The Art of Camping

So onto the last of Hugh's obstacles to tentmaker ministry.

The living out of the priest’s office seems often to drift from the ontological and inspirational to the functional and tired. Of course there are exceptions, but many parish clergy drift towards becoming museum attendants: preserving the artefacts, discouraging innovation and preferring well behaved visitors who admire the exhibits.

This seems to be saying, using a parody from the epistle, "when I was a theological student I had high hopes but now that I am a minister I have to put away visionary concepts and become a routine religious." How often have I heard ministers say, they didn't teach me this in College, when faced with some functional aspect of organisation.

Just last week, I popped into Hugh's Church of St James whilst passing through London and was heartened to see within this Wren masterpiece, 2 men of the road, asleep on pews, keeping warm from the winter chill, whilst city people where at prayer, and musicians where getting ready for an evening concert of classical music. Truly this was a glimpse of an ontological church at work and I define ontology - the study of the nature being.

For me, this is the essence of tentmaker ministry - the incarnational ministry of being and has much to say about the ministry of the institutional church. What is clear, is that the institutional church has great problems with what is often viewed as this maverick ministry. Whilst it holds theoretically high theology of ministry, the church seems lack the ability to express this through praxis.

Such practice is surely only determined through a physical, emotional and spiritual presence within a given context, what we might call the principles of incarnational ministry where

• Incarnational ministry has to be transparent where the benefit of our actions are free of suspect intention and allows others to discover the source of such goodness is the Word made flesh in us.
• Incarnational ministry is vulnerable in that it cannot and should not inoculate itself from the hurt of those it is helping
• Incarnational ministry is what someone has called an applied agape truly being WITH the people and truly vulnerable.
• Incarnational ministry embraces the culture without succumbing to it.
• Incarnational ministry is always willing to take on itself the suffering of the oppressed.

Lesslie Newbigin said, ''The word without the deed is empty. The deed without the word is mute.''

In this context, Hauerwas and Willimon comment that the pastor’s job description is "not the sustenance of a service club within a generally Christian culture, but the survival of a colony within an alien society" (Hauerwas 1989, 115). The authors assert that all Christians are "ordained through baptism," and that there is therefore no "specialness" about pastors. All leaders in a local congregation have the responsibility of building up the congregation. In a society that "corrupts and co-opts Christians" the unique role of the pastor is to help the congregation gather the resources necessary to be the colony of God’s righteousness (Hauerwas, Resident Aliens (1989) 139).

Campsite Attendant Wanted

As we continue our journey around Hugh Valentine's tent-maker encampment we come to his powerful indictment regarding the lack of ministry role models.

We lack models of ordained men and women who manage effectively to discharge their duties as priests and who operate in a range of posts, jobs, roles and professions and who see these as being the places they pray, witness and celebrate the link between the transcendent and immanent.

With just a little editing I feel that Hugh's words could be turned into a situations vacant notice.

WANTED men and women who manage to effectively discharge their duties as Ordained ministers, through a range of posts, jobs, roles and professions and see these as places they of prayer, witness and celebration linking the transcendent and immanent.

It is this incarnational nature of tent-maker ministry that seems to be continually placed in the blind spot of the church. From my own experience, the deliberate practice of tent maker ministry makes theological sense as the transcendent pathway meets the immanent highway at street level. G. Ernest Wright’s The Biblical Doctrine of Man in Society, quoted by Stanley Hauerwas in Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America, p 26 infurs that such ministry modelling is essential. He writes,

“But no matter how high the doctrine of the church to which a particular confession may adhere in actual practice its congregations are a gathering of individuals who know little of Christian community in the biblical sense and expect little from it. Like secular clubs they meet in their various groups to hear speakers on a variety of topics which are usually unrelated, undigested, and unillumined by Christian faith…The worship of the Church has been heavily influenced by individualistic pietism, concerned largely, not with the social organism, but with the individual’s need of peace, rest and joy in the midst of the storms and billows of life. The self-centeredness of the pietistic search for salvation tends to exclude vigorous concern with community. Hence, the modern Christian searches his Bible not unlike the pagan’s study of his sacred literature, the purpose being to find inspirational, devotional, and moral enlightenment for personal living, and nothing more. The sectarianism of the Churches, and their racial and national cleavages, are further expressions of an individualism which distorts the nature of Christian society and provides excuse for the world’s individualism.”

Hugh's model reverses the paradigm

Choosing the right sight! (yes I mean sight.)

Following my last blog, another tent-maker commented, the institution that seeks to save its own life shall lose it, but the one that loses it, shall preserve it? and I thinks that this is a good introduction to the examining the next of Hugh Valentine's obstacles to tent-making ministry.

He writes, "Organisations tend to be self-replicating. Candidates for non-stipendiary ministry in England tend to be like those doing the selecting - safe, middle-class and mainly conformist." So my first question is, why?

There is a human tendency to focus on what we know and as a consequence we can find ourselves worshipping our comfort zone, our heritage our ideals. What we forget is how frail we human beings are, how readily we fall into selfish, hurtful, and wicked ways, and how frequently the good we do and the good we intend is mixed with evil motives and evil consequences.

Recently, I have become reacquainted with the work of the anthropologist, Professor Dame Mary Douglas where she explores the barriers and boundaries communities build in order to keep a semblance of social purity. She uses the religious context of the Hebrew Scripture to examine how the chosen people followed the purity laws of Leviticus. These laws were preventive statues to ensure that the community is not infected by that which is different. Psychologically, this difference gradually takes on the nature of that which is abhorrent and must be avoided at all costs. Today, much of the subconscious nature of discrimination stems from such culturally evolved precepts.

Two quotes from her prolific work articulate this protectionism philosophy. "The natural response of the old-timers is to build a strong moral wall against the outside. This is where the world starts to be painted in black and white, saints inside, and sinners outside the wall. "

and

"The theory of cultural bias... is the idea that a culture is based on a particular form of organization. It can't be transplanted except to another variant of that organization."

Not long before her Death in June 2007, Douglas spoke about 'enclaves' at the Young Foundation. She defined them as the small groups that at their most extreme, become terrorist cells. Where others emphasise their strengths, she emphasised their weaknesses: how prone they are to splits and sectarianism, and how hard it is for their founders to enforce rules. To survive, enclaves create around themselves what Douglas called a "wall of virtue"—the sense that they alone uphold justice, while all around them are suspect—yet the very thing that bonds them together encourages individuals within them to compete to demonstrate their own virtue and the failings of their peers. The only thing that can override this fragility is fear of the outside world—and so sects, whether political or religious, peaceful or violent, feed off the hostility of outsiders, using it to reinforce their own solidarity. The implication is clear for western governments: in the long term, defeating terrorism depends on ratcheting fear down, not up, dismantling the "walls of virtue" rather than attacking them head on with declarations of war.

But as I read this commentary, I could not help but feel Douglas was elaborating Hugh's view, that churches are indeed "Organisations tend to be self-replicating" and do so out of fear of infection. Has the church become too self image concious rather than focusing on the significance of the other or too uniform to the degree of obliterating the multifaceted nature its real membership by excluding and restricting anything that smacks of difference.

In a sense I want to use JB Phillips version of Romans 12:2 replacing the word world with church

"Don’t let the church ...... squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity." or as the Message paraphrases it.

"Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you".

What a wonderful multiplex image.

Campsite Rules!

In my last post I said that I would explore Hugh Valentines obstacles and possibilities of Tent Maker ministry. So here goes with the first obstacle; the church.

Hugh writes. Like all institutions, the church is concerned with control and survival. These are often buried motives - subconscious - so this ought not be read as any criticism of individuals or a comment on their considered actions.

Let's start with the word Survival. We all recall the mountain experience of Peter; commonly known as the transfiguration. Never before had he experienced the like; yet impetuous by nature he calls out, 'Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters (skerne) - one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.' (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) It is almost as if he wished to prolong the event by making some sort of lasting structure. Uncertain, awestruck, perhaps even fearful, is he trying to control the situation into some human manageable dimension? This is not Peter's only outburst, for elsewhere he declares Jesus to be the Christ; only to be followed a further rebuttal that sets limits to his confession. A kind of "Yes, Yes but.....Hmmmmm; not like that!"

What exactly were Peter's plan's in wishing to build a skene ? The word can mean a "tent" or "temporary shelter." It can mean "tabernacle" such as a worship place; the dwelling place of God in the OT. It can mean a "house" -- a permanent dwelling place. What was the perceived need for houses? Perhaps he wants to "house" the event so that it will last forever. Someone has suggested that Peter has been diagnosed as having an "edifice complex."

Survival and structure of the church seems to go hand in hand, as surely the 'edifaces' that we build determines the boundaries we set for mission and ministry. Unfortunately, in time, the structure not only defines who we are but defines our essence. In other words, it controls our actions by deep subconscious often unarticulated notions. Let me illustrate this in thee ways

In the UK, on significant Royal occasions such as the Queens Birthday, the Kings Troop of the Royal Artillery fire a royal salute. Their drill manual explains precisely each part of the ceremony. One member of the troop, a bombardier is ordered to position himself so many yards away from the Gun down on one knee with his right arm raised in the air. When asked why, the reply was that we have always done it this way, until one bright young officer searched through military archives. He found that originally, the soldier was there to hold onto the Officer's horse in order to stop it from bolting when the gun was fired. Whilst the officer's horse is no longer part of this ceremony, the action remains. The action has now become meaningless.

Another military example with royal connections concerns the visit by a senior Royal to an army establishment. At the guardroom entrance there was a path marked by white stones and in order to ensure that the site was looking it's best, a young private was detailed to repaint the markers. In the process, he accidentally upset the paint on the path. Too late to do anything about it the spilled paint was turned into a neat square on the path. Years later and on every subsequent visit by a royal, (you've guessed it) the square is religiously recreated on the path.

I experienced a third example when a junior member of a residential college in London. Each lunch time, the duty member of staff would go to the dining room, count the number of students having lunch, write and the number and the date into the book. When the note book was full, I would take it to the administrator's office and be issued with another. When I asked what happened to the data in the book, I was told nothing, we just file them away.

Similarly, over time, rules appear to become absorbed into church structure and take on the appearance of spiritual order. Keeping these rules becomes paramount and any variation must me dealt with, isolated and expelled as it threatens the very nature of its reason for existing.

What a dilemma. On the one hand a religious order constructed overtime with defined parameters emanating from a gospel but now distant imperative and on the other, the immediacy of a gospel call to serve in a context that is counter cultural to the first and perhaps even questions its rational and structure. Is it any wonder that each appears as an obstacle to the other.

This is both a psychological as well as a theological problem as can be seen in the work of Mary Douglas. Douglas, a symbolic anthropologist examined how people give meanings to their reality and how this reality is expressed by their cultural symbols. She believed that humans actively create meanings in their social lives in order to maintain their society. By analysing these meanings, Douglas attempted to find universal symbolic patterns. By defining what is polluted, people classify their social life into two opposite categories: what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. This symbolic system gives moral order to societies. Douglas further argued that in societies where the categories of purity and pollutants are rigid, people have developed secular and religious rituals to keep themselves physically and morally pure. She claimed that these practices enforce the symbolic system and keep order in the society.

But what if this categorisation process has become skewed, altered or even corrupted based upon a wrong analysis.

It is interesting that Jesus spoke far more about Kingdom ethos than church structure and our narrow view of the church perhaps misses one of the orginal meaning of the Greek word Ekklesia - those who anywhere, in a city, village, constitute such a company and are united into one body.

It would appear that the survival of the Church through over control may well be at odds with Kingdom culture. After all, Jesus did not say the Kingdom of God is controlled by the church did he!

Repitching the Tent

I recall, whilst training for Salvation Army ministry in Camberwell London during the early 1970's, visiting with a group of other cadet students, a worker priest. At that time, I was too conformist to appreciate his radical viewpoints and what to me, was his scathing attack upon some of the politics and shifted policies of the 'Army'. I left not liking the man and feeling that he was subversive , arrogant and frankly, off track. How differently the years and circumstances enable one to view a previous experience in a different light. As I reflect upon the distant memory, I find myself asking the question who actually was subversive, arrogant and frankly, off track - Me?

I can't remember much about him, except that he was a baker as well as an Anglican priest. (What a lovely thought, he who baked the bread also breaks it and shares it in the Eucharist.) However, as I left his flat above the bakers shop and returned to the College, I could not help but think, How sad that he feels he needs to hold on to the security of a job and not fully enter into real ministry.

Boy, was I arrogant and opinionated in those day's!

How much I have changed in my thinking across these three and half decades. For me, the concept of tent-maker ministry now makes so much theological sense. Today, as I try to picture the scene of that meeting, I feel a sense of shared identity, even a deep respect for what this man of God was trying to teach me.

These thoughts were resurrected when I came across a posting on the website of St Jame's Picadilly by Hugh Vallentine - a worker priest ordained in 1989. The full script can be found at http://www.st-james-piccadilly.org/workerpriests.html.

In this article he explores something of the background of the worker priest, and examines the current climate by high-lighting the Obstacles and Possibilities of this type of ministry. I found these to be both insightful and challenging. Hugh writes.

The obstacles

• Like all institutions, the church is concerned with control and survival. These are often buried motives - subconscious - so this ought not be read as any criticism of individuals or a comment on their considered actions
• Organisations tend to be self-replicating. Candidates for non-stipendiary ministry in England tend to be like those doing the selecting - safe, middle-class and mainly conformist
• We lack models of ordained men and women who manage effectively to discharge their duties as priests and who operate in a range of posts, jobs, roles and professions and who see these as being the places they pray, witness and celebrate the link between the transcendent and immanent.
• The living out of the priest’s office seems often to drift from the ontological and inspirational to the functional and tired. Of course there are exceptions, but many parish clergy drift towards becoming museum attendants: preserving the artefacts, discouraging innovation and preferring well behaved visitors who admire the exhibits.

The possibilities

• We never know when a new, vibrant wind will blow through our tired lives and structures; so there is always room for a realistic hope and confidence in humankind and in God
• There may emerge one or more bishops and others with a sense of what is possible in this sphere, and start a ball rolling
• When we get tired of postmodernism and start again digging around in the muck and muddle of human possibility, the mystery of God and the promises of the Gospel, we may see developments we cannot now dream of.

Hugh Valentine

Over the next few blogs, I want to reflect upon Hugh's thoughts, from the context of tentmaker ministry within a number of different traditions.

Who moved my calling?

I've just re-read "who moved my cheese", a change philosophy parable by Dr Spencer Johnson. My reason was in connection with introducing it the staff of my College. However, as I read, I could not but help compare the actions of its four main characters with that of Church people. Sniff - who sniffs out change early, or Scurry - Who scurries into action, or Hem - Who denies and resists change as he fears it will lead to something worse, or Haw - Who learns to adapt in time when he sees changing can lead to something better!

The notion of calling to ministry within a given context seems to have a similar effect. Let's look at how various parts of the church define 'calling'.

One such view is that of a Presbyterian within a post modern context.

1. Call is relative to one’s culture.
2. Postmodern understanding of call is rooted in vocational understanding and a longing for security.
   

Here-in lies a major issue, a division in the unfolding of the call through the praxis of applied ministry. For some, the security once enjoyed, is no longer the comfort they knew. For others, the security fit is so intertwined with a particular context that there appears to be no calling without the context.

I have a notion that much of our understanding as to the theatre of our calling depends upon our world view, where we see the relative place of the church within it and where we see our own position within both. But perhaps more important and overshadowing all of these is our understanding as to where we see locus of God at work.

Another aspect of callings is in the nature of its mission field within which it is exercised.

• If it is centred entirely within a church structure, the praxis of ministry is about getting others to come-in and join "us". Our kingdom view becomes synonymous with church and in extreme circumstance 'my Church'.
• If the mission field is seen as the church active within the world but with the express intention of 'converting' people into members, the praxis of ministry can become subversive, culturally imperialist and later cause extreme angst for those whose unfolding calling fails to resonate with the Church's anticipated ministry path.
• If our mission field is seen as the world, the praxis of our ministry is about getting alongside others and bringing Christ to their tables, regardless of their circumstances, spirituality or belief. In such circumstance, it is hard for those of the 'come-in' persuasion to recognise this as church.

It is perhaps this later view, almost diametrically set against the first that causes so much hurt and angst when some one in ministry feels the need to move into a different field, or at least, are unable to stay within the restraints of a particular Church structure.

There are perhaps three further scenarios that need to be considered in this situation. In some cases, when a minister leaves it is because the Church's view and praxis has changed, whilst the individual continues to hold their calling within a firm parametre. Such an instance would be Church of England clergy who were unable to accept the ordination of women.

For others, just like the characters in the book, their supply of cheese, or in the sense of our discussion here, their spirituality supply can no longer be found within the structure of the Church in which they serve. All to often this is because the projected view of ministry, its training system and theology of ministry fails to resonate with its structure and praxis. In other words, the contents found within is not what's written on the tin. The days of formation in ministry fails to develop into paths where that ministry can be be clearly exercised.

The third is where both the Church and the individual change, where praxis and views move along a different, widening and at times opposing trajectories.

As a former Salvation Army officer and now a Methodist minister, I have been following the stories of other 'formers' (http://fsaof.blogspot.com/) where all three scenarios can be seen.

I wonder if the locus of one's calling is dependant upon the dual kingdom/world view held by the Church and its synergy with that personally held. The notion of world view comes from the German word Weltanschauung Welt is the German word for "world", and Anschauung is the German word for "view" or "outlook." It is a concept fundamental to German philosophy and refers to a wide world perception. It refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it.

As to the kingdom; what was it Jesus said about being salt of the earth?

Mark 9:50"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.

Keeping Salt in a packet with a brand name "My Church" is not fulfilling the Gospel or Calling.

Is there need for a clearer theological thinking of ministry that firmly develops a praxis that embraces God guided change within the world that truly encompasses "Your Kingdon Come"?

What! Epiphany?

Is Epiphany the forgotten festival? Epiphany is the twelfth night of Christmas, celebrated on January 6, when the Magi are said to have visited the baby Jesus. But where did the name come from? As its name suggests, the Epiphany had its origin in the Eastern Church and has a number of meanings.

It comes from the Greek epiphania "manifestation," often referring to the appearance of a divine being. Christ's appearance to Paul on the Damascus road was an epiphany. The word is used to describe the first appearance of Christ to the Gentiles in the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus.

It also means, a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, typically through an ordinary but striking occurrence or burst of insight. In the life of faith it defines a particular manifestation of God’s presence in the created world.

Some years ago, Digby Anderson, an Anglican Priest and one time editor of the Spectator, recommended that Christians should celebrate Epiphany instead of Christmas, chiefly as an escape from the commercialism and excess of Christmas but also because it is ‘arguably of more importance to us since… it celebrates Our Lord’s appearance to the Gentiles’. Perhaps in a real sense we should wish everyone we meet a Happy Epiphany.

Epiphany is the shepherds recognizing the Messiah. It is the Magi acknowledging the king of glory. It is Peter's "You are the Christ...." It is the two disciples on the way to Emmaus having their eyes opened. It is any time that our eyes are opened to the manifestation of God in our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

In fact, we can say that the experience of Epiphany is the most important goal of Christian teaching or preaching. It is the moment when Christ is perceived by the eyes of faith.

As we enter the new year, perhaps our prayer should be the same as the Psalmist when he said,

63:1 God—you're my God! I can't get enough of you!
I've worked up such hunger and thirst for God,
traveling across dry and weary deserts.

2-4 So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open,
drinking in your strength and glory.
In your generous love I am really living at last!
My lips brim praises like fountains.
I bless you every time I take a breath;
My arms wave like banners of praise to you.

May 2009 be a truly happy Epiphany.