The week that was....

Well, it's been a bit quiet on here over the last week, mainly because it's otherwise been anything but quiet. Our daughter, Isobel, managed to dislocate her elbow and fracture her humerus playing netball (yes, a non-contact sport) in a school tournament. This has involved a rapidly growing acquaintance with Lewisham Hospital - the nearest to where it happened - culminating in surgery last Thursday to wire the bone. The only other thing to say about it is that we've seen the National Health Service at its best through all this. There are no doubt weaknesses and problems with the system, but the care that Isobel has received has been excellent. So three cheers for the NHS!

In the middle of all that, I was invited to attend the Newfrontiers leaders UK prayer and fasting days last week. There were 800 or so there in Peterborough, and it was an excellent time. And for me as an outsider to Newfrontiers, it was a fascinating opportunity to get an "inside" view of what has undoubtedly become one of the most significant movements in UK church life. There's lots more that could be said about that - but for all that I wouldn't go along with Newfrontiers in everything (and there's probably lots that could be said about that too), the overwhelming impression was of a movement in a time of transition, passionate about remaining open to the Holy Spirit and new possibilities in what God was calling them to. The challenge for me was to emulate that attitude myself.

As they said...

Final thoughts on last week's conference at Holy Trinity, Brompton...or rather some quotes from some of the sessions:

"..the Spirit in us is God pressing us towards what we are made for" (Archbishop Rowan Williams)

"Either Christianity is fire or there is no such thing" (Mother Maria Skobtsova, as quoted by Rowan Williams)

"...the opposite of poverty is not property, the opposite of poverty is community" (Jurgen Moltmann)

"A presupposed spirit is certainly not the Holy Spirit" (Karl Barth, as quoted by Graham Hunter in Ecclesiology seminar)

"The presence of the church introduces a fissure in the citizenship of the state..." (Miroslav Volf)

"The Spirit enables us to see a new beauty in God that we couldn't see before" (Graham Tomlin, interacting with the work of Jonathan Edwards)

"The Spirit enables us to do for ourselves what we could not do by ourselves" (Tom Smail)

"The Holy Spirit hates stereotypes" (Tom Smail)

There were many more - I don't have all my notes in front of me now. But there's a bit of a flavour at least.

Holy Spirit in a material world...

Well, there's lots more that could be said about the Holy Spirit conference at HTB. Some others are providing in depth reports and reflections (here and here, for example). And there were some great quotes that I'll probably share in another post, too.

But for now, just some thoughts arising from the seminar stream I went to, on the Holy Spirit and Ecclesiology (doctrine of the Church). First thing to note is how overwhelmingly Anglican the attendees were, when we all introduced ourselves on day 2. Now that possibly reflects the conference as a whole; I fear it also reflects a general lack of interests that persists among us Free Church bods when it comes to anything perceived as churchy.

A lot of the substance of the discussion, both in papers presented and the discussion on Friday, focussed around the role of the "sacraments", specifically communion, but also baptism (intriguing concept in a room full of Anglicans, but nuff said about that). This is something that has been threatening to be a bee in my bonnet for a long time, probably since realising that in our churches, if we're not careful, communion can be seen almost as an "intrusion" into the worship time - by which we mean mainly singing. The fact of the matter, at its simplest is that Jesus never commanded us to sing, but he did command us to break bread and baptise. Simples...

But then you get into the question of what is happening in these human activities. It seems increasingly clear to me that they are more than simply symbols and helpful reminders; rather that God is active in the very materiality of bread and wine and water. I've been hugely helped in thinking about all this by 2 books in particular; The Gospel-Driven Church by Ian Stackhouse, and Promise and Presence by John Colwell. So it was encouraging to be with others whose thinking has moved/is moving in similar ways; as well as some starting from a more sacramental Anglican tradition looking to combine that with more direct experience of the Spirit. And that leads me to my final "Yes, but...". It seems to me that the genius of Evanglicalism initially (in terms especially of the doctrine/experience of assurance) and the Charismatic movment more recently has precisely been that they have allowed for and encouraged a direct, (apparently) immediate experience of God through the Holy Spirit. The challenge surely is to recover the value and priority even of sacrament, God meeting his people, often unspectacularly, through the everyday elements of bread, wine and water, while remaining actively open to His meeting with people in all kinds of other, surprising ways.

What God has joined together?

I've been trying to reflect on the HTB conference on the Holy Spirit that I was at for the last two days. I'm thinking there may be several posts that go back to different aspects of the conference; to describe it as content-rich would be a gross understatement. And, of course, there was the opportunity to "bump into" people who you don't see very often who are on a similar wavelength.

The one incident at the very end of the proceedings that epitomised what the conference was about was when Graham Tomlin, who was hosting the conference (and himself gave an excellent talk) invited those who were involved in academic theology to go to the front of the church, and then invited those invloved in local church ministry to pray for them and minister to them; and then vice versa. There's plenty more to say, but if the conference marks the fact that (seriously high level) academic theology and the real life of local churches can, in the Holy Spirit, bless and benefit each other, rather than being seen as separate worlds, that has to be a good thing.

And now...?

Thought I ought to post something on here in case it seemed I'd disappeared...The election is all done and dusted now, and it seems to me the new coalition government will either work well and herald the start of the new politics we keep hearing about, or else it will be a disaster. Watch this space.

I'm going to be spending Thursday and Friday at this conference on the work of the Holy Spirit at Holy Trinity, Brompton. Seems an intriguing mix of academic theological heavyweights and worship and ministry. Should be interesting.

Engage conference

Just back from a full day at Care for the Family's Engage conference. All in all an excellent, thought-provoking day, with lots of great stories and examples of churches that are really making a difference in their community. And some healthy realism as well, in the midst of it, with some helpful talk about doing one thing well rather than trying to do everything. Lots to think about and work and pray through about what it means for us in our context in Wilmington; but there are some exciting possibilities ahead. Some questions to ponder too, that aren't new or unique to our situation by any means but that doesn't make them any less real:

• There is a journey to go on so we're all understanding that getting involved in the community isn't ultimately "about" getting people into church, it doesn't need to be "sneaky evangelism"
• How do we best discern what the real needs are in our community and match them to the resources we have available?
• Are we big enough to get things wrong some of the time and not give up just because it doesn't all happen at once?

Obviously there are plenty of resources available to help with these kind of questions, but the answers have to be owned or else all our efforts could be short-lived. Finally a couple of observations about the day:

• Considering the event was in central London, and given the high proportion of Christians in London who are part of Black Majority churches, they didn't seem well represented at the day. There could be all sorts of good reasons for this, but I was a bit surprised I guess.
• It was encouraging that two of the plenary speakers (Rob Parsons and Ian Coffey) made a point of anchoring part of their talks at least in the Bible; but also interesting that most of the attendees didn't seem to expect that. At least, I didn't see anyone who had Bibles obviously with them or open on their laps (in fairness I didn't get mine out of my bag either). Read into that what you will!