For the last ten years our church has met each Sunday around a meal. There is something that happens to a community that comes together around a meal, brought together by a mutual hunger, invited by Jesus, and open to all. We have had a lot of interesting characters eat with us over the last ten years and I'd love to write about our experiences one day, but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to express the raw emotion, passion and richness that Sara Miles brings to this fascinating memoir. You can smell it and taste it.
Raised as an atheist opposed to Christianity, Sara Miles describes how she wanders into a church and takes communion, then something happens to her that is 'outrageous and terrifying'. She found that 'God, named "Christ" or "Jesus", was real, and in my mouth'. What follows is frankly a riveting, disturbing and inspiring adventure about how a lesbian atheist journalist ended up finding Jesus in the giving and receiving of food, both in the Episcopal rites of communion, and in the growth of her food pantry serving hundreds of needy people in San Francisco.
One of the major themes of the book is the inclusivity of the way she experiences communion, and in how the food pantry runs, modelled on Jesus' radical eating habits described in the gospels. I resonated with how often she finds Jesus not in the rituals of church but in the simple encounter of eating with those who you feel uncomfortable with and who are different to you. This 'radical hospitality' opens Jesus' table to all, and their food pantry is also open to all with no ID required.
I loved how she described the way in which some of the people who came for food began to volunteer to help, and in doing so found meaning and identity. People want more than food: 'they wanted, in fact, church: not the kind where you sit obediently and listen to someone tell you how to behave but the kind where you discover responsibility, purpose, meaning. They wanted a church where they could bring their sorrows, their gifts, their entire messy lives: where they could find community'. Amen to that Sara!
The food pantry looks more and more like the kind of place Jesus would have hung out - hungry, broken people from all different countries, coming together around food, those mentally ill, gang members, addicts, transsexuals and many more, finding community, love and healing in all sorts of ways. God at work in the mess and incompleteness of life.
I loved how she described a conversation that concluded with the idea that 'food and healing go together'. This is so true in my own experience, but most obviously from Jesus' meals in the gospels. Jesus offers a radically inclusive meal invitation, but amidst the trouble and controversy that ensued, healing and miracles and transformation are found.
If you like your Christianity in nice neat packages please don't read this book. But if you enjoy being challenged, don't mind the odd 'F' word and enjoy a great story well told, go for it.
Wednesday 9 July 2014
Being Christian by Rowan Williams
This short, four chapter book is a real gem, and for less than a fiver on Kindle it's a no brainer for a bit of theological summer reading by the former Archbishop of Canterbury. The four chapters cover some of the basics of the Christian life: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist and Prayer. The chapter on baptism is superb - Williams writes in such an accessible way yet with real depth and is very quotable. At one point it seemed as though I was going to highlight the entire chapter on my Kindle. Here are just two of the quotes I loved:
"Baptism is a ceremony in which we are washed, cleansed and re-created. It is also a ceremony in which we are pushed into the middle of a human situation that may hurt us, and that will not leave us untouched or unsullied".
" and the gathering of baptised people is therefore not a convocation of those who are privileged, elite and separate, but of those who have accepted what it means to be in the heart of a needy, contaminated, messy world".
On the Bible: "this is what God wants you to hear. He wants you to hear law and poetry and history. He wants you to hear the polemic and the visions".
On Eucharist: "in Holy Communion, Jesus Christ tells us that he wants our company". "The meals that Jesus shares in his ministry are the way in which he begins to re-create a community, to lay the foundations for rethinking what the words 'the people of God' mean". (I love that quote!)
In the Eucharist chapter there is line after line of beautiful prose about the richness of communion, its dependence on the resurrection to have any real meaning, and the sacramental nature of the world. "It is to see everything in some sense sacramentally. If Jesus gives thanks over bread and wine, if Jesus makes that connection between the furthest place away from God, which is suffering and death, and if in his person he fuses those things together, then wherever we are some connection between us and God is possible. All places, all people, all things have about them an unexpected sacramental depth".
If that quote doesn't make you buy the book I don't know what will! The link he makes between communion and our responsibility for the environment is stunning, as well as how he describes communion as an invitation into community and love for others. He makes clear that communion is for those who are wrong rather than right, hungry rather than full, human not divine, and it is "the way in which the whole of the Gospel story is played out in our midst".
I'll stop the review here before I quote the entire book, but I think you get the idea that I'm recommending it to you. Whether you're a new Christian looking for something to help you think deeper about the basics of the Christian life, or you're a mature Christian looking for a fresh take on these four topics, it's well worth a read.
"Baptism is a ceremony in which we are washed, cleansed and re-created. It is also a ceremony in which we are pushed into the middle of a human situation that may hurt us, and that will not leave us untouched or unsullied".
" and the gathering of baptised people is therefore not a convocation of those who are privileged, elite and separate, but of those who have accepted what it means to be in the heart of a needy, contaminated, messy world".
On the Bible: "this is what God wants you to hear. He wants you to hear law and poetry and history. He wants you to hear the polemic and the visions".
On Eucharist: "in Holy Communion, Jesus Christ tells us that he wants our company". "The meals that Jesus shares in his ministry are the way in which he begins to re-create a community, to lay the foundations for rethinking what the words 'the people of God' mean". (I love that quote!)
In the Eucharist chapter there is line after line of beautiful prose about the richness of communion, its dependence on the resurrection to have any real meaning, and the sacramental nature of the world. "It is to see everything in some sense sacramentally. If Jesus gives thanks over bread and wine, if Jesus makes that connection between the furthest place away from God, which is suffering and death, and if in his person he fuses those things together, then wherever we are some connection between us and God is possible. All places, all people, all things have about them an unexpected sacramental depth".
If that quote doesn't make you buy the book I don't know what will! The link he makes between communion and our responsibility for the environment is stunning, as well as how he describes communion as an invitation into community and love for others. He makes clear that communion is for those who are wrong rather than right, hungry rather than full, human not divine, and it is "the way in which the whole of the Gospel story is played out in our midst".
I'll stop the review here before I quote the entire book, but I think you get the idea that I'm recommending it to you. Whether you're a new Christian looking for something to help you think deeper about the basics of the Christian life, or you're a mature Christian looking for a fresh take on these four topics, it's well worth a read.
Monday 9 June 2014
In the church calendar, Pentecost marks the start of what is known as 'ordinary time' - we are not building up to Christmas(Advent) or Easter(Lent), and the 50 Days of Easter are over. I struggle with the idea of ordinary time as I have never wanted to be ordinary. I always wanted to be exceptional, to be the best at something, to leave my mark on the world.
As a kid my hero was Bryan Robson. One day I would be the new Robbo. Fearless captain of Manchester United and England, a marauding midfielder who could turn a game round single handedly. I would stand on the Stretford End and watch him lead the team with passion and skill. One day like Robbo, I would be a great goal scoring midfielder, I would play for United and England, I would wear number 7, I would even be 5'10 like he was. Sadly I only reached the dizzy heights of winning the Spring Harvest 5 a side tournament at Butlins (twice!), only got in my school team when some of the lads started smoking weed and couldn't hack it, and worst of all, I only grew to be 5'9. One inch away, but it may as well have been a mile. The dream was dead.
Growing up into adulthood as a young Christian, I was a drummer in a band and longed to be able to play like Martin Neil in Kevin Prosch's band. To have that kind of precision and creativity, to know your drumming actually helps people to experience God, and to be pretty cool at the same time, perhaps this was my true calling. My first experience of recording an album confirmed that this was not the case, as I looked through the glass at the sound engineer after my attempt at a ninth take, he had his head in his hands and was gently rocking back and forth. The album artwork also revealed another issue: I am not cool. Drumming will remain a nice hobby.
Some of my friends and I had an idea to run some youth meetings for Christians in Greater Manchester. These monthly events gathered quite a good crowd and as numbers grew to around 200, I imagined us as the Soul Survivor of the North. Perhaps I could become a world class speaker and host meetings like Mike Pilavachi, and people would laugh at my jokes, and invitations to preach around the world would flood in. Or maybe that was the peak of what God wanted for those meetings, and they would fizzle out as we tried to keep them going longer than we should? We didn't become the Soul Survivor of the North, and I certainly didn't become the next Mike Pilavachi as I had secretly hoped.
Then ten years ago, we started a church. I went on a church planting course and read the great stories of churches that started out in a front room and within two years, were thousands strong. I also heard people tell me that if you start a church in an inner city estate, it's really hard work and it won't grow. I was confident we would buck that trend. I even read books about church planting movements where churches rapidly multiplied around whole regions, and I imagined myself leading such a movement with churches planted all over the North West of England. I would be the Bill Hybels of the inner city church.
(I'm not the Bill Hybels of the inner city church by the way)
We have seen wonderful things happen and many lives changed and an estate transformed in the last ten years, but if you turn up on a Sunday you won't be impressed. Bill Hybels has Willow Creek church, we meet in Willow Tree school, but that's the only similarity. Yesterday there were 25 of us worshipping together. The time before that when I was there, 100 came. We eat food together and talk about Jesus. It's not big or flashy or impressive at all. But I love it.
I'm currently studying for an MA in theology. On Thursday I'm presenting a paper at an academic conference. I now have theological heroes to go with my football/drumming/church heroes. What can I learn from my life so far, when I read about Hauerwas, Moltmann, and Tom Wright, and imagine writing books like theirs and spending my life studying and teaching like they do? I have written myself a memo:
Chris, you're not going to be the next Tom Wright. You're not that clever. Also, you're not charismatic and funny like Mike Pilavachi. You can't write like Don Miller. You can't play football like Bryan Robson. You can't drum like Martin Neil. You are never going to lead a church like Bill Hybels does. You'll never be a great pastor of people like Bob Yule. And that is actually ok. You are ordinary old Chris Lane. You wear glasses that are not as cool as Rob Bell's. And you can't write as well as him either.
Even if you put one sentence on a line like this.
Chris, you are not cool, you are going bald and you're too hairy and you are an ordinary bloke doing your best to be a good husband, a good Dad and a good friend and church leader. Maybe God's trying to tell you to be yourself, and just maybe you are starting to do that after 38 years of trying to be extraordinary. Maybe the best thing you can do is to love the next person you meet, to listen to them, to hear what God might be saying to them, and to pray for them. Then move on to the next person. And perhaps God might want you not to stand out from the crowd but just be ok at everything, and that might just work out well for you. Perhaps it's more important that you spent 5 days just having fun with the kids last week and hardly picking up your phone/iPad/PC, than the fact that this week you're doing 6 preaches and that might make you feel important? Maybe having 25 or 100 people come to a Sunday meeting shouldn't affect your morale so much? Is it not more important that each of those people who did come felt a connection with God and felt loved by his people?
I'm part of a generation who were taught to look for the big bang, to pray for revival, to change the world, to make a bucket list and do it all on our gap years, to live life to the max - to be outstanding and exceptional and be the best - but by definition only a tiny amount of people will be outstanding. The rest of us need to get on with being ourselves, loving the people who we come into contact with, serving others, not waiting for our big break but getting on with living as ordinary people in ordinary time, believing in an extraordinary God.
As a kid my hero was Bryan Robson. One day I would be the new Robbo. Fearless captain of Manchester United and England, a marauding midfielder who could turn a game round single handedly. I would stand on the Stretford End and watch him lead the team with passion and skill. One day like Robbo, I would be a great goal scoring midfielder, I would play for United and England, I would wear number 7, I would even be 5'10 like he was. Sadly I only reached the dizzy heights of winning the Spring Harvest 5 a side tournament at Butlins (twice!), only got in my school team when some of the lads started smoking weed and couldn't hack it, and worst of all, I only grew to be 5'9. One inch away, but it may as well have been a mile. The dream was dead.
Growing up into adulthood as a young Christian, I was a drummer in a band and longed to be able to play like Martin Neil in Kevin Prosch's band. To have that kind of precision and creativity, to know your drumming actually helps people to experience God, and to be pretty cool at the same time, perhaps this was my true calling. My first experience of recording an album confirmed that this was not the case, as I looked through the glass at the sound engineer after my attempt at a ninth take, he had his head in his hands and was gently rocking back and forth. The album artwork also revealed another issue: I am not cool. Drumming will remain a nice hobby.
Some of my friends and I had an idea to run some youth meetings for Christians in Greater Manchester. These monthly events gathered quite a good crowd and as numbers grew to around 200, I imagined us as the Soul Survivor of the North. Perhaps I could become a world class speaker and host meetings like Mike Pilavachi, and people would laugh at my jokes, and invitations to preach around the world would flood in. Or maybe that was the peak of what God wanted for those meetings, and they would fizzle out as we tried to keep them going longer than we should? We didn't become the Soul Survivor of the North, and I certainly didn't become the next Mike Pilavachi as I had secretly hoped.
Then ten years ago, we started a church. I went on a church planting course and read the great stories of churches that started out in a front room and within two years, were thousands strong. I also heard people tell me that if you start a church in an inner city estate, it's really hard work and it won't grow. I was confident we would buck that trend. I even read books about church planting movements where churches rapidly multiplied around whole regions, and I imagined myself leading such a movement with churches planted all over the North West of England. I would be the Bill Hybels of the inner city church.
(I'm not the Bill Hybels of the inner city church by the way)
We have seen wonderful things happen and many lives changed and an estate transformed in the last ten years, but if you turn up on a Sunday you won't be impressed. Bill Hybels has Willow Creek church, we meet in Willow Tree school, but that's the only similarity. Yesterday there were 25 of us worshipping together. The time before that when I was there, 100 came. We eat food together and talk about Jesus. It's not big or flashy or impressive at all. But I love it.
I'm currently studying for an MA in theology. On Thursday I'm presenting a paper at an academic conference. I now have theological heroes to go with my football/drumming/church heroes. What can I learn from my life so far, when I read about Hauerwas, Moltmann, and Tom Wright, and imagine writing books like theirs and spending my life studying and teaching like they do? I have written myself a memo:
Chris, you're not going to be the next Tom Wright. You're not that clever. Also, you're not charismatic and funny like Mike Pilavachi. You can't write like Don Miller. You can't play football like Bryan Robson. You can't drum like Martin Neil. You are never going to lead a church like Bill Hybels does. You'll never be a great pastor of people like Bob Yule. And that is actually ok. You are ordinary old Chris Lane. You wear glasses that are not as cool as Rob Bell's. And you can't write as well as him either.
Even if you put one sentence on a line like this.
Chris, you are not cool, you are going bald and you're too hairy and you are an ordinary bloke doing your best to be a good husband, a good Dad and a good friend and church leader. Maybe God's trying to tell you to be yourself, and just maybe you are starting to do that after 38 years of trying to be extraordinary. Maybe the best thing you can do is to love the next person you meet, to listen to them, to hear what God might be saying to them, and to pray for them. Then move on to the next person. And perhaps God might want you not to stand out from the crowd but just be ok at everything, and that might just work out well for you. Perhaps it's more important that you spent 5 days just having fun with the kids last week and hardly picking up your phone/iPad/PC, than the fact that this week you're doing 6 preaches and that might make you feel important? Maybe having 25 or 100 people come to a Sunday meeting shouldn't affect your morale so much? Is it not more important that each of those people who did come felt a connection with God and felt loved by his people?
I'm part of a generation who were taught to look for the big bang, to pray for revival, to change the world, to make a bucket list and do it all on our gap years, to live life to the max - to be outstanding and exceptional and be the best - but by definition only a tiny amount of people will be outstanding. The rest of us need to get on with being ourselves, loving the people who we come into contact with, serving others, not waiting for our big break but getting on with living as ordinary people in ordinary time, believing in an extraordinary God.
Thursday 6 March 2014
The Land of Christ by Yohanna Katanacho
Ever since I visited The Holy Land a few years ago I have been fascinated with the theology, history and politics of the place. Having been brought up in a Brethren church and hearing a fair amount of Christian Zionist teaching about the present state of Israel being a clear fulfilment of biblical prophecy, I have been on a journey of trying to assess what the Bible actually says about the land and its relationship to the Jewish people.
I heard the author speak at a conference recently and heard his fascinating story of growing up in a Christian Palestinian family on the Via Dolorosa, and becoming a prominent atheist university lecturer until a profound experience one night led him to faith in Jesus. His subsequent attempts to live out the message of the Sermon on the Mount in the land of Jesus are both harrowing and challenging. This story makes up the first chapter of this short but dense book.
The author then launches into his argument with three questions: what are the borders of the land? Who is Israel? And how did God give Israel the land? The key question of all is does the land belong to Israel or to Christ? The title of the book gives a strong hint about where the argument is heading! He then looks in details at how the scriptures describe the land in three time periods: before Abraham, the time from Abraham to Christ, and after the coming of Christ.
One interesting observation from Genesis 12-22 is his idea that 'it seems that the land of Abraham is not going to have strict borders... (It) will continue to extend until it is equal to the whole earth'. So Abraham's seed will ultimately unite the whole earth. Then he argues that 'The New Testament demonstrates that Christ is the Abrahamic seed in which and through which the promises are fulfilled. Through him, the Abrahamic land extends to the whole earth'. 'The promise to Abraham was not to have a land with fixed borders, but to inherit the whole earth'.
I found this book really interesting and challenging, both theologically and to my own comfortable lifestyle. I would recommend it to anyone whatever your perspective on the Holy Land as a perspective which is not just developed in an ivory tower but lived out and experienced on a day to day basis. As such it has real integrity.
I heard the author speak at a conference recently and heard his fascinating story of growing up in a Christian Palestinian family on the Via Dolorosa, and becoming a prominent atheist university lecturer until a profound experience one night led him to faith in Jesus. His subsequent attempts to live out the message of the Sermon on the Mount in the land of Jesus are both harrowing and challenging. This story makes up the first chapter of this short but dense book.
The author then launches into his argument with three questions: what are the borders of the land? Who is Israel? And how did God give Israel the land? The key question of all is does the land belong to Israel or to Christ? The title of the book gives a strong hint about where the argument is heading! He then looks in details at how the scriptures describe the land in three time periods: before Abraham, the time from Abraham to Christ, and after the coming of Christ.
One interesting observation from Genesis 12-22 is his idea that 'it seems that the land of Abraham is not going to have strict borders... (It) will continue to extend until it is equal to the whole earth'. So Abraham's seed will ultimately unite the whole earth. Then he argues that 'The New Testament demonstrates that Christ is the Abrahamic seed in which and through which the promises are fulfilled. Through him, the Abrahamic land extends to the whole earth'. 'The promise to Abraham was not to have a land with fixed borders, but to inherit the whole earth'.
I found this book really interesting and challenging, both theologically and to my own comfortable lifestyle. I would recommend it to anyone whatever your perspective on the Holy Land as a perspective which is not just developed in an ivory tower but lived out and experienced on a day to day basis. As such it has real integrity.
Saturday 4 January 2014
God's Forever Family by Larry Eskridge
God's Forever Family by Larry Eskridge
I love reading books on recent history, and this one was no exception. It is a history of the Jesus movement in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s. It is written in an accessible way by an academic from his PhD thesis, and is fascinating, funny, a little repetitive but always interesting. Larry Eskridge argues that the Jesus People movement is one of the most significant events in the American church scene in the twentieth century, not only for the impact it had on America's 'flower power' hippies, but also for its legacy in the Christian subculture.
He shows how the Jesus People played the key role in the development of the Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) scene, now a multi million dollar business in the US, with artists such as Larry Norman, Keith Green, Love Song and 2nd Chapter selling hundreds of thousands of albums and breaking out of the counter culture into the evangelical mainstream. Eskridge argues that the modern praise and worship movement, with its simple words, chords and melodies can trace its roots to the folk songs and choruses of the early Jesus People. At first this music was tolerated at best in the churches as they attempted to integrate the hippies who were coming to faith in their thousands, but now it is the standard fare of most evangelical/charismatic churches in the Western world.
Also fascinating are the church movements that sprang from the Jesus movement. Chuck Smith, the founder of the Calvary Chapel group of churches, was one of the most influential leaders for the Jesus People, combining many of the key elements of the Jesus Movement: an emphasis on the literalist teaching of the Bible as central for every Christian, a laid-back, come-as-you-are churchmanship, simple songs and choruses, charismatic experience, Journey Into Life-style evangelism, and dispensational eschatology (Hal Lindsay's book The Late Great Planet Earth was the most-read book among the Jesus People, second only to the Living Bible). From Calvary Chapel, the Vineyard movement emerged led by John Wimber, with a greater emphasis on the charismatic gifts but similar to Calvary Chapel in most other ways. The worship songs that emerged from Calvary Chapel (Maranatha Music) and the Vineyard would spread around the world and their influence is everywhere now in the songs of Matt Redman, Martin Smith, Tim Hughes and many others.
There are lots of laugh out loud moments when describing how the hippies encountered evangelical Christianity, like one guy preaching the gospel while smoking a spliff and completely naked (this was because he was preaching in a nudist commune), or the discussions as to whether it was ok to do LSD in Bible study! To give you a taster, one chapter is called 'Jesus knocked me off my metaphysical ass'. There are lots of other interesting nuggets, like the fact that the Christian subculture with Christian music, Christian books, pencils, mints, badges, t-shirts ('witness wear'!) and bumper stickers was pretty much created by the Jesus People (they will have to answer to God for this sin!).
If you are interested in the Christian Contemporary music scene, the Vineyard and Calvary Chapel churches, the evangelical Christian influence on the American counter-culture of the 60s-70s, communal living, revivalist youth movements or you just like a good real life story well told, get this book. It is quite long but worth the effort. The only thing I would have added is a 'what are they doing now' chapter, I would have loved to have found out how long the radical living lasted for, especially in some of the more extreme groups who became cult-like and highly controlling. What are they doing now? Did they come back into the mainstream? Did the lose their faith, or just their radical edge? Are some still living communally now? Aside from these questions, this is a recommended read.
I love reading books on recent history, and this one was no exception. It is a history of the Jesus movement in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s. It is written in an accessible way by an academic from his PhD thesis, and is fascinating, funny, a little repetitive but always interesting. Larry Eskridge argues that the Jesus People movement is one of the most significant events in the American church scene in the twentieth century, not only for the impact it had on America's 'flower power' hippies, but also for its legacy in the Christian subculture.
He shows how the Jesus People played the key role in the development of the Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) scene, now a multi million dollar business in the US, with artists such as Larry Norman, Keith Green, Love Song and 2nd Chapter selling hundreds of thousands of albums and breaking out of the counter culture into the evangelical mainstream. Eskridge argues that the modern praise and worship movement, with its simple words, chords and melodies can trace its roots to the folk songs and choruses of the early Jesus People. At first this music was tolerated at best in the churches as they attempted to integrate the hippies who were coming to faith in their thousands, but now it is the standard fare of most evangelical/charismatic churches in the Western world.
Also fascinating are the church movements that sprang from the Jesus movement. Chuck Smith, the founder of the Calvary Chapel group of churches, was one of the most influential leaders for the Jesus People, combining many of the key elements of the Jesus Movement: an emphasis on the literalist teaching of the Bible as central for every Christian, a laid-back, come-as-you-are churchmanship, simple songs and choruses, charismatic experience, Journey Into Life-style evangelism, and dispensational eschatology (Hal Lindsay's book The Late Great Planet Earth was the most-read book among the Jesus People, second only to the Living Bible). From Calvary Chapel, the Vineyard movement emerged led by John Wimber, with a greater emphasis on the charismatic gifts but similar to Calvary Chapel in most other ways. The worship songs that emerged from Calvary Chapel (Maranatha Music) and the Vineyard would spread around the world and their influence is everywhere now in the songs of Matt Redman, Martin Smith, Tim Hughes and many others.
There are lots of laugh out loud moments when describing how the hippies encountered evangelical Christianity, like one guy preaching the gospel while smoking a spliff and completely naked (this was because he was preaching in a nudist commune), or the discussions as to whether it was ok to do LSD in Bible study! To give you a taster, one chapter is called 'Jesus knocked me off my metaphysical ass'. There are lots of other interesting nuggets, like the fact that the Christian subculture with Christian music, Christian books, pencils, mints, badges, t-shirts ('witness wear'!) and bumper stickers was pretty much created by the Jesus People (they will have to answer to God for this sin!).
If you are interested in the Christian Contemporary music scene, the Vineyard and Calvary Chapel churches, the evangelical Christian influence on the American counter-culture of the 60s-70s, communal living, revivalist youth movements or you just like a good real life story well told, get this book. It is quite long but worth the effort. The only thing I would have added is a 'what are they doing now' chapter, I would have loved to have found out how long the radical living lasted for, especially in some of the more extreme groups who became cult-like and highly controlling. What are they doing now? Did they come back into the mainstream? Did the lose their faith, or just their radical edge? Are some still living communally now? Aside from these questions, this is a recommended read.
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