Crooked Legs

You might be wondering what happened as the result of my last blog. We had a conversation. We turned up at the attic cafe, drank some absolutely beautiful coffee, a bit of pork pie- and five people sat round and talked about the Church. What they wanted it to be, how they were frustrated, what they thought was great. It didn't really have a structure, it wasn't really much of an event, and compared to other things I've organised you might say it was pretty poorly attended. But I came away feeling strangely uplifted, encouraged. I believed that actually it made a difference. 

I've just finished reading a book by Seth Godin, a marketing guru from the States, called 'Tribes'. It's all about the future of culture, of business, of organisations. He argues that due to various factors; including social media, the internet etc.. we are entering into an age of 'tribe'. An age of small groups of people passionately following a cause, a leader, an idea- because they want to, because they believe in it. They didn't start because anyone gave them permission or asked them to be there; but because someone invited them. Someone did something. 

That's how I see the future of the Church. A movement; a group of people who exist because they want to not because they ought to. A group of people who follow, discuss, explore, challenge. There's never an end of 'Church'; people don't leave when it's finished- but when they want to. It isn't contained into 4 meetings a week,10 meetings a week- in fact, it's not really about meetings at all. It leaks into every aspect of the lives of those involved. It isn't contained into a building or a group or a room.  People are honest about who they are and where they're at. It does not exclude or alienate. People are not afraid to doubt and question.

 I see the Church as a constant, flowing, moving community of people who love each other- who meet each others needs and those around them. Ultimately Church is a people who choose to discover what the Jesus who existed 2000 years ago has to offer now; how what he said, who he was, what he stood for, impacts today. It shouldn't be afraid of being wrong, of being different, of being something that looks weird. It exists for its purpose and for its people and not for tradition or preconceptions. It might look different from one month to another. It is impossible to define and describe. That's what I long for, that's what I strive for. That's why I get out of bed in the morning.  

I believe that faith makes a difference. I believe that Church is a tribe that we need as we move forward as a society. That's my aim. I'm constantly looking for my next step. I feel like I'm getting somewhere slowly. I reckon you should come with me. I'm going as far as these crooked legs take me. 

Optimistic

I've been so encouraged recently by the feedback I've received from some of my blogs. I've been able to challenge, encourage, irritate and sympathise with people who I've never met, people I've lost touch with and people who I would struggle to strike up conversation with.

It got me thinking- why do I blog? Why do I ramble on about my thoughts ever week? Why do I spam your Facebook and twitter by inflicting my opinions on you? Why do I bang the sale drum month after month about faith and the church? Why I haven't I given up yet?

The reason, I think, is because I'm an optimist. Because I love the church, but I believe the church could be better. Because I think faith is life changing and world changing but I'm frustrated with how it's often lived in my own life and those around me. I write because I believe I can change something. Because I believe that I have to start somewhere.

But if I'm honest- sometimes I'm sick of blogging. I'm sick of writing but not doing. I'm sick of the reality of being an Optimist. But I'm not sure I know what the next step might be.

I want to have a conversation. A real one. A conversation about the stuff I write about. About the stuff you think about but don't know where to talk about it. Changing culture is not something that happens overnight.

If you're in York, this Saturday (21st jan) I'm going to be at the attic coffee bar on kings square about 7pm. I'd love to have a conversation. I don't know if you've ever read my blog before, if you disagree with me, or whether you're my biggest fan- but I'm just interested to see what happens. See you there.

Jigsaw Falling Into Place

When my friend became a Christian she said one of the reasons she felt prepared to commit to faith is that she was amazed she could be a 'hand of God' on this earth. I think there's really a beauty in that sentiment. Although it might be a testimony that some might claim doesn't encapsulate her forgiveness and redemption- to me it echoes one of the key things about 'gospel' and about Christ that often we overlook.

I've written it before, and I will write it again, I will preach it, I will talk to you about it, I will think about it; you are part of something bigger than yourself. 'Salvation', whatever that means, whatever that looks like, has to be a placing of a jigsaw piece into a glorious tapestry. The whole point of 'salvation', of forgiveness, or redemption is: The Church.

Whatever you think about that word, whatever connotations, however boring 'Church meetings' are, however screwed up the institution is; it is the light of the world. I'm personally frustrated daily by how the Church functions; by its hypocrisy and short-sitedness. But I'm optimistic that the Church is worth fighting for, that it can stand for something, that it can bring hope. And like my friend, I'm so amazed that I can be a foot or a mouth or an ear of Christ on the earth.

The 'body' language is borrowed from Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many."

The imagery is very deliberate I think. Paul could easily have used another piece of imagery; we are the 'ship' of Christ, some of us masts, some of us sails and so on. But I think that kind of misses the point. Elsewhere Paul tells us we were 'raised with Christ' (Colossians 3v1). The Church, (or if you don't like that word- the body of those that have come into faith) are today the very embodiment of Jesus. The word body is so important- because at the resurrection something beautiful was birthed; not only the bodily resurrected Christ, but another body- the hope to the hopeless, the kingdom of God, the community of faith, the body of Christ. And done right, I really believe it has something to offer.

Sadly, it is often pretty bad at this. But that's not necessarily the point. A part of entering into faith, and a vital component of 'gospel' is that we become part of something. In the same way that there is no point in saving a jigsaw piece from isolation unless we place it on the puzzle, there is no point being 'saved' if we are then not put in the puzzle of Christs' body. The Church's focus is often on 'getting people in', on evangelism. But the sad thing is that all to often what happens when we only do this is that although people come in they just fall out the other side.

And this is why I'm so frustrated by the 21st Century mentality that 'Church' is that thing you attend on a Sunday. No! I'm so frustrated that it's often led by professional Christians and attended by 'regular folk'. No! The Church cannot be constrained by four walls, by a one hour slot, by how it is defined. The Church must learn to outgrow its meetings. It must learnt to allow 'communal time together' on a Sunday to simply be an overflow of its community and not the sum of it.

I will spend my life trying to seek what this might look like. To rethink tradition when we need to, and to hold onto it when appropriate. But in an age of frustration with culture and society, where consumerism is starting to look like it might not have all the answers; I believe that we have something to offer. And I for one am proud to be a part of something glorious, but by myself I can't achieve it.

What Do I Want?

"Very simply- I want honesty". I want our behaviour to reflect our hearts. I want people to be risky enough to say what they're really thinking. I want people to be brave enough to embrace and confront their doubt. I want people's stories of faith to reflect their true journey and not some embellished version that we might find more encouraging.

I want to be the kind of Christian that acts as consistently in front of my computer as at work, in the street, with my girlfriend, in Church. Very simply- I want honesty. I want to belong to a community of honesty. Sometimes I see glimpses of this in the Church. Other times I see crowds of masked 'Christianese'; people who know what the right thing to do is, the right thing to say.

I was talking with a friend recently whose going through a bit of a crisis of faith. Part of me thinks that the situations he finds himself in haven't helped his faith. But sometimes I wonder how much room there was for him to be brutal, vulnerable and honest in the Church.

If the Church is a community of believers, living together, sharing everything, how does it get to the point when people say things that surprise us, express doubt, question the 'orthodox'. For my faith, without the opportunity to question even some of the most basic assumptions, to confront doubt, to be candid about what I believe, I know I would have left by now. I can't hack the front of Christianity, I can't pretend I'm excited and passionate when sometimes I'm not.

Very simply- I want honesty. The title and opening line of this blog, I steal from a very influential thinker: Soren Kierkegaard, who wrote an article in 1855 on the same topic. He was frustrated by the Danish Church, the official "Christianity" and the comfortableness of its members. He refused to call himself "Christian", because to him, "Christianity" didn't reflect what Jesus taught, what the New Testament spoke about.

I wonder how Kierkegaard would have fared in the 21st Century British Church. Whilst we may have rediscovered some of the core of what Christ is about in some ways (compared to the Church in his time), in other ways we still desperately lack honesty. And in some ways, we fail to question the core of what Jesus is about. We are sometimes scared of asking basic questions, it is often easier to 'present' ourselves as coherent and together than to be ourselves in front of others. I am often frustrated this.

Perhaps you don't agree. Perhaps you think it's good that the Church isn't too over-personal and frank It might get a bit messy if we have to listen to what everyone actually thinks instead of the official line. It might be discouraging to hear skeptics voice their opinions at risk of stopping others coming to belief. It might make people who are firm in their faith begin to doubt.

 But I do wonder if we're risking honesty at a high price. I wonder if people like my mate might have firmer foundations when the hard times come if they were encouraged to wrestle with doubt more, if they were forced to say what they really thought about things.

Very simply- I want honesty. I am exploring what that means, and perhaps it starts with myself, it starts with you- being prepared to be honest with people. Being prepared to paint our journey of faith as a messy, difficult, glorious, doubting, tiring, but rewarding story. Being able to tell people our struggles, being able to share our doubts with others. It starts with us modelling honesty, and creating a culture of it. I wonder sometimes if a culture of honesty requires a complete upheaval of the structure of 'Church'. But I'm optimistic that we might make this 'Church' thing work somehow.

Any Day Now

Sometimes I'm not very passionate about Jesus, sometimes I go along with it without really feeling it very much. Sometimes I feel the pressure to fit a certain mold, to be a certain person and I just run away from it. Of late I feel like I haven't invested much time in 'relationship with God'. Sometimes I'm not even sure if I understand what it means. I feel a bit like one day soon I'll get a bit more passionate, that I'll get 'better' at this. But generally I'm apathetic about faith.

I don't really understand why I'm apathetic. I think probably it's a bit of a vicious cycle- The less time I spend investing in my faith I end up less passionate. If only I were more passionate I might spend some more time doing it.

But in all honesty, some of time I feel I've heard it all before, that nothing can really excite me or inspire me. That's not true at all, firstly because I don't know it all; my knowledge of the bible is poor, my time spent in prayer is dismal. And secondly things do inspire me, things do move me if I give them the chance. But a lot of the time there's this shell which comes out when I enter Christiandom. From the outside I look impenetrable, impressive, Christian. On the inside I'm skeptical, apathetic and selfish. I might be able to sing that I surrender my all to Jesus, I don't really mean it. Not usually. I might be able to respond well when someone asks me what I think. But I've had a lot of practice.

I've known about Jesus, that my sins are forgiven for as long as can remember. I've known that God loves me before I knew that water is H2O. I find it difficult to be surprised by these things, because I don't really know what my life would be like without them. I totally take for granted the grace of God, the peace of his presence, the impact he has on my life. I really do envy converts who have come to Jesus and turned away from their old life. I find it hard to sing "I once was lost but now I'm found", because I don't really feel that at the age of four (or however old I was) that I really was lost. And consequently I find it hard to get excited about being found. It's not that I don't think I've ever sinned, but more that I don't feel particularly like I have an 'old life' to turn away from.

Bringing people up with bedtime stories of Jesus and teaching them of grace and prayer and the love of God is brilliant. I imagine that I will want to do the same if I ever I have a family. But sadly I also think it's responsible for the huge amount of people that shield themselves to God in later life. "I've heard it all before" "My family are all Christians" "I used to believe in all that nonsense" are sure ways of stopping the truth and power of God ever effecting your life. Sadly, it also fills Churches with thousands of apathetic people who believe but are utterly apathetic. People who build shells around them that look and behave exactly like they should, but don't really care. For them Church is what they do on Sundays, it's where their community is. But ask them to die for it and they'd be the first out of the door.

How do we reach the generation of Christians that don't get excited about this, who build a Christian shell that never really reaches down to the core of their being? If the Church started to be persecuted in the West, then I'm pretty sure we'd kill out apathy. But it isn't. Apathy is like a bacteria that is so difficult to attack but which grows and grows alongside genuine, passionate Christianity. I don't really know what the answer is. But apathy has the danger of holding back something which is life changing, risky, passionate, dangerous and exciting.

We need to start getting vulnerable about faith, about what we really think. About what we really struggle with. I want to be the person who is consistent to the core, that is as passionate on a Sunday afternoon as I am on a Monday morning. I want to break down the shell, and I don't want to be apathetic. I don't really know how to do it though.