No Other Name? - Article 18/39

XVIII. OF OBTAINING ETERNAL SALVATION ONLY BY THE NAME OF CHRIST

THEY also are to be had accursed that presume to say, That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law, and the light of Nature. For holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.

O'Donovan reminds us of St Peter's great statement in Acts 4:12 that '...there is no other name under heaven given... by which we must be saved.' He adds, 'The Christian Church has always made this exclusive claim, and that is why the status of other religious professions has always been something of a theological problem.'

Note, a theological problem. We look back with sorrow at the times when the borders of Christianity were extended with the sword. We believe in inter-faith dialogue and we carry 'I am the way, the truth and the life' lightly into those discussions.

So what does that mean for our current relationship with Article 18? It doesn't change the fact that our job is still evangelism. In the context of dialogue we must tell people about Jesus. It is our great commission, whether we be universalist or not.

And the condemnation is for those who suggest that salvation lies in any other name, not for those who are yet to understand the significance of the name of Jesus. And if we ponder a little we can only conclude that this condemnation is because those who venture to suggest there is salvation beyond Christ have put themselves in the place of God. There may be, indeed the Bible suggests there will be, some surprise at who we get to share eternity with, but it is not for us to pre-judge the matter. Speak of Jesus when we speak. Leave the results up to the one who sent him.

Liberal Evangelism

I've just come back from a very enjoyable conversation organised by our Diocesan Mission Adviser on the subject of Liberal Evangelism. There were thirteen of us in the room from the four corners of the Diocese. I am hugely grateful to work in a diocese that welcomes and enables this kind of conversation.

We all enjoyed being able to contribute freely and therefore to some extent confidentially. Not all of us who have liberal tendencies in evangelical churches are 'out' yet.

But to give you a flavour of the discussion, we grappled with things such as:

Young people have more of a sense of shame than a sense of sin. Can you do evangelism without making sin the start of the story?

Jesus taking bread, breaking it and saying 'This is me' is the ultimate deconstruction. How much do we think Jesus wanted a neatly packaged ideology to be his legacy?

If we want to grow in numbers we have to use language that is useful to people. Everyone should be welcome to come in and then to tell us what life is like in their experience.

I felt very much at home with this bunch of explorers.

Which Festival?

Figure 1

I have been mining some of my of pre-iPad note books for gold.

And a warning. Incomplete thinking in progress. This is what blogs are for.

Recipients of my training technique will know that there are very few problems that cannot be better understood by reducing them to four boxes.

I am grateful to the unidentified (in my notes), and no longer recalled, conductor of the Bath and Wells pre-Advent retreat in 2012. I took jottings as the addresses began and then I disappeared, as I often do, into a world of my own. Quotes from the saints became imaginings from the St.

So let's imagine that we divide the church's year into two parts. Those that focus on memory and those that focus on hope. By 'memory' I mean those festivals that look back on some key biblical Christian event. By 'hope' I mean those festivals that look forward to something happening in the future.

I am aware that many festivals, with good preaching, can do both of these things but stick with me.

Now let us make a further division. We divide those festivals that look upon that thing with thanksgiving and gratitude (something has been or will be done) compared with those that require us to be penitent (we are sorry it happened, or will happen).

This gives us Figure 1's four box grid.

Figure 2

Now let us look at the church's year and see which festivals fill the boxes. Top left (Figure 2) we have Lent. We look back on our lives, on Jesus' temptation in the wilderness and, starting in the dust of Ash Wednesday, we proceed slowly and gently, head down, with humility and restraint.

Lent is a time for reflection, for looking back and for adjustment of behaviour in the light of the journey to the cross.

There is little thanksgiving and only the hope of death in the air.

Advent (Figure 3) is a shorter time for reflection. It is largely replaced, in the eyes of the world, by Christmas, a season which runs from the day the John Lewis Christmas advert first airs until the first whiff of a sale is in the air.

Figure 3

Christians reflect while the world rushes past. Upon what do we reflect? Firstly the incarnation - the truth that this story of a baby somehow universalises God with us. Secondly a look longer ahead to a time when we will be revisited and encompassing the desire not to be unprepared for that. It is hope but it is penitent hope.

We try and put the brakes on the world giving thanks until Christmas Day. We fail, but we keep trying. No-one wants a confessional at the office Christmas party, even if it is being held in Advent 1.

The parables of the kingdom fit here. Wise and foolish virgins. Tenants in the vineyard. Wedding banquets where folk don't turn up.

Figure 4

So when do Christians do happy? Ideally, and primarily, on Easter Day (Figure 4). The memory of what happened to Jesus on the third day is a thing of great joy. We look back on what the hymn writers see as the greatest day in history. We have a corporate memory to be thankful for. Thine be the glory, risen conquering son (we find it hard to shake off our military metaphors though).

Of course all these festivals are, really, is us telling our great stories again. Stories told in and of faith. About faith. For faith. The stories are all set in history - they grew out of a particular time and in a particular place, but their historicity is not completely available to us. It is what the stories are for that is important, which is why we ought to be able to point to a festival which adds hope to thanksgiving (Figure 5).

But no one Christian event gives us access to this combination, easily.

Figure 5

I wonder if this was the place where the great evangelistic rallies used to fit. They are largely replaced by the Alpha Course these days. Summer camp talks on how to find 'The Way' were an annual marker in my Christian walk for many years. They were certainly occasions of  thanksgiving for a new future and hope inserted where previously there had been none.

But I tentatively ask this question. Is there a festival we should make more of because it fits best in the bottom right box? All Saints?

If not then we need to remember that each one of our three markers, Lent, Easter and Advent, needs unpacking by preaching, that it may point to the future and do it with hope.

What does what has happened have to say to us about what will happen?

Comments gratefully received in any of the usual places.

Was It OK?

Well the idea wasn't bad. Sit in a pub for an hour or so and allow folk to bring their questions about life and faith. Nothing off the table. No holds barred. No bars holed for that matter. No right or wrong answers but simply honest exploration.

First two or three went well in autumn 2014 and guests said they loved it.

Repeated with three more in spring 2015. Numbers never went beyond eight. Three regulars and me made up half of that.

The two or three genuine seekers and questioners from beyond the church gates all said it was good but no-one made a repeat visit.

Tried a different pub in Autumn 2015 but the numbers plummeted. Considered stopping but was urged to continue by most people who had been once before.

Went back to the same old pub in spring 2016 but no progress on numbers was made. This week the other three guests, all regulars, had brought no questions to discuss.

So to the sixteen folk who came at least once, and to the supportive regulars who came most of the time, thank you and goodnight.

We need to try something different. Ideas gratefully received.

A Word of 2015 Testimony

Stephen Fry said recently that you can't believe in a God who allows parasites to eat the eyes of African children. It's an imagination failure really. People find it very hard to imagine a thing, a being, an essence (words fail us) who inhales bad and breathes out good. Someonething so amazing that their very existence encompasses all that is evil and redeems it.

It is amazing that some of these people with such a limited imagination are actors.

Almost fifty years since we moved beyond the god-of-the-gaps idea - that God is what you have left when science has reached its limit - still there are people who carry the idea of a too-small God around with them in case they have to do some emergency debunking.

The faith community can live with this. We laugh at it. We know that it is better debating style to select the strongest expression of your opponent's case to argue against. At least, some of us do.

We do not all recognise the God the atheists hate.

But we also chuckle at the way some people, who pronounce themselves members of the faith community, actually have put their trust in something they think they've proved. They believe in God on the basis of evidence, the balance of probabilities. That's not faith my friends. But sadly, neither is it science. It's pseudo-science and it deserves to be ridiculed. Even the very sad expression 'intelligent design' suggests that other human theories, by comparison, are unintelligent. This is, on the one hand plain rude, and on the other placing far too much infinite value on the earthly word 'intelligent'. Don't ascribe human characteristics to God. That way lies a barren land of omni-this and all-that. Take your shoes and socks off instead.

Faith is acting as if something is true because in doing so it becomes real for you and makes sense of your story. It provides a meta-narrative (and I know we are a bit suspicious of meta-narratives these days) which guides, points and helps. Neither a crutch, nor proving it but simply a theory of everything. Now where have I heard that expression before?

We all prefer to live in hope. My missing child will return. My cancer will be cured. I will find a job. And no, putting those three things in the same paragraph is not to confer equal seriousness upon them. So living, in what the Church of England funeral service describes as the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, is not counter-intuitive at all. It helps us live.

And so from this standpoint we observe the scientific community describing the universe as we know it beginning at a Big Bang, then refining the theory to suggest a series of bangs and crunches ad infinitum backwards and forwards (whatever that means in a multiverse we may have to now know as eternal). And as we observe we posit the existence of the infinite, the ultimate, the beyond-our-ken, the logos, the ground of our being, God. And for some of us it nourishes and sustains us to hope there is more than this, to live as people of faith that this life is not the only one on the market.

Not that we can tell with certainty if our atoms are to be redistributed around the universe or if there is to be a general resurrection. Most thinking Christians have jettisoned the whole damned-to-an-eternity-in-torment thing.

Wise guy once suggested this was the equivalent of seeing through a glass darkly, stealing an idea from Plato. And same guy suggested that in Jesus of Nazareth there were more clues to the other-world than in anyone else.

Which means that many great human stories and metaphors were told to try and get the truth of this man (somehow human and yet divine) taped. God's son? The lamb of God? The son of man? All make a point yet all fall short. No construct of words will ever get anywhere nearer than shoes and socks off time.

Trying to make sense of his death - some call the attempts 'theories of the atonement' - has led to all sorts of forms of words. Christus victor? Substitutionary atonement? Victory over death, sin, the world, the flesh, the devil?

For the evangelical community substitutionary atonement has become more than a model. It was, they say, what actually happened. Christ died in our place. So any member, or former member, of that community in all its breadth, is ostracised for daring to suggest that this might not be the whole truth.

I made this point in a Twitter conversation a few months back and the great Richard Dawkins said something along the lines of 'You mean God sent his son to die for the sake of a metaphor. That's worse.' Meaning that it was worse than all the other theories of the atonement with which people were wrestling and he was disagreeing. I love Dawkins. He writes well. He has helped me understand complex science. And he has had the humility to pull back from his rather aggressive stance against people of faith. He now acknowledges that friendly conversation works better. Respect.

I promised to write a bit more about it and it has taken until today to say this. Believe in God or not. It is entirely up to you. But make sure, if you don't believe, that the God you don't believe in isn't too small for anyone to believe in. Any creed, metaphor or historical account that is raised beyond the level of faith to actual, real, historical truth about the one we hope and trust is the creator and sustainer of the universe has become an idol. And we don't do idols in the Christian community.

Christ did not die for the sake of a metaphor. But metaphors are all we have to describe the sake he did die for.

Quote of the Day

1051. Atheism must be free to say to Muslims, Christians or Jews: 'Your mind would be much more free if you gave up your ridiculous belief in God.' Believers must be free to argue back, 'You would have a more profound sense of personal freedom if you did believe.' But neither is entitled to demand that of the other as a condition for participating as a citizen in a free society.
(Timothy Garton-Ash, The Guardian 29/11/07)

Seeking After Truth

There is a certain way that churches do evangelism. Probably applies to conservative and evangelical churches more than liberal ones. Liberal ones tend not to do evangelism.

The methodology uses the metaphor of a meal and feeding a baby.

The parent has the food. As much food is put into the baby as possible who then needs to burp before any more can be taken.

The teacher has the truth. As much truth is put into the enquirer as possible who then needs to burp before more can be taken.

Alpha uses this model. The talks are the food and the discussion groups are the burp. It still works for some people, especially those who have a respect for the knowledge and ability of the teacher. The discussion groups allow people to respond to the talk and the next talk builds on this.

It was perhaps nearly twenty years ago that I met my first brother in Christ who would describe himself as an 'emergent' Christian. The person in question, who I encountered at a very funky little group at the Custard Factory in Brum where Christians involved in the arts could support each other, called himself a 'Seeker After Truth'.

I loved that. I loved the language, the spirit of enquiry, the lack of certainty (therefore the presence of mystery), the general cultural alertness of the members of the group.

In doing their work (and all were highly effective communicators of the gospel) they emphasised some things that operated counter to conservative Christian culture. I will call the communicator 'teacher' in these examples but I mean it more in the sense of philosopher, or journey-leader. Here are some emphases:

1. Seeking. Both teacher and disciple are seeking. Both might be changed by the process. The person who is interested or enquiring is valued as someone who has something to bring to the party. The whole one-beggar-sharing-bread-with-another thing.

2. Vulnerability A. The teacher owns up to uncertainty or times when Christians have disagreed. If there are two views both are expounded and decisions are not forced.

3. Vulnerability B. Rather than packing a meeting with seven Christians for every enquirer (again, often my Alpha experience) the teacher will go alone into a room full of seekers, facing the questions, the difficulties, alone.

4. Biblical literacy means talking about the historicity questions academic theologians have discussed for years but have largely been kept from congregations. It is about being honest with the truth.

5. Story. Stories have a power. Jesus used fiction to communicate. He very rarely told people what the story meant and even when he did his explanation often contained more mystery than certainty.

I ran Alpha for some years. Still would given half a chance. But I was quietly subverting it by setting out options and not insisting on one line. My Alpha course embraced universalism, hell as a metaphor not a reality, the possibility there was not a real Satan, the possibility of God no longer healing physically, the fact that some committed Christians were gay ... not saying these things were all acceptable but allowing people to come on board with such views and be included.

In reality Alpha don't like you mucking about with their course and still calling it Alpha. In my last church I just about held together some of the most liberal thinkers I have ever seen in a traditionally evangelical place of worship, including a number of lesbian and gay Christians. Almost all left shortly after I did. Which saddens me.

I'd like there to be a possibility of this not happening where I am now.

1 Peter 3:15

I was chatting to someone I know a little the other day and invited him to a men's breakfast. Sadly he was unable to come due to a golf commitment. Hope he enjoyed the game in an absolute downpour.

Here's the thing. We talked for a bit and we exchanged addresses for the first time. Noticing he lived in the same road as a key couple from one of my churches (I work in six and have responsibility for one) I mentioned this and his face frowned massively.

I was than regaled with two stories about one of the couple - one of dangerous and selfish driving, the other of failing to acknowledge an attempted kindness.

And there is set the opinion of their church. And the bar, of getting an interested enquirer across the threshold of a spiritual event, is set that little bit higher.

We are invited by Peter in his first letter to always be prepared to give an account of the hope we have in us. Ever wondered why that doesn't happen very often? Maybe because your life doesn't betray that you live with any hope, or have an ability to explain it with what Peter calls 'gentleness and respect'.

I do not write as one who is constantly bombarded with requests to give an account of the hope I have in me. I try to be a good example so as to leave the door open. But this story is a reminder to all of us that we only have one chance to make a first impression and that is not necessarily about the quality of coffee and the welcome at the church door. Although obviously if those two things are horrid you have erected another barrier.

Play nicely everybody. Play nicely.

Quote Book Index 261-270

262. ...the task of the church is not to ask what Jones will swallow but to decare to Jones what there is to eat. (William Temple)

Quote Book Index 250-260

I've used this quote from Spurgeon quite a lot. Never pinned it down to a source but have heard others use it too. Challenged by someone with, 'Mr Spurgeon I don't like your method of evangelism', he replied:

260. I don't care much for it myself, but I like the way I'm doing it better than the way you're not.

Quote Book Index 191-200

This is taking me longer than I thought and will go on for months if I don't try daily rather than trying weekly or trying weakly. Maybe I ought to compromise at tri-weekly. Anyway, here is the best of the last ten:

197: Our task is not to explain the world but to convert it. (William Temple quoted in Mark Ashton's 'Christian Youth Work')

Quote Book Index 21-30

The best quote from numbers 21-30 in my book being indexed.

21. From time to time PCCs (Parochial Church Councils) should have a meeting with only evangelism and holiness on the agenda. (Bishop Bill Westwood)

Evangelistic Preaching - The End

A few years ago the great Nick Pollard wrote a book I have raved about ever since. It was called Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult. Click to view or buy on Amazon. He introduced the idea of positive deconstruction. Put simply (therefore not doing justice to the fact it takes a book to explain properly) he asks those of us with any Christian belief to use techniques to make others dissatisfied with their own world view before we start imposing our world view on them.

There are a number of ways to consider how the vast majority of the people of the United Kingdom feel about proclamation preaching these days.

There is inoculation. They had a bit of the disease (church schools, visits to dull churches, bad experiences of church weddings, Songs of Praise) once and it has prevented them from ever catching the real thing. Hearing an evangelistic preacher they think 'I know this one' and walk on (or tune out).

There is disinterest. That story doesn't talk to my world. The proclaimer seems to live in cloud-cuckoo land where having Jesus in your heart fixes everything. As Bishop David Jenkins used to say, 'Jesus had Jesus in his heart and it didn't fix his problems; they crucified him.'

There is passive disagreement. The plethora of writing and broadcasting that disses theology of all hues gives the impression that contemporary atheism has won and there is no point giving believers the time of day. I won't accept your invitation to hear the Gospel preached and I will be pissed off if you invite me under false pretences.

There is active disagreement. Some continue to take the fight on. They argue vigorously, inter alia, that religion has caused more harm than good, science has disproved Genesis and God is a crutch. They laugh when their opponents try to defend such positions and ignore those of us who agree with them but don't feel they have picked their battle with the right people, or god for that matter.

There are all shades in between.

Two things have led me to want to revisit this and write again on the subject. First of all I find myself having a number of conversations with a fellow minister who takes the view that it is the job of the church to continue saying and doing the same thing - more about Calvin than contemporary culture for him too - and to allow God to be in charge of the results. But it was Einstein who said that a sign of insanity was to do the same thing again and expect different results. The parable of the sower is a tale Jesus told about a spreader of the word of God who seems to be indiscriminate with his sowing. Some seed does fall on the path or in the weeds but he just keeps on chucking. But I ask myself, if I have found some good soil would it not be good to concentrate there? If I have discovered a new method of growing food would I not invest in it?

Secondly I was pointed toward this little YouTube video from 2010. It lasts just under ten minutes. I think Chris would be happy for me to describe him as a friend although we haven't been in touch for a while. It is worth listening to the first minute for the very good joke and after that he will have suckered you in and you won't be able to avoid listening to the rest.




Notice how he explains why the church is not a franchise - you don't just do the same thing in a different place and expect the same results. You watch, look, listen and learn. And notice the last line - that for any one of the few people he has reached he would do it again and it has been worth it. He eschews the results business entirely.

I don't think preaching is dead. It is what Chris is doing and he does it well and engagingly. But I think evangelistic preaching, preaching for a response of conversion, may be.

My heart's desire is to get people to the point where they think for themselves about the great stories of God without my personality getting in the way. And since most people prefer to reflect on big decisions it is probably not good practice to ask for an emotional response after an emotionally charged presentation.

Chris suggests that he is slightly embarrassed about the facilities his church building now offers - because he does not want people to come and see a building but to come and meet God.

I work amongst the relatively wealthy. I tell the tale of one who had everything but money to many who have nothing but money. I have found, over six years, two thin gaps - I am not talking to the lovely Christian friends I have made here.

The first place there is a gap for the gospel is in the area of busy-ness. I have found that in lives that are full of noise and content people yearn for space and quiet. I have found that in a very samey church culture people yearn for quiet and sacred space. People do not want programmes, they want release from them. They do not want a Gospel rally but a chance to have time to think things through for themselves. The opportunity for quiet is helpful.

The second gap is in having a place to gather where encounter is possible, invitation is safe and content is quality. The whole cafe thing with gathering and occasional input or entertainment also seems to meet a need.

The vision at Trendlewood was once of building a church. Possibly there is no need. We are church already, building or not. But to build or find some permanent sacred space, for quiet, for questions, for discussion, for meeting, for safety and yes, to come and meet God. An arty place? A crafty place? A place that developed a reputation for great musical beginnings? Such a building may be necessary. It could contain talks and speakers but probably not proclamation. All input to end with... 'Please think about that and ask questions if you wish.' Other world views welcome? Would that be a step too far, to give others a pulpit too?

And given that there is no such space available in the area of the country we are responsible for (within our parish boundaries) it may be necessary to talk and co-operate with others to find a venue. There is this space I know, see. Anyone got lots of money they don't want? Again. Nailsea's sacred space.

Contributions to this seed idea very welcome.

Pastors Causing Pain

See, here's a question. For ministers of the Gospel mainly but others may join in. If you absolutely knew you would grow the church by 100 people tomorrow but 5 would be so upset at the methodology they would leave, would you do it?

Let's say all other things being equal. You are not allowed an 'it depends' answer. You have researched and your methodology is not illegal. It is good. It will lead to long-term new converts and disciples of Jesus. You cannot stop the leavers leaving and they will blame you for the rest of their lives for 'ruining their church.'

You are not allowed to say 'It's not all about numbers.' I've reduced the problem to the state where it is.

What amazes me is that some of you are now umming and arring (never written that before, is that how you spell those words?) about this. You are genuinely considering not growing your church by 100 in order to keep 5 happy.

I don't understand you (and you probably me).

We sometimes have to make decisions that may upset people but are for the greater good. Empathy and pastoral care just get right in the way.

The world divides into two types of people and you are the other type. You probably wonder how the person who gave the order to drop the first atomic bombs slept at night. My guess is that he did the maths and then slept fine. And that will sound appalling to you.

Push push shove shove

When people start a blog post 'This is not a complaint about anyone' they are rarely believed. But this is not a complaint about anyone. It's a conversation starter.

There was a joke told to me about thirty years ago, and I guess it had been around for a while before that. It concerned a vicar.

Every morning he was seen walking out of the house and along to the railway line. He stood on the bridge looking along the track. As the first train of the day passed beneath the bridge he did a little leap of joy and danced his way back to his house.

More on that later.

In one of the parishes in which I work there is a usual Sunday attendance of over 300 in four congregations across two worship centres. The electoral role is about 320 or so and those we might call our members (over 16 years of age) number about 340 or 350.

For some months now we have been talking about, and planning, how to improve outreach. The parish might be blessed with large numbers but this is more through residence than successful evangelism. Massive growth in numbers in the 1980s and 1990s corresponded with people moving into the area as it was allowed to grow under the North Somerset Development Plan.

As part of this we have suspended our small groups this month. We are holding a series of congregational meetings to discuss whether those small groups might be the key place to get this improvement to happen. We have invited all church members to these meetings, not just those currently in small groups (you might call them home groups but ours don't all meet in homes).

The first two meetings (one daytime, one evening) have been good. I am sure I should be grateful that a total of 110 people have wrestled with our opening session and asked great questions. There is clearly an underlying nervousness about change, something my personality type finds it very hard to understand but I try and listen. The opening few comments suggest that it is the support and care people value about their small groups and this has corresponded to a reluctance, over the years, to grow and multiply.

The end point of the conversation, for our small groups, has not been identified. You can't have a conversation if the end point is fixed. The end point of the conversation for the church has to be fixed. If we don't get real about outreach then we will do what a near neighbour church has done - grow old and be in danger of death.

Here's the conversation I want to start. If 110 out of 340 people came that is about a third. However radical the decision making of this holy bunch of the committed and concerned how should we communicate it to the two thirds who couldn't make it, didn't see the point or weren't bothered?

Those of us who try to lead the church are not trying to force anything through, despite the feelings of some more outspoken members. We are genuinely trying to have a conversation about improving evangelism and see our small groups as being at the heart of this.

But I fear that we will have a hard job on our hands convincing the two-thirds that any decision or policy change was genuinely arrived at through prayer and dialogue. As the 'nam vet says, 'You wouldn't know man; you weren't there.' Maybe that is simply what I should expect life to be like.

Asked why he got so excited about the train  the vicar in the joke (remember the joke) said, 'I get excited because it is fantastic to see something in this town that moves without being pushed.'

If I ever show signs of becoming a train-spotter please take me out the back and have a harsh word with blunt sticks. But I understand that vicar.

Good morning.

Evangelism

Evangelism. Do you like the word? At its root it means something like 'good-newsing.' So far so good, but ask anyone who is not a follower of Jesus and they will feel got at by it. It makes those who are being evangelised into a target audience, a potential customer-base and therefore to feel either the victims of advertising or over-zealous selling techniques. I reckon it is a mortally wounded word which can only be used effectively by Christian leaders talking about something they plan to do. It should not be allowed out in public any more. Yes, I am aware that this is public and therefore I am failing to follow my own advice. See this post as an obituary.

Who got it into trouble? Probably street-corner evangelists more than anyone else. Those who scatter-gun the gospel at passers-by in city centres. They hit any given individual only with theoshrapnel. Like telling someone about confectionery by throwing sugar-grains. They make me sad because I believe some of the same things as them.

Our Alpha Course at the pub finished this week. Again I have negotiated the minefield of running a genuine Alpha Course whilst holding back from its more conservative elements. On matters such as the nature of evil, answers to prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit I tend to present, 'Some Christians say this, others say that, what do you think?' I see the course as seeking after truth and allow the guests to seek. Our team consists of a range of theological views. We get on.

Again this week I had to listen to a comment about the clergy. I'm not bragging here although it will come across as such. A member of our course said, 'I didn't think that people like me could talk to vicars.'

Can we take a moment's silence to digest that please? Thank you.

What have we done, what have we done to the idea of ministry as service to the living God, God's hands on earth, intermediaries, helpers that someone, almost certainly representative of a goodly chunk of ordinary folk, might think they couldn't approach us, let alone talk to us?

So all I did over the last eleven weeks was be a bloke, in a pub sitting on a stool talking about Jesus to invited guests and then chatting over a drink in small groups. And it may well be that being accessible rather than clerical was more important than any of the talk content.

Four or five times in the last few years people have taken the trouble, either as I was walking down the street or after a public occasion, to congratulate me on being normal. Regular readers might recall me posting about this. It was what I set out to do twenty six years ago. I wanted to be a vicar without stopping being me. I wanted to stand up in church and say hello the way I normally say hello; to chat after church the way I chat in my lounge and to avoid feeling that an act of worship, after a lively conversation in a vestry, should be introduced in a pompous voice saying 'The hymn two hundred and forty five' or whatever and all personality should be left in the changing rooms.

This ministry lark could be the easiest job in the world. Before we have any chance of doing the complicated business of speaking of God we need to spend a few years demonstrating that those of us who speak of God are ordinary people.

A new style of invitation to church beckons, 'Come and meet our vicar; you'll be amazed how ordinary he is.'

Risky Stuff

I wonder if anyone is looking?

In all sorts of places around the world there comes a time, usually in an otherwise little known town or village, where people decide to say 'Sod off' to risk. And whether they then chase a fully grown cheese down a hill, play ruleless football, have a massive tomato fight or decide to let a few bulls loose in the main street the result is the same - fun and injury.

I thought about this afresh as a few friends told me they were planning to go to Ottery St Mary for the tar barrels festival this week.

As nutters go these are brazils. A bunch of people will set alight to barrels of tar and carry them quickly through the town. The job of the spectator is best summarised as get-the-hell-out-of-the-way.

I think we accept the need to be molly-coddled by legislation a lot of the time. Without speed limits we probably would misjudge a safe velocity.

We also make very bad communal judgements about the inherent risks in things such as letting our kids walk to school. In fact the chance of a child being picked up by a stranger at my local schools is considerably less than that of being mowed down by a badly-driven people carrier which is shepherding children to their lessons.

And it is well known that the chance of winning the lottery jackpot is less than the chance of being killed on the way to buying a ticket (so play online or don't waste your £1).

But every now and again we just want to gob in the face of statistical analysis and do something inherently risky, daft and, blimey, fun and survive.

I don't think the jumping over the bonfire competition was incredibly wise when our then curate suggested it, and went first, back in 1971. But I understand the desire to do it. The question is almost 'Can I taunt the gods?'

And so we need to balance all the celebrities caught doing inappropriate things with the, presumably greater, number who got away with it. They wanted to risk it. Had an affair with a Prime Minister? Run naked in the woods? Gone in hard for a 40/60 tackle? Eaten food well past its best-before date? I think you are all part of the same spectrum. Playing with risk is human.

I'm banking my whole life on a person who used to be dead. I sometimes sing, 'Send your fire Lord.'

What do you do? I'm eating an old yogurt, naked.

Is it now?

Well how are we doing? Not in the Steve Wright full body check way (you should have two of everything down the side and one of everything down the middle). How does it feel to be in England on All Souls Day in November 2010?

It's grey outside. Kind of goes without saying. We pretty much fade to default grey about now until March or so. Temperature is dropping but if anyone out there finds that unexpected I'm not sure you're a native.

I guess I mean, compared to other places. The French are revolting over working a day over 60. The Yanks are bored with having an intelligent president and are trying to find someone stoopid to line up behind. The Indians are clearing up after the Commonwealth games, Pakistan is still clearing up after a flood. Chile is in good spirits because rescuing miners takes your mind off things. Greece, I think, is still broke. Afghanistan is still deadly. Iraq isn't rushing to embrace normality and Iran is trying to assemble a flat-pack nuclear silo. Spain won the World Cup so they still have feel good. China won't say and the Russians are trying to be chummy, probably because they're broke too.

Although it seems obvious that the BBC have decided to give the government a smooth ride and I would have expected that most folk would see through that, nevertheless the country seems, to me, surprisingly upbeat. Another atrocity might succeed and we'd all be very down, or very dead, although tracing the Yemeni parcel bombers back to the address they sent the parcels from seems to me to suggest that they aren't going to outwit us anytime soon.

But here meantime we seem to have stoically accepted that we need a tough few years to clear our debt and the argument is about the pace of the thing. We just about voted in a bunch who think quick is better than slow (their sex lives must be disappointing) and so we are knuckling down to everything being a bit rubbish for a few years while we cross our fingers that enough people will be earning money to spend it on things which grow businesses.

We've managed, so far, to only have a minor upset about a really quite important thing. But we've also had major upsets about really quite small things such as how much Rooney gets paid and how far you could throw Ann Widdecombe.

Getting stewed about the wrong thing eh? In a tabloid-world our problems are mis-shaped. But I find myself amongst people who are increasingly asking the question, 'Is this it?' Three score years and ten is now looking like four score for most of us but to what end?

The world lost its faith in meta-narratives (one big story that explains everything) a while back but maybe, just maybe, it is now regretting that nothing except short-termism (you can win and spend a million very quickly) replaced it. In the face of that, those of us who wake each morning with a whole story to make sense of the world afresh are beginning to be looked at again not with suspicion but with admiration. All the anti-faith writing of the liberal atheist constituency hasn't done much deconverting. Programmes on TV about people seeking solutions - in silence, in pilgrimage, in giving away their money, in the past, in alternative community - are rife.

I had breakfast with a bunch of guys on Saturday who were all longing to find ways to share their world-view with others but neither wanting to impose nor to get it wrong. Meantime they are doing things like running junior football teams and noticing the amount of kids with absent fathers, or organising the local British Legion poppy appeal.

And I have a hunch that the answer is not to push harder with our stories, not to become more overtly evangelistic (face it, that hasn't worked) but to carry on serving the community with our time and money because that's a good thing to do in its own right.

I just listened to a Rob Bell podcast from Mars Hill Bible Church about the parables of seeds in Matthew. He got some people to try and describe a painting or a piece of music and then asked if anyone else could tell what the pieces were from the words. Of course they couldn't. Writing about art is like playing guitar about gardening and you can make up your own metaphor about the music one. I don't see why you shouldn't do some work for a change.

The farmer lets the weeds and the crop grow side by side. He waits patiently.

There are enough clues in this life for everyone to get it. Despite the goodness of the seed (in this story) some falls where it ain't never going to grow properly. Some will hear and not get it; see and not get it, perceive and not get it. Get it?

I have a feeling there is about to be a spurt of those who get it round here (my locality, world-wide readers). The next few months could be real good. They might put economic woes into a different sort of perspective.

I apologise if you feel that there are too many Americanisms in this piece. It's the company I've been keeping. It certainly gave the spell-checker some work.

So what should I do about it? What should we do about it?

Wait. Hope. Rest. Pray.

Nothing else.

Happy Halloween

Just a quick reminder today, Christian chums, to avoid saying that the commercialisation of Halloween will draw people a little closer to the dark side if we will be moaning, in a month or so's time, that the commercialisation of Christmas will lure people away from its true spiritual meaning. Joined up protest please.

Great Questions

Over the years I have always been interested in people who ask the right questions. I have tried to ask the right questions myself at every opportunity. Here's a great question:

'Will I discover why I was born, before I die?'
(Bernard Levin, 60th birthday article, The Times, January 1991)