Last week’s sermon focused on John 15: 9-17 and used some material from the excellent OneKirk worship material and from the equally excellent Lawrence Moore’s blog, Disclosing New Worlds.  As always, youth thoughts and comments are wel,comed.

Tonight, for reasons I’m still not entirely sure of, I was invited to sit on a panel for a discussion of ‘The Emerging Church’ at International Christian College.  If you read yesterday’s post you’ll probably realise that i was pretty nervous about it for a number of reasons.

If you missed it, my article on Emerging Church is in the newly published OneKirk Journal (along with an interview with Scott Rennie and some amazing words written by Roddy Hamilton).

However, back to tonight.  It went pretty well I thought, despite me outing myself as never having been an ‘Evangelical’ which I guess was one of the inevitabilities of taking part.  Oh well.  Never mind.  I think my ‘outsider in terms of the evangelical church but maybe more insider in terms of emerging church’ position added a wider perspective to the debate.

I enjoyed the discussion but there were some things that I wanted to pick up on and perhaps save others having the same problems.

The first is that we always need to be pretty clear which emerging church we’re talking about.  This evening’s discussion grew out of the visit of Brian McLaren last year and the students wanted a forum to discuss some of their unanswered questions.  I saw the value of this but I’m not sure I see the point of only discussing what McLaren thinks the emerging church is, no matter how much fun that might be.

I don’t buy that McLaren is leading this emergence on his own.  I’m concerned that if we focus all of the discussion on what Brain thinks we miss the very real question about why stuff is emerging from ALL kinds of churches.  What is driving this experimentation?  What is it that people are dissatisfied with?  I think McLaren has a go at answering some of those questions, but he’s not the only voice in the discussion.

The second is that, believe it or not, this ain’t America.  The drivers for the Emerging Church in America are its particular political, social, cultural and spiritual context… none of which are the same here in Scotland, despite the very obvious homogenisation of western culture.  The evangelical context in America has a social and political dimension that is not replicated here in the UK where the ‘religious right’ doesn’t have the same influence in the political or social agenda.

I think we need to be more deliberate about finding out what’s happening here and who, if anyone, is writing about it.  That’s one of my hopes for Emerging Scotland, that people will share their stories and begin to chronicle the emerging church here in Scotland.

The third is that, even though it’s a crowd pleaser, cheap stereotypes about liberals sitting round candles isn’t an accurate representation of any of the Emerging Church.   Please don’t make fun of people who are trying honestly and earnestly to seek God’s will and to worship Him in ways that make more sense to them than whatever they have found in a denominational church setting.

So, overall, a good night I think.  It was filmed but I don’t know if or where that might appear…

Tomorrow afternoon I’ve been invited to be part of a panel at International Christian College to discuss what the Emerging Church is, what can be learned from it (by the evangelical church I guess) and what the downsides of emerging church are.

Along with me there will be people on the panel who know actual stuff, so any help, ideas, thoughts or general prayers or good last minute excuses would be welcome so I don’t look like a complete idiot (again).

Thanks. (off to look up what hermeneutics are/is/were/taste like!)

You’ve got me thinking, you and your comments and blog posts and yesterday’s lectionary readings about vines and pruning!  Over at Abbotsford Roddy has, as usual, been mixing insightfull questions with fabulous liturgy.  All of this led to a sermon yesterday that was a bit of a half formed thought.  So I’m going to ty to finish the thought here…

Roddy’s question was simple, yet our answers to it reveal something fundemental about what we already know about church and how it should be.  He asked:

‘If I were to start a new church it would…’.

Think about that question for a moment.  How would you answer it?  I we were to wipe the slate clean and start afresh what would church look like?  How would it be?  What principles would it be founded on?  What would we miss out?

What struck me yesterday as I was preaching my sermon was that we already know what church should be.

Our answers to that simple question reveal that.  So I’d like to ask another question:

Why do we allow church to be all the things we know it shouldn’t be?

This week on the Something Beautiful Podcast we chat with BWG* Eric Bryant, author of the book Peppermint-Filled Piatas: Breaking Through Tolerance and Embracing Love, stand-up comedian, speaker, and a pastor on staff with Mosaic in Los Angeles.

from his blog ::

We live in a diverse world filled with unprecedented opportunity. There is a call to move past the barriers that stand between us and those who may be different. Eric Michael Bryant has seen tolerance shown to those who are different than us — racially, religiously, sexually, politically, economically — and believes there must be more. After all, Jesus didn’t just tolerate people; he embraced them all with love.

Using lighthearted humor, engaging personal stories, and a “party theology,” Bryant shows us how to love our neighbors and fulfill the vision Jesus had for the church from the beginning.

Whether that is through building relationships with the help of bounce houses, stand up comedy, or piñatas, followers of Christ will be inspired to actively engage the world around them.

Eric shares about his time growing up in the buckle of the Bible belt, some of his ministry experiences in Seattle and LA as well as the lessons he’s learned about tolerance and love along the way.

(*see the book for more info)

Adele Sakler (part 2)

If you missed part 2 of Adele Sakler’s (Existential Punk) story then have a listen!

In December Brian McLaren spoke to various groups of Christians in Scotland.  I blogged about it here and here.

I found this podcast of his talk at Vertigo, Strathclyde University.

Chris discovered this short video of some of what he said!

So, I’ve blogged a bit about what might or might not be happening in terms of emerging church in Scotland.  Some journeyers met and chatted and one of the things that came up was some kind of website to help us talk and share and encourage each other and to gather people together.

So…. Come and join us at Emerging Scotland!!!

I ended the service at Drumchapel Essenside URC with these brilliant words from Roddy Hamilton:

let us go out
with quiet boldness,
tender daring,
simmering anger,
impatient justice.

let us go out with provocative peacemaking
into advent,
enough to crack open the moribund and dry faith of the world
in it’s spent and necrotic cravings.

let us go out with a message
that disturbs the world with restless whispers
about god and incarnation,
goosebumps and justice.

let us go out
and muffle our laughter
behind an unnerving truth
heaven-shaped
sharp-edged
waiting to crack it all open
and let the glory through
with a living word:
jesus

Restless whispers.  Goosebumps and justice.  That’s what Advent is for me.

Let the waiting begin.

On Friday I spent the morning at a meeting of Christian Youth Workers who are discussing setting up a network. To help us think about what the network should be and how we could describe it Neil Pratt from ICC led us through a discussion on ‘what is Christian Youth Work?’.

I’ve always been a little skeptical of the term. I agree that there are youth workers who are Christian but I see little that defines youth work as Christian beyond the motivation of the worker.

We ended up in a discussion about motivation, evangelism v education. For me, youth evangelism is not the same as youth work. Youth work is educational and not dependent on young people coming to faith.

What do you think?

I’m fed up with people who don’t know what they are talking about jumping on band wagons because it suits their purposes.

Question Time (BBC)  over the past few weeks has seen a whole load of people calling for a referendum on the new European ‘constitution’.  It is painfully obvious that the vast majority of these people have never read the proposed document, know very little about it or its implications but because the newpaper they read has decided it’s a bad thing then they agree.

The same has happened with Archbishop Rowan Williams and his comments on faith and the law.  It has been widely reported that Williams called for the introduction of sharia law in the UK.  Let’s just think about that for a moment.  The Archbishop of Canterbury thinks we should be governed by Islamic law.  Really?  Of course that’s not what he said and anyone who has half a brain and who actually listened to what he said knows that’s not what he said!  But why should the facts get on the way of an intelligent man making some thoughtful remarks on the biggest issue of our time?

And before you think I’m a big fan, I’m not really.  I think he is a brilliant thinker but I’d prefer him to be a bit more decisive as a leader.  That said, I’d rather have a thinker than a reactionary in his role.

The other day Williams suggested that Muslims should perhaps (do you see the important word here… perhaps – he’s encouraging people to discuss the idea) be able to use certain parts (not chopping people’s hands off for theft, although I’m not sure the Daily Mail would have that much of an issue with this) of sharia law to settle disputes like divorce, inheritance and other family problems where Islamic law is not at odds with civil law.  These decisions would then be ratified by a civil court.  His reason?  Some people, of all faiths, feel that God is a higher authority than the civil court.  Again, anyone want to disagree that some people, Christian, Muslim or Jew , think that?  Why should these people not be able to settle their legal disputes using their religious frameworks as long as they are not in conflict with the civil law?

This is the same principle as DIY divorce, or even mediated divorce.  You sit down with a third party, work out who gets what and then the court ratifies that decision as long as both parties are happy with the arbitration.  If not, the court decides in the usual fashion.

Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with that?  No, thought not.  But it makes a good story… as long as the facts don’t get in the way.