andygoodliff

Baptism

It's been a while since I blogged. Preaching on baptism today, inspired by Paul Fiddes' paper 'Baptism and Creation' (found in Reflections on the Water or Tracks and Traces). Below is something of a sermon summary.

Creator God you
Gave life at our water birth.
For some the labour was short, for others it was long;
Your Spirit throughout, the midwife of our new beginning

Holy God you
Washed us clean in that sacred bath,
Cleansed us of our sin and shame,
Scrubbed us with your grace detergent
Blessed us with love and righteousness

Saving God you
Rescued us from these deathly waters,
In which we came to die
That in Christ we might live again
Free
To walk your way and sing your song

Beckoning God you
Called us;
The water that we walked through
a wardrobe to a new country;
now citizens of heaven,
Pilgrims on the road,
Living in two ages,
With a new language
For head and heart and hand

Reviving God you
Filled us with living water;
That restores our soul,
That gives life to our living
And faith for our future.
We have drunk of your Spirit
The gift and seal of your promise
And presence.

There is a line of women

This John Bell hymn has been appearing around facebook today, I think Craig Gardiner was the first to share it. We need more of this kind of hymns/songs in our churches today.

There is a line of women
extending back to Eve
whose role in shaping history
God only could conceive.
And though, through endless ages,
their witness was repressed,
God valued and encouraged them
through whom the world was blessed.
So sing a song of Sarah
to laughter she gave birth;
and sing a song of Tamar
who stood for women's worth;
and sing a song of Hannah
who bargained with her Lord;
and sing a song of Mary
who bore and bred God's Word.

There is a line of women
who took on powerful men
defying laws and scruples
to let life live again.
And though, despite their triumph,
their stories stayed untold
God kept their number growing,
creative, strong and bold.
So sing a song of Shiphrah
with Puah close at hand,
engaged to kill male children,
they foiled the king's command.
And sing a song of Rahab
who sheltered spies and lied;
and sing a song of Esther
preventing genocide.

There is a line of women
who stood by Jesus' side,
who housed him while he ministered
and held him when he died.
And though they claimed he'd risen
their news was deemed suspect
till Jesus stood among them,
his womanly elect.
So sing a song of Anna
who saw Christ's infant face;
and sing a song of Martha
who gave him food and space;
and sing of all the Marys
who heeded his requests,
and now at heaven's banquet
are Jesus' fondest guests.

John L Bell (born 1949) © 2002 WGRG, Iona Community, 4th floor, Savoy House, 140 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3DH, Scotland

Catriona Gorton (first woman to be a Baptist minister in sole charge in the Baptist Union of Scotland) has penned this excellent extra verse.

There is a line of women
continued down through time
Continuing to persevere
in living for their Lord
And though the church moves slowly
and trips over its feet
Yet still they keep on trusting
God's call upon their lives.
So sing a song for Edith [Gates]*
Who pioneered the way
and sing a song of others
who do the same today
And sing of all the women
who strive to do their best
as people called to serve God
in every time and place

*Edith Gates was the first woman ordained a Baptist minister in England in the 20th Century, back in 1929, and along with a Congregationalist of roughly the same date, one of first two in any tradition in the UK.

Once More Twitter and Worship

Peter posted a helpful series of comments in response to original post to which I want to try and respond.

1. Avoid the sacred:secular divide which has developed between services and life where people are encouraged to leave their 'lives' and 'troubles' at the door for a spiritual experience apart from their context.

Worship should definitely avoid the extreme of this - we should bring our wholeselves and leave nothing at the door. Although I think there is something 'sacred' about gathering intentionally around Word and sacrament, which is different from other things we might do in life. I'm not sure this is an argument for tweeting though.

2. Help a duplex relationship between the service and the rest of reality. (duplex communication / relationship flows in both directions and are dialogical)

The concern here is to avoid one-way conversation, where one leads, speaks, prays and the rest of the congregation are passive - a more two-way conversation. Many church traditions would understand worship as a two-way conversation between God and his people ... God gathers, welcomes, addressses us through scripture, sends and we respond in praise, confession, petition and intercession. Does twitter generate a truly two-way conversation (especially when limited to 140 characters)?

3. Avoid churchs' over-emphasis on asynchronous broadcast techniques (static church websites, mp3's of sermons, video broadcast of services, sermon notes in the notice sheet, home group resources, letter from the pastors desk, etc). To do this by providing a complimentary synchronous engagement between people so allowing live-time conversation.(The notion of synchronous communication develops the previous point about duplex)

Is the first point that the church needs to be more culturally relevant (hipster christianity) - why has relevance become the highest good, trumping all others? With regard to the second point, why does there have to be live-conversation - cannot the conversation follow having listened and actually does it not exclude those who are preaching, praying, presiding from any conversation?

4. Makes our meetings more 'in the public square' and hosted by culture (as in hosted by twitter platform) and so we are hosted by culture (incarnational) and Christ can then be mediated through culture to convert his church to him.

I'm struggling to entirely understand this point. 

5. Twitter provides an enduring trail and continuity of conversation beyond the time of the sevice

Why can't this happen afterwards? 

6. Allows those beyond the service to participate

So saying 'no need to be present, you can be part of the service and still lie in bed ...'?

7. Helps kinaesthetic learners, who often struggle with church services, engage with and process a mainly auditory experience which is often more monologue.

Ok possibly, but we can do this without twitter. This seems to me to be more a point about the content of worship, with which I have some sympathy.

8. Enculturates the Gospel - twitter is particularly relevant to certain demographics and so it gets the church out of a sometimes odd sub-culture rather than a contextualised and also counter-cultural stance

In my opinion the church should be in an counter-culture stance. Accomodation to culture here - allowing ourselves never to be separated from our phone - is to encourage an unhealthy attachment to technology. In my view the virtues of patience, self-control and paying attention are more important to learn by asking people to leave their phones switched off and saying they will not be needed to participate. Accomodation provides no place for being critical over the use of technology - it becomes an idol.

9. as our mouth and ears are part of our physical body so our phone and tweeting (listening/speaking) are an extension and expression of being human

Really? Is this suggesting I am less human if I fail to use my phone and tweet?

10. provides a tool to facilitate multi-voiced worship in larger (20+?) gatherings where it cannot easily be achieved through conversation alone. Be that person to person or/and a way for the main service leader (if there is one) to be asked questions, challenged and corrected.

While the Mennonite practice of discernment following the sermon is to be encouraged - 'The last word belongs to the congregation not to the preacher. We deliberately divest the preacher of control over the gospel' (Presence: Giving and Receving God, p.viii) ... not sure if this requires a phone and tweeting. Possibly.

11. distributes power and discernment of truth amongst a wider group than the one(s) with the microphone - though this then has the knock on of a newly disempowered group of those without smart phone which needs addressing.

Does it give 'discernment of truth'? and I think your point about a newly disempowered group is a strong one against using twitter in worship.

-------

Nothing here has convinced me that twitter is a positive contribution to worship and I believe there are still strong arguments of making space here, and in other points of our lives, to disconnect us from the networked world, that we might live apart from technology. In Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman writes (in 1992!) argues that technopology consists in the deficiation of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorization in technology, finds it satisfaction in technology, and takes its orders from technology' (quoted in Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down by Marva Dawn, Eerdmans, 1995, pp.28-29).

Multi-Voiced Church

Multi-Voiced Church is a new book by Stuart and Sian Murray Williams. It is a very good book, a very helpful book, a very accesible book and as such deserves a wide readership. Written in a similar format to Stuart Murray William's Post Christendom and Church After Christendom, it says what it is - here a multi-voiced church; why and how it was lost; and how it can be recovered, in lots of different practical ways. The basic argument is that the early church was a multi-voiced community - an active congregation - which during Christendom became increasingly mono-voiced - pastor/priest dominated and so a passive congregation - and therefore we need to re-balance church life again to be more multi-voiced in worship and preaching, discipleship and in decision-making.

I do think re-balance is the right word, as I would argue still for the importance and necessity of ordained ministry in the church, but not to the extent that this excludes the ministry of the church as a whole.

Stuart and Sian say the book emerged in part out of the work of Eleanor and Alan Kreider (see their Worship and Mission After Christendom, especially chapters six and seven), but also the conversations within the Anabaptist network and amongst the ministerial students Sian has taught at Bristol. It is thus a multi-voiced book!

The practical chapters, that follow the historical introduction, are packed full of ideas and suggestions for encouraging and enabling the church's worship, learning, community discipleship and decision-making to be more multi-voiced, and more Baptist (for those of us in that tradition).

I've asked the deacons in the church where I serve to read it over the summer and I'm looking forward to some positive discussions in the autumn and hopefully the beginnings of a more multi-voiced church.

Get a copy, read it, share it with your church. You will not be disappointed.

Between Cross and Resurrection

Between cross and resurrection*
There is only silence
A body dead in a closed tomb

Between cross and resurrection
There is only sorrow
Grief caught in the horror and the loss

Between cross and resurrection
There is only looking
For a sign of hope, a sign of life

Between cross and resurrection
Is where we find our lives
Trapped in the space between death and living
Struggling to believe another world is possible
Seeking to make sense of the whys and the wheres

Between cross and resurrection
Is where we wait
Wedged in the space between despair and hope
Where time stands still
Where reality plays games with our senses
Where a chapter is ended
And no possibility of a new one beginning

Between cross and resurrection
In silence, in sorrow, looking
Struggling, seeking, waiting

*This phrase is borrowed from Alan Lewis' brilliant book of the same name: Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy saturday

Creating a list of Baptist 'saints'

So I was reading a review earlier today of The Origin of Feasts, Fasts and Seasons which will appear in the next issue of Regent's Reviews and then this post by Steve Harmon got me thinking who might appear on a list of Baptist 'saints' - who might we want to recognise for the contribution they have made to life and mission of the church. This would be a supplement to the names of other Christians from other traditions. It might certainly help do some Baptist history in our churches. This is an idea floated by Steve in his book Towards Baptist Catholicity where he says 'Baptist congregations might be able to include in their own weekly worship a few moments for telling stories of men and women who have provided worthy examples of lives lived in the service of God and humanity' (p.170). BMS this year have created some resources to celebrate 250 yrs since the birth of William Carey (Carey Sunday is 21 August), which is a start.

Here's my starter for ten ...

31 January Charles Haddon Spurgeon

23 February   George Beasley-Murray

16 March Marianne Farningham

4 April Martin Luther King

7 May   Andrew Fuller

9 June   William Carey

28 August   John Smyth

30 October   James McClendon

... who else should be added and give us a date?

I'm not sure where to put Thomas Helwys as we don't know when he died.

Contemporary Worship in 2011 and Holy Communion

This year we have seen the four leading contemporary worship leaders - at least in terms of profile - each release a new album: Tim Hughes, Love Shine Through; Graham Kendrick, Banquet; Stuart Townend, The Journey; and last week Matt Redman, 10,000 Reasons.

It is Kendrick, the grand-daddy of modern worship and Townend, who offer the most interesting songs, both theologically and musically. Kendrick has found new life since 2001 (after a pretty poor 1990s) and this latest album is a rich banquet, divided into three parts: starters, main courses and desserts - it is an album crafted to make a whole, taking us through songs of gathering and sending, invtiation and blessing, command and creed, and trust and hope. Likewise, Townend who is fast becoming the modern day Charles Wesley in terms of modern hymnody gives an album which offers some fresh sounds and styles. There are songs that tell gospel stories ('The man who calmed the sea' and 'Simple living'), a song of intercession ('Kyrie eleison, have mercy'), a song that picks up Celtic-like blessing ('Christ be in may waking') and a wonderful song of welcome ('Vagabonds').

Redman's new album, while offering more than Hughes, appears a little far behind compared to Kendrick and Townend. Lyrically and musically there is not much new or different from Beautiful News (2007) and We Shall not be Shaken (2009). Redman wrote a preface for Robin Parry's Worshipping Trinity back in 2005, but I'm still waiting to see some trinitarian shaped songs that his comments I thought might promise. On this new album is a song called 'Holy' which has some good lines, but it switches between God and Jesus without any indication that God is triune. In addition, both Redman and Hughes appear to be writing songs which are getting more and complicated structurally (with pre-choruses, mid-8s, codas and differing choruses), as well as, demanding a full on musically accomplished band.

Hughes' album is the most disappointing, revealing little progression theologically on previous albums (personally I think his co-writer on many of the songs Martin Smith of Delirious does not help Hughes write congregationally).

In short, Redman and Hughes need to spend some time with Kendrick and Townend.

In terms of Holy Communion, there are some signs that contemporary worship is recognising the central place of Communion within worship - both Kendrick and Townend offer us new communion songs, to join 'Behold the Lamb' (Townend and Getty ©2007) and 'Remembrance' (Redman and Maher ©2009). What is perhaps interesting is how these new songs offer a very open table. So 'Remembrance' invites 'any to receive' and that 'all are welcome in this place' for 'None too lost to be saved / none to broken or ashamed'. In Kendrick's 'Banquet', the refrain is to 'Come and taste, come and see' - to 'find and be found', to 'know and be known'. While in Townend's 'Vagabonds' we have a long list of differing people who are invited to

'Come to the feast / there is room at the table / come let us meet in this place / with the king of all kindness / who welcomes us in / with the wonder of love / and the power of grace'

While all three songs take communion seriously as a place of encounter with the crucified and risen Christ as we remember, all three songs appear to unfence the table, with no requirement of baptism or even faith. So Townend even invites 'fiery debaters and religion haters'. It would be interesting to see if these songs find a place in the life of churches, whether they cause churches to re-think who is welcome to the table.

PowerPointless by Debra Dean Murphy

I came across this article by Debra Dean Murphy on the use of powerpoint in worship. Some might call the first half of the article a diatribe. I think she makes some good points. I get particularly annoyed with powerpoint in sermons as it often feels more like a board presentation than an engagement with the Word of God. Having said that Hannah finds the use of visual images as helpful aid to her concentration and listening. Here's an extract from Murphy:

PowerPoint also conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways, so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian. The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention, an object of intense fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors. When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they become conditioned to worry that it will malfunction. They find themselves thinking more about the screen and the technician at the soundboard than about the God whom they've come to worship and the larger worshiping body of which they are a part.

Indeed, PowerPoint makes worshipers less aware of the persons around them; they engage in less eye contact and other forms of human interaction for fear of missing something on the screen. (One might argue that hymnals, prayer books and bulletins potentially create the same sort of isolation or individualism in worship, and it's possible that they do. But the sheer dominating presence of a projection screen in worship works in concert with PowerPoint's client-driven bias to cater rather blatantly to the consumer/customer/individual.)

To use PowerPoint in worship is to unwittingly set up a competition between what's projected on the screen and the human voice doing the preaching, praying or singing. And it's a contest that PowerPoint always wins because, as Richard Lischer has observed, when the brain is asked to listen and watch at the same time, it always quits listening. What PowerPoint enthusiasts see as enhancing the worship experience--projecting pictures of water during a baptism or images of fire and wind on Pentecost--is instead a form of sensory overload that manipulates emotions and stifles imagination. It is difficult to cultivate an awareness and appreciation of ambiguity and mystery in worship when images are projected at strategically timed moments in the liturgy for the purpose of instructing worshipers what to think and feel.

Article in Evangelical Quarterly

I have got an article in the latest Evangelical Quarterly 81.3 (July 2009):

'"It's all about Jesus": a critical analysis of the way in which the songs of four contemporary worship songwriters can lead to an impoverished christology'

Abstract: This article examines the songs of four contemporary worship songwriters in regard to the christology they present.  The article argues that although the majority of songs are focused on Jesus, they fail to articulate a sufficient christology. It is claimed that this is due to an inadequate attention given to the doctrine of the trinity and to Christ’s priestly and prophetic offices. The article concludes by suggesting that the broader context and expectations of contemporary worship songwriters means that it is difficult for a richer christology to be developed.

Critizing Contemporary Worship Songwriters

John Stackhouse, an evangelical theologian, posted about the lack of word care  - theologically and poetically - in the songs of Chris Tomlin. This generated a mass of comments - lots of them saying Stackhouse is unfair to criticize Tomlin - please! We're quite happy, or at least many evangelicals are quite happy to knock open-theists like Clark Pinnock or non-penal substitutionists like Steve Chalke in public, but somehow worship songwriters are untouchable? When its the theology (or perhaps lack of theology) of these songs that shape most people's faith. I think he makes lots of good points, I have an article forthcoming in the Evangelical Quarterly making some other critical comments about contemporary worship songs. Stackhouse's concern, with which I agree is we must be able to do better than a lot of the rubbish that is churned out year after year. Its not all bad, but the commericalisation of the worship industry means that too much music is being produced and its almost as if it sells who cares what we're singing.  The main issue is that Tomlin and others are not theologians or poets, but they are good at writing catchy tunes. Ben's comments here are fair, but I'd argue that Townend and Getty are writing in a different genre , more like the hymn, than the three minute pop song genre that Tomlin, Tim Hughes and Matt Redman are writing in. The hymn has more scope for communicating theology, the pop song is more limited - this is evident in the same tired words and phrases that are used over and over again. Furthermore, as Pete Ward has shown (see his Selling Worship) the songs of Tomlin and co. are designed for encounter with God, not to communicating who God is - the emphasis is on the worshipper's response, not the one to whom they are responding - so that often the song can be addressed to simply 'Lord' or even 'You'.