Restoring Community 2: The context

Recently I posted about the whole idea of community and how if we can restore a real sense of authentic community within our church context, and take that vision into the communities in which we live and work, we can rebuild relationships within our communities, and rebuild the lost sense of community in our culture.

What I want to briefly address today is how this concept of community will look different depending on the culture and location in which we were born and live. For example, on a bigger scale how we do community, the processes and practicalities of community, will look different in a Western capitalist culture than it will in Eastern or African culture - merely because those cultures are very different than ours, the way the people see the world is different and their circumstances are different.

The importance of this principle of community exists, but the way it looks will inevitably be different - and not just in different parts of the world, but even different depending on the town and borough you live in. Different communities have different needs, different circumstances, different types of people, so their roles will be different.


It sounds obvious but its not. So often we want a 'one size fits all' method of solving different problems, but in practical living out of faith and building community there isn't going to be a 'one size fits all' idea.

The only 'one size fits all idea' is Jesus on the cross - the love, grace, mercy, forgiveness and sacrifice of Jesus for all of us, the invitation for us all to join in the building of His kingdom. And even then how we understand and hear that will depnend on our background, upbringing and culture, and which theological ideas we subscribe to and what our church background is - which in turn impacts how we live it practically.

Some people think you can just 'do what the Bible says', as if there is only one correct way to hear the scriptures. But how you hear it will depend on who you are, your cultural and religious background. There will always be context, perspective and room for interpretation. There is no such thing as a 'neutral' view of scripture, indeed there is arguably no such thing as a 'neutral' perspective at all. All our opinions, beliefs and views are shaped by our experience, knowledge, background and culture. If you believe something, it came from somewhere, its been shaped by something.

The bottom line from a Christian worldview is, ultimately, Jesus. A man  - the Son of God - who lived a sinless life, faced all the temptations and sufferings we do and unjustly suffered and died, and according to the scriptures (and at least 500 witnesses) rose again for the restoration of all things - including the forgiveness of sin. Jesus is the centre of it all. That, ultimately is where it begins and ends.

Outside of that however there is inevitably going to be context, interpretation, re-interpretation and perspective. How we have been born and shaped will impact how we interpret and live out the way of Jesus, and ultimately that will shape our local churches and communities, and that's a positive thing. God made us all differently and all of us, both as individuals and communties of any kind, grow up in different environments with different needs and perspectives.

So, inevitably the practicalities of how we do community, how we do church, will be different wherever we are and whoever we are.

People are always going to disagree on the finer points of thelogy, ecclesiology (study of church), as much as they will on politics. But there are reasons for it, and we need to embrace our differences and accept them, and focus on loving and honouring God with all we have and loving one another as we love ourselves, and as we should be loved - Jesus said Himself the rest of it all comes from those two things, and if we seek to do those things, in the context of the cross and resurrection, we can be well on our way to building both the kind of church Jesus wanted and restoring community wherever we are.

Posted via email from James Prescott

Restoring community

The Budget today brought to mind some things which have been festering in my mind for a while. The Conservative party have made spending cuts and increased taxes in order to stabilise the economy and sort out our debt. Any responsible government would have done this - although in my opinion not in the way its been done, however, that's what's happened. Lower-income workers will be hit hard by the VAT rise, poorer families by the freeze in child benefits and child trust funds, and sure start. Many people, especially poorer or low-income families in the London area, will be hit by the housing benefit cut.

The reality is though someone was always going to suffer for the tremendous economic problems we have right now. The answer is not to debate the rights and wrongs of economic policy - and I can not and never will agree with cuts that hurt the poor more than the rich - the answer to the problems, however idealistic, lies in, believe it or not, the Bible - the book of Acts, Chapter 2 v44-47 :


"All the believers were together and had everything in common.  They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.."

Check out the highlighted line again. 


They were all together, 
they had everything common, 
and if people were in need they sold property and possessions in order to meet their needs. 


In other words, they made sacrifices from their own plenty to give to those in need. Now this idea seems counter-cultural today, and one reason often given for ignoring this concept of sharing things between each other is often dismissed as something that people did 'in those times'. Now obviously, in case you hadn't noticed, there are cultural differences between now and 2000 years ago.However, this concept that the early church had in place wasn't cultural. It was counter-cultural then as well. The idea of everyone being in community and sharing food and possessions was counter-cultural at that time too.

Now I'm not saying we all sell all our possessions and give to the community. But what I am saying is have a different attitude towards what we own, towards our money, indeed, towards other people. We need to be more willing to give of our own time, energy and money for the needs of others. There needs to be a cultural shift - which brings me to my main point.

You see, the sharing of possessions isn't even the biggest deal.


The biggest deal is the concept of community.


This is a concept foreign to people growing up today. I remember growing up in a time when everyone knew everyone down their road, especially people of a similar age. We knew our neighbours, shared food with them - extra fruit from the tree, extra cakes we'd made - and we all used to go out and play down the road and no-one worried. You could leave your front door ajar when you went out to play (as long as someone was in the house), and you knew it was safe. As a child you could go and round your neighbours house to play and feel totally safe. Parents trusted neighbours to keep an eye on their kids, they all knew each other and trusted each other. If there was a problem, an emergency there were people there.

Yes, it was really like that.

For example, the many times my Mum was rushed into hospital, we didn't need to panic about a babysitter. A neighbour was always on hand to help babysit or anything else that needed doing.

Always.

In fact when my mum was really ill, there was almost a rota of mainly neighbours - but also church people too (who all lived locally anyway) who volunteered. One neighbour babysat so often I got to know them quite well, which is quite an achievement at 8 years old.

The point is there was real trust between people. A real sense of community.

Indeed, I am still in touch with several of the people down who lived down my old road - some still do - and the ones I don't see I always seem to find out the latest on.

There is so much fear in our culture now.

We live in a culture run by fear.

Advertisers market through a form of fear - its not obvious of course,,its not scary fear, but its fear nevertheless. More than ever people are concerned about diet, healthy lifestyle, and making yourself look as young as possible as long as possible, avoiding ageing, avoiding death as long as possible. The number of laws regading political correctness in every area of life is testament to a fear of offending someone, a way of avoiding something, not standing for anything and keeping things private. Our culture is less and less about community and more about individualism, entitlement, personal 'rights', doing what's best for me, taking care of me as no one else will take care of me - no one can be trusted.

The natural assumption is not to trust, rather than to trust. Cynicism is alive in our culture more than ever. Faith and religion are to be kept private, whereas new atheism -which is not a religion or belief system according to many - gets allowed to behave the same way because its basis comes from 'facts', which are more important than faith (forgetting the gospels and Acts are all a telling of actual historical events witnessed by many people).

The message of Jesus has been lost amidst the divisions in the Church of England, the many issues surrounding the Catholic church and people's general perception of church - as well as many Christians' own dissolusionment with traditional church.

So there are multiple problems and our culture needs to shift. Consumerism cannot go on forever - with the new financial reality we simply won't be able to consume as much. People are going to be compelled to find new solutions, to find new realities, to start being less individualistic.

There is an opportunity here. 

A chance for followers of Jesus to reclaim what the message of Jesus really means, to change the perception of what church and following Jesus really means, to even grow the church. 

But not just that, there is an authentic chance, maybe once in a lifetime chance, to redefine our culture. A chance to bring sense out of all the chaos and deal with the wider issues facing our nation and the world right now, to restore trust, hope and rebuild communities. To build relationships between people, a sense of togetherness in the communities we live and work in. To bring people together. And this has implications not only for meeting need, but for tacking social problems, issues of crime and violence. 

All through the pracitice of relationship.

How do we do this? 

By modelling community in our churches, by emphasising the importance of relationships in what we do inside and outside of church meetings. Through being community, being family in the way Jesus intended, and the early church modelled. Meeting each others needs, serving one another, working to meet the needs of our community, coming together to face the bigger problems in our culture, being outward looking, providing a safe place for people - a come as you are culture of acceptance, grace and love - but which is engaged with the real issues and problems we face, involved in our experiences, and that engaged with the bigger picture of what is happening in the world and not separate from it. That means working with local government, social services, MP's and organisations or charities at work within our area to help build local communities. By using our church buildings as resources for the local community, by joining together in nationwide but localised projects like the Foodbank which meet needs in our communities. 

We need to bring the people of our communities together and build that community spirit, we need to encourage relationships between the people in our communities, which can be done through community projects of various kinds meeting people's different needs, projects which encourage people of the community to get involved and where we can show them the value of community, but also show them practical, living faith in Jesus.


When it comes to our own church communities, there needs to be a community, family, discipleship emphasis in how we approach church, how we run our home groups, how we do outreach and mission. There needs to be a missional focus, and a discipleship focus. Our churches need to seek to become communities of people who are seeking to live out their faith where they live and work, not just within the confines of church meetings and activities, a community where there is authentic Christian discipleship taking place. Many churches are already doing this - ones like my own one in Sutton - and in my opinion these are the type of churches that are going to be most engaged with the world, the ones that will grow, the ones that will attract non-Christians. Its largely through actions that the church is going to change the perceptions, change the adjectives which are used in relation to church and the Christian faith. In a world where people find it hard to believe anything any public figure - including religious ones - say anymore, its our actions that will speak loudest.


However, having said that, in a thriving, growing, true Christian community there needs to be quality teaching about Jesus, and it needs to be in the language and experience of the world we live in, not cheesy religious jargon, teaching which is creative and innovative, teaching which confronts reality and helps people to find the Jesus in their own circumstances, in their everyday, and encourages a sense of community and family. Teaching which challenges us to live a Jesus-centered life but at the same time speaks of the immense love, grace and mercy of God, and the restoration of all things which is made possible through the cross of Jesus. Teaching that doesn't use the language of religion, that opens people's eyes and changes the perception of church and the Christian faith, and points people towards true authentic Christian discipleship. And when we talk to people about Jesus, lets not use cheesy jargon, lets tell our story, lets show people what Jesus has been doing in our lives, lets be honest about our faith. Forget the jargon and the cheese, lets really be real about our faith and why we believe what we do, and how its impacted us.

We can show people we live our lives according to a bigger story, a different agenda, and one that can meet all our needs. Something people can put their security in and where people can find their true identity. Where love, community and relationship is valued more than money, status or possessions. 

In doing that, we can change our culture, we can reorder our culture on a larger scale to something more like the kind of culture Jesus intended. It starts with all of us in our church communities, each reaching out and looking out to meet the needs of the communities we are part of and seeking to engage with them. 

Now I'm not saying we will all become Christians, or we will do it perfectly, or that it will be easy. I know, it does sound idealistic, and redefining culture is not a short-term process, it takes time, effort, commitment, vision and prayer. There may be setbacks on the way. Indeed, this vision is only really being birthed in my heart and mind and I am sure that over time experience, knowledge and reflection will allow me to articulate it better and more practically, and to explore it in more depth. In time what I say now might turn out to be a bit niave. But I have always been someone who likes to see the bigger picture, believe in hope and try and cast a vision, so here I am.

I believe it can happen, if we reclaim the real heart of church - authentic Christian discipleship in authentic community - and look outwards to try and make that reality true wherever we live and work, both as individuals and as church communities. If we capture that vision of community and the values of Jesus, spreading out into the communities we live and work in, it can be done. 

Ultimately though its not about what I say. Its about action. Its about the hard graft, the nuts and bolts of doing it, the sheer effort and slog of working these things out and making them happen, the tough journey of discipleship, where this will all be played out. Its a process that will be tough, but will be worth the effort. It's a process that will go on and on, and never end. There will always be more challenges, struggles to overcome and difficulties to face. There will be setbacks. 

But we need to grasp this vision, because more than any government policies, this has the power to change communities. By resurrecting community in the world at large through building authentic Christian community. By rebuilding community through modelling it ourselves.

Bill Hybels once said 'The local church is the hope of the world'. Rarely has a truer word been spoken, and rarely have those words seemed so appropriate.

Posted via email from James Prescott

Evolving Church and me - where next?

Last week I posted about my moment of clarity I had recently about myself, my development and discipleship, and where God was leading me with writing and speaking. I said there were other things I wanted to share with you, and this is the time for me to do this.

Yesterday I finally ‘went public’ about this with a group of people close to me. I have mentioned this issue here, but I had not actually shared it with friends properly and got some accountability. Yesterday, when it was revealed that in house group we’d be talking about things we run away from, I knew exactly where God was going to take me. So I shared essentially the heart of everything I shared the other day, and some of the issues I’d been having. In doing this it was a form of confession, I was going public. In so doing I got feedback and support, I got prayer and some accountability.

This act of confession, prayer and gaining accountability compelled me to think seriously for the first time about what I was going to do with this study time. I could no longer daydream about it and it have no timeline, I had to make a decision. I had in a sense created an inciting incident – as Donald Miller calls them – in my story, something that compelled me to face up to what I was doing and needed to do, and that compelled me to make a decision and do something practical.

Ironically the same day I had already begun work on one idea I had already had, which was to shift the emphasis in my blogging activity. I have increasingly found the label Evolving Church to be restrictive in terms of what I want to do as a blog.

Evolving Church is a vision I have, an umbrella for a number of ideas for talks/books/presentations exploring the nature of church and the Christian faith which I want to pursue medium and long-term. Evolving Church is something I want to continue to develop and work on – but the work I need to do now is study and background.

I realised last night that before I can seriously tackle any of the ideas I have, I need a basic understanding and grounding in the cutlure & world that Jesus lived in and preached to, I need to understand the context of Jesus message and what it meant to those who heard it. I need to grasp the humanity and reality of Jesus world and life, I need context.

I also realised I need to spend more time actually studying scripture and writing from my studies of scripture, and intertwining that with modern cultrual references, metaphors and insights, my own experiences and stories and practical ideas of faith, how I see Jesus in my everyday, and again understanding the context from and to which Jesus spoke and what His words would have meant to His hearers can help me better interpret that for today’s culture and see to whom and what, Jesus is really speaking to.

I want to go on sharing my journey of faith with you, and thinking about new ideas and concepts, I want to keep my eyes open to see the Jesus in everything, everywhere and everyone, in the everyday, in my own life and lives of others. I want to keep exploring and understanding more about the story of Jesus we are all part of, the invitation to be part of the restoration and reconciliation of all things to how Jesus always intended them to be – the heart of the way of Jesus.

I want to keep looking outwards, keep thinking progressively, creatively and innovatevely about the way of Jesus and what it means to do church. I am passionate about understanding and exploring what it is to be a community of disciples, what Jesus really meant by church, the new humanity of Jesus, and what it means to be a follower of Jesus – a disciple, rather than a believer – and to explore the ideas/concepts of the Sabbath, creativity and how the way of Jesus isnt’ a religion, but a way of life – not religion but church, as well as the concept/process of evolution in church.

The vision of evolving church in my life has not dimmed. The evolutionary process that takes place in nature and is constantly taking place in church, and which I believe is preferable to continual revolution, is still a passion and a vision I want to explore and develop – and communicating this in several different ways, spoken, visual and written, are all ideas I have and want to explore.

This is simply the next step in my discipleship, the next chapter in my story.

In order to fulfill the vision I have to the full I realise now that I need to be fully prepared, that I need to have a solid foundation. This house cannot be built on sand, it needs to be built on a rock and this is the best way for me to do that. I don’t ever want to stand still in my walk with Jesus or get into too much of a comfort zone, and this is simply me moving forward with Him. A friend shared a picture which makes a metaphor – its like jumping out of a plane wearing a parachute, in the right spot but not quite able to see my landing spot yet. There is also the fact that I want to devote more time to preparing things to use in my own church context and to write a couple more things for their blog – the Creative Arts blog linked below – which are also both important to my development.

So what does this mean practically?

Well I am still exploring this. Put simply, the blog is not the point anymore. The purpose of the blog really is to be an outlet for the things I’m learning and experiencing as I experience and learn them, and also for distilling ideas and concepts, and moments of inspiration, into bite-sized chunks. I am not altogether sure where this research/study will take me – I am sure much of it will be more likely to appear in teaching/sermon-style pieces than blog posts, although I will probably adapt anything I create into a blog/written form in order to share it with you. I may also share insights from scripture I’ve had, if I believe its right to share them.

But the point is not where or when or even if people see it. I am sure whatever happens the fruit will speak for itself in some way, but I need to get away from the idea of needing people’s approval to validate what I do, or gaining my value from simply posting blogs and getting good responses. There has to be purpose to me posting/blogging/sharing something, and I will continue to do this as and when appropriate – but only when it is. This means there may be periods where I don’t post at all, and other periods with frequent posts.

But where will this be?

There are two options. The first is to keep this site going under another more inclusive name, and the second is to start a fresh blog somewhere else and keep this here as a resource for myself and others to use. Either would work well, and both have equally valid justification. I will be praying about this and of course I will inform you all of what I eventually decide. And again, for those who know me, in all this I would ask you keep me accountable. I now have accountability from several people in my church for this, and the more I have the better in one sense, as it will keep me focussed and committed to what I am doing.

I hope you can continue to join me on this journey wherever it leads, and my hope and prayer for you is that through sharing my journey, and through what I experience and learn, that you too will be blessed and be challenged and grow in your own faith, that things I share can in some way become part of your story too.

Posted via email from James Prescott