New Kid on the Blog

 Continuing the series - nearly there with what I have recorded so far! Some further thoughts on Jesus - there could be many many more, but I think there's only two more to come. Comments etc welcome!

 Theology around Jesus is a whole discipline in itself, in fact called "Christology" - I can only dip into the ocean of words and thoughts on the subject, but even then (at about 8 minutes a video) I will have to divide these thoughts up into about three or four parts. So here's the first one relating to Christology - particularly to the ideas around what we call 'Incarnational Theology'

And here's a second short video about thinking theologically - none of this is definitive, nor do I claim to have a handle on it all, and as you may have seen in the first video, I sometimes stumble and need to backtrack (3 legged Stool vs Lambeth Quadrilateral, anyone?) Anyway, again, likes and comments and reflections and discussions very much welcome.

Over the past few weeks I've been doing a few Facebook live videos with some theological reflections in them - initially in response to a friend asking for some simple, (hopefully) thought provoking and accessible, introductions to theological thinking. I have put them up on my YouTube channel, and thought I would share them here over the coming few days (or weeks knowing my usual blogging schedule!). I started off calling them 'Rambling Rector' - probably part of my overly self-effacing approach and my attachment to the 'bumbling Vicar' persona that at one time I thought served me well. I am not in that place any more, so I decided to call them (after the first few attempts) Theology Bites. I hope they offer some food for thought. Likes (on the YouTube Channel) and thoughts would be very welcome... 

Conversations had in various Social Media forums (or forae) as well as some very good blog posts have got me a-thinking. That along with the tremendous amount of work that I seem to have set about in the past few weeks have had me considering ministry 'from the ground up' it seems! My creative and forceful (in a good way) Curate has been driving some of the processes that our Mission Community has needed for some time.  My tendency is to let things happen as they happen, she has inspired me by saying (in action rather than criticism) that this isn't enough and we need to consider the purpose and plans for Five Alive Mission Community and where exactly our Churhes, and indeed the Church at large, are/is going. So in the past few weeks we have had, run by our Curate, a course called 'everybody welcome' which has considered not just the act of welcoming people when they come through our doors but about being Churches with an attitude of welcome, and Churches willin...

I found a cracking new blog today , written by a buddy of mine in Milton Keynes, another Anglican Priest and all round good chap - he's written some very good reflections from his time on sabbatical over the past few months and I highly recommend a visit. I must now put his blog on my sidebar, and had I known he would have been one of the magnificent seven yesterday... Though I'm not sure who I wouldn't have had from the list! find Tim's blog here

Just been reading some comments on posts at New Kid Deep Stuff , where all my sermons - or most of them - end up and its amazing how people feel the need to complicate religion by making up stuff to add to it! There's only a few comments like that on the blog, this is more of a reflection on some of stuff I have read around the place and blogs I've ended up browsing.... It's not like Theology isn't complicated enough, but how do folks have time to look up obscure Bible verses and then interpret them in a way that is entirely contradictory to the witness of the early Church, of those who actually knew and shared life with Jesus? It gets worse the more I look out and about on the internet, so I don't think I'll waste time with that today! Keep the faith!

As it's Sunday, another bit of Theology for today's post. It also chimes with the sermon that I might post later... Richard Burridge's 'Four Gospels, One Jesus' is a great introduction to thinking about the 'agenda' behind the Canonical Gospels. By that I mean it offers and overview of each of the Gospels and the particular concerns of each Gospel writer. It's easy to think of the Christian Gospels as all one lump of the same type of writing but Burridge talks of the distinctive nature and flavour of each Gospel in easily understood, well explained ways. As theological books go, I found it very exciting, it made me look again at why the Gospel writers constructed their books in the way they did, and it reminded me how rewarding it can be to spend a little time in study to really get more perspective and more of an understanding of these amazing books in our Bible. Very highly recommended indeed

A rare event these days, I've been so busy I've not really had time to go into depth about much - but this Sunday i had a longer talk to prepare on the book of Ruth, under the title 'Ruth and Redemption' so here it is, or at least here is the introduction and the rest can be read here Ruth and Redemption Context - starting with Ruth Chapter 1 You would think that with the theme of ‘kinsman redeemer’ that runs through the book of Ruth that there would be a fair amount on Redemption there, wouldn’t you? Well, there is, I guess, but it’s not terribly explicit in the text! Paul kindly sent me some notes on this thoughts for this evening’s talk and I have to say that i couldn’t really wrap my brain around them terribly easy. Apparently there are two words for ‘redemption’ that occur 23 times between them through the book of Ruth, but I couldn’t find most of them! I did find some wonderful websites of Jewish sermons – or ‘Midrash’ – that talk about this wonderful book of scr...

Last week saw one of the most profound evenings of our course for training worship leaders. It was very enjoyable being able to listen to the speaker, rather than being one of the leaders, as we had a guest from the Diocese who came to talk about 'remembering'. Whilst much of it was focussed around how we structure services of remembrance - for important events, for Remembrance Sunday (the UK version of 'memorial day'), for those who have died etc etc there was a lot of deep thought went on about what it means to 'remember'. I was struck again by how important 'remembering' is to us as human beings. As we re-member we integrate our history, both our personal history and our identity, and the 'big picture' - national identity and faith history into what it means to be ourselves. Remembering well is about bringing together all the disparate parts of our lives and making something whole. So in our gathering week by week at Church we are re-membe...

This Sunday's sermon It's the Sunday no one wants to preach, lots of theology! So here's how I get around it... to a certain degree. How does the Trinity help? Today is Trinity Sunday, so I am going to talk about the Trinity. But I am not going to try to explain the nature and meaning of ‘God in Trinity’. I am not going to tell you that God is like a Shamrock with three leaves, or explain one of the Church’s profoundest teachings using the image of a Triple Decker chocolate bar or of toothpaste with three stripes in - all of these things do not do justice to the depth and wealth of theological thought around what exactly it means to describe God as ‘The Holy Trinity’ Neither, you will be pleased to know, am I going to try and explain any of this theological discussion around themes such as ‘what is the trinity’ or ‘how do the persons of the trinity exist together’ nor will not be exploring the words ‘consubstantial’ and ‘co-eternal’. The reason I won’t be looking at the d...

apparently just read on another blog that due to agreeing with Jeffrey John I am a dodgy liberal... it's a new one on me, my nickname at theological college was 'the evangelical'. I may have a broader understanding of the nature and shape of scripture than some, but i do try to keep things biblical! Well, in times of persecution (tongue in cheek, I thought Andrew's words were a well expressed counter to my post and certainly wouldn't want to condemn them, it's a view I held for many years and one i am in the process of thinking through biblically, I may yet come back to the same place as him) I remember the words of Karl Barth (my favourite theologian) who, when asked to sum up all of his great works over many years in the Reformed Evangelical Church, said 'Jesus loves me this I know, 'cos the Bible tells me so'. Amen to that brother! Until God sorts me out, i will continue to 'preach Christ, and him crucified'.

Am amazed by how low down the scale I come out as reformed Evangelical on this quiz... But please don't start stacking up the faggots for the fire yet, it is only a very general quiz. Fun though! You scored as Emergent/Postmodern . You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 79% Neo orthodox 71% Roman Catholic 64% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 61% Modern Liberal 43% Charismatic/Pentecostal 39% Reformed Evangelical 29% Classical Liberal 25% Fundamentalist 14% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

That's a rhetorical question, so don't bother answering. Actually, looking back over the comments for the past few weeks, there's little danger of anyone saying anything anyway! Have I offended someone? So, Happy New Year and all that. Having had a few days off I am raring to go, but not for another day or two... Tomorrow is sorting out day, when i put all of the Christmas services, sermons and 'stuff' either a) in files, b)in the recycling or c)in the bin. It takes a day to get things back together, as in the last week or two leading up to Christmas things just get dumped as i dash between services and events and I then have all the joy of working out what needs keeping or throwing before getting back to work after Christmas. Over this past week or so i have made a real effort to read a book which threatens to melt my brain due to theological overload. The title 'Job and the distruption of identity: reading beyond Barth' doesn't seem like necessar...

My 'Rural Theology Association' conference on Saturday was excellent, because it was all concerned with Mission... I know that 'Mission' is the in-word in British Christian circles at the moment, but there was a great reminder from the Bishop of Exeter who (quoting someone i can't remember, so anyone who can attribute this please let me know) said 'It's not that the Church of God has a mission, but that the God of Mission has a Church' Apologies if i got that wrong, but the gist of it is clear...

I have had the chance during my last few days of feeling not-so-great to get on with some thinkificating (as George W might say). Yet when i sit down to write something (as i'm doing now in order that i can escape clearing up my office for ten minutes) i don't seem to have anything to say - not that this has stopped me from blogging before! On Sunday evening, when i was actually feeling tired and generally urghhhh (it's a word). I led our informal worship & teaching service which was, in a certain ironic twist, based around the theme of 'Jesus and Healing'. It was a very good service, my cold remained all the way through but i didn't drip on my guitar 0r lose my voice. The bit that stood out, though, was the talk from our curate Alexandra - as she talked about healing she didn't go through any of the hackneyed stuff about what might have happened and how Jesus might have been able to heal through this method or consider whether the Gospel records of ...

This thought is really in response to what Jeff said in a comment on yesterday's post, i was going to respond in a comment of my own but decided to post this instead as the comment was getting longer and longer... In saying that we need to be creative and relate to people's experience I'm not trying to put sermons and liturgy against worship, but to remember that they are a part of worship not the whole of it. I agree totally with what Jeff writes in his comment, that worship is not just about what happens in Church, and I believe that worship is about a pattern of life in which all that we do gives glory to God. I think, though, that the Church is making itself less and less relevant by continuing to buy into a word bound culture that is a product of post enlightenment thinking. People were astounded by Jesus teaching but were, it seems to me, drawn into faith by the way he lived, died and rose again as well as what he taught. It was the whole package. Likewise Jesus d...

...not a lot of writing going on at the moment, that's because i have been out again all day doing things that clergy do - prayers to start the day, visiting a colleague, visiting parishoners and finally the meeting i have just got back from, our worship leader training course run by Ely Diocese. Now there's not much i could (or rather should) write about the day itself, but the evening was refreshing, entertaining, thought provoking as we met for the first time this year to begin this training course for those who want to be more involved in the worshipping life of the church. It's exciting and positive that the Church at large is resourcing and supporting people in exploring the wider vocation to Christian ministry rather than narrowing it down to getting people ordained in order to do stuff in the Christian Community. One reflection to come out of the discussions tonight was how affective worship is. The main focus of the evening was to talk about experiences of wor...

For those hoping for a blueprint for a pm church, I am going to have to disappoint you! Or for solutions to the malaise of the 'modern church' you will have to look elsewhere. I have recently been challenged and inspired by the book 'the out of bounds church' by Steve Taylor, which looks at the potential for creating living Christian communities in a changing world. Also, in a variety of reading over the last few years i have been equally inspired by the opportunities that societal change makes possible, and whilst not wanting to dump wholesale the 'old' ways of being church, i long to explore new ways of being Christ's followers in a pm age. My inspirations: church is relational, not rational - in fact that is the best way to think of Christian faith, it is not about accepting the right doctrines (though i believe doctrine is the anchor that holds faith secure - but i've warbled on about that before) but about knowing God through Jesus Christ and in ...

The audio adventures of a couple of bearded pseudo-theologians continues - still in trial phase so please do let me know if you would like to check out the website (too complicated to just post a link, you will need the password & identity) and give us some feedback. fracme[at]yahoo.co.uk