Raven Time
The Old Testament character Elijah spent time away from this role as prophet to Israel and was feed by ravens.
Elijah left and did what the word of the Lord had told him. He went to live by the Cherith River, which is east of the Jordan River. Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and in the evening.
(1 Kings 17:5f GOD'S WORD Translation)
After many years (more than 35) of lay leadership and occupied with service roles I find myself having my own raven time. This hasn't been a spur of the moment decision. Leading and serving as homegroup leader, treasurer, newsletter editor, interpreter, coffee maker and dozens of other activities it is hard to spend time beside the river. Yet here is where I find myself. No responsibilities to deal with, no prophetic word to give. Simply the opportunity to be and not to do.
On my desk are piles of unread books, not all of them Christian; some indeed are athetistic tracts, some techincal/professional, some fiction, some research (by others and for my own). There is now time to read them and discover in them the truths planted there or simply the enjoyment of God-given creativity.
On my (virtual) desktop are various files and programs that I have saved for later use. Well now there is time to use them. One such program is an offline blogging tool.
How long do I expect raven time to last? For Elijah he was away for a total of three years. After being alone with the ravens he spent time living with a family. I get to do both these things at the same time. But as with Elijah my own time away is looking like years rather than days, weeks, or months. Clergy can take sabbaticals around every seven years. They are given between three to six months. It seems I've saved all mine up to take in a single sabbatical of between 18 months to three years.
I have no idea what happens at the end of this time. All I am concerned about right now is resting and taking stock. And maybe a few more blog posts.
Being Wrong about Wright
Over at the otherwise excellent Sojourners Blog appeared a mistaken blog post recently concerning comments about social networking web site made by the Anglican Bishop of Durham N T Wright.
You can read the original blog post here
Why N.T. Wright is Wrong About Social Media
Luther
Somewhere I read that Luther and Calvin did not have access to as much biblical information as today's average church-goer does. If that is so what ought this pew-warmer's response be?
On my bookshelves I have a dozen different English language translations of the Bible. I even have two different editions of the greek New Testamanet. On my computer I have access to more then 40 different English translations and several more critical editions of the Greek New Testament plus copies of the Hebrew Bible. Does this mean I'm more effective that either of Luther or Calvin.
I have access to everything both of them wrote via web sites such as CCEL but am I more "knowledgable'" than them?
To blog or not to blog that is the activity
Spent my morning going down my blogroll with comments from a non-blogging friend at the back of my mind; he said to me yesterday
"you really like those flipping blogs don't you" and
"keep 'em to yourself ...". From those comments I've been thinking that awkward question
why do I do this?". Then I reached the
philgoodacre.blogspot that descibes the blog-habit thus
(A) blog helps me reflect on my journey, about where I've been, and where I might be heading ... I make these thoughts public, because "others understand better what I have trouble grasping and they help me to continue on my way" (Brother Roger of Taize, 1915 - 2005).
I like that. And without having consciously thought about it before realised that is why I blog. A partial answer to the awkward question.
But perhaps there is more to it than that. Because they never speak of their doubts it seems that most of my friends. acquintances, home-group or out-reach community members are not asking the same theological questions that I am. But some people have and so like Brother Roger I need help along the way. [Sad that Brother Roger was murdered during a worship service the other day.]
There is another advantage to blogging in the Christian blogosphere. I'm dyslexic and have very slow phonological processing and a very poor memory so it helps to get the jump on my vicar. Who, after reading all these blogs, I suspect also has a well established blog-habit himself. Either that or many blogging clergy/theologians/church-leaders are thinking through the same issues as him on films, post-modernism in the church, emergent church, evangelism and a pile of other topics affecting out-reach, mission, and worship.
While my blogroll lists people holding a broadly similar doctrinal basis to mine. A few do have a completely different take on Christian faith. To read how the other end of a broad church approaches something that I hold dear means blowing away the cobwebs and dust and cleaning off the tarnish that I've let settle over many years. That's just as much a part of the journey.
Occasionally one comes across a blog by someone you knew for a while and it allows a little voyeurism reading about the current location of their journey. It is heartening to read that some of them are also wrestling with answers to my questions. If friends, acquintance, travellers in the same congregation discover my blog then we can "continue on our way" together.
There's something of the essence of spiritual journal in blogging. A long forgotten or much over-looked spiritual discipline that prominent Christians in the past used to great personal advantage. With theirs we had to wait until after they died before reading their struggles, joys, perplexity. Had the people of the time known some of what was being written perhaps others would have been help. But now with blogs it is possible to share these thoughts with others and maybe thereby "build up the church". That has to be a fine goal for what is such a solitary habit.
The heart of worship?
Today two different bloggers put up quotes on worship. One from Soren Kierkegaard (on Jim West's
Biblical Theology blog) that said
In paganism the theatre was divine worship. In Christianity the churches have generally become theatre. How so? Like this: people find it pleasant and not without a certain enjoyment to commune with the Most High via the imagination once a week like this. But nothing more.
and the other from C H Spurgeon (via a link on Donnie Hiltz, III's
Parable of the Blog-Net) that said
When I have heard of large congregations gathered together by the music of a fine choir, I have remembered that the same thing is done at the opera house and the music hall and I have felt no joy. When we have heard of crowds enchanted by the sublime music of the pealing organ, I have seen in the fact rather a glorification of St. Cecilia than of Jesus Christ.
(Though I have also pasted in Spurgeon's next sentence.)
These quotes require serious consideration. What should our corporate worship be like? Do we need fine choirs to sing to us or with us? Are we merely actors in church? (And what was it that Jesus is reported as saying in the Gospels about hypocrits?)
The other day someone emailed me a quote from the Orthodox Presbyterian Book of Church Order
As a service of public worship is in its essence a meeting of God and his people, the parts of the service are of two kinds: those which are performed on behalf of God, and those which are performed by the congregation. In the former the worshippers are receptive, in the latter they are active. It is reasonable that these two elements be made to alternate as far as possible.
Although an Anglican I see great merit in those words.
Unfortunately those parts are generally neither receptive nor active for me. Corporate sung worship has the same emotional and spiritual responses with me as does the community singing at large sporting events. Nothing. Similarly with liturgical spoken worship. Ordained clergy dressed in unusual clothes reciting words at me. Leaves me cold. Maybe Kierkegaard, Spurgeon and I could have worshipped together with us his people meeting God. If only ...
A new church
I went to church for the first time in nine months last night! No, not what you think.
As a congregation we have been refurbishing the church building for nine months so we have met as smaller groups in various locations. There simply wasn't room for us to continue meeting in the building. Much of it was a hard-hat area for all those months. The chapel, which seats about 40 and wasn't being refurbish, would not have been large enough. The church hall is/was used by the children's church so even if we could have crammed upwards of 600 adults in there where would the 100+ under 12s have gone?
We did met as a body once a month in a local school but even that wasn't really large enough for the entire church and the many visitors we get to congregate together. So out we went into the communities around us. 18 groups ranging in size from a half-dozen to 100+. Each one with its own common vision be it age-group, geographic area, theological interest, shared language, personal responsibilities or some other bond.
Before closing the church building our net annual growth had been an average of one person. Transfers out as people moved away, transfers in as people came to the area, new converts. Balanced. During our nine months without a building the net growth has been over 100 (yes one hundred). And that's just counting new converts. We have well-known evangelists amongst the congregation. They had little to do with these local converts being off elsewhere in the world.
After nine months a "new" church has been born.
I consider myself an evangelical (though after reading blogs by ardent evangelicals I'm not sure that I am or even want to be—but that's for another blog). My cry is that of the Reformers
Sola Scriptura. But it seems that this puts me in a minority even in the supposed evangelical part of the church. Yesterday over at Better Bibles I blogged about a news report from Sweden; click on the title here to go read my blog and then the news report in full. It appears that there 6 out of 10 church-goers don't even think about reading the Bible. This sadly parallels the situation in other countries. Gallup conducted a survey, one of a regular series, into the Bible reading habits of Americans. They report a steady decline in Bible reading. (Unfortunately the summary of that survey was aged off their web site several years ago.)
What can be done to turn this situation around?
I want people to read the Bible text. Notice I didn't say I want people to study the text. Sometimes I think some of those ardent evangelicals spending too much time studying and not enough time reading. T C Hammond (author of
In Understanding Be Men, which is still in print from
IVP books in the UK despite first appearing in 1936 it still provides a good introduction to evangelical doctrines) is quoted as saying "read the scriptures in great dollops". Without reading it great dollops we lose the context of what we then study.
I try to read the entire text regularly. Some years I don't manage it all but in other years I manage to go through it many times. My shelves are groaning under the weight of many different translations. Seeing a passage in a new way helps to give a better view of the context. At the moment I'm using the God's Word translation produced by
God's Word to the Nations.
Occasionally I have gone through the entire text without ever opening a single page. For several years I drove daily to a customer site in Cambridge—a commute of about 90 minutes each way. While driving I was reading the text of the NIV! Okay so I listened to the NIV read to me on cassette. I'd put a tape in each morning. Usually it was finished by the time of my arrival in the car park. On the few occasions when it had not finished the remainder would play starting off home again in the evening. This would go on for 60 days (there being 60 tapes in the set). Then pause couple of weeks maybe. And begin the whole process again. So during the three and half years of working there I probably "read" the entire text a dozen times. Despite having read it all before, even so there were still moments when verses jumped out at me and my response had to be "didn't know that".
In other years I have followed reading schemes that took me through the entire text in one year. Some of my own devising; divide the number of pages in the translation by 365 and then read that many pages a day. Some produced free by Bible societies; sadly can't find the reading scheme produced by the
Bible Society (originally known as BFBS) that coincided with publication of the complete Good News Bible (Today's English Version). Some from commercial organisation; because I can't find the Bible Society plan I now make use of the
Cover to Cover schemes produced by Campaign for World Revival.
Notice one common feature of these reading schemes? There are no "blessed thoughts" from some preacher to accompany the daily readings. Just the text and nothing but the text. I don't like those style of "Bible study" notes where you have a single verse to read and then a page of homily from some preacher. Though I note with regret that in their newest scheme CWR has succumbed to including these blessed thoughts. To my mind those notes are neither Bible study nor Bible reading they are a quick-fix good feeling excuse for not engaging with the text itself.
I'm already planning how to use the reading schemes next year. Indeed deliberately thinking beyond next year so that I can use them with Bibles produced using different philosophies of translation. Is anyone prepared to do something similar? Comment if you decide to do it or if you've done it in the past or are doing it now. Comment too if you find your particular Bible difficult to use with such a scheme.
