Discovering that theology is true!

I have been learning a lot about the Body of Christ over the last few weeks. We have had some conflicts and issues going on recently that I have found hard to handle. But, my delight has been to find that others have not had the same difficulties - and more than that, they have been willing and able to do that which I have found myself unable to do.
It was hard to accept at first. That sense of needing to be able to do everything, that somehow it is inappropriate to depend on others, that other people are busy and shouldn't be asked to do more - even that my level of distress was daft, since other people were not so upset...all of that rather got in the way. But we are nothing if not a determined congregation, and people have just taken over and done what needs to be done.
And gradually, painfully, I have come to realise that this is part of what the Body of Christ means - that no one of us is able, or needs to be able, to do it all. And that different gifts is precisely what it says - there are things I can do that others can't and things others can do that I can't, and that is as it should be. To accept that may be a blow to the pride that holds on to a sense of omnicompetence and indispensability. But it is also a great relief, and a source of profound joy.
So, here, I want to say thank you to those with whom I share being this church - and to thank God for the gift of each other.

We had lots of young children at church on Sunday, and some there for special events. We had the chance to welcome the grandson of one of our familes, who was visiting this country for the first time. Much delight for people in seeing him, and there were lots of people making a fuss of him and affirming his place as part of our family, even if normally living at a distance.
And we also had the dedication service for two sisters, part of a family who have been worshipping with us for about 18 months now. This was a particular delight in its own way because, though both girls here well, both parents are deaf. They have committed themselves to being part of our fellowship, and work hard at interacting with the congregation, though lip-reading, reading prints of sermons, and concentrating very hard.
But we needed to do something different this week, and so we had a sign interpreter, not just for the dedication itself, but for the whole service. It was a fascinating experience. I have worked with those who have been translating my words into another spoken language, which is always a challenge. But this was a whole new thing. Partly because our interpreter didn't need to wait for me to finish a phrase or sentence before translating, but worked concurrently with me (though she did comment that I spoke rather fast!!).
But what struck me most was the beauty of the language that was used. I have always been very aware of the beauty of words; language has the power to move me at a very deep level (any of you who heard me read Caedmon's hymn in the service a couple of weeks ago would have seen that). But it was wonderful to discover a new aspect of beauty in movement, grace and particularly watching all three (the translator and the parents) signing the hymns in unison.
Dedications are always wonderful occasions - but the added grace and involvement on Sunday morning means that this is one that will hold a special place in my mind.
And it leaves a question. How can we develop our inclusiveness, and take further our capacity to communicate across the various barriers that are among us? An ongoing project, but one I hope we continue to adventure in.

Visiting and fidning life

When I was about 15 I started to visit an ancient man from our church who as it turned out, was a major formative influence in my life. But you never know these things when they are happening. You only discover that they’ve happened much much later (sometimes too late). They were no pastoral visits at that time. I only went because he was very interesting and his stories kept me listening for hours. He was a friend of my grandparents and that’s how I learned many stories from my grandparents’ lives and how things used to be when they were children and teenagers. He died some years ago but I can hardly forget him. I think I found him such a good friend in spite of the age gap mainly for 3 reasons. Again – these were hardly formulated in my head then. They are only emerging years later as I remember our chats. So – 1) he wasn’t complaining about his ailments all the time; 2) he wasn’t criticising the ‘young generation’ or all that’s wrong with the world today for that matter; 3) and he had no excessive need to give unsolicited advice. Somehow this lead me to the opinion that age does not matter when people reach a certain level of mutual understanding.
Now I’m finding myself in a different century/millennium, a different country, almost a different lifetime and visiting older people is part of the pastoral role I’m involved in. Yet, at times I find that these images from the past come back to me through other people. For instance, a few days ago I went to see an old man from our church. And I could immediately tell, that this man was from the category of the above mentioned guy from years ago. He is old and there are plenty of things to make his life miserable. There are plenty of reasons to make such visit a complaining session with a good opportunity of service for me to listen and offer empathy. Yet – none of this actually happened. On the contrary – it was a great lesson for me on how to perceive what life is and how to interpret what is happening to us. Instead of counting all that is wrong with his health, he gave account of how much he can still physically manage. Instead of complaining about loneliness, he showed me letters and emails that keep him in touch with various friends from all across the globe. Instead of listing what others have failed to do for him, he recounted how he helps others as much as he is able to. And all this was not just some kind of ‘positive philosophy of life’. There was a practical demonstration. In his kitchen there is a brand new washing machine, a dryer and a dishwasher. These are the things he got himself at the age of well over 80, and learned how to use them so that he can manage without carers. To me there is hardly a more solid proof of the will to live and cope with life as it comes. I’m not sure if I can even compare with it. We went out to lunch together and it was a great celebration. As he said – he hardly needs more to be able to celebrate than a new morning and a new day, and another person to talk to and another meal to enjoy. The fact that he wakes up is a bonus on top of God’s other blessings. Every new day is an extra on top of a rich tapestry of life. And when I see this kind of attitude enacted live before my eyes I really feel put to shame. All the stress we create for ourselves when we so easily slip into living our days without perspective. I think it’s best not to be saving this attitude for the ‘old age’, because that’s simply uncertain. The safest thing to do is to adopt it for today.
Posted by Ruth on behalf of Andrea Kvackova

On being right and wrong

One of the aspects of being a church and being part of a church is that there are always those who think that what is going on is wrong, and should be done differently, done more, done less - or not done at all. Such judgements come from both within and outside the church, and can be expressed with more or less courtesy and more or less directly.
It was one of the experiences of attending the WCC Faith and Order Plenary Commission, in which we were discussing things that matter very deeply to all of us about how we are churches, and what the nature of truth and true relating to God is. And I come home and discover that, as always, we are going through one of those periods within the church as well. And it raises an interesting set of reflections about how we recognise and trust the divine presence.
One of the things that I sometimes experience when people are telling me how things should be is the assumption - usually unspoken, but occasionally explicitly expressed - that God is on one side or the other (usually on the other, that is, not mine!) It's the kind of attitude expressed in the joke about the people who were arguing about styles of worship, and the argument ends with the comment
"Well, it's fine - you continue worshipping God in your way, and I will worship him in His"
What has begun to disturb me about the whole process is how easy it is to get sucked in to the attitude; to react to the suggestion that God is on the side of the person challenging me with the conviction that actually, God is on my side.
There was a time when I expressed this conviction in conversation with a (wise) friend. She came back at me very quickly. "God loves you utterly and completely, Ruth - and God loves XXXX as well - in the same way!"
That was several years ago, and I try to hold on to that. I try to remember that, if I dare to stand up and preach, if I dare to believe and encourage others to believe that the love of God is utter and limitless, and is not dependent on being good enough, then that is true for everybody. Even the people who say I am wrong.
And the hurt side of me rears up, and argues that surely God must be on my side, for I am right - and so I am right back into the conviction and practice that the love of God depends on me (or somebody else) being acceptable. That has got to be a dangerous place to stand.
There is another spin-off as well. If God is on my side because I am right, then it takes no time to get to the conviction that I am right because God is on my side - or, in other words, - I have the capacity and right to know and define what God wants, does and, in the end, who God is.
An even more dangerous place.
So, I find myself driven back again and again to prayer, and in particular to the prayer; Lord, you Kingdom come - and Lord, keep me humble.

Knowing what day it is

Well now, here I am on Thursday doing what I normally do on Tuesday, and writing the blog. That's because Tuesday felt like Monday, and Monday was bit like a Wednesday - and now I don't really know where I am, because the rhythms have got a bit muddleed this week. And so, apologies to those of you who read this regularly (if there are any of you!)
It has been an odd feeling, this muddled week; it's caused by all sorts of things, none of them really important, but it has highlighted the importance of the rhythm and the calendar, in giving a sense of place in the world, and structure to life.
Baptists have not always been very keen on regular rhythms, and the calendar of the church. Dorothy Hazzard, one of the founder members of one of our earliest churches, Broadmead in Bristol, was known for keeping the shop she ran open on Christmas day, because she insisted, all days are the same, and the keeping of "holy days" was a theological practice she rejected.
In her time, there may have been something important in that witness. Now, I am not so sure.
The Christian calendar, moving us from Advent through Christmas, through Lent and Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, contemplation of Jesus' ministry and the life of the Christian church and culminating in remembering the communion of Saints (All Souls day is this Sunday), before leading us back into Advent, is an important way of keeping us in touch with the whole of our Christian story, and the presence of God in every part of our day, week, month and year.
As we move through the season of remembrance and into Advent, why not join us in reflecting on God's presence here and now, and through history, saving, loving and calling.
And next week, I may be on time!

On technical problems

If, as well as reading this on our website, you also look at the notice sheet that we put up each week, you will know that we have had some "issues" with our notice sheet; all we seemed to be able to do was show old ones! We have now managed, thanks to our wonderful webmaster and the patience of Andrea and Vilem, got things moving again - we think.

But it has been an interesting experience. Quite rightly, people were keen to tell us there was a problem. Unless we were told, we would not have known, and then nothing could have been sorted out. But then we discovered we could not even put up a note saying that we knew there was a problem. And so people felt, having told us and seeing nothing changed, thought that we had not listened, or were not taking it seriously. Which led to some frustration on all sides.

Communicating - especially when communicating isn't working well - is fraught with difficulties. It feels like it shouldn't be. Talking to each other - or writing, or using sempahore or whatever means we have available to us - feels like it ought to be simple, straightforward and natural. We are communicating people. We know what we want to say, the message we want to pass on - and so we do it.

But sometimes, somehow, it doesn't work. The message gets confused, misinterpreted or distorted. Misunderstandings happen, and sometimes hurt is caused, anger provoked - and the consequences seem to run away from us. All we wanted to do was say something - and suddenly we're in a battle and don't quite know how.

When I was a student, I remember a tee-shirt with the slogan
what you think you heard me say is not what I thought I was saying
(it was a big tee-shirt!) It's a phrase I've come back to often when I've realised that what I have said is not what has been heard. It helps to defuse things sometimes.

But this realisation - of the difficulty of making ourselves understood, and of understanding what another says - provokes me to even more praise for Incarnation. For, in many and various ways, God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets, but in these last days, God speaks to us through a person. Now, all we need is grace to understand!

I am doing a lot of travelling at the moment; this week has seen me in Prague, at a consultation to reflect on the future of the International Baptist Seminary, and then Glasgow to take part in the induction of the first woman as sole pastor in a Baptisty church in Scotland - and pretty soon, I am off to share in the plenary session of the World Council of Churches, a meeting that will last for a week.
I will be glad when it all stops and I can stay in one place for more than two days at a time!
But one of the things that has been more and more evident in all the events I have been too is just how small the world is. Not simply because of the ease of travel (which, even if it is boring, is easy, if I am honest!) It's mroe the way there is always somebody who knows somebody. For example, at the consultation, we were told to go and form pairs with somebody we hadn't met. I knew most of those in the room, so I headed towards somebody I thought I had had no contact with - only to have him say, "Ah yes, I know your father".
And the man leading the consultation - brilliantly, and his work has been one of the delights of this week - grew up at the church where Seyan is now pastor.
And at the induction, I met somebody who asked me to take greetings to members here whom they remembered attending there some years ago.
So who knows who I will meet at the WCC meeting, and what links will be uncovered.
It is one of the experiences that make real, for me, what we mean when we talk about being the body of Christ. Physically, the sole of my foot does not often come into contact with my shoulder - seeing that I am no contortionist. But they are both my body. And they are linked through a series of connections. To go to places I don't know and discover people I don't know but with whom I have links, means that the language of the body of Christ is not simply pious talk, but reality.
Our website, and those of you who read this blog, are also part of this; we may not meet (though I know some of us do), but we belong together.
And, with this amount of travelling going on, it is something I am very grateful for!

saying goodbye, endings and new beginnings

This coming Sunday sees Seyan's farewell service. We are grateful that he has been willing to come and share this service with us - if you are free, come and join us for our harvest service at 11.00 on Sunday.
We will take a moment at the end of the service to say farewell, to express something of our gratitude, and to commit Seyan to God's continuing care, as well as recommitting ourselves to God's care and service.
It will, I am sure, be a time of laughter, memories and some sadness. It is an important process, saying goodbyes. It's not easy. It means acknowledging parting, accepting separation, giving ourselves to a new way of life, and not one we might have chosen or planned.
But it is also a time to say thank you, to express affection, to commit ourselves to hope.
For it is in the context of hope that we say goodbye. We hope - we trust - that this new arrangement of where we all are and what we are all doing is one in which God is working, and through which blessing and possibility are made known, made real. We dare to hope this, even when it feels unchosen, and scary, because we believe in resurrection. Resurrection is so much more than "life after death". It is life unlimted by the small deaths that shape our every day - the goodbyes, the endings, the changes - all that threatens our own sense of control and choice. But the promise of resurrection is that the life that comes through and beyond all the deaths is a life that is in God, - rich, blessed and full. We don't need to wait for a heaven beyond the earth for that; we are in touch with it every time we dare to acknowledge the reality of parting, and trust that it is a hopeful process.

Packing Up Memories

The next few days promise some frenzied activity on the 4th floor and above as I try to meet the deadline on next Friday when the removal firm arrives to collect all my worldly possessions and transport them to Walmer.



I marvel at quite how, as a single person with modest means, I have managed to accumulate so much stuff. Clearly my passion for new clothes needs to be curbed if any future move is to be achieved with less stress than the present one.



Hopefully the present encouragement we all face to move to a paperless environment might help too. Why on earth have I kept so many boxes of papers - bank statements, letters, governors minutes, deacons agendas, half used notebooks?



I suspect moving should afford an opportunity to have a radical review and a major throw out of some of this accumulation but each item has some memory attached to it and it is proving very difficult to consign any of it to my biodegradable black sacks.



Returning 'home', as I will be doing soon, is starting to rekindle memories too. Friends - I think that's what I still call them - have kindly produced a complilation of movie clips from the 1980's showing a much slimmer and youthful Seyan engaged in church activities in Walmer. Watching these has reminded me of the friends, fun and a thriving fellowship of which we were all part two or more decades ago.



Times have changed and people have moved on. The memories are good to treasure but new challenges lie ahead and although shaped by past experience they need to find their own direction and purpose.



As life here at Bloomsbury will continue without me and folk will from time to time doubtless recall memories of our activity together, so, in Walmer, life will go on too - differently from before - but now with me as Pastor creating memories for the future.



The Gospel we share and proclaim must surely be the same, unmistakably formed and shaped by events of the past but relavent and responsive to the needs and diversity of society of the present. Discerning our Godly response is often tricky and the easy option may often be to do so 'as we've always done' or 'as x or y did last time'.



As I'm packing my boxes now, I shall need to be careful what I choose to unpack later, and how best to us it. God is wanting to do something new and I (we) should allow this without the baggage of the past getting in the way.

on being an audeince to nothing

There was great excitement here at Bloomsbury last Tuesday lunch; the TV cameras were here! A programme that is based on, but assures us it is not, X-Factor, needed to do some filming for an audience. And they thought we would be the ideal place and people to supply what was needed. So, last week, various people were filmed reacting as an audience, both in delight and in despair - or at least disapproval. There was much cheering, and some booing, a lot of waving and a fair amount of thumbs-downing. It was all great fun, and if we ever hear when it is to be broadcast, we will let you know.
But there was something rather bizarre about it all. Because all this audience reaction, all this emotion and response was being recorded without anything actually being there to react to. The various bits of film will be dubbed onto the programme appropriately later.
At least, we hope it is appropriate. But it does raise the question about what is appropriate. If the editors decide that a particular act is the one they want to win, presumably, they will dub on the cheering response - and the disapproving one for the act that is to lose.
Which poses all sorts of issues, not least the point of honesty. If we are watching something, it is very evident that the response that is broadcast with it will guide our reaction. Canned laughter is based on this - and I guess this is just one step up from that. But if this is for a competition, then what does it do to the people who, presumably, are competing with the hope of winning, and being judged fairly (whatever that means)
There is also something about dis-integration here too; the separation from ourselves. When our reactions are entirely manufactured, and completely separate from what others then see them in relation too (if that sentence makes sense), what damage does this do to the wholeness of human beings, to the integrity of who we are and they way we respond to the world.
One of the callings to wholeness that Jesus gives is surely to do with an honest response to the situations in which we are; to respond with who we truly are, not in ways that are designed to make us look good, or to win favour or to create a particular impression. It can be hard to do. There are all sorts of things that get in the way of our authentic and whole response; our fear of others' judgements, a need to look good or be acceptable, the power of peer pressure or, even more fundamentally, our lack of connection with our own deepest responses to the world. To record a series of responses without anything to respond to seems a brillian illustration of just how easy it is to become alienated, and treat it as fun or normal.
All of which is rather heavy over something that was fun. I'm glad we did it. It made us laugh, and it was an interesting series of human interactions, as what was needed was explained, demonstrated and offered.
But it makes you (well, me!) think......

We have a sporadic tradition here of inviting people to use their most comfortable language when we share the Lord's Prayer. We do this because there are quite a few languages represented among the regular congregation. Indeed, on a Sunday morning, we almost always - certainly at this time of year - have people in worship who speak very little English. There are even one or two people who come regularly to worship who speak no English at all. With a printed order of service, careful announcement of the readings so that people can follow them in their own language, and lots of smiling and handshaking, we manage to build relationships and make something happen. Sharing the Lord's Prayer in our own languages emphasises our links and still gives us all the chance to participate.
I have wondered often about why people come to worship when they don't share the dominant language. On occasions, I have attended worship in other countries, and it is a strange feeling not to be sure what is going on, or at best, making a guess.
But it is also true that actually all of us are attempting to speak and hear in a language not our own when we come to worship. All language of God is so huge, so partial, so striving to speak the unspeakable. We can never fully speak the mystery.
And the words we say of ourselves, the promises we make in the hymns we sing, the offerings we make in our praying, these too are more than normal language - and certainly not our normal language, our everyday speech.
The stories, the promises, the commands and calls we hear when we read Scripture, share bread and wine, open the baptismal pool - such language is foreign to us all, speaking to us in the dialect of the Kingdom, a country we are not fully at home in, but which we look towards.
Having those among us who do not speak the language that the majority speak is a a salutory reminder to all that our worship speech is always a language we are learning, and in which we will always be beginners. But thanks be to God, he still chooses to speak to us.

Power and giving it up - or not?

Power! I know what I think. Or at least I did – until last night. Power is bad – as we know – power corrupts… At Xchange we talked about whether Christians, whose mission is to the world, need power in order to fulfil that mission. Should we celebrate Christians sitting in the House of Lords? Should we be grateful for Christian millionaires who are generous with their monetary power? And for that matter- should we recruit celebrities to promote the Christian message? The trouble with power – it seemed to me – is not that it is hard to use it wisely. The trouble with power is that it is impossible to use it wisely. Wasn’t that the point of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? The Ring of Power! Surely, in the right hands – in Gondor, in Lothlorien, it could be used by good people to defeat evil forces. Power corrupts before you have even grasped it!

But then we look at Jesus. At some levels, he relinquished all power. And yet even the wind and waves obey him. He has authority: to forgive sins, to perform ‘mighty acts’, to command obedience from the forces of nature. What was the source of this authority? Is it any different to power?

At Xchange last night – I felt that one of our conclusions is that in relinquishing all power, he thereby embodied the authority that rightfully belongs to a human. Without relinquishing all attempts to power, would the wind and waves obey him? Would he have been able to perform such mighty acts? Maybe it is in giving up power and the lust for power (however we try to legitimize that lust with soundbites and bible verses), we discover what authority means. Maybe, in abandoning our quest for power, we discover the authority that is genuinely God-given, and ultimately most powerful of all.
(Posted by Ruth on behalf of)Simon Perry

broadcasting, sowing and not worrying about harvest

In one of the conversations at the conference, we were reflecting on the different forms of communication used today - especially on blogging, facebook and twitter. Reflecting led us to recognise what it probably already pretty obvious to most cultural observers, that much of this is less communicating as we have been accustomed to think about it, and more to do with "broadcasting" - that is, people put whatever it is that they want to say out there, and don't worry too much about responses. It is not about one to one or one to small group conversation, with interaction. It is about saying your stuff, and letting the rest of the world deal with it as they wish.
For those of us of a certain generation, it feels odd. There is clearly the danger that it gets entirely self-centred; if nobody reacts, and I look for no reaction, then there is no challenge to what I say, how I see the world, and in effect I am all that there is.
But - thinking about this has drawn me back to the parable of the sower. The one where Jesus says the man goes out to sow and broadcasts the seed. That is actually the word used. Some falls on stony ground, some on thorny ground, some of thin soil and some on rich soil, and bears a harvest that is overwhelming.
In what ways might some of the new forms of communication link us to this picture of gossiping gospel, of living out the Kingdom; broadcasting without worrying too much about what the result is.
Not sure about this - but, if there is anybody out there, I'm old-fashioned enough to want to know what others think.....

Let the whole world praise God's name

I have just returned from a trip to a conference - much fun, and lots to think about. We came from all parts of the world, and a variety of cultures; Indian, Burmese, UK and US, Australia, Canada and Aboriginal. On two occasions we sang the old hymn "In Christ there is no east nor west, in him no south or north, but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth". Very fitting and sung with much gusto. But after one of our sings, one of the conference attenders (conferees?) asked whether in fact it was an affirmation we wanted to make. Reflecting, as we were at least part of the time, on the damage that we can do by refusing to acknowledge the reality and legitimate presence of "the other", and our insistence that others should become like us. We talked around it for a while, and came, as with many of the other questions during the week, to a variety of responses.
But it has started me thinking about worship at Bloomsbury. We are delighted by the fact that we come from a variety of countries and cultures. However - we can in no way say that our worship reflects our variety. We may occasionally (OK - it hasn't happened yet, but come along this Sunday evening....) say the Lord's prayer in different ways, and we have been known to use hymns from different cultures on very rare occasions. But our ways of worship could never be described as anything other than European. We are not unusual in this of course. The arguments about worship style often focus on music, but even among the different categories for which people argue, the styles and types are still predominantly Anglo-American - and white Anglo-American at that.
Is this true of who we are? We recognise about 20 different nationalities among us regularly. By no means all Anglo-American. Certainly not only European. How can we reflect our cultural diversity in our worship? Do we want to? How might we do it and retain authenticity, avoiding "tokenism"? Are there ways - both musically and in other parts of worship, where we might find more resources to enrich our worshipping? I would love to hear what people think about this. If you worship regularly at Bloomsbury, let me know about forms of worship from other cultures that you know about, please. If you worship elsewhere, and have worked at multi-cultural worship, it would be wonderful to hear about what you have learned.

deep water

We had a baptismal service last week. Always a wonderful experience - the more, the merrier, and I long for the next one. There's lots to say about it, but one thing is tickling my mind most. We had a concert the day before, so while the pool was open and filled, we had lots of people in. And, for health and safety reasons, we surrounded the pool with signs saying "Danger - deep water"
Surely the best description of baptism; to get into this is to get into deep water. To be baptised is to be out our depth. To make those vows, to receive this blessing, to respond to this call - is to get into deep water, to go beyond where we feel in control, to have to take our feet off the bottom and trust.
Sometimes the way we talk about baptism makes it sound like the end of journey. But surely it is the beginning. It is about hearing God's "yes" to us as part of the people of God, and saying our own yes to the life of discipleship. It is about hearing Jesus say "follow me", and committing ourselves to going wherever that will lead. It is about dying and being raised to a new life, a life we cannot pre-determine, and about which we have already said "it is yours".
Deep water indeed!

In the middle of all the stuff I am supposed to be doing this week, I have just spent a scary amount of time trying to work out how to twitter! Not a new form of worship song (though....) but the current social networking website of choice. I was prompted to investigate it when a friend of a generation above mine (originally a friend of my father!) contacted me to say he would like to "follow" me on Twitter. It is a means of keeping up to date which uses a web-page. Those who "twitter" put up a sentence describing "what you are doing now". And those who are interested "follow" - they are kept up to date by being able to read what is posted.
I think I've got it working - though whether I will ever have anything interesting to put on it remains to be seen. and now I am trying to work out if this has been a great waste of time, if this is just one more example of the current conviction that the whole world centres on me, and so everybody needs to know everything about me - or at least, everything I choose to tell them - or whether I can find any way of thknking about this Christianly.
I start from the position that relaitonships are good, indeed, are fundamental. We are not called to be individual believers, but to be the community of the people of God. And practices that support relationships, indeed, enable relationships, are to be valued.
But is this about relationships? It is interesting to know what my friends are doing, but is it relationship? Or might it become an excuse not to phone, meet, have face to face conversations.
I suppose it might. But I have also found that the other site I am part of, Facebook, has actually sustained relationship with those who have moved away, renewed relationship with those from whom I had become estranged, and enabled a development of relationship with some whom I knew only slightly. There is a Bloomsbury Facebook page - keeping people whop are at a distance in touch with what is going on. We are thinking we might develop Twitter in the same way.
Of course it can be self-centred and isolationist. Of course it can be a nonsense, or even worse (I've already had to block several "followers" whose invitations were definitely not the sort I want to take up!) But face to face relationships are not automatically and by virtue of being face to face good, life giving and healthy. Relationships,at the heart of our calling, are also at the heart of our struggle to be disciples. We don't relate well automatically - not face to face or on the screen. We need to learn the patterns and practices that will make it work. We need to take the risks, trust and explore, learn to forgive and be forgiven.
Maybe the skills I am needing to learn to use Facebook and to tweet (which I think is the verb - though I could be wrong; please tell me if I am) will serve to remind me that I am always needing to pay attention to the connections I have with people, and whether they are working, or whether I am - as this blog has just told me - performing an illegal action.
I believe that this is what church is about. It is not the church's role to change the world. It is the church's role to form people who will change the world, live out the Kingdom. When we are together - physically, over the phone or email, on networking sites or through a blog, we are experimenting and discovering what it is to be the people God has made us. And then we live that out in ways that change the world we live in.
And now, I am off to have a cup of hot chocolate and catch up with a friend, face to face.

happy birthday!

Last weekend we celebrated our anniversary - 160 years. Church anniversary is a significant moment for reflecting on who we are and what we are about, and this year, we invited Bob Mills, the City Centre Chaplain from Bristol to speak with us about what it means to be a church in the middle of a context where people come to work. In the same week, various openings have appeared to engage with institutions around us, with invitations to offer a chaplaincy ministry. Chaplaincy has been described as “loitering with intent”; being around, waiting to see what happens, responding rather than directing, meeting rather than organising. It’s one of those forms of ministry that sounds wonderful in theory and fits with much of the sense we have of our identity as a church; openness, responsiveness, hospitality and service.
But it is worth reflecting that although it can look very laid back, it is intensely demanding – demanding both in its variety of encounter, and the uncertainty of what will happen in any encounter – but also in its out-of-controlness. Chaplaincy is about going out from our building – and all that that symbolises – and meeting people on their home, or at least work or leisure ground. We do something very special in keeping our building open, and inviting people in. It offers a service, a space and a wonderful welcome. And it is the place where we stay in control. To go into other people’s territory is to let go of that control. If we are going to take this seriously – and I hope we will – it will ask a lot of us. It asks the church to let the members of the ministry team be out and about, rather than present in the building as much as we are at the moment. It asks people who are involved to give up time and go and meet people. It asks us as a church to take seriously what it means to enter space where we are not the ones who take the decisions, or the ones who can decide how and when things happen.
It is about incarnation. In coming to us in Jesus, God gives up control. God offers God’s own self into the space of the world, and the experience of being controlled as much as being controlled. There were those who, in the time of Jesus resented that; the sense that God was no longer under the control of the religious professionals, or, perhaps better, those who were committed to the institution of religion, and who welcomed in, rather than going out – who assumed that God did the same.
The incarnation is God’s refusal of that model. God’s presence to the world is not inviting us into the sacred safe space, but coming into the world to create in all of it the sacred space where meeting the centre of Life can happen. And it is without boundaries, such that God in Jesus gives God’s own self over completely enough to be executed.
I hope we will have the confidence to explore what it will mean to go out as well as to invite people in. I hope we will be able to take the risks – and so deal with the failures – that will happen, without blaming and without giving up. I hope that we can live with the changes that will happen if this is the path we take.
More than hoping it, this is what I pray for.

a home from home

I seem to have done a lot of travelling recently - meaning I have missed two Sundays at church (well, almost; I made it in time for the special evening service last week, when we featured the organ).
This week's trip has been to the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, an institution which was celebrating 60 years of life. The seminary was started, in Ruschlikon in Switzerland after the 1939-45 war by Baptists from the USA as part of the commitment to reconstruction, and as a place where Baptists from across Europe could meet, study and build friendships. The seminary was passed over to European ownership and control in the mid-90s, and in the late 90s moved to Prague.
Although the style of teaching has changed over the years (the seminary does not do undergraduate work - less needed now as more and more countries, especially in the Eastern part of Europe now have their own seminaries; instead IBTS concentrates on Masters level and Doctoral level work, and also runs an introductory certificate in theology with English) the basic aim remains the same. People from communities who would not otherwise meet are brought together in a place of worship, study and eating together. Friendships that endure are made in such circumstances, and minds opened to other ways of thinking, experiencing and reflecting - to say nothing of other ways of praying, singing and preparing food! If you would like to know more about the seminary, check the website at http://www.ibts.eu
This is a place that matters, I believe. Sitting at morning prayers and hearing a Palestinian church leader lead prayers together with two young Israeli women matters. Hearing a young man from Croatia pray with and for a young man from Serbia at the time when the civil war was raging matters. Watching people who have felt alienated from their churches discover that there is the possibility of a wider theology than they had realised, that there is a place for them with their questions and searching matters. And it is this kind of context that IBTS offers.
At the moment, the seminary faces uncertainty about its future - the credit crunch has hit us very hard. For more details, see this week's Baptist Times http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/home.htm
But there will be ways to carry on, we trust - our prayer is that we find the right way, and continue to offer and explore the particular gift that the community brings to the felowship of European Baptists.
I realised I feel at home in the international, and open and questioning identity of IBTS because it is also the identity I believe we explore here at Bloomsbury. Bringing together people who might otherwise never meet - from different countries, and also from different parts of the community of London, as we open our doors and welcome in whoever chooses to come. And questioning - yes, we do that. We certainly don't find easy answers to the issues that face us, but we do attempt to address them - climate change, trade justice, homelessness, and living as gospel people in the context of all of these.
We are approaching our own anniversary soon. I expect we will celebrte it with the same delight and thankfulness as I experienced this past weekend in Prague. Come and join us.

perambulations

On Sunday this week, we did a lot of walking. Fourteen folk, mainly our youngsters were involved in the Circle the City walk for Christian Aid; they visited lots of City churches, met people, heard music, and raised significant money through sponsorship. (And if you sponsored and haven't paid, please pay soon - and if you didn't sponsor, donations are acceptable even so!)
Others of us who felt less energetic took part in the Holborn Churches Perambulation; we walked to the three churches in this area, ourselves,
St Georges Bloomsbury (http://www.stgeorgesbloomsbury.org.uk/)
and St Anselm's and St Cecilia's (www.rcdow.org.uk/lincolnsinnfields)
We had the chance to go into each building, and hear something about the life of the congregations and the areas. We had the chance to have conversations as we walked as well, and get to know each other better.
There is something about walking together which is not only fun, but is scriptural; we have several stories in the gospel of Jesus walking with his disicples, including the wonderful story of the walk to Emmaus. We have the account of Paul's travels, including the road to Damascus. And all of those stories are deeply rooted in the overarching story of the journey of the people of God, exemplified in the story of the journey through the desert to the Promised Land.
So, what are we doing when we walk?
We noticed several things about in our various walks on Sunday. We needed to walk at a speed which included everybody - which wasn't easy, as some walk fast and some slow, and so we needed to vary our speed, stop and wait, allow others to go on without worrying, and trust we would all meet eventually. We had to take into account the environment we went through - there was traffic, and traffic lights, there were other people going in other directions, there were the hazards of scaffolding, there was the rain and the dust. Our walking was not in isolation, but in the world we are part of, and we interacted with it as we went - and talked about it! We talked as we walked; the shifting and reshaping of the various groups brought us into contact with a variety of people, and the journey itself gave a place for the conversation to start from - very helpful for the shy among us. As we talked, we discovered something about each other, and began to tell stories.
What else might walking together teach us? Do let me know.

on giving things away

Today (Saturday) we have been on the doorstep giving away biscuits, chocolate and balloons! Today is International Fair Trade Day, and this has been our way of marking it. We have had cups of coffee and more biscuits in the foyer, (without cost) together with an extensive Fair Trade stall, and a DVD running to give more information on the whole Fair Trade movement.
The impetus towards doing this came from a recent deacons' meeting when we were reflecting on the last Winter Fair, which we did in the foyer rather than the Friendship Centre downstairs. We had stalls on the fronts steps, balloons and ways for people to see what was going on. We thought that, as an experiment in making ourselves visible, this had been a good experience. That had led us to think what was it we wanted to make visible, what did we want to people to see about us?And Fair Trade seemed a good place to start.
It has been a good event. We haven't been mobbed - but there have been people coming in, more accepting what we were handing out and - thanks to the ingenuity of one of the deacons setting up a table and a couple of chairs on the pavement - people stopping to talk and find out something about fair trade, and incidentally about us.
It seems the right way round. Rather than pushing ourselves as an institution, we have been focussing on the Kingdom we pray for every week, and the ways in which it is taking shape around and through us. The church existing for the sake of those who are not it - as good a definition of our raison d'etre as we can find; we are here, not to bring people in just so that we can be bigger, better and feel more secure, but in order that the Kingdom is embodied, the gospel gossiped and people given the opportunity to see something more than the bricks and mortar that make up the world around us.

Some observations;

• people are wary of something being given away for nothing
• children like balloons
• eye contact is difficult
• actually coming across the doorstep is hard
• the church is visible not when the building is open, but when there are people milling around
• we surprise people when we don't want anything in return
• doing something together builds our sense of community

We hope we might find more opportunities to do this kind of thing; if we can have the building open like this on a regular, even if not frequent basis, our presence - and more significantly, the presence and coming of the Kingdom will become more visible. Any ideas about what we might do?

What with a church meeting last Sunday afternoon, and the annual Assembly of the Baptist Union of Great Britain this weekend, I am getting quite a lot of experience in the practice of what it means to be Baptist -together discerning the mind of Christ.
The doing of business, whether in the church meeting considering spending money on audio-visual equipment, hearing news of members or making decisions about the future ministry, or in Assembly, hearing news of the wider family in the country and overseas, voting on who will be our auditors or agreeing together on matters of public political interest, one of the distinctive features of being Baptist is on view; the conviction that when we gather, Christ is among us, and as we discuss, debate and sometimes argue, what we are trying to do is listen for the word of Christ, so that we may respond and obey.
We don't always manage of course. Sometimes, we get into power struggles, or get so bored with the minutiae that we opt out, or sometimes we feel all the power is elsewhere and all that such meetings are about is rubber-stamping other people's decisions.
But at our best, we find creative possibilities, hear words we would not otherwise hear and discover ways forward that we would not have thought of.
To do it - and more importantly, to do it well, - requires effort, commitment and trust. It requires us to turn up, and to take part, it requires us to pay attention to the issues and to get involved in the discussing, and to prepare through reflection and prayer before we get there, and it requires us to trust - to trust our own capacity to listen to the Spirit, to trust each other enough so that we do not always need to be right or get our own way, and to trust God to keep the promises we depend on.
One of the things I love about Bloomsbury is its capacity to take church meeting seriously. There is a good tradition - in the best sense of the word - of "how we do things". There may be disagreements, and there may be arguments. But there are not fights. There is a clear recognition that we have to go on living together somehow, even when we disagree, and so we have developed ways of disagreeing well.
But we also have the problems that go along with that - and that are often part of a large meeting. We spend a lot of time listening to reports and accounts of what has happened. We hear suggestions, but have no time or space to discuss them. We receive invitations, but can't respnd to them there and then.
My dream is of a church meeting which will do the "business" that needs to be done well and efficiently, but which will also have time for discussion without needing to take a decision, but which allows the chance to explore and consider. I would love to see a meeting which has time and confidence to stop and pray and wait and wonder. I long to see a meeting which will raise and consider matters that affect us deeply - political national and personal, around our discipleship and what it means to live Christianly today in all our variety of contexts, and do that considering in a way that does not judge, that allows for uncertainty and difference.
All that, and finish within two hours at the most!

Well, I can dream..... and in the meantime, I am preparing to go to Assembly and to see if what we struggle to achieve on a local level has any more or less chance of existing at a national one.

Having just watched the BBC series, Band of Brothers, for the second time, an entirely new range of questions emerges. The series follows the exploits of Easy Company, of the US 101st airborne division, through their exploits in the final year of the second world war. The horror of the series was no shock, having already seen it and having heard and read of it many times over. More disturbing on my second journey through the ten episodes, was the experience of companionship described by members of this company. Survivors of this Company, and their children, were still meeting regularly when the series was filmed several years ago.
In other words, the horrors shared by these people during the course of twelve months, has kept them together for over half a century! Why is that? Sure, it hardly reflects every veteran’s experience of war.
Sure, close community exists between people who have not undergone these horrors together. But is there something about the quality of human company flourishing most fully when hardship and suffering are experienced so deeply? Of course, not all suffering leads to such an experience of fellowship. But the disturbing question it left for me is the extent to which a depth of human fellowship is dependent upon mutual suffering – or ‘compassion’ if we dare to use that word. I’m not trying to make some masochistic virtue out of suffering. Still less would I want people to describe the trivial disappointments of comfortable western living as ‘suffering.’
It’s just a question. In a world obsessed with security, of warding off suffering and hardship and pain, have we made genuine human fellowship impossible. Has our obsession with security (military or financial or relational), dehumanised us?
Simon (uploaded by Ruth)

Lending God a hand, giving God a hand

"Don’t help God across the road, like a little old lady." Those words from U2’s latest album leapt out at me this morning.
It’s Easter. We’re supposed to be celebrating God’s utter power, expressed in love and experienced in the most down-to-earth way. God breaking through our stabilities, our securities, our certainties.
God is worshipped as the one who brings new life.
But I do still wonder how seriously God’s power is really taken, by churches as much as anyone else. Whether our church wants to be engaged in political struggles, or in strategies of church growth, the temptation can be simply to look at Jesus as someone who sets us a good example. And the resurrection just goes to prove that the story has a happy ending.
So we throw our energies into saving the world, and perhaps recruit God, or seek his advice, or ask him to wave a cosmic wand and grant our worthiest of desires. But really, deep down, we know it’s all up to us, all down to our effort. God’s part in daily life, no matter how much noise we make about it, can be pretty small. We do something great for him, and who knows, perhaps he’ll be grateful.
But the God revealed in Easter is too scary for many of us to celebrate. This is a God who pulls the rug from under our feat, who questions our deepest desires, our worthiest ambitions, even our most Christian hopes. This is a God who shows us that he is not bound by the apparent little victories or defeats that can bring joy or frustration. The resurrection of his Son shatters our stabilities, our securities, our assumptions. There is no new life without this shattering. No resurrection without this cross.
And a God who brings such radical, beautiful and disruption into our daily life? Who wants to celebrate that kind of God, honestly? How likely are we to be Sadducees in Christian clothes – too comfortable to take resurrection seriously, keeping God at a safe distance from daily life?
When we hear this week the words, "Christ is risen", who will have the guts to claim from the depths of their being, "he is risen indeed"?

Simon Perry (uploaded by Ruth)

Our speaker at last week's Tuesday lunch was Nick Holtam, vicar of St Martin's in the Fields. He told us about the work at the church, andthe ways in which the story of the church drew on and refelcted the story of their patron saint, St Martin. And during his talk, he looked over and asked "Do Baptist church have patron saints"
Of course, on the whole, the answer is no, not officially, and not usually referred to in our name. We tend to be called after our street or district.
But his question has started me wondering. If we were to have a patron saint, who would it be?
Nick demonstrated how the story of St Martin, a soldier, who was later baptised and worked for peace, a man who gavehalf his cloak to a beggar, somebody who practised hospitality had shaped the practices and indentity of a church which looked after soldiers travelling through London during the wars, while praying for conscientious objectors at a time when most people denounced them, and then developed the welcoming work into their fantastic work among the homeless of central London.
Whose story is reflected in our life - and whose story would we like to be part of? So far, I have come up with Martin Luther King Jr, largely because of his visit here; Deitrich Bonhoeffer, whose theology has been so important for many of us; Hildegard of Bingen, a German nun who wrote wonderful music, and was convinced that God's care for creation was part of the glory of loving God; Dirk Willems, an Anabaptist who saved his guard when the guard was faced with drowning.
But the choosing of a patron saint is surely a communal activity. What suggestions do you have? Please let me know.

At the weekend, the BBC Website published an article on the call among some atheists for a service of de-baptism; a way of officially renouncing promises and an identity "imposed" on children through infant baptism. A certificate has been produced that people are able to display, and, although, as a spokesman for the Church of England has pointed out, there is no way of unrecording the historic fact that the service has taken place, there is a suggestion that a note can be inserted in the baptismal record to record an individual's wish to renounce what their baptism.
While feeling a proper Baptist response is probably, "well, this is one of the reasons why we are not committed to a practice of infant baptism - it has a place as a freely chosen response, not something done on behalf of another, either by parent or by church" - I am not yet sure that this is to say enough.
For the most telling point in the response that the church spokesman has offered is that what has actually happened cannot be made to unhappen.
We are feeling this particularly in this church at the moment. Last week we were coming to terms with - and announcing - the death of somebody. Except that we have discovered that he is not dead. The details are unimportant here. What link this, for me, with the de-baptism calls is that what has been done, said, made public, cannot be as if it has not. We cannot live backwards. However much we might, at times, want to go back and make not what has been, it isn't so in the universe as we live in it.
Much of that which has been and which has shaped us individually is good and life-giving - but there are always the bits we didn't want, didn't choose, want to deny. But denial, as any therapist will tell us, is not a good place to live. Living in the light of the past - the good and the bad - is a sign of an integrated and healthy identity.
And at the heart of living such an identity is the conviction that wherever we are in it, the story hasn't finished yet. There is always something more to come. And we can't tell what it will be. That has been our experence in discerning death and life in the story of our member - whatever we expected to hear and to have to come to terms with, it certainly wasn't what we actually encountered.
And again, it brings us face to face with resurrection. Because whatever else resurrection is, it is not what we expect. Living in the light of and coming to terms with what has been cannot mean unmaking it, but it can mean living in openess to see what will come of it.
As for unbaptising, I don't think the church has a duty, as some are claiming, to devise such a ceremony. What has been cannot be made as if it has not been. But there's nothing to stop organisations that want to identify themselves by rejecting the faith of the church developing their own process to do it. I don't know what resources are there for those who do not express a commitment to Christian faith to make sense of living creatively with the past. But for those of us exploring faith in resurrection, whatever the story has been up until now, in its light and its darkness, it is not over yet.....

One of our members died this week He had left London a couple of weeks ago to return to his home in Brazil, and while there, he had a stroke, and died. We got the news by an email late one evening. By the time we heard about his death, the funeral had already happened.
We are sad about his death, though not surprised, as he had been very ill. We recognise and understand the normal reactions to death – we deal with them regularly in a community.
But there is an oddity here, and it is to do with distance. Because he had gone home, and because the funeral had already happened and none of us were able to be there, we have not had our normal processes to acknowledge and make sense of the experience of losing somebody who is part of us.
And it has made me think about Easter – not just about the promise it offers us as we face the brute fact of physical death, but the way in which we encounter it.
We know about our friend’s death only through reports – and indeed, only through one report, which feels rather indirect because it is by email from somebody we don’t really know, and we can’t encounter the reality of the death in any normal way. For those of us who hear the stories of Jesus’ resurrection, there is something similar happens. We don’t see the event – we don’t see the body moving, the tomb being empty, even the encounters with the disciples. We have report. Somebody has told us. And not particularly directly, but through some written stories. It is not a direct experience, but a reported conviction of which we must then make some sense, and work out how we are going to live with the impact of these reports.
Because our friend had already left London, we were not seeing him regularly – and so his death does not change materially our day to day work. But, given that the reports are true, the world is a materially different place. It’s just that, for us here, it doesn’t yet feel it. We only have the reports, we have no direct encounter or experience.
And that is how we encounter resurrection if we encounter it all. We hear the stories. It doesn’t make the world look immediately different. But if it is true, then the world is not the same place – there is something changed.
We could not get to our friend’s funeral. But we will be holding a memorial. There are various reasons for this; it is right that those of us here who loved him have a place to say thank you for him, and to acknowledge his life as a gift from God. Memorials are important places to share stories and re-energise memories.
But in this instance it is also important for we need the ritual, the ceremony to allow us to experience his death and the difference it makes in our lives and in the world.
When we meet for worship as a Christian community, we are doing something similar in terms of resurrection. We need the ritual and ceremony of meeting, of hearing the story, of trying it on and seeing what a difference it makes to the way we know and live in the world, of making it real not just as a story but as something we experience for resurrection to have the impact it can have in our world.
It does raise for us, as those who lead worship, some intriguing question s and demands to do with what we think we are about.

The ministry team have had a whole series of conversations recently - both within and outside the congregation - about baptism, membership and what it is all about. It's been fascinating and exciting.
But, certainly from my point of view, it has also been, on some occasions at least, suprising. Firstly that it happened at all, in a culture where people keep telling me folk are not interested in faith, in baptism and in joining things. But what has really caught me out has been the nature of the questions. I have been brought up short by the reminder that my world and my words are not obvious to everybody.
It came into focus yesterday when I went into a sandwich shop I rather haunt. They recognise me, know what I am going to order, and we have some fun chats. Yesterday, the man serving me asked what I had been doing all day. It was the first time I actually identified myself as one of the ministers in the church over there. Oh, he said - what does that entail., So, I described a (sort of!!) typical day, and he asked a couple more obvious sort of questions - the kind of things I would have expected. But he then followed it up with "And who is the priest there?" "Well, I guess I'm one of them" Long silence. Now, there was a language and a gender issue at play here - but also suddenly the recognition that my term "minister" didn't mean anything - and even when we got to the term priest, although he knew the term, actually, what such a person was, what the church is and does - all the things I take for granted, actually meant very little to him, except as some strange esoteric hidden something.
It is a salutary reminder that what we are is not obvious, and who we are is not clear. It's easy for those of us who have been in this - or some other - church for a long time, to assume that everybody knows who we are, what we do, and what it's all about.
But it's not true.
In Disciples on the Way during Lent, we are reflecting together on mission - what it is, and how it works for us. And perhaps we need to start here. How do we demystify who and what we are - and indeed, should we?
I have been in a betting shop once in my life - accompanying somebody who was very at home there. I had no idea what went on, how to behave or what to expect. I was very uncomfortable, self- conscious and didn't want to go again.
Is that true for a church?
It was a helpful encounter, my trip to William Hills. It occurs to me at various points when I wonder about how we welcome people. Where would be a strange place for you to go - and, please, will you go there, see what it feels like, and bring that into our conversations about how we live the life of the Kingdom here.

We had a rummage sale here on Sunday afternoon - well, less a sale and more a rummage and take away, of clothes that might be better used by people, particularly those with few resources, than taking up space elsewhere. They actually came from a charity called Sleeping on the Streets, based on Covent Garden. We came into contact with the man running it through the involvements we are exploring as a result of the new building and the various meetings that are taking place to consider the impact and the use of resources that the development is bringing into the community. He had the clothes and was short of space to display and disperse them - we have the clientele and little in the way of resources. It worked well!
And it is a sign of something we hope we might develop further. The building behind us is going to be huge, and it feels like it dominates and overshadows us. There are days when I almost fear it - will we survive it, will it take us over to such an extent that we might as well not be here? Is it a sign of our disappearance and our irrelevance?
But on the good days, the contacts we are making as a result and the possibilities that are emerging remind me that resurrection is truth. What looks like threat, overwhelming, even death, is the place where God brings life, hope, and new possibilities.
I am grateful to all those within the church who are working to create and build links with the various groups around us - and to understand and work with access to the finances that become available for work in the community. I am learning to look at the high towers and not see an impersonal threat, but as yet unknown possibilities. If the success of our rummage on Sunday is anything to go by, then the links we make, the possibilities to join in with kingdom activities in our community, and the chances to be and embody the love of God here and now - all of these are exciting

Interruptions

One of the delightful aspects of ministry at Bloomsbury is the interruptions - true of any public building, and of working with people. But it has a particular edge here, I think.

Well, I wrote that first sentence, ready to follow up with a learned and powerful disquisition on the meanings and glory of interruptions when the phone went, and I was invited to go and speak with somebody who wanted a minister. I spent some time with somebody who was in deep distress, and on my way back, got involved in a conversation with somebody who needed to ask questions about something to do with life here, and then with somebody else who wanted to challenge our right to be in this building.
And then I came back to the writing. I had intended to write about the ways in which the Kingdom comes to us in unexpected ways, through unplanned moments. And I was feeling smug about the way I had dealt with the various interruptions.
And now as I sit down to write, I am wondering if the only reason - or perhaps the main reason - why I dealt so well with it all was because I was thinking about how I would write, how I would demonstrate so well what an effective and responsive minister I am?
Not to turn this into a self-conscious expose of conscience, it has raised an interesting line of reflection; is it "easier" to minister well - or indeed, to be servants of God in any capacity - when we are already tuned into it? Was my effectiveness - or at least my capacity to react with some creativity and patience - raised because I was already thinking about it. And if that is the case, how do I keep tuned in, and what routines and rhythms would support such an awareness.
Any answers on a postcard please! Or alternatively, you could use the comments box....

Try, try and try again...

It is probably high time that I found a few moments to write something for the Ministry Team blog so here goes...

Having just returned from a week-long break in Egypt marvelling at the wonders of the ancient world, my head is spinning from the amount of information about the achievements of the Egyptians that our tour guide tried to impart.

One thing that does stick firmly in my mind is the persistence of the engineers who designed the pyramids as they tried get the formula correct that produced a perfect pyramid.

Standing on the plain at Gisa it is possible to see the early attempts and of course the final perfect creation of the Great Pyramid. I'm sure at the time there was much head scatching amongst the geometrists as they tried to discover the perfect angle at which to pitch the pyramid in order that it would not collapse under the weight of the giant stones lifted one on top of the other.

When one thinks that these great engineering feets were undertaken many centuries ago one has to wonder at the craftsmen's skill or was it simply the realisation of a dream with a good helping of luck?

In church life, as probably in all life, we spend probably spend much time head scratching trying to decide the best way to achieve our own aims and dreams. At Bloomsbury we have for sometime been working hard at finding the formula to find ways of being better engaged with the community. Like the Ancient Egyptians we have experimented with different ideas and spent time in groups discussing what we hope we might achieve.

By chance, certainly not by design, we have been invited to start conversations with friends at St George's Parish Church (Bloomsbury) and St Anselm & St Cecilia RC Church (Kingsway) and a group of representatives from all three churches have met to start a process of getting to know one another better. Ruth and the priest's from the other churches are meeting soon to look at possible ways in which we might share and collaborate on events and activities.

These early discussions are exciting as they clearly come out of a desire from each community to share together and be seen to be in dialogue with each other.

As I reflect again on the persistence of the Ancient Egyptians and the results they achieved which have stood the test of time I wonder whether our own persistence may be rewarded with results that will last as long. Perry Butler - Rector of St George's - remarked at our recent gathering that the greatest potential for church unity comes from co-operation and collaboration at the grass roots. As we embark on this very local initiative let us keep trying together to make something that will stand the test of time, something which others might marvel at like a pyramid.

On having the right password

There is an oddity about this blog which several people have noticed recently; although it is the blog of the ministry team, at the moment, I am the only one writing it. There are two reasons for this; Seyan has too much else to do (but we are working on getting him to write!) and Simon has not yet got a password, and so is not yet “permitted” to take part.
This idea of a password and permission is of course deeply theological. You can only take part in this “community” if you say the right words, and if you are “licensed” by somebody with power. How often in the church of God are people only allowed to do certain things, to take part, to be recognised as involved if they can and will “say certain words” – use certain terms, or assent to certain propositions? And in many branches of the church, there are roles can only be taken on if authorised by the appropriate person, representing the hierarchy.
Of course, in Bloomsbury, we are not like that.
Or are we? We have recently adopted a new constitution, and as part of the constitution, there is a description of the faith that we assent to. If you want to know what it is, look at our constitution. But there is no denying that it forms a boundary; we define ourselves around a theological description.
Within the constitution, there are also certain limits placed on who can do what – those who are going to be elected deacons, for example, have to have been members of the church for a certain length of time.
Since on of the things we value about who we are – indeed, one of the things that defines us, and that we are proud of, is our unboundaried nature, our openness, our lack of hard edges, what are we to make of this?
What is it that makes us who we are. It is surely not our constitution. But our constitution describes who we are, allows us a way of laying out to other people what we believe to be important about our identity.
To have no boundaries, to have no definition “over against” is to have no identity. There are occasions when I spend time with people whose sense of self is so lost, and so formless that they find it hard to function. There needs to be some sense of where the self ends and the other begins for a measure of mental and emotional health. This is true of communities as well as individuals. We need boundaries, descriptions of what makes us not something else – not a political party, for example, not a social services agency. We are a community shaped by and centred on the stories of Jesus recorded in the gospel – and, I believe, more than that, centred on the presence of the Risen Christ, who is present to those and among those who meet in his name.
I know that not everybody who is part of our community will be comfortable with this description. And that is another part of who we are as a church – we are constantly in dialogue about just who we are, and how we live it out.
And this, I believe, is why we are not tied to “saying certain words” – because what we are committed to is carrying on the conversation; the conversation among ourselves as we discuss, question and explore – and the conversation with God in Christ, as we listen, and as we speak in prayer and living. And it is this which makes us the church, the people of God in this place at this time.
As for permission by hierarchy – well, that’s another post!

The Visitors' Book

One of the sheer delights of worshipping at Bloomsbury is meeting the visitors who come to be with us. And on a really good day, some of them sign our vistors book. The comments and remarks are always worth reading. Sometimes, people are returning after a long time away, and their reflections on continuity and difference are fascinating and insightful. It also gives us a chance to track where our visitors come from and to greet them accordingly.
But recently we have had several visitors who have been unhappy about something they have encountered in being with us, and they have chosen to leave advice in the visitors' book for us. Whether or not their advice is appropriate is not concerning me at the moment - what is intriguing me is our reaction to this. I find for myself, that when I first read such comments I become very defensive - what do they know, what gives them the right to make comments when they are only here for one visit, they should try and work with the realities that make up our life before telling us how to do it better..... and so on. I am sure you can imagine the kinds of phrases that go through my mind.
But then I try to rethink this reaction. For, if people feel strongly enough about whatever it is to put it into writing, and leave it for us, then surely they need to be taken seriously. Whether or not we agree with what is said, that people have been interested, concerned or perhaps even uncomfortable enough to want to say so, then it is important that we hear what is said.
It is hard, though. I love this church, and I am proud of who we are and what we do. I know we don't always get it right - but I don't like other people, especially people I don't know, telling me so. However, such defensiveness is not a useful response, for it will stop me hearing some things we need to hear. It takes grace - and humour - to step away from the defensive position. And it takes community. I find that it is so helpful to hear what others in the team and in the church have to say in response to the comments. With our combined wisdom, and humility, we can usually make a fair judgement of what is being said, and how much attention we need to give it.
God give me - and us - the grace to hear what other bring us of possibility and change.
And thanks to God for the grace and generosity of those who leave the comments - the critical ones, and the (much more frequent) appreciative ones.

The mystery of worship

We had one of those services on Sunday morning. It was good to be there. It happened. They happen like that sometimes, and for those of us who lead, they bring a particular delight; now we know what we are for.
There is, for meat least, an anxiety that goes with such experiences too, however. For when things go really well, the temptation is to begin to analyse what it was that made it so good, and try to reproduce that. And I have been doing that since Sunday. Simon preached well, that's one of the elements. But Simon does preach well, so it was not simply that. I was glad to find words in the book of prayers that I sometimes use that enabled us to lament. But that happens at other times too. Sometimes when a service is particularly powerful, we feel that it is the music. Certainly, the music was good on Sunday morning - the instrumentalists were out in force, and that is always special. But that happens on other mornings too.
What happens in such services, I believe, cannot be identified with any - or even with a particular combination - of the elements. Sometimes it happens just because it does, because the Spirit comes in a particular way, and it is gift. And it is to be received as such.
When we meet in the chapel before the service for prayer, an image often occurs to me; the picture from my children's Bible of Elijah standing before the altar that he has constructed - and which is now soaking wet - and asking God to come in fire and power. (See 1 Kings;18;30-38) All sorts of things going on in that story, of course, but for me, just before we formally meet for worship, it is about what we do when we come together. We get things ready, we prepare and practice and think and focus - but if worship is going happen, it does so because the Spirit brings the fire. We meet, depending on the promise that Jesus made, that where two or three meet in his name, he is there. Whatever we do, without that promise, it is nothing - well, it may be polished performance and satisfying entertainment, but it won't be worship.
That we depend on the promise is not, of course, an excuse for not doing the best we can, and preparing carefully. But the risk comes when we begin to think that by doing the best we can, we can make it happen.
And so, if I am going to take that seriously, I need to let go of the anxiety - both when it works and when it doesn't - and let go of the pride that thinks it all depends on me. Which could make Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings a lot less stressful. Always assuming, of course, I don't let myself get anxious about the state of my anxiety......

new lights, logos and baptism

There's a new light in the church. Well, in fact, there are several new lights. And we are very grateful for them. If you worship with us regularly, you may have already seen them. If not, have a look out next time you are here.
But there is one in particular that is noticeable, and intended to be so. It is on when others are not. It highlights the Bloomsbury symbol at the back of the foyer, the one that can be seen from the street through the main doors. By keeping it lit when other lights are off, we are making the whole place more visible to those who pass by.
It is wonderful that we have such an attractive logo that shows well when it is lit up. I'm sure most people know the meaning and the story of our Bloomsbury B. (If not, look on the website, under "Who we are"). The logo has a clear interpretation. But as is so often the way, we did not start with a description and then find a symbol to match it; our symbol came first, and then we worked out what it said to us about who we are, who we strive to be and what our longing is. And yes - I have moved deliberately from the word logo to the word symbol. A logo represents who we have defined ourselves to be andw we want people to know us; a symbol reveals us to ourselves, and incidentally to others, as we think about it, explore it and let it speak to us. And it goes on revealing.
There are various symbols deep in Christian identity. One of the clearest for us as a Baptist church is baptism by immersion. Baptism has this quality of being a symbol. When we are baptised, there are several meanings visible; the death of the alienated self and the birth of the new self in Jesus; the cleansing of our beings from sin; the integration into the living body of Christ in time and space. And there are many more. Like our B, but even more so, baptism goes on and on showing us who we are, who we aspire to be, who we are being transformed into. As a living and productive symbol, baptism is not something that happens once and then is over. It is a symbolic event which goes on informing, shaping and revealing to us who we are in God.
But another thing about baptism is that it is strange - it looks strange, and people find it intriguing. There is a temptation in thinking about, and practicing, baptism of believers by immersion as a logo; making it something to look at and to define, rather than letting it reveal us to ourselves and others.
There are always dangers in treating symbols as logos - of using something that is noticeable and distinctive about us as a way of raising our profile to other people; achieving brand recognition. There is nothing wrong with that if what we have is a logo. But if we make our symbols into logos, we will lose something very important in discovering the truth that God is bringing to birth in our living and in the world.