Sent to Sheffield

Take about 70 people from all over the UK, include a handful from mainland Europe (among them Ole Skjerbaek Madsen and his wife Dorte who have a ministry called In the Master’s light), send them to Sheffield for a weekend – and what do you get?  The answer in this case is: one of the most creative and exciting events we’ve been to for a very long time!  This was the conference on Reaching out in Mind, Body, and Spirit, organized by Steve Hollinghurst and Howard Gardner of Journey into Wholeness, and subtitled the first UK conference for Christians ministering within the New Spiritualities.  Or, put another way – a bunch of people who go as Christians to things like mind, body, spirit fairs and psychic events – and quite often get into a bit of trouble for doing so!  Trouble from other Christians, that is.  But people who, judging by what we saw, are having enormous fun in doing so, while also fulfilling their personal calling to be in such places.

So did we enjoy ourselves?  You’d better believe it!  Not a single angry person in sight – so that has to be a first for a Christian conference, just for starters.  Of course, there were loads of tough questions being asked and engaged with – but all of them in a spirit of openness and mutual support that was worth being there just to see that.  The event was set up so that we could all share insights and experiences together – in that sense, it was a genuine ‘conference’.  Yes, folks, we really did hear from just about everyone who was there.  A conference where you actually ‘confer’ – that has to be different as well, surely.  We talked endlessly about topics ranging from the Jesus Deck, to angels, the tarot, circle dancing, dream interpretation, crystals – you name it, it probably cropped up somewhere in our conversations.  And that’s without mentioning Ole’s inspirational earth eucharist and his story of how In the Master’s Light came to birth.

As our closer friends will know, we have been engaged with this world for something like 20 years now – maybe a bit more, because it all started when John did a PhD on Gnosticism, and then just snowballed through visits to California, not least Olive’s time spent studying in Berkeley, which is still one of the world centres of all things different and spiritually distinctive.  When we first spoke about it in the UK, many of our more traditional colleagues thought we were mad (some still do – and we’re happy with that!).  But for us it was just so encouraging to be with so many others who have caught this vision – and to see that they did truly represent a very wide spectrum of ages and theological connections and preferences, as well as a good balance of women and men.  We took our cameras with us, but spent so much time talking with people we came home without a single picture between us!

What did we contribute ourselves?  Well, we listened to other people’s stories, and hopefully encouraged a lot of people in their work.  And also shared our own work with crystals and the tarot.  Not to mention experiences with angels.  And also kicked off the first session, and presided together at the closing eucharist.  We need more weekends like that   Steve and Howard – you both did a great job.  And probably under-estimated the significance of your accomplishment.  Because almost certainly it was not actually ‘the first UK conference’ but the first conference of its kind anywhere in the world.

Community building

We did something last week that we almost didn’t believe would be possible: we forgot about computers for a whole seven days!  Not a single email, no blogging, not even formulatig a plan of action for the next big event.  Nothing.  And no, we’re not going backwards in time – just needed to know if we could do it really, or if we were (as some of our friends think) digitally addicted.  So the answer to that is no, we are not: we still know how to talk to each other.  Which might sound a strange thing to say to those of you who haven’t visited our workspace: but in reality we share an office and work within easy physical reach of each other, and yes we do send emails to each other on a more or less regular basis!

As well as spending time doing literally nothing (which was also easier than we might have imagined), we spent some time talking about community building.  Specifically, how easy it is for us all to talk about it but then not do it.  The conversation was sparked off by an email we got a couple of weeks ago, in response to an invitation we had extended to a well-known international Christian leader to spend time hanging out with us during a trip to the north-east of Scotland that is scheduled for mid-June.  We invited him because the last time we met at an over-busy event, the three of us had a conversation that went along the lines of ‘we really should spend time together, maybe work on some mutual projects’.  We naively imagined that an invitation to a free meal (or even a free coffee) might do the trick – but no, we got an email back from this guy’s personal assistant saying he was too busy, too committed, and couldn’t possibly take on anything else (even though, you might imagine, the great and the good do actually need to eat the same as anyone else!).

Our conversation wasn’t about this particular person, rather about the principles.  Talking about community has become a trendy thing to do in recent years.  Doing it seems more challenging.  It’s easy to tell a thousand people they need to go out there and make friends – just very difficult to hang out and do it yourself.  Yet the true test of a Jesus follower is surely always going to be what we do, and how we relate, not what we say in the midst of our busy schedules.  It’s easy to be so immersed in our own schedules and events that we forget that most basic thing of all: that being is more spiritually enriching than constantly doing.

Down the mousehole

After a busy three months, the church mice are taking some time off right now so this blog will be quiet for the next week or so.  But no doubt we’ll have some creative conversations that will give us plenty to blog about once we’re back at the computers.

Easter images

We’ve had visitors staying all week, and on Maundy Thursday we spent a bit of time reflecting on the story of the day.  Started in late afternoon with some fun with stones gathered from the beach earlier in the week, making felt from coloured wools and then covering the stones with it, unpacking and talking about lots of deep stuff in the process.  Then in the course of our evening meal, one of the mice spoke briefly about the Last Supper and we all shared bread and wine together (we being the two church mice, and our guests, a single mum and her two children).  After that, we had a pampering session getting our fingernails cleaned and painted (yes, that did include the male mouse as well!).  Not quite footwashing, but an interesting modern version of it. 

Who is the owner of these pretty fingers?

 Then on Good Friday morning, as we enjoyed breakfast together, we created this installation on the kitchen table. 

Theological Grit

John got an invitation this week to be part of the board that is being set up to oversee the development of Mission-Shaped Ministry, which emanates from the Fresh Expressions initiative of the Church of England and the Methodist Church in the UK.  He couldn’t resist saying yes right away – somewhat to the surprise of Andrew Roberts, who is director of training for Fresh Expressions and who thought he might have to do a bit of persuasion, cajoling, or ecclesiastical arm wrestling first.  But for once (though not for the first time) it was an invitation to something that really matches where the church mice find themselves these days.  What made it a no-brainer though was the explanation that they needed someone who would bring ’theological grit’ into the conversation.

That strikes us as a great image, which apparently we owe to Steven Croft, the new bishop of Sheffield.  Grit can either fly all over the place and blind people, or be the little bit of irritation that gets inside an oyster and forms the basis of a pearl.  Hopefully a contribution from a church mouse will produce pearls.  That’s certainly his aspiration.

Online learning

Olive is into week 2 of a ten week online course for Fuller Seminary, on the family.  Details are here: it’s listed as the two of us teaching it, but John is still recovering from his course on theology and culture so guess who gets all the work to do with this one.  With students in China, Korea, and Rwanda, as well as different US states, you can imagine that there are pretty diverse opinions on what a family actually is, even before they get into some of the more obviously contentious issues.  So a fast learning curve for some, especially from more conservative and traditional backgrounds.

One of the great things about this online teaching is that every student has a voice, in a way that doesn’t happen in a classroom where only the noisiest get to share their opinions.  Of course, all that depends on the web design – and there is no doubt Fuller is streets ahead of others in that respect.  And yes, they really do deserve this free advertising!  Go to http://www.fulleronline.org to see what else is on offer.

Holy Week themed

 

Holy week prompted the church mice to play around with Google even more than they usually do.  We discovered this place where you can go to see Jesus crucified twice a day (12.45pm and 5.10pm) in an experience that is variously described as inspirational, educational, life-changing, and a few other superlatives.  Some of it is a bit hard to take seriously  – not least because it seems from the daily schedule that the resurrection happens at 11.25am!  The cost per adult, booked online is 30 – dollars, that is, just in case you might be tempted to think in some other currency.

By way of a contrast, we’ve also been watching again the DVD from this Easter production from the Crystal Cathedral in southern California, which would rank pretty highly on our scale of  theological integrity and spiritual purpose.  Mind you, before we’d ever visited there, we were just a little bit skeptical  … so maybe we should head off to Florida before saying any more.  Maybe, though it’s not going to be this week.

Street Pastors

John spent a great day yesterday speaking at a training event for Street Pastors.  If you’ve not come across this initiative before, then check out their website here.  It’s a national UK initiative that is making a real difference to the night life of many cities, with measurable reductions in crime levels and accidental injuries among clubbers and others.

The topic yesterday was spirituality.  We seem to be doing so much on this theme, both together and separately, that there’s almost nothing newsworthy in that.  John shared a thought he’d got the week before from Bishop William Kenney, with whom he spoke at the Newman Association conference.  That in the past everybody had religion, some people had faith, and only a few went for spirituality – whereas today, many people are looking for spirituality, some have faith, and only a small number have religion.  It may not be the whole story, but seems like an interesting framework to think about.  For the uninitiated, ‘religion’ here = institutional, organized stuff like church, synagogue, mosque, etc.; ‘faith’ = actually believing something, as opposed to a vague attachment; and ’spirituality’ = an integration that really impacts lifestyles.  Connecting that triad with another one often talked about (believing – belonging – behaving) makes for an interesting reflection.  Because Christians often said if you come and believe the same as us, we’ll let you belong, and then get to work to make sure you behave like we do.  In the 1990s, some missional leaders were talking about belonging before believing.  But today a lot of the people we meet are connecting through behavior first, either personal lifestyle or big ecological and social issues, then belonging, and maybe somewhere down the track thinking about what might be worth believing.

So there you have some of the stuff from yesterday’s seminar.  Seemed to make sense to the Street Pastors anyway.

Saving the World

So the G20 meeting has come and gone, Gordon Brown has been hailed as today’s saviour, and things can go back to what has counted as being ’normal’ for the past few years.  That’s the official line, anyway.  Whether it works like they say … well, we will just have to wait and see.

What the church mice know about economic theory could be written on a lot less than the proverbial postage stamp.  But a couple of questions occur to us here.  The IMF now has more money to disperse to poorer nations.  Good news, apparently: but presumably the downside of that is that these nations will now be signing up to high levels of debt again … which was something that in 2000 world leaders said they would deal with.  There’s also the underlying ideology that says we can sort all this out by buying more stuff, which in turn will create or preserve jobs because people will have to make what we buy.   Which might alleviate something in the short-term, but kind of assumes we live in a system of limitless resources.  At a time when the known natural resources of many raw materials are starting to run low, you might wonder how long this can be sustained for, and whether in the longer term a non-environmental ’solution’ won’t turn out to be the ultimate suicidal solution.  By then, though, we’ll likely be history, and Gordon Brown as politician certainly will be, so probably we shouldn’t worry too much about that.  Unless you take a longer, more spiritually oriented approach to the world and its inhabitants, that is.

A bit of affirmation

We don’t usually use this blog to congratulate ourselves, but this mention is worth highlighting, if only because John is praised for something he usually gets into a lot of trouble over – using things like tarot cards in evangelism.  Nice to know that at least one theological college can see the significance of all this missional stuff.