Contagion or Carcinogen?

The whole thing with this church planting malarky has weighed on my mind for some time. For those of you who don't live within the scope of an Oyster Card and therefore not in HTB heartland, a church plant is nothing much to do with Mrs Miggins and her flower rota, or indeed the lovely chap who tends to the weeds by the gravestones. 

No, this is far more important. 

Church planting is de rigueur around London and environs and refers to the creating of a new church community, often within old disused church buildings or the local school. The art of the church plant is exemplified by the Church of the Holy Trinity in the Archdiocese of Brompton, who regard it as a gospel imperative (the 'making disciples' thing). The simple fact is, if you leave a spare bedroom un-used for too long, one of two things will happen: you will pay tax or else your spare bedroom will be planted by the planters and a church dedicated St Flossy in the Wold will be created among your detritus. Church plants are also easy to spot for there are some common characteristics in each

1. There will be a polyvinyl Alpha Course banner outside

2. The Pasta will be wearing the obligatory hoody and have a funky modern hairdo, goatee and that church-plant fringe thing

3. The Pasta's name will be abbreviated from that given at their baptism (often with a 'z' added for extra funkiness)

The fact is, in sitting here and writing this, I have been absent from my own church building for a few minutes, and I am already sure that Muff and Baz have taken over the joint to create the next branch office of Alpha International. 

Now, as the meagre parson that I am, with a church community to love into the Kingdom, I find that the greater burden on my reverential shoulders is manifest in the need to keep the present day subsidised so that tomorrow has half a chance. I am largely a fundraiser to maintain, if I am lucky, the parochial status quo. Most incumbents across most parishes across Christendom face the same challenges, unless of course they are those Johnny-come-Latelys from the fecund breast of the HTB mothership. They pitch up, rip the hoarding down from the crumbling carcass of St Silas under the Wardrobe, by their own effort paint it and make it look pretty, install the rock act and the obligatory sound desk, and crack on. Are they worried about the bills? Possibly. But what is the case is that they are ready to use the re-enlivened St Silas by the Bedside Cabinet as launch pad to a new church plant.

I have often pondered this gentle spread of the planters across the territory. That they are of a single breed of ecclesial expression, that they all seem to have the same theology, that their outward face is often mitigated by the same nurture course - this, I confess, worries me. That I sit in some measure of fear for my parish community when I eventually leave because I am quite sure that a planter is already being cloned in readiness to take over and turn the altar into a drum kit - that worries me. That they are all the same worries me too as I believe passionately in the diversity of the church. That there seems to be no future place for Christians born as I have been born worries me, and there are times when, in my less charitable moments, I feel that this relentless church planting is carcinogenic. Not all church communities are the same, of course, so why are all church plants the same? 

The fact remains, though, that I know that what the planters are doing is right. They are broadcasting their seed so that new Christian communities can grow. Rather than being a carcinogen, they are in fact contagions for the Gospel and rather than wish to wipe them from the face of the Earth, wish that my 'tribe' could learn a lesson and see the very real need for all types of church plant in the breadth of expression that the Lord must surely favour. Us catholic types surely have it easy. We don't need sound-desks and drum kits, my name doesn't have to be changes to Davey and I am delighted, thank you very much, with the Pilgrim Course. All I need therefore, for a church plant is a cup, a plate, and the heart for it. 

In my little parish, thriving though it is, I have neither the first idea or the apparent resource to accomplish any sort of plant, as I see it. I don't have an International Corporation to which I can claim a place at table to help me. I do, though, want to see the church of God grow. I grant that in this part of London I am HTB-locked, so what do I do? I am so locked into the the need to have church pay its way in the present day that the idea of sending out some good folk with a roll of cash seems impossible. I so want the church that I love grow and thrive. It is an exciting time to be a Christian and the world is hungry, but I have been born into a tradition that seems to favour the liturgical moment and not the risk of a tomorrow in the dust and uncertainty somewhere new. As someone that I know (who is much wiser than I) put it  - we need more mission-minded Catholics so that we can be contagious too.

Centre of Gravity

Before I begin, an apology (if one is needed). It has been a little while since I last posted here, and for those of you who regard yourselves as loyal readers, I would like to apologise for the gap in transmission. Life in the public and private sense has been busy and in many ways complex - but things are now settling down, so back to blogging. 

Right, here goes. 

I often wonder of God doesn't leave clues to understanding life in the cosmos that God created. Want to understand the Trinity? There must be clues in the firmament if less so in the meagre constructs of our impoverished human language. I thing that same too of some of the smaller matters, like church life. I find myself wondering where the examples lay in the world into which I was created.

There seems to be two schools of thought in the world of your common or garden evangelist. You can either regard yourself as as a centripetal type of else a centrifugal type. Put another way, you are a heavenly body or else a salad-spinner. Put another way, do you "go out" to the world or does the world "come in" (put brutally, simplistically, and with no pejorative intent). It would seem to be the thing, reasonably (given the language and word "mission" itself) that we are called as Christian to "go out" and make disciples. Many do, I do in my way, but I sense that it isn't enough. 

The thing about Brits at least, is that we are cautious. We like to maintain a due sense of our control, specially in situations where we are unfamiliar or else lacking that control. We have holes drilled into our doors so that we can choose who to ignore. We have pavements on both sides of roads so that we can cross to avoid people. We have broad-aspect vision so that we can avoid eye-contact and we now have devices to block everything and everyone out if we so wish. And so be it. But where does it leave the salad-spinning types with their disciple-nets? 

Over the course of my ministry, more especially as the incumbent for whom the perspective over the entire shebang is somewhat wider, it seems that the whole idea of attraction is indeed, well, attractive. Since arriving here, I have (for the most part quite unintentionally, I have to confess) been seeking to make our little church something of the centre of gravity in the community in which we exist. I seek ways of bringing people in - not with an overt evangelistic agenda - but with a sense that if we are in the middle of what ever "it" is, then we attract people on their own terms. Being the middle (or indeed the heart to borrow my own strap line) means that we are doing something healthily Emmaus Road here.

In the last 18 months we have hosted all sorts of bizarre events. If people ask, I try my hardest to say yes. At our recent May Fair (held in May), comments were heard by several that we (the parish) also steward what the wider community are fast recognizing as the Village Green. I have, perhaps more inadvertently that I may be happy to admit, made the parish church and her grounds something of a centre-of-gravity. As a result of new and (I hope) strong relationships, events are drawing to us now. We host things more and more. More people come to us than I could ever have chased down with a net!

The idea of the church becoming the centre-of-gravity works well within the doors too. It seems that, in creating what appears to be the right environment, that rather that chasing people and their gifts and talents, that I simply enable people to make their own offer in that regard. In this parish we are so blessed by the gifts of so many people who offer what they do in some certainty that it will be appreciated and supported. Whilst it brings its own problems (as does all sorts of human activity), we find ourselves the "place to be", and indeed the "place to do". 

Part of me is surprised about this. Part of me clings to the standard-issue Christian Catching Net for fear that I might not be seen holding it. However, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. The source of our own temporal warmth and live-giving light (God made and God given) - the Sun - draws us in and holds us just where we need to be. It seems a good thing that the Sun doesn't fly about trying to catch me - that wouldn't work well at all. 

Church and The Value of Time

I have been thinking about, and talking about the whole 'giving' thing. It is something that I have to take seriously as a Vicar, as a broke church is a fairly closed one. 

When we talk about 'giving' in church life, we are more often than not talking about dosh / wonga / cash. Entire campaigns are planned and orchestrated so that we may pursue the Mighty Dollar, at times (in my opinion) with a sense that God is a coin-operated fairground ride. In other words, you pop your coin in the slot and God will whir into action like a celestial automaton. 

This said, bankruptcy is a sure blanket to mission - just so you know that I can be balanced!

The goal, often, is to secure financial resource. In doing this, I believe very strongly that we massively de-value a resource that we already have - the time and talents of our people. 

If we think about church life, in many cases we have the wheezy cleric somewhere there, surrounded by a panoply of willing volunteers. Stewardship drives often centre around paying the bills, central to which (in the Church of England) is Parish Share / Common Fund. It is in many ways our mortgage payment. It is the means that we pay people like me and house people like me, so I have to defend it! But I cannot, do not and should not run a church alone.

Taking but one example in a church where I used to be, there was a lady who helped do the flowers. She was a qualified woman and could (and did) demand hourly rates in three figures. She worked hard and then then spent four or five hours a months doing floral displays for the glory of the worship. Her efforts may have been recognised once in a while with a passing thanks, before she returned to the world of work to be paid hundreds of pounds an hour for her time. In actual terms, the 'value' she brings to the parish could be (and should be) valued in thousands of pounds per months. If she stopped doing the flowers but gave an extra twenty a month, we would regard it as a win. 

I use this example to illustrate a point, that in church life we de-value or undervalue the time given to us. If I priced up the time given freely in my present community, and were caused to buy it in, it would generate a bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds per year. 

When someone commits to giving us a hundred pounds a months, we celebrate and we play fanfares. When someone offers to mow the church lawn twice a month, it might generate a grateful grunt. Some church communities are hard-pressed for cash. I would argue that the value of the gift of time that they count on daily makes them rich beyond measure, but that when we don't see or smell the cash, we forget its value. We could usefully learn from the commercial world that appreciates skills and values them. We could usefully learn that lesson. 

Do Be Do Be Do Be Do

I come from a fairly ordinary background, one where I was raised and nurtured within a Christian context. I go under the label of 'Cradle Christian'. This means that I have, frankly, been robbed of that moment where I gave my life to Jesus. It was though, kinda, given before I was born (cf Ps 139). Anyhoo ...

When people stand up and start to talk energetically about 'mission', I notice several things.

1. That person seems always to be a man in his fifties with considerable alopecia, round rimmed spectacles, a broad smiley face with very straight white teeth and a strange taste in clerical shirts. 

2. I start to follow the Reggie Perrin line of imagining a scene unfold before me - but this scene is one where imps  chase butterflies with nets, like dementers on a spring morning. The sound of birdsong is overplayed by a less attractive soundtrack that seems to me to be a litany of "Gotcha Gotcha".

3. Lots of verbs, matched by equal numbers of gesticular actions. 

4. Me glazing over, having passed through a state of mild temper. 

I have a heart for mission. I love Christ, and I love the church. I love the community of Christ, and I love the community of the church. I want people to choose Christ as the way the truth and the life. That is where my heart is. But I have always become annoyed in lectures about mission, and I am trying to understand why. 

The main issue for me, I think, is contained in point 3 above. Mission in the classical evangelical sense seems to be an almost all consuming 'Do' thing. It requires plans, actions, models, pasta, chasing, testimony giving, and a whole array of other pieces of 'doing' (except when it involves sacraments, but that is for another post). Mission seems to be a very busy thing to do, very tiring - if these paradigms of mission are regarded as correct. 

Priests are called to 'Be'. As someone said to me today, priests are mission in the person (or words that effect), or put another way - by just 'being', they represent a viable model of mission in themselves. I do not disregard the other mission models, of course. I of all people have much to learn from them, but when they come across to me, a professional Christian, as ecclesial stalking - then I wonder if tweaks are needed. Think of a candle. A candle, by its very nature, is a creature of 'being'. It can 'do' very little except 'be' itself. Yet it casts it light on all who see it, its warmth and hope to. A candle is not designed or built to set other candles alight around it. 

Of course, a candle cannot meet Christ's mandate to go in the world, but I wonder if the mission movements today overlook passivity and stillness, inertia and 'being' to their peril. When I read about the many millions of people who have attended this course or that and then notice that church attendance figures are largely static, I wonder where the missing link in the chain is. I don't have an answer, but I just wonder if it is not to be found in 'being' (and letting God have a part to play, not just us .... ?)

The Blogger's Art

This thing that we do, that we call 'Blog' is something of a slippery fish. It seems to defy definition, although some authorities are seizing the salmon and applying some typologies into the art.

This interests me, because I find myself affected by the blogs of others now that I am something of a practitioner in my own right. Clearly, I am more interested in Christian blogs and will one day write a dissertation on these and other such phenomena as Twitter and the like. In the evangelistic sense, there must be an effect in these things. I have yet to formulate a view in any serious way, but part of my formulation yielded the vehicle of the spiritual me - Flight Diaries. I think I am finding that the various facets of a personality cannot always comfortably sit alongside one another meaningfully. 

Anyway, I am going to plonk down the things I have noticed about them, and in terms of things I have heard said by the mad ol' eejits who regularly read Us! 

1. They do have specific characteristics. 

 - Some really are the sordid fruit of the 'Mimi' - that is to say, a narcissism, a vanity. Perhaps they all are - this one certainly shows signs and is in treatment as we speak. Some go so far that their frequency increases when reader numbers do - there is something narcotic about it all too.

 - Subtle plagiarism exists in the art, brothers and sisters. The Blog is very often simply a re-distribution device for the ideas of others - and this isn't wholly wrong. After all, newspapers make a living at it.

2. Blogs I like

 - I love blogs that take something original, in all that that can mean. I love daft blogs, but I also love blogs that attend purely to The Other and wrestle with the inaccessibility of it all. I am sensing that the best and most popular blogs are novels, not newspapers - first edition not re-print. Sermon blogs are such things, ironic blogs, tongue-in-cheekers - they all work from originality.

 - I love blogs that attend to a specialism - one such blog is that of my friend who has a love for and expertise in church art etc. He tells me things I don't know about the sort of buildings I love. 

3. Blogs that I don't like

 - Ones that attend to the 'I' too much.

 - Monochrome blogs (unless written as a specialism) - I like blogs that are like good magazines - different things for different days. If a magazine only wrote about women's giblets and Katie Price I doubt I'd be interested for long (for example)

 - 'A day in my family's life' blogs - though I recognise that such things are probably only for the family concerned.

As an evangelistic tool, I see bloggies becoming more and more valuable. The tripe that I expound here is read far more than my tripe that I expound from the pulpit. It tickles me to observe that more people follow this earwash than use my Parish website, and that does ok in its own right - but what an opportunity for a Christian with a mission-focussed heart. I believe, increasingly, that with anything like this, those who are not blessed with a skill for it should withdraw - as not everyone is called or gifted to be a preacher, for example. I have yet to establish finally my place in that scale, but you already know my thoughts on that. So, the Blog as part of the great Missio Dei - it is an idea that has to have legs, or else they are simply the work of a damaged psychology!

I will revisit this again - as today I have waffled!