Category Archives: discipleship

Older People’s Ministry: A Church or an Act of Service

community, discipleship, ecclesiology

Community was at the heart of NYNO’s original vision. That which is true spiritually should also be found, falteringly, in our daily human relationships. Our understanding was that the reality of our spiritual union with Christ, and therefore our union with each other, meant that the Church should seek to be a community of mutual service and dependence.

This general ideal for church community had particular consequences when we applied it to our work amongst older people. We had observed that ministry amongst older people followed the patterns of traditional ministry. While such ministry was widely accepted and appreciated, it presented a problem for a future where professional ministry resources will be scarce. In its place, NYNO wanted to encourage the agency and participation of older people in the life of their churches. We wanted to see church communities grow, located in places that were accessible to older people (practically speaking, this meant meeting in communal areas of sheltered accommodation) and whose participants had a diverse age range. At the outset of our project we were anxious to develop relationships between the generations where members of each generation would bring blessings and be served by all the other generations. Each individual would bring different giftings; each individual would have different needs.

We were therefore very aware whenever we heard a member of the younger generations speak about wanting to be involved with a NYNO group and ‘serve’ the older members. On the face of it, this was a noble request. For NYNO this was precisely what we didn’t want. We didn’t want older members to be viewed as primarily the recipients of the ministry of younger people. We wanted younger folk to recognize what they could receive from friendship with older folk before they began to serve. The alternative, it seemed to us, would be the patronization of older people as passive recipients of the good works of younger people. We were also very aware that people who came to us would generally be coming from another church community to which they would already have a loyalty and personal relationships. It is only natural for a NYNO group to have difficulty commanding such loyalty from people. Instead, it becomes a place for service. This is, its way, admirable, but is a genuine hurdle to be overcome if the aim is to develop a new worshipping community.

The result of all of this was that we asked folks wanting to join us to come and be part of the community first, before thinking about what they could do. In doing this, the intention was that folks would appreciate the position of our less physically able members and would develop the real peer relationships that would prevent any future service – which would be needed and natural – becoming one-sided. I’m not sure this worked.

I don’t think we understood how difficult it would be for folks to simply come and develop friendships. Nor, at the moment, do I know what that difficulty was. But, as it has turned out, folks who have come and been encouraged to not immediately serve, have not stuck with the group.

There could be any number of reasons for this happening, including the personal and the clarity with which this vision of church has been consistently explained. There may also be issues with the form of worship we offer not meeting people’s expectations. Even so, the question at least has to be asked whether we have to be more tolerant and patient of people’s expectations that they are engaging with NYNO in order to serve. What this means practically is inviting new folk to come and in offering them a role as a means of finding a foothold in the community.

When NYNO started, when we were a young and vulnerable project only just finding our feet and trying to insist on our alternative approach in the face of the universal expectations surrounding older people’s ministry, perhaps then we were justified on insisting on community first and service second. Perhaps now we can afford to let people find their way in their own time.

Without eschatology …

community, discipleship, Uncategorized

… we are left with only a baffling residue of strange commands, which seem utterly impractical and ominous. We ignore the commands on divorce and lash out at our people on peace. The ethic of Jesus thus appears to be either utterly impractical or utterly burdensome unless it is set within its proper context – an eschatological, messianic community, which knows something the world does not and structures its life accordingly.

Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens (Nashville, Abingdon: 1989), p. 90.

There is much to be enthused about in chapter four, which is entitled ‘Life in the Colony: The Church as Basis for Christian Ethics’. The idea of a church as primarily a community whose worships and witnesses through their corporate Christian identity and character, offers both political relevance and an escape from party tribalism. Being faithful to Christ cannot effectively be reduced to a left or right position, but has its greatest significance to the world in its uniqueness.

At the same time, the treatment of the Sermon of the Mount is still not quite satisfying here. I agree with the eschatological context for the sermon that is emphasized. The kingdom is coming, and for this we still pray. Perhaps my frustration lies in the question of where and how that kingdom is being realized – made real – in the present. H & M seem to argue that an individualist approach to ethics and to the commands in the sermon is doomed to failure, but that a Church communitarian approach is actually what is being proposed in the text and, further, is able to (much as in yesterday’s quote) help us to live this kingdom life. Again, I think there are some really quite important things being expressed here. But, I don’t think this proposal manages to escape the accusations of being absurd and naive that they acknowledge can be levelled at the sermon when applied to individuals. On the one hand, I want to agree that the church is essential to our discipleship, worship and witness. On the other hand, we have to acknowledge that Christ’s words defeat the best efforts of Christians living in community, just as easily as individualist Christians. This is acknowledged in the concluding remarks in the chapter about forgiveness. Perhaps my frustration might have been calmed if these concluding remarks were rather more central to the chapter. The quotation from Barth on p. 83 hints at a way forward as it speaks of the Church setting up a sign for the world but how this sign might come to be, how it might differ from the reality to which it points, is not spelt out.

From an exegetical point of view, it is not obvious from the text that the Church is able to or commanded to play this positive role in perfecting our discipleship. That Christ is commanding us is obvious. That life in Christian community enables us to obey and ‘be perfect’ is less clear. This last comment is perhaps a strange point to make, given that I do think that the Christian life is a churchly life at every point, given that I do think that life lived in the Church and can make a difference to how we live. I suppose my thoughts are that unless we have a realistic sense of the Church’s limitations and frailties, at the same time as a belief that God is working in us and in our dependence on his work, we will find ourselves disillusioned and doubting. The Church – of which am I part of course – is so bad at keeping these words, to propose that by being in community we could keep Christ’s words just isn’t plausible. This isn’t because I lack faith (!) but rather because central to the sermon is the demand for perfection. This demand allows us to imagine the impossible and unexpected but it also completely crushes us and our expectations of moral adequacy … if we are honest.

I suppose what needs to be fleshed out here is a discussion of the realization of the kingdom – its primary presence in the life of Christ – and so our individual and communal connection to him in life of the Spirit. This allows us to speak of the kingdom in absolute terms – not molding it into something ‘possible’ that we can imagine keeping – and allows us to expect and to try the humanly speaking absurd or impossible. It allows us to imagine that older people might be placed first in the kingdom, that the diversity of the church might make the sacrifice of moving to the most vulnerable and excluded. It does this while recognizing the difficulties involved, our fears and doubts – our need for faith.

When the only contemporary means of self-transcendence is orgasm …

discipleship, Uncategorized

Christian ethics depends upon the Christian story. Christian ethics makes no sense apart from the recognition that we are also on an adventuresome journey which requires a peculiar set of virtues. For example, when Christians discuss sex, it often sounds as if we are somehow “against sex.” What we fail to make clear is that sexual passion (the good gifts of God’s creation) is now subservient to the demanding business of maintaining a revolutionary community in a world that often uses sex as a means of momentarily anesthetizing or distracting people from the basic vacuity of their lives. When the only contemporary means of self-transcendence is orgasm, we Christians are going to have a tough time convincing people that it would be nicer if they were not promiscuous. … We believe that it is only when our attentions are directed toward a demanding and exciting account of life that we have any way of handling something so powerful, so distracting, so creative, and so deadly as sex.

Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens (Nashville, Abingdon: 1989) pp. 63-64.

Comment: What has this to do with NYNO?

NYNO aims to help people envisage and embark on building new church communities in unconventional places that just happen to be particularly accessible to older people. One of the challenges we face is changing the assumptions (often fearful) that younger generations will often have about what such churches might be like. What we are trying to say is that there is far more freedom for you in such a church, far more possibilities, far more joy and satisfaction than you probably imagine. Being part of such a witnessing community is not meant to be a chore, but an exploration, a discovery of who you are in fact – a discovery that can only be made in the context of God’s community. Strange to say, but being involved with a NYNO community with others of a variety of ages (according to H and W ) can help us deal with lots of desires that pull us one way or another and that we struggle to know how to deal with. Put simply, it may be that our faith and Church community provides us with a vision for the whole of life (a larger story into which ours fits) that allows our desires to be a affirmed and ordered sensibly, rather than to float without anchor, forever vying for supremacy with our good intentions.

Short Sermon: Serving and Being Served

community, discipleship, sermon

The following sermon was given in February before the meal liturgy.

Reading: Philippians 2:1-11

The notion of service, of servant hood, is very important in Scripture and and also as a metaphor that directs the Christian life.

The Israelites were held as slaves – or servants, the terms are often interchangeable – in Egypt and redeemed by God to live as his free people. As Christians, as we have read, we find a model for our attitudes and actions in the life of Christ who did not strive after equality with God but rather took the form of a servant.

We are to be like servants. We are made free by God, from slavery to sin, that we might use our freedom the service of God and others.

On this basis, you might be forgiven for assuming that self-sacrificial service is in every case an unalloyed good. Curiously enough, I have come to the conclusion of late that it is not.

It is possible to serve, to be a servant of others, out of a sense of duty, and yet not love.

It is possible to serve for the sake of pride and ego, because in the context of a church service can be much admired.

The notion of servant-hood and service is not enough. There is something that must precede it.

Let me point you again to our celebration of communion. It is in this act, given to us by Christ, that so much of who we are and how we are to live is laid out for us to see. If we think about servant-hood in the context of communion it appears differently to us, as if in a new light. It does so in two ways.

Firstly, here we are taught that before we ever serve, Christ must serve us. The matter is made so clear by Christ’s words recorded in John 13, where Christ washes the feet of the disciples. Simon Peter exclaimed:

John 13:6-9 “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” 9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Christians must receive from Christ before ever they serve him or serve others. Without this we will speak without love, like a clanging cymbal. We will act without love and we will be and gain nothing.

Before ever we serve, Christ must serve us.

Secondly, Christ also teaches us here in communion that as we receive from him so do others. To participate in Christ is to be made one with others. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians. (10:17) 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

Before ever we strike out to serve others, we must recognise that others are called to the same task, called to serve others and called to serve us.

Our community in Christ lies underneath and behind our servant-hood. We are members of this community, we belong, we participate in Christ and one another before we ever strike out to offer our gifts to others.

All must give, but all must also receive.

There is a blessing, not often recognized, that we can offer to others. It is to allow other people to serve us. There is a sin, not often recognized. It is to be so proud of our service, that we refuse to allow others to give to us.

Let us remember, that in Christ we are made a community where all must give and all must receive. The Church is therefore more important than service.

The Church Inside Out

community, discipleship, ecclesiology, mission, worship

I discovered the following in Bosch, Witness to the World (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1980), pp. 176-78.

The theology of the apostolate soon underwent a certain radicalisation due to Hoekendijk’s contribution. He polemicised against the church-centric mission that had been especially in vogue since Tambaran 1939. The Church was an illegitimate centre. Not the Church but the world, the oikoumene, stood in the centre of God’s concern. Van Ruler’s thesis that mission was a function of the Church, was inverted by Hoekendijk: the Church was a function of mission. There was no room for a ‘doctrine of the Church’. We should refer to the Church only in passing and without any emphasis. Ecclesiology should not be more than a single paragraph in Christology (the messianic involvement with the world) and a few sentences in eschatology (the messianic involvement with the world) … 

From the outset Hoekendijk could not accept a ‘theology of mission’. If he did so it would imply that mission would once again be an extra. There would then also conceivably be other ‘theologies of …’. He therefore pleaded not for ‘theology of mission’, but for ‘missionary theology’ as expression of all authentic theology. …

In this way Hoekendijk’s theology of the apostolate became a theology of the world. Theology is God inviting us to share the world with him. For precisely this reason it was a theology of the Kingdom. Mission was not the road from church to church: mission or Church was the interaction between Kingdom and world, involved in both … The form which this involvement took he called shalom, Hebrew for ‘peace’, which he described as a ‘social happening’, and which was an ethical rather than a soteriological concept. Reconciliation became a universal humanisation process. In his earlier writings he did characterise the task of the Church as kerygma, koinonia and diakonia – proclamation, community, and service. In the course of time, however, he increasingly moved towards the last of the three.

I find it curious that the following theology derives from the 1960. Theological language along these lines is, I find, being used with plenty of enthusiasm today. Not having read Hoekendijk’s theology at first hand I should be cautious speaking directly about him. An English translation of some of his shorter works was published in 1966 with the title ‘The Church Inside Out’ (SCM). It’s another one to add to the list …

I am all the more interested having just read Barth on the Church as witness (CD IV.3), and also John Flett’s head spinning The Witness of God. When I hear this language used today, it is in my experience without reflection on Bosch’s concluding analysis (from 1980!): you get rid of the Church  and something essential is lost.

It’s not as though I don’t have sympathy for Hoekendijk’s frustration with the Church. It is only because of faith that I stay loyal to the church structures and institutions. Yes, I have enough self-knowledge to know that I am no less fallen than the next church member, but that doesn’t make identifying with and living with and in the Church any more comfortable.

As an attempt to flesh out something more positive, here follows a brief summary of something I was going to provide more detail of later … some Barth inspired thoughts.

The move from missio dei to church-less service (identified by Bosch above) seems to stem from an absence of Christology. The language of mission and kingdom seems to have been abstracted from Christ himself. One often hears today this language used in connection with discipleship. On the face of it, this sounds quite Christocentric! With it, though is a closely connected assumption that the discipleship of the gospels has no direct relationship with the Church. As Barth points out, this is a case of not seeing the wood for the trees. The ‘absence’ of Church from the gospels is because it is everywhere assumed! Of course it is, the gospels themselves were written from within ecclesial community, often addressing the concerns of that community (the assumptions of form and canonical criticism spring to mind).

This being so, the Church’s existence is determined (skirting over a discussion of actualistic ontology) by her saviour, by whom the covenant between God and humanity is concluded. Christ is about his Father’s work. Humanity is called to witness to that, to echo Christ’s words and actions as the covenant partner and so point others to him. The Church follows the attitude of Christ, who is about his Father’s business. God’s concern firstly is for the world and in Christ the world is justified. We come to faith and join the Church as members of the world. The Church is composed of those brought to the knowledge of this salvation found in Christ and so are called to participate in their own proper way in the loving work of God. The Church therefore cannot be and must not be firstly concerned with its own life, or see itself as an end in itself. To do so would be to be radically incoherent. The Church is called, and therefore the Church must follow Christ and do the Father’s work. But because it is called it is the Church and it is as a community that the Church can witness in a manner no individual can (Stringfellow springs to mind for the ability of the Church to witness politically today). Think of the roles of forgiveness and accountability. The Church here is not somehow establishing a perfect society on earth, it is pointing in a faltering manner to the one who has already forgiven them. Of course, I can forgive people outside of the Church and this can be a witness, but in the Church I don’t just forgive. In the Church I can be forgiven too.

The future of popular missionary theology is not the removal of ecclesiology. It is rather having a good ecclesiology by which the Church can understand her very nature is to be outward focussed, in which even her most private worship in word and form, can be a witness to the world of the coming kingdom.

The Church, Discipleship and Mission

community, discipleship, mission

It is the very nature of reconciled human community to become conformed to the image of Christ, to become his witness in the definite form of the church’s missionary service to the world. This determination of the human act is one in active correspondence to God’s very being …

The Witness of God, John G. Flett, Eerdmans, 2010, p. 195

The act of reconciliation makes humanity a witness. This is what it means to be a disciple. It is to be a witness. To be a disciple and learn from Christ is to mirror him, though without doubt in a cracked and distorted manner. Humanity witnesses to Christ in word and action individually and as follow him and so learn to as community.

Again, to be conformed to Christ’s image is to witness to him. In its nature, an image points to the original.

And how does this happen, this conformity, this mirroring, this reconciliation. It comes about through the work of the Holy Spirit. When? When the Father wills, yes, but perhaps the Father wills that our own witness, reconciliation, conformity to Christ, might be used by him to redirect others to God found in Christ?

But again, is there a key to the successful church, to the missionary church. Only that she should be herself, and not something else. There you have it. The problem was ecclesiology (enmeshed in a coherent theological whole of which one part can hardly simply be considered before another) all along. I told you so.

Science …

community, discipleship, mission, planning, spirituality

In the the last post I began to pull together some thoughts with regard to NYNO’s form of worship.

But worship is only aspect of NYNO’s identity.

Worship, community, discipleship, spirituality and mission – and maybe others too – are all areas in which we need to experiment and monitor and report.

It’s going to be helpful – for ourselves but also for speaking to funders – to be a little more structured in our planning for our research. And research is a good word to describe what we will be doing: introducing new ideas or ways of being church, practising them and evaluating them. We want to be able to say at the end of a period of experimentation, ‘We wanted to achieve this end, so we tried this and it worked/didn’t work for the following reason.’

So perhaps I need to return to my first year aims and objectives document and begin to split out some of the different tasks that lie ahead. We can’t do them all at once, but to choose the best one to start with we need to have thought what the others might be.