Sociologists and faith

I've been reading some very interesting work by a sociologist called David Voas. He and a colleague, Alasdair Crockett, have been looking at data from the British Household Panel Survey and British Social Attitudes Survey searching for insight into Christian belief and church belonging in contemporary Britain.

For many years lots of us have been attracted to Grace Davie's suggestion that while church attendance is falling, Christian belief is still important in British society. More people believe than belong and Davie's 1994 book Religion in Britain Since 1945 was subtitled Believing without Belonging.

It is this notion that Voas and Crockett set out to challenge. And their article in the February 2005 issue of the Journal Sociology 'Religion in Britain: neither believing nor belonging' is pretty convincing. I have to add that as a working pastor, it's also pretty sobering and thought-provoking.

One of their key findings delivered using a telling image from the science of radioactivity is 'in Britain institutional religion now has a half-life of one generation.' This is based on data that indicates that children from families where two parents go to church are around 48% likely to become church-going adults themselves. Where only one parent attends church regularly (by which they mean once a month), the outcome is halved.

This gives our church's current thinking about and search for a youth worker a certain edge!

But another comment in the article also caught my eye. Talking about data that suggests levels of belief mirror those of belonging, Voas and Crockett say: 'If people choose not to belong it is a clear sign that they do not believe religious doctrine. Whether or not they are confident that God exists, it is apparent at the very least that they doubt the Almighty much minds whether they spend Sunday in church or in the shops.'

This assertion seems to contradict the findings of Richter and Leslie in Gone But not Forgotten and Alan Jamieson in A Churchless Faith. But I wonder whether it's an observation we need to take seriously. It's possible that what these guys are writing about is a transitional phenomenon. Some people leave church for relational and institutional reasons with their faith in core doctrines in tact but over time if they don't re-engage with a Christian group or church, those beliefs decay (to use the radioactive image).

It is, of course, possible that church leavers are being polite when they suggest that they still believe in Jesus, it's just Christians they can't stand. And, of course, mission thinkers have for a generation asserted that people find Jesus attractive but don't want the church. But Voas and Crockett might have unearthed something we don't want to accept: that there is a much closer correlation between belief and belonging and that when people choose not to belong, they are saying that they have ceased or are ceasing to believe - at least in the way they used to.

This has some implications for post-church groups. I'm going to a meeting on Friday about those, so I'll blog more on this over the weekend.

There is good news hidden in all this, however. Bob Mayo from Ridley Hall, Cambridge, has researched the beliefs of generation Y and found they don't have any - at least, they don't have beliefs or views about the Christian faith. This is good news. They are not disillusioned spiritual searchers who've tried Christianity, found it wanting and are looking elsewhere. They are people who don't know the story, are not hostile to it and if told it in language they understand, will give it a fair hearing.

That too has implications for our search for a youth worker...

Surviving beyond the church

As I said, a highlight of Greenbelt for me was meeting Jenny McIntosh from Spirited Exchanges. This is the network that grew out Alan Jamieson's research published in A Churchless Faith. It was fascinating to hear her approach and meet Sally, one of the church leavers who has been involved over recent months.

Since writing Why Bother with Church, I've been aware of the need for such a network in the UK and have been talking about it with a number of mates. It seems likely that Greenbelt will take the lead in this - which is fine with me.

I had coffee yesterday with a young woman who has struggled with church over recent years because of a breakdown in relationships and a chasm between what churches focus on and her ordinary, everyday life. Church ought to be a place of healing, somewhere the walking wounded can find acceptance and support. All too often it isn't.

On Monday at Greenbelt I went to a panel discussion where people shared their struggles with church. As a pastor, it was sobering to hear story after story of how church has made believing harder. As I listened, I was reminded that in my first discussions with the church I now serve - some two and a half years ago - I had spoken of the need for lean-to groups that would help those who feel little connection with church as we currently do it to connect with Jesus and see how a life of faith could be a path to wholeness for them.

This week, I presented a paper to my eldership proposing that we establish such a group for those struggling with church (such a group is different from lean-to groups established with the purpose of introducing people to faith in Jesus - somethin g I'd also like to do). So watch this space...

I propose this with some reservations, however. Many post-church groups are a forum for the big whinge, people gathered to tell their stories of how they've been misunderstood, abused, let down and failed by the church. If that's all that happens they can be quite toxic places.

In our conversation about Spirited Exchanges, we reflected on its role in helping people to put their lives back together. Sally spoke of the group's role as a kind of detox. I asked her to identify the toxin - was it the church and her experience of it or the gospel, the faith that the church rather imperfectly embodies?

It strikes me that this is the crunch issue. The kind of post-church group that I'm interested in is for those who still feel that they want to take Jesus seriously but who can't find him in church for all kinds of reasons. I appreciate that for some disentangling Jesus from church is difficult, that their struggles have been caused by the fact that the church has in some way obscured or distorted Jesus in the way they have taught the faith and behaved towards one another.

For this reason, it seems to me that post-church groups ought to be avowedly Trinitarian and open to links with other Christian groups (including churches). As a pastor, I think my role is to present everyone complete, whole in Jesus (Colossians 1:28). So any post-church group I'm involved in must have as its goal helping people to reconnect with Jesus and continue growing in him, being transformed by him from one degree of glory into another.

We'll see what happens. I'm interested in hearing from anyone - especially those in South East London - who'd find such a group (either physical or virtual) helpful.

Finding God on the margins

Just back from Greenbelt. Had a fantastic time.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Greenbelt is a Christian arts, music and teaching festival that happens every year. It's awash with great music and stimulating speakers but the really wonderful thing about it is meeting people, hearing stories, sharing laughter and somewhere in the mix finding God.

Among the highlights for me were hearing Naim Ateek from Sabeel in Jerusalem, meeting Jenny McIntosh from Spirited Exchanges in New Zealand and liustening to Duncan Senyatso from Botswana.

I'll be blogging later in the week about how my thinking was stimulated by what I heard.

Have you missed me?

Well, I'm back. Two weeks of uninterrupted sunshine, swimming in the sea virtually every day (no surf sadly) and lots of good food and wine with friends.

And I've been thinking about nothing. It's been bliss!

Now I'm home to 190 emails - most of them spam - and a list of stuff to do.

I rediscovered Jeff Buckley's Grace while I was away - what an extraordinary album. I also heard the album by Willy mason which was interesting.

I read Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down - probably the best thing he's written, funny and thought-provoking. And I dipped into Richard Middleton's The Liberating Image - demanding but fascinating.

But frankly, I was too busy relaxing in the sunshine and the sea...

hitting the beach

Well, I've packed my wet suit and body board and am quitting the blogosphere for the beach.

Just in case the British climate is true to form, I'm taking a book or two. I've just picked up Richard Middleton's The Liberating Image (it's £4 off at wesley Owen so go and get a copy). Middleton is one half of the duo that produced Truth is Stranger than it used to be (the other half being Brian Walsh). Everything he writes is worth casting an eye over, so I'm looking forward to this meaty study of Genesis 1.

And for light relief - you'll be pleased I'm hoping for some - I've got the new Jonathan Coe and Nick Hornby novels, Dave Nwokedi's Fitzgerald's Wood - a first novel from a mate of mine who's also speaking at this year's Greenbelt - Bono's autobiography and Eugene's Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

I'll probably manage ten pages of one of them, gloriously distracted by waves, ice creams, walks in the hills, conversations with friends and family and watching movies, sharing meals and drinking wine. Let's hope, anyway!

Discipleship and growing up

I've just had a most agreeable lunch plotting the future of our youth work. Nick, my youth work consultant, helped me to clarify a few things. He also suggested that what we wanted to do, though good (even essential), was not common.

One of the problems we face - I think in common with a lot of churches - is that we are quite good at gathering and teaching children and young people. Over the years hundreds have been through our youth work. But many of those young people are not making it to the world of adult discipleship. Somewhere between A levels and mortgages, they lose interest in the church and possibly in Jesus as well.

So our plan is to appoint a youth and young adults worker, someone who will create a programme, recruit, envision, enthuse and train a team of good volunteers (as well as taking on the many excellent volunteers we currently have working with our young people) and build a work that disciples people from their teens into their twenties.

What are the reasons why twenty-somethings fail to stick in the church? What puts young adults off being disciples of Jesus? If we can answer these questions (and others), then maybe we can create a way of working with our teenagers that gives them the resources to navigate the choppy waters from education to work, living at home to being independent, having a child's faith to being an adult disciple.

Many of the issues we need to address are those being tackled by emerging church thinkers. In some way we are gearing up for creating the church that will replace the existing one - that is surely the task of each generation: to mould structures that embody the gospel in a way that is attractive to our contemporaries. For this reason the person we appoint will be part of our core leadership team helping to shape (and be shaped by) the overall vision we have the church.

Obviously the person we're looking for will be exceptional - but there are exceptional people out there, looking for a challenge. Maybe it's you...

Cooking up a storm in Birmingham

So, what do you call a gathering of 12,000 Baptists? A rumour of Baptists? A gaggle? Possibly a confusion...? Who knows!

I'm just back from the Centenary Congress of the Baptist World Alliance in Birmingham, a strange and perplexing event. I was involved in the fringe festival, hosting a twice-daily music and chat show called Congress Unplugged - it was great fun and seemed to go really well. Through it I met lots of great people - from the UK and around the world.

The Congress proper was an altogether more staid affair, dominated by Americans and their acolytes. Everything of significance happened in English despite the fact that native English speakers were a minority of the delegates. Most of the keynote speakers were American - Rick Warren, Tony Campolo and Jimmy Carter - or European - Myra Blythe, Steve Chalke and David Coffey. Even the speakers from other continents were Western-trained and enculturated.

I guess this is to be expected but it's still a tad disappointing. Anyway, all power to David Coffey who was inducted as president for the next five years - bring on the revolution, David!

Our visit to Britain's second city co-incided with the arrests of terror suspects and a tornado - I don't think the BWA's presence caused either of these things!

listening to Editors - a very accomplished debut album called The Back Room - and Krystaal - an amazing funk, hip-hop, rock and fusion band from Congo now resident in Canada. The band make great music and have an amazing story of endurance and God's grace to tell. They single-handedly made the congress worthwhile!

Now it's tidying things up ahead of going on holiday. I read yesterday that thousands of blogs are started every day but only 13% are updated regularly - so I'm not doing too badly...!

cafe-style

we did our final cafe-style church before our summer lull last night. Tackling genetic engineering and therapies, we ranged over a load of controversial topics.

It seemed to go well - good buzz of coversation around the tables, people who came reluctantly leaving saying it was excellent, others wanting to know what issues we're tackling in the autumn. But we haven't had as many text messages at the last two as we had at the start - perhaps the novelty is wearing off!

In the autumn we need to think about doing kinds of subjects and running the events in a different way. I'm keen to experiment with a more liquid worship format - like the one we used with the cafe church on suffering that featured a labyrinth and a gazebo of life.

We'll do a bit of a review at the end of August

being and doing

So much discussion of where the church is going is a debate about structures. But one of the really significant things about Stuart Murray's Church After Christendom is his desire to move the conversation from shape and structures to values and ethos.

I've been thinking about this recently. Partly because I had a leaders day at the seaside last Saturday and partly because I've been asked to produce something for the church website about who we are.

I was having a chat about mission with a mate in the Scooter cafe in London's Lower Marsh - good coffee, great atmosphere.

we identified four values that ought to shape our mission:

1. welcome - non-judgmental acceptance of any and all

2. praying with not for people - this is about walking with people on their spiritual journey, open to encountering God in unlikely places. The Biblical model for this, of course, is supremely Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10-11 (a hugely important story for our context and thinking).

3. hospitality - possibly the most important value to relearn. Someone once told me that fellowship is not a matter of who you meet with, but who you eat with. The gospel writers tell us far more about Jesus eating and drinking with people than about him worshipping in the synagogue and temple. Why is this? Probably because they thought it mattered.

4. sharing stories - we still think evangelism is about imparting propositions, getting people to grasp abstract theology about God, themselves and their sinfulness, the atonement and the like, answering difficult questions about suffering and other religions. But we are called not to be philosophers or even apologists (though we need both in the church). We are called to be witnesses, that is people who tell others what they've seen and heard. So let's tell people our stories and the stories of things happening in our church and the church around the world. And let's listen to people's stories and see where God is lurking in the background.

Such values would have a marked effect on our structures of mission. But we can go deeper.

Underlying these values are other values to do with risk and safety. We talk about moving from maintenance to mission (and that's good) but often that talk is still hedged in the language of control - we're in charge of what we do, we set the strategy, lay the ground rules and bring people into places where we feel safe because we are in charge.

How about deliberately creating environments of risk? Pete Ward wrote a wonderful book called Growing up Evangelical which outlines how over the past 50 years or more, the evangelical church has strived to create a safe, comfortable place for its young people, a Christian bubble where our young people will be safe from all the pollutants of the world. It's a brilliant and sobering read.

All we've succeeded in doing, of course, is growing a generation of isolated Christians who are fearful of the world and cannot communicate with people not soaked in church culture. On top of that, we've seen young people flowing out of the exit doors of the church, never to return.

The values outlined above - welcome, praying with people, hospitality and story-telling - need to be earthed away form the structures we've created to help us feel safe. We need to be living these values at parties hosted by our neighbours, in pubs frequented by our work colleagues, at social events where we're guests and therefore cannot create the structure of the gathering, where we have to work with someone else's agenda - exactly where Jesus put himself.

So how do I describe who we are as a church?

Fresh thinking on communion

Michael Bird's blog - Euangelion - is a welcome addition to the blogsphere. He is soon to be resident in Scotland, teaching NT at the Highland Theological College. Recently, he put up an excellent post on communion which really set me thinking.

'The way I understand table-fellowship in Jesus' ministry and the early Palestinian church is that, for a start, it took place around a whole meal,' he says. 'Furthermore, Communion is not meant to be an intermission between singing and preaching, it was a symbol of the radical inclusiveness of all those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus and it foreshadowed who was going to be vindicated in the future age. When the early church sat down at their table-fellowship meals they were eating the hors d'heuvres of the Messianic banquet!'

He even cites the wonderful Robert Jewett: 'The purely symbolic meal of modern Christianity, restricted to a bit of bread and a sip of wine or juice, is tacitly presupposed for the early church, an assumption so preposterous that it is never articulated or acknowledged.' (Robert Jewett, 'Tenement Churches and Pauline Love Feasts' Quarterly Review 14 [1994]: 44).

This view is not controversial among NT scholars, but is unheard at Baptist church meetings. This is a pity because communion really does need rethinking in our post-Christendom context.

It seems to me that we are missing an opportunity to tap into a desire among many in our culture for symbols and mystery, intimacy and fellowship. We tend to tag communion on to the end of our services in our Baptist tradition - a prayer, a crumb and a sip before the closing hymn. I wonder if this is a fitting way to remember Jesus.

Jesus was a man who spent a lot of time having meals with friends and enemies, meals that involved food and conversation, that symbolisejust jiust his view of fellowship, but the creation of that fellowship through people relating to him.

It would be good to find new ways of celebrating communion in our churches that reflected some of Jesus' practice. It might open the door for us to offer intimacy without sex to a generation that seeks connection in all the wrong places. It might enable us to get to know people, share their lives, in ways that our current structures don't. It could be a way for Jesus to touch people in a way that our songs and sermons don't.

It's just a thought. Maybe people who've tried new things could share their stories

Rumours of God

I guess we've all been dreading what happened yesterday in London. As the news unfolded, I felt my heart sinking. The image I found particularly chilling was that of the bus in Tavistock Square, ripped apart by a blast and looking like so many buses we've seen in footage from Israel.

But as well as the horror, I've been struck by how many church people have been interviewed over the past 24 hours - vicars opening their buildings, Salvation Army people offering a listening ear to victims and emergency service personnel alike, bishops asked to reflect on what it means.

At the heart of our 'secular' society, the rumour of God persists.

The other thing I've been struck by are the Londners going to work this morning - boarding buses, queuing for trains, filing into the underground - saying that life must go on, that we are not going to be cowed by these attacks.

I want to hug these total strangers and thank them for their spirit. In them - though many of them are unaware of it and would deny it if asked - the rumour of God sparkles and fizzes (though in an understated English kind of way!)

Our prayers are with those who have been bereaved and injured by these outrages, with those emergency workers who tirelessly worked to bring help in the immediate aftermath, with the police and forensic teams, picking through the remains searching for clues and with our political leaders considering their response to these attacks.

the whole world's watching

On Chigaco's magnificant first album Chicago Transit Authority, there's a track called Prologue which features demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chigaco on 29 August 1968 chanting 'the whole world's watching'.

Well, nearly 40 years on, the world's eyes turn to a golf town, Gleneagles in Scotland, where the leaders of the G8 gather today. In their hands is the fate of countless thousands across the poor world, especially Africa. And we're watching.

We're looking for bold actions on aid and trade that will result in the economic fortunes of the poor being turned around. Of course 8 men can't change the world single handedly. But these 8 can adopt policies that will make a significant difference to the lives of the world's poor.

Our church has been praying as have thousands of others around the world. Let's keep praying that these guys will put the poor ahead of national self-interest.

simple truths

I've just got back the eye hospital where a charming and efficient male nurse practitioner lanced and drained a cyst I've had on my eyelid for some months. He also outlined a regime of eyelid hygiene that he said I should follow to avoid similar growths appearing in future.

We Brits are so lucky to have the national Health Service! I was in an out of the hospital in just under an hour. I didn't need an appointment. The waiting area and treatment rooms were modern, clean and well equipped. My treatment didn't cost me a penny. It's great.

While sitting in the waiting area - not that I was there for long - I was reading some stuff I'm writing on Galatians ahead of a Bible study I'm leading this evening.

I was struck by the similarity between Paul's core argument about the Christian life here and in Philippians - the book we've just finished preaching our way through on Sunday evenings.

In particular, I was reminded how important it is we understand pisteos christou (Galatians 2:16) faith of Christ rather than faith in Christ. Our salvation rests not on any work of the law (including our faith) but on our trust in Jesus who was faithful to the mission God gave him. Our ability to live the Christian life depends on us living as Jesus did - putting our faith in God and being fired by the Holy Spirit Paul's argument in the second half of Galatians).

So often Christians want to impose stuff on people. If you want to live a proper Christian life, they say, you must do this or that - whether that's speaking in tongues, giving up alcohol, wearing ties in church, believing everything the man on the platform says. It was what Paul's rivals were telling the young church in Galatia. It was a lie then. It still is. Paul says what matters is the faith of Jesus and our trust in that. Full stop.

The trouble with imposing stuff on people is that when they find out that what we've added to the gospel doesn't have to be believed, they begin to doubt whether the gospel has to be believed as well. So we need to make sure that we proclaim the unvarnished, unadorned, simple message of Jesus and the cross and trust God to help people live it.

Contentment...take two

Trouble is, the realists complain that contentment must be harder than that. You must have to work at it, buy the manual, do the programme. Maybe. But I'm not convinced.

Contentment is about getting the clutter out of our lives.

Why is that the church clutters up our lives with stuff that seems important, but which, on closer inspection, turns out not to matter at all? So much of what we do in church just fills our time. It doesn't achieve anything.

Churches do all kinds of things that look important. From time to time vacancies arise in these important ministries and we look to fill them. We can't find the people. We feel discontented because people clearly aren't committed. Maybe we should pause, take a step back and ask ourselves: 'does this job really need doing? would we miss it if it didn't happen? could we do it in a simpler, less bureaucratic way (oh churches and bureaucratic systems - don't get me started!)?'

Scarily, the answer is almost invariably 'no, no and yes'.

Contentment is about faith and friends. And so is church. Church is meant to be a place that promotes and models contentment. So we should be majoring on faith and friendship. Yet so often we find ourselves discontentedly seeking better systems of pastoral care, mission, youth work, worship, whatever; hectoring people to be more committed to these systems and warning that the the church will miss God's blessing if we aren't committed to them. O Lord, forgive us!

In Philippians Paul's stress is on faith in Jesus - which is why he spends so long establishing a correct picture of him and what it means to model our lives on him - and friendship with one another. Look at how warmly he speaks of Epaphroditus and Timothy (2:19-30), how he urges Euodia and Syntyche to agree with each other (4:2f) and how gratefully he speaks of the church's friendship with him in good times and bad (4:10-20).

What matters to Paul is that we put our trust in the King - not the pretenders seeking our allegiance, be they Caesar, Blair, Bush or consumerism - and that we commit ourselves to each other. This is why he stresses how we ought to behave towards one another (2:1-4, etc). And such commitment is not about talk, but about doing things (4:10-20).

It's why Paul stresses that we shouldn't be competing with each other, trying to be top dog; but rather we should be co-operating, seeking each other's welfare. We live in such a competitive culture - where employees are pitted against each other, where every job interview is a battle against the other applicants, where every relationship appears more like a warzone than a flower garden.

we need to learn to relate to each other as Jesus relates to us (2:5). We learn it in church and live it in the world.

It's the secret of contentment. It really is that simple. It's just doing it that's a tall order. but if we trust in God....

Read Philippians 2:12-13 and tell me it's impossible.

secrets of contentment

I've got an eye infection. I'm having to squeeze slime into it every three hours which makes my vision blurred. So I'm finding it hard to concentrate for long periods. I've got lots to do; all kinds of deadlines looming. Feeling quite stressed, really. Ah well!

I'm listening to Joni Mitchell's Don Juan's Reckless Daughter - what an album! - and thinking about contentment. And despite the shambles all around me, the work remaining to be done, visits not made, appointments heading my way, I'm feeling quite contented.

Paul talked about having the learned the secret of it (Phil 4:12) in a wonderful passage at the end of Philippians - I've been getting so much out of this letter over recent weeks. And the secret is faith and friendship, trusting in God and knowing who and where your friends are. Not much of a secret really, but how often we lose sight of it.

Still, this evening, with Joni playing, the sermon in the bag, the family all here, friends calling tomorrow, I'm feeling content. Praise God...

More thoughts on living up to our image

We went to see Coldplay at Crystal Palace on Monday evening. A group of us sat on the hill overlooking the stadium watching the gig on giant screens and through binoculars. It was great. Coldplay are a really good live band. They sang songs from each of the three albums and Chris Martin was chatty between songs. They are growing in stature.

Part of the conversation inevitably touched on church. A friend from Glasgow was describing his church in ways that made me really envious!

For one thing he talked about his 'community'. Indeed all the language he used suggested that the Christian group he's a part of is less an institution and more a family. That thrilled me. But even more wonderful was the fact that the group's main mission strategy is making friends and having parties. How good is that?!

As we speak, I'm working on a 'party strategy'(!) for our church to talk through at our leaders' awayday in July with a view to launching it in the autumn. Such a strategy could be the way to open up a dialogue about the Christian faith on the estate we live on. It's long term and has integrity. On top of that, it sounds a great deal of fun!

Spent a lot of time in the car yesterday, during which time I fell in love with the album by Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama called There will be a light. Gloriously life and faith affirming gospel blues - and it's only £4.99 in the HMV sale!!

Living up to our image

Preparing for cafe church on issues of life and death - namely abortion and euthanasia - I have been struck afresh by the wonder of the thought that humans are made in the image of God.

We often think this has to do with some attribute - like personality, reason, emotions, language. And it maybe does include all those things and more.

But commentators seem to agree that the key to this is relationship. God, a trinity eternally existing in a love relationship in him/herself, creates beings also able to relate to each other and to him/her (I use both pronouns because the image of God consists in the man and the woman together (Gen 1:27).

There is much stress in our culture on autonomous individuals having the power of choice over their own lives and destinies. I wonder if this is at the root of the epidemic of loneliness and broken relationships. We are alone in our choices, isolated in a world where we have to stay on our toes just to survive. In space no one can hear you scream, said the tag line for Alien. The same is true in our neighbourhoods.

Genesis stresses that we are beings made for relationships, people intended to make choices out of those relationships, knowing the support of family, friends, colleagues; including them in the decisions we make about our lives so we benefit from their wisdom and experience; recognising that our decisions effect others for good or ill.

I think, too, that God's image lies in us taking responsibility for our calling. After all, God gave us the task of managing his world. And I wonder if it's also seen in us working for redemption. Again, following the Fall, God didn't give up on us. Instead he immediately set in motion a plan to redeem and restore his creation and the people he created to be at the centre of it. So to reflect something of God, we too will be people who do not give up on 'lost causes', but rather work for redemption, believing that in the power of God, guided by his agenda for the planet, we can make a contribution to ensuring that all people enjoy the fullness of life God wants for all.

I'm looking forward to cafe church on Sunday; I hope it proves to be life-affirming. I hope it also encourages all of us to live up to our image.

more music

Busy week of conferencing and planning meetings. Away four out of five days, living out of a suitcase.

The conference was excellent but it's good to be home.

I've been listening to two new albums as I travel - driving is a good time to vet new music.

The first is Coldplay's new one X&Y. Yes, I know it's cool to be disparaging of Coldplay's output - too earnest, over-produced and grandiose. But - as George Michael once said - we should listen without prejudice. And what we hear are great tunes, lovely singing, faultless playing and bucket loads of emotion. Chris Martin can't help it if he believes that it's possible to work for a better world, that people could be nice to each other and that there's more to a pop song than boy meets girl.

I know he can be over-wrought and that he has a tendency to over-parade his insecurities. But he writes interesting songs - high praise in a terrain of bland and unchallenging music.

The other one is the debut by The Magic Numbers. This is bright, breezy, guitar pop with a decidedly hippy bent. The four-piece from Hanwell in West London have been hailed as a new Mamas and Papas - a reference surely lost on anyone under 40! It's not a bad comparison, though. Their harmonies are sensational, their tunes gossamer light, fragile explorations of love and life in a troubled world. It's great stuff.

diving deep

Just back from a church weekend away and about to leave for a ministers' conference. Ah, flaming June!

Over the weekend I was leading fifty people from a church in West London on an exploration of how we do church in McWorld (post-modern, post-Christendom, globalised, all-embracing conumer society, etc) by working through themes in Philippians. I've been reading Philippians through these spectales for a year or more and am finding myself diving ever deeper into the mind of the apostle and the heart of God.

This week I'm at the Baptist Union's Newly Acredited Ministers' Conference. I always enjoy this gathering. It's a chance to meet old mates and help ministers in the early stages of their of first pastorates reflect on what's happening in and through them.

I shall be continuing to read Philippians. Having led five sessions on this letter over the weekend, I am more and more aware of the fact that I have only scratched the surface of Paul's argument.

In my own study of this letter I have been particularly helped by Peter Oakes' monograph Philippians: From people to letter - a truly inspiring PhD thesis examining the social and economic context of the letter and Paul's theological response to it. There have also been a raft of helpful articles exploring the relationship between Philippians (and other Pauline letters) and the power structures of the Roman empire (particularly in JSNT but also in three collections edited by Richard Horsley).

What has struck me afresh over recent days is how Paul has based his whole argument on the life of Jesus. A pattern emerges where Paul talks about Jesus as the exemplary servant in chapter 2, shows how he has modelled his life on that of Jesus in chapter 3, and calls his readers to do the same. His use of the language of 'thinking' and 'serving', in particular, leads us to ask profound questions about what we are living for, who we are trusting and whether our Christian faith has any relevance for our lives outside church.

It is this last thought that I have been particularly wrestling with over the past few weeks. It seems to me that Paul sees no distinction between our lives 'in church' and our lives in 'the world'. Wherever we are, we are to live lives of humble of service, looking out for the interests of others, doing nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, considering others better than ourselves, not complaining, grumbling or arguing but shining the light of kindness, grace and care into our workplaces, homes and sports clubs, as much as into the church.

At the same time, he is certain that will only be possible of churches are places where we learn these values and live them as examples of what happens when Jesus truly takes hold of a group of human beings and they begin to embody the values of the coming Kingdom, God's agenda for the whole of creation.

This is exciting and scary in equal measure. Can you imagine what would happen to our communities if Christians actually lived this way? Paul says that we should have the same attitude as Jesus (2:5). How about it?

prodigals and post-Christendom

I'm listening to Moby's lovely Hotel album - possibly up there with his best work; some tracks are just bursting with life-affirming energy, I can't help grinning broadly as I type. There is a very revealing interview with the artist in the current issue of the excellent Relevant magazine -arguably the best Christian magazine on the market - in which Moby talks candidly about his faith in Jesus and his exasperation with the church and Christians.

He strikes me as typical of one type of so-called prodigal - those who grew up with some church connection and faith, but who have stopped attending. Some prodigals have walked out on their faith, viewing it as a phase of their life that they passed through, as well as church. Others - and I suspect the majority - have given up on the church but are still intrigued by Jesus and would like to know him better.

Thousands of people are leaving the church in Britain every week - Stuart Murray has the figures in his book Church After Christendom (which is well worth reading, by the way). But many of those are doing so, not because they've lost their faith in Jesus, but because they can't deal with church anymore.

Maybe this trend is part of the breakdown of Christendom; people are realising that the institution can be separated from the faith and they're choosing the latter but rejecting the former. Maybe it's part of trends in our culture away from high-commitment activities, away from joining organisations and towards greater autonomy in terms of consumer lifestyles...

Now there are problems here, of course. The New testament would find the idea of a solo Christian a totally alien concept. As someone has said, it takes a church to raise a Christian. But the question 'what is the church?' has never been more pressing than it is today.

Is church what happens in ecclesiastical buildings up and down the land Sunday after Sunday? or is it something else. Stuart Murray suggests we start using 'church' as a verb not a noun. Church is something we are and something we do, rather than something that is.

But the question is what will that look like? We're so used to talking about church in terms of hymns and songs, sermons and Sunday schools, centrally planned mission activity, ministers and volunteers, that we cannot begin to ask what church might be like without any of these things.

But maybe the presence of so many prodigals in our midst means that we need to start asking these questions. Many of them are still interested in Jesus. In fact, many of them still find Jesus the most compelling, dynamic, intriguing, beguiling and wonderful person they've ever met. Is this a challenge to our current churches or what?

As Moby sings on Spiders 'we just had to ask/maybe someone out of heaven/would hear us down here'.

Sun, sea, surf, etc

I've just returned from a few days with friends in Devon. Lots of walking in the sunshine and God's amazing creation. A chance to recharge batteries and focus on what matters.

I am always acutely aware of God's presence in some of the places we go - Bantham, Hope Cove, Soar Mill Cove. Perhaps it's because significant encounters have occurred in these places in the past, perhaps it's because they are particularly numinous, maybe I am just particularly touched by the landscape.

Now it's how I translate these encounters into ministry over the weekend.

Next weekend I'm doing a church conference on post-Christendom issues. Actually my title is 'Christians in McWorld', focusing on my favorite Pauline text at the moment - Philippians 1:27-4:2, how we stand firm in a difficult place. I've been reading Stuart Murray's two books on post-Christendom, however, and they are excellent - full of stimulating analysis and ideas.

This whole post-Christendom idea - coupled with Brueggemann's picture of the church in exile - is very helpful in charting our position in these interesting times.

Been listening to Arcade Fire's Funeral - quite the most amazing music to have come out of Canada in this millennium! Reminiscent of early Talking Heads, but full of wit and musical diversity.

cafe church debrief

We had our second cafe style church on Sunday. We tackled the tough issue of why a God of love allows so much suffering.

A good number came - possibly a bit down on the first one.

This time was more liquid in structure - if that's not an oxymoron. We gathered together in the worship area - laid out as a cafe - for introductions and preliminary inputs. Then we dispersed to a labyrinth that offered resources for creating a theology of suffering based on the themes of creation, fall, hope and faith. There was also a 'gazebo of life' where people could pray in a variety of ways - using art materials.

Then we reconvened for some more input and feedback. We had a lot of good comments and impossible to answer questions texted to us through the evening - so there was plenty of interaction.

Again the major comment on the evening was that it was too short - it ran for an hour and 40 minutes. Lots of people appreciated the labyrinth and especially the chance to think for themselves. Some left wondering if we'd given them enough of an answer - but I think that's inevitable given the subject.

It took a lot of setting up - but I had a great team helping me - but was less stressful than the first one.

All in all, a good experience. Roll on the next one....

prayerless days

There used to be a cheesy poster displayed outside our churches saying 'seven prayerless days makes one weak.' Ffortunately we don't do that kind of thing anymore.

Sadly, like a lot of cheesy things, it contains an essential truth that we might have lost when we threw the posters away: we need to pray. If God's people want to see God working, we need to pray. If we are in need, we need to pray. If we are rejoicing that everything in our lives is hunky dory, we need to pray.

Another cliche suggests 'prayer changes things'. Like lots of cliches, it's true.

When Tony Blair was re-elected, I wrote to him, saying 'well done' - a third consecutive labour term is historic. My concern for his third term is that he drives forward the agenda on making poverty history in his role as chair of the G8 and EU this year.

I also assured him that we would be praying for him. The Make Poverty History agenda is unachievable without prayer. There are too many deep-rooted structural powers that will not be shifted by human effort, argument and dialogue. They are spiritual and are shifted only through the exercise of spiritual power that is tapped and unleashed through prayer.

So as we march and write, campaign and inform, we also need to pray. If we want fewer children to die of stupid poverty (Bono's phrase), we need to pray. If we are to have the energy to sustain this campaign for this year and beyond, we need to pray.

The cliche has it that 'prayer is the powerhouse of the church'. And that's true too. Prayer releases God's power in our world that is vital for achieving anything.

So let's not have prayless days otherwise we will be too weak to change the world.

Blogging addiction

Mark Goodacre on ntgateway.com suggests he might be addicted to blogging. He has to blog everyday. I have the opposite addiction. I have to read his blog everyday - it's broad, informative, essential - and I get twichy when he doesn't post for a day or two!

Yesterday I was preparing for cafe church and watched Pay it Forward - a film starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and the remarkable Haley Joel Osment (the boy in Sixth Sense). I had intended to watch a couple of scenes but got hooked. It's an absorbing tale of what would happen if people acted towards others with grace, doing favours for those who don't pay them back but do something for someone else (three people, in fact) as a result of someone doing them a favour - paying it forward.

It sounds a bit cheesy - but actually packs an enormous punch at the end (well, it had me in tears!). I guess I was stirred by the suggestion that an individual can do something that impacts the lives of hundreds of others. It struck me as a deeply Christian idea.

I'm not sure how it helps me prepare for Sunday but it's given me ideas for other events.

Opening the cafe again

Our next cafe church is looming. The tough issue this time is why does a God of love allow so much suffering. It's a big, intractable issue that we can't do justice to in an hour and half - but we'll have a go at provoking some questions, some thought and some empathy for and with those who suffer.

It's always struck me that suffering is a complex of problems not a single issue. It's to do with philosophy and morality, ethics and metaphysics, of course, but it's also about politics and how we organise ourselves as communities and nations. It's a good topic to follow on from Make Poverty History. How much of Africa's suffering is made by us and the way we organise things like trade and aid?

And then of course, suffering is an emotional and pastoral issue. It's a problem because it hurts. And it hurts so much it's hard to think straight.

So on Sunday evening we're going to try and tackle some of this using video clips - Apollo 13, Bruce Almighty, Schindler's List, I Giant Leap - drama, a bit of talking and music - especially the Vigilantes of Love's Resplendent.

On top of that we're going to have a gazebo of life in our welcome area - a place to pray about suffering (mine, my friend's and the world's) using words, paint, crayons, clay and whatever else comes to hand. And we're going to build a sort of theological labyrinth - a series of stations that will take us on a theological journey into the heart of what our faith says about suffering and how we think about this issue in the presence of God.

The aim as always is to make people think. On top of that, I feel that we also need to help people express themselves - their anger, pain, joy, frustration and faith. And we need to realise that however hard we think and pray, we'll not get an answer, just pointers to help us live better, more faithful lives in the mess this world is.

I'm excited and scared stiff in equal proportions...

Lots of balls in the air

Vigilantes of Love Audible Sigh arrived a few days ago. What a blinder - song after wonderful song.

It's been the soundtrack to a busy time. Lots of balls to keep up - a men's Bible study, cafe church planning, developing the worship group, hosting a series on spirituality for everyday life, getting down to thinking about how I'll edit Talk (the magazine of the Mainstream network), planning an outreach on the estate we live on and visiting people interested in exploring the Christian faith.

It's the usual stuff of a minister's life.

Reflecting on it, it's possibly one reason why there's so little experimentation at the heart of churches. You'll recall that I've been thinking about how we can improve the quality of learning among our people - especially in the evening services. But services are one thing we ministers know how to do, so when there are lots of balls to keep airborne, we can do services on autopilot.

But this needs to be resisted. Services lead to many of the other things we do - conversations about discipleship, rites of passage and guidance. They also do something intangible - they set the tone, the 'feel' of the church; they create the atmosphere in which everything else happens and which determines whether or not people access all the other things the church has to offer.

So it matters that we keep thinking about our services, keep raising the quality, keep pushing the envelope of experimentation.

However, we also need to recognize that for increasing numbers of people, services are one part of the church's life they don't participate in at all. They might come to a mid-week gathering - parent and toddlers, youth work, an English class - but never on Sundays.

So, here's a load of other balls to juggle with. How do we help these people access all that the church is about and not just the single activity that they are drawn by. For example, the mum or couple who comes to a parent and toddler group might not think of coming to anything else, might not even realise that anything else happens in the church that might interest them. So, how do we open up to them the range of possibilities that the church offers for social and spiritual activities and growth?

The Vigilantes of Love earth all this talk, reminding me what really matters - the quality of our relationships and the need to depend on God (even when he seems a little out of focus).

It's not 1997, but...

Living now in a constituency where they weigh the Tory vote, there was little chance of me feeling this morning like I felt on that spring morning in 1997 when I left the count in Peckham with the sun rising on a fresh new dawn of hope and promise (Ah nostalgia...!)

But it is significant that Tony Blair has won a histoiric third term. The Labour Party is no longer the means by which the electorate punishes the Conservatives which it otherwise sees as the natural party of government. It now genuinely offers an alternative way of running the country; one that marries economic competence with social justice. And it has forced the Tories to rethink some of their attitudes - it's notable that they don't seem to be committed to abolishing the minimum wage, for example.

The significantly reduced majority might make Labour's third term very different from his first two, but I for one hope that we don't now have months of tiresome speculation about how long Blair serves before handing over to Gordon Brown.

My hope is that this result will be good for the world's poor. Although it figured very little in the campaign, Blair is the only UK and European leader committed to doing something about debt and trade - as is shown by his commission on Africa. My prayer is that he will be able to achieve some of the goals of the Make Poverty History campaign, starting at the Gleneagle's G8 meetings.

Perhaps like a US president in their second term, Blair, knowing that he never has to face re-election, might be emboldened to seek his place in history as the world leader who actually made a difference to the lives of the one and half billion living on less than a dollar a day. What better lagacy for a man committed to social justice could there be?

More great music

Some time ago I waxed lyrical about Bill Mallonee and the Vigilantes of Love. This morning I took delivery of Locketfull of Moonlight, a 2002 release by Mallonee. And it's quite wonderful.

There's a remarkable provisionality about Mallonee's music, the sense that next time he performs a song, it'll be different. In some bands this would be indication of under-rehearsal. With Mallonee, it's a result of the depth of what he writes; different performances bring out different aspects of a song's richness.

And there's richness aplenty here. In particular the song Overflow is a gem. Simply performed and taking its cue from a celtic blessing, the song celebrates the saving power of love and the vitality of grace and the desire that Mallonee's friends - possibly, friends about to marry (it would certainly make a fantastic wedding song) - will know both in their lives and relationships.

The song expresses that Mallonee provisionality again, this time in the sense that all our experiences here are to be lived and enjoyed to the full, but they are only a foretaste of what's to come

There is a British version of the album - mine came from the States - which has more tracks on it, but I've never seen it anywhere and at the current exchange rate, buying CDs in America has rarely been better value.

wherever you find it, find it - and I'm sure you'll love it.

let's hear it for...

I've been in the garden most of the day. Boy, do I ache....

On the CD player at the moment, the wonderful Kaiser chiefs' Employment - bright breezy, blur-like brit-pop. Not a bad tune in sight, lots of great hooks and some nice lines.

It's replaced the Eels new masterpiece, a double album with not a duff track in sight. Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, Mark Everett's mature reflection on life and loss, is curiously uplifting. If you're not familiar with Eels, they've been around 6 or 7 years and have produced a string of very listenable albums. E - as Mark Everett is known - is a Gen X popster of some skill. Following the first album, he was hit by the detah of his mother and sister and has written quite a lot about that experience. This latest album is probably the final word. Well worth checking out.

Following last week's cafe church triumph, it's back to regular church tomorrow evening. I've found preparing for it difficult. I keep thinking of things we could do cafe-style with the theme...

Cafe church revisited

The verdicts on our cafe church on Sunday night are universally positive.

People have spoken of the inclusive atmosphere, the valuing of all contributions, the stimulating nature of the input, the mixture of serious discussion and humour.

So it's down to me to enter the caveats, I guess (though I'm sure others are on their way!).

Firstly, it took a lot of work. If you're ging to do anything like this, set aside three or four working days and get people to help. A small group generating ideas with individuals going off to work ideas up into timed contributions is the best way of doing this. Also be aware of the sheer physical effort of reconfiguring the seating and putting it all back again afterwards.

Secondly, we prepared far too much material for Sunday evening. And it was difficult to edit as we went along. Consequently, I think we overran by at least 20 minutes - though one group who were still talking half an hour after it finished, said they thought it was too short!

So, I think the small group needs to generate ideas, get some of them worked up a bit and then edit out the ones that aren't absolutely top-notch.

I also thought we needed to leave more space to let things sink in. For example, we had a good piece of drama, excellently performed, but weren't able to leave space around it for people to ponder its impact.

Thirdly, I felt that it was a bit static. people sat for the best part of two hours (though no one complained aboutb that). I would like to get people moving at the next one. My thought is that we'll have three areas of operation, with everyone all together for some of the time and dispersed around the zones at other times.

Those are small caveats really. I thought the evening went really well. My major headache is that we've no room for growth in our space. we had 130-ish in our worship area and it was full! Apart from knocking the building down and building a bigger one (not an option), what can I do to fit more people in?

Cafe Church

We held our first cafe-style evening service yesterday. So I'm knackered...

First impressions are that it went really well. There are lessons to reflect on (which I will do later in the week). A good number turned up - well, we ran out of chairs and tables and people had to go upstairs. Lots of people sent text messages - too many for us to answer all their comments and questions. There was a great atmosphere and everyone - whatever age group they came from - said they really enjoyed it. In fact one group - who didn't leave church until 8:40pm - said they thought it should have gone on longer!

We tackled the issue of poverty - why Christians should be in vanguard of the make poverty history campaign.

Next time we're looking at suffering - why a God of love allows it. We'll tackle it differently. I think we'll have to adopt a more liquid approach and get people moving throughout the church building.

Liquid worship

Michael Moynagh and Tim Lomax have written a very interesting Grove booklet on Liquid Worship. Taking their cue from Pete Ward's book of the same title, the authors outline strong theological and practical reasons for adopting a more liquid approach to our gatherings.

By liquid they mean that worship services are created around a series of zones that participants visit in an order of their choosing. The group might come together for some activities - such as communion or coffee - but by and large each individual chooses their way through the zones and how long they stay in each zone.

'Liquid worship...has the potential to create an entirely new framework for worship,' they say. 'By giving individuals choice, it moves away from top-down worship. Worship is no longer 'done to' the individual, with worshippers standing, sitting , kneeling as they are told. Worshippers have to decide actively what route to follow through the zones.'

But liquid worship is not entirely 'democratic'. The leaders of the service establish the zones. 'A dialogue can occur between personal choice and best practice in worship.'

The authors suggest that increased participation by worshippers offers greater opportunity for transformation of both individuals and communities.

I'm reading this because we're about to embark on a series of cafe-style services - one a month between now and July. We're aiming to tackle tough issues - Make Poverty History is our first topic - through a mixture of drama, music, video and discussion. We will set the agenda by introducing the topic but the 'worshippers' will determine how we tackle the topic through their questions and comments.

In a real sense the body of the congregation will determine what is said from the front. So this is a liquid approach to a service where we are all stay together in a single zone. I know where I want to end up but I'm not sure where we'll go along the way or what we'll discover.

One of our challenges - shared with every church in the UK, I suspect - is put succinctly by Moynagh and Lomax: 'the challenge is no longer to create community among people who enjoy doing the same things together at the same time, as in traditional worship, but to build community among individuals who are very different.' These differences are not just about age but taste and expectation, life experience and preferred learning style.

I also think thay are about attention span. Some people can concentrate for long periods - hence the sermon. Others can't - hence the glazed look that comes over the front row five minutes into a twenty minute talk! Liquid worship works with different length attention spans in a way that, hopefully, enables them to engage throughout our whole time together.

We're hoping cafe-style church will help us bring people together while recognising that people learn in different ways and are looking for different things out of our gatherings. I'll keep you posted.

Displacement activities

I think blogging is a displacement activity. I've got tons to do, but here I am...

I do feel that it's a good displacement activity, however. Over the next few minutes the jumble of thoughts in my brain about a number of sessions I have to plan for at church will begin to get ordered. Blogging enables us to think through our fingers, see words taking shape on the screen which in turn helps our thoughts to take shape.

I'm pondering Micah 6:8 - one of the OT's catchier verses - and yet its very familiarity makes it difficult to bring into focus. Doing justice, loving mercy/kindness, walking humbly with God - of course, any Christian will want to do that. Next...

The context is that God's people are having a moan that God's ignoring them. Rather more importantly, God is suggesting that they have abandoned him and he wants to give his case against them an airing in front of reliable and venerable witnesses - so he chooses the mountains as a jury and outlines his case: his people disregard him despite the fact that he is the one responsible for their life as a free nation. He rescued them from slavery in Egypt. He led them safely through the wilderness. He protected them from bullies. He generously gave them a good land. Now they disregard him.

Having heard the case against them, God's people ask what they can do (verse 6). They suggest the usual ritual activities taken to extremes in a bid to show that they want their relationship with God to be right. The prosecution - in the form of the prophet - tells them that they know what to do (verse 8).

What emerges here is really a debate about worship. The people think ritual is what matters; providing they get the ritual right, they'll be ok. So we'll sing the right hymns or new songs; we'll follow the Prayer Book or Common worship; we'll have a beautifully constructed hymn-prayer sandwich or a gloriously Spirit-fuelled free-flowing time of singing and silences.

The prophet says worship is about relationship and the lifestyle that flows from it.

Ritual can be contained to an hour here and there. We can give the ritual our fullest attention, wear our nicest clothes, bring treasured possessions as gifts. But for the rest of the time, we live how we want to. Relationship is not something we turn on and off. It is a 24/7 thing. More than that, it changes us. We'll want to be like the God who invites us into this relationship. If God rescues, leads, protects and generously gives, then we'll want to be like that. This is what doing justice and loving kindness will look like.

This means worship is a choice about shopping and politics. Our world is full of people who need rescuing - from debt, extreme poverty, hunger, illness; protecting - from tyranny, the effects of poverty, injustice, unfair trade, the shifting forces of nature; leading into a better future; and being given a shot at life in all its fullness.

So walking humbly with our God means we might become people who do such rescuing, protecting, leading and giving.

That's the simple bit. The tougher bit is what will my life be like if I live this way? And more importantly, what will the world be like if all God's people live this way?

The Vigilantes of Love

For some time I've had a mini-album called Free for Good by the Vigilantes of Love. VoL were led by songwriter Bill Mallonee. If you haven't heard them, check them out. Mallonee writes sharp, beautiful songs from a wistful Christian persepctive, songs that chart pain and love, faith and hope with great originality.

Check out www.billandvol.com/music for downloads and lyrics, news and bio

God in surprising places

Yesterday I met some friends up from Devon for a 24 hour gallery tour. We went to see the Anthony Caro exhibition at Tate Britain.

I have to say that I knew very little about Caro - apparently Britain's greatest living sculptor - and the first 9 rooms were pretty uninspiring. They did not prepare us for room 10 which contains a single work called The Last Judgment.

This sombre, striking, awesome piece of work was made between 1995 and 1999 and confronts the viewer with a set of pieces asking questions about ultimate values, the worth of human life. It picks up news from our warring world and probes our culpability for the state of life of earth.

It is a secular piece - there is a gate of heaven, even Jacob's ladder, but interestingly no God. And yet standing in front of these pieces I was acutely aware of the brooding of the divine presence, the weeping of our God of justice for his broken world. Art often does that.

Sadly the retrospective ends on 17 April and the piece usually lives in Germany - so you haven't got long to get to the Tate to see it.

Mentors and friends

I've just been listening to Thought for the Day on Radio 4. Alan Billings was talking about a good death, a reflection born of seeing Pope John Paul slip away over the past week. I didn't hear much of what he said because I was taken back to when I was 15 and Alan was the curate of my local Anglican church.

He is one of the reasons I'm a Christian. He was young, dynamic, a labour counsellor, a man of radical vision and inclusive tendencies. He invited me to join a group running the youth club that I'd started going to and through that to consider getting confirmed. Confirmation, of course, would require me thinking about what the Christian faith was all about. I duly did so, got baptised and confirmed and joined the free church across the road because they had better girls and, I think, a surer, more certain take on the faith.

Alan left and disappeared from view for a decade. He resurfaced in the 80s as a member of the commission that produced Faith in the City - a report that had a major bearing on my call to ministry. And more recently he has begun to do Thought for the Day. He's director of the centre for Ethics and Religion at Lancaster University.

As I remembered him, I thought of others who'd been influential in my development as a Christian: David Sheppard - with whom I worked on the Churches' Enquiry into Unemployment and the Future of Work - Audrey Anderson - a wonderful woman who made me tea, opened her home and listened to my struggles - David Lomax - my old RE teacher - and lots of others.

All kinds of people influence and mentor us as we grow in our faith - some consciously, some completely oblivious to the influence they're having.

All this underlines how vital relationships within our churches are. Getting the teaching sorted is important, but we learn far more through good friendships. It was Jesus' model, after all. He called 12 people to be his friends. Clearly within that group there were some who were closer friends than others - notably Peter, James and John formed a circle of three very close friends, sharing some of Jesus' most private moments (the transfiguration, his agony in the garden, etc).

Mentors are vital. We grow in our faith as we listen to them, share with them, watch them walk the Christian walk. Our churches need to be places where such mentors can be found - not through formal structures but through the creation of spaces where such relationships can blossom.

I'm so grateful for Alan Billings, though I doubt he remembers who I am.

When God blows your mind

I'm back from Spring Harvest. We had an amazing time. God was doing so much in people's lives, it was a joy to be involved.

Linda and I covered the Evolution celebration in the evenings. It's for 18-25s, though there were a good few a bit younger and a lot older than that. Andy Flanagan led the worship - he was really excellent (check out his album Son for some of the most affecting worship music written in the past couple of years).

We've come back full of ideas about how we can bring a different way of doing things to our evening services. This links to stuff I was blogging recently about how we do teaching. This coming Sunday we're kicking off a series on tough issues interspersed with a look at Philippians. This week I'm going to do a workshop-style thing on how we make moral and ethical decisions.

What I found interesting about Evolution is that the teaching style was both directive - lots of things being said from the front - and discovery-focused - work in groups, reflective times by individuals encouraged to paint a picture, write a postcard home, bang a drum, etc.

The directive teaching was pretty black and white. There was very little 'this the way we see it, what do you think?' but the discovery stuff was committed to giving young people the space and resources to find out for themselves a shape or pattern of Christian spirituality that fits and works for them.

This seemed to me to be striking a right balance. There is a need for us to talk about what the Christian faith is all about. The problem with our sermons is that we often try to say too much - we want to communicate everything all at once - and we don't say it very well. People don't connect with sermons because there aren't handles for people to get hold of. It seems to me that what we did at Evolution (I use 'we' for a reason that will become evident in a moment) was provide good teaching and handles to help people appropriate and apply it themselves.

There was a third strand to this - and it's where we came in - that was praying with individuals about what they'd heard and what they were seeking to do with it. It seems to me that learning ought to happen in the context of prayer. As we wrestle with meaning and application, we ought to do so in the context of prayer.

Lots of lives were changed this week because there was directive teaching, discovery time and prayer in groups or with a member of the ministry team. It was wonderful to be part of it.

Revealing stories

It's Good Friday. We've been retelling the story of the crucifixion. Yesterday - Maundy Thursday - we retold the story of the final supper and arrest of Jesus. we had a Tanebrae, a service of gathering shadows; as we told the story recorded in Matthew's gospel, we blew out candles and ended our hour together in total darkness. It was simple and sombre. It was also revelatory.

A member of my congregation said afterwards that she hadn't really heard the story before, although she's been a Christian for years. New things struck her through the evening because, in her words, 'it was so different. We've never done that before and I saw things in the story I never realised were there.'

I tell you this because John (from www.eternalpurpose.org.uk) asked about dialectic and revelation (see previous post). It set me thinking about whether dialectic as Christians experience it is only rational. I don't think so. I think it also happens as we share stories. revelation particularly occurs, it seems to me, when familiar stories come at us from fresh angles. Suddenly the familiar assumes strange shapes and forms and we see angles on it that we haven't seen before.

So to directly answer John's question, I guess revelation in the 1 Corinthians 2:10-14 sense doesn't come through reasoning so much as through hearing familiar stories in new ways, ways that enable us to make new connections, gain fresh insights.

I'm sure that's not a full answer - even an adequate one - but I hope it keeps the conversation alive!

I'm off to Skegness for week 1 of Spring Harvest. Linda (my wife) and I are on the pastoral team. Back Thursday evening.

Have a great Easter.

emerging models

Miz's suggestion that preachers try to take their congregations on the same journey they have had as they prepared their sermons is an interesting one.

At seminary I was always told that 'no one wants to see your workings out'. In other words, we are there to proclaim a pristine finished version that will build up our congregations. But I wonder if people might respond to something more ragged, something that helps them learn how to do the workings out and maybe receive different revelations (as Miz suggests).

Having said that, I was talking to someone recently who doesn't go to home groups. When I asked him why, he said that he couldn't stand the pooling of ignorance that followed the home group leader asking what people thought the verse or passage was about. What he wanted was someone telling him what the passage meant and how it applied to him. Then he would be able to discuss it. I suspect it's a minority view, but it's a view all the same...

All this does raise an interesting question that is relevant to the sermon question. As the emerging church emerges, what does it stand for, what does it believe? we know what it doesn't like and find helpful in the existing church paradigm. But how much is this to do with structure and ways of doing things and how much with what we actually believe?

It's good to see sites like www.opensourcetheology.net and www.eternalpurpose.org.uk springing up where issues of belief can be discussed and thrashed out. It's vital that we remain true to the historic Christian faith, vital that we provide faithful witness to the saving acts of God in Jesus Christ. There are right and wrong answers to theological questions. As the emerging church emerges, there are certain shapes it cannot assume and still remain true to its Christian roots.

Is there a dialectic here between open discussion of issues and revealed truth? I think so. All our struggles to emerge - whether into new ways of learning within traditional structures or new shapes of church - need to happen in this framework.

Monday morning blues

A few days ago I posted about how much I loved my job - the opportunity to research and deliver teaching material, the response of the congregation, etc...

On Monday mornings, however, I sometimes feel shattered and beset with self-doubt. Last night I rounded off Habakkuk and this morning feel that I floundered somewhat. The service was dull, there was not much atmosphere, no one seemed to be anticipating reaching the climax of an absorbing series and I was, frankly, laboured, over-long, struggling to master the subject and probably guilty of missing a huge opportunity.

Ah well, Monday morning recriminations...

It does raise an issue about the minister's role as a teacher or, to use the more fashionable jargon, congregational formation - how believers are shaped in and by their faith. Our teaching model is the sermon. All the research suggests sermons are appalling vehicles for conveying anything. So why do we persist?

Last week we had a church meeting at which the subject of sermons came up as an aside. Some arguing there were too many, others suggesting they were the best part of church, some saying they were too long, others that they were fine as they were.

There has always been a difference opinion over sermons. Keith Thomas in his majestic study Religion and the Decline of Magic has a wonderful passage where Tudor and Stuart churchmen and preachers lament the fact that no one listens to or appreciates sermons like they used to. Plus ca change, hey?!

I think we're at the stage now where we need to be asking fundamental questions about how we form Christian disciples in the 21st century. Put that way, this conversation is about more than sermons, about more than how I can avoid the Monday morning, post-sermon blues. It's a conversation about how people living and working in an increasingly post-Christian culture appropriate Christian discipline so as to be socialised into a Christian way of responding to the world.

We'll start small. My team will muse on it for a while this morning - and probably go on doing the same things! But I hope that we might delve deeper and think about what people need so that they hear and respond to Christian truth, how that truth creates in them genuine Christian character.

A secular society?

Pretty much every month I read an article in the Sunday papers containing a sheepish admission. The usually middle class, thirty-something reporter is confessing that he goes to church. He doesn't want to make a song and dance about it, rarely tells his mates what he gets up to a Sunday and doesn't want to be classified as a 'Jesus freak'.

This week's Sunday Times contains a affectingly written piece by such a reporter informing us that he started going because he wanted his children christened.

Now he realises how the Christian faith and being British - or English as he prefers - are bound up with each other, the latter being largely incomprehensible without the former. Furthermore, he suggests that English faith is a muddle of believing and scepticism and so he doesn't want to spell out in too much detail what he actually believes.

I found his piece thought-provoking and moving. In particular, I found his references to churches where the liturgy and music are familiar - that is to say, traditional or even old fashioned - truly challenging.

As we think about how we do church services to attract the broadest range of people, the assumption is that the elderly want traditional and the young - especially the educated and professional young - want the informal, exploratory and unfamiliar.

Perhaps it's only the slightly disaffected church goer - the stalwart of twenty years who's been involved in running things - who wants significant change in the way we do things because they are bored.

The trouble is, of course, none of this answers the question why 1500 people are leaving our churches every week and not coming back. Is it the rapid pace of change in our liturgy that's driving them away or the fact that we appear rooted to the spot, still singing the songs we were a generation ago? Is it that we've overly defined the faith or left people wondering who God is and where he can be found?

Answers on a postcard....

Mr Wright?

Tom wright is brilliant on Living Faith. But he is the English filling in a rather American sandwich - clearly the pack was made for the US market.

Those of you familiar with the wonderful White Stripes Elephant album will know that the track Little Acorns opens with a narration about a woman inspired to face her problems by watching a squirrel in winter. Sadly the narrator on Tom's DVD sounds just like this guy...

However, get past that and Tom is homely, wise, amusing and full of insights about the how to approach the Bible. The series appears to be aimed at Christians who don't know that much about their faith. And that's no bad thing.

I'll road test it on some of my people and see how it goes down.

Living faith

I took delivery yesterday of Living Faith a ten session DVD-based introduction to the Chrisian faith by Tom Wright. I haven't watched any of it yet but I'm sure it'll be brilliant. Tom has one of those amazingly listenable voices - like Morgan Freeman. I'd happily listen to him reading the phone book! Fortunately, he is also the most wonderful theologian and biblical scholar and hence what he has to say is always worth hearing.

But I do wonder about the proliferation of courses exploring the essence of Christianity - Alpha, Christianity Explored, Essence, etc

I've just finished a Tyndale Bulletin article by J R Harrison (pity they don't go in for Christian names!) on Paul's use of Roman imperial language in Romans to describe what Jesus has achieved. This is Christianity explained. Yet it is explained in very political terms, a true alternative to the imperial ideology that dominated the world of Paul's day.

Tom Wright would say a hearty amen to this emphasis (he has written a lot about Paul and Caesar). But I wonder if his course will pick this theme up.

It seems to me that we are still offering the Christian faith as a religious option in a supermarket of faiths. We do this, we say, because that's what the early Christians did. In a world of Judaism, paganism and mystery cults, Christianity was another (albeit better) spirituality.

But this is to assume the separation of politics and religion in the ancient world. And that was not the case. Wright and others have shown that the world of the early Christians was dominated by the cult of the emperor, a religious and spiritual movement that underpinned Roman imperial power.

So Harrison demonstrates the extravagent language used to praise the age of Augustus, the Caesar who brought an end to Rome's civil strife and ushered in an age of peace, prosperity and hope. He then shows that Paul uses the same words in Romans to describe what God had done in Christ.

So, is Paul making a religious or a political point. It strikes me that the obvious answer - both - is a bit of a cop-out, because it enables us to pay lip service to the political import of Paul's statements but to stress that the spiritual meaning takes precedence over the political. What matters is that I sort out my relationship with God. My relation with the political power structures of the world I live in can be sorted out later. I wonder if Paul would be happy with that.

I'd love to see a course introducing Christianity that stresses Jesus as the leader of a movement of radical social and political change based on the ethic peace and reconciliation and founded on his defeat on the cross of all the forces that undermine peace and keep people fighting.

Perhaps Tom's done that on Living faith. You tell me. I'll keep you posted.

Are we there yet?

All parents have been on car journeys constantly interrupted by a tiny voice in the back of the car asking 'are we there yet?'

It's one of the ultimate faith questions. The tiny voice, belonging to a being that trusts its parents implicitly and absolutely, believes that 'there' is worth seeing; but more than that, 'there' has to be better than the interminable boredom of getting there.

Lots of Christians want to be 'there' - however they define that - because the getting there is sometimes hard, painful, sorrowful, often dull and only rarely, it seems, any fun at all.

We ought to read Habakkuk more often. This startlingly contemporary OT prophet about whom we know next to nothing, wrote soon after 605BC and yet could be speaking about our world. His portrait of the arrogance of Babylon is as compelling a portrait of the 21st century western world as you could hope to find. It certainly provides more prescient analysis of our condition than the broadsheets manage.

But while his social critique is salutary, his portrait of the life of faith is stunning. In many ways it contains the high watermarks of OT faith - 2:14, 3:17-19 (go on look them up at www.biblegateway.com) - and a startling throw-away line about the just living by faith (2:4) that is picked up three times in the New testament (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:37-38).

In fact the apparently throw-away line is a picture of the person of faith embedded in a world of cynicism and unbelief and not just clinging on by her finger nails, but living a radiant, god-reflective life, buoyed up by her trust in God's eternal faithfulness. What a picture!

So, whatever you're going through at the moment, read Habakkuk - it's hard going in places, shockingly violent in others, but ultimately faith-affirming in the complex and troubling world in which we live. And if you want more details check out the sermon download section of my church website (www.bromleybaptist.com) - the fourth in the series will be there on 13 March

Broadening our horizons

One of the great things about good biblical scholarship is that it creates new possibilities for the ordinary preacher. As I have prepared this week to preach on the all-too familiar parable of the prodigal son, I have had my thinking changed and horizons broadened by reading Kenneth Bailey's Jacob and the Prodigal (yes, I know I'm reading McLaren and Chester, but sometimes the needs of weekly preparation necessitate not just reading commentaries but whole books - it's one of the reasons why I love my job).

Bailey argues - as does Tom Wright - that Jesus' most famous parable is a retelling of Israel's story, especially the story of the nation's exile and return. Bailey makes a case for Jesus basing his story on the story of Jacob's deceit of his father and brother in the later chapters of Genesis. There two sons vie for position within a family, a father is deceived into giving inheritance early, the younger son goes off into a far country and then engineers a return and possible reconciliation.

Bailey shows that this story, formative for the nation of Israel (Jacob's name was changed to Israel by God as he confirmed the continuation of the promise to Abraham through him), was a topic of lively debate in Jesus' day. The book of Jubilees (dated a hundred years or so before Jesus' time) and the Antiquities by Josephus both contain a retelling of the story with application to their contemporaries. Philo retold it for a gentile mind with a philosophical bent.

So when challenged on his policy of including 'sinners' in his group, it is not surprising that Jesus too would use this foundational story to create a narrative that explained what he was doing and what God was doing through him.

Bailey shows that Jesus universalised the story, thereby paving the way for all kinds of people to come into God's family by being found (see previous post on how this works). So, while retelling Israel's story and showing how all its people were welcome in God's Kingdom which was arriving in Jesus' ministry, Jesus was also hinting at what as to come as his followers pushed out from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. The promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that the world would be blessed through them was coming true.

The thing that really struck me in all this is the seriousness with which Bailey takes Jesus as a theologian. This shouldn't surprise a Christian, really. But in the world of scholarship there seems to be a reluctance to credit Jesus with much original thought. commentaries still talk about the gospel writers being the creative minds, weaving their account according to a particular theological slant. Tom Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God is a notable exception to this.

Bailey makes the case for Jesus the theologian in his book. He argues that Luke found the material that comprises chapter 15 of his gospel as a single unit, passed down from the original disciples, probably when he was in Jerusalem at the time when Paul's group (of which Luke was a part) arrived with the offering from the gentile churches and Paul was arrested. During the two years that Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea, Luke researched his gospel, speaking to eye witnesses and those who preserved and told the stories of Jesus (Luke 1:1-4).

If this is the case, then it tells us something vital about Jesus. It tells us that he took his opponents very seriously. Sometimes preachers are wont to make jokes about the pharisees being narrow-minded bigots who were always being made to look foolish by Jesus. If Bailey is right, then Jesus took the time to craft a story that took Pharisaic concerns very seriously and engaged them in debate about the nature of the people of God and proposed an alternative theology of God's action in the world. Indeed the parable in Luke 15 is nothing short of an exposition of the nature of God and a claim by Jesus to be embodiment of that nature as demonstrated through the way he lived and taught.

What this tells me as a minister is that I have to take seriously the questions and stories of those who do not share my view of the world. And I have to find ways of telling the story of what's happening in today's world in a way that reveals God's nature and love. And a way of telling the Christian story that resonates with those who live by different stories today. Jesus, of course, subverted the pharisees' story as he told his and invited his hearers to see the world his way. It is a subtle, compelling form of evangelism that we would do well to recover in the 21st century.

Don't we all want to be found?

'The Father does not interrupt his younger son. Instead the prodigal changes his mind and in a moment of genuine repentance surrenders his plan to save himself and lets his father find him. He comes finally to acceptance of being found.' So writes Kenneth Bailey in his wonderful study of the prodigal son story.

We often see the younger son's repentance happening while he was far away from home. Jesus says 'he came to himself' and we have understood this to mean that he recognized that he'd screwed up and needed help to sort himself out. So, he'd go home, confess his mistakes and seek mercy.

This is not what's happening, However. Rather the son has calculated that he could work his way back into his family's affections and acceptance in the wider community by going home, working for his father, learning a trade and earning the wherewithal to repay his debt. And so off he goes.

But the father's response derails the younger son's plan. His idea of working his passage back to acceptance through hard graft is derailed by his father gracious welcome, his kiss and embrace. So in Luke 15:21 the son changes his speech and drops the idea of working for his dad.

Why? Because he realises that 'repentance' is not a work we do, it is an acceptance that we cannot do anything but accept God's offer of being found.

If you think about it, the father didn't 'find' the younger son in the story. Rather the younger son finds his own way home. Yet his father keeps talking about finding him. He was still lost until the second before his father embraced him. At that moment he was found. The issue he had to face was 'am I prepared to be found?' It's a vital issue because his pride was at stake.

Good Christians believe in salvation by grace through faith. But we like to cling on to our repentance story, the story that says we had the good sense to get it together with God, the story that narrates how we worked out that Christian faith was true and worthy of our allegiance. And in that story is the salvaging of our pride. We can't contribute to our salvation, so we talk about how we worked our way to faith. Repentance becomes the work that puts us in a position of being accepted by God.

This was the view of Jesus' audience - especially the pharisees for whom he composed the three linked stories that comprise a single parable in Luke 15 - as Bailey shows. It was not Jesus' view. For him repentance means accepting that we've been found by the God who comes looking for us - symbolised in the story by the shepherd, the woman and the father (all pictures of God drawn from the OT and all pictures of the ministry Jesus is doing - see Luke 19:10).

So everyone in his audience - women, sinners, pharisees, scribes, poor, rich, whatever - can be found because Jesus, who is looking for them, is there with them. The question is, do they want to be found? Will they accept being found?

This is why the story doesn't end as we expect it to. The older son is also found in the parable, but will he accept it? We don't know because the story ends before it reaches its conclusion. And the reason or this is simple: every hearer of the story is like the older brother; every hearer has to decide 'do I want to be found? Am I going to accept being found by Jesus?'

I love my job

One of the things I love about being a teaching pastor in a large church is that every week I get to grapple with a fresh text and unpack its meaning to an intelligent and thoughtful audience.

In the evenings we're working our way through Habakkuk, a seventh century prophet whose critique of his culture resonates closely with ours. His taunt song against Babylon (2:6-19), focused around 5 'woes' exposes a culture driven by materialism, militarism, a cult of power and an almost childlike faith in technology. Ring any bells?

In the mornings we're dropping in on encounters that Jesus had as he made his way from Galilee to Jerusalem as recorded by Luke.

This coming Sunday I'm dealing with the encounter he had with the pharisees that resulted in the three great parable of Luke 15 - including the prodigal son.

You'd have thought there was little new to discover and say about this well-known story. But you'd be wrong. Tom Wright and Kenneth Bailey have both published work recently that floods these familiar stories with startling new insights.

Among them was this simple one. The parable of the prodigal son is a retelling a story of Israel. In particular the story of exile and restoration. For Bailey it's rooted in the Jacob story in Genesis. For Wright it's focused on the exodus and exile. Because of this, the story is about how both sons - not just the younger one - are offered the chance to be part of the family of God.

Jesus is at the heart of the story - the one who is the embodiment of Israel (a key resonance with the Jacob story) - welcoming all kinds of people to his table. The story is told because the pharisees criticise his eating with 'sinners'. But his tale makes the point that he invites both sinners - like Levi (Luke 5) - and pharisees - like Simon (Luke 7) - to dine with him, to be part of the new thing God is doing through him. He is the one around whom a new 'Israel' is coalescing in fulfilment of the promises made by the prophets about the return from exile.

I'm really going to enjoy preaching this on Sunday!

changing direction

As well as sorting out my fitness regime, I've been reading Andrew Chester's Conversion at Corinth (yes, I know I'm reading Brian McLaren's latest - I'm halfway through that - and contrary to what the Daily mail says women aren't the only gender able to do more than one thing at a time!)

Chester's book is his PhD thesis, so it's pretty demanding. But it is also brilliant. He uses Anthony Giddens' structuration theory as a tool to examine what Paul and his converts understood had happened to them. As I am embarking on doctoral studies hoping to apply Giddens' theory to contemporary conversion, I am very interested to see what Chester makes of this.

So far, so riveting. In the course of his adventure, Chester touches on the New Perspective on Paul, particularly as it affects our understanding of Pauline soteriology before looking at the greek words for call/calling - the terms Paul uses of what happened to him when he met Jesus.

He determines to answer 7 key questions - among them, what's revealed about the God who does the calling, what's the human response and is God's calling for individuals or groups? But the most interesting one is 'if through calling people God changes who they are, how is this change expressed?' (he then goes on to ask about call and task).

It's that question that seems to me to get the hub of what conversion is about: when God calls, do we change? At what level do we change? Perhaps all that changes is that we go to church on Sunday mornings rather than the shopping mall. Or maybe our whole approach to life changes and it results in us treating our families and friends better, changing our jobs to work in areas more compatible with having a relationship with God or consciously bringing our lives into line with how the Bible tells us God wants us to live.

And at the heart of this is the idea of God's power affecting our lives in tangible even measurable ways - all that stuf the New Testament attributes to the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. Indeed the very thing Paul talks about in galatians 5 and 6 where he tries to answer the question that if the Christian faith is not about doing the works of Law, how can we live lives that are pleasing to God? The answer Paul gives is by keeping in step with the Holy Spirit - but is this an individual or a corporate thing, or both?

I'm really hoping that Chester throws light on these areas in the course of his discussion. I'll keep you posted.

a bit of hush at the back

Well I did my weght lifting course. you certainly do use muscles you don't when using a computer all day...

since then, I've been wrestling with Habakkuk - the prophet as opposed to the guy next door.

Habakkuk is about prayer - talking to God. As I've been reading it today I've been thinking how little I know about prayer and how scant is my knowledge of the God we're praying to.

In true nationalist style, Habakkuk can't bear the thought that God might use Babylon to judge Judah. He's complained that his peole are sinful and that the society he lives in is going to the dogs. But he cannot stomach the fact that God might use a nation far more sinful than little Judah to teach God's people a lesson in holiness.

All of this is very difficult for a white, western liberal at the start of the 21 century. Even harder when you start to make connections between Habakkuk's world and ours.

Does God still work in judgement in the world? If so, who's dishing it out and who's getting it in the neck?

I guess the neo-cons in the States will be arguing that Saddam got what was coming to him and that the USA was the hand of God. But would they be comfortable with 9/11 as a message from theb almighty, a wake-up call to an arrogant and proud nation?

And how about us - Christians I mean? Is collapsing church attendances in the UK a message from God about how we've lived? Is the darkness closing because the light is refusing to shine?

At the start of chapter 2 Habakkuk is silent. He's waiting to see how God will answer. That's a good lesson for all of us...

fit to...

I've just come back from the gym (stop laughing at the back....). I've been promising myself that I'll sign up for months and finally I have.

And it was quite good fun. I ache a bit but feel good. I've started a prgramme that will reduce my waist size by 2-4 inches (which can't be bad). And I've found that all those strange-looking machines that we see being put through their paces by the lithe and the beautiful are pretty easy to use.

I'm going back on Friday to learn how to lift weights.

I didn't think wearing a track suit could be such fun....

More on Christians in rock

Tim is right - comments Music on the move - to point out that the Christian tag is seriously off-putting for a rock band. His example of delirious? proves it. I have alays argued that they would be taken more seriously if they weren't so willfully obscure and churchy in their subject matter.

Delirious write great tunes. But their lyrics betray the fact that all they can write only worship songs - good ones (though lots of churches find them hard to use) - and no one outside the church has any interest in them.

Rock and roll is at heart about boys and girls and teenage angst, about forging an identity against the world - it's why Nirvana were so huge. Bands must demonstrate they can sing about that, before any protest music about the state of the world they write is taken seriously.

The trouble is that the first rock and roll generation is now retiring and it's receptive to music about all kinds of things - witness the critical aclaim to Dylan's Time out of mind which Emmylou Harris says contains the best songs about growing old she's ever heard!

But you can only do that when you've got a reputation, struck a chord (so to speak), shown you speak people's language.

U2 have done this, so they can sing about anything they like and get a hearing. Maybe Athlete are following suit.

In this these kinds of Christian bands might be pathfinders for the rest of us in the church. How are we going to get a hearing for the Gospel unless people are convinced we live in the world they live in, face their struggles, deal with the issues they have to of love and loss, forging an identity, making sense of things? Maybe if they see we share their struggles, they'll give our thoughts a better reception.

music on the move

Check out the new Athlete album - Tourist - it's a real step up from Vehicles and Animals. They're shaping up to be a tidy outfit, full of good tunes and intriguing lyrics.

They were given a bit of hard time in the Guardian last week. The journalist was wondering why they are not more overtly Christian. he asked the same about the Beddingfields. You could ask about U2 (though their recent album is pretty overt if you're paying attention).

The trouble is that if bands are overtly Christian, they get panned for being holier than thou. Religion isn't very rock and roll.

Still I'm enjoying it. Wires is the best song I've heard so far this year. Chances and Modern Mafia come close.

While you're in the record shop, pay attention to Mercury rev's The Secret Migration. It's lovely...