My reply to a blog post about was the reform really needed, is it still needed ?
( NB sorry I can't call the RC the catholic ie universal church, I'm part of the holy, universal and apostolic church, and the RCs won't even let me share the family meal with them. So now do you think I'm anti Catholic ? Not at all anti catholics. I do have problems with the Vatican these days - voila, cards on table )
Can I start with a question. - If you lived at Luther's time, would you feel at ease in the RC as it was ?
When I lived in Britain I had no problems with the RC. I think we have made great strides in living together, and the RC, as practiced in England at least, has taken Vatican II to heart. Of course there are some key doctrines that mean that I would feel ill at ease being a regular member of an RC congregation, but I have happy fellowship with people who are RC members and I can feel fairly trusting of many of their senior leaders. I have been living here in France for 20 years now and have actively encouraged and participated in inter-church gatherings and what I thought was ecumenism. However I have had a number of encounters that have challenged my view.
* One was not so much an encounter as a discovery. Following something that sounded a bit odd to me, said by a bishop on the radio, I looked up ecumenism in a french dictionary. The bishop was right. It means meeting with others who call themselves christians to try to draw them back to the true church. So much for mutual respect.
* I heard several people (first hand and on the radio) talk about the appalling and life affecting damage done to them by their upbringing at the hands of nuns and priests, or in fundamentalist families - the worst being the consequent inability to be able to give or feel love to varying degrees. (Well, fundamentalist families of all sorts not just RC can do their fair share of damage, so I won't count that one too much).
* I also got "evangelised" by a catholic fundamentalist. (same note about fundamentalists)
* I wasn't allowed to take communion at a cousin's wedding. Some of the family could go forward, the rest were left in their seats as infidels, outcasts, heretics despite them sharing a living faith. Then I couldn't take communion at an interfaith gathering.
* When bishops have got wind of inter-church activity they have either directly banned it or highly discouraged it here.
* On the radio the bishops and other spokesmen frequently talk as if they are the only christians and that they speak for all.
* Here, when and if the reformation is mentioned, it is frequently in negative terms. The govt have roundly condemned massacres and ethnic cleansing in Armenia for example, and the Shoa, but anniversary of St Bartholomew's day, or repeal of the Edict of Nantes - not a peep. That period of time is euphemistically known as "The Wars of Religion". Like there was really 2 sides to the wide scale massacres which happened up and down the country not just in Paris ? Eventually some protestants took up arms, but it was very latterly. The country went from an estimated 43% protestant (including much of the royal court) to less than 3%. (figures quoted by the historian Frank Ferand on the radio station Europe 1)
* I was disgusted by the rank ignorance and flagrant homophobia shown by the very well supported demonstration in paris a few weeks ago against the marriage for all bill. My own jury is still out on that issue, but the attitudes shown by ordinary men and women at that event sickened me. They are not just a few extremists. They are the French RC by and large.
* As you well know France is home to a good number of Marist pilgrimage sites. They make a tidy profit. I can't talk about how I feel about how ignorance and superstition and idolatry is being encouraged, it makes me too sad and angry.
On the other hand I should mention a few exceptions - the Bishop of Lyon, a number of very brave and kind priests and some nuns, Abbé Pierre and the continued movement for the care of the homeless, a certain number of RC writers and broadcasters.
*****
As a protestant who didn't know I was protesting at all till I lived here I find this a can be a difficult atmosphere to live in, as you can imagine. I don't go for debate. I just water seeds of faith in individuals as I find them. I treat them as fellow christians, ie as I would want them to treat me.
But the fact is I live in a country that looked at the reformation and decided it didn't want it. There are many many consequences. The French out do us hands down in certain areas of excellence, that's not really what I'm talking about.
The one that strikes me the most is that in my observation social reform was and can still be much slower than in Protestant countries.
* I was amazed when we first came 20 years ago to find that the only decent books on the bookshop children's shelves were translations from English, German, or one of the Scandinavian languages. Many homes had no or few books in until Harry Potter came on the scene. At least communist homes would have a couple of books.
* Even now, to my knowledge, there is still no school in the whole of France for Autistic children. A good number have no specialised help at all, and some just have to stay home cos no one wants them.
* The hospice movement is tiny and still new.
* The state has no specialised places or staff for interviewing children who have been abused or need help to talk about things. A few magistrates who have been to England have set up charities to pay for a room in a hospital where they can talk to children.
* Take the fact that there was never any real grass roots labour movement here except the communist party. I will acknowledge that they have done some excellent things, but their aproach is so conflictual that they can't build something.Of course labour relations are far from perfect in Britain but at least there is, or at least used to be, far more labour representation, far more negotiation etc etc as a result of the labour movement which in good part came out of the protestant church movements.
I can't go on. The list is endless of things that have been proved and work and have not been introduced just because "It's the French Way". I've heard that phrase over and again in debates about these things. A debate on the value of getting parents into schools with statistics to prove it's value. All the debaters were in a agreement, but they were all in agreement at the end that it won't happen because It's not the French Way. This makes the inferiority complex worse not better. There are some things that are better here of course, there are 2 sides to everything, but I'm mainly quoting what I hear the french saying about themselves to themselves on France Inter, France Culture, and Europe 1.
Now to protestantism and protesting and division.
Clearly, or clearly to me, fraternal rupture when it is to do with disputes, personality clash, and so on is very very sad and unnecessary.
However split, when it becomes the only alternative, can be healthy. I see it like divorce. I hate divorce. I think it's dreadful. But I'm divorced and grateful for it. The law of the land recognised that I should not be obliged to live with someone who rendered my life so difficult. I still believe in marriage. Likewise, sometimes because of serious false doctrine (not trivialities about details of practice) or sin, I think rupture is needed where reconciliation has been tried and rejected. Luther tried and was rejected. Puritans tried and were rejected. Methodists tried and were rejected. I now also feel that sometimes split for cultural reason is necessary. Take a minor example. Some people were upset at a parish church that they divided the morning service into 2 services even though they weren't packed to the doors, but I think it's not rupture it's growth. They did the early Prayer book and later Family Service with monthly joint - both services are doing better. That church had the courage to face the fact that people have different needs and ways to express themselves and that's ok. There is even one of the churches in the group that is openly charismatic. That's ok with the others. The vicars can still meet together and support each other. They can still have joint events and publicise each others events and accept some coming and going by worshipers among the different churches in the group. One has no disabled access, but another meets in a centre for the disabled. That's ok. This church is rare. Often these different needs and views have to be met by rupture because of the rigidity of the structures they are in or of those in power.
I am now proud of being a protestant. I think - the more churches the merrier. There is need for as many churches as possible, and why not of all different flavours, aproaches and outlooks. I was in a denominational church and the elderly, who had been the youth of that church once, liked it the way it was and didn't want change. I'm not angry with them. Perhaps they were being a little selfish - who am I to judge? The polite thing was not to discretely try to change them, but to make church as we saw it elsewhere, just like they had done in their day. Some were threatened but surprisingly some gave us their blessing.
Now I look and see that each wave of new church and new christian movement brings something new and refreshing to our perspective of God and christianity and how to live it. I'm proud of it. If the reformation brought reform. Much needed reform. It's still bringing reform. Still needed. Yes there have been and will be some excesses along the way as the pendulum swings. Should we try to grab on to the pendulum to try to stop it ? Should we berate the new pendulum riders as heretics ? Calvin's words, spoken in the context of Geneva at that time were not so odd, they were the pendulum. Calvin-ISM of course has done as much damage as lots of -ISMs including the recent health and wealth movements for example which started out as a healthy re-balancing and became an overbalance. Every movement that is a prophetic movement in it's own time and context can be a curse when applied rigidly elsewhere. Even Jesus did not say the same to everyone, even saying apparent opposites in very different situations. He never called the ordinary crowds whitewashed tombs or a brood of vipers! Neither should we address some of the fiery challenges of Finney or Calvin to the ordinary man off the street Alpha course !
Thank you for bringing up this debate. I hope you find my contributions fruitful. x
Showing posts with label subdivision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label subdivision. Show all posts
Friday, 8 March 2013
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Thought : Ekklesia and Koinonia
Paul, I so agree with what you're saying here. I've given this so much thought. I've agonised over this. I've so longed for relationship, and depth. I've ached for it. The whole NT over and over : love love love. You cant just do that in a meeting. When I came to the Lord I already had church. What I needed was relationship. Relationship with God. Relationship with people. What principally brought me to make the commitment that made the difference was simple acts of kindness. Adults who remembered my name. Girls who invited me to sit with them in class and at lunch. Worship where I knew I just knew that not only was God present in the building but that He'd come out from behind the altar and sat with me in the pews. God talks. He even talks to ordinary people like me. Worship where even ordinary people could join in. Even ordinary people like me a shy 17 year old.
I found a lot of these things in planting new church. We had it. But then it got more formal and leaders got more distant and it changed. Alienation. I have to say that the influence from traditional pentecostal churches helped a lot in one way in helping us come into the fullness of the spirit. But we took on their priest heavy structures too. Home/cell groups help a lot. They don't make relationship but it's easier to make relationship in a smaller group.
I've spent so many years talking about this, praying it over, going over and over the New Testament. Longing. Just longing.
I've come to the conclusion that it's not the church structure that makes the church. I've been in anglican churches where there has been heart organic church yet has a written liturgy for services and some of the services are still from the prayer book, but there's life. I've been in pentecostal churches that have been strangled, suffocated by the unwritten liturgy, unwritten rules, bullying of pastors or of anyone who was different.
I've come to feel that we need both ekklesia AND koinonia. They can both exist separately but are only half the story. Like so many of the pairs in the NT of seemingly opposites. Faith and Works. Grace and Truth. The words Church and Fellowship are not synonyms. They are opposites that complement each other. Yin and Yang.
Ekklesia - NT greek - a public meeting for public participation. The original democracy.
Koinonia - NT greek - fellowship. intimate participation in something.
Remembered the old song :
Love and marriage,
Love and marriage,
Go together like a horse and carriage.
The structure + the organics.
Farms versus plants and animals. Plants and animals grow in the wild, that's organic. But feeding and protecting animals and tending the plants actually takes a lot of organisation and jolly hard work - that's farming.
Soulless mass farming leeches from the environment and finishes by leaving it sterile. No farming means everyone is just left to hunt and gather - OK for a few neanderthals in a very rich terrain.
Get starved of one and we resent the other. We blame the institution for the lack of fellowship. Obviously some institutions are less well designed for fellowship to be able to be incorporated but I've found that if I've been willing to do church within church by fostering relationship it compensates.
But where there is no structure at all there is no accountability, no adequate teaching and there is no obligation to remember the weak. The classic groups of course are the elderly who end up dropping off the map and the poor and weak who don't get on the map in the first place. I also think that unless we plan in time to pray and worship and teach it gradually gets left to the end then left out. I think good teaching needs serious study, prayer, maturity, experience, preparation. Worship got too big. Great have big worship from time to time but you can't do I Corinthians stuff in massive ekklesia. You need to have smaller scale ekklesia to be able to do more koinonia stuff with it.
I found a lot of these things in planting new church. We had it. But then it got more formal and leaders got more distant and it changed. Alienation. I have to say that the influence from traditional pentecostal churches helped a lot in one way in helping us come into the fullness of the spirit. But we took on their priest heavy structures too. Home/cell groups help a lot. They don't make relationship but it's easier to make relationship in a smaller group.
I've spent so many years talking about this, praying it over, going over and over the New Testament. Longing. Just longing.
I've come to the conclusion that it's not the church structure that makes the church. I've been in anglican churches where there has been heart organic church yet has a written liturgy for services and some of the services are still from the prayer book, but there's life. I've been in pentecostal churches that have been strangled, suffocated by the unwritten liturgy, unwritten rules, bullying of pastors or of anyone who was different.
I've come to feel that we need both ekklesia AND koinonia. They can both exist separately but are only half the story. Like so many of the pairs in the NT of seemingly opposites. Faith and Works. Grace and Truth. The words Church and Fellowship are not synonyms. They are opposites that complement each other. Yin and Yang.
Ekklesia - NT greek - a public meeting for public participation. The original democracy.
Koinonia - NT greek - fellowship. intimate participation in something.
Remembered the old song :
Love and marriage,
Love and marriage,
Go together like a horse and carriage.
The structure + the organics.
Farms versus plants and animals. Plants and animals grow in the wild, that's organic. But feeding and protecting animals and tending the plants actually takes a lot of organisation and jolly hard work - that's farming.
Soulless mass farming leeches from the environment and finishes by leaving it sterile. No farming means everyone is just left to hunt and gather - OK for a few neanderthals in a very rich terrain.
Get starved of one and we resent the other. We blame the institution for the lack of fellowship. Obviously some institutions are less well designed for fellowship to be able to be incorporated but I've found that if I've been willing to do church within church by fostering relationship it compensates.
But where there is no structure at all there is no accountability, no adequate teaching and there is no obligation to remember the weak. The classic groups of course are the elderly who end up dropping off the map and the poor and weak who don't get on the map in the first place. I also think that unless we plan in time to pray and worship and teach it gradually gets left to the end then left out. I think good teaching needs serious study, prayer, maturity, experience, preparation. Worship got too big. Great have big worship from time to time but you can't do I Corinthians stuff in massive ekklesia. You need to have smaller scale ekklesia to be able to do more koinonia stuff with it.
Thursday, 18 October 2012
Rant and Poem : Has new church become old church ?
Rant and Poem : Has new church become old church
i dont want to rubbish what "church" has become. i'm glad there are thousands of people meeting regularly all over britain to worship God ! it's brilliant. there are so many not just owning but reading bibles and christian literature ! people are praying, interceding, caring for the poor and needy, reaching out to the lost ! hallelujah. but we need to find a way forward so that it doesn't become rigidified. is that possible. or must we continually have to have a protest movement and division in order to bring progress ?
There are good models around that allowed numerical growth along with personal growth - especially the Early Methodists. I'll lay my cards on the table i personally think that subdivision has to be part of the way forward.
But lets look at the problem. I hope to look more at positive suggests in a future post. I need to look the problem as I see it.
very sad cos the pendulum in some churches and movements seems to have swung back from what we, or at least many of us, had hoped would be achieved in the charismatic, renewal, restoration, new church movement. priesthood of all believers, team leadership, baptism in the spirit and use of the gifts of the spirit. hand in hand with what some evangelical groups like Scripture union and UCCF and all the others had been doing to encourage individuals to be able to read the bible for themselves and listen to God themselves and training people in small group leadership, team leadership etc.
* how did it happen ? how do movements lose momentum ? how did it get diverted ? maybe not all of it has. maybe some has.
I don't want to hurtle into the opposite overbalance of saying all church groups are like this all the time, but in my meanderings on the internet and my experiences in churches and christian groupings in Britain and in France these are some tendencies that I've observed. (There are always exceptions, and generalisations can always be disputed) :
a) overbalance put on what was basically good teaching : restoring confident and mature spiritual leadership - teaching on anointing, an unfortunate choice of word cos it left others feeling or being told that that must mean that they're not anointed.
b) superstition that came again from a basically really good source - Tozer helped restore a greater spirituality amongst leaders but he also is very top heavy putting almost impossible demands on one man pastorships.
c) plain old fashioned human-ness that makes leaders heavy handed - weakness, ambition, frustration, desires, temptations (pennies, power, petticoats, pride GC), loneliness, utterly unreaslitic expectations put on them by congregations or "apostles", competitiveness, etc etc (this doesn't rule out that congregations, committees, elderships and PCCs can be bullies)
d) another factor i think was the haste with which we had to set up new churches without really being able to look at what did we want to set up in terms of structure. we were enthusiastic and took some things for granted. Idealistic groups are far more likely to be taken advantage of by those with "strong" characters or who have their own agendas.
e) cos we were keen to enter into the things of the spirit we took our models from the traditional pentecostal churches, especially the assemblies of god. i dont want to pick out the aog as any better or any worse than any other denomination but one of the things that didnt get resolved in the early days of the aog was the paternalistic attitude that was prevalent in the US in early 20th C when it was founded and led to a strong clergy-laity divide which has ended up inadvertently being reproduced in the new church movement in many areas. also the outward signs from azuza street were carried on, especially the gift of tongues, but the incredible racial and class reconciliation that was maybe an even more powerful element was deliberately, consciously rejected by those who took over the leadership in the early days and never restored later.
f) another thing that i've observed which is a positive again but with negative side effects - i think the new church movement is victim of it's own success. why have churches got so big - cos they're attractive. people want to go to them. there are some wonderful teachers and preachers and with good reason people want to hear them and follow them. i'm not just thinking of the flashy people who advertise themselves. what about a humble boy-next-door gent like stuart bell in lincoln. i was part of the first accidental church plant with him and his family in 1975 in lincoln. he and his mates formed a christian pop band to reach youth. we were reached. they wanted to provide for them and their church wouldnt let them so they had to make a church. lincoln free church had many if not all the elements i would still look for in a church. but you cant keep on having a family atmosphere and everyone participating in meetings when it gets too big to know everyone. the church keeps growing. you have to subdivide if you want to keep the atmosphere, but naturally everyone wants to be with the leaders that have already got the most experience and who are the best teachers.
g) Gross generalisation with an element of truth : Leaders who came into leadership through division are fearful of trusting others not to run off with their flocks. Churches that came from protest movements become fearful of protest.
I'll say it again. i dont want to rubbish what church has become. i'm glad there are thousands of people meeting regularly all over britain to worship God ! it's brilliant. there are so many not just owning but reading bibles and christian literature ! people are praying, interceding, caring for the poor and needy, reaching out to the lost ! hallelujah. but we need to find a way forward to that it doesnt become rigidified. is that possible. or must we continually have to have a protest movement and division in order to bring progress ?
i personally think that subdivision has to be part of the way forward so that there are home based cells, smallish (up to a hundred ) congregations with elders as co-pastors and big celebrations say once a month where the main teaching is done. Among the many good models around look at early Methodism.
Lord give us wisdom and grace
this is a poem i wrote when i got particularly fed up about it all about 10 years ago. i'm not so negative now about it now as i was :
A sacrifice of praise
We bring a sacrifice of praise
And boy it’s a sacrifice these days
Look how things have changed you say
We didn’t want it done that way
We kicked out pews, moved round the chairs
Aisles were for dancing, hugs and prayers
We swapped the pros for amateurs
With just 3 chords we're all worshippers
But now feels like olden times returned
Lay man sidelined, pastor’s wage must be earned
And much as I love the odd diminished chord
Is it really essential to worship the Lord ?
i dont want to rubbish what "church" has become. i'm glad there are thousands of people meeting regularly all over britain to worship God ! it's brilliant. there are so many not just owning but reading bibles and christian literature ! people are praying, interceding, caring for the poor and needy, reaching out to the lost ! hallelujah. but we need to find a way forward so that it doesn't become rigidified. is that possible. or must we continually have to have a protest movement and division in order to bring progress ?
There are good models around that allowed numerical growth along with personal growth - especially the Early Methodists. I'll lay my cards on the table i personally think that subdivision has to be part of the way forward.
But lets look at the problem. I hope to look more at positive suggests in a future post. I need to look the problem as I see it.
very sad cos the pendulum in some churches and movements seems to have swung back from what we, or at least many of us, had hoped would be achieved in the charismatic, renewal, restoration, new church movement. priesthood of all believers, team leadership, baptism in the spirit and use of the gifts of the spirit. hand in hand with what some evangelical groups like Scripture union and UCCF and all the others had been doing to encourage individuals to be able to read the bible for themselves and listen to God themselves and training people in small group leadership, team leadership etc.
* how did it happen ? how do movements lose momentum ? how did it get diverted ? maybe not all of it has. maybe some has.
I don't want to hurtle into the opposite overbalance of saying all church groups are like this all the time, but in my meanderings on the internet and my experiences in churches and christian groupings in Britain and in France these are some tendencies that I've observed. (There are always exceptions, and generalisations can always be disputed) :
a) overbalance put on what was basically good teaching : restoring confident and mature spiritual leadership - teaching on anointing, an unfortunate choice of word cos it left others feeling or being told that that must mean that they're not anointed.
b) superstition that came again from a basically really good source - Tozer helped restore a greater spirituality amongst leaders but he also is very top heavy putting almost impossible demands on one man pastorships.
c) plain old fashioned human-ness that makes leaders heavy handed - weakness, ambition, frustration, desires, temptations (pennies, power, petticoats, pride GC), loneliness, utterly unreaslitic expectations put on them by congregations or "apostles", competitiveness, etc etc (this doesn't rule out that congregations, committees, elderships and PCCs can be bullies)
d) another factor i think was the haste with which we had to set up new churches without really being able to look at what did we want to set up in terms of structure. we were enthusiastic and took some things for granted. Idealistic groups are far more likely to be taken advantage of by those with "strong" characters or who have their own agendas.
e) cos we were keen to enter into the things of the spirit we took our models from the traditional pentecostal churches, especially the assemblies of god. i dont want to pick out the aog as any better or any worse than any other denomination but one of the things that didnt get resolved in the early days of the aog was the paternalistic attitude that was prevalent in the US in early 20th C when it was founded and led to a strong clergy-laity divide which has ended up inadvertently being reproduced in the new church movement in many areas. also the outward signs from azuza street were carried on, especially the gift of tongues, but the incredible racial and class reconciliation that was maybe an even more powerful element was deliberately, consciously rejected by those who took over the leadership in the early days and never restored later.
f) another thing that i've observed which is a positive again but with negative side effects - i think the new church movement is victim of it's own success. why have churches got so big - cos they're attractive. people want to go to them. there are some wonderful teachers and preachers and with good reason people want to hear them and follow them. i'm not just thinking of the flashy people who advertise themselves. what about a humble boy-next-door gent like stuart bell in lincoln. i was part of the first accidental church plant with him and his family in 1975 in lincoln. he and his mates formed a christian pop band to reach youth. we were reached. they wanted to provide for them and their church wouldnt let them so they had to make a church. lincoln free church had many if not all the elements i would still look for in a church. but you cant keep on having a family atmosphere and everyone participating in meetings when it gets too big to know everyone. the church keeps growing. you have to subdivide if you want to keep the atmosphere, but naturally everyone wants to be with the leaders that have already got the most experience and who are the best teachers.
g) Gross generalisation with an element of truth : Leaders who came into leadership through division are fearful of trusting others not to run off with their flocks. Churches that came from protest movements become fearful of protest.
I'll say it again. i dont want to rubbish what church has become. i'm glad there are thousands of people meeting regularly all over britain to worship God ! it's brilliant. there are so many not just owning but reading bibles and christian literature ! people are praying, interceding, caring for the poor and needy, reaching out to the lost ! hallelujah. but we need to find a way forward to that it doesnt become rigidified. is that possible. or must we continually have to have a protest movement and division in order to bring progress ?
i personally think that subdivision has to be part of the way forward so that there are home based cells, smallish (up to a hundred ) congregations with elders as co-pastors and big celebrations say once a month where the main teaching is done. Among the many good models around look at early Methodism.
Lord give us wisdom and grace
this is a poem i wrote when i got particularly fed up about it all about 10 years ago. i'm not so negative now about it now as i was :
A sacrifice of praise
We bring a sacrifice of praise
And boy it’s a sacrifice these days
Look how things have changed you say
We didn’t want it done that way
We kicked out pews, moved round the chairs
Aisles were for dancing, hugs and prayers
We swapped the pros for amateurs
With just 3 chords we're all worshippers
But now feels like olden times returned
Lay man sidelined, pastor’s wage must be earned
And much as I love the odd diminished chord
Is it really essential to worship the Lord ?
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