Big Apple Jesus

Having my attention drawn to the current cover of Newsweek by a colleague this afternoon, I decided to look back at previous issues. It seems that Newsweek have had a conversion experience! Instead of being stuck in the imaginings of medieval artists and victorian stained glass Jesus has stepped boldly onto the streets of New York - or rather Newsweek have suddenly spotted him there (He was there all along, I suspect, even in NY).

Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic, takes a hard look in this lead article at the politicisation of American religious institutions, suggesting that many churches and religious establishments in the US are simply used as vehicles for achieving political power. In his frusatration he suggests we "forget the church and follow Jesus". The only problem is that he seems to forget that to follow Jesus is to walk straight back into the church. It is not so easy to divorce Jesus and church - take away the church and you take away the Body of Jesus and end up with a spiritualised, idealised, dis-embodied idea you might want to call Jesus - but it just aint Jesus. The church is messy, distorted, - yes, sinful, but it is the Body of Jesus and if we follow Jesus we have to cope with the church however much it frustrates and pains us! After all it is us.

So, don't forget the church. By all means forget the institution, the establishment, the political Right, heirachy and ecclesial power - but not the Body of Jesus, whose PHYSICAL resurrection we will celebrate again this week. Rather pray for its re-creation in His image.

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?

Make disciples and ... No 'and'!

From time to time I get asked to peer-review an article or a book that a colleague has written, pre-publication, so they can feel a little more confident sending it in to the editor. Normally its a task a hate because either the article is very boring, or its so cleaver I don't understand it, or its really bad and I don't know what I can say without causing my friend major psychological distress. It's like saying, "your baby is so ugly"! But today life was different. Well I suppose it is Easter week so we should expect that. An Indonesian colleague sent me a small book he has written. It's full of good stuff. I'll plug it here when he gets it off the press. Here are two quotes - I hope that's OK, BB?

"The dynamic community of Ecclesia [church] of Jesus Christ powerfully operates in advancing the Kingdom of God every single day. ... Unfortunately this non-stop transformation has, in many parts of the world, been reconfigured into a single event on Sunday."

" Jesus did not command the Ecclesia to 'engage in making disciples and also to care for the poor'; or to 'make disciples and to care for the creation'; or to 'make disciples and to engage in the public square.' This is because making disciples includes all of those."