Thank you to my fellow adventurers

I want to say thank you to the others in the group. As we have journeyed together in very different projects we have I feel grown together. We have queried and questioned each other, we have read each other's blogs and left comments. Interestingly we have raised similar issues and grappled with very much the same emerging church questions. We have shared joys and disappointments. We almost have an emerging church ourselves.

A very dear friend recently died of cancer, and her final blog entry was made by her husband. He wrote; Nicky died peacefully this evening to continue her resurrection adventure. As I write on Easter Sunday (I think it is actually now Monday but never mind) isn't that what its all about - continuing the resurrection adventure!

Project reflection

Its time to begin 'winding up' the project - this part of it anyway, and remind myself in essence this is an excerise, an experiment. Like others, who have written similarly in their blogs, I am left with lots of questions, not least the one - has it worked?
It is difficult to say because without definate strategies and goals at the beginning how do you know if you have succeeded. What quantifies success, or failure for that matter.
Have I managed to get a little group together with a common interest? Yes
Have they had fun together? Yes
Have they begun to get in touch with a spiritual side? Yes
Have they connected with God? I really do not know.
When so much of how we define missional church is to do with discipleship can we say we have success if we do not know if people have met with the reality of the living God in the process of our efforts?
Here we encounter one of the critical questions of emerging church. How do you know that what you are doing is church? If you do not intentionally meet with the purpose of worshipping God, however fluid a way that may be can you be said to be doing church? If you meet as an interest group and God is somehow tagged on to that, is that not side-lining God in a less than reverent way.

However it did occur to me that we may do that with traditional forms of church anyway. If we are brutally honest, how many people on a Sunday morning consciously go to church for an authentic encounter with God as their primary focus? Or do we go to be part of a group, to engage in an activity we all like, to drink coffee and catch up with friends. Yes we (hopefully) meet with God and sometimes he surprises us but it is often sufficient to take it for granted he is central because of where we meet rather than a concious mindset that places him in the centre. Maybe on a Sunday but what about other church activities during the week. I think of our toddler group who play, do arts and crafts, sing Christian choruses, and celebrate the major Christian festivals with prayer stations. Is that not 'church'? Or the brass band practice which I love. The fellowship is great we play great music and we spend time sharing and praying. We don't call it church because the primary focus is to practice music, but through the music we are 'blessed' and prepared to mission. The band has a good reputation and where ever they go they pull crowds, church goers and non church goers. The bandmaster knows this and being an extremely mission focused guy capitalises on this. Much of the preparation for people being connected with God which happens regularly is born out of the attitude instilled in us and the prayers at practices. Is this not church?

So yes I have broadened my horizons of church or recognise the dangers of a narrow view of church - whichever way you want to look at it.
But as I think about the 12 or so ladies and a couple of men that regularly come on a Wednesday lunchtime to be part of the Hub, plus the many others that get sucked in by an extra bargain, or a leaflet in their hand, do they see the Hub as church? Does it matter if they don't, so long as I do. There is a spirituality to it, a connection with inner self and outer community issues but I am not sure if it is able to go further than that. The definition of what we were asked to do was to create a group that had the potential to become church. In my mind that has to mean a corporate intention to meet with God - in the sort of way we do in toddlers or band practice. And I know that is not happening.

So where do we go from here? What the Hub has achieved is a kind of chaplaincy to customers and staff. People know they can come and be part of a group where they can share conversation. They are not just consumers but participants. They know there will be someone to talk to privately if they wish. They know that our little team of 3 are Christians from the Salvation Army Church (the management staff are not directly connected to the church). My aim was to create a group that supported each other and that has happened. New friends have been made who go out for coffee etc. outside of the Hub which is both exciting and humbling. I have to believe that God can and is working through these relationships but what the result will look like I have no idea. But to force a more Christian agenda in the conversation would be counterproductive. Any form of 'worship' needs to emerge from the group.

Will the Hub continue? Undoubtedly - with or without me!
Is it mission? Kind of.
Is it producing people who desire authenticity and are working to better their local community? Yes I think so.
Is it producing disciples - is the big question. For all I have learned about emerging churches having no distinction between the sacred and the secular the reality is I still see a boundary for people to cross that would make the Hub more like the band practice than the toddler group. Recognising Jesus within their group rather than just being told he is there.

Postmodern Spirituality 2

In my current reflection I am reminded of much work completed for my Celtic Mission and Spirituality Assignment. One of the questions I grappled with then was how to keep distinctly Christian in mission. There is much in the Celtic tradition that takes people as they are and moves them on in their faith journey by using symbols and images that are familiar to them. The Celtic cross for example is full of pagan symbolism, far removed from a Christian ethos, that was 'Christianised' by Celtic missionaries.
I concluded that yes there is room for different approaches and routes to faith, but there are dangers of misunderstandings that take the seeker away from Jesus as the Centre rather than toward Him. The difference comes with revelation. It is not people seeking after God, but God who has revealed himself to people. The starting point of the Christendom church is that people are sinners in need of salvation, and repentence often is a call to turn our back on what we have known and believed in the past, and turn to God. The starting point of the Celtic tradition is that we are made in the image of God and that is something to celebrate. This was the starting point of Jesus himself, with the cross being the culmination of the message rather than the beginning of it. If we encourage people to live in the knowledge and privilege they are made in the image of God and help them to celebrate life in all its fullness, as they learn more about what that means they will encounter the truth of the cross as the revealing of God's love and his desire to restore people into the image of God we were created to reflect.

Post modern Spirituality

A very interesting conversation last week. We repeated a focal point and leaflet, revamped slightly, about hard places. People are invited to take a small stone and symbolically place it in a situation that is hard. One of the regulars to the Hub commented she knew exactly where she was going to put her stone. That sounded to me like an invitation to engage in conversation. She shared the problems she was having with a neighbour and finished with the comment 'If that doesn't work can I bring it back and exchange it for a Voodoo doll!' It wasn't a deeply serious conversation by any means, but it make me think. Postmodern spirituality is often a mishmash of different ideas and the boundary between that which is 'holy and of God' and that which clearly isn't is blurred. Questions I am reflecting on as a result are;
In our instant fix society how do we encourage people to wait on the Lord for answers rather than dash off in search of an alternative that might work better?
Does this sort of thinking mean the boundaries between the sacred and secular are coming down, but at what cost? How can we encourage someone's spiritual search to be distinctly Christian?

Mary

I posted some of the general difficulties around the Hub and the charity shop. They have not gone away but the Hub is back. Throughout the few weeks we didn't have one, Mary said she missed the chance to chat and the leaflet that gave her a challenge for the week. God bless encouragers like Mary

A bit of a disaster!

My reflection at the moment is on what happens when things go wrong! Our Christmas Hub basically didn't happen. There are 'political' issues at the shop which are not good, and lots of my time has been spent in a listening ear capacity supporting the manager and assistant. We had planned to do a Christmas Hub with mince pies and coffee (in cups with lids on!), Christmas music and a few freebies. The manager is on long term sick after an workrelated injury (just one of the issues) and the covering manager gave us a frosty reception (maybe she was just being festive), so we decided to just be around and keep things low key. There was no coffee, mince pies or carols. We did give out some candles with a Christmas message about the fragrance of Jesus filling your house at Christmas time, which seemed to go down well. The non-event was nobody's fault but it did set me thinking about spiritual warfare. Being a good Salvationist who was been brought up on theology about waging war against sin and rescuing the sinner, this came quite naturally. But I did discover I had a new perspective. The enemy suddenly appeared to be very real, actively trying to prevent not just the event, but destroying some relationships we have spent months trying to build. Things are going abit wrong, as I say not just with the Hub but with some situations around the shop in general which are causing serious concern especially in terms of mission. We need to be aware of where the attack is ultimately coming from - not from people's pettiness, but from a source that does not want emerging church to happen. However, there is a positive side - if we are under attack what we are doing must have potential for the Kingdom of God - and Calvary reminds us we are on the winning side.

Transient People's Church

The Hub continues to produce some interesting conversations, and I have even begun to invite a couple of 'regulars' to go for a coffee afterwards. But my reflection this week has really been on the transient nature of the Hub. Yes we are having conversations with people, but its not the same people who are in every week to establish a 'group'. Last week we gave out little stones and the leaflet talked about symbolically placing the stone in a place that was hard. This really seemed to connect with people, and some moving stories emerged. I had just walked in the shop and a lady was paying at the counter as I started to set up - still with my coat on. I gave her a leaflet and a stone, she read it and burst into tears. 'This is just what I need today' she said. She didn't go to church, and the conversation didn't even include God, and yet I found myself praying with her. She is not that local, and no one has seen her since, but that connection, and conversation - were hugely significant. My husband had a similar experience in the homeless project, and would love to carry on supporting a young lad who has run away from home and refused to go with the Barnado's people who are part of our team. As I have reflected and prayed for the lady and the boy since, I wonder how they are doing, and whether the situations they described have got any better. The question arose in my mind - do I want to see them again for my benefit or theirs?

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We long to carry on the support and finish the story. But perhaps the more we 'do church' in a transient setting, the less likely it will be that we embark on a longer term ministry. That is hard. Most of our church conditioning has taught us to look for outcomes - bums on seats and spiritual development. The temptation is to only go for the things that may provide such tangable results. I remember grappling with this very issue on the online assignment, where our group was discovering what church in a shopping centre might look like. If emerging church is about forming a group and allowing something to emerge, is this kind of encounter what we should be looking for? But I am also left thinking if I had not been there, would the lady have had the opportunity, on the very day things had all blown up for her, to talk. I believe in that moment God had placed me where she was, and if I never see her again, I have to trust that I was a small part of her journey toward God and other people have played other parts. A Salvation Army songwriter Joy Webb once wrote;

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'We pass as ships in the night, my world in orbit of theirs,

But for just one moment of time, I could be the answer to their prayers.'

Emerging church is not neat and tidy church. Perhaps we just need to hand over control of outcomes alittle more often to the One who can truly see the bigger picture!