theology: starting big

I have been reflecting recently on how we go about making our theologies.
It seems to me that a lot of our theologising starts from the micro and works towards the macro. We start with ourselves at the centre, and with various notions about personal sin and personal righteousness and then we try to work outwards towards an understanding of God from there. Of course this is quite subtle - we would never deny that God is creator as well as redeemer and that theology done properly always starts with God at the centre. But though we say those kinds of things I think we're still very egocentric when it comes to our theologising. We have an over inflated sense of our own importance in the grand scheme of things.

What if we did our theology from the macro rather than the micro? God is creator, this is God's creation, God has a plan for its renewal and all things are being caught up in this huge movement of the Spirit. It's not primarily about human sinfulness! We can so easily spend so much time picking over the bones of personal moral/ethical choices (and the Anglican communion is doing a lot of this at the moment) or the minutiae of church life that we forget to lift up our eyes to the hills and see the big picture of who God is and what God is doing.

Devon

Women

Just posting this via e mail whilst on holiday in Devon to say how
pleased I am about the vote at General Synod yesterday about women
bishops.

I think its self evident that any structural provision for
traditionalists would have institutionalised discrimination. As one
letter in The Guardian put it - you only need to substitute the word
'black' for the word 'women' to see how offensive some of the
proposals were.

Holidays

We're off to Devon for a week thanks to the very generous gift of a
week in our friend's holiday home.

According to the forecast we have five straight days of solid rain to
look forward to! There's a surprise!

Home weekend away - photos

Really enjoyed the Home weekend away in Madely, Herefordshire this weekend just gone.
It was our first one for a few years. We got very lucky with the weather - the forecast was for rain and cloud but instead we had much sun. result!
Anyway - here are a couple of photos - the first of Night Prayer in the crypt on the first night when we were joined by some of the locals which was great. and the second I took as I was setting up our outdoor eucharist on Sunday morning.
In between we visited Hay-on-Wye and sampled some of the local cider bringing some back with us to enjoy around the campfire later that evening when we shared readings (I read some Wendell Berry poems).
Anyway, there are more photos on our site (www.home-online.org) if you are interested.
Big thanks to Simon - our host - and Sarah who sorted all the food.

Home weekend away

Looking forward to the Home weekend away beginning tomorrow up in rural Herefordshire.

We're staying with our friend Simon Lockett who is the vicar of Madely and has what must be one of the finest vicarages in the whole of the land (think Jane Austen). Some of us are camping in his garden and a few select people (i.e. those with very young children - yes we're playing the baby card!) are staying indoors.

Should be a fine weekend of cider drinking, telling stories round the campfire (everyone has been asked to bring something to read to the rest of us and an object that tells us something about them), night prayer in the church crypt...you get the idea!

thoughts on florida

So it seems that Florida is the new Toronto. I am not really in the loop on these sorts of things these days so I have only heard about it relatively recently.
I am trying to be respectful and adopt a 'Gamaliel' stance on it i.e. if it is God then nothing will stand in the way of it...if it isn't it will come to nothing. Others think we have a responsibility to form an opinion and make a judgement. (I enjoyed reading Mark Berry's thoughts here).

The one thought of my own I do have though comes from thinking about the Florida thing (that's what I want to call it if you don't mind) in relation to the ministry of Christ in the gospels.

It seems to me that the whole of Christ's ministry was predicated upon the idea that you didn't need to go to the temple in Jerusalem to encounter God. Christ was himself the new temple and in fact the kingdom of God is around you, close at hand, within you in fact. This idea got him in to a lot of trouble as we know.

So I'm left scratching my head as to why we should therefore be jumping on the first plane to Florida because there is 'more of God' over there (I know I'm caricaturing the mentality but I think it breaks down to something like this). Isn't this the kind of idea that the Christ spent the whole of his ministry deconstructing?

Woops - did I just go and get an opinion?! have you got one you'd care to share dear reader?

new Home website

Home has a new website.

I think there's always a process that happens with a website where - unless it's a really dynamic, totally editable one - a gap opens up over time between what your website says about you and the reality on the ground. When that gap becomes a bit of a chasm you know it's time to change it.

So I built this one (using iWeb) which means the whole thing is totally editable by us. And it's a lot more reflective of where we're at now (rather than where we were at 3 years ago like the old one!).

If you're interested, check it out here.

Amplified Design is open for Business

My work for the Home Community has been full time for the last 5 years. This year - with reduced financial support from the Diocese - I will be working part time for Home instead.

With the other half of my time I am starting to do some freelance graphic design work - under the business name 'Amplifed Design'.

I have a wee web site here (which I would appreciate any links to from you bloggers out there!) and if you, or anyone else you know, needs some design work doing then my rates are very competitive! Get in touch!!

StillPoint

In a couple of weeks' time Home is beginning a new venture - which we're calling StillPoint. This is an important part of our vision to share spiritual practices with spiritual seekers. So for the first 3 Monday nights in June we are piloting StillPoint - which is a spirituality and meditation group tailored for people who would see themselves as spiritual but would never darken the doors of church as we know it. And I'm pleased that we have been able to negotiate to use The Magic Cafe which is a very suitable venue for this clientele.
If you're in the Oxford area and you know of anyone who would find this helpful then please pass on the info.
StillPoint has it's own very basic website here and fliers (as above) are on their way back from the printer and should be available at Sunday's Home gathering.

Pentecost - The River

Last night was our Pentecost Service. This year we called it 'The River' as the lectionary gospel text was from John 7 where Jesus speaks of the those that come to him knowing the Spirit as a river of living water flowing from within them.

We focussed quite a lot of attention on thirst and thirstiness. The first section of the room was asking questions to enable us to get in touch with our thirstiness (while eating dry crackers). What are we thirsty for?

The second section was drawn from Jeremiah's prophecy where God tells Israel that they have abandoned him the fountain of living water and dug for themselves broken and dirty cisterns - in other words they have tried to satisfy their own thirstiness. I made new labels for small water bottles that I filled with dirty water to represent this:


Here's 3 of them - 'Be Popular', 'Work Harder', and 'Look Good' but there were others too.
So the idea was to think about the ways we try to satisfy our own thirstiness.

As we moved deeper into the theme text there was an opportunity to consider what it meant for us to 'come to Christ' - what does that mean, how do we connect with Christ, what helps us etc.

Then we moved to the river we had made out of material and relieved our cracker-driven thirst with cups of cool, clean water (with the words of Christ 'come to me and drink' on them).

The river flows out into the world - our intercessions and offering were focussed on WaterAid and the Burma cyclone - and then we finished with Communion and anointing those who wanted it with oil blessed at the Cathedral in Holy Week.

Home's Pentecost Service

As usual, if you live in Oxford you are more than welcome to join us for our Pentecost service this coming Sunday at 5pm.
Directions are on our website here.

mags

Couple of very decent mags out at the moment I thought I would bring to your attention.
Firstly, Time's annual '100 Most Influential People' edition is well worth a look. I got it for the first time last year and found it very interesting. There are some surprises this year - Peter Gabriel? Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Mariah Carey?!! But good to see Radiohead on there (and of course Steve Jobs). You can see the complete list here.
Secondly, Creative Review have their double issue Annual for 2008 out (can't figure out why they don't do it at the end of the year though). If you're interested in visual communication then it's a must -have really. Only just got it yesterday and haven't had a chance to have a proper look yet so can't do more than alert you to its availability! Enjoy.

My Fortieth Year

I celebrated my 39th birthday on Monday...or rather I was due to go out and celebrate it with Pippa but she got sick early that morning and spent the rest of the day incapacitated. Shame.
Then I got sick the next day (yesterday) - double shame!!
But it was good to be with friends for posh breakfast out on Saturday morning instead.
Very pleased to receive the complete West Wing ('Collector's Edition') on the day itself. Still the best thing ever on TV IMHO.
Also pleased to receive a couple of books - 'Chrysalis' (Alan Jamieson) and 'Remembering our Future' (Andrew Walker and Luke Bretherton).

many streams, one river...where is God for you?

We're spending some time in Home at the moment - in our prayer focus - on the different streams of spirituality that make up the river of Christian history. We're using Richard Foster's book - Streams of Living Water - as a resource.

One of the things that has intrigued me as I have been thinking about it is that each of the traditions seem to locate God differently - at least that's how it occurs to me. Of course they would all say that God is omnipresent but I think one of the things that marks the different streams out from each other is the place they conceive of God in..

To use Foster's categories it looks like this.....

The Evangelical Tradition primarily finds God in the scriptures/the bible.
The Contemplative Tradition primarily finds God within - the inner journey, Christ within you etc.
The Social-Justice tradition primarily finds God in the poor.
The Sacramental Tradition primarily finds God in the physical or in material things.
The Charismatic/Pentecostal tradition chases God who, for them, is like the wild wind - unpredicatable and hard to pin down.

Most of us would want to affirm all of these possibilities, but what's your default? When you're not theologising too hard where would you most readily expect to encounter God?

Ian Adams - Pace Bene

One of the people in my life I am truly grateful to God for is Ian Adams. He was gathering and shaping what has become the mayBe community here in Oxford around the same time that I was doing the same for the Home community. So it feels like we have been brothers in arms for a number of years now and I have been increasingly thankful for his comradeship. He continues to be an inspiration to me.

At this point in our journeys both Ian and I find ourselves needing to find alternate sources of income to supplement the stipends we receive for leading our communities. We are both determined to not see this as a backwards step but an opening up of new possibilities - and who knows where the wild wind of the Spirit will blow us.

I am not quite ready to say what I hope to do yet (more in due course) but Ian is just launching a very exciting new aspect to his ministry - Pace Bene, which is Ian's offering of himself as a guide, mentor, sounding-board, retreat-leader, consultant, or trainer to individuals and nascent emerging communities of faith. I think he'll be brilliant at it and would highly recommend him to anyone who could use this sort of input.

Do go and check out his new site : www.ianadams.info

God is nowhere/God is now here - The Road to Emmaus

Enjoyed speaking at Home yesterday evening on the Road to Emmaus which was the gospel reading for the day. I borrowed Douglas Coupland's phrase from his book 'Hey! Nostradamus' - 'God is nowhere, God is now here' and made a little video loop that played while I was speaking. The gist was that following the path of Christ means cycles of absence of presence and absence. Our faith journey starts off very solid and certain - we think we know what God is about - but almost always seems to move into times of disillusionment and doubt - just like Clopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus. Christ returns to us (did he ever leave?) but it's often different to how it was before - these disciples who thought they knew him failed to recognise him.

How often does God go unrecognised in our lives?

The other thing I love about the story - as I heard Bishop Steven (Reading) say - these disciples are actually going the wrong way! They have turned their backs on Jerusalem and given up on Christ. And Christ comes to them on THIS road.

Whichever road we are on is our Emmaus road and God comes to us there.

more crazy weather

fun in the snow yesterday morning but you've got to wonder - snow in April?

Music update

really thankful for some fantastic new music I've been listening to recently. thought I would give you some recommendations...

I've already mentioned the new Goldfrapp album, 'Seventh Tree' - it's fantastic stuff. I think someone described it as pastoral, electronic folk which seems about right to me. Less glam-rock than some of their other stuff, a bit more song based. Love it.

I stumbled across Cara Dillon on the Transatlantic Sessions on BBC4 where they get the finest Celtic folk guys together with some of the finest American bluegrass/country musicians and put them in a big house in Scotland and see what happens. I was totally blown away by her voice and found her album, After the Morning, for £1.50 on play.com - it's fantastic stuff - beautiful songs, great musicianship..it'll be too folky for some of you but I absolutely love it. She's married to Seth Lakeman's brother who plays piano for her. Hoping to see her live later in the year.

Young Mountain by This Will Destroy You is one I discovered through LastFM which is a fab internet radio thingamy - you can type in an artist you like and it will create a playlist of similar artists. I was listening to artists similar to The Album Leaf and this came up - it's kinda post-rock, Sigur Ros type stuff - no vocals though - quite atmospheric but guitar based. I bought it for a few quid on iTunes. Check it out.


A little while back Pete Ward lent me an album by Ralph Stanley called 'Shine On' - it's really grown on me even if I can only take it in small doses - it's real deep bluegrass/American country singing - old time gospel stuff. Listening to the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album also led me down this path. Good stuff - give it a try.
Bought the Jack Johnson album, Sleep Through the Static, for the missus on Mother's Day but of course I've ended up listening to it myself a bit and like it. The title track is the standout one for me.

Ok music fans, that's your lot for now!

Easter Update

we had a cracking Holy Week and Easter.

On Good Friday we had our Stations of the Cross installation and eucharist, the second year we've done this. 14 people contributed the different stations and as usual they were surprising, intriguing and thought-provoking. It was great to have the space open for a couple of hours for people to engage with the Stations at their own pace, and great to have quite a number of guests and visitors.

On Easter day we gathered for a champagne breakfast at Chris and Katharine's house and afterwards had a short easter eucharist. When that had finished we got our coats on and headed down to the river where we shared in a corporate renewal of baptismal vows for the year to come - committing ourselves to another year of trying to live in the way of Christ. It's important to point out that we didn't get into the river! We used bottled water and it turned into a bit of a water fight.

It was great that some people made a deliberate choice to be around rather than going away (it's always struck me as a little odd that at the high point of the church year everyone goes away and we find it difficult to be together!).

Anyway, I really appreciated sharing the journey of Holy Week and Easter with our little community.