Biblefresh

Went to the London launch yesterday of Biblefresh, the name for an initiative aimed to tie in with the fact that next year is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible, with all the influence that has had on English language, literature and culture. The aim of the initiative is partly to re-enthuse Christians for the Bible, and partly to provide a platform for others to engage at a variety of levels with the Bible too. The beauty of it is that the outworking will be locally-driven; it's not about following a centrally dictated programme. It all has potential certainly. How it works will depend on what individual churches make of it.

Telling stories

Flashforward is back on Monday evenings, and just as confusing as ever. What was interesting last night was how the episode worked. In terms of new events, happening in the "now" of the story my guess is there was probably about 20-30 mins of action. Take out the inevitable adverts and the full 5 minutes recap of previous epoisodes and the rest of the episode was flashbacks to events in the past which have a bearing on current plotlines; or even, flashbacks to people's memories of their visions of the future, which is a fairly mind-boggling concept.

What the whole concept does, and is underlined by the structure of last night's episode is to heighten suspense by altering the normal straightforward chronological sequence of stories. Of course, this isn't terribly new; lots of stories do that in many different ways, and have done for years. And in doing so, they highlight that the present moment, the now, does not exist in isolation from either the past that has led to it, or the future that will follow, however unknown that is to us.

In one sense, Christians should get this more than anyone. The events we remember this week in particular, of Jesus' death and resurrection, are events in the dim and distant past. Yet our claim is that they shape us now in a more significant way than anything in our personal history, at least in theory. And they point to a future that shapes us too in the now, even though we don't know all the details. As one of the characters in a previous episode of Flashforward put it, "I've seen the future and it's changed my life". I guess we should add our "Amen".

Multi-voiced?

I've been thinking quite a lot recently about the practise of open or "multi-voiced" worship. It's very much part of our practise at WCF, arising from a mixture of both charismatic and (in the dim and distant past now) brethren influence. And while there are "risks" involved and issues to handle, there are some wonderful examples of things being shared from the body of the church that have far greater impact than the official voice of the pastor. But sometimes the best bits are when not much seems to be happening. This quote from Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days, reflecting on his (fictitious?) childhood in the brethren, says it all:

There was a lovely silence in the Brethren assembled on Sunday morning as we waited for the Spirit. Either the Spirit was moving someone to speak who was taking his sweet time or else the Spirit was playing a wonderful joke on us and letting us sit, or perhaps silence was the point of it.

Song and dance...

Have somehow ended up watching Glee on a Monday evening recently. We've decided that it's basically High School Musical for adults; or maybe not adults but the post-pubescent anyway. Which isn't to say that it's not entertaining in a slightly odd way. What it does illustrate quite well is the value system that dominates the media and the generation a little bit younger than me....

There are some very positive features to this; not least it's commitment to being inclusive of all, non-discriminatory etc. The only downside to that (and this is hardly a new insight) seems to be the inability or lack of desire to ever make a value judgement about certain lifestyle choices, particularly in the area of sexual ethics. But this isn't a whinge. It seems to me that's just the world as it is now, and highlights one of the challenges to Christians who are living a different way.

All that being said, it's fascinating that some of the basic themes explored in Glee are all the things I remember writing about in 'O' Level (yes, that dates me) English essays about Shakespeare. In particular the whole thing of appearance and reality. "Nothing new under the sun", as someone once said.

The narrow way?

We've been using the Just People course at WCF over the last few weeks. It's a joint effort between TEAR Fund and Livability, and focusses on justice, compassion and integral mission. And it's been very good, has "grabbed" people and moved conversation along in the whole area of church, community and mission.

Last night we had a couple of guests who I interviewed as part of the evening; the local PCSO and a local councillor. It was an excellent time, eye-opening, challenging and practical. But at one or two points it also raised questions with me. It comes down to this, I think: It would be easy, in a predominantly middle-class community such as ours for the church's community involvement to be co-opted into becoming part of the overall "Let's keep a nice village feel to the area"movement. That may or may not be a good thing; and also may or may not reflect the values of the Kingdom of God. The challenge for us is to walk the tightrope of getting involved without finding that the agenda we are working too is basically someone else's other than Jesus'.

"People are strange"

That's a phrase I find myself using a lot, or something like it. The thing about cliches is, they're so often true. Anyway, I found myself thinking about this phrase - why do I use it? What does it really mean?

On one level, maybe it's a failure of empathy - to describe someone's actions as strange might just mean that I can't (or can't be bothered to) attempt to put myself in their shoes. Another worrying thought is that it could mean that I'm setting up how I react, feel, my attitudes and thought processes as some kind of norm. Anyone who doesn't match up to that is somehow odd. But, of course, it could just as easily be the other way round, I could be the odd one...

At the end of the day it's simply a way of describing the glorious unpredictability of human beings. There's so much going on inside all of us, and so many external factors influencing us, that we simply don't function in a machine-like way, where predictable inputs produce predictable results. That is both wonderful and frustrating at the same time. More incredible still, is that the God who made the universe with all its regularity and order became a real human being in Jesus, subject to all the vagaries of real human life. And has chosen to carry on working through people with all their randomness and unpredictability. Now, to my mind, that really is strange.

Twists and turns

I spent a good part of yesterday taking a small tree out of our back garden...all seemed a bit of a shame in some ways but it needed to come out. Anyway, it was fascinating to see just how twisted the trunk and branches were, and how all the branches seemed to cross over and intertwine; and it didn't exactly make taking it out any easier! But it was a vivid reminder of the power of life. While that tree was alive it would grow, and if there were obstructions in the way it would grow round them; be shaped by them, yes, but keep growing. Life and growth are two sides of the same coin. Where there is spiritual life, whether at an individual or congregational level, we should expect to see growth. But that growth won't be in neat straight lines - it will be twisted and hard to untangle, and won't look like it's going anywhere at times. Let's hope I remember that.