View From The Basement

Volunteer

I was sent an email asking if I would post about this organization. They are  based in the USA, so this is more relevant if you live that side of the pond!

ChristianVolunteering.org is linked to many well known urban ministries and seeks to fit volunteers with opportunities for service. They are particularly keen that as we approach the holiday season, and thus people have time they would not otherwise have, that people sign up for some of the projects they have listed.

So if you live in the States go and have a look and think about volunteering in an urban ministry this Christmas.

Help I have children

Lynn over at Help I work with children had organised a conference for families called Families on Fire. We went along as a family - I didn't make it to it all due to other commitments.

It was good to take some time to think about our family and what God wants to do in and through us.

I think most people who went benefited from the weekend, so thank Lynn for all your hard work.

Random Acts of Kindness

I was surprised today when I opened my email to find that someone who reads this blog had performed a random act of kindness on me by sending me a gift voucher for some books. What can I say but thanks.

Deep Scripture

I guess this is a sort of follow on post from Deep & Wide and my thoughts about going deep into a particular theologian. We need also to go deep into scripture.

I've never been a fan of the daily reading booklets that seem to be popular, but I object to them on more than issues of personal taste. The Bible is not an encyclopedia, a dictionary or a recipe book for life that you can just read a verse or short snippet and understand what it means. Jim, quite rightly IMHO picks up on the issue of "special" edition Bibles which verge on no longer being the word of God but intricate interpretive grids that eschew certain doctrinal and chatechumenical positions. All this I fear is forming bad reading habits in many and helps sustain a proof text version of Christianity that fails to see the bigger picture or engage in any kind of exegesis of that word.

So we need to read long, and particularly in the New Testament many of the books can be read comfortably in one sitting. Yet we also need to read deep. There are very few, although thankfully some people who have what I would call a deep knowledge of all scripture. They have spent years immersing themselves in the Bible and have faithfully performed the exegetical task before jumping to the hermeneutic one (While I acknowledge there is a formal split between exegesis and hermeneutics I think I'd want to argue that if we are to try and understand Scripture then these are two moments of the one movement). That said perhaps most of us cannot or will not attain the knowledge and skill of such a master crafts-person, yet this should not deter us from becoming more skillful, more competent with scripture.

So just as I think that it's healthy for a student of theology, be that a formal student in the academy or a 'lay' (hmm I don't like that word) person with a brain, to go deep in an handful of theologians, so I think it is healthy that we go deep in a handful of Biblical books. Spend time meditating on them, read them over and over again. Read some good commentaries and other secondary literature on them. Meet for coffee those you know who are more familiar with this book than you and encourage, share and build up each other in the faith.

There is a hard first step to all this and that is prayerfully deciding what books you should go deep in, but don't stress about this too much, you can always add others to your list!

For me the challenge is to become "deep" in Genesis, Isaiah, Some of the minor prophets, Matthew, Romans, Revelation.

Living out Scripture

Andy started and tagged Fernando in a meme about a scripture or scriptures that have shaped who we are in a significant way, or currently shape the way we try to live our lives.

It's always good to reflect on scripture and to reflect it's place in our lives. There's a temptation wither your someone who enjoyed the latest Christian "bestseller" book or someone who is into deep theology that we engage with scripture in a second hand way, and do not spend enough time either by way of length of time or frequency to let scripture really take hold of us.

Like Fernando I found it impossible to narrow this down to just one passage of scripture, and there are many that I have left out for the sake of keeping the list to a short number. But here's my list with a wee comment on why I've chosen it.

Numbers 14:24 is a passage from my late youth that I keep going back to. It was a passage someone "gave" to me and from which God has spoken to me over the years. It comforted my in that it's ok to be different and spoke to me about the sense I had that I was to be involved in disciplining others.

Hebrews 11:8 - 10, again a passage that has been with me for a long time. It speaks to me of sojourning like the Petrean passages of being aliens and strangers. Hmm there's a theme here of not fitting in! It also relates to how I believe God has led and guided me/us, we trust not knowing where we are going, but that's ok.

Revelation 21 - eschatology is important to how I understand theology, how I understand the way we are to live our lives. I guess I'm quite Hauerwasian in that key to me is the idea of exemplifying to a watching world the way things are to be. I love the layers and imagery of Rev 21, of our hope not of heaven but of a new earth into which heaven collides and God's dwelling place is with man. These thoughts both shape my thinking and practice and in a large part drive my concern for the environment, issues of justice and care for the mundane things around us.

Luke 4: 17 - 21 - I guess this is linked in a significant way to the above in that it orientates me to an "earthy" spirituality. Donald Kraybill's The Upside-Down Kingdom, again as a late teen, shaped my thinking in a profound way. I guess at that time it was more of a seed in the ground waiting to grow. In recent years however God seems to be bringing me back to a Luke 4: 17 - 21 kind of spirituality - earthy with a practical concern for the poor and those on the margins, and an understanding of mission/ witness that's not about "saving souls" but about obedience to God and being bringers of his hope, life and justice into situations.

Micah 6:6 - 8 - again this is linked to everything above. A few years back I was in charge of an 8 O'clock service that we tried to run as an alternative to the other services. This scripture became key for me then. At the time I thought it was a key passage for the 8 and the ethos / teaching theme's we should have. I was, but it was more than than and has become key to both me and my wife. I speaks to me about joined-up worship, about our attitude to life, of what's important and what is not.

I'm all to aware that while these passages of scripture have and are forming me in a significant way that my steps are more often than not faltering as I try to live them out. Yet I walk on trying to walk humbly with God.

I'm not tagging anyone so whoever wants can feel free to participate.

Posted here today

posted here today.

5 Things I Dig about Jesus meme

John has tagged me in a "5 things I dig about Jesus" meme. The idea is as follows;

(1) share 5 things you "dig" about Jesus,

(2) Tag 5 new people,

(3) Those tagged should say that they've posted their five by leaving a comment to this post and to John's original post saying who tagged you.

So here are my five things;

1. Jesus had compassion for the ordinary people - it never stayed as just a sentiment but always resulted in practical positive action.

2. Jesus was not drawn to the popular or the easy, he when to the unpopular

3. He used the simple everyday things of life to subvert the status quo (see )

4. cause he promises to give rest to the weary

5. that in a world full of trouble and uncertainty He is with us and speaks his peace into our troubled times

Now I tag,

Paul Mayers

Jim Gordon

Andy Goodliff

Viki Hunt

Jill Fletcher

New each day

I used to work in construction and one of the brickies I worked with would often say, "learn one new thing each day".

So what new thing have you learned today? Me, well I came across the word lacuna, a word which is new to me and for which I may never find a use bar this blog post.

Reality?

With the start of another Big Brother I thought it was appropriate on Sunday morning to think with thw kids about "Reality TV" what these shows say and if and how they are shaping our culture and attitudes to certain issues.

We also spent some time thiking a little about what reality is from God's prespective. I gave the kids the following bible passages and titles and asked how this should shpae our reality. I'm not trying to proof text here...that's a flawed and dangerous methodolgy, but I want the kids to become familiure with scripture, to westle with what it says and to learn to read and understand it for themselves. I'm enough of a realist to know that form most of them opening the bible on a Sunday morning is probably one of the few occasions in the week that they engage directly with scripture in any way.

But enough of that, here's the list they were to work through and give their thoughts on how this applied today..anyone else want a go?

1. Take nothing with you, Luke 9 : 1 - 6

2. Being clean on the inside is what counts, Luke 11: 39

3. Don't chase after stuff, Luke 12: 13 - 34

4. Don't give just to get, Luke 14:12 - 14

5. Give everything, Luke 21: 1 - 4

6. Be content, Philipians 4: 10 - 13

7 Life includes suffering, 2 Corinthians 4:17 - 18

8. There's a reality that is unseen, 2 Corinthians 4: 17 - 18

Sexual identity?

Last week I took a session on Old Testament wisdom and introduced the idea that Song of Songs in not an allegorical love story but a book of wisdom on relationships.

Part of the wisdom I suggested Song of Songs teaches us is that it provides an ethical context for a sexual relationship and that this relationship should be monogamous, heterosexual marriage.

I suggested that the espousal of such views is becoming more and more difficult as there is the danger that anyone who expresses such a view is branded homophobic.

On reflecting on this latter I would like to have said more, hence this short additional thought. The thought is this – a major problem in the whole area of sexual ethics is that people have come to locate their identity in their sexual orientation, sexual behaviour and their gender. While your sexual orientation, your sexual behaviour and your gender all affect your identity and shape who you are, they are not the core of your identity, they do not define your essence.

I would suggest that our God likeness is core to who we are – this is true for both Christian and non-Christian since all of humanity is created in God’s image. That said when we follow Jesus and know the indwelling of the Holy Spirit our awareness and understanding of what it means to be created in God’s image and likeness is explicit, and we are able to pursue a journey to Christ-likeness (which given his divinity must also mean God-likeness). Our identity is therefore not defined by gender, race, sexual orientation or social economic background, but by our relationship to God. As Christians we are “in Christ” and it is this relation that first and foremost defines us. Yet as the Apostle Paul articulates, especially in the book of Romans there’s a battle that rages within us between this identity in Christ and other claims on our identity.

So why do I say all this? I think it is key in the churches response to those who would struggle with their sexuality, be that “help I’m a heterosexual sex addict”, or “I’m a bi-sexual woman”, that we do not think in terms of identity but in terms of wrong behaviour before God, or what we used to call sin. Our sexual activity, yes even our sexual orientation then becomes, “just another sin”[1]. We then have to consider these offences along with what the Bible says about gossip, the abuse of power, malice or slander. Thus we should be aware that if we point the finger at someone who is in an active homosexual relationship, we must be aware that there are three fingers pointing back at us highlighting the sin in our own lives.

A friend who did a lot of prison ministry used to tell the guys he was just a beggar who had found bread showing other beggars where the bread is. In other words he did not assume a position of moral or any other kind of superiority to those he sought to ministry amongst. If we are to reach gay and lesbian people we know with the good news of Jesus then we need to be good news, we need to be beggars who have found the bread showing other beggars where the bread is.

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[1] By using this term I am not belittling sin.