Sobering one-liners

Heard two original 'one liners' from colleagues this week - one from Edinburgh and one from Prague:

"The trouble with 'friendship evangelism' is it can be all friendship and no evangelism"

"Some people have 30 years of ministry experience. Others have 1 year's experience repeated 30 times"

Nailing Jelly on the wall

Mattias Neve works for the Swedish Baptist Union, and is researching and writing for a doctorate on ‘Emerging Church’. His work is fascinating. I am persuaded that the issues around Emerging Church are vitally important for all of us who would reach others for the Kingdom of God. ‘Defining Emerging Church is like nailing jelly on the wall’.

What are the issues? Well, how do we reach folk in a society where God and Jesus seem irrelevant? Sometimes we wait for people to have a crisis, so that they seek meaning: the ‘God of the gaps’. Or we seeking to connect with people in ways that we feel might attract them. Mattias speaks of ‘seeking proximity’. Making meaningful contact with people is not an option. It is of the essence of our Christian calling. Touching others in ways that are true to who I am in Christ, and genuinely seeks to serve them where they are.

Make meaningful contact – thanks, Mattias!

the humbling importance of apophaticism

OK - please understand that I'm here at IBTS to do theology. So if you dont 'do' theology, skip this. This blog today is for folk who like doing theology - and I want to share it, because it strikes me as so important a matter. When I am here at IBTS and mix with folk from different cultures, some of whom have a deep, encultured awareness and understanding of Orthodoxy, it really hits me how often all of us can misrepresent the ideas and grasp of reality owned by others. Our hermeneutical paradigms are often so uncritically subjective.

For example, most Westerners confuse the Catholic via negativa, with its spiritual value in a Catholic or even Protestant context, with apophaticism as embraced in an Orthodox context: where it is used to counter any sterility arising out of the kataphatic statements made in the great Creeds, when these are treated in a strict propositional way. Apophaticism should remind us that, all things said, there is mystery in the face of God's greatness. At a popular level, Western Christians can try to represent that formulae and confessional statements can say it 'all', and end up with such sterile representations of truth. Apophaticism should help us guard against that mistake.

And the other thing is about theosis. The suggestion that the Orthodox thereby are contending that we thereby 'become like God' is absurd. Theosis is really all about the process of development and maturing that God calls us into. To return to becoming what we were created and are now redeemed to be.

Well, that is what I've been thinking and talking about over the last 12 hours at IBTS. Home on Sunday!

Autumn in Prague

The leaves are already turning here, but it is scenic - witnessed in this picture of my friend, the missiologist Andrew Kirk, as after supper we walked together through the Sarka Valley outside the seminary here in Prague. Today, another friend and student here, Constantine Prokhorov from Omsk, successfully completed his 'viva voce' for his doctorate. His thesis persuasively demonstrates how powerful the influence of the Orthodox Church is on the convictions and practices that characterise Russian Baptists: an unpopular message as it is for some. Just as some in Scotland might prove resistant to recognising how powerful is the influence of Calvinism, and not just the Bible, in shaping so much that characterises our practices and convictions. But there it is. We can never fully separate ourselves from the context and culture in which we live - and are often affected by it far more than we would readily admit.

But on reflection, I'd sooner be shaped by Calvinism than by the 'X factor', EastEnders or River City! Let's be careful about the default culture we adopt and choose to live with. It will shape us, whether we like it or not.

HOTS on High Street

This morning, first outing on the High Street with Stephen and his team. Really interesting and enjoyable. Prayed with a young man, suffering from arthiritis, on crutches who was with his parents. Interesting - walked away without using crutches: we never asked him to do that! Could see God's peace upon him. Also, didn't notice it at the time, but when we prayed for him there were a whole group of people on the Ghost Tour who were watching and noticed exactly what happened. Gobsmaking, eh?!

Can't help but log that God's favour on outreach to people which is offering token of His love and salvation. God seems to bless this in a special way. But that shouldn't surprise us, eh? Mission is the fire that warms the heart of the church.