Greenbelt 2011: Dreams of Home

Dreams of Home was the theme of this year's GB and in the tent at night after the long walk to the site when it was pouring down and COLD then I must admit, I dreamed of HOME and a hot shower and a warm bed. But most of the time at Greenbelt I felt I was home.

The painting is the view from the flap of our tent on the final morning as we were ourselves packing up and Homeward Bound. So it captures for me something of the 2 homes. The temporary tented home that GB manages to create each year at Cheltenham Race Course and the anticipation of my own home, my place of being as part of family which maybe (hopefully) reflects a dream of a more eternal home...

DREAMS OF HOME

Greenbelt represent a space which generates freedom to explore faith and belief, in the context of music, Art, creativity, Justice, variety, spontaneity, humour, food and drink, challenge, concern, It attracts all ages, all types, children, youth, families, elderly, monks and punks, laity and clergy, speakers and listeners, promoters and punters.

The CMS presence was much smaller than the usual CMS marquee , reflecting hard times. But we were there in G-Source and we had some great conversations with GB punters. We were featuring the Pioneer training, but we were able to also talk to lots of CMS members and supporters as well as ex-Misson personnel. Chuli Scarf, ex CMS Area Coordinator was there to lead Salsa dancing. She is off soon with CMS-Asia to teach cricket to girls in Nepal.

I also spent some time on the Musalaha stall. GB is currently focused on the Wall dividing Israelis and Palestinians and Musalaha represents a small action - taking people of conflicting backgrounds into the desert on camels to leave their baggage behind and to encounter each other. They have been a CMS partner for a number of years.

There are lots of other groups in G-Source: YWAM, Tearfund, Medair, Applecart's 12 Baskets, Mildmay; Retreat Centre, and lots more ....

For me the highlights this year included good wholesome food Nuts (with especially good deals for crew) Mushroom, Dhal, Veggie Berger, Falafel which could be consumed whilst listening to live music in the Performance Cafe; Foreign Slippers, the Ronaldos (a skittle Band) singing Ghost Riders in the Sky ; folk singing from Peter and the Wulf (Pete Ward was the ABC's youth Advisor and used to be a CMS Trustee). Their music 'Foolish Folk' is available for download from bandcamp

Soul space is a GB tradition for quiet creative meditation. There is lots more on offer Taize singalong in the Big Top: Ian Adams was doing a meditation/reading on his book Cave Refectory Road in Abide, next to a Christian Meditation Yurt 'Breathing Space'. And then there is the Worship Cooperative - I dropped in on an excellent session on Curating Worship but I unfortunately missed Pal Singh's Sanctuary (Asian Worship) although I did encounter his Sitar player tuning up on the stairs.

The GB communion is the only event that everyone is more or less expected to attend - vast crowd packed in front of the Main Stage. The collection at the communion service always goes to support Trust Greenbelt. For me there is no doubt that eating and drinking together as an act of worship does create a sense of community, a feeling of home coming.

I didn't get to any main talks this year. I just heard snippets of Rob Bell telling a story about a Jawbone of an Ass on MainStage and Paula Gooder wondering 'Do Angels have wings?' in Jerusalem. Talking of Angels, there was a big push this year for more supporters - Greenbelt Angels account for 15% of Greenbelts income. Do think about becoming an angel....

ART FOR ALL

The Methodist Art Collection was stunning. it was my Greenbelt 11 high: 'Jesus in the Everyday'. Each year there is an art stream 'Art for All' and I have increasingly found a home there - which has maybe helped to ignite an inner passion for drawing/painting. They had 6 areas to visit with a free poster at the end (they ran out of posters but I did it anyway) Angels of the North; a Huge steel and enamel Bowl by Mel Howse (Christian Aid Cathedral Exhibition); an participative 'where the wild things are' mask making which caught people's imagination; a light show Lumina Domestica by Willie Williams; and the Scriptorium , where individuals hand scribed Matthew's Gospel from The Message, as well as the Bible Society's People's Bible project.

IN THE ARMS OF JESUS

a pint of 'Jonah (and the Ale)' in the Jesus Arms, catching up with people I know well, Peter and Grace, Nigel, Katie, Colin - various friends. They used to serve Deliverance, Redemption and the best name in my opinion 'Absolution' There were lots of other ideas for names: He-brews. Ale-Mary, Holy GrAle. Ale-luyah. Unfortunately I missed Beer and Hymns.

I downloaded the #GB11 APP before Greenbelt, but it still didn't get me to things on time. There is far too much to do and to see. Everyone's Greenbelt is different, but then again everyone's home is different, reflecting something of who they are. Greenbelt gives you the space to be yourself .... safe in the 'Arms of Jesus'

The Twin Towers: Post-colonialism & Globalisation

The drawing of Malaysia's twin towers – in KL - otherwise known as Petronas towers - represent the emerging South and shifting centres of power, especially after the destruction of New York's Twin Towers 9/11 nearly 10 years ago.

Kuala Lumpur was the context for our CMS Interchange Network meetings in which we reflected on Post Colonialism and the search for a new mission.

We were using Jonathan Ingleby’s book: Beyond Empire: Post-colonialism & Mission in a Global Context (Author house 2010) There is a Facebook page if you're interested and an article on Redcliffe e-zine.

The issue is that although the church has expanded in the Global South, Mission is still very much controlled from the Global North (or the Western World) through traditional leadership structures that are hierarchical, patriarchal, territorial, legalistic, and membership-based.

The search is on for a post-colonial mission which expresses a more Radical orthodoxy

I felt it was appropriate to be meeting in Malaysia ("truly Asia"), a culture of fusion where India meets China, with expatriate Europeans, overlaying the native Malay culture and the deeper ‘orang Asli’ (aboriginal peoples). Malaysia has I feel, through its very context, many lessons to teach the wider mission world.

The book helpfully explores 5 main tactics for reversing this trend (see Tactics from Beyond Empire pgs 46-60) exploring the freedom to think otherwise. Post-colonial resistance involves emphasising the subaltern voices,hearing thevoice from the margins. It is a non-violent, confrontational approach.

(i) Interpolation: appropriating the colonial in order to dismantle it, and then reassembling by translating the message into another culture ie I play our game but by my rules

(ii) mimicry: using analogy and metaphor; being ‘like but not like’ more a copy not a clone; As an example I remember in Pakistan (the land where copyright meant 'my right to copy') cars were proudly ‘made as Japan’

(iii) archaeology: the idea of digging up the past - looking for the indigenous experiences that have been buried by colonial culture - hearing voices from the margins and thus subverting the prevailing modernist orthodoxy

(iv) Palimpsest: re-using a canvas or Papyrus/ manuscript. The idea was reusing them because they were so rare and valuable - re-writing the story, giving head to what had already been written. The idea that no inscription is indelible - the past can be re-written. Indeed an alternative version of events must be written.

(v) Representation: This is against ‘history written by the victors’, Other narratives must be explored as sites of resistance "Nothing that has happened should be regarded as lost for history" (Benjamin) Even something as well established as Remembrance Day also involves a forgetting of other conflicts (inc current ones)

So Post-Colonialism honours the 'subaltern voices', digs deeper in order to understand complexity and has a wholehearted tolerance of diversity.

Post Colonial Misison may well involve exploring a new form of partnership - maybe co-mission, companions, co-participants, or co-workers, which are more cross-cultural partnerships. I explored some of this in an earlier blog on East and West - see Two States of Marriage

Gillian Ross (pg 92) talks about the broken middle, and how in holding extremes in tension, a new level of trust emerges. Post-Colonial Mission may well involve exploring alternatives to the arrogance of power ("my grace is sufficient for my power is made perfect in weakness"), a weaker mission from the West, more subservient to the leadership of the East.

'Woof, woof': a walk on the wild side

I did this picture to remember Jess, our Border Collie for many years. We had lots of fun and great walks and good memories.

The picture evokes some of those walks ...... But also a sense of looking out at the wilds and contemplating the beauty of what is out there... Beauty to be enjoyed. Country to be explored. An adventure to be had.

When Jess died last year we buried her at the bottom of the garden, her garden, under a pile of stones in the midst of a wild patch - a sort of memorial pile of stones, a cairn.

MEMORIALS

Sometimes the Church is also thought of as a sort of memorial in a very positive way - ('do this in remembrance of me'). Walk around any ancient church and you get that sense of faithfulness over the centuries as people have worshipped and prayed in the same location. A great sense of tradition and history. The very stones cry out .....

Stones also act as a marker, a beacon. They can point in a certain direction. They were put there for a purpose - maybe to mark a trail. What they were for is not always obvious. It requires local knowledge, a sense of history.

But there is a danger of just becoming just a 'pile of old stones' - a memorial to the past. The church must always be dynamic, changing, relating to the context and the times. a message that is vibrant and fresh. Good news to all people.

RELIGION SAVES

I picked up a copy of Mark Driscoll's book 'Religion saves; and nine other misconceptions'

I liked the title but as I read on I was less enamoured with the content. It was a great idea:

'Driscoll set out to determine the most controversial questions among visitors to Mars Hill Church website. IN the end 893 questions were asked, and 343,203 votes were cast, and in Religion Saves Driscoll answers the nine questions receiving the most votes. in his responses Christians and non-Christians alike will find much to convict, to encourage and to shock them out of complacency'

It was democratic process of arriving at questions to address. Almost a bit of Crowd intelligence or Crowdsourcing. But the answers are not postmodern, wisdom of the Crowds, more the modernist, authoritative voice of the individual. And he is outspoken and frank.

Three questions deal with sex and dating, two questions cover the emerging church, then there is one question about Calvinists and Armenians, one covers the differences between Protestants and Catholics, and lastly the difference between old school and new school Calvinists.

But I was most interested in Question 2: The Emerging Church.

Driscoll talks about 'The four lanes of the missional church highway'

1 Missional Evangelicals

2 Missional House Church Evangelicals

3. Missional Reformed Evangelicals (his preferred position) and finally

4 Emergent Liberals who he particularly critiques - Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt and Rob Bell.

The first 3 positions are more or less the same... changing the church from within. He argues the last road is however reinventing the Christian faith. And to be avoided....

You can watch Mark Driscoll's video addressing the issue of 4 Lanes of the Emerging Church or look on the Mars Hill Blog

Facing different paths and wondering which direction to take

At the end of the chapter he cites Tony Jones:

'Emergent Christians. too, are pushing over fences and roaming around at the margins of the church in America. Once domesticated in conventional churches and traditional seminaries, more and more Christians are moving into the wilderness. They occasionally wander back, feeding off the structures and the theologies of traditional Christianity, but they never stick around long. Attempts to redomesticate them will fail. They've gone feral.'

In the video Mark Drscoll adds 'I think they've gone off the highway and are lost out in the woods.....'

where the wild things are, the place of adventure and fun, not just of sterile domesticated orderliness. I was left wondering which one I would prefer to travel on ? The well worn highway or the uncharted byway.....

"Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference" (Robert Frost)

I was surprised by the strength of the opinions he cites about these emergent leaders: 'Attempts to redomesticate them will fail. They've gone feral.'

And Driscoll ends the chapter even less ambiguously (and less graciously): 'This must have been what the apostle Paul was talking about when he said false teachers are 'dogs!'

Well all I can say is 'woof, woof'........

.... walkies anyone?

Random thoughts

A bit of random fun on Facebook got me thinking .....

The message below - when I did it - produced the result above

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2 - Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. 3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. Third picture no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4 - Use Photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together. 5 - Post it with this text in the "caption" and TAG the friends you want to join in

As someone suggested mine looks like a real album cover. The one I saw on another friends status looked even more convincing ....

A further facebook friend has pointed out 2 websites that generate random covers: album cover generator and fake album cover with both a twitter following and a facebook group.

That got me thinking - how much of what we attribute meaning to is actually random. Meaning making is retrospective. we see patterns and make connections and attribute meaning to what may be otherwise random events. And even if that is so then so what...

It reminded me of something else I read about random tourism. Go to a city / town and using a pack of cards, draw a card - Hearts go straight, Clubs left, Diamond right, Spades back. And walk the number of blocks on the card. Just follow the cards for the day and see what happens.... talk to people, visit places en route....

Maybe we need more 'random' in our lives.... not everything planned ..... more 'wandering for the love of God'......

Back to my random quote:

"Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Premature clarity is a dangerous thing

I  have been involved in a number of discussions about the future in various organisations, particularly in the context of financial downturn,  and there is a tendency to want to make decisive moves with long lasting implications. Sometimes we need to check. Michael Fullan's book Change Forces With A Vengeance  offers some asssistance here 

In a chapter on 'New lessons for complex change'  which can be viewed online  he talks about how 'Premature clarity is a dangerous thing.'

 

Fullan suggests that when you are facing a complex problem with a sense of urgency there is nothing more seductive than an off the shelf solution, the clarity of charisma or anything that provides the comfort of a clear direction. He asks that we resist it. 

‘People refer to gurus because they don’t know how to spell charlatan.’   Peter Drucker

 

Fullan comments that Heifitz and Linsky in their book 'Leadership on the line: staying alive throught he dangers of leading' (2002)  make the distinction between technical and adaptive change.  We tend to know the answers to the former but not the latter. Technical change is hard enough, in education for example, it is improving numeracy and literacy.  But adaptive change is more fundamental - it is transformation of the system.

 

‘Everyday people have got problems for which they do, in fact, have the necessary know how and procedures.  We call these technical problems.  But there is a whole host of problems that are not amenable to authoritative expertise or standard operating procedures . They cannot be solved by someone who provides the answers from on high.  We call these adaptive challenges because they requirenew experiments, new discoveries and adjustments from numerous places in the organization or community.  Without learning new ways – changing attitudes, values and behaviours – people cannot make the adaptive leap necessary to thrive in new environments.   The sustainability of change depends on having the people with the problem internalise the change.’   Heifetz and Linsky 2002

 

The authors suggest that in transformational change ‘peoples hearts and minds need to change not just their preferences or routine behaviours’ 

Fullan summarises his section on premature and false clarity by suggesting that: ‘

'Clarity generates through interaction, problem solving, and communities of practice, delays premature closure enough so that the checks and balances of complexity theory serve to scrutinise ideas’ 

3rd places and liminality : Graceworks - Woking

Ali the Graceworks Youth Minister at Christchurch did a presentation on Youthn ministry as par tof his Pioneer ministry course at St Militus  (Graham Tomlin )

I want to reflect on 3 things I picked up on  Liminality, Thrid places and a simple rule of life 

LIMINALITY 

Roxborough is the guru on Liminality. See for example The Sky Is Falling: Leaders Lost in Transition  and also the Roxborough journal  where I found the following:     

the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot famous for chaos theory, who generated the idea that when a butterfly flaps its winds in the middle of a South American rain forest it causes a storm over New York City. They were discussing how we typically imagine ourselves living in a managed, predictable world where repeated patterns of activity cause us to assume the patterns will continue on into the future. Their challenge this belief by stating that, in fact, small, unnoticed disturbances result in massive, unpredictable consequences in the most unexpected places.

Jonny Baker calls him   A kindred spirit

I like the expression: 'Living with the impact of the improbable'. It is on the edge of chaos where the most creativity is to be found.

If you are interested it also worth looking at together in mission  and their work on 

Responding to a changing landscape   gathering - learning - travelling

 

In their Youth strategy  Graceworks focuses on 4 areas of

Leadership discipleship worship and mission

This is part of the mission-shaped church focus. They are looking at pushing the boundaries with a possible change of venue and time  and video based teaching.  

 

THIRD PLACES

 

The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg (1989, 1991) 

“Most needed are those ‘third places’ which lend a public balance to the increased privatization of home life. Third places are nothing more than informal public gathering places. The phrase ‘third places’ derives from considering our homes to be the ‘first’ places in our lives, and our work places the ‘second.’”

Third places  (home is 1^st place, school work is 2^nd) are the most significant places for Christian mission to occur because in a third place people are more relaxed more open to meaningful conversation and interaction.

Places where community can be built, where access is  free, food is available  accessible places within walking distance,  gathering places which are comfortable and welcoming where friends are to be found.

BT had  agreat quote about small rituals and 3rd places 

'Third Places' are neither home nor workplace, but somewhere between. Places to meet, socialise, relax, hang out, work away from the office. Places to eat and drink without pressure to consume or move on. The 'third place' is epitomised by the modern coffee shop, with its sofas and newspapers - a revival of its 18th century role - or by the internet cafe.

That coffee shops should be third places more than bars, say, has to do with the beverages consumed. Stay in the bar all afternoon and you will get drunk. Stay in the coffee house and you will get things done. Of course it's not always that clear-cut. But for a place serving alcohol to function as a third place, its raison d'etre must not be the consumption of alcohol.

Of course, in many ways this is a new name for the role that cafes have long performed in Mediterranean life. But the 'third place' is not focussed on the act of eating and drinking in the fashion of traditional cafes, restaurants, bars and pubs. The food or drink one consumes is the entry fee, not the point. The 'third place' is a living room, but not in someone's house; a workplace, but not in someone's office.

Mission is incarnational it is about knowing 'God in Culture'   The goodnews can only be proclaimed IN a culture not AT a culture. And 'coffee shops' are part of our culuture

Exploration of the use of the coffee shop space in Christchurch (Beacon) is under review. Is it possible to create a third space which is multi-user-friendly for young and old alike ? Starbucks sees to have done so.  

Whatever he does Ali has my support.  Gracework's  Re-roote has been great for all of my kids.   

I'll leave it at that and think about the Simple rule of life next time 

'The Shack' a great story for Trinity Sunday

The Shack, a novel by Wm. Paul Young is something of a publishing legend.  I quoted from it during this morning's sermon, on Trinity Sunday, as an illustration of the relational nature of God. 

The main character Mack meets three people in the Shack who take him on a journey dealing with a major life trauma – the brutal death of his daughter.

• ‘Elousia’ a beaming African-American woman, a large, homely woman who embraces him in a bear hug.  ‘Papa’ as people call her is full of homely wisdom, as she cooks and housekeeps. 

• A Middle-Eastern looking handyman called Yeshua (or Joshua, or Jesse),   but called by his common name  ‘Jesus’ throughout. He is about 30, ordinary looking and he 'fixes things'. 

• And a small Asian looking woman called ‘Sarayu’ - translucent, shimmering in the light, with hair going in all directions as if blown by the wind.  Easier seen out of the corner of the eye, Sarayu is 'keeper of the gardens among other things'
  

 

And Mack ponders that  'since there were three of them, maybe this was a Trinity sort of thing. But two women and a man and none of them white?'     

It may not fit your image of God either... 

“Then,” Mack struggles to ask, “Which one of you is God?”
“I am.” Said all three in unison. Mack looked from one to the next, and even through he couldn’t begin to grasp what he was seeing and hearing, he somehow believed them. (p87)

One domestic scene represents this relational nature (P104-105) Mack goes to investigate a noise: 

Mack was shocked at the scene in front of him. It appeared that Jesus had dropped a large bowl of some sort of batter on the floor and it was everywhere. It must have landed close to Papa because the lower portion of her skirt and bare feet were covered in the gooey mess. All three were laughing so hard that Mack didn’t think they were breathing. Sarayu said something about humans being clumsy and all three started roaring again. Finally Jesus brushed past Mack and returned a mnute later with a large basin of water and towels. Sarayu has already started wiping the goop from the floor and cupboards, but Jesus went straight to Papa and, kneeling at her feet, began to wipe off the front of her clothes. He worked down to her feet and gently lifted one foot at a time, which he directed into the basin where he cleaned and massaged it.
‘Ooooh, that feels soooo good!” exclaimed Papa as she continued her tasks at the counter.
As he leaned against the door watching, Mack’s mind was full of thoughts. So this was God in relationship? It was beautiful and so appealing. He knew that it didn’t matter whose fault it was – the mess from some bowl had been broken, that a dish had been planned and not shared. Obviously what was important here was the love they had for one another and the fullness it brought them. He shook his head. How different this was from the way he treated the ones he loved!

The appeal of this homely allegory (some have compared it to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress)  is the domestic ordinariness of life - that God who is essential relational invites us into that relationship - to participate in a meal. 

There are interesting ‘online debates' on who might be cast for a film version. Some people are reminded of the Matrix.    

Who would you cast in the various roles?

GloboChrist Carl Raschke Jan 09

I came across this review on Matt Wilsons blog 'living the story: embodying the kingdom'

'Review GloboChrist'  13 Dec 2008 

In his book, “GloboChrist”, Carl Raschke’s main question is how can we take the Great Commission and look at it from the lenses of postmodernity. This is an important question and idea to think about. With an understanding for this time and culture, this book is the postmodern/global “Christ and Culture”. With his use of examples and relevant contextualizing ideas about consumerism, Christianity and mass market and Islam, Raschke explores the world around us and how we can truly live out the Great Commission. Raschke is daring, challenging and refresh in his writing and thinking that will fly in the face of most thinking and models an important way of thinking in this global society that is emerging today. This is a important book within a conversation of how do we respond to the world around us.

There's also a great YouTube Mr Bean clip  on the Greatest Interpretation Ever Given .... 

Once I learn how to embed such clips I'll start adding them.