Blood on the doorposts

This week has been a painful week for many with whom I work. Words like 'betrayal', 'blood' and 'death' have been muttered. At times it felt like Golgotha but of course it was only a faint hazzy shaddow of that history changing moment suspended in God's eternal time.

Traditional mission agencies (like those we seek to serve through Faith2Share) rely on regular giving and when recession hits, incomes shrink, jobs are 'retrenched' or 'restructured' and people suffer. In a close community that suffering is corporate and so it should be. We sit and listen, mop up spilt emotions, and try to understand ... and feel guilty that it was not us. When blood mixed with tears on Golgotha worlds were about to change (as indeed when blood was spashed on doorposts in pre-Exodus Egypt), and I sit here tonight wondering whether our world might also change. Of course it will, but in what ways?, how dramatically?, and what will survive or be lost? I have felt for some time that the hegenomy of professional mission agencies (which of course was only ever an imagined hegenomy! - don't we love to fool ourselves) cannot go on. Mission is changing, God is doing new things, and we must be ready. Whether you call them 'involuntary missionaries', 'non-professional missionaries', 'buisionaries', or just 'God's people living for him', mission is for all children, women and men and we may well find that 'the business of mission' will soon 'employ' very few of us. But none of the excitement of the new ( and it is exciting) takes away the reality of the pain right now - it only offers hope.

Life beyond Wimbledon

Do I recall there was once a war in Sri Lanka? Now that Wimbledon has started in Britain my TV, and sadly my consiousness, seem to have been taken over by tennis and the rest of life is fast disappearing into the mists of time. That was until the report arrived on my desk this morning from Bishop Kumara in Sri Lanka.

Christians are a small minority in this south Asian state, often trampled upon by their Buddhist and Hindu neighbours but when, in May, thousands fled their homes in the north of the island, poor Christian communities were determined to help - to do what Jesus would have done, to weep with the bereaved, bind up wounds, feed hungry children, and sit silently with the traumatised. Although help did eventually come from outside, Bishop Kumar, reports that at least 50% of the food and clothing distributed came from parishes and congregations within the diocese. Families gave up plates and shoes so that others could eat and walk. The suffering will go on for years in this beautiful country, just as there are still many (in the same communities) recovering from the Tsunami. Local Christians will continue to serve them long after the aid agencies leave - they will do so because that's what Jesus does.

I think Jesus would also enjoy Wimbledon, but we must not let the one eclipse the other.

Virtually Gathered - Part 2

My last post seems to have generated a little discussion. One friend wrote, "what do we mean by "gather"? Is simply sharing a physical place really "gathering"? Some of the relationships I have with people I know but have never met physically are deeper, stronger, more honest and open etc. than many with whom I have shared a church building on a weekly basis. ... Couldn't "gathering" be far less about place and far more about spirit, emotion, sharing and participation? Is even the language a sign that we are still too strongly defined by Greek/Modernist thinking about the cosmos? The "space" which is important surely is the space between people - that which enables relational waves to flow not the containing space we gather in?"

"Space between people" is what allows for the possibility of relationship. I have always thought that the space between Father, Son and Spirit is important because it gives birth to relationship and it is relationship which makes the Trinity work and at the same time creates a re-creative space for us mere mortals to enter into.

I like the idea of 'gathering' being about relationship rather than place but what about 'incarnation'. If having a body, physicality, was so important for Jesus (living in Palestine and risen from the dead) then where do we place this physicality in 'virtual church'?

Virtually Gathered - or not?

When is church not church? - When its un-gathered? That was the question I had buzzing in my mind this morning as I was driven home from Wokingham after speaking at the morning service at All Saints. (Don't worry, I haven't got myself a chauffeur, yet - a colleague was preaching in a nearby church so we were saving the planet by sharing a car!) All Saints was very gathered (ecclesial) - good Anglican worship, well led, with a responsive and obviously committed congregation. It was a conversation over coffee afterwards that raised the question.

Having preached on mission (what else?) I found myself in coversation with a church member who is part of i-Church, the Oxford diocese attempt at internet faith community. Never having attended (is that the right word?) a virtual church myself, I was interested to hear about the missional challenges of 'being out there' in virtual space for God. Obviously the internet is a great place to connect, and it is increasingly being used for evangelism, but the struggle seems to be to understand how physical (present to each other) the 'gathering' of God's people needs to be in order for it to function as the Body of Christ. Virtual gathering? Virtual Body? Is i-Mission a route to i-Church or must it lead to something more gathered, more tangible, more touchable? I left the discussion in no doubt about the importance of Christians inhabiting virtual space, and claiming that space as God's, but the question remains - church, ecclesia, gathered, virtually gathered?