Simon Says ...

The question that I finished with yesterday was how we discern the theologically significant marks of identity in our culture. I don't think I'm going to get much further with this until I've thought it out some more. It's more than possible that my whole question is pointless. What I want to think about are how certain Christian practices work in the middle of a consumer culture. There are many, but I want to think about them in three blocks: prayer, liturgy and fellowship. Each of them (even the three together) can be terribly introverted and self-regarding. But that is to get them wrong. Each should be evangelistic and outward reaching. Today I'll think a little about prayer. Prayer is the space given over to encounter with God. It is inherently attractive. To teach people to pray is evangelism - if they pray then they will come to God. Above all, prayer is something God does in me and that I join in. Prayer, as and because it is encoun

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the Law I became as one under the Law (though I myself am not under the Law) so that I might win those under the Law. To those outside the Law I became as one outside the Law (though I am not free from God's Law but am under Christ's Law) so that I might win those outside the Law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some. I do it all for the sake of the Gospel, so that I might share in its blessings 1 Corinthians 9.19-23 This passage seems to me to speak to the church in the midst of a consumer culture. It's basic principle is that of incarnation - entering the world of others, not preaching from a distance. Echoes of Jesus' meals with sinners run through this. Is it right to suggest tha

"The everyday challenge of consumerism is yet to be fully acknowledged by most Christian communities" - David Lyon, Jesus in Disneyland This has been a nagging thought ever since I read it (in the Mission Shaped Church report). I think part of it is that I'm so deeply embedded in a consumer culture that I can't always see where it shapes and influences me, let alone where it should challenge me. My first thought for this blog was to write a short list of five challenges and five ways of resisting. But then I thought a bit more and began to see that approach as itself deeply consumerist - wanting instant answers to questions; wanting problems to be reducible to easy solutions. If consumerism is as pervasive and as intractable as the quotation suggests, then lists and quick answers will fail to get to grips with it. (Worse, they will suggest that I have come to grips with it and hide my failure.) But there's something inherently consumable about blog

Darren at The Alternative Hymnal is running a series on songs about Jesus. It's a great mix of songs I already knew and one's I'd never heard of. Hopefully there's more to come. I'd really like to make up CDs of the final selection and give them to our youth group as the basis of discussion. But I suppose there's copyright problems with that. :( Three songs that haven't made it onto Darren's list so far are 'Wake Up Dead Man' by U2; 'One of Us' by Joan Osbourne and 'Jesus Don't Want me for a Sunbeam' by Nirvana. This series has made the Hymnal one of the first things I look at when I go online. Well worth a look.

Here are some links to actions, either online or by snail mail (which I still think of as real mail!) The first is Church Action on Poverty , who have an e-postcard you can send to Patricia Hewitt (UK Secretary of State for Trade and Industry) asking for a legal limit to the amount of interest that can be charged on loans. Then go add your face to Amnesty International's petition to control the arms trade. Finally, write to your MP and tell them what was missing from the trade deal anonunced this week. The World Development Movement have a sample letter to print off. See - it was easy!

The Daleks will be back in the new Dr Who! But can they climb stairs yet? I also found these pictures at Dalek World - brilliant! Try the 'Are you a Dalek' quiz .

This is my 'thought for the day' for Radio Bristol tomorrow morning: Yesterday the Statue of Liberty reopened to the public for the first time since the 9/11 attacks nearly three years ago. In a moving ceremony, the Mayor of New York said he hopes that ‘every child in America and … around the world gets to see this statue.’ When freedom is under threat, it is important to have symbols that remind us about the nature of freedom. At over three hundred feet tall, the Statue of Liberty may be the largest such symbol in the world. The re-opening of the Statue reminds us that freedom requires us to look outwards. The seven spikes in the crown of Lady Liberty stand for the seven seas and continents of the world. But most importantly, she stands facing outwards – away from the American mainland, out towards the sea and the rest of the world. This reminds us that freedom means being open to others, taking the risk of encountering and welcoming people we don’t know.

Maggi has an interesting post about conducting weddings. I remember swapping wedding jokes with others on a clergy conference - they're useful sermon starters (worryingly, no-one got mine). I really believe that the role of the priest at a wedding is to lead the celebrations, and nothing turns me off more than going to a wedding and hearing the priest smugly opine that 'it's nice to be marrying two Christians for a change' (as if Christians were somehow 'more married' than others). As well as this note of celebration, I try to put three things in my wedding sermons: 1. A reference to the fact that their marriage is for the benefit of others as well as themselves. 2. A reminder to family and friends that they have (at least in the CofE service) promised to support and help the couple. 3. A mention of the way in which marriage reflects the purposes of God in renewing the whole world. Then it's just down to my bad jokes!