Tim Abbott

We need a revolution of the self

Wise words from Mark Sayers about what's missing in our conversation about the reimagining of church.

Saint Helena, and a wedding anniversary

Today is the feast day of Saint Helena, mother of Constantine, who, on becoming Emperor, declared Rome a Christian city. Saint Helena is the patron saint of Colchester, so we marked the day with a morning communion service at the site of what is believed to be the earliest church building in Britain (320AD). After 1600 years, the church site is now bordered by a new police station and a roundabout.
Leaders from over 30 churches gathered in the morning sunshine, and we worshipped, prayed and shared bread and wine against a background of traffic noise and the siren of a police car weaving through rush hour traffic.
I'm glad to be a part of these things, but I sometimes wonder what they say to the watching world, especially in such a public place with people walking past on their way into town, police coming and going and drivers and passengers catching a glance on their way past.
Later I learned that when staff came to collect a man from the cells to take him to court they found him in tears. The sound of worship songs being sung outside had profoundly moved him and brought back past memories.

Diana and I were there partly because it seemed like an appropriately odd way to start the day of our 25th wedding anniversary! We spent the evening at a fabulous restaurant with friends and one of our sons, Dan, who paid the great sacrifice of missing the Man U / Chelsea Champions League match, though at the end of the meal he and a couple of friends popped into a local pub to watch the end of the match in extra time - he's a Man U supporter, so a good result.

Todd Bentley

There's a lot of interest here in the revival meetings taking place in Lakeland, Florida, with Todd Bentley. Whilst most of the attention is on the big meetings, this video interview with Todd reveals the background to the man and this ministry.

Big meeting type stuff is always vulnerable to hype and 'crowd-think', and I'm sure there's a bit of this happening here. But my cynical side has been tempered somewhat.
Firstly by hearing Todd speak of his passion for a close relationship with God, regardless of whether it leads to any kind of ministry. Secondly, I've noticed in the meetings there is quite a focus on testimony from people who have seen God heal or work in their lives or the lives of their friends other than at the Todd Bentley meetings.

I still have an open mind about what's happening. But there are a few things I still hope to see:
- similar things breaking out elsewhere and perhaps in surprising settings/churches/streams
- people and churches touched by this move of God engaging with their communities, not just having amazing meetings
- people outside our churches being touched by the manifest presence of God as Christians offer to pray for them
- lasting fruit in people's lives

What are your thoughts about what's going on?

UPDATE 17 May: Honest questions about the Lakeland revival over at Charismamag - in a fast moving avalanche of views this seems, in my opinion a very balanced reflection which recognises gladly signs of revival whilst acknowledging sensitively the concerns of many.

Easter - Good Friday

It's been an amazing day!

Mid-day was the annual Good Friday outdoor service in Colchester town centre. By helpful co-incidence, River Island is having a refit which meant there was a big plywood backdrop to which was nailed two banners - one of the crucifixion, one of the resurrection. As part of the service people were encouraged to pin prayers to the board. There was a moment of unplanned significance as a new nail was hammered in to restrain one of the banners during the singing of "When I survey the wondrous cross". Suddenly the words, "See from his head, his hands, his feet; sorrow and love flow mingled down" seemed remarkably real.

Later in the evening I was at the Highwoods Youth Cafe where about 20 young people spent some time taking in a prayer room themed around the passion of Christ. The church there had been running a prayer room open to the community during the day and the regular Friday youth cafe gave us another opportunity to share the experience of prayer with them.

Finally, it was Street Pastors tonight. Although it was rather wet and windy and very cold the streets were busy and so were we. We prayed that people would feel welcomed, and almost immediately met a woman who said she'd just moved to the town and was amazed how welcomed she felt - and even more so after meeting us. We prayed with a couple that the taxi they'd booked over an hour ago would turn up, and it did the moment we finished praying. We chatted with a lady who wanted to give up smoking, and prayed for her too. And we helped a man with a cut hand who had been assaulted by someone with a Stanley (box cutter) knife. All in all a useful night and it's good to know the church is welcomed so warmly on the streets. Bed by 4am.

Arthur Blessitt in Colchester

    Arthur Blessitt in Colchester, originally uploaded by timabbott.

               

Since 1969 Arthur Blessitt has carried a 12' cross into every nation on earth. As you can imagine, he's got some remarkable stories to tell.

He was in Colchester over the weekend courtesy of Kingsland Church and spoke at the Charter Hall twice on Sunday. An amazing man, bold for Christ and gentle with people. Stories that speak of the activity of God more than the achievements of the man. He's not showing any signs of slowing down!

More on Arthur here

More photos on Flickr

Abbey church

Ten marks of the church-as-abbey by Chuck Warner, the Small-Church Pastor, reflects on the characteristics of the Celtic Abbey churches that for a while were centres of worship, hospitality, learning, ministry and mission.

Is this possible in our time? I hope so.

UPDATE: I had to dash off to a meeting, but I'm back, so here are further thoughts...

What I love about this model is that it seems to suggest a way forward and a hope for the church in our time. It is so complete. It has a deep internal life and an active outward life. Vibrant public worship is vital, but it's not everything. Abbey Church esteems discipleship as well as being accessible to those with little or no real commitment. It touches people's lives at every level and speaks of the mission of God in every aspect of it's ministry. And if fulfils the six traditions of the Christian faith highlighted in Richard Foster's "Streams of Living Water"; contemplative (prayer-filled) holiness (virtuous), charismatic (Spirit-empowered), social justice (compassionate), evangelical (Word-centered), and incarnational (sacramental) as well as embracing the creative and artistic. The challenge to be self supporting is, perhaps, one we need to explore further, as long as we avoid creating a Christian business ghetto.

I am optimistic. Some churches are turning away from narrow definitions of themselves ('a worshipping church', 'a charismatic church', 'a church of the Word') to embrace a wider practical spirituality that revels in diversity. I know a few. Such churches will surely be attractive, for there is room beneath their (real or virtual) roof for people with a diversity of personalities and characters who will find a place for the ministry to which God has called them. A sort of meta church, but not mega-church, if you know what I mean.

Links for today

In between a day in the office, moving the GSUS Live trailer (a day late, thanks to technical problems) and going out to a Youth Leaders gathering we're organising, here are a couple of links that caught my eye today.

Thinking Christian is Debunking the resurrection fable, in which people attempt to discredit Christianity by suggesting it's all a story made up years after the actual events too place. This is a popular suggestion from young people in school. TC's response, succinctly put and biblically supported shows that certainty in the resurrection can be reliably dated to within a handful of years from the event itself.

And in an entirely different vein... the church that featured in Four Weddings and a Funeral has started charging an entry fee. Regular parishoners can buy an annual pass! Read more here.

Synchroblog: Church and Money - What if we had nothing

As an inter-church organisation we depend on gifts from individuals and churches to keep going, a bit like most missions organisations, whether at home or overseas.

We're so grateful to all those who give, one way or another, to enable us to continue to take the good news to young people in schools and elsewhere. But it becomes too easy to slip into thinking that if we only had "... this much more giving" we could do "... so much more." This may indeed be the way of God for us, new supporters that enable us to employ more youth and schools workers and undertake new projects to reach more young people, so we are unlikely to stop inviting people to give to sustain and grow this ministry.

But here are a couple of challenges that I never want to lose sight of;

What if our income has reached a practical maximum? Is our vision limited by what we can afford to do, or is it big enough, creative enough and trusting God enough to go beyond what finance can achieve and into what people, energised by God, can achieve.

And what if we had nothing. Would the vision within us still burn so brightly that we would find a way, somehow, to continue to do the work we do. Herein lies the ultimate challenge to stay close to the vision that guides us and the God who leads us. And it has nothing to do with money.

Check out other fine SynchroBlogs on the subject of Church and Money here:

The Check That Controls at Igneous Quill
Pushing The Camel:  Why there might be more rich people in Heaven than in your local Church at Fernando's desk
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz at Hello Said Jenelle
Zaque at Johnny Beloved
Walking with the Camels at Calacirian
Greed and Bitterness:  Why Nobody's Got it Right About Money and The Church at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Kirk Bartha at Theocity
Money and the Church: A Fulltime Story at The Pursuit
But I Gave at Church at The Assembling of the Church
Moving Out of Jesus Neighborhood at Be the Revolution
Money and the Church: why the big fuss? at Mike's Musings
Coffee Hour Morality at One Hand Clapping
Bling Bling in the Holy of Holies at In Reba's World
Magazinial Outreach at Decompressing Faith
Money's too tight to mention at Out of the Cocoon
Bullshit at The Agent B Files
The Bourgeois Elephant in the Missional/Emergent Living Room at Headspace
When the Church Gives at Payneful Memories
Who, or What, Do You Worship at Charis Shalom
Greed at Hollow Again
Silver and Gold Have We - Oops! at Subversive Influence
The Church and Money at Khanya

Six major shifts

Thanks to Rick at Blind Beggar for flagging up a post from Chuck Warnock over at Confessions of A Small-Church Pastor highlighting six major shifts taking place in churches.

1. The shift from observation to participation.
2. The shift from religious education to spiritual formation.
3. The shift from “what does it mean” to “what does it say to me” in Scripture reading.
4. The shift from “hereafter” to the “here-and-now.”
5. The shift from the individual to the community.
6. The shift from belief to practice.

The ability to spot what's really going on and to express it so clearly and succinctly is a rare gift - I encourage you to read Chuck's post first hand.

Cafe church

On Sunday at cafe church we were looking at the conversion of Paul. The more informal, social, participatory nature of this monthly evening service gave me the perfect opportunity to try something that allowed people to engage with the story according to their own learning style.

We created space for:

1. Thinkers and theologians - those inspired to discuss
2. Artists - those inspired to create
3. Pray-ers - those inspired to reflect
4. Activists - those inspired to action

Because the story of the conversion of Saul is so familiar, I re-wrote it into a radio play. The great beauty of a radio play is that you can read from a script, you need minimal (or in this case, no) rehearsal and yet it allows for a heightened sense of the dramatic when done well. Acts 9 is easy to adapt as quite a lot of it is dialogue anyway, or can be easily adapted to be so, and as a result my script came almost word for word from a hybrid of the New Living Translation and The Message. We had four charaters: Saul, Ananias (who also functioned as our reporter in Damascus), Barnabas (our reporter in Jerusalem) and The Lord.

The four groups that ensued spent an engaging 30 minutes exploring the passage from their own learning perspective. We had a bit of spoken feedback from the theologians and the activists (the activists predictably organised themselves with four speakers, each reporting on a different emphasis!). Then we encouraged people to circulate (with cake & hot chocolate) and take in the contributions of the artistic and prayer groups.

The artistic group produced a great piece, illustrating Saul's journey, but there was some tension because some people took it more seriously than others. The prayer group produced some inspiring one line prayers and poems.

All in all an evening that everyone appeared to enjoy and seemed able to engage with. There was quite a spread of ages, from the core of 20-somethings to some grand-parent types, and a good few visitors who weren't expecting cafe church but enjoyed it anyway.