What Would Jesus Blog?

So, there’s a large group here at Cliff for a Yoga retreat weekend, involving lots of contortion and non-Christian spiritual endeavour (plus the sale of Buddhist and Hindu CDs and bong-like contraptions….) and it’s caused some great debates over the dinner table!

One side feel that having groups coming to Cliff to engage in non-Christian spiritual activity is wrong – that Cliff is a holy place (holy = set aside for God), and that the only worship that occurs here should be Christian. We make regular exceptions for Jewish groups, we might do the same for Muslim groups as our religions are related, but Hinduism and Buddhist spirituality is a long way removed from that of the Abrahamic faiths. This side of the argument feel that Cliff should have turned the group away, politely explaining that what they would be doing here didn’t fit with our views on spirituality and that they should find another venue. They feel that the very holy and Christian spiritual space that is Cliff has been invaded – not that they can’t worship God anywhere or that God needs special places to work, but that there should be places that are set aside for God and worship of him in a Christian way.

It’s worth noting that this group take yoga seriously – it’s not just a form of exercise but it is a spiritual endeavour for them.

The other side of the debate take a variety of views – from knowing that Cliff needs the money and that a chance to take money from the hands of heretics and put it to God’s purposes is one that can’t be missed to arguing that Cliff should welcome everyone with open arms and show them Christian hospitality and the Christian lifestyle so that they can see the Gospel lived out properly.

Ultimately it’s a question of God’s mission – faced with a decision to make, how can Cliff best follow God’s purposes for this world? Jesus had no problem with kicking the dishonest money-lenders out of the temple because it’s God’s house but even at his last supper he dined with someone who he knew was going to betray him. As Christians we have a duty to protect the holy things from contamination but at the same time ask ourselves how we can tell people who aren’t Christians the good news of Christ.

So what do I think? Welcome them with open arms, let them use whatever they want to, pray for them, pray over the areas after they’ve left to get rid of any spiritual nasties but crucially talk to them and interact with them and show them God’s love. I’d rather we had a neutral space that we could just rent out without it necessarily being a spiritual issue – having them yoga where we worship brings it a bit to close for comfort….

I had a bad dream, so God had me up and getting a drink of water (the nice stuff from the tea point, not the tanked stuff in my room). He had me look out of the window at the snow-covered peaks illuminated by gentle moonlight – forget the beauty of fake goth models or the OS X interface….God’s creation (and right now, this corner of it) is the most beautiful thing on the planet.

I remember the most tangible thing that I noticed after becoming a Christian, apart from a feeling of God’s peace, was that suddenly I saw the natural world as not just beautiful, but God beautiful. I saw it in a completely different way and that hasn’t changed – I see the connections, I see the energy, I see God’s hand in it – and if God looked at it and said that it was good (Genesis 1), it must be something special.

Yes, there’s a reason the title’s all in capitals! Cat and I went there this morning…it was an experience to say the least. Both of us left feeling really stressed, myself rather disturbed, and both partially deafened…yet at the same time I couldn’t help but see God doing cool stuff.

We must have shaken about five hands on our way to our seats, but I’m afraid to say the welcome ended there – barely anyone around us talked to us and all the regulars were up the front. Can’t blame the church for that though, I’m sure I’ve cold-shouldered a few people at Reach over the years. The service started with a rather cool video and about 30 minutes of very high-energy sung worship incorporating equally high-energy prayers into a very professional outfit – with plenty of space down the front for a mass of jumping bodies. A very long church notices followed, and the rather cool !A-TV – a five minute video with the latest news. There’s certainly plenty going on at that church – the booklet about it was several pages long and includes loads of interest groups, hang-out-in-coffee-shops groups, small groups, training, prayer sessions, youth stuff, a church plant the other side of Europe and all kinds of cool things.

The sermon was, well, an experience. This guy shouted at us with great passion and zeal for about 45 minutes about how we are made in the image of God and we should start acting like God’s respresentation here on earth. Great content, good exegesis, and even I only found a few minor things to pick him up on theologically, and they were certainly open to interpretation. He just shouted. Continually. We closed with a song and quickly made our exit….the traffic noise of central Manchester suddenly was as silence to our ears!

It was very, very slick – too much so IMO. It was far too programmed for my liking – certainly we should give God the best we can but I’m not convinced that slick programming is his idea of the best. The people there obviously love God and the church obviously sustains them so it’s doing great work – and it’s odd, I love loud gigs but maybe I’m just getting old and found this morning’s experience too much loud and too much going on to feel I could ever be at home. Plus, above anything else, it just didn’t feel right. Not like ‘Satan is in control’ not right but ‘This isn’t where I’m meant to be’ right. That settled it – I guess reach will always be a kind of home to me. Doesn’t help Cat though – her search continues!

(Techie note – if you ever feel the need to put every single aspect of your work through a compressor, resist. They’re great for a lot of things but having spent two hours listening to finely compressed loudness I found myself crying out for some dynamics! And yes, that’s why the title’s in CAPITALS – it really was church out loud!)

Both Cat and I are waiting for Methodist Church cheques – mine is for some work that I did back in November and invoiced for in early December, Cat’s is a selection of expenses and wages dating back as early as August. Between us, we’re owed several hundred pounds. Why is it that secular organisations manage to pay wages and expenses in a matter of days, and sort out problems in hours, while an organisation that should, by rights, be caring and just, takes months? Go figure.

We’re messing around with new ways of doing Tuesday Celebration, now that we’ve moved it down to the Chatsworth room – it’s a fantastic space and means that we can really let loose (when we have the equipment :p). This evening’s offering was pretty funky – plenty of well-used media, coherent narrative that didn’t cause me to switch off, sound message, and only one or two technical glitches that we can learn from. I may even let my manuals take one meeting every two weeks for worship-related stuff as manual time, which I’m sure they’ll love.

One thing I really appreciated was that the worship wasn’t all luvvy-duvvy ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ kinda stuff – that kinda thing really doesn’t represent how I feel about God! Michael Frost has an excellent chapter in his book Exiles about that – I highly recommend it. I was utterly despairing in the midst of such rubbish and then we sang a song that was all about how we all need God’s forgiveness, how God can forgive anyone who comes before him and asks for it, and how awesome it is that he offers it to us – and that right from day one we have to contend with one of the many paradoxes of Christianity – we don’t have to pay anything to receive God’s forgiveness but at the same time, it demands that we give over everything to God’s purpose.

Been in lectures this week as part of MEC2 – Leading, Mentoring and Accompanying the Emerging Church, one of my modules in my MA in Mission (Emerging Church) here at Cliff College. Phil Meadows has been talking about Technoculture – the culture that’s emerged as technology has evolved at a rapid pace through the Industrial Revolution and beyond. He’s talked about how this culture has taken things that used to be central and beneficial, such as conversation around the kitchen table as part of preparing food, and through a mechanism (such as pre-packed food) taken that away. I think he has a point – and I’ll certainly return to this later. I just find it really interesting to note that as we’ve lost so many things that are centered around human interaction, we’ve gained loads as well – Facebook and MySpace are entirely user-generated and are communication tools but there’s no substitute for real human contact.
PLUG ALERT!!

I guess that’s why mychur.ch is about mixed-mode church – not totally online cyberchurch but not totally offline and removed from reality-church either. Church should mirror real life and be immersed in real life – so it makes sense that church has a physical presence (but not a totally organised one) and an online one (but not one that’s totally removed from real relationships)

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