More salvoes in the election campaign

There's an interesting page in today's Times that says something about the forthcoming election and how Christians will be challenged by it.

At the top of the page the ever-sensible Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, expresses concern that God is being squeezed out of politics by the way the current government does business - though he does reckon this process started under Mrs Thatcher.

At the foot of the page is a report of a David Cameron interview in the gay magazine Arena where he says that churches have got to accept gay people into their ranks as equals.

For some Christians this could well leave no party worthy of consideration when it comes to casting their vote!

Clearly that's not a sensible position, so there's going to be a need for some really careful thinking to take place between now and 3 May. Deeply held opinions need to be challenged and fresh reflection on what scripture and Christian tradition says about crucial issues will have to take place.

That thinking will undoubtedly be helped by the lecture that Tom Wright is due to deliver at the synod next week and a book co-authored by Nick Spencer and Jonathan Chaplin that's coming out this week.

Resources are one thing, but I also think we need to be serious in prayer for our civic society. There are fault lines that can become fractures; there are deep differences of opinion even within congregations that need to be prayed about and talked out.

So, let the conversations begin - and those that have already started (and there are lots, I know), spill over into the public domain so we can all benefit from them.

Thoughts about sermons

'We no longer seem to expect our ministers to spend hours (literally hours) every week, thinking, reading, praying: so that when the hungry sheep look up they may be fed.... '

So said Davis McCaughey, the first president of Australia's Uniting Church, in 1979.

It's quoted in blog piece lamenting the decline of the denomination over the past thirty years. I don't know enough about church life in Australia to comment on the main argument of the piece (here), but it caught my eye because it seemed to have something important to say about the issue I was thinking about earlier in the week.

Perhaps people in our churches would be better equipped to live and share their faith, if they were better taught by ministers who took greater care and time over preparation for Sunday.

I find myself somewhat conflicted about this. Having been challenged on Sunday evening about how fragile some people feel in the face of attacks on their faith in the wider world, McCaughey's comments suggest a way that ministers can be the key to encouraging muscle growth among members of our congregations.

McCaughey is not a lone voice, of course. Eugene Peterson has always aregued that the primary calling of the minister is to listen and speak, to pray, study scripture and offer spiritual direction through Sunday teaching and one-to-ones.

I'm not sure the sermon can carry such baggage, however, in our media and information saturated world. But I do think churches - and ministers especially - need to think about what they teach and how they teach it (I've said this before), so that individual Christians feel better able to face the challenges of the world they live in.

The question is how will this best happen? Answers on a post card, please.

Building spiritual muscle

We had a really excellent Later Service yesterday evening. There weren't many of us but the conversation was rich and stimulating. I guess the latter was very much the product of the former!

We were continuing our reflections on Nehemiah, looking at chapter 4 and Glenis, having set the scene really well, asked what opposition we feel we face from outside the church.

We got the usual stuff about people being too apathetic to oppose what we're doing providing it doesn't interfere with how they live their lives and the fact that certain elements in our culture, especially the liberal media, are mounting a concerted campaign against belief.

So far, so expected

I don't buy the second argument - though I think the first has a lot of merit - and said so. To which one our people said that it's alright for me because I used to be a journalist, I've studied a lot and I know how to answer people and so I'm not fazed by such attacks. She admitted that she found such attacks quite unsettling.

I was lost for words (momentarily!).

Part of the issue here is the end of Christendom, something we who've read missional church texts know all about. It's about how the Christian faith has been moved from the centre to the margins of our culture - quite rightly in my view; it's where we belong.

But the upshot of this is that all opinions are now equal and therefore are equally fair game. And this is still a relatively new experience for Christians, especially those of a certain age and those who grew up in Christian families. For them it feels personal; their faith is being attacked now in a way that would have been unthinkable 30 to 50 years ago. And that's uncomfortable.

So, it's made me think about how we help people in church to think about their faith.

People were talking last night about such opposition calling for spiritual warfare. And I guess that's true. But it depends on how you understand spiritual warfare. For me the idea is much more about how we live than how we battle unseen spiritual powers. I tried to sum my view up in these lines:

In the early hours
writing these lines
aware of unearthly powers
in unsettling times;
war rages on our TV screens, the front line’s in my soul:
your light and these neon dreams still wrestling for control.
cause I hanker for the good life that work and money brings,
seeking the products as advertised and clinging to these things…

I’m not looking for a way out, Lord,
just some high ground so I can see
this game and its many rich rewards
in the light of all you have for me…

So we overcome evil by doing good, according to Romans 12; and we take thinking captive so that we can demolish arguments, according to 2 Corinthians 10. This means that we know how to think and how that thinking works itself out into the way we live. And the church's 'teaching' programme should be addressing that in a variety of ways.

It's back to that issue I keep returning to in this blog, discipleship. There are two facets to it here: how we can be disciples in today's challenging environment and how does what we do in church help?

Lots to think about there...

Want to help Yemen? Leave the car at home...

I'm still looking for offers to host a Bill Mallonee gig. But I've also been thinking about Yemen and Thomas Friedman in between completing another chapter of the book.

There was a summit on Yemen in London today, featuring the foreign ministers of a number of interested states wringing their hands about what to do for this failing state.

Friedman knows what to do. Go green. His argument brilliantly links global weirding, petro-dictatorships and the war on terror. His argument is that our dependence on oil makes us dependent on the good will of those who sell us the oil and skews our foreign policy as a result.

Indeed he argues that every time we fill our tanks, we donate money to Al Quaida. So if we want to reduce the threat of militant islamism, we need to reduce our dependency on Middle Eastern oil and the only way we can do that is to 'go green', generate our electricity using renewable resources and innovate in the area electric vehicles. This does not just make climate sense. It's also the only sensible anti-terror policy.

Now, you need to read Friedman's argument because there's a ton of statistics and good sense that is missing from my stripped down version of it. And, of course, such a thing couldn't happen overnight. But it has to start or Yemen will just be the latest not the last failing state we have to hold a conference about.

Theologically I reckon his ability to link things that the media and our politicians generally don't link, is very important and suggestive. And is something we should be doing at church rather more than we're prone to.

With that in mind, St Arbuck's this coming Sunday is thinking about 'why vote?' the first of a number of gatherings this year that will have a political focus and feel. come along if you're passing Starbucks in the Market Square in Bromley at 2:30pm on Sunday.

Let's get Bill Mallonee back in the UK

Being a long-time fan of Bill Mallonee and the Vigilantes of Love, I emailed him last week to see whether he had any plans to do some gigs in the UK (I get regular email updates from him detailing his US tour plans and asking if anyone wants him to gig in their town).

I didn't really expect to hear anything but almost by return I got a personal email from Bill saying he'd love to come but has no representation over here; did I think there was any interest in him?

So, here I am asking: who'd like Bill Mallonee in their church, community centre, cafe, living room? I am not a tour promoter but I'd love to see him perform back in the UK. I am going to get in touch with a couple of obvious events organisers.

For those of you unfamiliar with Mallonee, he was voted 65th in a poll of the top 100 songwriters of all time by Paste magazine and was a UK and US critics favourite through the 1990s. Like many really talented song writers, his music is not what the pop charts are full of, so over recent years he's struggled. But he's still writing and performing; and he's still quite brilliant. You can check out a story from Christianity Today here and his own website here.

So, just to repeat the question: is there anyone out there who'd like a Bill Mallonee and Vigilantes of Love gig in their back yard, students union, church hall, pub, living room? Let me know

Making music across the globe

Thanks to Geoff at Wonder and Wondering for this link (which is lovely) that led me to this link because that's what YouTube does! I think this is equally fab (though I should warm you that it does contain Bono and is presented by Starbucks).

It reminds me of the terrific work that Duncan Bridgeman and Jamie Catto have done on their two 1 Giant Leap projects, bringing musicians together across continents to create some really interesting music.

I'll be listening to that today as I write.

working in Limehouse's premier chilled space

I'm sitting in one of my favourite cafes in London - Departure in Limehouse - listening to Soulsavers' Broken, stunning new music that I discovered through Word Magazine, They're a British production and remix duo, Rich Machin and Ian Glover, who work a lot with singer Mark Lanegan. Wonderful downtempo, bluesy, gospelly electronica with rock overtones.

Departure is run by London City Mission and is one of the most intriguing new mission projects I've encountered. It's a great cafe and art space located squarely in the racially mixed community around Limehouse. It offers art classes, space for hire and a great chilled environment for meetings. So, I'll be here for the best part of the day meeting Urban Expression folk and doing some Baptist Assembly planning.

The other new music I've been listening to today is Laura Veirs truly lovely new album, July Flame. Something of a departure (see the link there...?!) for the US former geologist; a much more stripped down sound that showcases her voice and lyrical flair. And it's only a fiver this week from Amazon as a download. How's that for a new release?