What’s the best way of learning from our history?

For those of you who access my church magazine piece via this blog, here is this month's. It's a reflection on history as a spur to mission in the present (I think):

‘History is bunk,’ said someone, while Shakespeare said that it ‘is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ someone else, however, observed ‘those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Who to believe, hey?!

Anniversaries are a time to look back and take stock. Sometimes they are an excuse to wallow in nostalgia since we feel that the good old days were so much better than now. Equally often we write the past off, assuming that it has nothing to tell a world that’s changed out of all recognition; the present is all that matters, the future calls us on.

Christians value history. Our faith is rooted in it. It’s not just that there have been Christians in every generation for two thousand years. It’s that our faith stands or falls on its historical roots: either Jesus lived or he did not; either he rose from the dead or he did not. Negative answers to these questions mean that history renders our faith worthless, as Paul told the Corinthians.

Evangelicals tend to play fast and loose with history. We pick the bits of our past that we approve of or which bring us greatest comfort, preferring to skirt around those episodes that we find embarrassing or out of keeping with our theological preferences. So we’re big fans of Luther and Wesley, Spurgeon and John Stott, but not so keen on the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Oxford Movement or the Honest to God debates of 50 years ago.

As the current education secretary is finding out, history comes weighed down with ideological baggage. The past is another country whose terrain we struggle to navigate and we’re unsure which maps on offer we should trust.

So, what about our past? Those of us who’ve been members of Park Road for a long time – and some can trace their arrival here back before the second world war – will have a particular view of our past. It will be a view that is replete with memories of friends, of significant moments in the development of our faith, of struggles shared and victories won. For those of us who have recently arrived, the past might be interesting but it is a tad inconsequential since it has had no role in shaping our lives or experience.

But history is more than just a personal story, a collection of events that we have been involved in. Our church has lived through countless wars, recessions, booms and crises of various kinds. This community has been witness to the growth of Bromley from a small market town ten miles from London Bridge to London’s largest borough; it has seen changes in the economic and ethnic composition of the neighbourhood; and it can tell stories of how ministries and groups have come and gone in response to such changes. And that makes our history worth recalling and repeating; the stories of how God has led individuals and the whole church through times of challenge and joy bear close inspection (something that is possible through the people’s history of the church).

But these are only worth recalling if they act as a spur to our reflections on what God is calling us to be in the here and now. The trouble with church history is that it’s not a particularly good predictor of the church’s future. And the current crop of statistics from the 2011 census and other surveys make for gloomy reading. The number of people who identify themselves as Christians is falling (somewhere in the mid-50s%, down from 75%+ only a decade ago), barely 10% of our neighbours are in church on a Sunday, and of those, barely 10% are under 40. You don’t have to be a mathematician to work out that the future is not that rosy! 

As we celebrate our 150^th birthday and look back over the years of God’s goodness and faithfulness to us as a people, what do we notice that might help us face the coming years with faith and fortitude? My feeling is that the church is at its best when it takes God at his word and speaks the language of the streets. Spurgeon always recommended praying with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. It’s good advice.

As we have been burrowing into God’s word through the Community Bible Experience, we have been caught up afresh in the story of God’s love affair with creation, his desire to undo all that human sin has done and make all things new. Beginning with Jesus, working out through us to the ends of the world, God’s mission is to bring everything back into its proper relationship with him. So, how are our lives and our church programme being shaped by that story? 

What about the world in which we are seeking to be a missional presence? Stories in the press and stories we hear over the garden fence constantly remind us of the brokenness and despair of so many in our apparently go-ahead society. People struggling to make ends meet, struggling with addictions, struggling with crumbling relationships; people who seem outwardly to have it all together, inwardly crying out for someone to care; people who have reached the end of their ability to cope without support wondering where to turn in a world of cuts, closing services and failing friendships.

We have been at our best in the past when we have taken God at his word and thrown ourselves into this world of pain with the good news of Jesus; we have been most like the church that Jesus envisaged when we have sought the power of his Holy Spirit to be the presence of his healing power, grace and challenge among our neighbours.

This is what we have aspired to over the past 150 years, let’s use our celebration this year to renew that aspiration and launch ourselves into creative mission that helps our neighbours to see and experience Jesus. Are we up for that?

A fifth great album for 2013

So, month five and the fifth contender for album of the year invades the airwaves. The National's magisterial Trouble Will Find Me is simply great. Wonderful songs, Matt Beringer's sublime baritone, the band's tight and terrific playing, lyrics that finger the travails of love and life with an envious precision make for an intense and rewarding 50 minutes or so.

What's also great about the CD is its packaging: lovely paintings by band friends adorn the lyric booklet in a way that shows they still care about the album artwork which is heartening to see. Time was that part of the joy of buying an album was to sit with the gatefold sleeve and pore over the lyrics and other information. The art was part of the package, something visual that captured the themes or mood of the record you were listening to.

You don't get that with a download!

Trying to sound less hypocritical on tax

Tweeting from my iPad that multinational companies should pay their taxes in full seemed a little hypocritical, so I thought I'd blog about it (using my PC, powered by Microsoft software produced by a company that has had its fair share of run-ins over anti-trust laws). Hey ho, what a murky world we live in!

At its most simple, it is obvious that all companies, as well as people, should pay all the tax they owe on their earnings. Furthermore, companies, like individuals, should not engage in aggressive ways of avoiding their full tax liability. So, I'm quite happy to say that it's outrageous that Apple, Google, Amazon, Starbucks, Vodafone, M&S and many other companies uses transfer pricing to locate business that obviously occurs in one territory in another one that has a lower prevailing tax rate.

If I buy a book on Amazon's UK website that is dispatched to me from Amazon's UK warehouse, handled by Amazon's UK-based employees, I expect Amazon to pay any tax on the profits from that sale to the UK tax authorities. Simple. In exactly the same way, I imagine that Waterstones will pay UK corporation tax on profits from the sale of a book bought in its Bromley store.

Of course, Amazon will still still be able to charge lower prices because of the way it does business. So this is not a complaint about business styles; it's simply a complaint about paying tax.

The issue is complicated by inept governments competing with one another over relative tax rates and reliefs. And it is complicated by rules about how companies should be governed.

The competition between governments could be resolved through international agreements at G8 and G20 level overseen by the IMF or OECD. At the very least, it seems to me, the case for a single EU-wide rate of corporation tax is pretty strong. It is a nonsense that Ireland has an effective corporation tax rate half that of the EU average - especially when it is the recipient of an EU-led bail out of its economy (partly caused by idiot banking but not helped by a chronically low tax take).

Companies are obliged to maximise shareholder return. This means that they will try to minimise tax in every legitimate way possible. So, again, action through the OECD/G20/G8 to change company law to put other priorities on public companies - such as maximising social return through paying appropriate taxes, investing in the social capital of communities in which they are based (so-called CSR).

Let's not pretend that either of these courses of action will be easy. So, supporting the Tax Justice Network in its work of campaigning and lobbying seems essential;the wealth of research material it produces is invaluable in informed debate. So, protesting against those companies who appear not to be paying their full wack is also essential. I haven't been to Starbucks since it became clear that it treated tax as a matter of voluntary donation; I have cut the amount I buy from Amazon. But I listen to music on iTumes, have an iPhone and iPad for communication...

Pressure could well pay dividends in the long-term as it shames companies into greater transparency and forces governments to act in the interests of all their citizens and not the elite 1% who call the shots - we do, after all, allegedly live in a democracy. But it will take time. As with everything else, good things only come to those who wait.

More than one way of getting out of the boat

Just when you're flagging, a good friend sends a response to a blog post that leaves you chuckling and hopeful. So I thought I'd share it.



She wrote: 'but Simon - have you forgotten? - you can swim! Jump in! Allow though for a few minutes to tread water in the process as you catch your breath. We're praying for the waves to carry you - and everyone else - and for other passengers in the boat to jump in after you too. Some will need life jackets or even be put in a lifeboat at the start but that's ok. They'll have got out of the boat!'

She rightly points out that there is more than one way to get out of the boat. Life jackets will be available and the strong swimmers will give the more nervous what help they can...

Getting out of the boat

So, reflecting further on where the tornado left us, listening to the excellent Brown Bear Music's Amazed album (whatever happened to Ian Mizen and Andy Presdee, the UK's two best, most inventive and tuneful writers of worship songs?), I'm pondering...

It is interesting to observe, to feel what happens as you seek to put into effect strategies that have been shaped, honed, worked and prayed through in meetings and away days. It's like the moment when a laboratory discovery is cleared for trials with real humans. Suddenly, this is no longer a good idea, a well-crafted plan. It is something we are going to do. It is something that will have consequences in the lives of people we know, love, have shared our lives with, people who trust us to have their welfare at heart.

And suddenly people aren't as convinced as they were.

That's fear.

I wonder at this point whether God is saying - as he did to Peter - 'Get out of the boat'. Peter was all gung-ho to do so while he was in the boat. Admittedly, it wasn't all that great in the boat with a heavy swell and the darkness closing in all around. But at least it was dry and there was something solid under his feet. Actually getting out of the boat was a different matter. It was wet. The lake was deep. Would faith really hold him up? Why not wait for Jesus to reach them where they were? Why did he open his big mouth?!

Since the beginning of the year God has been saying to me 'get out of the boat'. It's been a word recurring as we've plotted the future direction of the church. And it's been a word for the church not for me as an individual. And now we well and truly need to get out of the boat. And...?

Well, we could wait for Jesus to come to us. And if other people want to meet him, they can come where we are; there's plenty of room for any who walk to us.

And Jesus says 'get out of the boat'; and I am aware that if  I stay here, I'll miss him. While the fear gnaws, faith sparks and I have a foot dangling over open water. What next?

Four months, four albums, a promising year for music...

The year so far has blessed us four albums destined to be classics and vying for album of the year.

At the moment I'm listening to Nick Cave's majestic Push the Sky Away. I think this is the year's best offering so far - though there is stiff competition. Cave has let out the visceral, animal side of his music in his side project Grinderman, which I haven't really warmed to. It leaves him free to produce atmospheric meditations on life, faith and hope with a buttoned up restraint that you think might explode at any minute but is kept beautifully, achingly in check. It makes for a wonderful journey through Brighton and Cave's netherworld to the title track that is a muted rage against the dying of the light, the need to keep living, creating, singing in the face of our all-too obvious mortality.

First out of the stocks in fact was Eels Wonderful, Glorious, lighting up a frosty late January with Mr E's sometimes angry, often gentle, always prescient musings on the absurdity of life in the modern world and the saving qualities of love and faithfulness. He's so good that his song writing seems effortless, one great riff here, a hook to die for there, a lyric that stays with you for the day here and there and everywhere.

Depeche Mode's Delta Machine, out last month, sounds at times like a southern revival, all speaking in tongues and faith snatching us from oblivion. Coming after last year's collaboration between Dave Gahan and Soul Savers, this album makes you wonder what's going on in these Essex boy's souls. here's a whole ton of reflections on life and faith and love. Wonderful tunes, great vocals, catchy rhythms - all the ingredients of a classic Depeche Mode album are present and correct.

And then there David Bowie's unexpected comeback album; unexpected for two reasons - no one knew it was coming and no one could have guessed that he still had such a great collection of songs in him. The Next Day is the true follow up to Lodger, a ghost ride through the Berlin of the late 70s and early 80s that spawned Bowie's great trilogy. The songs are a dizzying display of hooks, gorgeous vocals, great guitar licks and some pretty wonderful saxophone from the dame himself. Every time I listen, I am surprised at how good it is. Half of me hopes it's his last album ('cause I'm not sure he'll better it) and the other half hopes there's twenty more songs of this quality awaiting release in the autumn. Who knows with the elusive boy from Bromley!

If you haven't added any of these to your collection, you should.

Wondering where the tornado left us

I've been having an interesting exchange on Twitter with some good friends and colleagues over the future of our movement. Thanks to Neil for the initial stimulus and to Andy and Anthony for the provocation thereafter. I feel  need something more than 140 characters to set down some thoughts - hopefully to stimulate further conversation and creativity.

We baptists stand at the crossroads - we've been here for a while - and at the forthcoming Assembly (which I'm unable to attend), some sense of the new direction in which we will be travelling will become clear with the appointment of a new General Secretary. God will need to give this brave soul great and continuous supplies of wisdom, creativity, stamina and chutzpah.

As well as this strategic appointment, Neil pointed to the creaking structures of finance needing a thorough overhaul. He suggested the current model could remain in place for a while; I'm not so sure, though it depends on how long the 'while' turns out to be.

Undoubtedly the church in the UK needs to change. It's older, more set in its ways and less nimble on its feet than most of its neighbours; and for that reason fewer younger, agile people see it as essential for making sense of their lives - and hence are not joining.

My church needs to change. And thereby lies the problem. When I outline dreams that suggest that what so many people mean when they say 'church' will be replaced by something more flexible, more missional, more responsive, more dynamic, more connected with our neighbours, I can smell the fear; I can see the anxiety in people's eyes, hear it in their (often supportive) observations and questions.

Like Dorothy at the start of the Wizard of Oz, the realisation that we aren't in Kansas anymore is unsettling. Everything that has given comfort and security, the familiarities of home, has been caught up in a tornado of change and we have been deposited somewhere we don't recognise even though we are waking up in our familiar beds.

So, we need pioneers - and a movement that is supporting them - but we need to find stories that help those who do not feel like pioneers, rise to this fresh challenge. This is because Neil's second point is as true for local churches as it is for our movement as a whole, namely we need change to be bankrolled by the very people who want things to stay the same while we are exploring new ways of funding the kind of mission we're called to do and the communities that such mission creates.

As a minister paid by the church, I can smell my own fear about that!

Riding a wave of grace

So, here's this month's contribution to the church magazine that I blogged about the other day. Hope you find grace in it.

I'm sitting on the south bank of the river Thames. The sun is bathing my face in the first warmth of spring. The sky above London's iconic buildings is luminous blue. Nearly everyone around me - tourists, office workers grabbing lunch and fresh air, joggers, cyclists, human statues, sellers of trinkets and soft drinks - is as good humoured as the day. I find myself half-muttering, half-singing (under my breath) 'God is good'.

An elderly man next to me is checking stock prices in a pristine copy of today's FT; behind me skate boarders clatter in the brutalist under-croft of the national theatre accompanied by squeals of delight from young spectators; a lean African man entertains us with lilting Kora music; and an Eastern European artist offers original artwork to bemused passers-by (his subject matter jars with the lazy spring feel all around).

I'm on my way to a meeting with the guys behind the Community Bible Experience that so many of us have found has led us to fresh understanding and appreciation of scripture as we've read it and talked about it in groups. But I'm grateful for fifteen minutes in the sunshine and fresh air, grateful for the reminder of God's opulent, extravagant creativity. 

And as I watch the water and people, I can feel the cares and anxieties that I've been carrying through the day slipping from my shoulders, to be replaced with a serenity born of the reminder that whatever's happening, God's on the case. As he is creating this day, so he is gently showing me that whatever I'm wrestling with, he has the measure of it.

It's a reminder of grace. A reminder that God is constantly favouring us with his glance, his presence, his glory, his unexpected arrival in the midst of busyness and hassle, with refreshment, laughter, an unexpected word, a hug...

The Macedonians had experienced this. In the midst of their struggle to make ends meet, the sheer hard graft of putting food on the table and clothes on their backs, God had refreshed them with his grace and they wanted to return the favour by being gracious to those in even greater need than them. Paul tells us about this as he announces the offering in 2 Corinthians 8. They gave themselves to God because God had given himself to them, lavished the goodness of his presence on them in such a way that they couldn't help but trust him and pass it on. 

That's what grace does. In the midst of the pressures of life, the voices telling us that things are too hard, that we haven't the resources to make it through the day, that the forces ranged against us will grind us down and bring us to our knees, God comes and sits next to us and says 'hey, remember me!'

I'm sitting with a lemonade and Joe Stiglitz, musing on the state of economic chaos engulfing us and pondering the whither and what and why of inequality. Of course, Stiglitz is only with me in a book of his I’m reading. And Paul reminds us that grace is the great equaliser. He's not wanting the Judean Christians to be lining their pockets at the expense of the Macedonians or the Corinthians; he just wants equality, everyone to have enough. He's reminding us that our God became poor so that we might become rich and we should be modelling our lives on him. 

And this too is grace at work, God's great work of giving, seen in the provision of manna in the wilderness, now seen in the way his grace opens the hearts, hands and wallets of his people, so that they become the means by which equality is made and maintained. And in a crazy world where the cost of my lemonade, enjoyed in the Southbank's spring sunshine, is all a family might have to live on anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa, Stiglitz makes a lot of sense (he's won a Nobel prize, after all), but Paul makes more.

When we are recipients of grace in the way the Macedonians were, we instinctively not only want to see those in need helped, but also to play our part in making that happen. For if God lavishes his grace on us, so generously, so relentlessly, so continually, why would we not open our hands and let it flow through our fingers to those around us who need it as much or more than we do.

We live in days of change and turmoil – in the world around us and in the church so close to us – when our ability to trust is being stretched and tested. And I am feeling, as the sun warms my face and chases away the memory of a hard winter, that his grace will be sufficient to deal with whatever comes my way. The challenges we face may be many and various, they might be things we’ve never faced before, they may be causing us acute anxiety. But one thing is true: God’s grace has the measure of them and mastery over them; he can be trusted to lead us through whatever comes our way with open, generous hearts and an eye on those who need to realise for the first time who made the sunshine that brightens all our lives.

Writing and thinking

I discovered something about writing and thinking yesterday, as I was penning my contribution for the church magazine sitting in the sunshine on London's South Bank. It's a simple thing really, something I've known for a long time but maybe not as clearly as I saw it yesterday. It's probably something you've known forever, so you'll be able to cheer that I've caught up!

The process of connecting words leads to new avenues of thought. Like synapses in the brain firing and making new connections between brain cells (someone will tell me that's old science!), so the very act of linking words together on the screen or page, creates new thoughts which, more importantly, leads to fresh lines of enquiry.

Sometimes I sit at my keyboard, needing to create a sermon, write a lecture, compose an article and  find my brain is suddenly and spectacularly stripped of any inkling of what  might write. So I start typing and the every act of joining words together opens up the possibility of something to read that will be worth reading, that means something.

Inevitably what I first keyed into the machine is worked over and reworked out of existence as by the third or fourth paragraph something is emerging what looks like a train of thought, an interesting reflection. But this is not always the case; yesterday's first paragraph stayed remarkably intact!

I was always told by editors and, more recently by my MA supervisor, to write and then find out where the gaps are in your knowledge, rather that to read and research until you think you are ready to write. It's good advice. I'm going to try and follow it over the coming few weeks and see what emerges.

What I wrote yesterday will be posted here in the next day or so as it emerges in print form in our church magazine.

Public service versus public pomp

I don't have much to say about the death of Margaret Thatcher. I felt she was a divisive PM wedded to an economic model whose whirlwind we are currently reaping. But this comment from Peter Oborne in today's Telegraph (here) is, I think, very apposite.

In particular - and he's not alone in this - he contrasts the funeral of Clement Attlee with that proposed for Thatcher. You could argue that he was the prime minister who most profoundly shaped the post-war world in which we still live. And yet just 150 friends and family attended his quiet service in 1967.

I wonder whether this tells us something about how attitudes to public service have changed for the worse over the past generation. Politics seems to be less about serving the public good than about promoting sectional interest. A selfish and self-serving society gets the politicians it deserves, I guess.

The most poignant comment on Thatcher's death was from Russell Brand (of all people) in yesterday's Guardian (here) where he said: 'The blunt, pathetic reality today is that a little old lady has died, who in the winter of her life had to water roses alone under police supervision. If you behave like there's no such thing as society, in the end there isn't.' Everyone deserves better than that, even those who create the conditions for society to fall apart around us.

The Kingdom of God is a party – so let’s throw one….

Here's the piece I wrote for the church magazine about our forthcoming 150th birthday celebrations. I will reflect on the planning process for this in a subsequent blog...

The baffled café owner, not quite sure how to process what he’d just been part of, asked ‘what kind of church do you belong to?’ The tall, balding sociology professor from the US East coast thought for a moment and then said ‘I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning.’ To which the café owner said: ‘no you don’t. There’s no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. I’d join a church like that.’ Wouldn’t we all?!

The story comes from a book by Tony Campolo, the American Christian leader, activist and sociology professor. He puts his finger on a key aspect of what Jesus is all about. His book’s called The Kingdom of God is a Party. Jesus spent more time at parties than in church; he was constantly surrounded by the wrong kind of people, eating and drinking with them, celebrating their lives and talking about the Kingdom of God. To the surprise of the religious folk of his day, he likened the Kingdom of God to a party that he was throwing and inviting any- and everybody to come along to it; a party where life in all its fullness was on tap for everyone.

It is in that spirit that we are approaching our 150^th birthday. On 2 June, we’re throwing a party for Bromley. Along the high street, we will be celebrating the Kingdom of God by offering food, games, fun and conversation to anyone who wants to join us.

We have begun talking to traders and restaurant owners along the stretch from the Partridge to the Swan and found a really positive response from them. More conversations will follow. The town centre manager is offering all the help she can to make the event a success – and a template for something she’ll put on when the improvements in that part of the town are complete in 2014/5! And we are talking with a Christian organisation that specialises in throwing community parties who have offered to come and help us as we gear up for the big day.

So, why are we doing this?

Our church was born in a pub in a world that knew and honoured the Christian story. It grew in such a world and has enjoyed years of fruitful mission and ministry in the town. We are celebrating our 150^th birthday in a world that neither knows nor particularly honours our story. People who have any impression of the church think of us as a group that likes to say ‘no’ to the way people live, who deal in guilt and judgement. We want to correct that mistaken impression and the best way to do it is to throw a party. We will say thank you to God for his blessing over 150 years by blessing our neighbours.

2 June is the day of the big lunch, an initiative of the Eden Project in Cornwall. Its founder Sir Tim Smitt, says “If you get to know your neighbours, not only does it create a happier, safer environment to live in, but you will probably find they are happy to help you out with your pets or water your plants when you go on holiday. You never know, you might even end up with a new best friend, simply from knocking on your neighbour’s door to say hello.”

As church people we often bemoan the fact that society today isn’t as neighbourly as it was when we were growing up; there is a lot of fear and suspicion of strangers; the world we live in isn’t as friendly a place as it once was. As Christian people we believe that Jesus came to bring reconciliation not only between us and God but between people of kinds. Paul reminds us that the dividing wall of hostility has been broken and we have all been brought close to God and hence to one another. So, of all people we believe that neighbourliness is a good thing; that anything that brings people together and helps them to get to know one another can only be positive.

That’s what we’ll be able to do on 2 June on our high street with a whole cross section of our neighbours. The aim is to provide food from a variety of restaurants and fun for all the family. The advantage of buying the food from the restaurateurs along that part of the high street is that it blesses them. Over recent years they have seen trade suffer as a result of developments around the Glades, along with the recession. In some small way on 2 June, we can bless them by bringing them business and, perhaps more importantly, introducing a whole load of people to their food which might result in increased custom over the longer term. In that way we have made a significant contribution to the livelihood of some of our neighbours; we will have sought and brought the prosperity of the city where we live!

After Easter there’ll be training events for the day facilitated by Marty Woods, an Australian who has organised street events across the world and was last year involved in a range of Olympic-related community parties. There is a time line elsewhere in this issue of In Touch giving more details.

It just remains for you to be doing two things. The first is to pray for all those involved in the organisation of the day and all those who will come; pray that the Lord will bless them. And the second is to take a stack of fliers when they are ready and invite your neighbours to join us. There will be fun through the day for all the family, for people of all ages from toddlers to senior citizens.

So, get praying, come along and be part of the blessing of Bromley to celebrate our 150^th birthday.