New Book: Multi-Voiced Church

I just received news from Stuart Murray Williams about his new book.  Its bound to be a 'must read' in my opinion.  His writing of late has been profoundly helpful in trying to understand where the church is in the UK in these days.  Here is what he says about the book:

"We’re writing to let you know that our book, Multi-Voiced Church, has just been published by Paternoster. It costs £12.99 and is available through the usual channels.

Here’s a summary of the contents.

The New Testament indicates that the early churches were multi-voiced, participative and expected that the Holy Spirit to speak through all the members of the community. First-generation renewal movements through the centuries have typically also been multi-voiced, recovering this New Testament characteristic. But creeping institutionalisation has persistently eroded this so that many aspects of church life become mono-voiced or restricted to only a few voices. This book surveys the history of mono-voiced and multi-voiced expressions of church, offers a biblical basis for encouraging multi-voiced church, and explores practical ways of developing multi-voiced communities today. It explores multi-voiced worship, learning, community-building and decision-making. It argues that multi-voiced church is essential for mission in contemporary culture.

This is the first book we have written together, and we are grateful to many contributors who told us their stories, shared their experiences and offered ideas and resources for building multi-voiced churches. We’ve tried to make the book itself as multi-voiced as possible.

Sian & Stuart Murray Williams"

Seasons

A couple of months ago I finished reading Brian McLaren's book 'Naked Spirituality.'   He strips away 'religion' from our interaction with God and sets out how he sees the process we travel through in our spiritual life.

Stage one, which he calls “Simplicity” is the stage where everything is black and white, right and wrong, up and down. I enjoyed this stage of life for a long time and became a strong proponent for it.  There are many, at the beginning of faith, who do need nurtured in this area so that some foundations can be set.  Quite simply, our spiritual journey doesn't stop here if it is going to mature.

Stage two, he calls “Complexity.” This where we realise that life is more than dualism. So, now our focus shifts to the complexities of navigating a more difficult and nuanced world.  I started to move into this sort of area around 2007, having just had an interesting time with a variety of complex pastoral issues and having moved back to Scotland where there were several things not making sense.  This was a beginning of a huge exploration time for me....I began to question, not my certainty, but if the certainty that I arrived at was founded upon Jesus or on something else.  It was a soul searching time.

In stage three, which McLaren calls “Perplexity,” - its where we begin to realise not only that we don’t have all the answers but that we will never have all the answers. And we have to learn to live with increased ambiguity.  By this time, I was living in Torry and I was finding that all my pre-packed theological and missiological perspectives were more or less irrelevant and that radical rethinking was needed if things were going to pan out.  As I've explored many times on this blog and others, my conclusions didn't necessary meet with the SA framework of officership and so we parted ways.  I moved to Trinity in Gosforth very much in this stage, working many things out, but finding more and more that I had the space and time to work things through.  Crisis mode seemed to leave, things started to make sense, but its a very new reality, as I alluded to in the post 'Arisen' a few weeks ago.

The final stage, Brian calls “Harmony.” That’s where we try to integrate the strengths of the previous stages.  This is the place I am in now.  How do I know?  Well, quite simply, I am still certain that there are some clear things that the Lord wants us to know and that he calls us to....salvation and holiness are the foundations of our being in God as we follow him in the Way of Jesus.  I'm much happier with complexity and with shades of grey where we need to seek God's guidance and be motivated by grace and love in everything.  This enables me to embrace all sorts of people that I'd have struggled with before, to be quite honest.  Finally, I guess I can say I'm more than happy with loose ends and mystery and I think that my relationship with God probably the deepest it has been. 

I guess, in lots of ways, it feels like setting the 're-set' button, except I'm trusting God for who He is after what I guess you could call a fairly refining journey and building upon that foundation.  I am amazed at the amount of times I write in my journal 'I am very happy' - it surprises me because I didn't think I could be happy doing anything else other than officership...the irony was that officership was far from good for me.

As I began to suspect in around 2009, God's call on my life was wider than what I'd experienced until that point and the deep dissatisfaction he was building into my spiritual life was all very necessary.  I don't doubt that years ahead will take more journeys around this 'cycle' but having been round maybe more than once, I'm more likely to embrace it than resist it next time.  Maybe this is indeed what Paul meant by 'working out your salvation.'  Yes..I think it probably is.

Church Ltd

The church becomes ugly when it is led as Church Ltd with a CEO leader and executive board.  Its worse when that 'CEO' has autocratic authority (assumed or organisationally given) and when s/he leads from that place.  It is mechanical, worldly, institutional, legalistic and open to a million abuses.  More than that, the whole concept underestimates the value of the body of Christ.

In the New Testament, leadership roles were ones which emerged from the body and were more passive than directive.  If you take the role of 'elder' it literally meant one who had spiritual maturity and these were affirmed publically in local expressions of the church as it became obvious that they were actually elders!  These people didn't lead the church, although some would teach, but they kept a 'fatherly' eye over, gave a mature role model to the rest of the family (like all good parents should do).  They'd pray with their eyes open, watch for the wolves, deal with spiritual issues.  But their role was to encourage faith, growth, discipleship and act as spiritual fathers in the church.   They didn't control the church, decide on behalf of the church, coerce the church, or claim to provide 'covering' where nothing could happen without their approval.  For the advent of that kind of role, we have to look at the deviation that happened during Christendom.

Viola points out that 'the term elder refers to their character.  The term overseer refers to their function.  And the term shepherd refers to their gifting.'  Yet, we in today's church, almost without exception, have elders as a public role and office, a rank, a post, a poisition.  The modern day invention of 'presbyter' or 'pastor' barely little resemblence to the biblical pattern. 

Occupational hazard.  Awkward.

The body of Christ is a family where each contributes to the whole and the mission and work of church was in the hands of the whole body under the sole headship of Jesus who directed its members through the Holy Spirit.  The body existed to 'one another' one another.

So what?

1.  If you have an executive leadership in any way, you create a business.  If you have spiritual fathers and mothers, you have a family. 

2.  If you have an executive leader, regardless of how good an elder s/he is, you will always relegate the other ministry roles in their God-given mandate to build up the body.   If the elder is charged with the pastoral role in the main, and you then create leadership out of that, you have an organisating limping along on one leg. 

3.  Finally, if you have an executive leadership, you disenfranchise the body from the charge to engage in the ministry of 'one another' - mission and ministry as a corporate responsibility.

I worry that the problem is to much engrained in our Christendom psyche to really change.  I wonder if we can shirk this 'gentile style' off and fulfil the desire of Jesus that would enable him to say 'not so with you.' 

If you have Church Ltd, you have church limited.

Arisen

Week by week, on a Sunday morning, I'm ususally on my chair in our worship area around 10 minutes or so before we kick off.  From my vantage point, I look out on a couple of hundred people each week.  I watch the chatter, the children playing, the last-minute arrivals settling in, musicians preparing.  I cast my eye, and every week there are faces I don't know...rarely a week without a new person being with us.  And every generation is represented, some more than others, but a whole spectrum of life, experience, colours, cultures and variety.

More than that, they're all at very different places spiritually.  We're a community which is less fussed about drawing the lines of theological correctness, what has to be believed and what doesn't, and more about enabling people to encounter God and enable him to reveal himself more an more.  Thats not to say we don't preach Jesus as Lord and as Head of the church.  Thats not to say we don't invite people to pledge their allegience to him in every way... but people come as they are and we leave the task of building the church to Jesus.  My aim is to enable and inspire response to the call of discipleship.

Why do I say all that?  I say it because my own reflections as I look out show me more and more the changes that have happened in me.  I reflect on the spiritual seasons I've moved through in my walk with Jesus thus far and I simply recognised that I've come into a new spring.  And I'm happy.  Happy not because there is no trial, no testing, no challenge, no sign of difficulty, but happy because as I've moved through the previous three seasons, I can see the truth and transformation of the gospel in my own heart that the process of the seasons have produced.

When I left the Salvation Army, it was on the determination that I was going to seek to remove factors from my life which claimed my allegience because I wanted to be all for Jesus.  As I've gone through the process of laying down 'Salvationism' (with a capital S), laying down officership, laying down a style of leadership, laying down a system, laying down a rigid theology, laying down my own concepts of what I must do I've found that I've been surprised by God in tremendous ways.

I feel like a seed which has fallen into the ground, died, and come alive again.  Sure, their are hints of the old but even when they come they are the exception rather than the rule and they show themselves for what they are.  And so I look out at this group of people that, 10 years ago, I'd have brushed aside as half-hearted, uncommitted, 'unsaved', 'liberal' and ineffective, I now only see the utter foolishness in my previous set of judgements and values.  The biggest thing that has been revealed to me is that as I determine to see Jesus more, to fix on him, the more able I am to see him and his work in the 'other'.

The penny finally dropped for me in recent months when we engaged again with the Army for a season.  I saw, rushing back towards me, all the things that I had moved away from and that had come to represent what seems like a different life altogether.  I discover that Jesus has ruined for me any narrow expression of ecclesiology and missiology...but more than that, any narrow understanding of him and what it means to follow him. 

And so with that comment, I break a quiet blog season.  I've been in the grave again and now here I am in another new day, thankful for the grace of God which refuses to give up on me.  Stunned that even although I've only been faithful in a few small things, he has opened other things to me.  Such is life in the Kingdom.

He is risen...and so am I!

Thorn in the flesh

Tomorrow is another day.  Not that today was in any way disasterous.  It was quite a good one.  But I'm one of those weird reflective types who finds it necessary to silence all the remaining little nuances that remain unsettled before I can finally rest.  I don't find being 'up the front' very easy...but its always been part of the cross you bear to follow the call of God upon your life and the grace of God has always covered my introversion...in many ways, it seems like a 'thorn in the flesh' that keeps me reliant on God. 

The difference for me these days is recognising that instead of fighting it.  I don't need to be anyone else rather than me.  I don't have to lead out of any other place rather than the work God is doing in me. Thats the energising bit.  For the times when I'm less than what I can be, the hope simply has to be that glory shines through the simple clay of my own life.

Its back to work proper this week after a bit of a change of regime which was the half-term holiday.  Some lovely opportunities just to enjoy zero responsibility and to enjoy my family.  And its just as good to have the feeling of looking forward to getting stuck in at work again when its all over.  It is a blessing to be contributing something helpful, but even with that, comes the need for wisdom in the complexity of any leadership task.  God grant it.

The reality is that whether you're leading 4 people or many more, our reliance on God will be the difference between messing it up and getting it anywhere near right and know that whatever happens, it is His church...all I need to do is get out of the way and let it live its own life.

I know the myriad complexities of my own heart and mind as you do yours, but in Christ we find our north, south, east and west.  There is nothing better than knowing the hand of God upon your life and entrusting all that you are and have to him.  The Way of Jesus is a sure yet a challenging path but its the only one for me and I'll walk it no matter what.

Who am I?

I find myself in the rather obscure enigmatic world of ecclesiastical title searching in lots of ways these days.  Hang ups about pinning down whether I'm ordained or not, qualified to 'lead communion' or not, and various other discussions which make me smile.  'In house', of course, this stuff matters to some people in order to keep the ecclesiastical ying and yang in perfect balance. 

But lets get perspective.  It makes little difference to people 'out there.'  People have no interest in whether I'm a vicar, a presbyter, a deacon, a priest, a 'layman' or any other such thing.  We fool ourselves into thinking the opposite is true sometimes.  They do care if you can inspire them, lead them, befriend them etc

I am willing to be all things to all men. So often our point of reference as a church is exactly that...church.  But our key point of reference should always be mission that comes out of our life in Christ.  If our Christology shapes our missiology and those then inform our ecclesiology, we are in a much healthier place.  The other way around, its just trumping through bogs which are irrelevant detours in the wider scheme of things.

Who am I?

I'm an ordained and covenanted priest in the priesthood of all believers which is the laos (the whole 'lay' people) of God;  a deacon and servant of the church and the poor; I'm a minister of the Word and of the Sacrament which is the Lord Jesus himself; I'm 'padre' to many spiritual children that I've had the privilege of fathering and to those still waiting to be born; I am Captain-in-Permanant-Exile to many others; I'm an elder exercising leadership and oversight of some of God's people; I'm an apostle pushing out the people of God into new places; I'm a pastor to those who need it; I'm an evangelist and disciplemaker, a teacher of faith; I'm the uncomfortable prophet; I'm the introverted reflective theologian and the extroverted preacher; I'm a brother and comrade to my fellow missioners; add 'ragamuffin' into the bargain.

I wear uniforms and collars and t-shirts and kilts and jeans and suits and chinos and crosses and eppaulettes and hats and caps and coats and hoodies and....anything which will give Jesus a hearing.

Good old Myers-Briggs: I'm an INFP just out here in my lonely 1% of the world population just doing my healer-idealist thing on the edge of the universe, orbitting the giant hairball just passionate about seeing people grow, seeing the Kingdom grow and trying to embrace and invite as many as I can.

...but you can call me Andrew...most people do.

Army

Over these last few years, around 3 years in fact,  I've been increasingly building relationship with an emerging church planting movement (emerging in the developing sense, as opposed to the theological sense) led by a guy with a clear apostolic ministry called Peter Farmer. 

Mission Britain promotes simple church, organic church planting, pioneer evangelism and training up people for the gospel.  One of Peter's key heroes is William Booth and the work of the early Army.  He is convinced that we need to see an army rise in the UK to advance the Kingdom and take the gospel to re-evangelise the nation.   I happen to agree with him.  The kind of army he is talking about is a flexible, mobile army with clear missional intentions to win the world for Jesus by utilising strategic planting tactics.  He has the UK split up into regions and he travels to encourage, train and draw together those interested in stepping out of the regular churchy culture and to galvinise around mission.  He is training up planters, trainers, pioneer evangelists, prophets and prayer warriors. 

The irony isn't lost on me. 

I thoroughly believe this nation needs a people who sense the call to arms in the sense of engaging in creative, strategic mission and to see a viral pattern of outposts on every street corner.  William Booth would have been delighted that someone is taking up his vision to have a barracks on every corner at last.  Is it really so different to seeing a simple church, a small missional community, in every viable community?  And whats more, viable here doesn't mean 'able to support an officer and fund a building' because this is a viral, organic movement...a people movement.  Its an army where everyone is commissioned for the advance, where everyone is a regular and the Lord Jesus Christ is Commander in Chief...a band of brothers and sisters united around one mission.  An army whose enemy is 'the strong man' and whose weapons are prayer, love and radical commitment to Jesus and his instructions as our King.

For all that I am still in the inherited church at the moment, my life's calling is in this direction.  Its a calling that I couldn't work out in the other Army.  Maybe its a wineskins thing, you know?  You don't put new wine in an old wineskin else the old on deteriorates.  Maybe, I don't know.  I still have hope in some places that The Salvation Army can recover significantly, and in fact I see it in some places round the world, praise God.

Meanwhile, another salvation army is rising.  Its Commander in Cheif has issued the call to arms and the warriors are taking their place in the field.  I'm watching it take shape, watching God recreate a dream and a vision and its very exciting.  There will be other warriors in your community...we can link you up, enlist and train you for the mission.