Bournagain

I haven’t been writing so much lately – actually I’ve spent more time on the technical side of this blog than writing it. Shame about the lack of photos too, but the Internet here is table-thumpingly slow. I’m trying to get my head around how web sites work as I’m planning to move this thing onto another server. You will notice that the url www.bournagain.com now works – no need for the “WordPress” bit. I’m making use of this time in New Zealand to learn a few new skills.

Otherwise this visit to New Zealand is all about people! We’ve spent a lot of time on the phone and in and out of people’s homes. It’s another reminder of how rich and diverse this thing we call Church is. In the last few days we have been with friends who are all involved with kingdom stuff, but in such different ways.

After travelling to places as diverse as Ethiopia, Lebanon and Portugal, Keith, Carolyn have teamed up with Richard to establish A Rocha in New Zealand. It’s a Christian conservation organisation. Carolyn put it very succinctly when she said that A Rocha is about “the greening of the church and the churching of the greens”. I used to raise my eyebrows at Christians involved in things environmental. Couldn’t really see the point as my eschatology centred very much around the “new heavens and the new earth” that would replace this tired old earth. But somewhere along the way I realised that the earth always has been and always will be central to God’s purposes, and when we look after it we’re doing what God does. It is actually a “missional” thing in and of itself, not to mention the fact that there are so many greenies out there who have been turned off by Christian’s lack of concern for the environment. We should be leading the charge – go for it, guys!

And then we spent an afternoon with Cor and Ria. Not sure if they’re Dutch kiwis or Kiwi dutchies, but they are very special people. Cor is an expressionist painter and if you want to be blessed you should take a look at his work. Our house would be full of his paintings if we could afford it Many of his paintings express the things he’s been learning in his walk with God, although he’s very down to earth about the artistic process. It’s 10 % inspiration and 90 % perspiration. We spent the afternoon talking about our love for the church and our frustration with it. As Queen Victoria put it so beautifully, “If all the people who fall asleep in church were laid end to end, they would be a lot more comfortable.”

Have you ever noticed that there are occasions in the Bible where people act in a certain way and God commends it, and yet the same act at a different time by different people is an act of sinful disobedience? A good example can be found in comparing the census of Israel that Moses undertook in Numbers 26 with the census of David in II Samuel 24. When Moses finished the census in obedience to God’s command, God gave to the nation an inheritance of land which he has never revoked. In this way he blessed Moses’ obedience.

Several generations later we see King David undertaking exactly the same project which God had blessed in Moses’ day when he sent his commanders throughout the land to count the fighting men of Israel and Judah. The text does not elaborate on David’s motives for doing this, but we see Joab, his trusted advisor, warning him not to do it. David stubbornly continues with his project, and finishes with a stricken conscience, repenting before God for this foolish sin which resulted in a severe outpouring of God’s judgement in the land.

Is God capricious? Does he have double standards? Does he have favourites? Read the rest of this entry »

Had one of those marvellous long French lunches today with some friends (the kind where you’re still at the table at 5.00). These people know how to eat! We got onto talking about my favourite subject (the church). There seems to be no question in the minds of many evangelical friends I speak to that the church is in need of a new reformation of some description, but just how radical are we prepared to be?

There is general agreement that Christian fellowship is best lived out in small groups, that if we limit ourselves to Sunday mornings it’s too easy to fake it. It’s much harder to hide in a small group, it’s more authentic, and a more natural environment to learn in. So far nothing new.

But where we diverged a little was over whether or not just adding small groups to existing Sunday-morning-centred church was actually sufficient. Read the rest of this entry »

Just came back from a meeting that I could never have imagined happening even a year ago. It was just a meeting of the musicians at the St. Sébastien church to get a little bit more organised for the Sunday worship times. So what’s the big deal? Well, there were 13 musicians there – THIRTEEN!! It’s amazing what happens when somebody (yours truly) leaves. All kinds of people start coming out of the woodwork! And the meeting went really well and I did nothing toward it other than be there.

After feeling like “Mr Music” in the church for the better part of 8 years, this is all so weird. So many conflicting emotions – should I feel thrilled at all these new gifts coming forward in the church, guilty at not having got things better organised sooner, satisfied at being able to move on without leaving everyone in the lurch, miffed that they’re going to get on perfectly well without me, sad to be missing out on these exciting new developments…?

Mission seems to be about putting your gifts at the disposal of God and others, doing what you can, trusting that God is more than able to carry on the good work he has started and that other people won’t mess it up, and then leaving just when things are getting really good!

The leaving is the hard bit.

“Every church member who loves the church will also be deeply pained by it. This does not, however, call for discarding the church, but for reforming and renewing it.” This quote so reflects my thinking about the Church at the moment that I thought I’d share it with you. It comes from Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission by D. J. Bosch.

He talks about the tension that exists between the ideal Christian community that we long to experience, and the weekly reality that can seem so insipid at times. After 20 years of commitment to local churches, my feeling about church life over the past 12 months has been one of at times overwhelming fatigue. The thing that has saved me from cynicism has been the wonderful people in the churches, which is not surprising when we consider that the church is not the building or the religious system, it’s the people.

I have been trying to keep abreast of some of the many-faceted discussion on the Internet about the “emergent church”, simple church, home church etc. etc. Some of it is inspiring, some of it so negative about the existing “institutional” church it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. How to walk the fine line of living with the dissatisfaction and unfulfilled desire on one hand, while upholding the Church as the divine strategy for communicating the kingdom of God to the world? Bosch quotes a timely warning from Bonhoeffer :

“He who loves the dream of a Christian community more than the community itself, often does great damage to that community, no matter how well-intentioned he might be”.

I have no doubt that God is working in the local churches around us. But I have the uncomfortable feeling that the church’s structures often stand in the way of Christians fulfilling their mission in the world. What we call “evangelism” is all about trying to get people to come into our buildings, and very little about being out there making a difference among this generation’s “lepers, widows, poor, lame, blind” – the kind of people that Jesus spent much of his time with.

Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy and truth. Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world. Howard Snyder 1983, Liberating the Church

This is of course a very old discussion which has been going on since long before I became a Christian, and it’s a shame that it’s taken me 20 years to catch up! Back in my student days when I knew everything I used to think that people who talked like this were “unspiritual” and had their priorities in the wrong place.

Anyone out there feeling like me?

It was a big today today in the life of the St. Sébastien church – the annual Christmas festival. A number of churches we know take advantage of the fact that Christmas is one of the only times of the year that people give Jesus a second thought, and plan an event for inviting friends and neighbours.

What made it unusual for us that it will be our last. In the past we have always been involved at every level, but this time we were pretty much able to sit back and watch it all happen – well, I put together a choir at the last minute for one song, which probably sounds like a big deal, but it all came together without much input from me. The children were all involved of course, and really seemed to enjoy themselves.

It feels so weird knowing that we’re moving on – a bit like the elves leaving Middle Earth We feel like flies on the wall, just watching it all happen. There were several visitors there today, a number of new families who have been coming regularly for a while – don’t think we have ever had so many children for a special day like this before. The young people completely took care of getting the meal organised and serving it all (for “meal” read four-course, three-hour long extravaganza – in France when we eat together, we don’t do things by halves!) It was great seeing different ones put their gifts to good use.

My emotions are torn between being relieved and excited to be moving on to something new, and feeling rather sad that we’re going to miss out on an exciting new phase in the life of the church: I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Maria with friends Louise and Camille, and her Mum Sarah.