facebook = death of blogging?

It looks like everyone has been well and truly bitten by the great bug that is facebook - I know I certainly have. And it looks to me like there's far less blogging happening as a result. Certainly true in my case. But I don't want to let my blog slide totally so thought I would post something.

We had another soggy holiday in Cornwall last week (Pip and I are considering hiring ourselves out as water-shortage solutions consultants - you got a water shortage? just pay for us to come on holiday where you are and we can almost guarantee that it will rain the whole time we're there).

Came back to do Chris and Katharine's wedding on Saturday (see photo on left and below courtesy of Mel). hOME weddings seem to be like buses - we've had 2 in the last month and none before that. As a result we have unwittingly transitioned to a community that now has a large percentage of married/hooked up people. How did that happen?!

Corpus Christi

Today in the Church Calendar is Corpus Christi - which is a day of thanksgiving to God for the institution of the eucharist.
(the photo comes from the blog of Alan Creech)

It's a big festival in the Catholic world and even though we are not wanting to overly-identify ourselves with any ONE tradition, but drink deeply from all the wells, I am thankful for the eucharist.

It keeps us anchored in the story of the gospel.
We celebrate the eucharist in hOME at every worship gathering (weekly) and I think it's really important that we do so.
At the Last Supper Jesus took, blessed, broke, and shared the bread. The four main 'actions' of the eucharist - taking, blessing, breaking and sharing are also the four main elements of the Christ story. Jesus was given (or taken), blessed by God, broken (primarily on the cross) and shared out for the life of the world as the living bread.

So each time we celebrate the eucharist we are re-enacting the heart of our faith.

But those 4 actions also encapsulate God's action upon us:
he gathers us, he blesses us, he breaks us, and he shares us out for the life of the world : we experience this on both an individual level and a corporate level in Christian community.

So for this reason (and there are others too - for example eucharist reminds us of the essential goodness of physicality), I'm glad we re-tell the story each week in our worship gathering.

interfaith walk for peace

Went on the annual interfaith walk for peace yesterday (see picture on left including one of our guys - Andy - who somehow became chief steward for the march - in the foreground with rather cheeky pose!).
We started at the Synagogue and then walked on to the University church and then on to the Mosque in East Oxford. All the Abrahamic faiths together (+ others too). I even 'collared up' for the occasion (not something I do that often).
In an age of distrust and fear it seems even more important these days to do this sort of thing.
For me I'm not at all going down that relativistic route of saying we're all basically believing the same thing (apart from anything else that would be very disrespectful of the other faiths who, largely, wouldn't want to say that at all). Just saying that we have respect for each other, value each other, can learn from each other, and do not fear each other. And these seem like things worth saying.

Richard Rohr @ York

Absolutely blown away by Richard Rohr at the conference I went to in York over the weekend. He's in my Jedi Council for sure.
I said to someone I feel like I've been born again again.
There's a lot of talk in emerging circles about 'powerless discourse' and a kind of doing away with the 'expert'. I disagree. Put someone who knows what they're talking about in a big room, preferably on a stage, give them a microphone and let them talk at me for hours on end. I don't particularly want to go to something like this and pool my ignorance with a load of strangers in small groups. I want to listen to a spiritual master, which Rohr undoubtedly is.
Of course, we need to make sure we're not confusing this for the real work however. The rubber hits the road when we take this stuff back into Christian community and learn together how to live it out. That's a much more appropriate context for 'powerless discourse' if you ask me.
Anyway - it was truly inspirational stuff. He was basically talking about how bad the church has been at facilitating true transformation in people. That true transformation comes through wisdom (which is actually a common description of the Spirit in the scriptures) but the church hasn't developed a wisdom culture but instead been obsessed with what he calls 'informational knowledge' i.e. it's about getting more and better information, knowing how to label things correctly etc. The church has by and large operated in this early level consciousness.
Instead we need to know how to get beyond what he calls the 'dualistic mind' to wisdom and the 'contemplative mind' which can deliver true transformation.
Of course he said a lot of other things too! I'm looking forward to listening again to the CD's.

Of particular interest to people reading this blog might be the fact that he talked in the last session about the emerging church. In his view it has 3 characteristics:

1. An honest reading of Jesus - not reading the gospels to score denominational points but an openness to receive ALL of Christ's teaching. The church has often emphasised things that Jesus didn't emphasise and ignored things that Jesus did emphasise! The emerging church is seeking to take the whole of Christ's teaching seriously.

2. A passion of justice, peace, and ecological issues.

3. An openness to developing the contemplative mind. (He joked that he would always rather talk about scripture to Catholics, and contemplation to Protestants because both groups are very happy to admit that they know little about these things...the problem comes when trying to teach scripture to Protestants and contemplation to Catholics cos both groups think they have it all worked out in those areas and don't have what he calls 'Beginners Mind'.)

Anyway - as you can see...I'm a bit of a fan...and there is a bit of a guru thing around Rohr which I know he's quite embarassed about (he said so). I did say to my travelling companions (great to be there with Jim from hOME and Ian and Gail from mayBe) that if the weekend ended in a mass wedding we were all in trouble...!!

a travesty of justice...

there was no way Naomi should have been fired from The Apprentice last night. I predicted Simon's firing about 5 mins into the programme and I stand by my judgement. He was easily more culpable than Naomi for the failure of the task. Sir Alan 'cocked it up royal' (surely a new catchphrase in the making) with his decision last night (and I have a terrible feeling that Katie is going to be in the final!).

Richard Rohr in York

I'm looking forward to travelling to York this coming weekend for the Richard Rohr conference that Contemplation & Action UK are organising.

Rohr is a Franciscan monk and the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico (had to look the spelling up on that one!). As he himself says, the most important word in the phrase 'contemplation and action' is the word 'and'.

I was blown away by hearing him speak at Greenbelt a couple of years ago and his book 'Everything Belongs - the gift of Contemplative Prayer' made a big impression on me when I read it last year.

It's great that I have some traveling companions too...Jim from the hOME community, and Ian (my brother nu-monastic Abbot from the mayBe community also in Oxford) and his wife, Gail.

Should be a good weekend.

Pentecost

Really enjoyed our Pentecost service last night. We focused in on the four most well used metaphors for the Spirit - fire, water, breath/wind, and oil.
I did a little thought for the day on what it means to be witnesses - which is why the Spirit is given according to Jesus (and he should know).
It seems to me that we are witnesses in who we are and in what we do. i.e. it's about identity and vocation. And when the Spirit comes something happens in these two areas that make us into witnesses. I looked at Adam - the breath/ruach/spirit of God enters him and makes him into a living being (identity) and there follows the creation mandate (vocation) to be fruitful and multiply etc. We then looked at the baptism of Christ - the Spirit comes and we are told that this is God's Son whom he loves (identity) and immediately after he begins his ministry (vocation). We then went to the Pentecost narrative and saw how the Spirit was given to form the church (identity) and to lead it into mission (vocation).
We then looked at the four images of the Spirit - fire, wind, oil, and water - and discussed what experiencing the Spirit in those ways might mean for us in terms of discipleship (identity) and mission (vocation).
I thought it was a really helpful discussion.
We then had these 4 elements laid out around the room and people interacted with them in whatever way they found helpful, turning their encounter with the elements into prayer for themselves and others.
We also read some fantastic quotes from Hildegard of Bingen, Elizabeth Johnson, Clark Pinnock and Pope John Paul II on the Spirit and I'm including jpegs of the slides here if anyone wants to click on them to enlarge and read them.

how will you be defined in the dictionary?

a bit of fun for Saturday.....go here, enter your name, and see how your name would be defined in an (imaginary) dictionary. Mine came out as follows:

Matt --
[noun]:

A dance involving little to no clothing.

I also particularly liked the entry for my friend Jim who appears as....

jim --
[noun]:

A lewd street performer

Although it does seem like you get a different answer if you refresh so it's obviously totally random.

Katie and Eddie

is it just me or do Katie off The Apprentice and Eddie Izzard bear more than a passing resemblance to each other? See the photos below and judge for yourself.














Katie(left) and Eddie (right)

You never see them in the same room together that's for sure.

Pentecost

wisdom from Benedict and Joan

Part of my practice recently has involved daily readings from Joan Chittister's commentary on the Rule of Benedict. I was particularly struck by her words this morning:

A willingness to be formed is the basis of formation. Anything else is fraud.....you can't get the spiritual life by waiting for it. You have to reach for it. Read things that gild your soul. Turn your mind to prayer, to a conscious response to the God present here and now. Remember who you are.
The ancients considered the gift of tears as a sign of God's great favour. If we could only be always sorry for what we have done to distort life in the past then perhaps we could be safeguarded against distorting it in the future. Regret is a gift long gone in contemporary culture but critically needed perhaps. In this society , guilt has disappeared and sorrow is labeled unhealthy. As a people, then, we separate one action from another in such a way that patterns escape us and pitfalls elude us. We simply stumble on, from one event to the next, unaware of the dangers in it for us, uncaring of our past behaviours, unfeeling of the callouses on our hearts.
Life, Benedict implies, is a tapestry woven daily from yesterday's threads. The colours don't change, only the shapes we give them. Without the past to guide us, the future itself may succumb to it.

"it's just a step to the right....."

Well done to those who spotted the Rocky Horror allusion above.
Sad, but not entirely surprised, to see my old theological college hitting the headlines in yesterday's Guardian. It's changed a lot since I was there and I think a number of people saw this coming. A good friend of mine is studying there at the moment so I hope this won't adversely affect his training.

stations of the resurrection

Over the last 5 weeks we've been doing the Stations of the Resurrection. Instead of 'prayer' stations we made them 'teaching' stations instead. We used 11 different passages (left out the apocryphal 'Jesus meets his mother' and the ascension + pentecost which we are saving for the coming weeks).
We laid out the 11 Stations around the room each week - the passages were printed out and there were large pieces of paper and assorted coloured pens - and each week people visited a couple of the Stations, read the passage, and wrote down any questions or thoughts they had about the passage, or drew a picture, answered questions other people had left etc. The idea being that we built on each other's theological work over the course of the 4 weeks we engaged with these Stations.
Last night we wrapped it up with a recap and a discussion on what we had been learning. I really like this Latin-American idea of entrusting the Word to the people, rather than the 'professional priest' always controlling the content.
Unfortunately I forgot to take some photos but hopefully you get the general idea.

wedding

A real privilege yesterday to conduct the marriage of Martin and Juliet - two guys from hOME - at a little village just outside Oxford. It was a great day. Suzie took some great photos (as usual) - these are from her set. The full set is here.

Cranes

So - it occurred to me yesterday....how do you put a crane up? Not the smaller ones on the backs of lorries like this one on the left, but the tower kind, which are huge. More like this:
To get something that big and heavy into the air you'd need a crane wouldn't you? So do they use cranes to put up cranes? But then how did the first crane (the one they use to put the second one up) get put up?

It could be one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe.

a bit of wisdom from Dallas Willard

I'm doing my usual annoying thing at the moment - reading about 5 books at once. I wish I didn't do that but I do. Anyway, just to add to the confusion this morning I picked up another book I've got lying around the house at the moment - 'The Spirit of the Disciplines' by Dallas Willard - and read the first chapter. It was one of those 'wow' moments you sometimes get when you're reading. Here's a little taster - it's a long quote but it's worth persevering with...

Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists of loving our enemies. going the second mile, turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully - while living the rest of our lives just as everyone around us does....it's a strategy that's bound to fail and to make the way of Christ 'difficult and left untried'. In truth it is not the way of Christ any more than striving to act in a certain manner in the heat of a game is the way of a champion athlete....

..It is part of the misguided and whimsical condition of humankind that we so devoutly believe in the power of effort-at-the-moment-of-action alone to accomplish what we want and completely ignore the need for character change in our lives as a whole. The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit ourselves to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it reality.

the great church merry-go-round...ouch

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

some people are just no good with change!

Birthday bonus

...And to top it off - Spurs won away AND it's the Inspector Morse weekend on ITV3 (sad I know but I'm a big fan)!
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Birthday

Well, today is my birthday. I'm 38 today. I'm writing this while sitting on the terrace overlooking the river at The Trout - a famous pub round these parts - whilst enjoying a pint in the late afternoon sun. I met with lovely friends for a posh breakfast at a hotel in town and then - after a pleasant bit of vinyl browsing the girls and I headed home for a spot of lunch before heading out again for a family swim - my first with Lily Anna. it's been a good day!
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Songs of Praise - with a twist

Oh this is good! Side-splittingly good! Thanks to Paul Roberts for the tip off.

Whatever happened to the resurrection in our missiology?

I love this Easter season in the lectionary - spending time in the post-resurrection narratives.

One thing I have noticed and been surprised by - particularly in the readings in Acts - is that the first generation of apostles/disciples understood themselves primarily to be witnesses to the resurrection rather than the cross (or more precisely, expounding a theology of the cross). Obviously the cross was important but the main emphasis is on witnessing to the fact that God raised Christ from the dead. That was what had changed everything. I have been reflecting on how different that is from our modern emphasis on the cross over the resurrection.

Giles Fraser in the Church Times a couple of weeks ago complained that evangelicals have a very under-developed theology of the resurrection. For them all the action happens on Good Friday and Easter Sunday is almost a bit of an afterthought.

What would it look like if in our mission we 'led' with the resurrection rather than the cross? Not that it would be right to play one off against the other but just in terms of regaining a balance. What would that look like?

Stations of the Cross Photos

Mel, from the the hOME community, who is a really good photographer, has some good photos of our Good Friday Stations of the Cross service here.

easter catch up

It was a good easter at hOME although I am still slightly bemused by the fact that easter seems to have ceased to be the time when we celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ in Christian community and instead has become a time to go away and visit family (definitely not a bad thing to do but where has this idea come from?!) because after all it's a bank holiday weekend. Consequently our Easter Sunday service is normally one of our lowest attended services instead of our highest attended one!

That said there were some special moments. Our Good Friday Stations of the Cross installation/eucharist was memorable. Really good to get people from beyond the hOME community involved and to have some 'special guests'.

On Holy Saturday we had our second annual Service of Vows at Dorchester Abbey with Bishop Colin Fletcher. We all renewed our baptismal vows and then some people who made 'monastic' vows a year ago were ending their time in Chapter, some - like myself- were renewing vows for the year to come, and some were making vows for the first time. Here's a pic of this year's Chapter -


On Easter Sunday we had our regular small gathering for breakfast at our house with a simple eucharist.

birthday wish list

my birthday's coming up in a couple of weeks and I guess everyone reading this will be anxious to get me a present (ahem...). With that in mind I point you in the direction of my amazon wish list which can be found here (best viewed in order of priority).

Alternatively, if someone wanted to get me a vintage Fender Rhodes stage piano (see pic below) go ahead and make my year! And there's one on ebay here (or if your dad has one under the stairs left over from the 1970's that he wants to find a good home for do let me know).

Can You Feel the Silence?

This was a question that Van Morrison asked us repeatedly in his 'mystical' phase. Well - I'm disappointed to have to tell you that I couldn't really feel it on Friday night. Don't get me wrong - a night out to a Van Morrison gig is, in my opinion, never a wasted evening. But I think the reason that is the case is almost because we see 'through' what is presented to our senses in the here and now back to the glory days of 25-30 years ago (and beyond - Astral Weeks was 1968). What we see now is a fat, grumpy man in a black coat, dark glasses and a trilby (delta bluesman stylee - that's how Van sees himself now) playing swing and skiffle, but in our minds we see the shamanic Van - the Van of 'Ballerina' or 'When the healing has begun' - who was able to take us on a mystical journey of musical ecstacy.

It was a packed out gig. My heart sank somewhat when his elderly band came on before him and did a track on their own - a really predictable, pedestrian blues song. But then Van came on and launched into 'Enlightenment' - not exactly a classic but certainly a song that is more representative of the mystic Van.

More blues followed (yawn) and then there was a lovely moment of confusion where there was some debate onstage as to what came next on the set-list. Seizing the opportunity the audience started shouting out all their favourite Van songs - and what was interesting was that they were all the old stuff - the stuff he doesn't play anymore. At this point Van spoke (a very rare occurrence) saying "that was fun - does anyone else have any suggestions" - before ignoring us all and plodding on with some more blues.

It left me wondering why he's walked away from what I would consider his best stuff. He hardly did any slow songs and even the classics that he did do he reworked to take the soul out of them (I mean he even took a song like 'Have I told you lately that I love you' and did it in a big band, swing style!). Pippa thinks he just can't handle the intensity of it anymore especially in front of big audiences - it's too intimate, too vulnerable.

Anyway, the 90 minute set ended with an encore (another rarity for Van) of 'Gloria' and he nailed it - spot on. He had the whole crowd on their feet (yes it was one of those grown-up, sit down gigs), clapping and punching the air and he did it like we knew it. He had us in the palm of his hand and he could have taken us on from there and probably really enjoyed it himself. But he exited stage left as the band played the outro.

Being the saddos that we are we went round the back of the theatre to the stage door to see him leave. We waited with about 20 or so others of the faithful and then out he came - wearing a woolly hat and scarf which was quite a contrast to his stage persona - had a bit of trouble opening the door of his BMW and then his driver whisked him away into the night.

So seeing Van these days is always a bittersweet experience. We reflected on this some more over a nightcap in the Randolph Hotel and then his band came in through the front door. We wondered whether they might be staying there. No sign of Van himself though.

Where has he gone?

Haircut

Van Morrison review to be posted when I get a few minutes to write it (tomorrow hopefully).

Meanwhile, in other news...My wife has had her haircut and I think it looks great!

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I'm still a believer

Been trying to take some time off this week after a busy easter.

Off to see Van Morrison in concert tonight at the New Theatre in Oxford. Can't wait. Of course, the big question is - which Van Morrison will turn up?


Van the mystic? (or 'The Mystic Fatty' as my friend Simon calls him)






or


Van the swing-band leader.










I've got to say that, unfortunately, the latter is more likely than the former. And he ain't what he was for sure. But I'm still a believer. We will see glimpses of the old mystic poking through I am sure of it.

A review of sorts tomorrow no doubt.

cold

sitting at home with a streaming cold. It had to happen this week - Holy Week - didn't it?! I haven't had a cold for a couple of years and it comes along when I'm up to my eyes in preparation for easter and business meetings to do with the cafe project. So thought I would use my blog to have a moan at the world!

Good endings - Chapter Year 1 draws to a close

We had our final Chapter meal of the first annual cycle last night.

That effectively brings to an end the first year of our Chapter - whose life cycle runs from easter to easter - though we will include some prayers in the Service of Vows on Holy Saturday to mark it more formally.

It felt like a good ending - there was much laughter and merriment - due at least in part to a large bottle of Montepulciano D'Abruzzo (one of my favourite Italian tipples) that the Morgans had just brought back from Italy.

We spent some time writing down the things we appreciated about each other and also the areas we hope to see each other grow in. We then said Compline together.

At the end they gave me a beautiful carved wooden St Francis cross (see photo) brought back from Assisi which is now hanging on the wall above my desk at home, and an icon of the last supper - it was our last supper together after all.

The new 'Chapter in waiting' has just been on retreat together and will make their vows on Holy Saturday in Dorchester Abbey.

"Only the Local is Universal" - James Attlee at QI

Really enjoyed hearing James Attlee at the QI building (see pic) in Oxford last night along with a few other hOMEies.

Attlee is the author of the book 'Isolarion' which is about the Cowley Road here in Oxford (I mentioned it yesterday).

It was fascinating to hear him talk so much about spirituality (for instance the idea of pilgrimage which he talked about at length) and then to claim that, although he has a religious background in terms of his upbringing, he now has no religious belief and that "all the overarching belief systems have failed". I guess it's a story that we're getting very used to hearing by now - religion bad/spirituality good.

And in a sense he's right - they have all failed, certainly in their current form. Christendom is crumbling around our ears and many inside the church don't think that's a bad thing. But I guess many of us would want to avoid throwing the (holy) baby out with the bathwater. Out of the ashes of Christendom comes new communities of Christian practice.

Attlee also talked about the 'fragments of global cultures that have washed up on the Cowley Road', his fight to prevent the local council from tidying the place up and prettifying it in a bland way ("why can't we just walk round the empty fruit cartons on the pavement? why are we all so obsessed with walking in straight lines in the city?"!!), and the importance of simply walking around (which I felt really challenged to make part of my practice).

But the moment I enjoyed most was when he was talking with passion about the annual Cowley Road Carnival (this year happening on Sunday 1st July). He talked about what a difference having no cars around made, but most tellingly he talked about the effect that the Carnival has on the local consciousness - it leaves a trace and opens up possibilities. It enables you to imagine the city differently.

Sound familiar?! I think it's a great image of the task of local Christian community.

new blog - The hOME Cafe

I mentioned yesterday that we are looking into the possibility of opening a cafe/arts space/spirituality centre on the Cowley Road.

For people who want to track the development of this project more closely I've started a separate blog - The hOME Cafe (what it's called for now) - here.
I'm sure if there are any big developments I will blog about them here too.

mission focus : geographic or demographic?

We have been talking quite a lot about mission around these parts recently.

For quite a long time I think it would be true to say that we have conceived of our mission in demographic rather than geographic terms i.e. we are trying to focus on a people group (the postmoderns for want of a better word) rather than a particular geographical area.

I sense that is beginning to change for us.

We are hearing God's call to become a sign and symbol of the kingdom of God (and to seek the kingdom of God) in a more geographically focused way. That for us means the Cowley Road area of Oxford (see photo above).

I said to someone the other day that we want to see people who live, work and play in the Cowley Road area come to faith.

At the moment - although we gather there (in the local community centre) on Sunday nights for worship, no one locally would really know we were there. Our presence is very light - we kind of parachute in and then out again.

So - we are investigating the possibility of opening a cafe on the Cowley Road which will give us a greater ability to be present to those who live, work and play there. I will blog about this separately as things develop. We have an important meeting tomorrow about it.

On another - related note - a fascinating book has recently come out: 'Isolarion' by James Attlee is his pilgrimage (his word) or travelogue up the Cowley Road. It's had some great reviews and some of us in hOME have started reading it.
He is speaking about it tonight in Oxford at the QI building (it would have seemed more appropriate for him to speak about it somewhere on the Cowley Road but there you are!). It's free and it's at 7.30pm if you're local and you fancy it.

planning ahead - can you help?!

We're about to book our Greenbelt tickets while they're still cheaper (before end of March). Chas and Dave are playing - it'd be crazy not to go!
Anyway, it's going to be an interesting experience this year - what with having Lily-Anna with us for the first time.
Ideally what we'd love is for someone to loan us a camper van.
It's a big ask but if there's anyone out there who reads this blog, has a Camper van, isn't going to Greenbelt themselves or anywhere else on the August bank holiday weekend, and would be prepared to loan theirs to us (phew! that's a long list of qualifications!).....then we'd love to hear from you!!

"I'm a Christ-follower, and I'm a Christian" (PC/Mac parody alert)

O lordy! Here is a take on the "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" adverts from Apple but this time it's "I'm a Christ-follower, and I'm a Christian" from GodTube.com. I've embedded this one (there are 4) cos it was the only one which I thought had a good line in it ("think I got a loose fire-wire"). The other three are here, here and here. What's great is that it really emphasises the really important things - like how being a Christ-follower means that you can wear jeans to church (unlike boring normal Christians). Cool!

Chapter Retreat

8 of us are off toBurford Priory today for a weekend's retreat in preparation for the second hOME Service of Vows on Holy Saturday, Easter weekend. Looking forward to it.

another chance to see a great film

just discovered that they're putting on an additional screening of 'Into Great Silence' at the Phoenix in Oxford this coming Sunday at 12.30pm. regular readers will know I was blown away by this film and highly recommend you seeing it if you live in the Oxford area. You can book online here.

Good Friday - hOME Stations of the Cross

Mother's Day

So last Sunday in the UK was Mother's Day - or Mothering Sunday to give it it's proper title. It was a special day for us as it was obviously Pippa's first Mother's Day and our incredibly talented 10 week old daughter somehow managed to make sure Pip got a bunch of flowers and a card.

Anyway, I led the intercessions in church on Sunday night and I enjoyed preparing them. We had 4 prayer stations:

1. giving thanks and praying for our mothers. object: a glass of milk to sip from.
2. praying for women who had lost children. object: a flower with a separated petal.
3. praying for children who had lost mothers. particularly for aids orphans. object: a solitary teddy bear.
4. praying for those who have experienced the pain of childlessness. object: a pregnancy test.

didn't see that one coming..

All too predictably Spurs (my team) crashed out of the FA Cup last night to Chelsea, losing 2-1.
But I think we lost it when we took Berbatov off and conceded a second goal in the first game. It was all over from then on I thought....
I even hoped Robbie Keane didn't score the penalty as I thought it was just delaying the inevitable - we never looked likely last night.

The Prodigal Son - but what about when the memory has gone?

Yesterday's lectionary gospel was Luke 15 - the parable of the Prodigal Son.
This story works out on a number of levels - Israel's return from exile etc.
But one of the most fascinating points to come out of our community discussion last night was how pivotal the role of memory was in the story.
It was when the son, who was living in a far off land, remembered the goodness of his Father that he decided to come home.
Now if we're talking about Israel's return from exile - then no problem. The memory was kept alive in the continuous retelling of the story.

But when we use this story to speak of people coming home to God - and I think it's appropriate for us to employ the story in this way - then how does it work if there is no memory of being at home with God in the first place to draw upon?

This is a very important story for us - our little community is called 'home' because that sense of home-coming, which is portrayed so beautifully in this story, is what we're all about. We want to embody God's call to come home. This is what mission is all about for us.

In what sense do the people around us have that memory of being at home with God? Is it like a primeval thing? You know - collectively as a human race we have a deep rooted sense of our homeland even if we don't have that memory on an individual conscious level?

Is that the best way to understand it?

The Spirit is the Front Man now

I'm probably being a bit theologically slow off the mark here but it occurred to me this morning that as we look back over human history - or at least to the point of early Jewish history in the Old Testament - that we have seen three 'epochs' which largely correspond to the three members of the Trinity:

The era of the Father - the prime mover and character in the foreground in the Old Testament
The era of the Son - through the incarnation in Jesus Christ
The era of the Spirit - after the ascension of Christ and the day of Pentecost, the Spirit poured out.

Of course - it's not a science! Because we are talking about interdependent, perichoretic Trinity here then there is beautiful interplay throughout the three eras (e.g. the Father and the Spirit were obviously involved in the incarnation of the Son, and in this present era the Spirit points towards the Son and the Father) but it's like there is a different 'front-man' at each point.

Spring is the new Summer!

We've had absolutely beautiful weather for about the last 10 days in a row now - warm and sunny. Kinda like the summer used to be in England!

Into Great Silence

The waiting was over and I finally got to see this film last night.

It was stunning.
There were people for whom it was a bit soporific (quite a few tired eyes and heavy eyelids) but I was totally gripped throughout.

There was an amazing amount of energy for a two and half hour film with no soundtrack, no narration and very little speaking.

A number of things came through for me:

- the spirituality of small things. The most mundane of tasks being done with love, care and attentiveness. This really does transform the mundanity of life into an exercise in spirituality and worship.

- the importance of rhythm.

- the freedom that is to be found within limitations. We've really got to get hold of this one and it applies on many levels e.g. liturgy. Sometimes we think things limit us but they actually enable us to be truly free.

The cinematography was exquisite. It was kinda like going to the Tate and watching a video installation. It could just as easily have been screened in a gallery as in a cinema.

And it was really interesting that so many people came out on a Tuesday evening (the cinema was three quarters full) to see a film like this.

My fellow nu-monastic abbot Ian from mayBe has blogged about it here.

If you get the chance to see this film take it.

what does it mean to be a witness? (or - it's not enough to just not be weird)

As readers of this blog will know - I have been thinking a lot about evangelism recently.
I was thinking about it again last night when I was out for a drink with the guys from our ante-natal class.
I wonder whether to a certain extent we have defaulted to a kind of negative definition of what it means to be a witness.

i.e. we think it's enough to not be weird.

We know that everyone thinks that Christians are boring and weird. We imagine people discovering that we are Christians and then saying something like - "You can't be a Christian - you're not weird, you're normal". And that has become how we imagine ourselves to be a witness.

But it's not really enough is it? It's a kind of inversion - communicating what we're not (weird) instead of what we are (fill in blanks yourself).

How are our lives really different from those people around us (apart from stuff in our heads about what we believe)? In other words, what positive statements can we make to point people towards the life of God lived out?

Poor Conversationalist

I have been very poor at responding to people's comments on my blog. It's bad form. So I want to try harder to respond, even if it's only to say a thankyou to those who have taken the time and trouble to post a comment.
Apologies for my poor conversation skills and be assured that I really appreciate your comments.

from the sublime to the possibly ridiculous

Following my last post on the theology of mission it seems only appropriate to follow it up with this post about some trainers with wheels in them.

I heard about these - 'Heeleys' to give them their proper title - via Bob Hyatt in Portland whose blog I lurk on. He's got a great YouTube video showing people using them.

They look like too much fun - especially for grown up kids like me (who said you have to stop playing when you grow up?!) - so I think I might need to ask for some for my birthday next month. They are available in the UK here.

why are we so bad at evangelism (or - time to get cookin')

Yesterday morning, fellow hOMEie Jim and myself did a team-preach/discussion facilitation at St Clement's Parish Church - the Parish that most of hOME's activity takes place within (so we are there with their kind permission etc.)

The Lectionary gospel passage for the day was Luke 13: 1-9 which is a strange passage in many ways. We decided to focus on the second part in which Jesus tells a story about a tree that has been planted but has borne no fruit for three years. It was a challenging passage for us as we have been going about three and a half years now, so the passage begged a difficult question for us i.e. what does it mean to be fruitful, and have we been?

The New Testament describes fruitfulness in different ways (fruit of the Spirit etc.) but there's also no getting away from the fact that it also envisages fruitfulness to mean the growth of the Christian community. We might want to term that evangelism.

Evangelism has got a lot of bad press in recent years, a lot of which has been justifiable. And I have spoken many times about the need to see evangelism as an aspect of mission (which is rightly understood to be God's activity in the world to restore the whole of his creation).

But what about this pesky evangelism business. Why are we who are exploring new forms of church seemingly so poor at seeing people come to faith (this seems to be quite a common experience in emerging communities).

In the passage - Jesus talks about the manure that the gardener wants to put around the tree to encourage it to be fruitful. What might that compost/manure be?

We suggested it could be many things (and there were some fantastic contributions from the congregation to the discussion at this point) but some fresh thinking might be part of it.

Then we developed a germ of idea that was suggested in Pete Rollins' book - How (Not) to Speak of God.

Much evangelism to date could be characterised as being akin to going up to people in the street with a plate of food and trying to convince them (a) that they are hungry (they mostly don't think they are) and (b) they should take some of our food. We then develop ever more elaborate ways of trying to get them to take the food or convince them that it makes rational sense to take the food.

Pete suggests a different approach. What if we understood ourselves to be the 'aroma of Christ'. I guess we've all had the experience of walking down the street and catching a whiff of some fantastic food, which instantly makes us feel hungry. Could this be a more helpful way of understanding the task of evangelism?

What would we need to see this happen. We suggested 7 things:

1. chefs i.e. people of faith
2. a kitchen i.e. a context for the chefs to be together - church
3. ingredients i.e. good smelling stuff - mercy, compassion, reconciliation, justice, forgiveness
4. a cooker i.e. the life of the Spirit in us and between us/around us
5. some open windows i.e. to let the good smells out - relationships, honesty etc.
6. proximity i.e. to be cooking near to where people might be
7. a spirit of inclusion i.e. the ability and willingness to offer people a seat at the table once they take the initiative and get in touch with their own hunger.

Traditionally we have jumped straight to point 7 without thinking about how we can help people to figure out for themselves that they are hungry.

Anyway - thought there might be somebody out there who might be interested in this!

the joy of new music

One of the best things in life as far as I'm concerned is the discovery of new music. Sometimes I like to just pick something up something I've never heard before up at random in my quest for continual musical refreshment. There are two or three facilities that make this easier - especially for those of us without lots of cash:

1. Fopp Records - a great independent chain of small stores which operate a 'suck it and see' policy. They are quite happy for you to buy a CD and take it back for an exchange or refund if you don't like it.

2. The public library - ours here in Oxford has a great selection of CD's and they are normally £1 for one week. Of course there is a moral dilemma involved here: if you've borrowed an album and loaded it on to your iPod to listen to, and you decide you really like it, are you disciplined enough to go out and buy the CD. Or alternatively, delete it from iTunes?

3. iTunes - I love their 30 second previews, and it's a good way to get a sense of the kind of thing a new artist does, but there's no beating taking in a whole album to get a proper sense of the music.

My discovery this week is Matisyahu (see pic above) - a Jewish reggae artist. Loving it. It's so refreshing to hear a different cultural voice - I don't think I've listened to any Jewish music before. This album came out last year and it's fascinating to listen to him rap about the Temple and Jerusalem etc. His site is here and you can listen to tracks on it. Anyone else discovered any great new music they want to share with us?

more on processing stuff in community

I blogged a few days ago on whether we should be more accepting of some people's desire to gain some space away from community to process their stuff - and whether or not people are just wired in different ways: some to work through things in community and some needing to take a step back.
With that in mind it was interesting to read some of Mark Scandrette's thoughts today:

I’ve also noticed the important role community plays in personal health. Often when someone is not doing well mentally, emotionally, spiritually or relationally, they withdraw from the relationships that could give them the most encouragement and accountability. I think you would find, for instance, that long before a couple divorces, they often divorce themselves from the communities that could provide the best support. I’ve wondered if we should more agressively pursue those who withdraw from relationships– since withdrawal is so often a sign of unhealth– even when maintaining such relationships requires conflict.

Read the whole of Mark's post here.

I still don't think I've nailed this one. My natural inclination is to say that, from a point of trinitarian theology, relationships are intrinsic to what it means to be fully human, and to say that sometimes people need to isolate themselves in order to work through difficult times just doesn't ring true. But at the same time we can't force people to open up and share in the context of community. Maybe, Emma and Trefor are right in their comments on my original post - it kinda all depends on what you mean by being in community. Some people can still be connected to and held by the community in some way even if they are not actively opening up and sharing their stuff in that context. But what about when people just 'disappear' for a while?

We Will Not Be Silenced

fantastic video here from a guy who calls himself DJ Paul Edge - amazing combination of visuals and text. Stick with it cos it takes a little while to get going (and the music is pretty forgettable).

Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama

Ok - some of you will be way ahead of me on this one - but this week I got hold of a fantastic record by Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama - 'There will be a light'. Fantastic stuff - great mixture of gospel, country, bluegrass.

Community - where you process your stuff???

As Abbot of our little community I always find it a little sad when people who are going through a tough time withdraw from community to deal with their stuff until they feel they are in a better place and can come back.
I've always thought this was an unhealthy way of doing things, but then in a conversation with one of our Chapter members yesterday the possibility emerged that perhaps some people are just wired that way, and that that's ok. i.e. some people work through tough stuff with others and others prefer to go out into the desert on their own and work it out.
This has confused me a little. what do any of my readers think? Should we be encouraging people not to retreat from community during tough times, or should we be recognising that some people do things that way and be reassuring them that we are here and waiting for them when they are ready to come back?
Your thoughts are appreciated!

Mobile blogging

So - I'm trying out the mobile blogging feature of the new Blogger Beta system from my BlackBerry. If you can read this it's working!

I'm sitting in the biography section of Blackwells bookshop in Oxford - by far and away the best bookshop in town. If you're wondering why I'm in the biography section it's cos it has some comfy armchairs and I needed somewhere to sit for a while in between meetings.

Anyway, I can't help but notice that some very unlikely people have biographies out. I mean, who in the world wants to read a biography of the following:

Damien Duff
Billie Piper (ok - Jim might want to read this!)
Kerry Katona
Chris Moyles
Neil Lennon
Gordon Ramsay

I mean - how many people are that interested in these people to want to read a whole hard backed book about them?!!

Seems like anyone can write a biography these days. Mind you I guess it's not a million miles away from the self publishing phenomena that is blogging.

______________________________
Matt Rees
home
- slowly learning to be with God and each other for the sake of the world

www.home-online.org

(m) 07811 149305
(e) matt@home-online.org
(blog) www.lostempireslivingtribes.blogspot.com

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