Category: theology

conversion

wonderfulexchange12 Comments

I had one of those moment today when I bought something thinking, ‘I hope no one sees me’. The offending item? A Josh Groban CD. Why oh why does someone with such a lovely voice allow such backing tracks?? I blame Classic FM.

But, it has been worth it.

One of the hardest hardest things to communicate positively to young people is a concept of repentance and confession. It can so easily play into the stereotypes of church being obsessed with sin and negativity.

So, how’s this for a starter? From a song called ‘Confession’:

I have been wrong about you
I thought I was strong without you
For so long
Nothing could move me
For so long
Nothing could change me

Now I feel myself surrender
Each time I see your face
I am captured by your beauty
You unassuming grace
and I feel my heart is turning
falling into place

theological resourcer

wonderfulexchange1 Comment

Molly took the TISEC curriculum into her own paws by deciding that no ordinand’s training in a rural parish was complete without a bit of midnight mousing. So we have reflected on:

  • critical and creative theology: practical application of the moral debate on euthanasia vs. suffering;
    ‘The lord God made them all’ (discuss in relation to your attitudes towards cat and mouse when both are under the bed at 4 am).
  • theological resourcer: clever cat… She passed with distinction at the mythical level 3.
  • servant ministry: lamps ready, garden gloves and catching-towel by the bed.
  • effective communicator: the mouse gained top marks here.
  • prayerful disciple: credit to the mouse again, I suspect (unless my first ‘Oh, help’ counts.)
  • collaborative worker: mouse leads cat into bedroom, cat catches mouse, I catch cat, cat holds on to mouse, I hold on to cat, encourage dropping the mouse and praise the mouse for not struggling and getting pierced. You see how it goes.
  • critically aware person: (always my best category, this) this included rapid assessment of pastoral needs & relative strengths and weaknesses, and planning likely course of action to achieve desired goals (cat and human asleep inside. Mouse alive outside.)
  • effective self assessor: well, the mouse failed, the cat made a good show, and I took top marks, with above goals (mostly) achieved within 5 minutes.

Now, time to check under the bush to see if we engage in prayers of thanksgiving for healing, or turn our minds to funeral liturgies.

credo

wonderfulexchange8 Comments

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to meet with three women testing a vocation to ordination in the Scottish Episcopal Church. All of the women were young, intelligent, and deeply committed to the church. One of them — the one furthest ‘down the line’ towards ordination — said to me, ‘do you believe that the church can grow, or is it inevitable that most congregations are shrinking and dying?’

Her question was passionate and urgent, and her relief palpable when I said ‘of course it can grow. It does grow. We have to believe that, and it is true.’ She and I have both seen congregations growing. It can happen. We know it is true.

But she had begun to fear because so many people claimed otherwise. So many people talk of the church’s failure, or try to bully their way into theological dominance by threatening the inevitability of the church’s demise unless we all choose to share their viewpoint.

The question of church growth is not ultimately about numbers or demographics or annual returns. It is about the shape of what we believe.

Do you believe that Christianity matters?
Do you believe it is true?

If we believe it matters and it is true, then we have to believe that the church can grow.

If we believe that it matters and it is true, then the church will grow, because the passion of our belief will communicate itself. The church will grow because it will be a place of God’s love and compassion and beauty, a place of healing where human life is redeemed.

If I did not believe this, I could not do what I do each day. I could not be a priest, and I doubt whether I could be a Christian.

What we believe matters.

If we believe that it is inevitable that congregations are shrinking and that the church must inevitably die, then it probably will. If we believe that God is irrelevant for most people and Christianity is nothing more than pastime for the curiously minded, then that too will become ‘true’– not because God is irrelevant, but because we will no longer be speaking of God in any meaningful way.

Congregations come and go. Buildings come and go. There is death and resurrection.

But if God is worth believing in, God is worth sharing. And that is all it takes for death to become life, for the church to be healthy and strong — and for young women testing their vocation to sleep well tonight, trusting in God’s future rather than the prophesies of doom.