This is what I think

I have been struggling to write a post regarding a current debate about church growth. This morning I read a blog post that succinctly expresses my thoughts on the matter titled Two things that always seem wrong.
What the World thinks of all this is neither here nor there. It is not supposed to be a popularity contest. It is supposed to be the Gospel.

Drug of the Nation

I first came across the song Television, The Drug of the Nation by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy when it was played at the beginning of U2’s Zoo TV extravaganza at Wembley in 1993. I thought it was brilliant then and nearly twenty years on I haven’t seen anything to change my mind .

Heart and mind and deed and life

Thought I might introduce a spot of culture to the Treehouse during Advent. Here is a performance of Bach’s glorious cantata ‘Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben’. BWV 147. Bach originally wrote it for Advent, however, Leipzig kept a time of silence during the season so Bach rewrote it for the Visitation.

Kenya (2)

It's been a busy two days and I wanted to post a brief summary before I lose track of some of the events and experiences.

Wednesday morning began with a meeting at St Thomas' Cathedral, Kerugoya the church with which we are exploring a possible parish link. This visit was for 'a cup of tea' but I hadn't realised a Kenyan cup of tea includes much more, basically a second breakfast within an hour of the first! Great for Hobbits, not so good for someone hoping to decrease their waist line during the visit. However, this is just one example of the generous hospitality offered wherever we go.

We then headed for Mutira and a visit to the Mission Church which is preparing to celebrate it's centenary. Interesting to discover the present Bishop of Kirinyaga Diocese, Daniel Ngoru, was vicar there. From this small and unassuming church 108 other churches have been planted so the title 'mission' is born out in the history of the church. The church supports a hospital, small but well equipped with pharmacy and laboratory. I chatted with a couple of mums. One had a two year old daughter with suspected Malaria and she was waiting the result of tests. The other mum had brought her young son to be wormed, a regular treatment for adults and children in the area. I smiled when I saw the little boy was wearing trousers with 'England 1966' written on them. There are also two church schools, a primary and the recently opened Canon Njumbi Mutira Secondary School. These schools are linked to Great Baddow High School from our home parish and it was encouraging to see the use to which equipment provided by the link school had been put. Conditions in the classrooms were very basic and a few of the children were without shoes, yet, it was clear the children took great pride in their school, their work and that they had a hunger to lean. The set up in Mutira reflects the outreach approach of the Christians in building churches, hospitals and schools to serve the local community.

Next to the church schools is Mutira Secondary Girls boarding school and the contrast in facilities with the neighbouring schools was dramatic. There was time to look round and chat with staff and pupils and again it was impressive to see and hear the pride that all involved in the school took in education. A couple of facts stick in the mind. Teachers in the state system are paid the same whatever their position. The head is paid the same as other members of staff and the emphasis is on distinction of role and responsibility but not reflected in salary. Teachers are also deployed by the Ministry of Education and are expected to go where they are sent, including the Head. The girls start at 5am and the day goes through until lights out at 9.30pm. Along with the studies they are expected to do the cleaning and their laundry and all the other tasks required to keep the school running. In general the schools are all very results orientated and there is strong competition between schools and celebration of academic achievement. Walls are covered with internal and external tables of performance and certificates of achievement.

The afternoon was taken up with lunch back at the cathedral and informal conversations with members of the ministry team before a tour of Kerugoya. The Provost Winifred Munene is a very gracious host who has worked hard to provide us with an interesting and varied programme of visits and we will be exploring links between our churches more formally later in the visit.

Thursday was a long day. It began with a visit to the recently opened Kirinyaga Diocesan Office and then attendance at the diocesan clergy chapter held in St Paul's church next door. St.Paul's is a massive building still under construction and when completed will seat 2,500 worshippers. There is much work to be done but the walls and roof and initial internal construction of the church is complete. There are no windows or doors and the floor is still bare earth but the church was a good venue for the gathering. After a Eucharist and welcome to visiting bishops, curates and our party from St. Mary's the chapter meeting centred around a powerful Bible study on Luke 24 led by Bishop Stephen (Chelmsford). The study drew out the shared challenges facing the church in mission in both Kenya and Chelmsford. There was also some excellent exuberant singing and I worried at one point that the worship might bring the walls of the new church down.

The afternoon was split between visiting St Andrews School and the Theological College in Kabare. The girls school is where the young people from our church worked in the early summer and it was a real joy to see the impact their time there had made on the school. As soon as we mentioned the team from St Mary's the children's faces lit up and when three of our party explained they were parents of members of the team the children became very excited. Our young people had helped create the playing field facilities and provided resources for a play area. We managed to get the Head teacher sitting on the playground roundabout and the deputy head on the see-saw for some photos which the children found highly amusing. Each of us had just over half an hour in a class with the students and I spent an enjoyable time chatting with a year 8 class (13) who will be taking their key exams in a few days. We prayed for the girls as they approach this crucial time and as they prepare to leave the school in November. The girls sang to us at various times during the visit and when they shared with us the songs they had learnt from our young people it was a very moving experience.

During the visit to St Andrew's School we presented a few gifts of stationary and were taken aback by the response from the children. The gratitude for being given what most English children would take for granted in school was just one more reminder of the contrast in facilities and available equipment. The most challenging reminder, however, was the group of old small huts at the end of the sports field which turned out to be the student toilets. About eight of these long drop toilets served all the children at this residential school and the staff toilets were not much better.

It was a real privilege to visit the school which has had such an impact on the young people from our church. This is but one example of the way in which our diocesan and parish links with the churches and schools in this area of Kenya are greatly enriching our understanding of ministry and mission.

The rest of Thursday was spent at St Andrews Theological College in Kabare, however, that experience will require a separate post along with our trip to a tea plantation and visit to Utugi Children's Home today.

The only down side to the visit so far is that the television channels seem to have Man Utd's match against their noisy neighbours from last weekend running on a loop. The excellent Tusker beer is scant consolation.

Asante Sana Jesus!

- posted using Blogsy on iPad from the Isaak Walton Hotel Embu.

Kenya (1)

Arrived yesterday in Nairobi after an uneventful eight hour flight from Heathrow. I'm with a group of six others from our church, along with +Stephen, Bishop of Chelmsford, Canon Dr Roger Matthews (Bishop's adviser for mission and ministry) and Rob Fox (Diocesan Director of Education). A group of curates from Chelmsford Diocese also flew out with us as part of their CMD programme. News on arrival was not very good. I was already aware of an explosion in Nairobi before our departure and our driver in Nairobi informed us there had since been a second explosion. I've been wondering how much attention this has received on the news back home.

We spent the night at the ACK Guesthouse in Nairobi and then earlier today transferred to Embu where much of our visit will be based. Lunch and early afternoon has been taken up meeting the Provost of St Thomas' Cathedral Kerugoya, Winifred Munene, who has been planning our itinerary for some time. We have a packed and very interesting programme of visits line up. Part of the purpose of the visit is to explore how we develop our links at St Mary's with the church in this part of Kenya and with St Thomas' in particular. Our young people have been out to Kenya to work on various schools based projects in the last couple of years and I'm looking forward to seeing at first hand the work they have been involved with.

A few brief initial thoughts and reflections:
1. Driving through Nairobi in the morning rush hour is not an experience I wish to repeat in a hurry!
2. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is every bit as bad as Mayo & Kermode warned me it would be.
3. I was surprised at the large number of churches, chapels and other places of worship on the side of the road on our route from Nairobi to Embu.
4. I have discovered my camera isn't working which put me in a bad mood. Then I thought about the poverty I'd glimpsed during our journey north and felt rather pathetic. I'm grateful to my friend Roger who has lent me his camera for the duration.

A good start to the trip with no hitches or problems so far. I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing about the work of the church in this part of God's world and am also open to the unexpected ways he might encourage and challenge us during our time in Kenya.

- published from iPad using Bloggsy

Is this what church feels like?

An excellent advert which prompts the question:

‘Is this what church feels like to many visitors?’

h/t Paul Trathen.

An unholy trinity

Earlier this week I entered hell. Bank holiday Monday hell. Before the weekend my iPad experienced a nervous breakdown and I was booked for an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar to exchange it. Unfortunately, my nearest Apple store is at Lakeside shopping centre and so at lunchtime on a bank holiday I headed to an icon of modern day consumerism with another icon of the same tucked under my arm. My journey was surprisingly smooth and I was in and out of the shopping centre with little delay thanks to some excellent service from the Apple staff. Not quite the hell I was expecting.

I know Lakeside well. I served my curacy in a neighbouring parish and was there during the completion of the shopping centre and retail park. I remember my first visit to the site and how impressive the building looked. One thing in particular struck me and that was that Lakeside looked like a temple or a church. The centre of Lakeside is topped by a dome and spire and it reminded me on first viewing of one of the American mega churches from the 1980s.

The image of church or temple is appropriate because Lakeside has become a symbol of our culture’s values and priorities. In the aftermath of the summer riots, which I observed from a distance while on holiday in France, one of the most incisive comments came from French political commentator Agnes Poirer. Many of the foreign papers had taken some time before reporting the story including the French press. This was not a bad thing as it gave them time to reflect in a way that was sadly lacking in many of our media outlets. Poirer, interviewed on the BBC Today programme, argued that the wider social and economic context had to be considered in order to understand the rioting and looting. In a devastating observation she argued that London had become the epitome of inequality in the Western World before going on to suggest that ‘profit, speculation and consumption are Britain’s holy trinity’.

I think Poirer is right. Our culture is obsessed with profit, speculation and consumption. These forces have driven our politics, our economics, our priorities and values as a society. I do not in any way excuse the violence and the looting of the summer’s riots, some of which happened in places I know very well because I’ve lived there and friends and colleagues still do. But I am astonished at the way many of our politicians and commentators refuse to step back and look at the bigger picture. Only this morning the Prime Minister was again reluctant to accept that the behaviour of those in positions of authority and power in our society may bear some responsibility for what took place on our inner city streets.

For decades we have celebrated the Gordon Gekko ‘greed is good’ outlook on life. This attitude crosses the political boundaries. I remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when Peter Mandelson was reported as saying ‘we are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich‘. No surprise to discover that Mandelson and his chums have spent a good deal of time holidaying with the world’s wealthiest and once out of office many have touted their services to the highest bidder, one describing himself as being like a ‘cab for hire’. It is this culture that led so many of our politicians to think there was nothing wrong with fiddling expenses, decking out houses with the most luxurious goods on the public purse, playing the tax system to best advantage and all the while condemning the 'undeserving poor'.

And then I remember the reason I was heading to Lakeside and my own part in the whole sorry mess we have got ourselves into. I know that I am just as caught up in the profit, speculation and consumption culture as the next person, be they Prime Minister or brick throwing Hoodie. So I find myself driven back to those words from Romans 12:1-2:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. 

Cooked - a culturally revealing advert meme

Thought this was an interesting meme set up by Clayboy: If you were a media or cultural studies teacher, which current TV advert would you pick for a challenging reflection on our cultural values?

I’ve picked the Thomas Cook advert featuring Jamie and Louise Redknapp. The advert ran last year but I’m sure I’ve seen it quite recently. Here are some of the issues and questions raised by the campaign.

• The use of young, attractive celebrities from the worlds of sport and entertainment to promote a product. Interesting that Jamie’s football skills are referenced but not Louise’s singing!
• You would never know that the Redknapps have a young family because they tell us ‘we are at our best when we are on it (the holiday)’. They are on holiday without their children.
• The location could be anywhere with sun, sand and surf with no sense of a specific place.
• There are no cultural reference points nor is there any encounter with the local population. Enjoy the climate and location without having to engage with the local community. 
• ‘We fantasise about it’, ‘we shop for it’, ‘we lose weight for it’. Consumerism, body image and escapism.
• The advert suggests leisure is a serious matter involving important choices; it needs research, careful planning and preparation.

Here's the advert.

Now watch the mashup



As Clayboy said, if you want to have a go consider yourself tagged.

Bible and Culture: Bible Year 2011 (5)

Honestly, this isn’t just an excuse to post a picture of Emilia Fox. Ms Fox was one of the actors who took part in the Readings from the King James Bible on Radio 4 yesterday. As part of the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the KJV the BBC has been running a series of programmes on the Bible with a particular emphasis on its cultural significance. You can download the readings from the BBC website but you will need to get a move on as they are only available for seven days.

A few bloggers have raised concerns about the focus on the cultural significance of the KJV, arguing that this detracts from encountering the Bible as relevant and significant for people’s lives today and I posted about that in Mythbusting. Others are much more positive about the cultural dimension and are also well worth reading. Maggi Dawn has written a post on the BBC programmes and her book Writing on the Wall explores the impact of the Bible on our culture.

Jonathan Evens has written a short story The New Dark Ages which he is publishing in parts on his blog. I’m grateful to Jonathan for sending me an advanced copy and it is a fascinating and thought provoking reflection on the damage caused by forgetting our cultural heritage, not least the Bible. A character in the story, journalist Don Wolf, writes:

Culture, to be preserved, must be lived and breathed in order that it fertilises future creativity and learning. Too much of our current culture is already blind to the extent to which it utilises and is informed by past culture. We think and act as though we emerge from the womb as fully formed independent individuals with no debt to nurture, yet our every thought and word and action is inevitably and unconsciously predicated on some past learning.

This year, we celebrated a cultural artefact – the 1611 King James Version Bible – which is among those artefacts that will shortly be lost from sight should this dark blight on our culture continue its relentless progress. When this Bible is lost from sight, we will not only lose the artefact itself but all that it has contributed to our culture in terms of imagery, story, phraseology and much, much more.

From my own point of view the opportunity to listen to Emilia Fox’s voice must be a good thing and the fact I can do that during my personal devotions makes it even better.

Retro-fitted grandeur: Bible Year 2011 (2)

Following yesterday’s post on the excellent BBC production The Story of the King James Bible a friend, Canon Martin Wood, drew my attention to an article in The Independent titled Battles of a Book by Boyd Tonkin. The piece was published on 31st December so may well have been missed by many gearing up for the New Year celebrations but it is well worth a read.

The article begins with an important reminder of the controversial and violent history that accompanied the early days of translating the Bible into English. It is easy to forget, as copies of myriad translations of the Bible lie unread on dusty bookshelves, that people like William Tyndale gave their lives to make the scriptures accessible to the ordinary punter or, as Tyndale would say, ‘the boy that driveth the plow’. 

After months in his fortress jail, he (Tyndale) went on trial and received the inevitable death sentence. He was strangled at the stake with an iron chain. Then his corpse was burnt. According to legend, the translator and reformer William Tyndale ended his life in September 1536 with the words: "Lord, open the king of England's eyes."

Tyndale’s prayer was realised with the publication of the King James Bible in 1611. Tonkin draws attention to something that many may not have appreciated, by pointing out that even when it was published the KJB employed a tone that would have seemed archaic in common parlance; he calls this ‘retro-fitted grandeur’ and comments:

In essence, the six companies ensured that the KJB was born an antique. They didn't make the Bible new; they made it old. Its celebrated majesty and sonority stem from a decision to ennoble the language with a melodic, otherworldy splendour. Note how Tyndale's "they were marvellously glad" from the 1520s becomes, in the much later heyday of Shakespeare and Donne, "they rejoiced with exceeding great joy". The KJB sounds archaic to many readers now. It sounded archaic to many readers in 1611.

As Gordon Campbell puts it, "the language of the translators reflects their conservatism". They use "thee" and "thou" with an old-fashioned enthusiasm which might have sounded strange on the teeming City streets outside Stationers Hall, where for nine months in 1610 a revising committee sat. Tyndale and his radical confrères aimed for the demotic language of street and field. The KJB crews retain much of that, but channel it into a new, refined and detached, language of pulpit and pew. Old verb forms such as "doth", "hath" and "saith" abound, whereas by the 1590s - in speech, at least - the modern endings would have become more common.

The article covers more familiar territory in reminding us of the cultural influence of the KJB:

Today it is a commonplace to note that the words and rhythms of the KJB and its source translations shape the speech of countless millions who never open a bible or enter a church. Somehow, the language of the 1611 version never falls from grace (Galatians 5.4) even if its message falls on stony ground (Mark 4.5). In a secular age where ignorance of religion goes from strength to strength (Psalms 84.7) among lovers of filthy lucre (1 Timothy 3.8) who only want to eat, drink and be merry (Luke 12.19), we know for a certainty (Joshua 23.13) that these resonant words endure as a fly in the ointment (Ecclesiastes 10.1) and a thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12.7) of the powers that be (Romans 13.1). They can still set the teeth on edge (Jeremiah 31.29) of those who try to worship God and Mammon (Matthew 6.24). But does this ancient book, proof that there is no new thing under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1.9), now cast its pearls before swine (Matthew 7.6), and act as a voice crying in the wilderness (Luke 3.4) – a drop in a bucket (Isaiah 40.15) of unbelief, no longer a sign of the times (Matthew 16.3) but a verbal stumbling-block (Leviticus 19.14) or else all things to all men (1 Corinthians 9.22) while the blind lead the blind (Matthew 15.14)?

However, Tonkin goes on to argue the greater influence of the KJB across the Atlantic:

What really marked a sea-change, though, was the acceptance of the "habitual music" of the KJB (John Ruskin's phrase) by Puritan writers and preachers quite out of sympathy with the king-and-bishop hierarchy that bred it. Soon, John Milton and John Bunyan would draw on the KJB: it colours Paradise Lost and The Pilgrim's Progress from first lines to last.

It crossed the Atlantic early in the 17th century, and came to fix the tones and timbres of American speech and writing even more firmly than in Britain. From Herman Melville to Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway to Allen Ginsberg, American literature could hardly exist without the pulse and flame of the KJB. Today, it suffuses the work of talents as varied as Toni Morrison and Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy and Bob Dylan – who, in keeping with the seam of radical prophecy that forerunners such as William Blake had mined from the Bible, told us that in changing times "the last shall be first, and the first last" (a direct KJB lift from Tyndale).

The piece has a rather sobering final observation which makes the challenge of promoting the reading of the Bible in 2011 even more stark as Tonkin concludes:

For anyone, religious or not, who cares about the continuity of culture and understanding, Gordon Campbell lets slip a remark to freeze the blood. A professor at Leicester University, he recalls that "When the name of Moses came up at a seminar I was leading, no one had any idea whom he might have been, though a Muslim student eventually asked if he was the same person as Musa in the Qur'an (which he is)".

"Let my people go" (Exodus 5.1), as Tyndale - and the KJB - has Moses tell Pharaoh. In 2011, we may need another kind of Mosaic injunction: Let our people read.

Reading Tonkin’s article I was left wondering how many of us would be prepared to go through what Tyndale faced in order to promote the private and public reading of the Bible?

Minting the Word

I’ve been excited to see all the different projects being developed to give renewed attention to the Bible. In 2011 we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible and in Chelmsford Diocese we have made next year Bible Year 2011. But celebrations are not limited to churches and Christian organisations and just as encouraging has been the way in which the anniversary has been picked up in wider society and culture.

As part of their 2011 season The Globe Theatre is putting on The Word is God and the publicity explains:

Written in 1611, the King James Bible was the work of many hands, and has proved over the last four hundred years the undying power of the written and the spoken word. The Globe celebrates that achievement, and that long oral tradition, by reciting one of the great masterpieces of world literature from Palm Sunday to Easter Monday.

A team of actors will present these texts clear and simple, in a theatre which is constantly working to make Jacobean words become flesh.

The Royal Mint has produced a celebratory £2 King James Bible coin.

Commemorate a beloved cornerstone of our culture and language. Four centuries since its first publication; the King James Bible; still praised by scholars for its majestic style and poetic rhythms is now celebrated on the 2011 £2 coin.

I have to confess I am rather ambivalent about this coin, however, I like that on their site the Royal Mint has a summary explanation about the place and importance of the KJV in our nation's history and culture. The designers of the coin also explain their approach:

Paul Stafford & Ben Wright 'Our design for the two pound coin, which marks 400 years since the first edition of the King James Version, celebrates this achievement. Printing matters are at the centre of the history of the King James Bible. After a ban on the printing and importation of the competing Geneva version into England, the King James Version became the most widely accepted translation. As a nod to this, and from the point of view of our own interests and backgrounds as a design agency, we decided to base our design on a representation of the printing process.Typeset in a replica of the black letter typeface used in the first edition, the reversed, raised text of the printing block (on the left) and the recessed text of the printed word (on the right), takes the form of the aptly chosen quote, ‘In the beginning was the Word’ (John 1:1).'

The Royal Mail is planning to issue a set of commemorative stamps to mark the anniversary. Although details about this series are as yet sparse, they are likely to be released towards the end of 2011. In 1999 they did produce a stamp with King James 1st and the Authorised Bible as part of their The Christians’ Tale series.

A film of the story behind the King James Bible is planned for release on DVD. Made by Norman Stone and featuring John Rhys-Davies the docu-drama aims to set the publication of the KJV in its original context. Here’s a taste:



Further details about events to mark the anniversary can be found at the King James Bible Trust.

While it is great to see the various ways in which the Bible is being celebrated and its importance to our history and culture acknowledged, I hope people will also discover that the Bible is as relevant to us today as we read it in our own time and place.

If you would like to find out more about the Bible check out Biblefresh.