The language of ‘fresh expressions of church’ may be killing our mission

I think we often underestimate the power of language. The words we choose conjure images of what we are describing, and sometimes these can have unintended consequences. I am increasingly seeing this happen when people use the phrase ‘fresh expressions of church’ indeed even more so when people talking of their mission as ‘creating fresh expressions of church’. I remain a great supporter of both the analysis and aims of the Mission-Shaped Church report which has lead to this kind of language. The problem is that the language has taken on a life of its own that means it is often no-longer serving that report’s vision, indeed I think it is often working against it.

The report gave us several valuable insights. It noted that, with the rise of a ‘non-churched’ population Britain, as with much of what was Christendom, was now effectively a foreign mission field. From this it applied cross-cultural mission principles to our situation and suggested that we needed churches that emerged from within the various cultures of Britain as a result of a process of incarnational mission within those cultures. It also noted how much of our society was organised on a network rather than a local basis and that the parish system needed supplementing with network based churches. Finally all this meant that we needed to move away from thinking about growing existing churches to planting new ones. Within this context the language of ‘fresh expressions of church’ is a reminder that the new mission field would require new ways of being church.

The above remains true, but increasingly the effect of the fresh expressions language is leading to something quite different. People seem to have got into their heads that the need is to ‘create a fresh expression of church’ and not that they are called to cross-cultural mission which may in time, and sometimes a long time, lead to a fresh expression of church emerging from that mission. The result of this is that the process set out in Mission-Shaped Church is reversed, people set up what ever kind of fresh expression they think they ought to run and then go looking for people who might want to join it; such churches are not in the least bit ‘mission-shaped’ they are simply a way of consumer niche marketing existing church to provide a wider ranger of choices for church shoppers. The likely result is that those attracted will be existing church members, or those who have left church. What’s more even if over time missionary members of such churches do make contact with the non-churched or groups of people they have not in the past reached how are these new Christians going to be enabled to worship in their own culture when the have already had the culture of the ‘fresh expression’ decided for them in advance by a group of well meaning but culturally different Christians?

The categorizing of fresh expressions as certain types of church may add to the problem. The idea that something should be called a ‘café church’ for instance tends to define the fresh expression according to a worship style. It unfortunately suggests I decide to model my worship on the style of a café, which is quite different to a church that has emerged from mission within café culture in a particular place. The classification of a fresh expression should not reflect a style of worship, rather the type of community or network that has given birth to the appropriately inculturated expression of church. So to talk of a Goth church makes sense if it has emerged from cross-cultural mission within the Goth community, to talk of starting a Goth service, unless it has such a history, is to totally miss the point. In essence ‘fresh expressions’ is properly not about types of church it is a methodology of cross-cultural mission that leads to inculturated forms of church, the fact that the churches which emerge are inculturated is all that matters not how they do worship. I know that the authors of Mission-Shaped Church where very aware of this danger and considered not putting in the examples. In hindsight I suspect the problem was not the examples but the suggestion that they could be classified under different labels. Telling the story of how fresh expressions had emerged makes the point well. Suggesting there are different types of fresh expression labelled according to styles of worship encourages exactly what the report’s authors didn’t want; looking down the list and deciding to start one of the options and thus ignoring the whole thrust of the report.

So my suugestion? Let’s stop starting fresh expressions of church and let’s start doing the real task of cross-cultural mission in the belief that in time fresh expressions will emerge.

Are we 'a Christian country'?

I'll let others decide how relevant a question this is in other countries, but I doubt this is just a question here in the UK!

in the UK this question has become part of a big debate about national identity, and various people, including but not exclusively church leaders, are using the phrase 'we are a Christian country' as a background to make various points in this debate. the idea seems to be that because 'we are a Christian country' politicians ought to make certain moral decisions on embryo technology, or what we should or should not see on TV, or, post 9/11 et al the place of Muslims in society. But what does this phrase mean? is it true? has it ever been true? and perhaps most importantly does this claim help or hinder the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven?

if the phrase means a nation of people who are Christians, well how is this defined? if we mean people actively pursuing the Christian faith as essential to their own lives active in the Church community and becoming more 'Christ-like' as they seek to follow Jesus; well this has always only applied to a minority of people in the UK. i leave you to judge how it is in other places, but offer one observation; even in nations in which the majority go to church regularly and nearly all profess Christian faith, how deep that faith goes into the lives of some followers might well be an issue of concern. on this basis we certainly have never been a 'christian country'.

what we have been however is an 'officially Christian country' for centuries, so when people appeal to this identity, what is it they are appealing to? i think it is the 'two pronged approach' of Christendom. This occurs when the political elite declare the country to be 'Christian' and thus tell all its citizens they are now members of the State church. the church then seeks to enable these citizens to practice the faith they are now officially a part of. the definition of a Christian then tends to become 'a member of the Church' and depending on the tradition of the state church this is measured by things like Baptism, often of infants, paying church tax, often in the past at least obligatory, or simply living in a parish and thus being seen as the parishioner of a local church. Such approaches can define a country as Christian, but not at all mean that it is a country of Christian people.

Needless to say this approach is very much that of Europe, and to a lesser extent Europe's one time colonies, though many of them, like the US threw out this model after independence. However even countries without a state church tradition can operate a form of Christendom, and i would suggest the US does for instance. in these countries 'Christian values' are viewed as part of the social fabric, and churchgoing is just as 'expected' as if the state told people to go. in such places there may also be many people who claim Christian adherence, even perhaps go to Church yet seem to posses a faith that is more about good social standing and being a good citizen than anything else.

now there are things in many western societies that have been shaped by it's Christian heritage, whatever form of 'Christendom' we are talking about. these include attitudes to human dignity, law, science etc...though some of these had to fight Church opposition in some quaters to emerge as a legacy of that Christian tradition. and i think part of the 'we are Christian country' appeal is to this legacy, and i think there are good things here to look back on.

But here's the problem. the appeal to being 'a Christian country' is therefore two things, an appeal to a positive legacy of what has happened in the past due to the role Christianity has played in our country; and an appeal to a Christendom identity which has led to that shaping of society in the past, but has never been a personal identity of many of the people in that nation. this is why De Tocqueville suggested, looking at America, that democracy would be the end of Christendom. once people become active in asserting their own views in the political process and increasingly operate as individuals in the social and political sphere they want society to reflect there personal identity. from this perspective being told 'we are a Christian country' looks not like a statement of a shared identity but an imposition on my personal choice and self-identity. Equally the appeal to history Can also be contested and is. for many today the Christian legacy is viewed as violence, oppression, sexism, destruction of the planet and the resistance of social and scientific progress. to many people 'we are a Christian country' sounds like 'can we go back to the middle ages please so the Church can have all it's power back and oppress you some more'.

let's face it, why are some people wanting to continually remind 'we are Christian country'? Because the Church has largely lost its power and influence, for good or ill in nations where it once could both bless or oppress that nations citizens through considerable power and influence.

at this point i know some in the Church will want to say things like 'but in our last national census 72% of people said they were Christian' and 'surveys have shown that most people want our nation to be run on Christian values'. both these things are true, but what do they mean? well ask people in a survey if they support traditional religious morality (this has been done) and they will resoundingly tell you they don't. so how does all this square up? i think the key is this, a certain legacy based on the idea that i should love my neighbour and value fairness and justice is seen as part of a Christian legacy, and this is what people mean by Christian values. people who identify with this are happy to call themselves Christians, though actually this label is being used less and less by successive generations. this is the root of the classic phrase i have often heard when taking funerals. the deceased i was often told, never went to church and wasn't religious, but 'was as good a christian as the next person'. this effectively meant they were a nice person who tried to make a positive contribution to society. what might 'we are a Christian country' mean to such a person. well the answer is it all depends on what is being defended or promoted on this basis. if it agrees with their view the person using the phrase will be defended for 'speaking out for our traditions and national values'. if however the position being supported on the basis that 'we are a Christian country' is not to a person's own liking, and would thus be labelled 'traditional religious morality', then the person using the phrase is attacked for meddling in politics, and likely to be tarred with the image of the Church as historical oppressor. and we are back with De Tocqueville.

the reality is that a modern democratic society can never by identity be a 'Christian country' and the use of this phrase does not promote the Church's influence i think it actually undermines it. it simply serves to remind everyone that the church is a thing of the past, that we used to be a Christian nation and that whilst some bits of that legacy where good we no longer need the Church to tell us that, we the citizens now decide what are 'good Christian values' and what are 'bad traditional religious morality'. anyone caught using the phrase 'we are a Christian country' is at best well meaning but irrelevant and at worst a power mad oppressor who wants to run the country their way and not our way. Christians need to wake up to this and start admitting we are not a Christian country.

But does this mean the Church or Christians have nothing to say to society or ought, as some like to tell them, to stick to people's spiritual lives? absolutely not. I began this post talking of the identity crisis that is the context for such claims. with that goes some sense that there are things in our past we have perhaps lost, like good relationships with our neighbours, streets in which doors can be left unlocked and no-one will rob you, etc. there are also current issues we don;t know how to face, globalisation, food shortages, global warming, increasing social diversity, and more. as a Christian i think there is much from my faith tradition we have to offer by way of vision when facing such questions. Churches have much to offer in their locations as a positive influence.

when we stop trying to claim some privileged position because 'we are a Christian country' and admit we are not we then get freed up to start fulfilling a calling to offer vision in our nation in the only way we can, by inspiring individuals, whether in government or in the local street, by what we say and what we do. if this country or any country has a Christian future it will not be because of any status the church or the religion holds in society, it will be because people encounter the vision of the Kingdom of God and see it transforming the lives of Christians so that people in our society say ' i want to be like them' and 'i want our society to be just like that'. and perhaps here is the sobering truth, the claim to be 'a christian country' is something the church Can hide behind because actually it fears it cannot be valued simply on its own merits. ironically whilst this may be a well placed fear, there is also much going on that if bought out into the light would in fact commend much of what Christians are doing as indeed inspirational.

the new charismatics: revival and evangelism

firstly apologies...a long time no post! so if anyone is out there my thought has been in the book I've been writing...and now am editing. the good news is it has got me seriously thinking so hopefully much to follow here too.

this post is sparked by a number of things one is the Florida revival and friends of mine who have been there and posted, positively i want to hear more, and others who have been more questioning. but then i got onto Mike Morell's blog on some other 'new charismatics' check here http://zoecarnate.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/charismatic-chaos-or-holy-spirited-deconstruction/ not only some interesting material but also a good post exploring how 'emergent types' might respond.

so what about revival and evangelism or for that matter the charismatic and the post-modern/the emerging church?

well i think 'revival' is itself an interesting term. it is geared to 'reviving' something. you revive something that is expiring so you are working on what already exists, not on something new. I think this is telling. revival is 'Christendom mode' it's an outpouring in a Christian place that thus has major effect and indeed when one thinks about it the Church has been invigorated for centuries by various revivals. but when the issue is a post-Christendom, post-Christian culture is a revival what we need? well if it transforms the church into a body that actually becomes a witness in the world and an agent of transformation for the good, yes indeed it is. the trouble is all recent revivals seem to have done nothing like this.

i am pleased when God blesses people, makes them feel special, and especially so if they are healed in body mind or spirit. but what i keep seeing is outpourings of the Spirit that do this but instead of sending people into the world as a blessing to the world keep them returning to increasingly charged church services like junkies looking for the next spirit fix. the reality seems to me that the various revivals have become a christian drug culture, not at all an agent of God's mission to the creation God loves. so when i see people 'toking on the baby Jesus' (if you didn't follow that link now you will ;o) i go, well yes. actually i am beginning to wonder if those guys are about to 'come out' as fakes exposing the charismatic culture...or have i really become too sceptical? well there are plenty of really clever 'Christian fakes' on the net already!

But here's the rub for me. last weekend i was at the big Mind Body Spirit Festival in London as part of Dekhomai http://dekhomai.co.uk/ tens of thousands come looking not for some intellectual religious debate, or religious tradition, what they long for is real encounter, spiritual reality that can be felt. Many have left the Church because it offers none of that reality, it feels to them a dead religion going through the memory of past faith. These people and i think most people in our emerging culture will only find authentic a Charismatic Christianity. This is i think the real challenge, both to the revivalists, most of whom would never enter a Mind Body Spirit fair, and though they have the experience of the Spirit so easily turn into something that endlessly blesses themselves and so starves the world. but also to the 'emergents' who may too easily reject the Charismatic and find themselves in the world totally ill equipped against the burgeoning New Spiritualities that may well simply 'show them up'.

somewhere in there is the faith i strive for, fully Charismatic and fully engaged, rejecting the dualist theology of so many Charismatics for full Christ incarnation, really equipped to be Christ's Body with the world and not hidden from it or against it. and honest too, i think that matters.

Removing Christendom from Halloween

Halloween is a controversial subject in many ways, several folks I know and respect in the UK have been campaigning to get alternatives to horror movie imagery available in shops, with some success. others worry about the increasingly global practice of trick or treat. Christians worry about occultism, witchcraft, and obsession with death and the dead. Pagans want to reclaim their festival from the Christians and the shops. So why do i as a Christian want to suggest that Christendom is the major problem here and want to remove it from Halloween?

Firstly note I said Christendom and not Christianity, but the two are of course linked in the churches history. so lets take a brief tour of the history of Halloween, familiar territory but I hope to add a few insights that may lie behind the current controversy on route and show why I want to get Christendom removed from Halloween.

firstly before there was Halloween there was a Pagan festival in northern Europe at least called Samhain (pronounced sow-ain) this was a version of the 'day of the dead' known in many cultures. The dead were remembered, ancestors honoured and the line between death and life was seen as thin at this time. This meant things could cross over, the dead might walk abroad, and other creatures associated with the underworld too. this meant the festival was also about confronting fear and acknowledging the fear of death and the unknown.

when Christianity spread across Europe the missionaries often adopted Pagan custom because they felt it explained the new faith in terms people understood and because it helped cement the new faith in people's lives by getting into the character of previously Pagan festivals. Christmas is another case in point. it is for this reason that the feast of All Hallows, we would now say All Saints, was placed on the 1st of November, following the old Samhain festival crossing from nighttime on the 31st of October to morning of the 1st of November. following Jewish tradition early Christian festivals began on the evening of the previous day, as happens today at the Christmas Eve services. So the festival of All Hallows began at All Hallows Eve, that is Halloween. as such the very name of the festival tells us it is a Christian rather than a Pagan festival, albeit one deliberately adopting a Pagan predecessor. This is significant I would argue as many of the controversies of Halloween today come from its Christendom history.

The churches at All Hallows continued the remembrance of the dead, and added to this a particular remembrance of the lives of the saints, hence the name All Hallows. However a strong element of Christian faith is life beyond death and the theme of resurrection, indeed from the 1st century the idea that in Jesus death the power of evil and death were conquered was a central tenet of faith. So this was celebrated also, altering the character of the Pagan exploration of death at this time. in this sense i think the Christianization of the older festival was a good adaptation of the important themes Samhain explored appropriate for those with a Christian faith.

But Christendom was also a political animal and part of its agenda was to ensure it had no rivals. so Halloween became peopled with devils and ghouls that might get those who misbehaved and witches created as a propaganda tool against the persistence of Pagan faith as an underground religion. i find it interesting to compare the Halloween witches mask with the Nazi depiction of Jews, you will find them rather similar with hooked noses, green skin and warts. and this is the bit so many folks don't get, the wearing of these masks at Halloween is not a celebration of evil or witchcraft, but actually a piece of anti-Pagan propaganda invented by Christians and stemming from medieval Christian celebrations of All Hallows Eve.

today of course as with so many things Christendom has passed and the Halloween legacy handed over to those who have commercialised it, creating the Halloween that churches now complain about rather than celebrate. oddly i think the Passing of Christendom possibly unites rather than divides modern Pagans and Christians in this area. Pagans want to celebrate an important festival they do not want it turned into a commercial bonanza devoid of its true meaning, and i certainly doubt they'd morn the passing of the anti-pagan propaganda imagery of medieval Christendom. Christians too want to celebrate their different but related festival without these things, having ironically forgotten how much of what they now don't like was their invention. so how about a properly informed collaboration between Pagans and Christians to remove Christendom from Halloween? leaving both faiths free to celebrate a festival centred around their beliefs about the important subject of death and the relationship with our dead ancestors?

if we do this i add one thing that should not be banished, a place to also acknowledge our fear of death, the supernatural and evil. banishing the imagery of this from Halloween won't take away the fear, it just relegates it to places where we cannot face it together and handle it constructively, if differently in our two faith traditions. so i make a plea for renewed celebrations not to lose this element at least from both the medieval Halloween and its Pagan forerunner.


these are the links to the Halloween synchroblog, and they are very eclectic and also come from different faith views, so well worth checking out

The Christians and the Pagans Meet for Samhain at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Our Own Private Zombie: Death and the Spirit of Fear by Lainie Petersen
Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
John Morehead at John Morehead's Musings
Vampire Protection by Sonja Andrews
What's So Bad About Halloween? at Igneous Quill
H-A-double-L-O-double-U-double-E-N Erin Word
Halloween....why all the madness? by Reba Baskett
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent
Hallmark Halloween by John Smulo
Mike Bursell at Mike's Musings
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Removing Christendom from Halloween at On Earth as in Heaven
Vampires or Leeches: A conversation about making the Day of the Dead meaningful by David Fisher
Encountering hallow-tide creatively by Sally Coleman
Kay at Chaotic Spirit
Apples and Razorblades at Johnny Beloved
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
Fall Festivals and Scary Masks at The Assembling of the Church
Why Christians don't like Zombies at Hollow Again
Peering through the negatives of mission Paul Walker
Sea Raven at Gaia Rising
Halloween: My experiences by Lew A
Timothy Victor at Tim Victor's Musings
Making Space for Halloween by Nic Paton

U-Topia or My-Topia (synchroblog)

many of us dream of utopias, but what of these dreams? i find the U in utopia something worth reflecting on. we all have our dreams of the perfect world, our utopia. what would your perfect world be? i can certainly offer some thoughts of the world i'd like to live in. but would this be my world, a me world, a my-topia? now i don't see myself as a selfish person, my dreams of utopia when i am honest or perhaps i should say responding to the deep levels of who i am, are not the dreams of personal gratification, though like all people i have those! but are my visions of the best for all really just that, MY dreams? i fear it may be so easy for my vision of our perfect world to be just that. indeed it is so easy for us to asume my-topia is your-topia is u-topia.

so how do we find u-topia, our-topia? i have two thoughts. the first relates to the 'u'. i suspect it begins when I strive not for My- topia but for U-topia, when my goal becomes building a dream world for 'u', when i look to build a world for others, for 'u'. but secondly where is the place i can escape my own weakness, my own self-vision? for me this lies in the vision of God. Jesus didn't come preaching church, or a religious system, or how to worship in a particular style; he came preaching the Kingdom of God, a true utopia. a vision of freedom for captives, sight for blind, good news for poor...this is u-topia, a vision i need beacuase mine will fall so far short. it reminds me i need God's spirit to make this true to inspire me to make my-topia u-topia

see others below

Steve Hayes at Notes from
the Underground
John Morehead at John
Morehead's Musings
Nudity, Innocence, and Christian Distopia at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Utopia Today: Living Above Consumerism at Be the Revolution
Nowhere Will Be Here at Igneous Quill
A This-Worldly Faith at Elizaphanian
Bridging the Gap at Calacirian
The Ostrich and the Utopian Myth at Decompressing Faith
Being Content in the Present at One Hand Clapping
Eternity in their Hearts by Tim Abbott
Relationship - The catch-22 of the Internet Utopia at Jeremiah's Blog
U-topia or My-topia? at On Earth as in Heaven
A SecondLife Utopia at Mike's
Musings
Mrs. Brown and the Kingdom of God at Eternal Echoes

The Gospel according to Buffy (synchroblog)

This is part of a SynchroBlog on Christianity and film, follow the links below for others taking part, and enter the debate on this and other sites!

the Vampire genre as classically represented by the Dracula character, has within it Christendom assumptions. vampires are undead, without souls and damned by God. they are warded off by Crosses and Holy Water. communion wafers placed in their coffins render them homeless. the average vampire slayer is some sort of a priest. so what happens to vampire slaying in a post-Christendom world?

Enter Buffy the Vampire Slayer, an American teen who only enters churches in the dead of night to fight vampires rising from coffins. She uses crosses and Holy water but these seem no longer to connect to any faith, they have become magic charms. here superhuman strength and kung fu fighting skills, given her by ancient shamanic priests who created the slayers to fight demons and vampires, are far more important than the remnants of Christianity. over seven series she gathers round her other US teens who with her go through high school and enter young adult life. none of these either seems to have a faith, save one who starts the series Jewish and part way through becomes a practicing Wiccan.

at the start of the second series our heroine encounters a group of evangelists working with down an outs in a city centre district. but they are in fact demons in disguise, enslaving and ultimately destroying the people they claim to help. the final series sees the gang battling the 'ultimate evil', whose sidekick is a misogynist priest in black with collar, who brutal murders people. apart from this churches are sometimes settings for weddings or funerals. The Buffyverse is clearly not a place where God, and certainly not the church, is involved in the fight against evil. this instead must fall to Buffy. so how does she defeat the 'ultimate evil', and what are the messages that make up the 'gospel according to Buffy'?

Buffy needs to be seen operating on two levels. at one level the various monsters faced are less important then the background situations. At this level Buffy is about the difficulties of school, friendship, romance, finding ones identity etc etc. this is handled with a mixture of humour and some depth. the key messages are about the importance of friendship, sacrifice for others, the shallowness of popularity, the importance of goals in life, the embracing of those of different cultures and sexualities, and above all the empowerment of women in a man's world and the taking of responsibility for ones own life and facing it's challenges head on.

on another level Buffy and her friends fight demons and vampires and every now and then have to save the world. Evil is overcome week by week through Buffy's powers, Willow the Wiccan's magic and the study of ancient texts followed by resourceful action of those who are part of 'Buffy's gang'. the values seen in the plot lines become the key to these victories too.

But there are other themes too. In the 7th and final series redemption becomes a major theme. a number of key characters manage to accumulate or come with some very dodgy pasts. At the top of the list is Spike the vampire, he has spent a good century plus murdering and draining life. He first appears as a major opponent of Buffy but as the series progress he falls 'in love with her' in inverted commas, vampires have no soul and love is rather challenging for them. Buffy sort of falls for him, but there's a subtext of her own self doubt which becomes sometimes self loathing, coupled with her appalling track record of relationships, and an attraction to those she becomes locked in combat with, that makes this not quite 'healthy'. always likely to end in tears, that include obsession, rage and at one stage attempted rape of Buffy by Spike. at the end of series 6 Spike has gone to see if he can be given back his soul and return to Buffy a changed vampire. then there's the Wiccan Willow, a key member of the gang, but in series 5 suffering magic addiction, the episodes are i think intended to explore drug addiction but i can assure magic addiction is very similar in real life. like any addict she messes up her life and those around her. in series 6 her girlfriend (she has by this stage 'come out' as lesbian, and i think this is handled like many other issues well) is shot and killed, by accident Buffy is the intended victim. Willow enters grief that turns to rage that fuels an apocalyptic magic spree that makes her 'mad, bad and dangerous to know'. she also flays alive the murder of her girlfriend, possibly the most brutal crime committed by anyone in the entire run of series. at the end of series 6 she is destroying the world, literally. then there's Faith, a slayer called on one of the occasions Buffy dies and is later bought back...it becomes an occupational hazard for her... Faith has 'issues' and they mean she finds it hard to trust and work with others. this leads her to abuse her powers, kill humans and ultimately help the evil mayor become a giant demonic serpent (yes this is the regular buffyverse in operation...but i must say i was hooked and loved almost every minute, its ability to not take itself too seriously making up for the plot lines! ). but we haven't finished! then there's Anya, a vengeance demon used to helping wronged women deliver gruesome ends to their male abusers. And finally there's Andrew, part occultist part nerd. it was the leader of his group that killed Willow's girlfriend and gets flayed alive as a result. this character comes back, but it's really the 'ultimate evil' that can be 'ant dead person it wants to be', and persuades Andrew to ritually kill his best friend to open a satanic seal in the school basement. and so as we enter series 7 a motley crew who need to be redeemed are part of the plot.

so redemption in a world in which the church is pretty unlikely to play a part. well for each character it works out, and not 'lightly', indeed often very movingly. so interesting that the theme of can the bad people be redeemed, is so positively handled. so what happens? we'll save Spike till last, because his role becomes so important! but at this point let us say he does indeed go to hell and get his soul back...itself interesting, after 'testing' by a demon he gets his soul, though this gets strangely related to the ghost of Christendom as he tells this to Buffy in a darkened church and then embraces a cross, which burns his vampire flesh, soul or no soul. BTW the experience of getting his soul has driven him half mad. Faith returns and through experiences when her self willed bravado lead to bad ends, learns to trust and work with others. Andrew has lived in a fantasy world in which he turns life into comic strip stories to avoid facing the truth. eventually Buffy forces him to confront his actions and his tears of repentance close the demonic seal he opened. Anya having gone back to her vengeance ways is going to be killed by Buffy, but she gets a another chance, which involves her getting her soul back to in a rather 'interesting' take on penal substitution. OK i have no idea if that is how the producer saw it but hear me out! she has to ask for it again from a demon, who says that he will grant it but he must take a demons life in forfeit, we all assume it will be Anya's but she is willing for the price to be paid believing she will she will have to pay it. But the demon has other ideas, and kills an other demon who has been Anya's friend, so an other's life pays the necessary price! this neatly gets Anya to the end of the series but is not viewed in a 'positive light'. Willow is stopped by a friend's love, in the face of her initially wounding him with her destructive magic, and 'the true source of magic' that is working for good in her. clearly magic is a source of good even if the church isn't.

so to the battle against the ultimate evil, and the part of the redeemed and especially Spike in that. you see at this point there's a problem. Buffy has fought off various evils and potential apocalypses, but this is 'the ultimate evil' working with an army of 'ultimate vampires'. in a universe devoid of ultimate good it seems, and reliant on human endeavour, how can Buffy defeat the ultimate evil? well she'll clearly need some help, so Faith the renegade slayer returns, then there is an army of young women who are potential slayers who come ti join in, then there's a magic scythe forged by ancient pagan priestesses for just such a day. armed so they enter the final battle with one further twist, Willow uses the power of the scythe to enable all women to become powerful slayers, empowering not only the potentials but other women abused and oppressed around the globe. as she performs the spell she glows with white light and, in the words of her new girlfriend, becomes a goddess. but even all this is not enough! enter Spike, soul returned madness subdued and a number of painful past issues faced, wearing some jewel intended for a champion. as the battle commences the jewel 'comes to life' a great shaft of light descends from the ceiling to the Jewel which then starts to scatter the light out destroying the super vampires. ' i can feel it' he declares, 'i can feel my soul, it's really there'. and so after an emotional reconciliation between Spike and Buffy she flees after the others, as Spike stays to die in the destruction of the forces of the ultimate evil. the end.

but what kind of end? it is perhaps not surprising if Churches are simply scary places full of demons, evangelists are demonic forces praying on the vulnerably and priests are misogynist devil worshipers bent on brutality that it is to Pagan priestesses, Wiccan magic, mystic weapons, empowered women and good honest human spirit that we must turn to face the ultimate evil. it is easy to dismiss this is be angry with it, but this is how many see the church and Christianity, and we have bought some of this on ourselves. what kind of church might be a force for good in the Buffyverse where evil must be fought and redemption is so important and sensitively handled? on the other hand if we are to leave the modern world in which the demonic and the 'ultimate evil' are as much a fairytale as the Christan God. if we are to enter a world in which supernatural evil is real, how can we fight it? in the end some strange mystic light needs to come and finish off the job, indeed we need God by the back door. but which God in what form? unless the church can become something other than the caricature of the Buffyverse, then what God will come to fill this place?

follow the links to the other blogs in this series

Steve Hayes ponders The Image of Christianity in Films
Sally Coleman is Making Connections- films as a part of a mythological tradition
Adam Gonnerman pokes at The Spider's Pardon
David Fisher thinks that Jesus Loves Sci-Fi
John Morehead considers Christians and Horror Redux: From Knee- Jerk Revulsion to Critical Engagement
Marieke Schwartz lights it up with Counter-hegemony: Jesus loves Borat
Mike Bursell muses about Christianity at the Movies
Jenelle D'Alessandro tells us Why Bjork Will Never Act Again
Cobus van Wyngaard contemplates Theology and Film (as art)
Tim Abbott tells us to Bring your own meaning...?
Sonja Andrews visits The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Christ in Spaghetti Westerns Steve Hollinghurst takes a stab at The Gospel According to Buffy
Les Chatwin insists We Don't Need Another Hero
Lance Cummings says The Wooden Wheel Keeps Turning
John Smulo weaves a tale about Spiderman 3 and the Shadow
Josh Rivera spells well with Christian Witchcraft
Phil Wyman throws out the Frisbee: Time to Toss it Back
Dr. Kim Paffenroth investigates Nihilism Lite

a guilty conscience?

Firstly sorry for such a long gap - assuming anyone is out there to read this by now ;o)

OK currently writing a book (part of reason for long gap!) a thought that came to me in this I wanted to share here....

The preaching of the gospel in much evangelism centers on forgiveness. It offers a model of salvation geared to God in Jesus paying the penalty we are due because of the things for which we are rightly judged guilty. OK there is a whole debate to be had surrounding that understanding. But at this point I am just reflecting on why in the modernist period it has become the predominant model of salvation, even this is shown by it being the model to reject. I think this has a lot to do with the place of the conscience.

As the medieval world moved into the modern, via the renaissance and then the enlightenment, society moved its centre from and ordered and re-ordained hierarchy to the autonomous individual. Morality in the old order was something ordained from above, taught by the church, socialized by your community and enforced by divinely appointed rulers. In modernity morality became a matter of personal decision, and a humanly appointed state became an enforcer of a legal but not necessarily moral order. Rationality ruled the public sphere but could only pronounce on benefit, and a utilitarian common good. It was up to you to supply from within yourself what was right and good. Hence the rising importance of the individual conscience.

The humanist could affirm the conscience because it sprang from within the person and with an optimistic view of humanity would be a sure guide. The Christian could affirm this by seeing the conscience as a 'divine spark' God convicting us of sin. Sin would thus lead to a guilty conscience. A guilty conscience needed someone to remove the guilt and pronounce pardon, to assure us of forgiveness where we knew judgment was due. This is exactly what the evangelistic preaching of the gospel of penal substitution offered.

But what might have been happening? The problem is that the idea of conversion as an individual decision based on a personal guilty conscience as a true guide is deeply dependent on a modernist view of humanity. this view both views me as an individual and secondly as a positive individual who is, if I can truly connect with myself , an individual whose reason and reaction will indeed be true. What if actually my conscience is false? What if I feel no guilt for that which God might condemn me, or feel guilt for that of which I should feel none? what if taking that into account, and in today's world both those seem to be true, my guilt was not a product of a divinely guided conscience but a product of a lapsed Christendom in which me guilt was induced by past church experience and thus able to be revived by contemporary church preaching?

If this were the real situation of the guilty conscience, then the gospel portrayed as freedom from the penalty we deserved as guilty would only be good news to those raised in Christendom. And such seems to be the case. further to this Bonhoeffer is surely correct to suggest so much preaching is about 'sniffing around in other peoples dustbins hoping to catch them out' indeed the evangelist must induce guilt if not found in order to preach its relief. OK most people do suffer feelings of guilt, but they are both often different from what Christianity suggests we ought to feel guilty about, and increasingly assuaged by the sentiment 'well I’m only human' which in modernity and especially post modernity is a perfectly good justification (I don't think it is as a Christian by the way). further to this, as the power of Christendom guilt wears off, the preaching of a gospel geared to it leads to a rejection of the gospel, either as a crutch for the weak and guilty, that is people worse than me, or as something that is moralizing and guilt inducing when no guilt is due. The gospel becomes either at best good news for the truly bad (i.e. only a few) or bad news full stop.

now none of this as I see it is to suggest, as indeed many do faced with such a gospel, that people do not need saving from what Paul would call 'the power of sin and death'. I believe we do, and need to proclaim such a gospel. My point is that this was given a peculiar modernist form in the concept of the guilty conscience that is now increasingly unhelpful. A gospel based on it is increasingly no 'good news' at all.

However, if this is so, it does not seem that people don’t dream of being 'better'. One of the interesting things to come out of the 'beyond the fringe' research was that peoples personal aspirations, not surprisingly, where for happiness, family, relationships and success. however more surprisingly people on the whole didn’t chose those who had achieved this as those hey admired, rather they chose, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and yes Jesus. Might they secretly wish they could be like that too? Might the gospel that frees us from sin and death be the gospel that says, actually you can be like Jesus? Might preaching what we could become, rather than seeking to make us feel guilty for what we are, be not only 'good news' for today?

Ideology and God part 2

I'm a big fan of the current crop of US crime shows, CSI, without a trace, and crminal minds. we get them late in the UK so apologies to US readers, but last week criminal minds (was a feb edition in US i discover!) ended with Mandy Patinkin delivering a great quote from French playwright Eugene Ionesco. "Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
this spoke to me very much of what i was grasping at in my earlier post on 'is God and idealist'.

the Ianesco quote has quite a web presence, much of it quote sites but there are some other pearls on them from Ianesco, but also some comment worth checking. I am not surprised others are grabbed by it too!

for me it says this: ideology is that thing people create when they want the answers sown up so they can say who is right and who is wrong, or in or out, or good or bad....ultimatley ideology is the means of exclusion of making a world of division of 'them and us'. but it says more than this, 'dreams and anguish unite us'. now the last part for me makes clear sense, the common struggle of the human expereince draws us togehter, often releases compassion, even for those we thought we despised or feared despised us. but what of those dreams? do our dreams unite us? on a superficial level perhaps not, indeed my dream may be your nightmare...and the state exists to make sure it does not become so, but struggles to acheive this....indeed should it achieve this? but at another level there is something here, when i get beyond the dreams of persoanl indulgence, of my own comfort, and begin to dream fro all, of the world i wish all could share, of my dreams for justice, for peace, for laughter and delight in life for all....are these dreams that really do unite us?

for me this is what the mission of God is about, the ushering in of the kingdom, the dream of jusitice love and life for all creation and not just humanity at creations expense or one person's at the expense of another's. i am reminded from preaching recently about Halloween and the Allhallows season, that Paul reminds us we have no human enemies, and Jesus tells us that our enemies are indeed to be treated as out friends, not the ideology that divdes, but the dream of the kingdom come on earth as in heaven that unites and blesses all and soothes our common anguish.

but does the church live this......do I live this?

Interview/ Hong Kong meeting

John Smulo who blogs at 'smulo space' http://johnsmulo.typepad.com/ has just published a two part interview with me. John was someone I met at a recent gathering in Hong Kong, a group of us under the auspices of the Lausanne committee for World Evangelization looking at new spiritualities. A fascinating group of people from Australia, the US, UK and Denmark, but also meeting with those connecting with the Taoist and Buddhist faiths in the east. We have a lot to learn from each other! Check out john's blog, there's some good stuff!

we met at Tao Fong Shan (above) a Christian monastery built on the lines of a Buddhist one, using Feng Shui! Worship in 'the Christ temple' was in Chinese style fused with western tradition. The surroundings themselves asking us the kind of questions we grappled with. Can a Christian use feng shui, or for that matter Tarot. To communicate the Christina message? Is this potentially to compromise ones faith, or at the other end is it a con trick on those who follow such practices? alternatively can we see the spirit of God at work in 'unlikely places'?
personally i think God speaks through many things and Christian have no monopoly on this! for me this doesn't compromise my belief that Jesus Christ has a place in the spiritul search of all people, but i hope it should keep us a bit more humble and open than we sometimes can be. i'll post some more on this but for know what do you think?

Have pastors become shopkeepers?

As ever Bob Carlton has found a really interesting piece to put on his blog http://thecorner.typepad.com/bc/2006/08/eugene_peterson.html

the basic idea is that pastors have turned into keepers of a 'shop' called 'church' and behave like marketers and consumer pleasers in order to make their own shop successful. Read the article by Eugene Peterson (of 'the message' fame) and see what you think? My starter is that such could be true of many seeking to make church evangelistic in today's culture, so is this a stark warning or a reactionary misinterpretation?

Is God an idealist?

OK kind of sounds a stupid question, of course God is an idealist and Christians should be idealists. I am inclined that way myself too! But recently I keep hearing things that make me ask the question with more seriousness. Firstly someone who had written a book on Israel and its troubled history, for her the idealists were the problem, the people sure they were right and prepared to fight for their truth. I heard and understood, but? More recently a discussion on Nazi Germany, if I remember the quote, but this is pretty close if not bang on, 'the vast majority of people who commited these atrocities were not bad people, they believed what they were doing was good, but they where convinced by ideology and this is what enables good people to do evil things'. This by the way was a commentary on Shakespeare plays, and a profound one. The moral? It was the pragmatists who if you like held the moral heigh ground. The ones who valued community, the brining on of all people over the ideology of a certain group.

as an Anglican priest this has a lot of resonances with the current issues that threaten separation in the world wide Anglican communion. But then the issue cuts in all directions, we aren't just talking about those idealist, we are talking about ours. I am talking about my ideals which I hope are drawn out of God, but may in truth be a part of the idol we all build and call God. Can pragmatism in this sense be a means of a divine discovery, of God beyond our own construction of God?

mm. Perhaps the issue is what ideology? If it is to grow the church, to bring people to Christ, to help this nation to be Christian, perhaps then and in so many other ways, all we do is mold the gospel to our likekness. perahaps God does have an ideaology, but one that wants everyone in, that is not interested in preserving this or that doctirine (look at the way the prophets spoke of isreal's worship or how jesus acted toward it). perhaps 'compromise' may hold the deepest value of all, that which is seeking the kingdom of God above my ideaology, which will bear with others seeking that kingdom, beacause it is a kingdom for all.

there is a mission lesson here i think. the mission of God is about reconcillaiation not exclusion, to many ideologies want to exclude and not to reconcile. OK reconsilalitation at any price? well God gave his life for it, what price will we pay? what price am i prepared to pay?

God is a DJ

Thanks to the man who seems to live online and comes up with some real gems, Bob Carlton. follow this link to a couple of awesome little vids... i particualry love the first one, just how difficult is it to solve the worlds problems with some decks? and check out Bob's blog too http://thecorner.typepad.com/bc/2006/06/god_is_a_dj_whi.html

Return to the monastery, or why doctrine is not the issue in mission

With the start of 'the convent' we first got to see 'return to the monastery' see http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/monastery/ . It made fascinating viewing as the 5 men returned to the place where they made a 40 day retreat and a surprise hit TV series. These 5 where whittled down from hundreds of people wanting to spend that time in a largely silent monastic order. What can we learn from this?

firstly that contrary to what some will tell the ancient is deeply attractive to many wanting to explore spirituality today. These people wanted something challenging, something to be part of and something with mystery. Even those who came in cynical found they were effected, and some very deeply, read the stories on the BBC site.

secondly though many came with intellectual questions about the Christian faith what they found was experience of the faith which made the questions seem less central. This should not be a surprise. Our 'post-modern' age has shifted continually away form the very modernist approach in which truth is about facts which are demonstrated by reason and proved by scientific experiment, toward truth as 'experience' make sense of what of happening to us and to others. This world tends to make 'facts ' relative, something may be 'true for you but not for me' because the benchmark is my personal experience, not some universally agreed statement of fact.

the church I think is still very often operating in the world of doctrinal fact, thinking it needs to convince people of the truth of Christianity. The monks wisely took another course, the discussed feelings as well as thoughts but above all they invited people to an experience, and experience of God but also one shared with others. How might we make evangelism about an invitation to an experience rather than to a change of opinion?

Da Vinci Code

Well for more 'serious' engagement do get my new Grove Book on this (you know you want to ;o) http://www.grovebooks.co.uk/cart.php?target=product&product_id=17096&category_id=265 this BTW is not about arguing the facts but IMHO the more important issue of understanding why this book has been so successful and the issues behind the facts that matter much more, oh it's also about responding to the book without looking like Dan Brown must be right that the church is doing a cover up...Something others are spectacularly failing to do ...Roll up the Roman Catholic Church single handedly doubling film attendance and belief in Brown's thesis by trying to forbid people from seeing it...Ably assisted by a clutch of conservative evangelicals and biblical scholars. But far more fun than my book is this wonderful post by the awesome betty bowers http://www.bettybowers.com/davinci.html the bus theory is clearly right (see may 1st)

how to do evangelism?

follow this link http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5479410612081345878 to a really useful vidoe guaranteed to help in your evangleism....or more likely to laugh uncontrolably. thanks to Paul Roberts http://alternativeworship.org/paulsblog for this one!

Orthodox or Authentic?

not blogged for a while but they may now come like UK buses...the saying is you wait for one for ages then three come at once! We shall see

a number of things have lately made me think a lot about what we consider 'orthodox' and why. A writer on Israel heard on radio talking about how ideology was the big problem, those who held no ideology were open to peace and reconciliation, as opposed to those who did. Perhaps I wondered they held a different ideology, but I got the point. A day or two later someone quoted the adage 'doctrine is what you kill for but faith is what you die for'.
my suspicion is that these sayings speak into a place we all increasingly inhabit. A place where we are called to opt for certainty or challenge and have to discern where is God in all this.
it has been said that Mission is always connected to the 'heretical imperative' not I think meaning some abandonment of all that has been 'Christian' but rather a realization that mission always calls us to the new, not in opposition to the old, but out of it, out of it's trajectory if you like, but forward into the 'heretical' because it has not been orthodox before.
I suspect mission id never in this way 'orthodox' but always 'hereteical' - the two BTW are opposites, orthodox and heterodox.
But can the heterodox be authentic? I suspect it can indeed often is the authentic tradition of Christ and God's mission. Do I mean that simply by being heretical it must be authentic? Not at all. To be 'authentic' it needs to be connected to what has gone before. The point is though that the truly authentic witness follows the Christ pattern in which that which conventional doctrine condemns is in fact the way forward. To embrace the potentially heretical becomes the most authentic way to be Christian when the desire to affirm the orthodox can become the pharisee tradition that Jesus, the Jewish heretic, so often opposed.

what we so often perhaps fail to grasp is that Jesus might well come today in such a way, condemning our orthodoxy as Pharisaic and condemende by the church as a heretic.

the challenge then may be to live authentically, and this is not to make Christ as we would wish but follow him, in all the challenge that involves, as he was and is and will be. and that may not look 'orthodox'

Britain's psychic challenge

UK's channel 5 has recently been running a reality psychic game show of this name, whittling 5,000 self professed psychics down to a final three. The finale was last Sunday.

it's been an interesting series. Firstly worth noting that 5,000 Britons want to enter and believe they are psychics is something in itself.

the programmes have had a panel of skeptics who at each turn have often pointed to the weakness of the supposed powers of the contestants. Very often this has related to the vagueness of information offered and the way this may often be almost a fishing technique looking for affirmations that may help the psychic go in a certain direction. All of this would be familiar to those who have observed stage magicians like Derren Brown deliberately fake psychic phenomena. I don't think any of the psychics in the show were deliberately doing this but I suspect it is sometimes learnt behavior not consciously adopted, after all it works!

however sometimes the skeptics are clearly stumped, the eventually winner did this twice when she was able to find a hidden person in a wilderness faster than a professional search team with sniffer dogs, indeed on both occasions simply going straight to where the person was guided apparently by instinct. Even more unnervingly they used her, 'Rosanna Arquette Medium style', to help with an unsolved murder case, she seemed to almost become the victim and then proceeded to walk the police around areas they knew where key to the murder with running commentary of the events. She finished by supply a description of the murderer that we were not allowed to hear (as was true of some other bits of information, so as not to jeopardize the case) but we were told was accurate to one of the original suspects.

similarly we also have just had series exploring alternative/complimentary medicine under scientific conditions by a an initially skeptical doctor who became convinced at least that some do work in scientifically measurable ways.

all this is part of growing trend to treat the supernatural, the alternative and the psychic seriously in the British media, part I think of an increasing openness to it here.

how should Christians respond? Increasingly I think the tide is running out for the sort of mid 20th century liberalism that sort to demythologize faith and dismiss the miraculous as fanciful stories to be reduced to their meaning devoid of any supernatural content. The other tradition has tended to be to dismiss all such things as occult or demonic witchcraft. Yet what seems to be emerging is a middle space in which it looks as if scientific explanation may be given to some such phenomena, in which it might be true to say they cease to be supernatural at all. I think Christians are increasingly going to have to be open minded to such phenomena.

in the end I also want to question the attitude that thinks primarily of protection of the faithful, that seeks always to weed out the wrong the risky and the dangerous. I am not sure God and those who claim to be in God through Christ need defending from the 'supernatural'. Rather I would like to see people who actually seem to believe that God is bigger than this and that perfect love really does drive out fear. All of this is think should not be viewed as a worrying trend but as a wonderful opportunity.

what kind of Christians can take such an opportunity? I suspect it will be those who are equally open to the mystical, the miraculous and the unexplained in their own faith tradition, and not scared to walk alongside those exploring such in any and every tradition. The problem is that none of the current tribes of the church fit this bill. The liberals are open to questions but often closed to the miraculous, the Catholics bearers of the mystical but often not the uncoventional, the evangelicals keen to engage with the faith of others but closed to the mystical and the unexplained within in their own faith, the charismatics seeking to manifest the miraculous but usually demonising it in others. Time perhaps for some new expressions of faith that transcend all our traditions, holding together the insights of all and rejecting the fears of all. And I see this emerging in places,

indeed I suspect that many of the debates that divide Christians today are not really between the different tribes or churchmanships but between those seeking to be faithful in the age in which we are, an age of psychic challenge, and those who are still living in an age that is no more.

Beyond belief?

UK channel 4 are just running a programme's series by biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins, with the above tile. His thesis 'is religion the root of all evil? Ok that is I bet the TV take but for Dawkins religion is indeed a major root of evil and we must abandon it for rational science to stop wars killing and blood shed. Trouble is the some of the religious he showed (including a Christian mega church in Colorado springs) seriously backs up his argument.

trouble is I agree with his comments on the religion he showed us...But aware that it is finding the worst case to prove your point. Granted there are some toe curlingly awful Christians and I find myself ashamed of them and then maybe some fingers point my way too?

but I could create a programme in which atheism was the root of all evil, I would look at communists and their repression of religion and intellectual free speech or Dr mengle and awful experiments on humans viewed as mere animals. I might talk of capitalist business and the abuse of humanity in the name of market forces and then look at how religion has spawned care, teaching, indeed the science Dawkins lauds. But this would also be a one sided programme. In truth it s easy to set up straw men and knock them down. It is also easy dismiss those we see doing this and send down the good points with the half cocked shots.

I was left wanting to have Dawkins round to dinner. I bet he'd enjoy good wine and food and we might talk openly (yes I think we really might) I would try to get us to offer our best to each other and talk about that rather than offer our best to their worst. I am reminded of a Dietrich Bonhoeffers comment that so much Christian evangelism was 'sniffing around in other peoples rubbish bins looking to catch them out' and that we needed to meet people with faith at the points they were strong.

another thought. Tributes today in the UK to radical MP Tony Banks who died yesterday. Whatever you think ( and he is a controversial figure!) this quote hit home as wise. An Mp shared how when he was new TB took him on one side and said 'this is something really important to know, your opponents are those in the other parties but your enemies are always in your own party'. As I heard it I knew he could have been talking about religious groups, churches and groups within churches. I then remembered I am supposed to love my enemies. And I was also reminded that Paul wisely told us our struggles were not against people. I guess that even means that appalling pastor of that church in Colorado who lectured Dawkins on human arrogance as he delivered a master class in it himself. I asked myself which person here is undermining the work of Christ? I decided it was not Richard Dawkins, and then realized I was called to love them both.

I want to learn with Bonhoeffer to meet people, both my opponents and my enemies ;o) at the point heir are at their best, and meet them with love. Indeed this is perhaps the true heart if the Gospel

purgatorio: You Might Be Emerging If...

http://purgatorio1.blogspot.com/2005/11/you-might-be-emerging-if.html this is rather fun (thanks to Bob Carlton in the US for this) i think a bit US in it's bias...or am i the only guy in the UK who only recognised the U2 Album in the music section? my ambient dance and trance collections clearly make me 90's alt worship and not very emergent at all ;o)

emergent UK Holy Spirit in contemporary culture day

it was good to be at this conversation last Saturday in St Albans (see Jason Clarks blog for more info http://www.emergent-uk.org/jasonblog.htm ) firstly to find different people at this to other gatherings in other networks, yet people wrestling with mission and culture and faith in the UK. I was impressed by the genuine breadth of those who came too and the way that differences where shared and aired with no attempt to enforce a party line. I would recommend any future day to people interested in the kind of things I blog about.

I also think the day points to a small but useful part that emergent UK is now playing in it's own right separate from it's US big brother. Something I think will only aid the health of the debate over here. I say this because I also fear that at present UK emergent may not be fully on people's radar and it ought to be. I say this as someone initially suspicious of a US inspired group that might simply have been re-inventing the alternative worship wheel. It turns ought to be something different to that and I am pleased to say more mission focused than some sections of alt worship have been (though I think that is changing too which is good)