Relocation, relocation, relocation

Yesterday was interesting. During the day I went to a conference on incarnational ministry called 'Living Amongst'. About 30 people, most if not all of whom were already doing what it said on the tin - re-locating to areas those who can choose to move out of. Talk of identifying, living alongside, long-term, struggle, frustration... and the mix of joy that comes from knowing you are where you are by choice and obedience to the call of God and not through dutiful grit teeth. The word 'transformation' came up several times, in a wider context as a Kingdom vision to aim for, in a personal sense as much about OUR transformation as learners, neighbours, servants, detoxifying control-freaks as about anyone else's.

In the evening I joined with about 500 others for a big prayer event (er... not over 6000 as quoted on the BBC News website) focusing on gang crime. Here the talk was of exciting projects and initiatives run by churches and Christian organisations, often in partnership with the Police - including of course Street Pastors - community clean-ups, drops in crime-rates, acts of kindness. Here 'transformation' in the wider context was already taking place, in communities, in towns and cities, in the personal sense as something happening already to young people all over the city. I'm not knocking any of this, it's great that as Christians we're getting out of our buildings and doing stuff. But I am concerned that we think it's enough. Venture out into a poor area, do a project, come to a meeting and pray and jump and sing and think we've 'done' social action.



A few weeks ago Shane Claiborne visited Manchester. This is someone who is doing the incarnational 'living amongst' thing, in community and in a quite radical way, attracting much admiration particularly from young evangelicals. A lot of the people who were at the meeting last night were also there and heard him say the first mark of what he and his friends were trying to do was "Relocation to the abandoned places of Empire." Relocation. I heard nothing of this last night, or of any of what we had been reflecting on earlier in the day.

I kept thinking last night of a quote from Ann Morisy's superb book "Journeying Out." "The radical, missionary activity of the Church cannot, like liberal, secular, social policy, aim at the transformation of the poor. In the new adaptive zone we have entered, the aim must be the transformation of the secure, the well-meaning and the well-endowed of this world. The processes that Jesus teaches and demonstrates invest potential in the most unlikely, not in the well resourced." (my emphasis) And that transformation needs to start right here, with us.

I think yesterday I saw, and have been struggling to reconcile, two approaches to the same thing. One thinks big, one thinks small. Both have their pluses and negatives, but I think ultimately one is from a safe distance, shallower, short-term, and will not actually transform in the deeper way that I think the Bible would have us strive for - justice, inequality. (And maybe this should start with the Church and work outwards.) The other is an attempt at going further in, reducing that distance, living among, working 'WITH' rather than 'for': dare I say doing it as Jesus did - the one who sends us as he was sent. From this foundation there is still a place for projects such as community clean-ups, but it would involve working with other local people to do it. A bit different from sending in 100 young people to pick up litter FOR the community, with the risk of reinforcing the dependency culture, and never asking the question why it got untidy again after the last time we did it.

Shane Claiborne quoted Søren Kierkegaard: "The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall in the hands of the living God."

I was chatting with the speaker at the end of the 'Living Amongst' day and saying perhaps we should do a conference for the church called "Relocation, relocation, relocation". But would anyone come?

Footnote: 6pm. As I write this some of my neighbours are sitting on their doorstep across the street getting very drunk and playing the same song over and over on a volume-up-to-distortion hi-fi... Praying for rain.

Cartoon "Gabardine Swine" by Roy Mitchell. (Source: torn out of a magazine years ago)

I say, I say, I say...

There's an old joke about a Christian stranded in his house during a flood who prays that God will rescue him. When the water gets to waist height a man comes by in a canoe and asks him to climb in. But he tells him he is OK as he has asked God to save him. The water gets higher forcing him onto the first floor. He keeps praying. A lifeboat comes by and offers to take him, but he says he is OK and that God is going to save him. The water rises further and he climbs onto the roof and prays again. A helicopter arrives overhead and starts to lower a rope. But he says no thanks, I've asked God to save me and I have faith in him. The water gets higher and... he drowns. In heaven he complains to God: "I prayed that you would rescue me and you didn't!". To which God said: "Well I did send a canoe, a lifeboat and a helicopter..."



Anyone not heard that before? Thought so. Anyway, it came into my mind the other day when I was chatting with some friends about Peace Week, ChangeMakers and the whole 'mission with' thing that I have been banging on about. It seems to me that there are numerous obvious and major opportunities for churches and Christians to be involved in our society and culture, most of them stemming from two simple facts: (1) most of the things we are concerned about most other people are also concerned about; (2) it's where most of us live and move and have our being 6.5 days of the week. The other 0.5 we sing and talk and pray about justice and serving and and salt and light and having 'the Father's heart' for people, but I wonder if we have a very limited, maybe over-spiritualised, conception of what that looks like and miss the answers to our prayers.

Do Matthew 7 v21-23 and 25 v31-45 apply here or is that a step too far?

Mission with... the sequel?

A couple of weeks ago I went on a Community Organising training course. This is part of the setting up process for a Manchester Community Organising er... Organisation called 'ChangeMakers'. This is being done with help from the Gamaliel Foundation, one of the main CO outfits in the US where this whole way of doing things was started in the 40's by Saul Alinsky. It will be an alliance of grassroots groups and organisations, beginning with the faith groups and congregations and working outwards.

The training was stimulating and thought-provoking - I'm still assimilating it, and I have a few questions. But the bit that was most interesting was hearing stories of how organised communities have managed to bring about change - stories from the UK. We talk and sing and pray a lot about justice and siding with the poor and there are lots of excellent examples of Christians getting stuck in and seeing positive results. But so far I don't see the City of Manchester taking much notice, or of the issues and conditions behind the casualties we deal with being challenged or altered. I'm tired of years of talk in meetings of 'transforming the city' which doesn't actually amount to very much in the big picture (or not that I have noticed!). If this CO initiative works as others have done, that could change. For me, that makes it worth investigating. As Jim Wallis (another Organiser by the way) says: "We need to do more than pull people out of the river before they drown; someone needs to go upstream to see who or what is throwing them in."

It's the 'mission with' thing I've been going on about and doing via work with Carisma and PeaceWeek but on a larger scale, getting to grips with causes not just symptoms. However, as with something like PeaceWeek joining in with others will mean we as Christians recognise that we are not the only ones who care about the 'welfare of the city'. It will mean being willing to join in with others, particularly other faith groups, in equal partnership to work together on our shared concerns (of which we have many. One for instance... Muslim families also want their children to grow up healthy and safe). For a lot of us, evangelicals especially, that will mean deciding between our desire to see justice flow and our desire to be in control.

Cartoon by Chris Morgan.

Larry Norman 1947-2008

I heard today of the passing of one of my heroes, Larry Norman. Larry who? Way back in 1973 I was a very young Christian just getting into playing and writing music and not liking much, if any, of what was coming out of the Christian music scene in Northern Ireland. Every song seemed to be John 3 v16 set to country and western music with "me - tree - Calvaree" rhymes. There was nothing that could touch musically what I was hearing on the radio and buying. Then in quick succession I heard the albums "Only Visiting This Planet" and "Bootleg" by an American with long blonde hair. The music was rock of a quality I could play to my friends without embarrassment and the songs well written with intelligent lyrics about all sorts of issues from a clear Christian standpoint. It was a seminal moment, and I am only one of many with similar stories.



Many great songs. 'Six O'Clock News' about media reporting of Vietnam, 'The Great American Novel' a scathing indictment of US hypocrisy (including the line "you are far across the ocean in a war that's not your own" - written in 1972, eerily relevant in 2008), 'The Outlaw' one of the best songs ever written about perceptions of Jesus, 'Pardon Me' about a love affair gone wrong, 'Reader's Digest' a very funny survey of contemporary pop-culture, the list goes on... It may be hard to appreciate now, but back then a lot of these were subjects Christians just did not write about. Music was no more than a means to an evangelistic end, and usually third-rate as a result. Larry Norman was a pioneer who helped change all that. There was more to come in the superb "So Long Ago the Garden", probably my favourite Larry Norman album, though much mis-understood at the time - no 'me-tree-Calvaree' lyrics - and banned in most Christian outlets (he had a 'difficult' relationship with mainstream Christian music).

There was some controversial theology - 'I Wish We'd All Been Ready' showcased his end-times views - and some views I disagreed with. And in later years as he struggled with mounting health problems including the heart condition that would eventually kill him, his output was sporadic and only occasionally matched the genius of the early albums. But, bottom line, a greatly talented musician and a dedicated follower of Jesus who blazed a trail for many.

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Peace Week... Esther, Jonah

For the last 5 years I have been involved in organising a "Peace Week" in this part of Manchester, an area that has been plagued by gang violence and gun crime. This is for anyone and everyone in the community to get involved in positive activities, together generating good news as a counter to all the bad. This of course includes the Faith Groups, which includes the churches. Hmm... hang on a minute. Peace Week... followers of the Prince of Peace. Is it just me or is there a somewhat obvious connection here? I'm beginning to think it's just me as I can still count on one hand the number of churches that actually do anything for Peace Week (that's out of around 40 that we contact about it).

In my church we looked recently at the book of Esther. This verse struck me: "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place.." 4 v14. This is from where Esther is given the opportunity to speak up for the Jews, and it's as if God is saying to her "actually, you're not my only option, but if you're up for it, I can use you to make this happen." Is it too strong to say to the churches that are not taking the opportunity that is Peace Week that God's concern for this community is such that he will bless and use others rather than wait for his people to do something? I'm reminded too of this passage where Jonah's concern about his own comfort is contrasted with that of God for the city.

“You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.
But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” Jonah 4 v10-11.

Is my frustration boiling over into too heavy a reaction?

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Mixed

A few weeks ago I was sitting waiting for a meeting to start and one of the others, a church leader I've known for years, asked me how was Christmas. We'd had mum over to Manchester for Christmas. It was a good week and she enjoyed being spoiled and meeting family and friends, but she was beginning to struggle with her illness and had gone into hospital soon after going back, and was not doing well. I thought for a few seconds and said 'mixed'. He then said oh dear, I'm going to wonder what that means now and come up with all sorts of things. So, I told him what I meant... and that I was trying to give him an honest answer as a break from the standard Christian greeting. You know, the one that goes: "'Hello-how-are-you?'; 'Fine. How-are-you?'; 'Fine.'" He was sympathetic, but I wonder if part of him wished he hadn't asked!



Try going through a Sunday morning without using the word 'fine'. It's not easy!

Six intense days in Belfast

This blog gets ever more sporadic. This last month has been dominated by the illness and death of my mother in Belfast, so I haven't really been inspired to commit fingers to keyboard.

It's been a weird time. All compressed into just a few weeks. First knowing that, bar a remarkable miracle, her condition was terminal and her time would be short, which led into a time of waiting, visiting, phoning, trying to work, but mostly waiting. Then the final couple of days (we'd flown over the night before she died - an answer to our prayer that the timing would somehow be right) and the funeral and thanksgiving service - arranging, attending. Lots of the wider family around and, as usual when we get together, lots of laughter, this time mixed with sadness. Six intense days in Belfast when Manchester seemed like another existence. Strange... but rich. And God's understanding-bypassing peace somewhere in the mix. It was good to be together with everyone, but as my sister remarked, we shouldn't wait until the next death or wedding before we do it again! Like Joni said: "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." Note to self... make more time for what really matters.