The New Bethel Church in Kentucky caused a bit of a stir a couple of weekends ago with its ‘bring your guns to church’ service.  The full story has been reported in several places, one of which is here.  There are plenty of comments we could make about this, and plenty other people have done, both positive and negative.

Instead of writing first and thinking later, we went to the church’s website.  Believe it or not, the ‘thought for the week’ is on the theme of protection.  More exactly, asking who we can rely on to protect us.  The answer – even more incredibly for such a macho gun-toting congregation – is that we need to trust in God!  The only thing more surprising about this extraordinary episode is that the denomination to which the church belongs (Assemblies of God) seems to have ignored the it all.  But then, they take a strong moralistic line on things like , drinking, lying, cheating, ’family values’ and gambling (though a feature of the event was a prize draw for shooting equipment!).  Draw your own conclusions, people.

The heading just about sums it up: today has been a mixture of warm sunshine, bringing the flowers out, and now as we look out of the window we are surrounded by thick mist.  Not quite all four seasons in one day, but then this is Scotland …noted as a land of mists and all that image evokes of romance, intrigue, destiny, and history.

The smell of new life has been very much on our minds and in our conversations this week, as one of us had been invited to blog about the theme of smell in relation to the BBC Lent series, Sense Making Faith.  Being in London with interesting people earlier in the week helped to formulate what we thought were good questions, and you can see the result here.  Last night we met up with a group of folks here in rural Aberdeenshire, who had invited us to explore some similar questions with them.  There was much reflection about what new life in their church might look and smell like, and how we might help to nurture signs of new life.  The arrival of spring is stimulating all sorts of unexpected and potentially exciting challenges and opportunities.

Well, not this week.  We’re writing this in a hotel room alongside the M6, en route from Bristol to back home (something like 11 hours driving time, which means if you stop at all it probably takes 13 hours or more).  Nothing much to those of you who live in the US or Australia, of course (we remember a seminar in Adelaide where people had driven 9 hours to be there by 10 in the morning!).  But at the end of a very busy week, we needed a bit of space.

One of the things we did was meeting up with the core leaders of Earth Abbey – something that hasn’t featured on this blog yet, but which has a lot of potential to become a really significant online spiritual community (and with the hope that it will encourage people to form their own local networks).  We already knew Chris Sunderland, who had the idea in the first place, but now we’ve met all his colleagues we are even more excited than we were before.  So check it out here – and sign up if it appeals to you.

After a busy day, we crashed last night by watching S1m0ne, a film made by Andrew Niccol in 2002.  At one level it’s a spoof on all the goings-on in Hollywood studios, as a director falls out with his major star and ends up creating a digital star instead, whose screen presence then woos the viewing public as well as the critics, who all desperately want to see her.  Of course they can’t, as she doesn’t exist …  Watch the movie yourself to see what happens next.  It’s an interesting tale of deception, truth, relationships, etc etc.  Next time we watch it we’ll need to make sure it’s with a group of other people: it would generate an interesting conversation.

Well, that’s what it sometimes feels like to the church mice who are in Bristol next week.  At Weston-super-Mare (is it as exotic as it sounds?  We’re about to find out, never having been before).  Then also at Trinity College, and finally at Earth Abbey.  But staying with some great friends, so even if the places aren’t as we imagine them the company will be good.  They have a great wine cellar as well, so one Lent regime might have to be relaxed just a little bit.  But then, nobody ever did fast on feasts and high days, did they …

Today is the first day of Lent, a period of reflection and assessment that lasts until Easter – six weeks of it in all.  As you would expect from church mice, this will also involve giving up one or two things in order to be reminded of the purpose of this important point in the church calendar.

For us this year, the reflection will also be tinged with more than just a little bit of excitement.  One of John’s roles is as co-chair of the Mission Theology Advisory Group, which is a joint enterprise between the Church of England and the Global Mission Network of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.  You might imagine that a group with such a high-sounding title would not exactly be engaging the popular imagination.  In which case, you would be completely wrong.  Last year the group produced this resource, Sense making Faith, which explores Christian faith through the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste – with the addition of a sixth one, imagination.  Many of you have already visited the website of the book.  But there’s more, because six senses and six weeks of Lent have made it a perfect fit for a BBC series that will accompany listeners to both national and local radio through this traditional Christian festival.  How cool is that?  The six major programmes run on national radio every Sunday in Lent, with additional themes each day also on national radio as well as input from local radio stations around the country.  And a fantastic website with additional materials and reflections, plus a dedicated blog to which one of the church mice will be making a contribution.   Go here for the full details and also to explore the resources provided for each week.  And no matter where you are in the world, you will be able to hear the programmes via the website: just click on the links there and that will take you to the BBC website to hear the programmes.

One of our students at Fuller Seminary is doing a project on Facebook, for the course on Theology and Culture.  If you are on Facebook and you want to take part in his research, go here.

If the title of this post strikes an unexpected note, then prepare to be surprised.  Mark Driscoll is hitting the headlines for apparently claiming that “Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand, and the willingness to make someone bleed.’  He continues, ‘that  is a guy I can worship…I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.”  According to those who have researched this story, this is a typical expression of an emerging form of neo-Calvinism, which makes you feel wretched and powerless and macho and powerful all at the same time, and in the process somehow changes your life.  Maybe it does.  But it seems pretty hard to square with some uncompromising Bible teachings in such easy-to-find places as the Ten Commandments, not to mention Matthew 5:21-26, 38-48 or even the crucifixion narratives, which on the face of it seem to offer an entirely different picture of Jesus.

For an interesting reflection on all this, go here.

HT to Neal for telling us where to find the article on social networking sites and community that we commented on yesterday.  To read the full article go here.

You might not imagine that it would take a lot of research to establish that people whose only friendships are made through social networking sites are likely to suffer from a lack of real face to face friendships, but you may be surprised to learn that a serious researcher has decided that too much time spent on the likes of Facebook might lead to mental illness, dementia, and a whole lot more.  He doesn’t mention blogs, though, so we’re OK for now.  Of course, that’s no guarantee that we aren’t mad, bad, or demented already

We found the full story here, but it’s showing up in a lot of other places.  Unfortunately you need to be a subscriber to see the complete article in its original context.