Methodist Conference has received a report on the Fresh Expressions initiative. The report can be downloaded from this page as a Word document (see under Tuesday 10 July 2007, 10:40 am). The final two paragraphs before the resolutions are telling:

The development of fresh ways of being church as part of a ‘mixed economy’< – valuing both the new and the established – raises questions which are as yet unanswered. How do we value and encourage both the new and the old while making room for the new? What is the relationship between a fresh expression and a Local Church, Circuit or District sponsoring it? How can we encourage a fresh expression to maturity? How can we station a minister who is called to develop a fresh expression? How do we test that call? How do we test, recognize and enhance the ministries of the people God is calling to work in fresh expressions of church, particularly those pioneers not already ordained who have a proven track record of starting churches?

Further work in these areas is required. We therefore ask the Conference to direct the Methodist Council to ensure that the encouragement of new ways of being church in general and the work of the Fresh Expressions team continues to be properly resourced and supported. The Council should further ensure that the key issues being raised are addressed and appropriate guidance is brought to future Conferences.

I wonder how radical they will be. Martyn Atkins made it clear in his Presidential address that Methodism has to reshape in today’s society to be faithful to her original DNA.

Technorati Tags: Methodism, MethodistConference, FreshExpressions

… can be found here. He calls Methodism to rediscover its original spiritual DNA, rather than hanker for a golden age. Here are some juicy quotes:

I understand God best in missiological terms.

The Church is first and foremost the product of God’s mission, and then participants and partners in God’s mission to restore and renew all things. … Whenever pre-occupation with its own survival takes centre stage then the Church has lost sight of its true nature and purpose.

Consequently when the Church is missionary and evangelistic in this cosmic, wide and wonderful sense it is never more truly being itself, and when it is not, it is never more ‘unlike’ its true self.

My own view is that new ways of being Church are called into being by the Spirit of God whenever existing expressions of Church are unable or unwilling to share effectively in God’s mission in a new time, place and context. God does not shape the mission to the Church, but reshapes Church around God’s mission of reaching out, redeeming and restoring.

we should proceed apace with new ways of being Church, working out our issues as we enable their emergence, rather than kicking them into the long grass until we’ve got it all sorted. And if they are God’s idea then we must continue to take ever more seriously the strategizing and management required to redirect our resources, reconfigure our ministries, and revisit and re-envision what it means to be the People called Methodist.

Methodism was brought into being by the restoring, renewing God with a particular DNA – or better, particular Charisms, – grace gifts of a gracious God – so as to be able to play a particular role in God’s conspiracy of goodness.

My own ‘two-pennyworth’ is that the People called Methodist – lay and ordained, one People in Christ’s ministry – are a movement ‘charismatised’ with an engaging evangelicalism. The roots of some traditions are found in doctrinal disputes; the Wesleyan tradition emerges from an evangelistic imperative. Our ecclesiology is essentially missiological. Our charisms include humbly but clearly sharing Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord, by word and action. They include a reliance on the prevenient work of the Spirit, God going before and beyond and urging us to follow. They include living – individually and corporately – lives of social and personal holiness and responsibility, all arising from taking the scriptures with the utmost seriousness. Each of these involves a pragmatic, incarnational engagement rather than an unresponsive, distant disengagement. As a movement, we are created to move, being dynamic rather than static in terms of embodying the hope that is within us.

Steve Wild talks about Methodist evangelism as ‘evangelastic’; that which stretches and alters so as to be what it is. I like this term because it also hints at a lifelong process of conversion and discipleship, an Emmaus road journey, on which Damascus road encounters occasionally break in and lead on.

renewal, true renewal, is fundamentally and ultimately a sovereign work of God. We can’t create it or command God to bring it about. We can’t strategize or scheme so that renewal must come. On the other hand renewal is not totally disconnected from human longing and preparation.

My favourite model of renewal arises from Vatican II and catches this energizing balance between what God alone can do, and what lies with us. The first is to return to the gospel, and more particularly to those words of Jesus which most powerfully articulate ‘who you are’ as a community of Christ; the ‘loud’ words which speak prophetically to you, and relocate you in the gospel tradition.

The second is to return to the founding charisms, to revisit why God raised you up in the first place. Not that renewal comes because you have rediscovered your charisms. Rather that through the challenging process of identifying charisms, then retrieving them, and then reproducing them for today, you rediscover who you are in God’s continuing call. You find yourselves again.

Thirdly, to do all this as you read the signs of the times. To take seriously that you live in world radically different to that of your founding mothers and fathers, and therefore although the charisms remain, how they are expressed and embodied changes.

The continuing call of God to the People called Methodist involves fresh expressions of our DNA, for today. It is more about raising children than making clones.

Technorati Tags: MartynAtkins, Methodism, MethodistConference, mission

… can be found here. He calls Methodism to rediscover its original spiritual DNA, rather than hanker for a golden age. Here are some juicy quotes:

I understand God best in missiological terms.

The Church is first and foremost the product of God’s mission, and then participants and partners in God’s mission to restore and renew all things. … Whenever pre-occupation with its own survival takes centre stage then the Church has lost sight of its true nature and purpose.

Consequently when the Church is missionary and evangelistic in this cosmic, wide and wonderful sense it is never more truly being itself, and when it is not, it is never more ‘unlike’ its true self.

My own view is that new ways of being Church are called into being by the Spirit of God whenever existing expressions of Church are unable or unwilling to share effectively in God’s mission in a new time, place and context. God does not shape the mission to the Church, but reshapes Church around God’s mission of reaching out, redeeming and restoring.

we should proceed apace with new ways of being Church, working out our issues as we enable their emergence, rather than kicking them into the long grass until we’ve got it all sorted. And if they are God’s idea then we must continue to take ever more seriously the strategizing and management required to redirect our resources, reconfigure our ministries, and revisit and re-envision what it means to be the People called Methodist.

Methodism was brought into being by the restoring, renewing God with a particular DNA – or better, particular Charisms, – grace gifts of a gracious God – so as to be able to play a particular role in God’s conspiracy of goodness.

My own ‘two-pennyworth’ is that the People called Methodist – lay and ordained, one People in Christ’s ministry – are a movement ‘charismatised’ with an engaging evangelicalism. The roots of some traditions are found in doctrinal disputes; the Wesleyan tradition emerges from an evangelistic imperative. Our ecclesiology is essentially missiological. Our charisms include humbly but clearly sharing Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord, by word and action. They include a reliance on the prevenient work of the Spirit, God going before and beyond and urging us to follow. They include living – individually and corporately – lives of social and personal holiness and responsibility, all arising from taking the scriptures with the utmost seriousness. Each of these involves a pragmatic, incarnational engagement rather than an unresponsive, distant disengagement. As a movement, we are created to move, being dynamic rather than static in terms of embodying the hope that is within us.

Steve Wild talks about Methodist evangelism as ‘evangelastic’; that which stretches and alters so as to be what it is. I like this term because it also hints at a lifelong process of conversion and discipleship, an Emmaus road journey, on which Damascus road encounters occasionally break in and lead on.

renewal, true renewal, is fundamentally and ultimately a sovereign work of God. We can’t create it or command God to bring it about. We can’t strategize or scheme so that renewal must come. On the other hand renewal is not totally disconnected from human longing and preparation.

My favourite model of renewal arises from Vatican II and catches this energizing balance between what God alone can do, and what lies with us. The first is to return to the gospel, and more particularly to those words of Jesus which most powerfully articulate ‘who you are’ as a community of Christ; the ‘loud’ words which speak prophetically to you, and relocate you in the gospel tradition.

The second is to return to the founding charisms, to revisit why God raised you up in the first place. Not that renewal comes because you have rediscovered your charisms. Rather that through the challenging process of identifying charisms, then retrieving them, and then reproducing them for today, you rediscover who you are in God’s continuing call. You find yourselves again.

Thirdly, to do all this as you read the signs of the times. To take seriously that you live in world radically different to that of your founding mothers and fathers, and therefore although the charisms remain, how they are expressed and embodied changes.

The continuing call of God to the People called Methodist involves fresh expressions of our DNA, for today. It is more about raising children than making clones.

Technorati Tags: MartynAtkins, Methodism, MethodistConference, mission

… can be found here. He calls Methodism to rediscover its original spiritual DNA, rather than hanker for a golden age. Here are some juicy quotes:

I understand God best in missiological terms.

The Church is first and foremost the product of God’s mission, and then participants and partners in God’s mission to restore and renew all things. … Whenever pre-occupation with its own survival takes centre stage then the Church has lost sight of its true nature and purpose.

Consequently when the Church is missionary and evangelistic in this cosmic, wide and wonderful sense it is never more truly being itself, and when it is not, it is never more ‘unlike’ its true self.

My own view is that new ways of being Church are called into being by the Spirit of God whenever existing expressions of Church are unable or unwilling to share effectively in God’s mission in a new time, place and context. God does not shape the mission to the Church, but reshapes Church around God’s mission of reaching out, redeeming and restoring.

we should proceed apace with new ways of being Church, working out our issues as we enable their emergence, rather than kicking them into the long grass until we’ve got it all sorted. And if they are God’s idea then we must continue to take ever more seriously the strategizing and management required to redirect our resources, reconfigure our ministries, and revisit and re-envision what it means to be the People called Methodist.

Methodism was brought into being by the restoring, renewing God with a particular DNA – or better, particular Charisms, – grace gifts of a gracious God – so as to be able to play a particular role in God’s conspiracy of goodness.

My own ‘two-pennyworth’ is that the People called Methodist – lay and ordained, one People in Christ’s ministry – are a movement ‘charismatised’ with an engaging evangelicalism. The roots of some traditions are found in doctrinal disputes; the Wesleyan tradition emerges from an evangelistic imperative. Our ecclesiology is essentially missiological. Our charisms include humbly but clearly sharing Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord, by word and action. They include a reliance on the prevenient work of the Spirit, God going before and beyond and urging us to follow. They include living – individually and corporately – lives of social and personal holiness and responsibility, all arising from taking the scriptures with the utmost seriousness. Each of these involves a pragmatic, incarnational engagement rather than an unresponsive, distant disengagement. As a movement, we are created to move, being dynamic rather than static in terms of embodying the hope that is within us.

Steve Wild talks about Methodist evangelism as ‘evangelastic’; that which stretches and alters so as to be what it is. I like this term because it also hints at a lifelong process of conversion and discipleship, an Emmaus road journey, on which Damascus road encounters occasionally break in and lead on.

renewal, true renewal, is fundamentally and ultimately a sovereign work of God. We can’t create it or command God to bring it about. We can’t strategize or scheme so that renewal must come. On the other hand renewal is not totally disconnected from human longing and preparation.

My favourite model of renewal arises from Vatican II and catches this energizing balance between what God alone can do, and what lies with us. The first is to return to the gospel, and more particularly to those words of Jesus which most powerfully articulate ‘who you are’ as a community of Christ; the ‘loud’ words which speak prophetically to you, and relocate you in the gospel tradition.

The second is to return to the founding charisms, to revisit why God raised you up in the first place. Not that renewal comes because you have rediscovered your charisms. Rather that through the challenging process of identifying charisms, then retrieving them, and then reproducing them for today, you rediscover who you are in God’s continuing call. You find yourselves again.

Thirdly, to do all this as you read the signs of the times. To take seriously that you live in world radically different to that of your founding mothers and fathers, and therefore although the charisms remain, how they are expressed and embodied changes.

The continuing call of God to the People called Methodist involves fresh expressions of our DNA, for today. It is more about raising children than making clones.

Technorati Tags: MartynAtkins, Methodism, MethodistConference, mission

I found this amusing reflection on what it is to be a Methodist on Facebook. It needs some adaptation for British circumstances (tea and biscuits, not coffee and doughnuts; we’re probably less averse to sharing the peace, and so on), but there is enough familiar in here for a wry smile or chuckle:

Methodists
(Adapted from an essay by Garrison Keillor)

We
make fun of Methodists for their blandness, their excessive calm, their
fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret
fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like them. If you
were to ask an audience in New York City, a relatively Methodistless
place, to sing along on the chorus of “Michael Row the Boat Ashore,”
they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to
their underwear. But if you do this among Methodists, they’ll smile and
row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road!

Many
Methodists are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony. It’s a
talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or
tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little
head against that person’s rib cage. It’s natural for Methodists to
sing in harmony. We’re too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing
in unison. When you’re singing in the key of C and you slide into the
A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it’s an emotionally
fulfilling moment.

By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise
that we will not forsake each other. I do believe this: People, these
Methodists, who love to sing in four-part harmony are the sort of
people you could call up when you’re in deep distress. If you’re dying,
they’ll comfort you. If you’re lonely, they’ll talk to you. And if
you’re hungry, they’ll give you tuna salad!

1. Met! hodis ts believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud.

2. Methodists like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.

3. Methodists believe their pastors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don’t notify them that they are there.

4. Methodists usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins.

5.
Methodists believe in miracles and even expect miracles, especially
during their stewardship visitation programs or when passing the plate.

6. Methodists feel that applauding for their children’s choirs would make the kids too proud and conceited.

7. Methodists think that the Bible forbids them from crossing the aisle while passing the peace.

8. Methodists drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament.

9. Methodists feel guilty for not staying to clean up after their own wedding reception in the Fellowship Hall.
10. Methodists are willing to pay up to one dollar for a meal at church.

11.
Methodists still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the
season and think that peas in a tuna noodle casserole adds too much
color.

12. Methodists believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously.

And finally,
you know you’re a Methodist when:

— It’s 100 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service.

— You hear something really funny during the sermon and smile as loudly as you can!

— Donuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee.

— When you watch a “Star Wars” movie and they say, “May the Force be with you”, and you respond, “and also with you”.

— And lastly, it takes ten minutes to say “good-bye”.

Technorati Tags: Methodism, GarrisonKeillor, Facebook

Fred Peatross has a useful short piece on the ethical problem of lying. He tells of lying at Ukrainian customs by not declaring medications, knowing that if he told the truth they would be confiscated by corrupt officials. Against this he pitches Proverbs 12:22, ‘The Lord detests lying lips’, but in its favour Exodus 1:15-20 where the Hebrew midwives are commended for lying to protect the baby Moses.

It reminded me of when I left Israel/Palestine in 1989 after a three-week trip for theological students. We were told that Israeli security would ask us whether we had had visited any Palestinian homes (and remember how hospitable they are). The Christians who had hosted our visit advised us to say, ‘No.’ We were told that if we admitted to entering the homes of Palestinians, we would be asked for the name and address. If we supplied it, that person would then be investigated by the Israeli tax authorities. If they were behind with their taxes,the tanks would roll in and flatten the dwelling.

Fortunately, I had not been invited into a Palestinian home while I was there, but I still think the right Christian thing to do was to lie. Whatever Proverbs says, the Ten Commandments do not prohibit lying but ‘bearing false witness against your neighbour’, which is not only about truth-telling, it is also about justice. So small matters about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq fall here, for example. There remains the fundamental obligation to honesty, because it is linked with integrity and reliability. But like Fred, I am convinced it is still occasionally the Christian duty to lie for the sake of mercy and justice. What do you think?

Technorati Tags: lying, FredPeatross

Yesterday morning I preached the sermon I posted here on Saturday night, and got an interesting reaction afterwards. One lady swore I had preached it before.

‘But I couldn’t have done,’ I replied, ‘ that passage only crops up in the Lectionary every three years.’

‘Oh, I’ve got a very good memory for these things,’ she said. ‘I told you at the time how you had preached on the passage very differently from your predecessor.’

I had another conversation with a member of the congregation, who was quite animated about the story. As she talked, there was something vaguely familiar about the language she used.

So I searched the computer when I got home. The first lady was right. I preached on this very passage in February last year. The sermon is here, on the ordinary website where I used to post my sermons. Thus my text document for it was in a different folder from the one I use now. No wonder the sermon seemed to come easily (something that relieved me at the time of writing, because all Saturday afternoon had gone to seeing our daughter perform for the first time with her ballet school).

Now apart from those of you who might like to do a bit of deconstruction by contrasting the two sermons, I had a more prosaic question in my mind: has anybody else had a similar experience? It’s not like the times when I deliberately repeat a sermon, after all.

Technorati Tags: sermons, preaching, Lectionary