Luke 17:11-19

Introduction
The day we went on holiday this August was manic. I had to take a funeral at lunchtime.
When I returned, Debbie said to me, ‘Get changed as fast as you can, there’s
been a crash on the M25. You navigate, I’ll drive.’

It was natural for me to navigate. As a man, I am the better
map-reader. Of course, equally as a man, I can only do one thing at a time!

Well, perhaps some will forgive me, then, if I describe
today’s sermon as ‘A Map of Mission.’
There are geographical features in this story, and they give us images of God’s
mission, as practised by Jesus.

1. Between Samaria
and Galilee
The story starts with a geographical note:

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region
between Samaria and Galilee (verse 11).

The action takes place ‘between Samaria and Galilee.’ That
accounts for the mixed group of lepers, both Jewish and Samaritan. Jesus would
never have reached such a group unless he had been ‘between Samaria and
Galilee.’ Galilee, where Jesus had based himself early on (Capernaum), chosen
the apostles and conducted much of his early ministry. Galilee in Judea, part
of the Jewish homeland. Samaria, on the other hand, home (in the eyes of Jews)
of spiritual deviants and heretics, home to the Samaritans, who were regarded
as ‘half-foreign, Israelites of doubtful descent’[1].

So where would be more comfortable? Galilee, surely.  Jesus would be with his own kind there. It would
be like structuring your whole life around church and your Christian friends. The
company of like-minded people who care about you is an attractive proposition. But
Jesus cannot stay there forever. Even on his way to Jerusalem, the capital of
his native Judea, he rides the boundaries between Samaria and Galilee.

I suggest you that is exactly what God calls us to do, in
following the example of Jesus.  He calls
us to surf between the comfort zone of those who share our faith, and the
people whom we might despise. That puts us in a place to meet people in need, and
demonstrate God’s love. Had Jesus remained in Galilee, he would not have met
these lepers; they would not have been healed; and the Samaritan leper would
not have found saving faith.

Why should we live ‘between Samaria and Galilee’? Just as
the lepers are desperate for help – they call out for mercy (verse 13), so
there are many crying out, but perhaps not knowing what Jesus can do for them. Even
the lepers here don’t completely know – their cry for mercy is a standard
request for alms.

So it isn’t just ‘why’, it’s ‘how’: how do we live between
Samaria and Galilee? I think it starts with dispensing with fear. Some
Christians have a naïve image of life, that everyone in the church is Good, and
everyone outside is Bad. They become fearful that we will be contaminated, and
unable to resist. So they counsel an avoidance of non-Christians. I witnessed
this a couple of times when I had a sabbatical, and we worshipped at a Baptist
church. One retired minister counselled the congregation not to watch a (then) forthcoming
television
programme, because it wouldn’t be encouraging to the Christian faith. Never
mind the fact that it would constitute a ‘water cooler moment’ at work the next
day, a real talking point, he told Christians to steer clear.

We need to address the fear. The First Letter of John has
the perspective we need:

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them,
because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world (1
John 4:4).

Step out. Stop being afraid of non-Christians. Of course,
there are Bad People out there. But unless we live between Samaria and Galilee,
we shall not meet the outcasts of today who need the love of God. For like the ‘lepers’
of Jesus’ day, we cannot wait for them to come to us: they will not come.

2. Go To The Priests
The second movement is what Jesus tells the leprous men to do:

When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to
the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean (verse 14).

Note that Jesus sees
the lepers. He must see their condition. He knows their problem. He calls for a
real act of trust in sending them to the priests: off they go without seeing
any change in their skin. It’s rather like Elisha commanding Naaman to wash
seven times in the Jordan. Madness!

But on another level, it isn’t madness at all. As the lepers
obediently go (and what did they have to lose?), they are healed. Yet I am sure
you will know it is significant they are sent to the priests. A priest had the right to declare a leper clean, and
thus able to rejoin the community of faith. A priest alone could pronounce
someone an outcast no more.

So this healing is far from the nonsense perpetrated by some
Christians who say, ‘You’ve been healed – just throw away your pills.’ This is
a verifiable act of healing, and the priests will confirm it independently.
Believing in Jesus calls for faith, it doesn’t call for fiction. It means
trusting him enough to obey him, but it doesn’t mean a game of make-believe.

What does this mean for those of us called by Jesus to share
in the mission of God? I think it includes the need to be both hopeful and
honest. Hopeful in this sense – that just as Jesus blessed people whether they
were from Samaria or Galilee, so do we. When we encounter someone in need, we
offer help if we can. And whether we can or we can’t, we offer to pray for
them. Maybe we feel nervous about suggesting we pray for someone: how will they
react? Will they think we have a screw loose? More likely, unless their name is
something like Richard Dawkins, they will probably be pleased. Whether you pray
right then with them or not is a judgment call at the time, but keep the
promise to pray.

For too long we have confined the Christian healing ministry
to the walls of a church building. But if we follow Jesus in hopeful faith,
then we take it outside the walls. My impression is there are fewer stories of
Jesus blessing people in the synagogue than other locations. We may feel as if
doing so is like toppling off a precipice. Sometimes that is because we think
God is less inclined to answer prayer when the needy person has no faith. But rarely
if ever do Jesus’ miracles depend on the one in need. More often, the question
of faith is associated with those praying. Now if that is the case, then our
prayers will be no less effective than within the Christian circle. Remember,
it was a Samaritan, not a Jew, who came back to thank Jesus. It’s time to be
hopeful!

Hopeful … and honest. Honest, because Jesus said, ‘Show
yourselves to the priests.’ No flannel. If it doesn’t happen, don’t pretend,
don’t make excuses, but keep praying. When God does bless, it will be
unmistakable. Keep hanging in there, loving, supporting and praying.

3. This Foreigner
When the ten are healed, but only the Samaritan returns, Jesus says,

‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?
Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’
(Verses 17-18)

‘This foreigner’ is an over-statement as a description by a
Jew of a Samaritan. As I said earlier, Samaritans were regarded as ‘half-foreign,
Israelites of doubtful descent.’ In using the expression ‘foreigner’ here,
Jesus is deploying ‘the term used in the temple inscription that forbade the
entry of foreigners into the Jerusalem temple’[2].

If Jesus speaks about the Samaritan like this, then he has a
radically different view of access to the Temple. ‘This foreigner’ gets to praise
God and thank Jesus as a sign of his faith. So Jesus is not imagining the
Temple as a stone fortress, with all sorts of defences to keep out various
undesirables or inferiors, such as Gentiles or women. For him, there is no ‘Court
of the Gentiles’, beyond which they may not go. Jesus’ Temple is not a
defensive castle. It is more like a marquee with open flaps. Boundaries are
clearly there, but there’s an open invitation to peek at what’s happening, and
even come inside.

What is the challenge for us here? It is to make our church
communities less like castles and more like marquees. It is about reducing the
obstacles to finding faith.

Now I have to be careful here. I do not mean that we throw
away those parts of our faith that some people find intellectually difficult.
Nor do I mean that we shape our faith according to popular social morality. But
I do mean that we take down some other barriers.

We dismantle the barrier named ‘Holier Than Thou.’ How many
times have we heard people say they are not good enough for church? Of course,
we respond by saying that it isn’t like that, but this has not just to be said,
but modelled as well. It means a vulnerability, openness and honesty before
people, if they are to see what we are truly like. And that means building deep
relationships with those ‘outside the Temple’.

We take down the barricades that mean children start leaving
the community of faith before the age of eleven. We stop treating their
activities as simply what they do before graduating to ‘real church.’ We won’t
simply impart information to them, but invite them to get stuck into practical
Christian action. Remember, Jesus taught his disciples by getting their hands
dirty in mission and service. That is just as possible in appropriate ways with
children as it is with adults. We’ll listen to their concerns and help them see
where the Gospel connects with them and challenges them.

In all this, we need to be relevant and down-to-earth. Yet we
cannot reduce our vision of God. Quite the reverse. C S Lewis had a beautiful way of putting it
in one of the Narnia novels, ‘Prince
Caspian’:

Lucy awakes from a deep sleep and is compelled to get up by
the sound of a voice calling her name. She follows the sound and shortly
encounters the great lion himself:

‘Aslan, you’re bigger,’ she said.

‘That’s because you’re older, little one,’ answered he.

‘Not because you are?’

‘I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.’[3]

It’s not all about answers, solutions, techniques and
packaging up everything. Curiously, the Temple remains more accessible if we
continue to embrace mystery. A God who is bigger, stranger and more mysterious
than we can ever conceive. One we can never pin down, although we can be
confident of certain things about him – especially his redeeming love in
Christ. We commend this God as we walk daily between Samaria and Galilee, as we
meet today’s lepers with the love of God and send them in hope and honesty to
the priests.

Technorati Tags: Jesus, mission, lepers, JohnNolland, RussellTDavies, TheSecondComing, healing, CSLewis, PrinceCaspian, Aslan, RuthHassall, IanMacdonald, tweenagers

Luke 17:11-19

Introduction
The day we went on holiday this August was manic. I had to take a funeral at lunchtime.
When I returned, Debbie said to me, ‘Get changed as fast as you can, there’s
been a crash on the M25. You navigate, I’ll drive.’

It was natural for me to navigate. As a man, I am the better
map-reader. Of course, equally as a man, I can only do one thing at a time!

Well, perhaps some will forgive me, then, if I describe
today’s sermon as ‘A Map of Mission.’
There are geographical features in this story, and they give us images of God’s
mission, as practised by Jesus.

1. Between Samaria
and Galilee
The story starts with a geographical note:

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region
between Samaria and Galilee (verse 11).

The action takes place ‘between Samaria and Galilee.’ That
accounts for the mixed group of lepers, both Jewish and Samaritan. Jesus would
never have reached such a group unless he had been ‘between Samaria and
Galilee.’ Galilee, where Jesus had based himself early on (Capernaum), chosen
the apostles and conducted much of his early ministry. Galilee in Judea, part
of the Jewish homeland. Samaria, on the other hand, home (in the eyes of Jews)
of spiritual deviants and heretics, home to the Samaritans, who were regarded
as ‘half-foreign, Israelites of doubtful descent’[1].

So where would be more comfortable? Galilee, surely.  Jesus would be with his own kind there. It would
be like structuring your whole life around church and your Christian friends. The
company of like-minded people who care about you is an attractive proposition. But
Jesus cannot stay there forever. Even on his way to Jerusalem, the capital of
his native Judea, he rides the boundaries between Samaria and Galilee.

I suggest you that is exactly what God calls us to do, in
following the example of Jesus.  He calls
us to surf between the comfort zone of those who share our faith, and the
people whom we might despise. That puts us in a place to meet people in need, and
demonstrate God’s love. Had Jesus remained in Galilee, he would not have met
these lepers; they would not have been healed; and the Samaritan leper would
not have found saving faith.

Why should we live ‘between Samaria and Galilee’? Just as
the lepers are desperate for help – they call out for mercy (verse 13), so
there are many crying out, but perhaps not knowing what Jesus can do for them. Even
the lepers here don’t completely know – their cry for mercy is a standard
request for alms.

So it isn’t just ‘why’, it’s ‘how’: how do we live between
Samaria and Galilee? I think it starts with dispensing with fear. Some
Christians have a naïve image of life, that everyone in the church is Good, and
everyone outside is Bad. They become fearful that we will be contaminated, and
unable to resist. So they counsel an avoidance of non-Christians. I witnessed
this a couple of times when I had a sabbatical, and we worshipped at a Baptist
church. One retired minister counselled the congregation not to watch a (then) forthcoming
television
programme, because it wouldn’t be encouraging to the Christian faith. Never
mind the fact that it would constitute a ‘water cooler moment’ at work the next
day, a real talking point, he told Christians to steer clear.

We need to address the fear. The First Letter of John has
the perspective we need:

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them,
because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world (1
John 4:4).

Step out. Stop being afraid of non-Christians. Of course,
there are Bad People out there. But unless we live between Samaria and Galilee,
we shall not meet the outcasts of today who need the love of God. For like the ‘lepers’
of Jesus’ day, we cannot wait for them to come to us: they will not come.

2. Go To The Priests
The second movement is what Jesus tells the leprous men to do:

When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to
the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean (verse 14).

Note that Jesus sees
the lepers. He must see their condition. He knows their problem. He calls for a
real act of trust in sending them to the priests: off they go without seeing
any change in their skin. It’s rather like Elisha commanding Naaman to wash
seven times in the Jordan. Madness!

But on another level, it isn’t madness at all. As the lepers
obediently go (and what did they have to lose?), they are healed. Yet I am sure
you will know it is significant they are sent to the priests. A priest had the right to declare a leper clean, and
thus able to rejoin the community of faith. A priest alone could pronounce
someone an outcast no more.

So this healing is far from the nonsense perpetrated by some
Christians who say, ‘You’ve been healed – just throw away your pills.’ This is
a verifiable act of healing, and the priests will confirm it independently.
Believing in Jesus calls for faith, it doesn’t call for fiction. It means
trusting him enough to obey him, but it doesn’t mean a game of make-believe.

What does this mean for those of us called by Jesus to share
in the mission of God? I think it includes the need to be both hopeful and
honest. Hopeful in this sense – that just as Jesus blessed people whether they
were from Samaria or Galilee, so do we. When we encounter someone in need, we
offer help if we can. And whether we can or we can’t, we offer to pray for
them. Maybe we feel nervous about suggesting we pray for someone: how will they
react? Will they think we have a screw loose? More likely, unless their name is
something like Richard Dawkins, they will probably be pleased. Whether you pray
right then with them or not is a judgment call at the time, but keep the
promise to pray.

For too long we have confined the Christian healing ministry
to the walls of a church building. But if we follow Jesus in hopeful faith,
then we take it outside the walls. My impression is there are fewer stories of
Jesus blessing people in the synagogue than other locations. We may feel as if
doing so is like toppling off a precipice. Sometimes that is because we think
God is less inclined to answer prayer when the needy person has no faith. But rarely
if ever do Jesus’ miracles depend on the one in need. More often, the question
of faith is associated with those praying. Now if that is the case, then our
prayers will be no less effective than within the Christian circle. Remember,
it was a Samaritan, not a Jew, who came back to thank Jesus. It’s time to be
hopeful!

Hopeful … and honest. Honest, because Jesus said, ‘Show
yourselves to the priests.’ No flannel. If it doesn’t happen, don’t pretend,
don’t make excuses, but keep praying. When God does bless, it will be
unmistakable. Keep hanging in there, loving, supporting and praying.

3. This Foreigner
When the ten are healed, but only the Samaritan returns, Jesus says,

‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?
Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’
(Verses 17-18)

‘This foreigner’ is an over-statement as a description by a
Jew of a Samaritan. As I said earlier, Samaritans were regarded as ‘half-foreign,
Israelites of doubtful descent.’ In using the expression ‘foreigner’ here,
Jesus is deploying ‘the term used in the temple inscription that forbade the
entry of foreigners into the Jerusalem temple’[2].

If Jesus speaks about the Samaritan like this, then he has a
radically different view of access to the Temple. ‘This foreigner’ gets to praise
God and thank Jesus as a sign of his faith. So Jesus is not imagining the
Temple as a stone fortress, with all sorts of defences to keep out various
undesirables or inferiors, such as Gentiles or women. For him, there is no ‘Court
of the Gentiles’, beyond which they may not go. Jesus’ Temple is not a
defensive castle. It is more like a marquee with open flaps. Boundaries are
clearly there, but there’s an open invitation to peek at what’s happening, and
even come inside.

What is the challenge for us here? It is to make our church
communities less like castles and more like marquees. It is about reducing the
obstacles to finding faith.

Now I have to be careful here. I do not mean that we throw
away those parts of our faith that some people find intellectually difficult.
Nor do I mean that we shape our faith according to popular social morality. But
I do mean that we take down some other barriers.

We dismantle the barrier named ‘Holier Than Thou.’ How many
times have we heard people say they are not good enough for church? Of course,
we respond by saying that it isn’t like that, but this has not just to be said,
but modelled as well. It means a vulnerability, openness and honesty before
people, if they are to see what we are truly like. And that means building deep
relationships with those ‘outside the Temple’.

We take down the barricades that mean children start leaving
the community of faith before the age of eleven. We stop treating their
activities as simply what they do before graduating to ‘real church.’ We won’t
simply impart information to them, but invite them to get stuck into practical
Christian action. Remember, Jesus taught his disciples by getting their hands
dirty in mission and service. That is just as possible in appropriate ways with
children as it is with adults. We’ll listen to their concerns and help them see
where the Gospel connects with them and challenges them.

In all this, we need to be relevant and down-to-earth. Yet we
cannot reduce our vision of God. Quite the reverse. C S Lewis had a beautiful way of putting it
in one of the Narnia novels, ‘Prince
Caspian’:

Lucy awakes from a deep sleep and is compelled to get up by
the sound of a voice calling her name. She follows the sound and shortly
encounters the great lion himself:

‘Aslan, you’re bigger,’ she said.

‘That’s because you’re older, little one,’ answered he.

‘Not because you are?’

‘I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.’[3]

It’s not all about answers, solutions, techniques and
packaging up everything. Curiously, the Temple remains more accessible if we
continue to embrace mystery. A God who is bigger, stranger and more mysterious
than we can ever conceive. One we can never pin down, although we can be
confident of certain things about him – especially his redeeming love in
Christ. We commend this God as we walk daily between Samaria and Galilee, as we
meet today’s lepers with the love of God and send them in hope and honesty to
the priests.

Technorati Tags: Jesus, mission, lepers, JohnNolland, RussellTDavies, TheSecondComing, healing, CSLewis, PrinceCaspian, Aslan, RuthHassall, IanMacdonald, tweenagers

The 10 Immutable Laws of Storytelling « Pacific Rim Media Notes

Technorati Tags: storytelling

Despite my charismatic leanings, there are few charismatic books that have shaped my spirituality. The obvious exception would be John Wimber’s first two books, Power Evangelism and Power Healing. Whatever their imperfections, and the apparent contradictions some have detected in books that were write-ups of lecture notes, they introduced me to a way of understanding the kingdom of God that has stayed with me ever since (even if I interpreted it in my own way). It was the adoption of a now/not yet model of the kingdom that I found particularly helpful. It provided an ‘optimism of grace’ about what God could do in the here and now, but it also set the framework (although not any explanation) for the times when prayers did not seem to be answered positively. Combine that with the emphasis in the prayer approach in the second book that models both listening to the person and listening to God, and I shall always be grateful for those foundations.

Beyond that, two books helped me with the aversion to written liturgy (“It’s boring!”) with which I grew up. One was Robert Webber’s book Evangelicals On The Canterbury Trail. His ability to document how these structures could frame a biblical spirituality was significant for me – and it was also my reflection on his words that made me realise my own conversion actually came through liturgy! No longer could I accept the ignorant criticisms of liturgy from places such as some ‘house church’ circles, which said it was just a device to produce an act of worship without ‘the anointing’.

A quite different book taught me to see life sacramentally. Henri Nouwen’s Life Of The Beloved takes the four actions of Jesus at the Last Supper, which have become the four movements of liturgical communion services since Gregory Dix wrote The Shape Of The Liturgy, and makes them into discipleship actions. What Jesus did with the bread and wine, he does with us. He takes us, blesses God for us, breaks us and gives us to others. It’s a stunning way to see the life of faith.

Then there is the question of how to read the Bible ‘spiritually’. Many from my evangelical tradition talk of Bible study, and I think ‘study’ is a telling word. It’s meant to have an application, but ends up staying in the brain. So although I was influenced at college by historical-critical methods of biblical study and developed a healthy scepticism for those who make fanciful applications, I had to learn other ways. A little booklet by Brother Ramon SSF entitled Praying The Bible did it for me. It was a simple introduction to Ignatian Bible study, with the uses of the senses and the imagination.

All of which gets me into the ‘How does God speak to us?’ issue. Without giving a long reflection here, I grew up – at least implicitly – with the ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’ of Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience (with experience for me including that which came through ‘charismatic’ gifts). But I heard a speaker at a conference recommend Ken Gire’s book Windows Of The Soul. I hunted it down, and found it a wonderful introduction to the many areas of life in which we can hear God speak. Gire is also a wonderful writer. Too few Christian authors can craft their prose beautifully; Gire is an exception. (At time of writing, it’s back in stock at Amazon: don’t miss it.) A similar book that took me down similar roads was Seeing God In The Ordinary by Michael Frost.

Finally, a book for the heart. Many have read and eulogised Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace? I’m afraid I haven’t. But a similar book on that theme did me a power of good: The Grace Awakening by Charles Swindoll. Although I am someone whose conversion story is one of a conversion from legalism to faith, it’s surprising how often I need the reminders about grace. The old bad habits of perfectionism and shaky self-esteem still pop back up like a jack-in-a-box. And besides, if grace isn’t central, we’re all sunk!

Technorati Tags: JohnWimber, RobertWebber, HenriNouwen, BrotherRamonSSF, KenGire, MichaelFrost, PhilipYancey, CharlesSwindoll

Soon after my conversion, I developed a passion for the Church. I think it’s when I discovered the words of the theologian Mick Jagger, who once said, “The church doesn’t scratch where I itch.” It was also about the frustration of having grown up in church but having misunderstood the Gospel until I was sixteen.

Somewhere I saw the works of Howard Snyder. New Wineskins (a.k.a. The Problem Of Wineskins or Radical Renewal) was a popular read, with its famous chapter, ‘Must the pastor be a superstar?’. But his next two books were significant for me. The Community Of The King has been my basic ecclesiology for a quarter of a century now – even the title is significant, for the way it denotes the relationship between church and kingdom. Then The Radical Wesley made important connections for me between contemporary radical evangelicalism and core Wesleyan beliefs and practices. It’s Methodism as I would like to know it.

Later came the call to ministry, but what that involves for me has taken a long time to work out – and I’m still in process. But one book became a compass for me, and another gave me a good shaking, because it made explicit some subconscious doubts I had about traditional church and the accompanying patterns of ministry. The compass was Working The Angles by Eugene Peterson. He set out three fundamental tasks of the minister: prayer, Scripture and spiritual direction. These help me with my sense of priorities.

The book that shook me I only read about three years ago. It was The Shaping Of Things To Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. It is one of the most solidly biblical books to come out of emerging/missional church circles. It was their emphasis on the fivefold gifts of Ephesians 4 (the apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and teaching) as given to the whole church, but key to missional leadership that articulated my anxieties with traditional ordination better than anything else since Marjorie Warkentin’s seminal study of Ordination. Frost and Hirsch so unsettled me that I ended up having a pastoral conversation with my Chair of District where I expressed some of my unease. I continue to live with, and work through that unease. It isn’t pleasant, but I pray it will be productive in the long run.

Well, I think that will do for Part 2. Do chip in with your own favourites in these areas. At present I am planning at least two more posts in this series: one on spirituality, and another on what I call my ‘pastoral first aid kit’.

Technorati Tags: books, HowardSnyder, EugenePeterson, MichaelFrost, AlanHirsch, MarjorieWarkentin

I am an avid reader. There have been many times when reading
a book has transformed my outlook on life and faith. Sometimes it has been
near-instant. Other times I only look back and see the influence. With this in
mind I thought I might highlight from time to time some of those books. Are you
sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

Foolishness
To The Greeks by Lesslie Newbigin
was required reading in my undergraduate course on Church Growth And Decline.
It introduced me to the way we are unaware of the effects of the culture we
live in – as a goldfish doesn’t think about the water, Newbigin says. He shows
how the post-Enlightenment sacred/secular split led to the language of ‘my
rights’, which made the individual human being sovereign, instead of God.
Ultimately it was the book that started me thinking about the need to relate
the Gospel to our culture.

That links to a book that on the surface was very different.
Elegantly written with flowing prose (why were the church historians always the
best writers?), Evangelicalism
In Modern Britain by David
Bebbington was the book that made me understand my spiritual heritage
better than any. The link with Newbigin? Bebbington consistently and
controversially demonstrated in every era the effects of the prevailing culture
on the shape of evangelical Christianity – from John Locke’s philosophical
impact on John Wesley to Romanticism in Victorian times, and on into the
twentieth century. Implicitly, Bebbington and Newbigin (without either of them
being biblical scholars) helped me see that even in the New Testament there is
no single expression of the Gospel. It is shaped differently in various
cultural contexts.

More specifically in recent years, this concern with Gospel
and culture has led me to explore the connections and contrasts between that
Gospel and postmodern culture. I have read extensively in this area, and of the
making of books about postmodernism there is no end. The one that got me going
was Truth
Is Stranger Than It Used To Be by Richard
Middleton and Brian
Walsh. They helped me understand the ‘totalising’ nature of metanarrative
and the way a Cross-shaped Christian metanarrative could be ‘anti-totalising’.
And besides, any people who liberally quote Bruce Cockburn have to be all right by
me!

Of course, the theory can be one thing, and the practice
another. Then perhaps about five years ago I read an interview with Brian McLaren in a British evangelical
magazine. He just seemed to make sense. It saddened me in following months when
other readers wrote in, questioning his orthodoxy. So I jumped into his work,
initially with The
Church On The Other Side (previously entitled Reinventing Your Church). Apart
from where he seemed to wobble over the place of evangelism in mission, I found
myself saying, ‘Yes! Yes!’ in every chapter. Sometimes McLaren’s concerns don’t
match British ones, but that isn’t his fault. British evangelicals have less
trouble arguing for a social dimension to mission and ministry, for example.
But he is always a welcome voice –and (unlike many of his strident critics)
consistently eirenic and humble in tone, however passionate he is.

I think that will do for starters. In coming days I’ll post
about some books that have influenced my understanding of church, mission and
ministry.

Technorati Tags: LesslieNewbigin, DavidBebbington, RichardMiddleton, BrianWalsh, BruceCockburn, BrianMcLaren

So – it took me a week to get anything on the blog after my fortnight’s holiday. A mad amount of correspondence, ridiculous levels of emails (3474, in case you’re curious – so much for anti-spam software), phone messages and people with new pastoral problems. Then some family stuff happened on top.

Congregations seem to respect busyness in a minister. It’s a sign of hard work, and they pay us. When I once had an Anglican colleague who would happily tell me at our meetings that he had spent the time cutting down a tree in the garden or sorting out a wardrobe, I was inwardly furious with him. I had been going from one thing to another, unlike him.

Rack this up against the book I’ve just finished: The Great Omission by Dallas Willard, in which the author characteristically states that the key to everything is spiritual formation as true disciples by following disciplines such as … solitude and silence. And I think, fat chance.

And the sense that church members pay ministers is something that needs challenging: strictly speaking, they do not pay us, they provide for us. Hence the manse, and not a salary (the rate for the job, supposedly) but a stipend (a living allowance). We need to recover this understanding, because it underpins the idea that enough is provided for me so that I can set aside time to pray and discern direction (something quite in tune with Willard’s approach). In these days where an understandable emphasis is being placed on accountability that is being directed into half-baked appraisal schemes and – worse for ministers – job descriptions, we need to hold onto these basics.

So it’s a challenging surprise to see announced a new book by Emma Ineson, a lecturer at Trinity College, Bristol, and formerly a chaplain at Lee Abbey, entitled, ‘Busy (Christian) Living: Blessing Not Burden‘. According to the blurb on Amazon, this is about being aware of God’s call in the busyness. Oh well, something else for the Amazon Wish List!

Technorati Tags: busy, spirituality, solitude, silence, DallasWillard, EmmaIneson