I found myself cringing, as I recognised how excruciating is can be for people who are not used to church culture, arriving in something that anyone who has been around church for more than a few years gets immune to!

I had an interesting experience, going to a 4 day coaching events for the business world, which is not a world I have any real experience of at all.  There were about 15 of us in total, including some very high flyers from some very well known and large businesses and multinationals.  As they described their work and world, they might as well have been talking Greek as far as I was concerned - I just didn’t understand the language.  When they explained what they meant, I actually understood what they were talking about, but is very easy to feel that you are not part of the "in crowd" or to feel a bit stupid because you don’t understand what everyone else seems to.  I wonder how often people feel like that when the come to church (any church, whatever your tradition!) for the first time?

I was invited to another such course, in a couple of weeks time.  I felt that familiar tingle of anxiety, as I thought about being in such an unfamiliar environment.  Maybe that is a regular feeling for people as they wake up on a Sunday morning and contemplate entering our unfamiliar environment of church?

What do you think?  What was your reaction on watching this video?

Well, your friend did eventually turn up, and you realised that, like any party, “start at ten” means come some time after ten. But, by the end of the event you had met some new people that seemed really interested in you … somehow they managed to make you feel that they were enjoying meeting you. You’d got two invitations back to other things that were happening, and while you weren’t sure quite what would happen there, you knew that you would not feel out of it … at least, not if these new friends had anything to do with it.

That was the first of a whole new journey which redefined what you thought about church, and … a bit later … Jesus. In fact, it was the start of a journey into finding your place in the church community. A month later, you feel that some of those initial friends were rather like doors … opening into a whole new community. One person seemed to lead to another, and now you are beginning to belong in this new circle of friends.

Why did it work? The Welcome Table at the back didn’t appear in this story, and neither did rotas or smiley badges. No new visitor form, to be followed up by a pastoral team. Just people, after a shakey start in this case, kicking in and drawing the new visitor in and befriending them.

What we are looking at is how to make the organic approach work better, and also to put a parallel system in place underneath this to try to ensure that new members are drawn in. Do you have any ideas about how this would work?

What about having a picture gallery of all of us, on a couple of the MDF boards? Perhaps also doing this for us grouped into cells? Or getting more pics into the online directory … or are we pressuring people too much? What about more weekends and social functions? Book a hostel and go to Loch Ossian, or Comrie, or New Lanark for the weekend? Or just leave it as it is?

Post written by Neil Duguid as part of this series.  Other posts: Part 1, 2, & 3.

OK. You’ve never been before, but your friend persuaded you … great music, doughnuts … and now you find yourself walking up the steps. Your friend is somewhere inside, and your only thought is to find that welcome face.

The steward gives you a sheet of paper (you wonder what that is, but the print is a bit small and grey) but didn’t actually break off from talking to someone else to make you welcome. Where do I go now? It’s like visiting an unfamiliar multiplex … which door do I go through to find my friend? But no one notices your uncertainty.

You wander through the door which most other people are using (always a good sign), and are in the main auditorium. But you can’t see your friend … can’t see the doughnuts … the band is still soundchecking … and after a few minutes you begin to wonder if the rest of the audience, who are mostly standing around and chatting, can’t see you either. Have you worn your invisibility cloak? You give your friend two minutes to find you, otherwise you’ll be offski.

Practical hint – if you are bringing someone new, arrange to meet them at a rendezvous point on their route and come in with them, it’s like being able to use that VIP channel at airport security. The one person that they already know is their passport to a whole new group of friends.

But the challenge is … why didn’t we notice that new person who had just arrived for the first time. And, equally, do we notice the established member who looked a bit out of it.

The way Rick Warren puts the challenge is - how can I start treating other people at church like my own family?

How can we help people make newcomers feel at home? Literally! Perhaps a simple listening skills course would help, aimed at working through the "Hi, I’m Tom" scenario, helping people to offer friendship and to open doors.  How many of us have "the ability to build relationships"? What does it depend on?

Here’s Donald Miller from Blue like Jazz (Chapter 18):

Here is something very simple about relationships … : Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.

If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them. If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say …

When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I am talking to or I don’t. God wants both conversations to be true. That is, we are supposed to speak truth in love … if you talk to somebody with your mouth, and your heart does not love them, you are like a person standing there smashing two cymbals together. You are only annoying everybody around you …

Now … when I go to meet somebody, I pray that God will help me feel His love for them. I ask God to make it so both conversations, the one from the mouth and the one from the heart, are true.

I became a follower of Jesus. I was always a Christian, by which I mean that I always trusted in Christ to avoid hell. But, in the years since I left politics, I have increasingly felt called to follow - to imitate, to learn from the teachings of, and to be shaped by the model of - Jesus. These means that I am seeking, each day, to be converted and to become more and more like Christ.

Reading this comes on the back of a conversation a few weeks ago about process or journey in faith.  There was a general agreement that we have moved away from a decision (crisis) to journey (process).  I actually think there is a place for crisis, but in the context of process.  So our faith journey is punctuated by moment of crisis: are we going to follow and trust Jesus in this situation?  My problem is when the only crisis is the moment of "conversion".  Throughout our life, we will face many moments of crisis: perhaps at times of illness or bereavement or failure in some way.  These are also the moments to trust and follow…

Jon Birch has a gift for seeing the church as others see us. His cartoons at asbojesus are witty, and probably sometimes upsetting to many in different parts of the church. But have you walked around Edinburgh looking at church noticeboards and wondering whether to go there on a Sunday? Most of them do not impress! The doors are shut, and when they are open on a Sunday, the lobby area is designed like a public toilet … so that you can’t see in from outside.

How do we present ourselves to others? Our usual answer is to say that we are the church, and we present it to out friends and community. So then we can make excuses about the other things, that they really don’t matter so much. Like:

• Our advertising … I was looking for cinema times and saw the Google Ad for one of our other city churches. Full marks to them.
• Our website … is it clear, informative and appealing?
• The outside of the building. What will go through the mind of the passenger on the bus stuck in the traffic outside? OK, we don’t have those inane Wayside Pulpit messages. Neither, although we are big on the bible, do we have a big bible text, probably looking rather condemning when taken out of context. But what do we have? Not a lot.

In other words, the whole issue of external communications fits here. Just because what is inside is what matters, do we ignore the outer face?

What would you like to see us do? And can you help us do it?

I intend to continue with my series on Lakeland and Toronto.  But just for now I link to an interesting post by Peter Kirk, at Gentle Wisdom, with Rory & Wendy’s (from God TV) response to Lakeland.  Here is a little of what they said:

we believe that the Lord instructed us to broadcast the Outpouring services at Lakeland with Todd Bentley.

It was not a mistake.
It was not by mistake.
We believe it was a clear instruction from the Lord.

I can’t comment on whether the Lord told them or not - maybe he did.  But if He did, was it also his will to hype it so much?   Would it also not be His will for them to learn from the episode and perhaps do things differently next time?  But unfortunately no reflection, in their statement, about what they have learnt from the episode.  Only that Todd was not fully surrendered to the Lord.  Easy to the fault in others.  Less easy to see in ourselves.

I am glad they have said something.  I wish they had said more.  And so I still stand by what I said in my previous post.

It is all too common for Christians to attempt to do justice to the scriptural narrative by listening to it, learning from it, and attempting to extract a way of viewing the world from it. But the narrative itself is asking us to approach it in a much more radical way. It is inviting us to wrestle with it, disagree with it, contend with it, and contest it-not as an end in itself, but as a means of approaching its life-transforming truth, a truth that dwells within and yet beyond the words.

Pete Rollins

We have a small team in our church which has been looking at welcome and hospitality. The team’s role is to inspire all of the body parts to think welcome and hospitality, not to leave it to a number of people on a rota. This series of posts will highlight the different stages we go through as we approach any church community, and raise issues for discussion.

Do we need to look at how we appear and how we integrate new members? If you doubt this, then ask a couple of unchurched people to come along and check out our meeting, and tell you honestly what they think.

One person who did this was Jim Henderson, who hired a thinking atheist (Matt Casper) to join him to visit a number of very varied American churches – from the megachurch down to a house church, and across a spectrum from traditional to contemporary.

Sometimes, Matt is genuinely impressed by what he sees, but sometimes he ends up saying to Jim that he cannot square what he sees with what he understands of Christ’s teaching … especially in the connection between the words he hears and what he sees working out in the life of the church.

Another survey, closer home, was blogged by Simon Varwell in Glasgow in 2006. The end-of-round-one post makes interesting reading.

Some of the churches visited were, once perhaps they had got over their chagrin at being labelled unwelcoming, able to look at themselves constructively through Simon’s posts and able to become more welcoming as a result. That’s what we hope these posts will do too.

If you are part of our community: Do you think we are welcoming? Or does it depend on already knowing someone who will help you to find your way in?

If not: What is your community like in welcoming new people?

Media

Toronto, in the early 90’s, was pre-internet, and in the UK at least, pre-Christian TV.  News spread of something that God seemed to be doing by word of mouth, and eventually Christian magazines.  There were no blogs to read of people’s experience or questions.  It wasn’t screened nightly into our living rooms from day 1.  I don’t think I heard about anything until probably around May time in 1994, and the first meeting with Randy Clark in Toronto was Jan 20th that year.  Even then reports were sketchy - something about a meeting at Holy Trinity Brompton, people lying on the floor for ages, people "drunk" in the Spirit.  During a week of mission in August in our church, in the morning prayer times, the Holy Spirit moved powerfully amongst us.  This wasn’t transferred, but broke out spontaneously.

This time allowed people to process what they were hearing over time, assess without being told by one source what to think of it.  It was much more organic.  It gave time for the leaders in the church in Toronto to learn, to have a little theology for what was going on, to get a little more wisdom on how to deflect criticism, steer a middle path between emotionalism and allowing God to move.  Even then there were excesses and mistakes.  My experience of Toronto was still too focused around the manifestations: even though it was said that wasn’t the deal, when people were "zapped in the Spirit" it was still celebrated, betraying what people really thought.

Lakeland, on the other hand, was virtually instantaneous, screened live by God TV and on the internet.  In my opinion, God TV have a lot to answer for, as they effectively became the ones who proclaimed this from the rooftops: this is God - jump in.  It didn’t allow time for people, or for questions, or for process.  They were forcing people to make a choice: are you for this or not?

I can’t imagine the pressures that suddenly hit Todd Bentley and his Fresh Fire ministry.  In the matter of a few days, he was catapulted from a somewhat known itinerant preacher to global superstar in the Christian world.  Just look at these charts.  The first one shows Google searches on "Todd Bentley" over the last few years, and you can clearly see two clear spikes: one when Lakeland was growing in prominence, the other when news hit about his moral failure.  They show that searches were 14 times the average over the last 5 years.

This chart  (on the left) shows the increase of blogs about Todd Bentley as recorded by Technorati.  Again it is easy to see the huge spike in interest and attention in Todd.

In the end, the failing of Todd to live faithfully to his wife, has had a greater impact on the body of Christ due to the prominence he had ‘achieved’ over the last few months.  If Lakeland hadn’t happened, I doubt it would have registered a hit on Christian radar.

For that, I think that GodTV do have real responsibility.  Not for Todd choices.  But for the pressure that he was put under.  For not allowing Lakeland to grow slowly or fizzle out.  For promoting something, and then not taking responsibility for the leadership they brought to the worldwide body of Christ.

What would have happened if Lakeland hadn’t been broadcast on the internet and TV’s?  Is it possible that some help could have been brought to Todd without such a public failure?  Could some of the theology been sorted?  Might there have been a greater discernment about what God was doing, and what was excess?

We will never know.  All I know is that wouldn’t want to have been put in the place that Todd found himself.  And if I found myself in the midst of a move of God, I wouldn’t be getting in contact with GodTV.   Unless my flesh had its own way…

Wham, Bam or Rising Tide

Todd Bentley’s trademark cry of "Bam" was the phrase of Lakeland.  But it also probably symbolises Lakeland for me. Loud, quickly here, in our lives, on our screens, in our faces.  Then suddenly gone, dropped by the TV schedulers, quicker than you can say ‘thank you ma’am’!  From what I have heard, in both Lakeland, and the UK hot-spot of Dudley, people were prayed for, many fell over, were allowed to stay on the floor for a few seconds, and then were hauled to their feet, so someone else could have their floor space.

Toronto on the other hand, actively encouraged people to stay on the floor.  For the leaders of that movement, it was what the Holy Spirit did while you lying on the floor, soaking in His presence, that was more important.  In some meetings, they even started with people lying down, bringing cushions to make themselves comfortable, to spend a couple of hours "soaking".  There were phrases such as "marinating" in the Spirit, an expectation that we could receive more, as we lingered.  Although, I think there was sometimes too much made of the manifestations, there was an emphasis on the internal, a renovation and healing of the heart.

All of this could simply be stylistic differences, but I would suggest there is something more fundamental at work here.  Toronto was a renewal, reviving the church, back to a love and intimacy with God.  There was impartation and physical healing, but these were always secondary.  Ezekiel 47, the rising river of God, was a key passage.  The need for individuals to keep coming back to that river, to be refreshed and healed, enabled Toronto to have a longevity, that Lakeland hasn’t had.

And there is the rub.  I am in this for the long haul.  I am not interested in burning bright for a while, and then burning out.  I want to run the whole race, not a 100m dash.  There are moments, of course, where we powerfully encounter God.  But they are in the context of a lifetime journey of walking with God.  Character & renovation of the heart don’t come in a few seconds on the floor, but as we live our lives with God; as we work and live with people who are different to us; as we learn to love and be loved.  Wham, Bam might be exciting, but it is hardly ever sustained.

Next time:

Media

Toronto, in the early 90’s, was pre-internet, and in the UK at least, pre-Christian TV…

Some people pray for revival and imagine that ’signs and wonders’ will declare that when it happens, but I was rolling around the thought that maybe we are part of a revival right now - right as we speak - and one that is all the better for not being particularly visible.  I mean, is 1100 individual prayer rooms in Brasil last year not a ‘wonder’?  What about the dozens of new ‘academies’ being opened by Oasis Trust, Emmanuel Schools Foundation, the Anglican Church etc. etc.?  Or Orthodox, Catholics & Protestants all working together as part of Alpha - is that a ’sign’?  Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, but I am not praying for a revival where people ‘go all wobbly’ in the streets (although I don’t mind that either).  Something a bit more reformatory, creative and redemptive is where my heart is at.  And I think we are already beginning to see it.

I love it, David.  I would love to see more people thorough transformed by an encounter with God, the good news transforming people’s lives.  But I think that is too small a vision.  I really want to see society transformed.  Not looking for much then eh?

What do you want to see?  What do you pray for?

There has been much written about Lakeland. In the UK there has been a lot of stuff said, much of it either uncritically positive or critically negative.  There have been a few articles that I have read (and many I am sure I haven’t) that offer something a little more reflective and nuanced.  Two reviews, from people that I respect are  Terry Virgo’s review and Part 2 (NFI) and Billy Kennedy’s thoughts (New Community, Southampton).  Another highly respected church leader, Paul Reid from CFC in Belfast, has weighed in recently with a more negative slant in a couple of posts here and here.  One of the UK bloggers who has made the most sense is Peter Kirk, of Gentle Wisdom.  He has been pretty positive, but thoughtfully so, and his posts are really well researched.  In addition, Joel Edwards the then General Director of the Evangelical Alliance has some helpful principles to evaluate any move of God.

Many of the big names in the US charismatic scene have all made statements: Peter & Doris Wagner (as quoted on Gentle Wisdom), Rick Joyner, Bill Johnson, John Arnott, & Che Ahn.  I have linked before to Lee Grady’s (editor of Charisma) response.

When looking back at a positive event, it is easy to forget some of the negative aspects.  However, as I recall Toronto I found it a predominantly positive experience.  I know there were some problems (which I hope to come to and the end of the series), but through that "move of the Spirit" I had some profound encounters with God.  Personal emotional healing, refreshing and a profound sense of calling with continues to today.  I didn’t rush off to Toronto itself, but went there twice in 2001 & 2003  (the first visit in particular, came a particularly difficult time in my life, and was a life saver) but in the Summer & Autumn of 1994 I was enthusiastically embracing the "river" that was flowing here in Edinburgh.

The Lakeland outpouring, on the other hand, I found much harder to evaluate.  I didn’t have a personal experience of Lakeland, except what I saw on GodTV.  It also seemed to divide Christian opinion even more than Toronto.  It appeared that lots of people rushed to proclaim this was a significant move of God (or not) and a call to others to come out in favour or against it.  I believe in a God who hates suffering, and loves to heal (while I acknowledge that He often (mostly?) doesn’t insulate or deliver us from suffering), but found myself unconvinced by much of what I saw.  I didn’t think it was evil or bad, I just wasn’t convinced about all the hype surrounding it.

So what was the difference between the two?

Wham, Bam or Rising Tide

Bentley’s trademark cry of "Bam" was the phrase of Lakeland…

…and for the rest, you will have to wait for the next post…!

“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.

He tells of watching a beech tree being felled, but to his eyes, the tree looked healthy and fine.  If you looked closely you might have noticed a few signs of ill health a the top of tree.  But the experts assured him that the tree had to come down, as there was a fungus killing off the root system, so a year or so, the roots wouldn’t hold in a high wind.

When the tree was cut down, for the first 10 or 15 feet of the trunk the outer two or three inches of the trunk were sold, strong wood.  But the inside was rotten, and was spreading higher up the tree and down into the roots.

"What looked to the casual passer-by as a fine, solid old beech would have become a serious accident waiting to happen"

NT Wright says this is essentially what Paul is saying about the whole human race and the world is rotten to the core, and although at first glance looks OK, it could come crashing down at any time.  This is why the unveiling of God’s justice and salvation (restoration) is so desperately needed.

Nooma seem to capture a mood that communicates to a younger generation, with theological concepts presented so clearly and tackling really relevant subjects.

I have wondered for a while, whether Nooma would work as a kind of pre-Alpha Alpha!  The Alpha Course is brilliant in what it sets out to do.  For people who are really interested in Jesus, it explains so clearly who is he and what following Him might entail.  But what about those people who are interested in spiritual matters, but not necessarily at the point of really wanting to investigate?  And what about the emerging generation who investigating truth isn’t their primary motivation - they are perhaps asking "does it work?" or "does it help me?" or maybe even "does it make the world a better place?".

The students in our church have humoured me in my promotion of Nooma.  Over the summer they have experimented with having a meal together, inviting their friends, watching a Nooma, and talking together.  It seems to be working!  The Christians are loving it, and their friends seem to be too!  It appears as though people are up for talking about spiritual things and even about Jesus, if we can the kind of language that communicates, and the things they are interested in.

If you are interested you can view the whole of the just released Nooma 21, "she" here for the next 48 hours (until end of Friday 22nd).  Looking at feminine images for God, it is brilliant.