last two weeks our 22 month son decided to emulate his 3 1/2 year old brother and climb out of the bath, landing on the tiled floor face first, knocking half a tooth out in the process. So a few visits to dentists later, he had the rest of the tooth removed last Friday.

I want to keep blogging, but do need to do less too, so not sure how that is going to work. I have a ridiculous number of people’s blogs I read, so that needs to get culled (I haven’t opened bloglines for over 10 days, so I hate to think how many blog posts there could be waiting for me there!). I think I will concentrate on reading blogs from people I know, or who comment on my blog. But does anyone else who blogs feel guilty for not reading other people’s blogs?

I also really want to spend more time praying! So nothing changes there then..

We have had a great holiday in France in my blog absence … this was a deluxe outside BBQ and the view from our gite (holiday house). It was a great time to hang out the family, swim, read, sleep, think, pray (a bit), listen to music and talking books, explore French towns and markets, eat and drink, and see some friends.

This gite was up a mountain, about 900m high, in Voges region of France … a small village at the end of a treacherous road, miles from nowhere. And it was so quiet (when the nearest neighbours stopped mowing their huge meadow!). When all man made noise stopped, and the kids had gone to bed, and the Ipod was turned off … silence. Well actually it wasn’t silence so much as loads of crickets, wind in the trees, birds singing, and if you listened very carefully the sound of a stream a few hundred yards away at the bottom of the valley.

All these sounds were there all the time, but in the midst of the lawnmower, everyone talking, music, the very occasional car there was just too much noise to hear the other sounds …

… and when all the other things were “off”, it took me many moments to tune into the different sounds.

And isn’t that so like the still small voice of God? Drowned out by the crashing sounds of life around us. And even when they cease, it takes some time to tune into a different frequency.

How do you find silence? What helps you tune in?

Tags: Prayer, Listening to God, Holiday, France

I wrote 4 pages of notes, typing furiously, trying to keep up with the rich sentences that keeping flowing … it was a hopeless task so profound was so much of what he was saying … but judge for yourselves by reading the notes in the “read more” section.

Wright was speaking about bringing together the spiritual and social justice, looking at salvation, our task in light of that salvation, and the way God works in hew world. He was outlining the vision of the restoration of the whole creation that is clear in Ephesians.

Key quotes: “When we have a view of salvation of leaving earth and go to heaven … we are not reading the same Bible.”

“The western church is guilty of a false polarisation of the spiritual and the worldly… we need to put them back together again.”

“We must discover the vocation of being genuine human beings.”

“We have to learn to collaborate without compromise … but also we must critique without dualisms“

He was outlining a road map for what we are doing in bringing together the practical and spiritual – we need to understand why we are doing it. There was a great emphasis on the cross and resurrection (which has been lacking from what I have been saying, although of course I do see the cross and the whole incarnation as crucial to the inauguration of the Kingdom). But consistently Wright drew our attention to salvation not being an individual thing, not primarily FOR me, but to FLOW through us to the world, to bring restoration, rescue, healing, hope etc.

The notes are long … but they are worth reading … I hope they make sense!

Tags: Emerging Church, Incarnate, Incarnate Conference 2007, Kingdom, Kingdom of God, Mission, Missional Church, NT Wright

Session 2 – N T Wright

Ps 127 – unless the Lord builds the house, the labourers labour in vain; unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain…

Many things that need to be done in our society … but need make sure we don’t do it without God.

Sense of the Psalm:
When the Lord is building, you will be able to build
When the Lord is guarding, you will be able to guard.

Ecumenical thing is very important. God is doing new things, but we need to do them together.
Sense of convergence of the “spiritual” and “practical” – saving souls and social justice.

We need a framework of how it fits together … a road map of how we get into that stuff. Spirituality and social justice should be together.

Incarnate – Jesus didn’t stay at a distance. We have taught the wrong stuff about the Kingdom of God.

Something deeper amiss when the poor get poorer and the rich gets richer. Something is radically amiss with the system.

1. Salvation

Often when we read the early chapters of Romans we get a very individual take on salvation. But in Romans 8 – we get God’s restoration of the whole cosmos. That is where we should get to when we consider salvation.

If you read Ephesians, you get there much quicker …

Eph 1:10 – God’s design was to gather all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

When we have a view of salvation of leaving earth and go to heaven … we are not reading the same Bible. The message of salvation is that it has already happened in Jesus Christ – to rescue this world from the mess we are in, and infuse with God’s presence. Gnosticism – rescue to heaven. We are just passing through.

The great enemy is death, as it the destruction of the good creation … creation was very good. Soul to heaven is a still description of death … that is not the destruction of death.

We are not made for life after death. Heaven is important, but it is not the end of the world. But the good news is that there is life after life after death. The defeat of death and the rescue of people, as God renews the earth. It is not the abandoning of this world, but the rescue. The launch has happened in Jesus.

The Kingdom is not a place where God rules, but the fact that God rules. What would be like if God is running the show? Jesus tells us … the blind see, the lepers get healed…

How do we integrate Jesus’ interaction with the poor and the end of the story? Jesus goes off and dies! So some just have the passion narrative, with a rather long introduction …
We must put the gospel story back together again …

Whatever force it is that causes war, slavery, human trafficking – they are very powerful. They will not be waved away by a bunch of people who go around doing some good …
Jesus has to go the place where the darkness is the worst … he has to go the cross…

Coming of God’s Kingdom is through the defeating the powers of darkness … what we have traditionally called sin (which is far more the little individual things we do) but that the world would healing from the grip of evil. What Jesus launched, he took to the cross … and was re-launched on Easter Day…

The whole point about Easter is that it is bodily … a new creation is launched…

The western church is guilty of a false polarisation of the spiritual and the worldly… we need to put them back together again.

Disciples thought the Kingdom was all about Israel. We have done the same about being human. We think that salvation is for me.

Salvation is not primarily FOR us, but through us. We get it, as it flows through us…
cf. Jn 8 – rivers of living waters … out of you come this living water. You are refreshed as you give.
cf Rev – the river flows from the new Jerusalem, to the nations and the healing of the nations.

Salvation is not just god’s gift TO the church, but through the church…

2. Human Task

There are times when we need to know why we are doing this. The church is the source of hope for the world. The world doesn’t want it, as it has carved up the world. They have made the church OK for spiritual things – they will look after the world.

Eph 2:10 – we are God’s workmanship or POEM. FOR good works … not about living a good, nice life (that is too privatised) but do go some good works out there in the world. God wants to build the city through you, to guard the city through you…

We are not just people who are experiencers of salvation, but the purveyors of salvation.
cf. Shipwreck in acts – salvation … salvation is in the here and now …
Gen 1 – called to be image bearers … God doesn’t just want to see His image as he looks at us. But actually we reflect God’s image into the world. We are called to guard God’s creation. Reflecting his healing love into the world. We are called to bring rescue to those in slavery.
We are rescued to rescue…

We believe in the creator and live-giver God … and wants to bring about real signs of the new creation in the present. We are to share God’s rule in the world. Not a theocracy. Rule of God over the world is found in Jesus – as a shepherd among his flock. Don’t call it rule if that word doesn’t help.

We must discover the vocation of being genuine human beings.

3. The way God’s works in the world

We must find an integrated view of working in the world.
How do we work with others? Do you just go along with everything? Or do we sit on the sidelines and carp?

Eph 3:10 – through the church, the rules and authorities will be called to account (Jesus is Lord and Caesar isn’t!).

A few principles about working in the world:

Col 1: 15, 16 God wants to bring order
Ordered wisely structure. If you don’t have order you have chaos, and if you have chaos the bullies always win.

Human rebels. God will set it right, sort it all out.
Judge = put it all right.

God will do this. But in between, God wants human authorities to put it right, to anticipate the putting right that God will do one day – to love mercy, do justice.
But real trouble comes when human authorities when they try to bring pride, or money or … to themselves.
The answer isn’t to get rid of authorities … but to call them to their job under God.
Again and again in Acts we see the rulers get it wrong, and the church calls them to apologise and put right.

The church is the proto community – what the world should and could be … the church is where this comes through…
In Jesus we see the fulfillment of the human task … and of Israel’s task, to be the light of the world.
This can only happen when on the cross Jesus took all the darkness.

Jesus is raised, the new creation has begun. Now we have a job to do, to work for that new creation…
We are called to model the flourishing of God’s new work in the world. When we go to work, where-ever we are …
We can’t hide from the world behind our “spiritual relationship with Jesus” … but we can’t hide from our relationship with Jesus by serving the poor.

We have to learn to collaborate without compromise … but also we must critique without dualisms
ie. we say where they are wrong, but we don’t right them off as all bad / evil / satanic.

Eph 6 – spiritual warfare. When we take on this role, we will get into battles … we are confronting the world with the brokenness of the structures.

Wilberforce – not separation between prayer and public life.
But something happened in 19th century a separation came between spiritual and physical … it became personal piety. At the same time the church started to narrow the gospel to a spiritual rescue to heaven.

Steve was doing the first session of the conference, speaking from Acts 10. I have not heard Steve talk live, but he tall and charismatic … not in the spiritual gifts sense (although he may be that too) … but in the very engaging sense. He is a very good speaker (I was impressed just knowing that it isn’t as easy as it looks, but he is VERY good at it), speaking for well over an hour without notes, and it didn’t feel like a long time.

Quite amazingly he was saying pretty much what I have been saying over the last few months. I think he must have been reading this blog! (or perhaps I have been reading his book?).

I will put my notes from the session in the “Read More” section, but there were a few things that really struck me:

• It is good to angry at things; it is just that we often get angry at the wrong things. We should be getting angry at injustice, not at the things that go in church.
• God is at work with people, in our communities, with the poor. We need to catch up with God.
• We need to tell people a different story, that they have amazing worth and value, they are not a mistake and they do have a purpose. People are not changed by moral imperatives.
• When we go beyond our institutions and structures people still in those institutions will criticise you. “They will be carpeted by the guardians of moral purity and orthodoxy” says Steve Chalke.

It wasn’t particularly anything new, but was confirming of what I have been thinking and sensing God is speaking to me about. It is also inspiring as Steve is not just speaking about this, but doing the stuff too. They are running schools, building skate parks, working with government etc to bring about real change in society. That change can’t be solely about social justice programs, it also requires a change of heart which can be brought about by an encounter with Jesus. But the whole gospel is about bringing good news to every part of people’s lives. It is a church that cares for the poor (in the widest sense of that word), that improves peoples lives, that loves, the co-operates with God, that is out serving, loving, expressing Jesus to our communities…

Yes God! This is the kind of church I want to be part of, and I am excited what we are becoming…

Tags: Faithworks, Incarnate, Incarnate Conference 2007, Steve Chalke

Acts 10 – key story – changes Christian faith from being Jewish sect to something that will change the world.

vs 9ff – Peter is a key Christian leader – staying with Simon. Peter goes up to the roof to pray ..
BUT when he got there to pray … he got hungry and wanted to eat!
While the food was being prepared, he fell into a trance … he is the only person at the prayer meeting (he called it) and he falls asleep! Not what we often imagine when we think of Christian leaders.

This is the turning point of the church, and God uses someone who is fixated with his belly and half asleep … and even uses him in the midst of his weakness … he sees a vision of food coming down from heaven.

We of have mixed motives … so we think we shouldn’t do something. Steve Chalke (SC) had some advice once from Tony Campolo: it will take a long time to sort out your mixed motives, so you had better go out and get on with what you are supposed to be doing, and when you have retired we can sort out your mixed motives. The Kingdom of God is bigger than your mixed motives.

“Successful Christian living: three days between two crisis”. Don’t have to have it all together before we go and do… We must remember God is on our side – that is the gospel.

Peter said: “surely not” when God suggested that he could eat what had previously been unclean. Peter was really saying: “You may have lowered your standards God, but not me.” The point is that we are always trying to catch up with God.

Anger is a good thing, but we must get angry at the right things. People who gets angry at the small things just don’t see the right things to get angry about. We must get angry at the things that are worth getting angry about. We so used to get angry with drums or guitars. But we should be angry at injustice … the kids who fear their dads coming home for fear they will be beaten up or sexually abused … the mum’s who worry about their kids being destroyed by drugs …

vs. 34 – now I really understand that God accepts everyone – God doesn’t have any favourites.

Peter discovers that when he arrives at Godless Caesarea, he discovers that God is already there … and he only being asked to join in.
Everyone is made in the image of God … and no amount of sin or twistedness can stamp that out. God is at work in people

The problem is this in the church in the UK: we live in a culture that is deeply spiritual.
SC tells a great story of being on train with a reporter from a newspaper taking her to a school that Oasis is building. The reporter said angrily to SC: the problem with you Christians is that you are going to teach creationism. How is creationism going to influence your curriculum? Steve replies: Yes Gen 1 is going to hugely influence everything we do: our PE, our chemistry, our physics, our maths, every subject we do. But not because we teach 6 day creationism, but we will teach them what is true of them – who am I? Do I fit in? Am I am mistake? Is there any purpose to my life?

Jews had system of proselytisation – people had to leave their culture, there people, their way of doing thing, where they live etc – to take on the Jewish culture … out of your culture into ours…

Peter has to learn that it isn’t about coming out of Cornelius culture and coming into the Jewish culture … but he left him there.

Qu: how do we connect with God is already doing out there? How can we join in?

Poverty, from a government perspective, is always defined in economic terms. But that is not true from a Biblical perspective. Poverty is much broader – spiritual, social, emotionally, physically … Jesus comes to bring shalom (wellbeing) … good news to every level and every part of their lives.

It is good news spiritually too. People often say that if you getting into serving the poor you lose sight of the spiritual good news. But SC has found the opposite: people come to Christ as you serve the poor. Social change without spiritual change is useless. There is not external change unless there is internal change. There is no social regeneration without spiritual renewal. People are not changes by moral exhortation by a new imagination, a different story. You are made in the image of God, your life is precious, you are special.

Acts 11:2 – some believers criticised him … literally infuriated with him. The truth is that when people get with God and go beyond the institutions and structures that exist … then when they go back to those structures, they get into all kinds of trouble. “They will be carpeted by the guardians of moral purity and orthodoxy.”

What does church for those who are churched look like? For skaters? For students? For golfers?

But tomorrow (Thursday) I am off to Newcastle / Sunderland (where my wife comes from and in-laws still live there) to a conference called “Incarnate – equipping the church to serve the poor“. It is being organised by a virtual name sake, Robert Ward (well how many Rupert Ward’s do you know?) who is Anglican Vicar in Newcastle. I met him nearly 20 years ago when he came to Edinburgh CU to speak at an event I was organising; I fed him a meal in my flat (sausages in cider sauce if you are interested), so it will be interesting to see if he remembers the experience (or me for that matter!).

Anyway back to the conference, the speakers are NT Wright, Steve Chalke and Malcolm Duncan from Faithworks, and Tony Campolo. What a fantastic lineup! Tony Campolo has been a hero of mine since my early years of being a Christian (and there aren’t many people who I read their books 20 years ago, and would still want to read or listen to now!). NT Wright is increasingly becoming someone who I respect and grapple with what he is saying. And faithworks are a fantastic organisation doing some great stuff on reinventing church in the UK. And yes I am probably a Malcolm Duncan groupie!

Speaking of Malcolm, I am having lunch with him on Friday … I would love to see what help Faithworks can do help us as a local church and what a about a conference in Scotland? I am also hoping to do some live blogging each night about some of the things I am learning…

So answers below please:

1. How many Rupert Ward’s do you know?
2. How many authors / speakers from when you were first a Christian are you still reading or listening to?

Tags: Faithworks, Malcolm Duncan, Mission, Missional Church, NT Wright, Steve Chalke, Tony Campolo, Incarnate, Incarnate Conference 2007, Robert Ward