headwayyouth- phil smith's blog

Eight reasons why liberalism isn't all that bad!

1. Liberals understand that a text book, however thick, can't teach you so much about god
2. They don't have to feel responsible for the war in iraq
3. They don't have to apologise for the election of bush
4. When you're being dealt a particularly rough card in life, liberals are not so likely to deal you the killer blow 'it's all in God's plan'
5. They have good news for everyone, not just hetrosexual, churchgoers
6. They can go on holiday to the Jerusalem without having to feel very, very guilty
7. They can go to the pub without it being 'purpose driven'
8. Robert Funk is such a cooler name than Alistar McGrath

The evangelical infiltration of Starbucks...

Oh joy of joys, apparently a quote from Rick Warren is to be printed on the side of Starbucks coffee cups (NY Times). Hoping it's just an american thing!

Soul Survivor's Department for Theology

I'm encouraged to see that Soul Survivor are encouraging their cohorts to get into a bit of theology in this article in their I-mag- (for all you Methodists spot the reference to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral). I am also pleased that John Maiden, who wrote the article has managed to sneak a bit of politics in there;

"in the late nineteenth century in America a certain (and most would say, very wrong) theology of the end-times, known as 'dispensationalism', became very popular with Evangelical theologians, and then with many Christians. This theology often argued that Christ will return when the modern State of Israel possessed a certain amount of territory. What started as an idea has arguably had a huge effect on the attitude of the Church and even on American foreign policy. A huge 25% of the Republican electorate are Evangelical Christians, and many of these are biased in favour of the state of Israel due to their theology. Thus, US presidents are often obliged to support Israel, even when she is acting aggressively or illegally against other people groups.

In the past I've been quite sceptical of Soul Survivor, but this is encouraging. It'll be interesting to see how this series on theology develops, but if it equips young people to think theologically for themselves that can't be a bad thing... perhaps they might then spot some of the issues related to a gathering of 10,000 young people, where one man calls the shots and everyone else obeys

Whoopie!

As some of you know, yesterday I had a job interview at Traidcraft, it seemed to go quite well and I was told that i'd find out in the next twenty-four hours. On my way back from the interview I popped to the Supermarket to get a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale (in case there way cause for celebration) and a tub of Ben and Jerry's (in case there was cause for commiseration)... anyway, I know it's a little early in the morning but i've just been given a good reason to crack open that bottle of Beer... as of November 14th, I'll be an employee of Traicraft and I'm very excited...

Now I just need to find somewhere to live...

Rosa Parks

Sad to hear this morning about the death of Rosa Parks- the mother of the civil rights movement. Reading about the civil rights movement it is clear that Rosa's peaceful protest changed the history of America. She wasn't the first to be arrested for non-complaince on the buses but she was the first to do so peacefully and in doing so started a movement that climaxed in the passing of the Civil Rights Acts.

She wasn't loud, she didn't kick up a fuss, she din't plan to cause a revolution she just did what she thought was right... Respect!

Kester's Blah...

So, Kester’s Blah…

Much of what Kester spoke about was based on his book, The Complex Christ, so if you’ve read that you can probably stop reading this, if not, maybe it’ll tempt you to read the book. I've also just realised Kester has released his own notes on his blog.

Kester began by talking about the need for change in the church and shared his belief that the model for change should be evolution not revolution. The nature of the church is that it is not a machine, he said. Paul does not write about the robot of Christ, he writes about the body and therefore a sudden change is just not possible. Living systems do not just change, they evolve… a process which takes time.

To encourage this change, Kester then went on to talk about the importance of disturbance. Refering to the development of the peacock, Kester spoke about how it is possible to evolve down a blind alley and the only way to stop this is disturbance.

The church as it increasingly walks down a blind alley, needs to be disturbed into thinking about its direction. Later on Kester went on to talk about how this might happen and specifically mentioned the role of leaders in the emerging church. Their role, he said, should not be one of direction, but one of enabling and specifically enabling communication.

Kester also spoke about evolution in our cities and drew parallels between Fowler’s ‘Stages of Faith’ and urban development. He was arguing that the church, as a people group, should be at the forefront of this development for three reasons:

1)      missional, this work is crucial in the growth of the kingdom of god

2)      theological, the city is important. It is the place where God and man co-operate; in the countryside it’s just God’s creation, but the city is different, in the city man has had the opportunity to play with what God has given us.

3)      sociological, the only way society really changes is bottom-up

Returning to the issue of leadership and models of church, Kester finished on a really interesting point. He spoke about the supermarket and the dinner party. At the supermarket there is a market exchange; you get what you want and in return you pay a certain amount, there are no favours and nothing is owed. The dinner party is different; at the dinner party it would be rude to offer money, because it is a different culture where gifts are exchanged freely. Perhaps under pressure from our culture, Kester argued that the church is showing signs of moving towards a market exchange where people expect to get something in return for what they give, be that a visit once a month (in the case of the elderly) or a warm fuzzy feeling at church next Sunday.

On the way out I bought a copy of Kester’s book and having read quite a bit on the train journey home, I am enjoying it. But one thing that does concern me about this whole movement is where the discipline of theology fits in.

I’ve been to a couple of Blahs now and heard people talk about Emerging Church elsewhere, particularly Greenbelt, and it strikes me that theology is becoming less and less important. In my first year at Cliff I read Threshold of the Future, by Mike Riddell and it blew me away because the author really seems to engage with theology. But I don’t find that in many other places in this conversation. Instead it seems there is equal reliance on other discipline; particularly cultural studies, psychology and sociology. So for example, looking at the back of Kester’s book his categorised bibliography has seven books on theology but twenty on culture & philosophy.

If the Emergent Conversation isn’t to be viewed by traditional thinkers in the church as a watering down of the gospel then I think we need to pay careful attention to this and recognise the importance of engaging in these issues theologically. Yes, Erikson and Jung have much to teach us, but surely that should not involve displacing theology from its rightful place at the centre of this discussion…

End of report, end of rant… comments very welcome!

Off to the Blah!

just sat on the train en route to manchester for Kester Brewin's Blah... I'll do my best to feedback about the evening in the next 24 hours!

Make Trade Fair Film Clips

In preparation for a job interview (whoopie!), I've just come across a series of videos from Oxfam USA about the importance of Fair Trade. The videos are big (if you're on dial-up don't even think about it) but well worth downloading because unlike most of these things they have no voice over, all the narrative is on screen. V. useful for alt worship... as well as job interviews!

A new look...

Yes, yes this is my blog it's just been redesigned. As winter gets closer a brighter site seems like a good idea!

On a related note, those who (like me) have only started blogging recently might be interested to read these great tips

On a seperate note, those who don't use macs (and those who do that are happy to laugh at themselves) might be humoured to see this video.

George Bush Fans...

I seem to be getting a lot of people coming to HeadwayYouth blogs via Google Image search, particularly people typing in "Bush" and "Monkey" (cf. this post from July). If you do happen to stumble across this site searching for humour related to our favourite president, you might want to check out this slideshow which has just been emailed to me...much humour!