Giving credit where credit is due

Excellent to see Amartya Sen taking a pop at the rating agencies in today's Guardian. He argues that despite their abysmal track record on rating financial instruments, they are calling the shots over the fate of nations that is genuinely harmful for the future of democracy.

Sen points out that UK policy makers feel themselves beholden to the credit agencies and so have taken decisions on deficit reduction and austerity to placate them. But, he points out, at least in the UK we can debate the wisdom of the policy and the government can claim that part at least of its programme was put to the people in an election.

This is not the case in Greece. Economic policy and the fate of the government is in the hands of the IMF and credit ratings agencies, not the Greek people. Now we could say that the Greeks have had their chance and blown it. But if the generals return as a result of this crisis, part of the blame should be laid at the door of the international, unelected, undemocratic financial institutions.

It's really sad that Congress backed off from suing the ratings agencies over the collapse of Lehman's and the financial meltdown that occurred in its wake. After all, these organisations had given triple A ratings to all the dodgy financial instruments - including the bundles of sub-prime mortgages at the heart of the system's toxicity - being traded around the globe before the crash, instruments that had precipitated the mega-crisis in confidence that led to collapsing banks and bloating deficits across the western world.

I wonder where we'd end up if Greece called the credit ratings agencies' bluff, gave the IMF a couple of suggestions about what it could do with its austerity package and carried on as before. If nothing else it would wipe the Cheshire cat grins off the faces of the men in suits no one voted for. Maybe it would be the first step in a genuine reform of the world's financial system in favour of one that gave a damn about the people at the bottom of the pile.

At the end of  the day, Bruce Cockburn had the IMF well and truly summed up in his song Call it Democracy - you can check it out here and see what I mean...

Sensing a move of the Spirit

We finished our series on the gifts of the Spirit last night and good things happened at the later service with people beginning to have the confidence to share possibly prophetic words with one another as we shared food around our tables. This is a good development. Notes and audio files are on the church website now - you can access them here.

I've discovered some more great new and free music! American singer Josh Garrels has made an 18 track album called Love & War & the sea in between. It's a glorious mixture of folk, electronica, Americana, even acoustic rap. His blog said that he sensed the Lord saying to him that he should make this album free; so it is - and I, for one, am very grateful.

You can download it here and I recommend that you do because it's not only wonderfully played and produced but it boasts lyrics that have real depth and breadth. He also has a lovely voice. Garrels is the latest US Christian artist I've discovered through Noisetrade (you really must sign up for its alerts if you haven't already - it offers a ton of free and really cheap, excellent quality new music). Others include Justin McRoberts, whose album Deconstruction is great, Sandra McCracken, Sleeping at Last and Jenny & Tyler.

The Spirit seems to be at work in Christian music from across the pond in slightly hidden and out-of-the-way places - but then, that's always the way with the Spirit, avoiding the mainstream, side-stepping the crowd, stirring up a storm on the margins. Put yourself in the way of it; let it wash over you and refresh your soul...

So Beautiful or So What

I'm listening to the new Paul Simon album. So Beautiful or So What confirms Simon's place at the top of the pile of lyricists. Building on Surprise - one of my favourite albums of all time - So Beautiful or So What contains reflections and ruminations on mortality, the meaning of life and what happens when we die.

The lyrics ride on wonderful tunes, played by some great musicians and are shot through with a fierce and playful wit, making the album a delight to listen to.

Simon has been quoted as saying that he's not much interested in religion. But he's certainly interested in God and what God might have do with us. It opens with Getting Ready for Christmas Day (not exactly seasonal for an album released in June - but that's part of the playfulness!) which contains the line: 'Getting ready, oh we’re getting ready/For the power and the glory and the story of the Christmas Day' intercut with samples from a black preacher and poignant reflections on family as the song's narrator has a nephew in Iraq.

And in many ways this playful, witty, scatter-gun opener sets the scene for the rest of the album. It's a roller coaster of tuneful intelligence and rhythm. Check it out

Being good neighbours in a blandified world

I've just finished an excellent book on cities. Anna Minton's Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the twenty-first century city (Penguin 2009) is an examination of how there's been a major shift in ownership of our city spaces from the public to the private. She tells the story of how the redevelopment of London's docklands provided governments with a template of how urban regeneration could be privatised and hence, in the eye of its proponents, delivered more quickly and efficiently.

The upshot, Minton argues, is that public space is being increasingly privatised and blandified. we see it in mammoth shopping centre developments where streets are glassed over and ownership shifts to the property company whose uniformed security people rule the roost and have the right to refuse entry to people they think are undesirable - young people in hoodies, groups of pensioners killing time but not buying.

Maybe this is the reason why all retail parks seem the same, boasting the same rosta of shops and cafes, lacking in local flavour or identity. And it isn't just covered centres that are privately owned. Liverpool One, the redeveloped heart of that great city, is also privately owned and policed by people other than the boys in blue.

Apart from leading to bland and soulless spaces at the heart of our cities, these trends have coincided with the rise of gated communities and the previous government's desire to secure even social housing developments by design that makes the areas difficult to access or pass through. More and more land is fenced off and gated, rendered inaccessible to the general public despite the fact that it seems to be 'public' land.

It has also coincided with the rise of CCTV - the UK has more cameras than the whole of western Europe put together and yet fear of crime in our country is vastly higher than in any of our EU partners. Minton's argument is that the more we separate ourselves from one another, the more fearful we become of 'the stranger' and 'the outsider'.

I think that theologically she is on to something here; something that feeds into what I was blogging about recently in relation to neighbourhood mission. It's simply this: do we have a role, as people who believe in communities comprised of a rich mix of people of all types (since that is what the church is or ought to be), in helping to create neighbourhoods that reflect that where we live?

Minton is iffy about the notion of social capital (for interesting reasons that I  can't go into here) but I wonder if Christians have a role in balancing financial capital with the creation of social capital (which I understand to be simply to be the creation of connections and relationships between people in society); and in so doing, helping to create neighbourhoods where there are just collections of houses and flats.

A final word on my MA

I thought I'd share a link to the Church of England website detailing my graduation on Monday. You can find it here. And here some more pictures. I thought I'd post these as I don't get pictured with Rowan Williams very often!

 

And there's a group shot with all three recipients of awards with Maureen Palmer (third from the left) and Martin Kitchen (on the far right but only in this picture!) who run the programme.

And a final word on Rowan, do check out this week's New Statesman, which he has guest edited, and in which he says some trenchant but sensible things about the government as well as a range of other issues that affect our culture at this time.

Graduating in historic splendour

Yesterday, I had the great joy of receiving my MA from the Archbishop of Canterbury in a service at Lambeth Palace. The ceremony was full of fabulously arcane language, involved me swearing an oath of allegiance and resulted in me being created 'an actual Master of Arts' and being admitted 'into the number of Masters of Arts of this Realm.' But I don't get my certificate until the Queen's approved it which could take some time!

It was a lovely day, shared with Linda and her mum and dad (as in the picture) and good friends Anne and Alan from church. The highlight was a long conversation with Rowan Williams. It was good to get an insight into the pressures that he's under and hear his enthusiasm for sharing the good news of Jesus with ordinary people. We also discussed the detail of my thesis, in particular, the levels of literacy among first century craft workers that the light this throws on how we approach group hermeneutics in today's world. He is a warm and wise man.

Jesus' mission to his neighbours

The theme of the mission conference in the Canaries was taken from Matthew 4:19: ‘come, follow me and I will send you out to fish for people’ (TNIV). As I reflected on that verse and my experience in the Canaries, I noticed something that I’d not really spotted or appreciated before. What follows is a rough outworking of that thought.

It centres on Jesus’ relationship with Capernaum as the centre for his mission activity. And what we see is that Jesus is a model for us: what he does is what he sends us to do Luke 10:1-11 (see previous post here).

So, what do we learn from this

Firstly, Jesus calls people to follow him, to be with him. In Mark’s account of the gathering of the Twelve, he tells us that Jesus ‘appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out’ (Mk 3:14a). In other words, discipleship is about being with Jesus and learning his lifestyle. So, what in particular stands out?

Jesus chose a base. Capernaum was a border town of 10,000 people; a trading and garrison town, a centre for tax gathering. It worth noting that Jesus lived there for long enough to get to know his neighbours and be known by them. So he mingles with fishermen (4:18); a soldier (8:5); tax collectors (17:24ff). It seems that he was based in Capernaum, while making forays out into other places.

Then he picked a team. Jesus is an outsider (he moved north east from Nazareth to Capernaum) and he picks a mixed bag of people to work with: Peter & Andrew are economic migrants from Bethsaida who’ve come over the border into Galilee because the fishing’s good and there are mouths to feed; Matthew, a local tax collector (9:9), local and probably unloved; James and John appear to have been locals working in their family business.

The church always works best when it makes use of those who are insiders, born and bred locally, bringing an insider’s sensitivity to the community’s needs; and outsiders who bring a different eye to the situation, a different set of experiences. It is when we blend these two perspectives that we stand most chance of hearing God and seeing how he wants us to fulfil the mission he’s given us.

And then he shared his story. I wonder whether Jesus made things in Capernaum as well as preached; is there anything that precludes us thinking that he was a carpenter in that town as well as a preacher of the Kingdom? I have never seen that question discussed in the commentaries and I’d quite like someone to weigh the evidence. After all, Paul remained a tent maker for his whole ministry and while Jesus clearly devoted his whole life to preaching towards the end of his time, what about the early stages of his ministry in Capernaum. Certainly he lived and ate with his neighbours and shared his story with them. And what he shared was two-fold:

revolution: the Kingdom of God is a revolution in our lives, a new allegiance and a new set of values live by; it’s results in a lifestyle of light for our neighbours (v10; cf 5:14);

repent: this is not a feeling but an action: we look at Jesus and say ‘that’s how I want to live’ and Jesus says to us ‘if you agree with what I’m saying, join my band.’ We repent, not when we feel bad about our behaviour, but when we change our minds about how we are living and what we are living for.

Secondly, Jesus tells his new friends that they will be fishing for people. Now this is an ironic play on the previous jobs of Andrew and Peter, James and John. He probably didn’t invite tax collectors to fish for people! His call is also an ironic reversal of the prophetic tradition – where fishing was an image of judgement: Jer 16:16; Hab 1:14f. As ever Jesus turns a well-known image on its head. How does Jesus want us to go about this task? Three thoughts come to mind.
The first is that we can only do this as we follow in his footsteps. Discipleship is key to doing mission. We cannot share what we do not know and live; mission grows out of knowing Jesus, knowing his word and living his life. It is not a technique that we learn or campaigns that we run for short periods.

The second is that we do this in his power. As we follow, he fishes through us. How can we do what Jesus asks us to do in Luke 10? By living our lives and allowing Jesus to draw people to us for those life-changing conversations & encounters and trusting him to speak through our words and our lives in such a way that they begin to change their minds about how they should be living their lives.

And finally, all this happens in his time. This means that we can be both confident and relaxed about all this, knowing that if we’re living as his disciples, he’ll be fishing through us. We also need to recognise that the response will be mixed: Peter, Andrew, James and John responded pretty quickly, though 4:18-20 was probably not the first time they had met. The centurion that we read about in chapter 8 had been Jesus’ neighbour for a while, he’d seen who he was and what he stood for and, when he had a particular need that he couldn’t get addressed any other way, he came to Jesus. The collectors of the temple tax who engaged Jesus in discussion in17:24ff – possibly friends of Matthew – knew enough about Jesus to know that he had interesting views on the payment of taxes! Some rejected it, apparently (11:23f).

I saw this way of working as I visited churches and communities in the Canary Islands. I was struck by the mixture of insider and outsider, those born and bred on the islands and those who have come as missionaries. All the churches are a rich mixture of nationalities, each of which are bringing their own perspectives on life and discipleship.

Picking up the threads after my travels

Back safe and sound, sitting at my desk, sifting through the emails I didn't answer while I was away and opening the post. But most importantly, catching up with Linda and home. I love travelling, meeting new people and being involved in ministry in different cultures. But I also love coming home.

Among the goodies awaiting my return were two books. Richard Longenecker's Introducing Romans: Critical Issues in Paul's Most Famous Letter looks to be an essential addition to the bibliography for my Romans course at Spurgeons. It's a 500 page compendium of all the issues a reader of Romans has to consider and has been published ahead of his forthcoming commentary.

The other is The Blackwell Companion to Paul edited by Stephen Westerholm which I've been asked to review. I'm excited to see this for a couple of reasons. The first is that, not only does it deal with Paul and his letters against their first century cultural and historical background, but it also looks at how Paul has been read through the ages and a little bit across the cultures. The second is the sheer quality of scholars, established and rising, who have contributed to this volume - Rainer Riesner, Beverley Gaventa, Ross Wagner, Gerd Theissen, Tony Lane, Robin Jensen. I hope it lives up to its billing.

Attempting ministry amidst a spectacle

My 24 hours in La Palma was great. I spent just over half of it with a wonderful missionary couple from Germany who lead a single baptist church that meets in three places around this small island. The reason for this is obvious as soon as you get in a car.

La Palma is the greenest, most mountainous and, I think, most beautiful of the islands in the group, Dominated by a rangle of mountains in the centre of the island, reaching heights of 2,500 metres (just shy of 10,000 feet), the people live in towns and villages dotted around the coastline and just inland (but even these are at the top of steep inclines. The towns tend to be separated by both hills and deep gorges, meaning that journeys of a few kilometres take an hour or more on windy roads. Even recent investment in bridges and tunnels has only cut journey times a little.

So, getting from place to place for ministry means that folk spend hours in their cars. Those without cars are dependent on buses that take an hour or more to get to the neighbouring town and are not that frequent. None of this matters when you come here as a tourist and take advantage of the black sandy beaches or the breath-taking mountain scenery. But it does if you are trying to plant and nurture churches.

However, Pedro and Dorles are doing a fantastic job. They are full of creative ideas and after 17 years are firm fixtures in the community in Los Llanos where they live (this is a lovely town with wide streets, varied architecture and art of all kinds dotted around). Their colleague in Santa Cruz is more traditional in his approach but still has a significant ministry - especially in the local prison.

The churches here - as well as elsewhere on the islands - are very buildings focused and their buildings tend to be quite traditional. My feeling is that they need to think about how they can make better use of their homes backed up by the internet for teaching. But I'd need to reflect more on this.

Yesterday morning we drove up to the highest point on La Palma. The winding road leads up through dense forest into the clouds and then, beyond the cloud cover, into a sparse landscape of volcanic peaks up to the string of observatories built to take advantage of the clear skies. Standing on the peak you look down a thousand feet to the clouds lying like a fluffy blanket over the landscape. It's like the view from an aircraft window when at cruising height. It's truly spectacular.

Back for a day chilling in Lanzarote before my flight home this evening.

Seeing God at work in the sun

Greetings from Gran Canaria - Las Palmas, to be precise. The contrast with Lanzarote couldn't be more pronounced. Whereas Lanzarote is relatively sparsley populated with uniformly white houses collected in small and medium sized hamlets, Las Palmas is a sprawling city of multi-coloured high rises and bustling streets. Las Palmas is the commercial centre and political capital of the group of islands but I'm not sure how it sustains its population of half a million people.

Today I have been in two contrasting but wonderfully vibrant churches. This morning I was in a suburb in a church that was built about twenty years ago and is at the moment in the throes of creating a basement about the same size as the church containing a lounge, accommodation for both sexes, bathrooms and a kitchen capable of catering for large numbers. They hope to use it for conferences - especially of young people - but more importantly, as a base for social outreach. They are planning a food bank and already have the local Spar lined up to supply some food, clothes distribution and possibly a medical work of some kind as they have family doctors and nurses in the church keen to do something.

This evening I was in a city centre church in Las Palmas, squeezed into a rented hall used by two other churches and a host of other groups. But they took me to their new building, a shop front, round the corner from their hall at the foot of an apartment block. They have just secured the bank loan needed to complete the job and hope to have it done in three months, but this being Spain, a month is a flexible measure of time.

Both churches are not short of faith and energy, vision and a desire to reach out to their immediate neighbourhoods. It is heartening to see God at work in a context that we Brits usually only see as a holiday destination, not a place where locals live. I've been blessed to share a little of the lives of the people who live here all the time.

So tomorrow I'm off to La Palma (not to be confused with Las Palmas), the Westerly-most island, the greenest and most difficult to navigate, to link up with a German/Spanish church planting couple who are working in three centres across the island. Their daughter has been one of my translators at the conference and this morning, and probably the best. The translators have each done a great job for me; I'm grateful to them and to God for the skills and gifts they've put at my and his disposal.

And so to bed...

A good congress

The congress is over., Yesterday went really well with about 20 people responding at the end of the evening session on Luke 10. Tomorrow, I fly to Gran Canaria to preach in two churches, stay overnight nd then on to La Palma to meet the team there, led by a wonderful German/Spanish couple, and then back to Lanzarote on Tuesday evening. Should be fun.

It's been great to meet so many wonderful people over the past couple of days and intriguing that so many are from places other than the Canaries - quite a few from Argentina, some from Chile and Columbia. Indeed many have commented on how transnational the churches are here, often to the extent that there are very few Canary Islanders among them!

I've had a number iof invitations to return, so it might not be my last visit here. Next time, I'll combine with a holiday and bring Linda, however.

Celebrating the God who's with us all the days

Greeings from the Canary Islands. It's been lovely walking in the sunshine, sharing conversation with new friends here on Lanzarote. Now I am pondering what to say to the ministers this evening at their gathering ahead of the conference starting properly tomorrow. I think I'm going to reflect a little on Matthew 28 as tomorrow I am going to focus on Luke 10 in the two sessions I am doing.

There are so many things I could say in the light of today's conversions but I have to stick to something manageable which I can deliver with confidence in about 20 minutes because with translation that will make a forty minute session - plenty long enough in this heat, I think (it's about 25 degrees).

I shall reflect on how Matthew 28 offers us resources for a missional lifestyle, supported by the promise that Jesus is with us 'all the days' - the good ones and the grotty ones, the ones when everything goes well and our minsitries are flying and the ones when everything comes apart and our ministries feel like so much hot air and the majority of them when things are pottering along, and it's all ok but we're not sure what it amounts to.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Sharing missional thoughts in the Canaries

Tomorrow I'm off to Lanzarote to speak at the Canary Islands Baptist Mission Conference (it's a tough job but someone really has to do it!). I shall be delivering four sessions - one to ministers, the other three to the conference as a whole.

I'm sure that Roxburgh's thinking will feature heavily in what I share from Luke 10. It will be interesting to see how churches in a very context to mine respond to these ideas.

One of the challenges for us in what Roxburgh says about mission is how we see the people who live next door and across the street as 'neighbours'. It's a challenge because lots of them live in networks rather than neighbourhoods; they mix with the people they know and like from their leisure pursuits or workplaces, from the links that have been made via their children.

Now some of these network links look suspiciously like neighbourly relations. But others aren't because interaction will take place miles from home. The challenge of Roxburgh's thinking is whether we can model the life of faith where we live with those among whom we live. But I think there's another challenge here that has to do with how we can contribute to making the streets we live in into neighbourhoods where people interact with one another, look out for each other, laugh and cry with each other.

Sociologists talk of this in terms of social capital. Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone argued that the growing individualism and consumerism of our culture was leading to a decline in social capital. Does the Christian community have a role in reversing this decline? Is this part of being a missional people? I think the answer to this is probably 'yes'. But I am not sure how.

I'll be reflecting on this as I sip sangria watching the sun set over the sea with new friends in the coming week and as I share coffee and glasses of wine with various friends through this coming summer in gardens, cafes and pubs around here. Perhaps, I'll stumble on an insight or two. I'd be interested to know your thoughts...

Joining God in the neighbourhood

Having finished Alan Roxburgh's book, I thought I'd reflect on how I feel his analysis of our situation and Luke's writings is shaping how I think about my task in Bromley.

The first thing to note is that I agree absolutely with the thrust of his argument. 'The road onto which we are being called is counter-intuitive; it calls us to leave behind our bags filled with methods and models of how to make the church work by creating programmes that will attract and catch people. The way of the Spirit involves going on the road as a stranger, needing to receive hospitality from the other. This is a strange inversion of categories and actions - it does not fit with the way of life we have developed as middle-class individualists living in a "make yourself" capitalist culture.' (p130 - that last sentence certainly describes the church I lead!)

He argues for a resolutely neighbourhood-based approach to living our Christian story. He suggests that the way we have done church over the past 100+ years in the west has alienated us from our neighbours. This combined with the rise of the network society that has led to mission theologies putting network and connections ahead of where we live, has led to a chronic level of disconnection between Christians and their neighbours and, tragically, our neighbours and the Christian life.

Roxburgh ruefully asks: 'can we grasp the implications of what we've become when we have to train people how to have conversations with neighbours or set times aside to talk with another human being? What kind of inhuman world have we created for ourselves, and how has the church managed to accept it and develop the marketing skills to manage it? Can we be that far away from the gospel of our Lord that we don't see what we have become?' (p146) Ouch!

I confess to having waxed lyrical in the past about our need to capitalise on our networks, how our neighbours really no longer understand themselves to be neighbourhood people but rather people who live in a world of connections that arise through work, shared interests, etc. I don't doubt that this is true. But I agree with Roxburgh that we have allowed ourselves to be shaped by a world that judges relationships this way rather than fashioned by a gospel that asks us to look for and act as 'a neighbour' (Luke 10:36).

Clearly we need to relate to those we work with, people who often live miles from where we do. But equally clearly, Roxburgh seems to be on to something when he says that the focus of our living should be local. In particular, it means that the focus of what the church does should be local, centred on the places where church people live, shop, find entertainment and education for their children. Instead of inviting people to join our programme in our building, is God saying to us 'see what's going in your street, among your neighbours; look at what I'm doing there and come and join me'?

This, of course, involves big changes in the way we disciple people and the way we organise church. It also raises questions about our role in generating neighbourhood-based social captial in the communities where we live, seeing the church, Christians, as a key means of bringing people together and creating a sense of neighbourhood identity. I'll reflect on that later.

Apocalypse postponed

So the apocalypse is postponed and the after rapture parties are still in full swing across the US. And it's all a good laugh and we can roll our eyes in disbelief and mutter 'only in America'.

Harold Camping should, of course, take the Bible more seriously and see that when Jesus says that about that day or hour no one knows, not even angels or Jesus himself (Mark 13:32), he means that no one knows, not even clever people using dubious maths to find underlying patterns in the text.

Perhaps the lesson from all this is two-fold. First let's learn to listen to and trust what Jesus actually said. And second let's be careful spouting nonsense in his name that brings the gospel into disrepute

Sharing the story with our neighbours

 As promised, here's my church magazine musings on uke 10. I haven't edited it, so you'll have to forgive the one or details that are specific to my situtation. Just read it as contextual theology!

At the church meeting in early May, the leaders gave some details of what they’d talked about at their awayday in March. Part of our focus then was on how the church needed to look for new ways to engage in mission.

We did not return from Southend with a blueprint for the future (churches should always be sceptical of leaders with blueprints!). But we did come back pretty convinced that we needed to look for ways to give opportunities for groups to form that are committed sharing the good news of Jesus with people who don’t and won’t come to church as we currently do it.

Looking at Luke 10 recently on Sunday morning, I suggested that Luke was telling us something profound about our mission. Clearly Luke told this story – a very specific one about a detail of Jesus’ journey south from Galilee to Jerusalem – because it offered an insight for his original audience – mainly small Gentile churches scattered across the Roman empire – into how they should approach mission.

A summary of the story is that mission is simply about living our lives where our neighbours live theirs. Simple though this summary is, it has profound implications for the way we organise ourselves as a church. It seems to me that there are six key things we need to learn from Luke 10:1-11 (a fuller version of this is posted on the church website along with the recording of the sermon on which it’s based).

1) pray: all our living starts in prayer. We are who we are because we pray; we discover our identity in God through praying on our own and with others. Here in verse 2, Jesus tells his followers to see the problem they faced – that the harvest is ready, but there are few workers to bring it in – and to pray. They can do nothing to solve this problem unless they pray. Likewise, we will not discern the way forward as a church unless we pray. All effective mission begins in prayer. But we also need to remember that as we pray, God will almost certainly invite us to be the answer to that prayer.

2) go: Jesus sends us to share story we live by with those who do not know it. People no longer come to church because they simply have no idea what church is for. So Jesus gives his followers two instructions as he sends them to their neighbours. The first is that we need to travel light. For us this means that we shouldn’t see mission as being about programmes and strategies. Jesus invites us to ‘leave all that at door, go empty handed and see what I’m already doing in your neighbourhood.’ It was the way he himself did mission as he tells us in John 5:17.

Secondly, he says that we should accept hospitality from our neighbours. Of course, in our society this is not always easy and often we will create spaces and occasions where we can interact with our neighbours. But the important principle here is that we need to let our neighbours set the agenda for this and not us. We often want to tell people information they are not seeking and answer questions they’re not asking – and hence we don’t connect with them.

3) eat: real connection between people happens at the dinner table: people open up to each other’s stories in the shared conviviality of sharing a meal. In this regard, all meals are a bit like communion.

4) work: why does Jesus tell these missionaries that ‘ a worker is worth is worth their hire?’ (v7b). It’s not to make a case for paid ministry but merely to recognise that in the culture in which Luke is writing, when people stayed with other people, they mucked in with the household tasks.

This suggests something really important about our mission: we will work alongside people who don’t share our view of life in order to create public good. We do this in the workplace with our work colleagues; we also do it in joint projects that seek to address a social need; and we’ll do it in organising events that bring neighbours together round a BBQ or street party or a gardening project that enables the able bodied to help those less able to look after their gardens because of age or infirmity.

5) stay: (v7): mission is not really about doing events, one-offs. Rather, it’s about going and staying, about making relationships over the long haul, sharing the ups and downs of our neighbours’ lives, being there with and for them. In short, mission is about being the Kingdom of God in the streets where we live.

6) share our story: finally mission is about sharing the story of our lives as they have been transformed and shaped by the story of Jesus – but this is the final part of engaging in mission. Mission is not about learning a whole load of techniques – how to answer certain tricky questions, steer the conversation round to the four spiritual laws. Mission is always about relationship: tell me your story, I’ll tell you mine.

Inevitably my story grows from my relationship with Jesus fed by the Word, prayer and fellowship (this is why we gather on Sundays!). And we believe that our story can bring peace and healing to our neighbours, most of whom are not looking for answers to difficult philosophical questions. Most people want to know they’re loved by us and possibly by God; that they are not alone; that their lives can make sense…            

This is why mission is about living our lives where our neighbours live theirs. Doing this could lead to people hearing the story that is making our lives what they are.

Living in the story that shapes our lives

Well, what a week! interviewing for a youth worker, teaching Romans 9-11 at Spurgeon's, reflecting on a spirituality of ageing for church on Sunday and in between all that finishing Roxburgh's excellent book. In fact, I got through the major sections on Luke 10 in time to reflect on this passage as a 'great commission' for the times we live in at church last Sunday morning. I was able to condense those thoughts into my piece for next month's church magazine. I will post that shortly.

First, however, I want to comment on something Roxburgh does a lot which I have found really helpful. He suggests that we seek to dwell in the story we are reading - in this case Luke 10. It seems to me to be a great way of ensuring that we don't rush to judgement on a passage, find what our excitement has told us we will obviously find there. Dwelling is about slowing down, reading the passage carefully, reading it again in a different version, pondering the language.

Roxburgh recommends reading the passage until it starts to live inside us and we in it. It is only then that we begin to hear the Spirit speaking to us in and through the text. This way of reading saves us from using scripture as a kind of marketing manual, getting away from seeing this missional approach that Roxburgh is recommending as just another technique that is going to save the church. It isn't and it won't.

The other key thing to bear in mind as we come to Luke 10 is that this story is told in the context of Luke using the story of Jesus' relationship with his followers to teach us about discipleship. Mission flows out of discipleship. It is not a technique learned by people who want to keep themselves busy in a religious way.

I am writing this on my new laptop, by the way.It's a rather nice Acer Aspire, fast with excellent graphics.

My thoughts on Luke 10 follow shortly.

Exhilarating reading

So I am continuing to read Alan Roxburgh's Missional: Joining God in the Neighbourhood with a smile on my face and sense of anticipation in my spirit. It's not that I agree with everything he says but that he provides a way of thinking about the mission God calls us to that is rich and plausible and rooted in scripture in a way that so much missional thinking isn't.

He argues - as I've already noted - that we need to base our call to mission in texts other than Matthew 28. It's not that Matthew's account of the Great commission should be ditched, just that it should be heard alongside other texts that similarly call Jesus' followers to mission. Roxburgh chooses Luke 10 (the subject of my next post on the book and, coincidentally, the subject of next Sunday morning's sermon) and seeks to place Luke's writing in a plausible historical context to answer the question why he recounts this story of the mission of the 70 at all.

Following Bosch and Green, Roxburgh dates Luke to the second Christian generation, a time when the first wave of apostolic leaders have quit the scene. He also notes that Luke isn't just interested in recounting history; he is writing to help his first audience of small, scattered gentile churches see what God is up to in their world as well as the world of Jesus and the first apostles. Luke chose to tell his story in a way that would resonate with and offer help to his first hearers. He is also right to highlight the sense of disillusion some of these churches would be feeling. Many would have expected the second coming to have happened by now, instead of which, the power of Rome is growing and the claims of Caesar for quasi-religious allegiance ever stronger. With the first generation of eye witnesses now dead and gone, the small gentile communities of Jesus followers were asking questions about what God was really up to. I certainly agree with him on Rome, I'm not sure about expectations of the second coming being so strong in the late first century - but it's a minor quibble.

Roxburgh argues that Luke attempts to address these concerns by compiling a two-volume story that aims to locate his first hearers in a new narrative understanding of God's actions in the world. Luke shows that God took a Jewish renewal movement and grew it into a vehicle for bringing his reign to the whole world. Roxburgh uses this insight - commonly held among scholars - to question our western (he's writing for a North American audience) reliance on the Euro-centric Reformation reading of our faith. This is a vital insight. It comes at a time when New Testament scholars are questioning some of the Reformation's emphases in its reading of Paul and the nature of the gospel; in particular the intense, almost exclusive, focus on justification by faith being the be-all-and-end-all of it.

So Roxburgh retells the narrative of Acts as the story of how God breaks boundaries between peoples so that everyone can share in the good news of Jesus. He points out that this involved the conversion of the earliest Christians as they came face-to-face with the Spirit of God pushing them into mission among people they thought were not included in God's plans. This otherwise excellent chapter contains an uncharacteristic clanger referring to James, the Lord's brother, being killed in Acts 12 when it is James, the brother of John, who is executed by Herod (p111). But that doesn't in any way detract from the force of Roxburgh's argument.

Drawing a parallel between the situation of Luke's first hearers and we who live in a Reformation settlement, Roxbugh articulates the question many church leaders think, even if they don't ask out loud: what's gone wrong? How come when we are faithfully proclaiming the gospel that has come down to us from our European forefathers, is the church declining like there's no tomorrow? Roxburgh's answer is that nothing's gone wrong, the Spirit is breaking out the box in which we have confined him for countless generations and that is both scary and exhilarating.

Passing another milestone

Last week I heard from Lambeth Palace that I had been awarded the Archbishop's Degree of Master of Arts (MA) by Thesis for my dissertation A Church in Every Workshop? The Economic, Physical and Social Location of the Early Pauline Communities. I will be graduating on Monday 6 June at Lambeth Palace at an event hosted by the Archbishop himself (very exciting!)

I am naturally delighted that the 50,000 words I produced was deemed worthy of the award, delighted too that I do not need to make any major revisions to the dissertation ahead of getting bound and lodged in the Lambeth Palace library! It will, however, be interesting to see what my examiners have made of the argument.

In many ways, it is the academic underpinning of the book that came out last month, The World of the Early Church (Lion Hudson), though it takes a slightly more definite line on the presence of wealthier members of Roman society (they were few and far between) and argues that the typical Pauline community - probably the overwhelming majority of the groups he planted around the empire - met in workshops or the living spaces behind or above them.

Rooting mission in the right texts

Alan Roxburgh's challenge to our missional thinking goes deep. As he introduces his reflections on Luke's gospel, he paints a picture of churches in the west in thrall to a reformation settlement that has placed Matthew 28:18-20 in the driving seat as the key missional text. These are the verses people think of when we speak of the 'great commission'; these are the verses that jump-started the western missionary expansion in the late eighteenth century, that continued to fire delegates at the Edinburgh conference in 1910.

But as Roxburgh points out - as many have done before him - this text is also associated with empire (something Matthew would find richly ironic!). The missionary movement associated with this text was one that went to the world with a package of answers framed in western thought forms, geared to answer the questions western culture had been asking and assuming that this package would suit everyone; it was the classic one-size-fits-all approach to Christian mission.

Roxburgh's discussion of all this is compelling and challenging. His remedy is not to ditch to Matthew 28 but to recognise that there are other powerful mission texts within the gospels that need to be heard. He favours letting Luke 10 shape the way we approach the task God has given the followers of Jesus for reasons we'll explore after we've reflected on Roxburgh's overall approach to the setting of Luke-Acts (that's for the next post).

For now, I want to reflect on another comment he makes about how we as church leaders think about missional texts - indeed many biblical passages. He argues that 'Just as Luke does not offer the gentile Christians forms of adjustment, so our crisis of meaning as Christians will not be addressed with one more set of tactics.' This is sentence well worth pausing at and pondering long and hard. There are so many 'tactics' on offer to help churches in the UK turn the corner and step into growth again. Some are good short-term fixes - like Alpha, cafe church, even Messy Church. But the danger of them is that they assume rearranging the furniture on the Titanic will stop us hitting the iceberg.

Rather, 'we need to allow the story of what God is doing in the world to reform us all over again in a different way. Asking questions and developing new "missional" church tactics will not address this.' (p89). I argued this case in Building a Better Body (chapter 7) but not at such depth as Roxburgh does here.

Perilous steps on the journey home

I thought I'd post my piece from our church magazine this month (as I do from time-to-time) because it has a bearing on my continuing reflections on Alan Roxburgh's book.

I was talking to some friends recently about their summer holiday plans. Well, it’s the time of year for it, isn’t it? The days getting longer and warmer, we’ve found our summer clothes at the back of the wardrobe and begun to daydream about sun, sea and sangria.

Our conversation was actually more about travelling to and from our summer break destination because, we agreed, that that was one of the best parts of the holiday. Journeys are often times of discovery, finding new places, seeing things we’ve never seen before, even meeting people in hotels and restaurants who pass on tips about what to go and look at.

Journeys are like this because we are away from the familiar surroundings of home, exposed to new experiences, invited to take a fresh look at our lives. As a church we are on a journey from what we were to what God wants to be. This is a permanent feature of Christian living. We only stop travelling when we reach our destination in God’s completed Kingdom.

Some people like travelling and others would rather stay put. For some the open road is a place of adventure and discovery; for others it’s a place of uncertainty and discomfort. The temptation for the latter group is to book into the nearest inn and say ‘this far and no further.’ The trouble with this is that we are in neither the familiar surroundings of home nor the promised comfort of our final destination.

It was for nervous, even unwilling travellers that Luke wrote the central section of his gospel. Uniquely among the gospel writers, Luke has a long section that is known as the ‘travel narrative’ that tells the story of Jesus’ journey from Galilee in the north down to Jerusalem in the south and his final confrontation with the powers-that-be.

He seems to have had two reasons for compiling his account the way he did. The first is that it gave him a good place to put all the material that no other gospel writer used – the parable of the prodigal son and the good Samaritan, the meetings at Mary and Martha’s home and with Zacchaeus, for example. The second is that he enabled him to spell out what following Jesus is all about. The travel narrative is a handbook on discipleship written for small groups of Christians scattered across the Roman empire in the second half of the first century, wondering how to live as followers of Jesus in a somewhat hostile and fast-changing world.

Luke 9:51-19:27 is about being a disciple of Jesus. The focus of these chapters is on the folk who are on the road with Jesus: how does he expect them to live as his followers, what will their life together be like, what kind of values will they embody in their relationships with neighbours and work colleagues?

Through this spring we will be making this journey with Jesus and his friends hoping to learn what it means to be a disciple in Bromley in 2011. We will be thinking about the nature of our life together and how we can make Jesus known to our friends and neighbours. It is a crucial journey for us to make because we live in a fast-changing and at times confusing world where the old certainties of home have been swept away and not replaced by anything so solid and sure.

Just before Easter, I was sitting outside a café in Victoria, warmed by the sun, watching office workers scurry in and out getting lunch to take back to their desks. He was with one of them, a young man, successful at work, happily married with a growing family. They had recently left their church and we were talking through the steps that had led up to that decision.

Neither he nor his wife loved Jesus any less; both wanted to continue serving him in the way they lived their life; both were keen to explore what being a disciple of Jesus meant with other followers. But neither of them could do church any more. He spoke of the decaying formality of it all, the superficial relationships, the tedious round of singing and sermons. He had been going to a lively, charismatic fellowship, and yet…

They had launched out on a somewhat perilous journey to discover Jesus on the road. They are looking for connection with a like-minded group of travellers who take Jesus seriously and want to live by the values of his Kingdom as they travel to their final destination. They also want to share what they’ve discovered about Jesus with people along the way.

In many ways they are living in Luke’s travel narrative, hearing the call of Jesus to follow and being prepared to leave the security of home to meet him and know him better. Are we prepared to make the same journey together?

Doing what we're put here for

Finally managed to read last month's Q magazine, featuring some great British song writers.

Guy Garvey from Elbow is fascinating on his native Bury and the inspiration for the excellent build a rocket boys album. He says that he's started thinking about songs for the next album too, showing no sign of resting on his laurels.

And PJ Harvey confirms her status as current best song writer in England with wonderfully simple and insightful reflections on her craft. Maybe it's because it's Good Friday and I've been thinking about the job that had to be done on behalf of all of us (as so wonderfully captured by Stanley Spencer in his painting Christ carrying the cross), but this comment caught my imagination:

Asked if she'll be taking six months off to do what rock stars do, she said: 'no, because there's too much work to do. And because this is my job. This is the thing that I can do best, why I'm here on planet earth. I therefore feel that I need to keep concentrating on doing as well I can. There's a lot to be said yet. A lot to do.'

Maybe we could all take a leaf out of her book.

Travelling in Yorkshire

So here we are in sunny Huddersfield after three days in a very sunny York. We're here for a friend's wedding tomorrow, so we're catching up with a load of old friends this evening over dinner.

Spring Harvest was manic - especially for the two men on the team - but worthwhile. There have been big changes at the top of the Spring Harvest tree which will probably take some time to bed down. The preaching was ok but nothing to get excited about and all a bit safe and predictable - yes, I know Spring Harvest is safe and predictable but in most years there's a surprise or two. This year felt a bit bland - despite the fact that the theme was the Bible!

York was lovely - probably helped by the sunshine and heat. We walked along the walls, checked out the shops and chilled in a selection of very acceptable tea shops and eateries. The art gallery had a show featuring David Hockney's recently painted bigger trees near Warter which is wonderful. I went to look at it every day (the gallery serves excellent coffee). The enormous work (15ft by 40ft) was painted on 50 canvases over a six week period in 2007 and then hung together to make a single large study of a group of trees. It's a rich and satisfying work.

This morning we went to the Good Friday service at the Minster. We only got to half of it due to a mix up over timings but it was a moving and effective way of remembering the passion while the shoppers and the tourists bustled round the minster much like they would have done in Jerusalem 2000 years ago when Jesus was condemned and crucified.

Another highlight of the trip was Barbican Books (part of Wesley Owen) that has a fantastic selection of second-hand theology books. I spent a most enjoyable hour in there yesterday!

Off on our travels

We're off to Spring Harvest in the morning. We'll be making our annual pilgrimage to Skegness and joining somewhat diminished pastoral team for a week. It's always a blast and hopefully we do some good in the lives of those who cross our paths.

I shall be picking up my thoughts on Alan Roxborough's book while I'm there and hopefully posting them as I write them.

After Spring Harvest, we're looking forward to a few days in York chilling, and then a friend's wedding in Huddersfield (which offers the chance to catch up with a load of people we've not seen for ages). It should be a really good few days.

An arresting case for Christian faithfulness

I caught last Friday's repeat of Desert Island Disc's which featured Martin Sheen and cam across the most intriguing definition of Christian faithfulness I've heard for a while. It was a very moving programme as Sheen spoke of his struggles with alcohol - and the pain of seeing his son, Charlie, succumb in a similar but more spectacular way - and his forty+ year marriage to a woman that he describes as the love of his life.

But the most moving section was where he spoke about re-embracing his catholic faith in the early 1980s. It is that more than anything that has given his life strength and focus. And it was here that he offered an intriguing view of christian faithfulness: how many times have you been arrested because of what your faith has led you into? Sheen has been arrested a load of times on demonstrations about a variety of causes that his faith has compelled him to embrace. And he speaks of it as a consequence of following Jesus that he is prepared to put up with.

I was moved and set thinking about what my faith has cost me...

Sinking into Rothko

On Monday, the last day of our first mini-heatwave of the year, I went to London's South Bank to stroll among the tourists and drop into Tate Modern. I was delighted to find that the Rothko room has made a welcome return. This low-lit space houses seven enormous canvases of sombre maroons and blacks by the great abstract expressionist.

This is one of my favourite spaces in London. I spent a good hour looking deeply into and through these window shapes. Now, in one sense, these paintings are just slabs of colour. Up close you can see that Rothko took great care in how he applied the paint, going over parts of the canvas with different shades of the dominant colour which, as you step back from it, gives the painting enormous depth.

The 'windows frames' seem solid and so as you look, you are invited to fall through them into whatever lies beyond. In the swirling pale maroon of the canvas illustrated, there is the suggestion of light, as if the sun is shining behind gossamer clouds. It's also possible to feel that the light is edging towards the centre of the painting where the viewer stands as it were by the open window.

In many ways, the Rothko room is a sacred space; it's a place where people, if they've the patience to sit and look intently through one of the windows, are asked questions about where they sit in the world, the universe beyond, about whether the light approaching them will illuminate their lives. Great art gently evokes big questions and has the good grace not to provide clunking great answers.

If I were running Tate Modern, there's only one thing I'd do to make the Rothko room perfect: I'd only let people in on the understanding that they would not leave for an hour. This would prevent one's meditation being interrupted by parties of people catching the greatest collection of modern art on their cell phone cameras between elevenses and lunch!

The stories we live by

Early on in part 2 of Alan Roxburgh's Missional: Joining God in the Neighbourhood which is about Luke-Acts, described as 'a narrative for shaping our time of missional formation' (p63), is this arresting statement:

Scripture is filled with amazing stories that go to the heart of the issues we're facing in our crazy, pluralist, consumer-driven cultures focused on self-actualising individuals living in instrumental relationships (in which people relate to each other out of roles or what each can get from the other. (p68)

It's not so much the idea that scripture is relevant to our context that grabbed my attention, but Roxburgh's description of that context. It's about as succinct and brilliant a snapshot of where I live as I have read in the past year! It's worth pausing to ponder.

He takes Luke as his biblical story teller because he sees Luke writing at a time when the early Christian movement was beginning to lose confidence in its story. Things hadn't turned out as these young believers thought they would and Luke writes to create a new language house that takes the context in which people live as seriously as the message they live by. So Luke is a story teller for our times too.

Roxburgh comments: 'We don't encounter this God through universal principles, formulas, visions and values but through concrete, grounded stories of God's life in the ordinary' (p72), adding that 'Luke is determined to convince them [his first hearers] that in the midst of a world of competing narratives, this is the one about Jesus and the good news of God that is worth giving their lives to because it is God's' (p73).

Our trouble is that we have turned the biblical story into a self-help guide, a handbook for making our lives work better. 'I'm aware how this orphanization of the Christian narrative has turned us ever more quickly into anxiety-laden, functional atheists needing ways to use God to make our lives work.' (p73-4) Ouch! Ponder that too...

I've always thought that Luke focuses as much on the disciples as on Jesus and mainly on their inability to let Jesus into their story in a way that would have rewritten and recast it along the lines that God intended. Being caught up in God's story and discovering where that story is being written and told in our neighbourhoods, so we can get involved, seems to me to be a hugely exciting prospect. If only we can shake off the strait jacket of our churches!

The high art of collapsing into now

It's been a busy but productive week. I've been listening to the rather fine new long player from REM. Collapse into Now is one of the best records of the year, I reckon. It's certainly kept me sane

I also think that the reviews have been somewhat churlish. They tend to say that it's a good record but it's not as good as REM in their heyday. Poor REM, it seems, have to write tunes that are not only good as Losing my Religion, Night Swimming, Everyone Hurts, etc for every record but they also have to make reviewers feel as they did when they first heard those songs 15 or more years ago. This is too heavy a load to bear for any band - even one as exceptional as REM.

On its own merits Collapse into Now is a fine record, lively tunes, fabulously jangly guitars (even Peter Buck's mandolin) and intriguing lyrics. I'd say that in Blue - an extraordinary half-slurred, half sung duet with Patti Smith - Oh My Heart and It Happened Today, it boasts songs that would not be out of place on a greatest hits compilation that features the vintage tracks mentioned above.

In short it's good, so listen without prejudice (as some other singer once said).

Tweeting with Montaigne and Qohelet

I had an interesting time at Eltham College this morning. I tweeted that I was spending a few minutes with South East London's young elite and I have to say that I was impressed by the politeness of all the pupils (only boys in my lower group group as the girls don't join until sixth form).

I was given a good hearing and very polite round of applause at the end as I swept out in the wake of the gowned teachers (slightly surreal that!) I did roughly the same as I'd done a month ago at a fee-paying girls school. I'd say it went down better with the boys than the girls!

So, here's what I said....

It was a bit of a rush this morning….but I updated my facebook status: doing assembly at Eltham College……made sure my blog was prominently promoting my new book……and tweeted where I was going…off to Eltham College. (actually I tweeted from the college reception as I was a bit early). I am just so new, up-to-date and original! Just like the lovely Stephen Fry here, tweeter extraordinaire. But actually, you know, we’re not so modern….

Meet Michel de Montaigne. Last month he celebrated his 478 birthday – He’s not looking bad for his age is he? In 1572 he began writing essays – like many of you will have to do today! But unlike the philosophers who came before him, they were all about himself. They were status updates; accounts of what he’d been doing that day, what he was thinking about and maybe some useful tips for others about how to live.

But even Montaigne was not original. Not really…2000 years before him another philosopher put down his status updates on how he was trying to make sense of life. We don’t know his name but he was known as ‘the teacher’ and his thoughts are recorded in the book of Ecclesiastes that you can find somewhere in the middle of the Hebrew Bible, what we often call the Old Testament.

He looked at the world and his life in it and drew a lot of conclusions. Like this one – there’s time to do all that we need to do. So if we run out of time, maybe we’re trying to do too much? And this one… ‘what do workers get from all their toil?’ which probably boils down to ‘is what I’m doing worthwhile?’ Hopefully, you’ll gain good grades and a better understanding of the subjects you’re studying as a result of your hard work today.

And he also said this: ‘get in touch with your creator while you’re still young’ because he came to see after all his looking and trying things out that the world made a whole lot better sense when he was in touch with God than when he wasn’t. So looking back as an older man, his advice to the young – those he was teaching – was to look for God in what you’re doing and then what you’re doing will be so much more rewarding and fulfilling

It seems updating our status, tweeting our thoughts, blogging isn’t really as new as we think it is. And, as was true for Michel de Montaigne and for the teacher who wrote Ecclesiastes, it’s so much better to put finger to keyboard when we’ve got something to say that is really worth saying. So, let’s live well today; let’s get in touch with God, be a good friend, help out those who need it and then at the end of the day, when all our chores are done, we’ll have something worth tweeting and facebooking about…

It's in the shops

Tomorrow is the official release date for The world of the Early Church but I have it on good authority that at least one eager customer has got his hands on a copy already and is looking for a smart coffee table on which to display it.

Grab one from wesley Owen in Bromley and if you really can't travel, you don't need to go to Amazon because wesley owen's website is giving 25% off all academic titles (mine included) with free shipping on orders over £5.

You know it makes sense!

The stories we tell and live by

'We have not shed what others call a Christendom imagination where the church is basically the centre of activity and conversation. Church questions are at the forefront of our thinking, so we default to questions about what the church should be doing and what the church should look like.' (p54).

Alan Roxburgh argues that he isn't church bashing; rather he is trying to free us from a picture that has held us captive for too long. Between parts 1 and 2 of Missional, there's a fascinating intermezzo called 'the Language House' that reflects on the stories we tell to make sense of our lives. Drawing on the ideas of Charles Taylor who speaks of 'social imaginaries', the 'unstructured and inarticulate understanding' that we have of our lives, Roxburgh explores what it means to live in a 'language house'.

The term comes from Mark Lau Branson, a teaching colleague of Roxburgh on a course at Fuller, and grew out of reflections his congregation had on seeking to be community. They realised that while they thought they were being shaped by the Bible's story and teaching on how to be disciples in the modern world, they were actually being shaped by other stories.

Branson says we were 'formed during late modern consumerism...shaped by such priorities as individual choice, personal affectivity, and expectations (imaginations) that emphasised the pursuit of careers that should supply meaning and resources for our lives.' In the west we are all to a large measure shaped by this story of individualism, consumerism and careerism; that is the language house in which we live.

I found this idea richly explanatory for some of the things that have long puzzled about church in the UK, not just my current church but to a large extent, every church I've been involved with. And it's this: we are able to say one thing and believe it and yet find ourselves living as though we had said and believe a different thing. Roxburgh suggests, for instance, that we talk about community and how important it is that our churches are expressions of community while at the same time living lives that are shaped by the story of individualism that we have grown up with.

So, he suggests that we need to move. He argues that there is another language house that offers a different, better understanding of who we are and what stories should shape our lives. That language house is scripture, particularly in this book, Luke-Acts, which is where part 2 of Missional takes us (more to follow).

Learning to ask the right question

Yesterday I started reading Alan Roxburgh's new book Missional: Joining God in the Neighbourhood. I've been a big fan of Roxburgh's since reading The Missionary Congregation, Leadership and Liminality - the book that more than any other has given shape to my ministry. Everything he writes is excellent. But, 60 pages in, this new one is by far the best thing he has written.

If you've not read much on missional thinking or anything by Roxburgh, start here. For one thing the writing is really clear, the story telling is punchy and well focused and the story he tells is ruthlessly honest and richly informative.

And the clearest insight that I've got so far is that I've really been asking the wrong question over the past few years. I've been asking questions about how to do church better, about how to make my congregation more missional. Roxburgh has helped me ask this question. But in this book he points out that it's the wrong question. It's not that the book or his thinking is anti-church - far from it - it's just that church is not the place to start thinking missionally.

Contemporary missional thinking grew out of the ministry and searing insights of Lesslie Newbigin and going back to the source has helped Roxbugh see that Newbigin's concern was to investigate the matrix of gospel, scripture and culture. The church only entered Newbigin's thinking once he had thoroughly and fully explored how the gospel and culture informed and interacted with one another.

Church - or congregation in Newbigin's terminology - comes as a result of mission that has itself been born of the interaction of gospel and culture. So the key questions that Roxburgh begins to ask at the start of his book are ones such as 'what is the gospel?' not in general, but specifically for the community he is walking through on a given Sunday morning, discovering that most people are not in church. He does not ask - indeed he has stopped asking - 'how do we create the kind of spaces where people who are not in church on Sunday morning might feel safe to explore the Christian faith'? Such a question seems irrelevant. These people are not in church and are never likely to be given what they seem to enjoy doing on a Sunday morning. So the question is 'what is the gospel for them?' A supplementary question might be 'how will they see and hear that gospel'? but that is a little way down the track...

As I started reading this ahead of a leaders away day on Saturday, I have been given plenty to think and pray about. Indeed, one consequence of yesterday's reading is that I went walking in my neighbourhood prayerfully watching and asking 'what is the gospel for this place at this time?' And I came home with aching feet!

Feeling the warmth of radiohead

Having been listening to it on and off for the past couple of weeks, I am really loving the new Radiohead album. Quite a few reviewers have described King of Limbs as chilly and inaccessible, but I am finding it lush and involving, full of quirky, edgy rhythms and great melodies.

I agree, though, with those who have asked why Thom Yorke sings since it is very difficult to make out what he is singing when you do, the lyrics are just fragments of ideas - a bit like T S Eliot (and I know that's probably the point) but without the structure!

But it's a really fine album.

I am looking forward to getting into the new Elbow record which at first blush seems to be more of what we expect from Elbow - finely crafted, poignant songs about something that matters.

Protesting the big society

I got an email from the Evangelical Alliance just as I was finishing preparing for Sunday evening. The email concerned the big society and how it was a great opportunity for churches - and asking for money to help make their version of the big society a reality. The sermon I'd just finished is about spurring one another in to love and good works and focuses on the fact that our faith is for the world and not just us. So, I should be putting two and two together and saying let's all leap on the big society bandwagon...

Well, no, I'm not doing that. I'm actually working on an email to send to Christians in the area asking if they'll support the youth charity I chair because local authority spending cuts have put its future in grave doubt. And that's the big society dilemma for me.

In good years, when government spending was available to forge real partnership between the statutory and voluntary sector, I'd have been pretty supportive of much of the thinking embodied by big society propaganda. I think local groups are better at shaping the services to be offered to their locality; I think voluntary sector organisations offer the flexibility and fleetness of foot that's needed to meet the real needs of people as they change over time. But that can only happen if there's statutory support in the form of funding, not to mention the flow of funds of grant making trusts. Sadly the savagery of the spending cuts means that not only is there no local authority grants but bids to grant making trusts - themselves seeing reduced assets because of the shenanigans of the bankers - outstripping supply of money.

A sensible government would have put the big society transition arrangements in place before local authorities took the ax to support of the voluntary sector. A sensible government would have established the big society bank on a sound financial footing - probably using the proceeds of a robin hood tax on the banks that would see £10bn+ a year flowing into its coffers - so it could fund the transformation of our communities. But it didn't. So we will see many good voluntary sector groups go to the wall as the funding dries up.

So the church has a dilemma. Government says join us in the big society and we want to say this is what we've always done, so of course we'll join you. And like the good Samaritan, we will bind up the wounds of those damaged by life, mugged by misfortune. The church has always done this. it will continue to do so. But in the coming months it might find itself expected to do vastly than its meagre resources will allow. Can we provide care for the vulnerable, training for NEETs, support for struggling families, food for the hungry, utilities to those priced out of the market, care for those struggling to live in the community with mental health problems...? In short, can we make good the effect of the most savage spending cuts ever envisaged in a single spending round? I doubt it.

Paul says that we should pay our taxes as a sign of love for our neighbours. This implies that government has a responsibility to the vulnerable. It implies that one of the ways in which we order the big society is through the election and action of good government, charged with gathering and distributing tax revenue fairly. So, yes, Mr Osbourne, close the VAT loophole on goods brought in from the Channel Islands (I will willingly pay the correct price for my Cd's and DVDs from Play or wherever), but also do something to claw back the £25bn lost each year to tax 'avoidance'.

So, I think we should help out where we can by bringing aid to the vulnerable and protest the fact that we have left in the mess we're in by a financial system that is still out of control (how can a bank that makes £1 in losses be paying out just shy of £1bn in bonuses to the incompetent?). I think a few occupations of the places that are still part of the problem would be a good way of churches showing that they are part of the solution. If the EA is raising money for such a campaign of protests, I'll donate to that.

Learning to break bread in the city

I had lunch at Le Pain Quotidien yesterday and it was wonderful. Bread and cheese to die for! Good company too.

The company's website (here) says this about its communal table: Friends and strangers alike come together around our communal table to break bread and linger for a while...Take a seat next to a neighbor, share the Brunette and be reminded that, even in the big city, we are a community.

Isn't that what we want church to be? Good food, a welcome for all, breaking bread together... Of course, we want to break bread and remember Jesus, so our eating and drinking together becomes a conscious reflection of his values and lifestyle. But it seems to me that we could a thing or two about our gatherings from a lunch or two at Le Pain Quotidien.

Taking the new perspective out of the classroom into the church

I've just finished preparing for tomorrow's Romans session at Spurgeon's tomorrow. We're looking at the new perspective and how we understand the term 'the righteousness of God'. The new perspective has now been around for so long that it really needs a different name. Yesterday evening I reread Krister Stendhal's essay 'The apostle Paul and the introspective conscience of the west' which first appeared in 1963. In many ways this was the spark that ignited the new perspective's fire - and it's still wonderfully fresh.

But it's Ed Sanders, whose book Paul and Palestinian Judaism, really opened a radical new way of reading Paul, dubbed 'the new perspective' by James Dunn in 1982. In fact, it wasn't so much a new way of reading Paul as a rereading of his Jewish context. If the Judaism in which Paul grew up was not the religion of works righteousness that Luther thought it was, then everything he says at the beginning of Romans needs to be reassessed. If Paul was not wracked with guilt as the young Luther was, then our understanding of justification needs to be rethought. That's basically what the new perspective is about.

It seems to me that it is a much more fruitful approach to Paul and, especially, to Romans, particularly in the way that it has been refined and fleshed out by Dunn, Tom Wright and even Francis Watson, whose Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles is the best book I've read on the New Testament this year.

But it leaves me with a huge question: if this approach is correct, how will we teach it in our churches? If it's correct, it calls into question a lot of what has been taught in evangelical and reformation tradition churches, in particular, because it shifts the focus of Paul's teaching from individual salvation to being the people of God.

As I've been tackling Romans in our church Bible studies over the past few months, I've lost count of the number of times that people have said 'this is so different from what I grew up with' and even 'am I supposed to regard all those teachers whose ministry I valued as wrong in the light of what you are saying?' I guess this applies to a lot of what is taught in theological colleges. there is always the temptation to leave the allegedly 'difficult' stuff behind and do what's always been done, say what's always been said. But are we robbing our people of the opportunity of hearing the fresh light and truth that God wants to bring forth from his word (something baptists have always thought important)? Answers on a post card, please...!

A good accompaniment to these musings has been Laura Veirs' Carbon Glacier album from 2004. Lovely stuff - like pretty much everything she's done.

Celebrating the generations

Lily (now 2) holds her new cousin, Sophia (now 2 weeks), with a little help from grandma. It's been a lovely weekend.

Comforting one another

We've been doing a series at our evening services on the 'one another' sayings in the New Testament, those places where God's people are urged to do something for one another in order to build their communal life. It's helping us to explore what shape Christian community might have.

Last Sunday we were thinking about comforting one another, reflecting on Paul's great statement in 2 Corinthians 1:3-5. One of the issues that particularly resonated with people was the need to help one another cope with the times of rapid social change through which we are living.

Some people find the dizzying pace of change profoundly unsettling. Those of us who are gleefully adopting new technology, facebooking and tweeting at every opportunity, are in danger of leaving behind those who struggle to make sense of what's going on. They feel it as a profound loss of a way of being and doing things that was familiar to them, that they felt in control of. In many ways they are grieving a lost way of life with the same intense emotions with which people grieve the loss of a loved one.

Generally when people are bereaved we know what to do. We rally round, bring a comforting presence that is accompanied by few words, we cook meals, do a bit of shopping, create the space people need to work through their grief. Why can't we do the same with people who are struggling to come to terms with the loss of old familiar ways of doing things. We know that the 1950s are not returning; rapid social change, increasingly driven by the revolution in communications technology, is here to stay.

The question for us is how will we comfort one another through these changes. Comfort is about bringing strength, the strength to face changes that unsettle and upset us, to see them accurately and speak about them honestly. Without such seeing and speaking, all we do is live in denial of the effect of change on our lives and the pain continues. Comfort is about facing the things that cause us pain and bringing the strength that comes through knowing the support of a loving community.

And behind all this is God, the one who comforts us through his grace and strengthens us to face events that unsettle us, so that we in turn can be the means of bringing comfort to those around us.

Album of the year - yes, already!

I've been listening to what will undoubtedly be the album of the year; undoubtedly because I cannot imagine it being bettered. It is Let England Shake by PJ Harvey.

I came late to Polly Jean's oeuvre but have loved Stories from the city, Stories from the Sea and the more recent White Chalk. She writes beautiful, intelligent, edgy songs. But nothing prepared us for Let England Shake.

The album is full of fabulous tunes. Some of them arrive on the gossamer wings of a mayfly, things of fragile beauty; others come with an almost industrial groove, played with a wonderfully light touch. And all of them are made more enticing, ethereal, stranger by the instrumentation and use of samples - bugles, reggae hits, etc. Polly Jean has even triumphantly made the autoharp a rock n' roll instrument.

Then there's her voice. She's noted for being a bit strident, though I've always loved its slightly west country timbre. But here, her voice seems to come from a different dimension altogether, strong and yet delicate, angelic and earthy.

The music and the voice on their own would make this my album of the year. But the songs are amazing. This is record about something that matters - and how often can you say that these days? Gone are the introspective songs about love and relationships. Instead Polly Jean tackles war - what bigger subject is there? - but even more importantly, why England, the land she adores with a passion, has been shaped and is still being shaped by war.

The album is a meditation on what has made England the country it is, what has shaped our psyche, our national character. She achieves it by musing on the first world war, especially the Gallipoli fiasco, using first hand accounts filtered through her subtle and fertile imagination.

The result is an unsettling spiritual masterpiece, an album that makes you think and feel; a suite of songs that forces the listener to ask why things are this way and what have I contributed? For instance, In the Dark Places suggests a link between our war record and young men who use guns to settle their differences on our streets. On England, she describes the land as 'a withered vine' - a potent and powerful biblical image of a land and its people - and speaks of her longing to find the springs that might renew it; and yet she sings 'undaunted, never failing love for you, England, is all, to which I cling.'

When she sings 'cruel nature has won again' on On Battleship Hill, which begins with an almost disembodied vocal singing that the scent of thyme stings you into remembering that nature has won again (a hopeful, even beautiful image - especially so due to to her voice), as the song's final line, you realise that she is talking about our nature, human nature. Even after all this time, the innocent scent of thyme brings back the horror and futility of a battle that cost so many lives.

It sounds like a heavy brew, yet it is also awash with wonderful light, even humorous moments, like the sampling of the line from Eddie Cochran's song Summertime Blues at the end of The Words that Maketh Murder: Polly and her band sing 'what if I take my problems to the united nations..?' It makes you laugh and weep in equal measure.

In short, buy it, listen to it, talk about it, reflect on it: this is what rock n' roll was always meant to be - music that might just change the world.

The light dawns over the Nile

Great news from Egypt this evening. As one of the demonstrators in Tahrir Square said 'Pharoah has let his people go'. Let's pray that in the wake of Mubarak's departure, the forces of democracy, justice and freedom are stronger than the forces of chaos and authoritarianism.

One of the things that has been striking over recent days is how president Mubarak has gone from being a key western ally in the search for middle eastern peace to being an obstacle to modernisation and the transition to democracy. I should applaud conversions, however late, but it is a bit rich for those who have kept Mubarak in power to side with his people only when those people seemed likely to get rid of him.

We bang on a lot about democracy but we really do have to be more consistent in our determination to see democracy flourish everywhere. Our selective support for unpleasant regimes does our interests in the world no good in the long term.

But maybe our relationships with the world should always be founded on something more noble than what is in our interest. I know Robin Cook's notion of an ethical foreign policy was somewhat tarnished by the government within which he served, but it seems to me that at the very least we should not expect the people of another nation to put up with a regime that we would not live under just because it's in our 'national interest' defined as militarily expedient or necessary for our economic well-being.

And the Middle East peace process ought to be aided by Arab democracy rather than hindered by it. Israel is always trumpeting its democratic credentials in a region of authoritarian governments. It should rejoice that Egyptians could soon share the same rights. 80 millions Egyptians could be voting alongside 7.5 million Israelis and 10.5 million Tunisians. Who knows, that common experience might help them to listen to and live at peace with one another in the coming years.

And this is one of the great pictures of hope to have come out of the Egyptian uprising. Last thursday as demonstrators were being attacked by pro-Mubarak factions, Christian Egyptians linked arms and protected Muslim Egyptians as they prayed.

It's pictures like this that give me hope that young Egyptians - the overwhelming majority of the population - will be able to live together in peace and harmony despite their religious and cultural differences.

It's a picture that inspires prayer - and joy.