Long Journey

Kester signs off complex

The Complex Christ blog is going into liquidation. Kester has posted that he will be winding up the blog here.

I've been lurking around the blog for a good couple of years, ever since I met Kester at Greenbelt during the launch of the Complex Christ.

"The Complex Christ: Signs of Emergence in the Urban Church" (Kester Brewin)

Its been fun keeping up with Kester, both during and post vaux. The long term theme that keeps resonating with me is the concept of a dirty Christ, and the experiments with an allotment!

The book is finally being released in the US, with a new title..

It looks like it will be coming out next summer. I guess the title is more appealing in the American market, and the new cover looks less "academic" than the old. I hope it sells well over there!

Kester will continue with a new blog here.

Undersound

Steve Collins has posted this link on his Blog

Undersound

Overview:

Not all subways are created equal. What if technology designers recognized this fact and attempted to create an interface that took a deeper look at what being mobile means to each of us? What if they tried to reflect and enhance your sometimes conflicting, but always meaningful and situated, experiences? What if they designed for your underground? They did. They created undersound.

Sounds like a very interesting idea, one that could be applied in many locations. How about in spots around the village and outside venues at Greenbelt?

Brands Hatch & Racing

Rebecca & I spent a wonderful day watching racing at Brands Hatch this weekend. We were joined by Simon (my best man), and were invited along by ODL Securities who support the Dame Vera Lynn Trust. This is the trust that runs one of Rebecca's special school and where I am a trustee.

Whilst a wonderful day, it poured with rain the whole time. Rebecca loved the idea, but I was a bit worried that she would hate all the noise. She surprised us by being glued to the heritage race for over an hour, with her neck doing a whole load of work keeping up with the passing cars!

Both Simon & I rediscovered a lost love of mini coopers from our early days of being mini drivers, and the two mini's on the team were superb. Wonderful to watch a works mini keeping its nose on the rear bumper of an Aston DB5 for several laps.

The Lotus on the team came first in its class and actually lead for over 7 laps....

Apart from showing off some nice shots, and bragging about a good day out, why am I sharing this with you lot (assuming anyone visits)?

The main thing that struck me was the welcome we received. The racing team were the most welcoming, moving equipment and stopping their preparations to let the kids get into the cars. This may not have cost them too much in terms of preparation, but it certainly effected their way of working and what they did. My experience of church shows me a very different approach in our congregations. We tend to use the time around services to get ready, and to complete business. This normally makes it hard for visitors/new comers to feel that they can talk to us. We look busy and in most cases are busy doing church. But making the stranger welcome is more than having a welcome team member smile at them as they walk in the door, and is more than having one or two people keeping an eye open to make sure that they "settle" in.

Look at the picture with Simon holding Rebecca. See the grey haired man standing in the background? This is Mike.

Mike is one of the drivers of the Lotus. Mike was putting the wheels on the 2nd mini, making sure it worked fine and was ready for the race. He built the car for his daughter to race. He was the core person of the racing team who welcomed us.

Immediately after the race Mike came over and chatted making us feel part of his racing family. The team didn't seek one another out to celebrate, but first talked and chatted with the visitors, the outsiders, those on the edge. As we wandered off to prepare to leave the team started the next phase of the job.

Would this be true of a professional team, in formula one? Probably not. And maybe that is the issue for us to learn. These people are doing what they love, most weekends, most evenings. It has to be the love of the race (and all that surrounds it) that keeps them going. They are not so absorbed in the act that they don't focus on guests.

At church we need to re-learn this lesson. All too often we look for the professional way of doing things, making things efficient and value for money. Making church work. Perhaps we need to learn the job of worshiping and meeting with God and Christ. We need to re-discover the love of serving, and the joy of sharing.

This is certainly part of a personal lesson, and maybe a lesson for some of you.

Grace - VOX

I visited Grace last night, probably my 1st visit for a couple of years.

The service, VOX, was all about the spoken word and communication. A very simple service in terms of the technical side, a single screen projecting a separate soap box in a small room at the back of the church, a single mic, and Grace's toy - an iDJ.

The soap box was a brave idea. Have nothing prepared and ask the congregation if any would like to step into a room and talk about something they are passionate about for 1 min. After a slow start several people volunteered. The speech was not recorded or sent into the main area, and the room was soundproof. The effect was great, seeing these individuals speaking on the screen with no words and providing a complex backdrop for the service.

Also there were three groups running:

1) Non verbal communication - a look at how actions and gestures communicate just as strong as words.
2) A look at Elijah and the whispering voice of God in the cave
3) A discussion about the voiceless and how they get heard.

The main thing that struck me personally was looking at how God used a small voice in a dank cave to get though to Elijah. With being between jobs and facing that challenge I felt God letting me know that is where I am at. This time is not about a break, or about relaxing. But it is about God having broken the complexity and confusion of life around me, s I may just listen to what he wants to say. So I guess I'd better listen!

The other thing was how much of the ideas conveyed during the service where in tune with what we at Sanctum are looking at for our next service. So please excuse me Grace if we "borrow" a couple of ideas!

Latest Poster for Sanctum

Take a look at the latest poster for Sanctum - WORD

Its going to be a great service, and we might be taking WORD from Babel, through Jesus, and out to pentecost. Or as Fiona said, most of the Bible then!

Thoughts on Community

Having spent more time than usual at my computer, I have been playing the Xbox360 more than usual.

One thing strikes me about playing online, is how easily a small community forms just around your gamer tag. You sign in, find a game and play.

I mainly play GRAW, a 1st person squad based game where you basically have to shoot the enemy. I like being a sniper, sitting around spying out the movement and then picking one off is great fun, especially when someone comments on how many times you shot them and they never saw you once! Of-coarse I usually die more often that I kill!

Morality aside (I may write something up on gaming vs violence later), the fascinating thing is how easily these gamers adopt you into their world. One moment you play a few rounds with someone, leave the game, and next thing you know a friend invite is sitting in your messages. You hop on-line and bang, someone wants to play. Its a little like being selected for the team by your mates, without the angst!

What is interesting is the spectrum of people you play with/against, the only real absence is women (no real surprise there!). You can be grouped with Americans (the normal human type), Americans (the tourist type), Builders, Computer Geeks, Doctors, etc. Very little church chat going on, I wonder why?

The community is very open and fluid, playing a stupid game where you need the help of your team mates is addictive. You interact with literally 100's of people a night, and the only time I've ever been ejected was by some french guys who didn't seem to like me being English! I know this because of their chatter about me before ejecting me. It never seems to amaze me how most Europeans will assume you can't understand their language and say the most interesting things to your face!

Any back on subject. Looking at WEB 2.0, and more specifically Church 2.0, I wonder if the church is missing a point here. Most virtual churches I've seen are too focused on the church aspect and leave out the community aspect of their offering. I don't mean it doesn't exist, but where are the Church 2.0 apps that let people drop in and chat, with a nice virtual coffee? Church of Fools let you wander around the most, with a space to sit and chat. What about a sensible chat room that works, built right inside the church app, not just sitting to one side? A place to drop in and simply chat? Wrapped around a place with virtual prayer and virtual service, but still a place to chat.

Does one exist and I missed it (too much time on the xbox?)

So come on us emergent types, lets look at a real virtual church community. Let me know.....

Someday's we could all use protection like this!

Katherine Legge was involved in a 108 mile an hour crash over the weekend. If the 26 year old had been driving a normal city car, she'd be dead. Fortunatly she is a racing driver and was protected by the driver's compartment. She walked away from this one.

Its amazing what technology can do today, and it is amazing what the human body can survive.

Maybe we could all do with the right protection in life, I feel a bible verse coming on.......

Video on the BBC

Sanctum, Balloons and All

On Sunday, we presented the latest service from Sanctum. We looked at the tree of life, and used (with permission) the story from Greenbelt '05's Sunday worship service. Slightly adapted, so we only shared bread. We used white balloons filled with helium to act as a meditation point, with verses and thoughts on labels. The act of reaching up to pull down wisdom and life worked really well, and generated a great sense within the service.

The original idea was to project onto the balloons, but the gas ran out a lot faster than expected! However using simple lighting the effect was just as good.

Shortest Post so far

2006: The Bluffer’s Guide rides again!

Driving Becky-Lou

I was taking my daughter for a drive this afternoon. Fiona (my wife) was feeling washed out and I decided to give her a break and do some quality driving with my daughter. Not very eco friendly I must admit, but she loves driving around in my MX5 with the roof down, and the wonderful weather today may be our last chance this year.

So we drove around our back roads, out and about the beautiful Sussex villages that are on our doorstep. We stopped in Lindfield to look at a local cricket match.

OK, so a post about a drive and a nice cricket match. Notch up one more boring family related post. Oh not so fast.....

I've been doing a lot of thinking (navel gazing, if you like) on what is happening with the relationship between Church and the local community. And basically feeling down and depressed at how unattached church can seem from the community it surrounds.

Anyway seeing this cricket match, a few things struck me:

It is too easy to look at the UK today and say that the community has broken down in recent years. Blame Thatcher, blame commercialism, blame Sunday Trading if you like. BUT there ARE lots of places where the central Village Green still works. Maybe we can look at these places to act as our model and see why they still work....

OK so it is only a cricket match, but look just across the green and what do we see? I'll show you....

People watching Cricket, amazing! But further out......

So the picture is a bit small, but this is youth playing, apparently unorganized. This is not 8 years olds, but full blown teens. Not teens sulking in corners, not teens shooting up drugs. Teens playing Frisbee, that single wheel is a unicycle. And further out again......

People sitting on park benches....! Amazing!

OK, I'll stop with the sarcasm.

My point here is that there are places where "normal" life still goes on. Where generations mix and where community meets. OK I know this is happening all over the place, but the more I read and the more I think; the less I understand that our society is not a broken mess. That it is OK in lots of places.

I've read and heard a lot about how the church needs to get re-connected with the community and make itself the center of what is going on. I heard someone at Greenbelt talking about how annoyed they get at the church always trying to re-create what is already happening the community. Trying to replace it with church based things, re-create the wheel if you like.

All this activity to make church the center of society again.

But why should Church be the center? I can see that as Christians we want to make Christ the center, but in today's UK is it appropriate to make church the center?

It is possible that Church is not about being a mainstay of community in the 21st century. Maybe the time when that was the case has passed. BUT it doesn't mean that the church community ceases to exist, it just means that it takes it place alongside other community offerings.

We know that people need to meet Christ (OK being evangelical here, excuse me for a min). We know that it makes sense, or else why do we follow him, and most of us still call ourselves Christian?

So church is how we get people to meet Christ?

Not really in my experience. Church seems to be one of the latter stages in most things, unless there is some-kind of tragedy in life. If you know of a place where people just walk through the door, sing hymns, hear a sermon, and simply convert - please let me know!

If people need to meet with Christ, they need to meet him where they are at. If people meet him, then maybe just maybe they will want to come to church or be part of a Christian community.

So we need to be where people meet.

Not to evangelize, but to share like interests. As we get to know people, we meet their friends. Maybe they can meet one of ours. (I must write that "contagious Christian" book sometime - Oh its been done :)

Back to the cricket match.

Somewhere in that crowd of people there might just be a christian, maybe more than one. When we look at our congregations, what do we see? People who attend church once a week? What about the likelihood that these very same people are also involved in other groups. Our tendency to attend church also seems to translate in a tendency to belong to other organizations. Scouts, Political groups, and even cricket teams.

Well if Christians tend to join other groups, wouldn't the same hold true of people in those other groups. If they find something of interest, then maybe they might be willing to spend some time looking into things further.

The challenge here would then seem to be what is Sunday morning about? Seeker friendly offerings that hope someone might walk through the door and get "hooked"? Leaving the older christians to be "topped" up spiritually in home groups and other activities? Or is Sunday about worshiping the creator God, participating in the mysteries of faith? Leaving the rest of the week to live our faith in a real sense and interact with those around us?

Food for thought......?

Well that's another blast of thought come to an end. If you are still reading I'm amazed and please post a comment or send me an e-mail with your thoughts. Otherwise I hope you like the photo's and I had a lovely time with my smiling daughter!

Talk about knocking one for a six!