idolatry & ministry

Tim Keller has a new book (Counterfeit Gods) out soon on the subject of idolatry. His own personal reflections on idolatry in ministry are worth reading (go here).

virtual church

There's been a lot of debate in various places of late about the idea of 'virtual church' (people meeting for the purposes of 'church' in what is called synthetic space - i.e. virtually). The big question seems to be: Is virtual church 'church'? A couple of thoughts spring to mind:

i. One argument put forward to defend virtual church as real church is made along these lines: "I know someone who comes to my church every Sunday and is not physically present; I can’t touch him, can’t hold him, can’t hug him, can’t greet him with a holy kiss, but thank goodness, He’s there and in community with us." (from here)

I think we do need to admit the already/not yet dimensions of worship and of our personal knowledge of God. But it strikes me that there's a point being missed in that statement: he is physically present, inasmuch as his Spirit dwells within believers who meet together. You can - dare I say it - hug him. And that is part of the indispensible wonder of meeting together; we just don't realise it regularly enough, perhaps.

ii. It is, however, observably true that many people feel able to be more open and honest in relationships that are conducted in virtual space. Maybe that tells us we have more work to do in building secure face-to-face relationships that allow for a deep honesty. The attractiveness of virtual church to a large number of people is perhaps as much an indictment of 'real' church as it is of anything or anyone else.

the great books (xi) - jewel

Don't be put off by the cover of this book (it proudly announces it was chosen by the Oprah Book Club.....) - Bret Lott's tale of the life & times of Jewel Hilburn is a classic work of American fiction. The first chapter contains some of the finest writing I've ever had the pleasure to read and the rest of the book confirms its early promise.

It's about....well, I don't want to give too much away (I read it through without reading the blurb, not wanting to have any short-circuits) but life-history & the redemption of suffering wouldn't be a bad summary.

It's a truly great read.

High Flight: Dad's Movie Debut

Back in the 50s, Dad was stationed at RAF Cranwell. Whilst he was there, the base was used in a film called High Flight and starring Ray Milland and other notable actors (Leslie Phillips; John Le Mesurier; Anthony Newley to name a few). By a happy accident (I doubt he auditioned for the role), Dad had a walk-on part in which he helped an airman into his cockpit.

I last saw the film when I was very young (early 70s I think - we watched it on our black & white tv - we went colour in about '75). It's not the kind of film that gets shown these days and has been very hard to obtain. I thought we'd never track down a copy of it and a small piece of family history would be lost.

Well, I've managed to get hold of a copy and watched it today. It was in colour. Dad was superb, albeit onscreen for less than two seconds. He looked so young! And the whole film was really enjoyable.

A piece of history preserved.

God's Love is more than Kindness

If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.

C S Lewis, The Problem Of Pain, p.33

the present or eternity but not the future

In letter 15, Screwtape urges his nephew to focus his subject's thoughts on the future. He notes,

The humans live in time but our enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them...Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present...It is far better to make them live in the Future...We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

C S Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, pp.75ff

prayer & busyness

I know someone who's reading Paul Miller's A Praying Life - sounds like a great book. Here's a really helpful quote from it (as noted by Josh Harris & mediated via Justin Taylor):

The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love . . . and thus to be busy, which in turn drives us even more into a life of prayer. By spending time with our Father in prayer, we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives become more coherent. They feel calmer, more ordered, even in the midst of confusion and pressure.

the gift of food

Preparing to preach on Psalm 65, I came across this helpful observation by John Goldingay:

...food is the first thing God gives humanity (Gen. 1:29), the first thing God gives to humanity again after the flood (Gen. 9:3), a basic thing for which all look to God (Ps. 104:27,28), and the first thing for which Jesus bids his disciples pray (Lk. 11:3).

(Old Testament Theology, vol 2, p.562)

Dad's Big Break

When he was stationed at RAF Cranwell back in the 50s, Dad had a walk-on part in a movie that was made at the camp - High Flight, starring Ray Miland. We saw it when we were children and waited and waited for the big moment. It came and went in a matter of seconds. But it was Dad all right.

For years, the film has been unobtainable. And I guess it just isn't the sort of oldie that makes it onto TV these days. But at last I've located a copy and it's in the post. A memorably nostalgic moment awaits, for me and, now, for some of Dad's grandchildren too.

wolf hall

It won the Booker Prize for Hilary Mantel and has just made its way into my study, in readiness for some holiday reading in the next few weeks.

Not my usual cup of tea, historical drama, but I'm prepared to give it a go. Mind you, it's huge.

vanhoozer: on pastor-theologians

Kevin Vanhoozer on the type of preachers we need:

The preacher is a “man on a wire,” whose sermons must walk the tightrope between Scripture and the contemporary situation...The pastor-theologian, I submit, should be evangelicalism’s default public intellectual, with preaching the preferred public mode of theological interpretation of Scripture.

(HT: Michael Bird)

keller: how to become a preacher

From the pen of Tim Keller

It is only through doing people-work that you become the preacher you need to be - someone who knows sin, how the heart works, what people's struggles are, and so on. Pastoral care and leadership (along with private prayer) are to a great degree sermon preparation. More accurately, it is preparing the preacher, not just the sermon. Through pastoral care and leadership you grow from being a Bible commentator into a flesh and blood preacher.

kraftwerk: remastered

ok, you may not 'get' them; they're a relatively acquired taste - but for those who do get it, some good news: remastered kraftwerk albums now available on spotify.

for appetite whetting, here's a link to the man machine.

yummy.

the great books (x) - the bell jar

The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's celebrated semi-autobiographical account of a descent into clinical depression and its treatment, of the failures of human relationships to secure stability and so much more besides. The struggles of Esther Greenwood (the main character) reflect deep disquiet with the social position of women, parental failures and much more. The lie that love and sex are the same thing is devastatingly exploded.

The writing has a cool objectivity that many have admired but is ultimately deeply disconcerting. The degree of detachment from the pain being described bears too much of the hallmarks of ongoing morbid fascination (or so it seems to me). There is not a shred of triumph here.

I've read this book probably three or four times. The first occasion was in early 1983 and co-incided with great depths of pain; I think for that reason I never made it all the way through the book. Returning to it some years later, and making it the whole way, left me thankful I'd put it down when I did. The sadness is unrelenting, all hope is qualified and life is demarkated as loss.

chris rea in concert

well, playing for radio 2 anyways (he's on tour soon & has a new greatest hits package to promote)

saw him in concert in early '85 at the birmingham odeon - best concert i ever went to.

so, taking advantage of the kindness of the radio 2 folks, here's the man singing his latest single...

the great books (ix) - animal farm

George Orwell's fable of the Russian revolution is simple & enjoyable, clear & salutary. Its celebrated lines have already passed into common use ('but some are more equal than others' is but one example). That it is, in form, a fable makes it easier to spot the main lessons; but Orwell's skill is in masking deeper resonances within the simplicity. The scene in Jones' kitchen with the pigs faces resembling humans is devastatingly worked.

We have (somewhere in the house) a great reading of it by Timothy West - his voice was made for the task. The children loved listening to it on car journeys and sang along to 'Beasts of England' with great gusto.

Thinking about the book yesterday (see, these posts are not just 'off the cuff'), it struck me that Paul's letter to the Philippians might be helpfully explored through the lens of Orwell's yarn - I don't mean to make Euodia into a Napoleon but nevertheless I do think there's some mileage there.

So watch this space for 'Animal Church'.

Maybe.

I Saw From The Beach (Moore)

I was talking with someone today and they made reference to a poem by the Irish poet, Thomas Moore (no 'Sir'). The poem is known as 'I Saw From The Beach' and it struck me as a very moving piece and one capable of being helpfully quoted in a variety of settings - hence the decision to post it here.

So: enjoy.

I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on;
I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining --
The bark was still there, but the waters were gone!

And such is the fate of life's early promise,
So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known:
Each wave that we danc'd on at morning, ebbs from us,
And leaves us, at eve, on the bleak shore alone!

Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning
The close of our day, the calm eve of our night;
Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of Morning,
Her clouds and her tears are worth Evening's best light.

Oh, who would not welcome that moment's returning,
When passion first wak'd a new life through his frame;
And his soul, like the wood that grows precious in burning,
Gave out all its sweets to love's exquisite flame!

a QWERTY church?

Here's an interesting anecdote I wasn't aware of:

Many of the rules that apply in businesses were set years ago and have endured by force of habit. A good example is the QWERTY keyboard, which is in use on all desktop computers. The original QWERTY layout of keys on the typewriter keyboard was designed in the 1870s to slow down the speed of typing because fast operators were causing typewriter keys to jam together. By putting the most commonly used letters e, a, i, o away from the index fingers of the hands, speed was reduced and jams were avoided. Those mechanical jams are long gone but we are stuck with a rule for a keyboard layout that is outdated and inappropriate. How many of the rules in your organisation are QWERTY standards – set up for circumstances that no longer apply today?

(You can read the whole article here)

Interesting as that is, it set me thinking: are there aspects of our church life & practice that are, effectively, QWERTY-standard?

And if there are, what then? Changing keyboard isn't possible - not now, not this late in the game. But changing church? Wadda ya think?

the great books (viii) - to kill a mockingbird

Continuing the sequence of major prize-winning literature that this list is turning into - an Orange, & two Bookers to date - we now reach the Pulitzer-accorded To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee's most famous piece of writing.

It's a coming-of-age novel but that can never do justice to this fine, fine work. The story of Scout, her father Attitcus and the fabled Boo Radley is wonderfully observed and bravely raised a flag for the injustices of the deep south.

The least-churchy of the main characters, Atticus nevertheless displays the most consistently Christian behaviour. Perhaps unwittingly, Lee takes us on a side-journey into the waters of Romans 2, Luke 10 and James 2....not the hearers but the doers.

It took me a long time to get around to reading this but I'm so glad I did.

wild horses

Susan Boyle on top form. Honest.