Virtual Methodist

Prompted into lurching back to the blogosphere for a series of short thoughts by a number of things... Recently reading Brueggemann's "Out of Babylon" with my church Book Group which looks at living with the reality of empire... reading a number of pieces on Martin Luther King Jr. last weekend... currently reading Tom Hartley's book on Belfast's City Cemetery "Written in Stone" which points up how intertwined the history of industrial Belfast was with British Imperial history... thinking about the J.G. Ballard book/film "Empire of the Sun" about a boy living under the Japanese occupation of China... talking with my lounger son about "Lord of the Flies..." the letter of the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to British imams asking them to explain how Muslim values fit within British values... preaching last weekend on the politically provocative proclamation of the nearness of the Kingdom of God by Jesus at the beginning of Mark's...

And now, the end is near And so I face the final curtain... I won't go any further, because, I'm not a big Sinatra fan at the best of times, and I particularly loathe, hate and detest that song, which is the perfect anthem to contemporary individualism... But having got that rant out of my system, this is just a short placeholder-post, given I am moving today and I'm not too sure whether the phone/internet will be up and running in my new gaff... So I may be offline for another day or two... I've been too preoccupied with boxes this week to post anything... The image of "final curtain" is an appropriate one however given my theatre background and the fact that when I started in Dundonald 9 years ago, I began by warning them that I was a "hypocrite", the Greek word for mask-wearer or actor... But I promised that I wouldn't be "playing a part" as their minister... that what they saw would be the real me, and for the most part I...

For years I have argued that there is a fundamental psychological and indeed spiritual difference between leading worship and preaching that often becomes blurred in the one-man-band (and its' usually a man) ministry practised in most western protestant churches... If we use Kierkegaard's parable of worship as theatre, a worship leader should not, as is often be the case, the lead performer in the drama (a point which many would be rock-star contemporary worship leaders could do with learning), but are merely prompters to the main actors, the congregation, performing for an audience of one... God himself. But something different is happening with preaching as historically understood... the orientation of the "drama" changes... the preacher becomes the mouthpiece of God... I'm not being arrogant here... the theory goes that by the power of the Holy Spirit, the reading of scripture and its exposition allows us to hear God's mind... Sometimes that may be cl...

A wee while back I posted a piece on Facebook by American Pastor Gary Brinn, purporting to be a list of "Secrets that your Pastor Can't Share in a Sermon" . It's a variation on a theme that has been doing the rounds of the internet for years (and probably existed in print form before that). I suggested, and then rapidly retracted the suggestion, that maybe I would publish my own list... Well, after sober reflection (?) here are a few things that, were I an electronic device, would be printed in 6 languages on a large piece of paper; no-one ever reads them but most users work them out eventually. By the same token, most of my congregation have worked most of these out with me, whether or not I have explicitly stated them... however many of them probably apply to others, and might help anyone unfortunate enough to end up with me as their cleric in the future: 1) Your jokes about me only working one day a week are not funny... not even the first time round... and ...

Didn't actually use a Psalm in worship this morning, but have been lax in posting them the past few weeks, so I have a few in reserve. Here is a paraphrased excerpt from Psalm 43 that we used as our call to worship last Sunday morning: Send forth your light and your truth; let them guide me, O Lord my God. May they bring me to your holy house, to the place where your people worship. Then I will come to the mercy seat of God, to God, my joy and my delight. There I will praise you with stringed instruments, I will put my hope in you, O God my Saviour. From Psalm 43:3-5 Selah

In the words of Tony Campolo, "It's Friday but Sunday's coming!" Here's a trailer of what might be on offer at a church near you... It's another of the videos I've previously posted on fb, this one, thanks to Jools... Tho' Alan in Belfast also posted it last month... "Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo . Cheers

Maybe it's just my learning style, which is highly associative, picking up cross-cutting themes in a number of different disciplines, but recent reading in the blogosphere has been raising a lot of related issues regarding the over-all direction of modern worship and the use of technology in the same, and how that in turn shapes our corporate and personal spiritual lives... For starters, the whole issue of powerpoint... I am a convert if not a devotee... I use it in most services in my home church but do not feel disabled without it. I have however, both in worship and in other settings experienced the "death by powerpoint" phenomenon (142 slides in 90 minutes in a presentation on "The Review of Public Administration" by way of an after-dinner speech on one occasion). So these two salutory warnings regarding the inappropriate use of this technological tool in worship are very helpful (See Alan in Belfast and Scotteriology ). But, as Alan in Belfast points out it...

As a brief postscript to my previous posting, I've just been pointed towards this appropriate post by Brian McLaren . And before you McLaren-sceptics dismiss it out of hand, he says a lot of important things here, especially when it comes to what is missing from our contemporary worship diet. Shalom

Now I'm not very cool... I know that will come as a shock to many, but, I must break it to you. I'm a sad middle aged man who only keeps vaguely up to date with modern beat combos in order to embarass his teenage son. And because of this I managed to miss out on Nickelback's "Rock Star", which is a relatively good rock track which manages to satirise the excesses of modern rock culture... Here it is in its video-based glory. Rockstar Video I actually only came across this track because I was trying to find the "inspiration" behind the "Shekelback" version below which has been doing the rounds among friends over on Facebook... You can judge for yourself which is best... I suppose the Nickelback song is a bit superfluous as part of the whole idea of rock, particularly in its modern American form, is to be narcissistic, hedonistic and amoral... So why should we be surprised? The Shekelback version however, points up an appaling trend in modern Chr...

In the view of my rantings last week about hymns that I hate, I paid close attention when I read another blogger referring to C.S. Lewis' famous quote about certain hymns being "fifth rate poetry set to sixth rate music." And that was before the "modern worship" explosion of the 1980s and the industry that produces the poppy praise pap of today. But reading the quote sent me scurrying back to find the context for it... his book of semi-catechetical essays entitled "God in the Dock" , where he writes of his experience in gospel halls shortly after his conversion, a salutory lesson to any social, spiritual or aesthetic snobs (not that I would fit into any such category): "I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered fifth rate poetry set to sixth rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling of...

When I was a child I loved an audience. I loved being the centre of attention, and so I did all I could to make sure that I was the centre of attention. As I mentioned in a previous post, I couldn't even blow my nose quietly! So when my Sunday School teachers or Cub leaders asked for volunteers to take part in a church service, I was always the first (and often the only) child with their hand up. And very soon I was a star. Actually that was my first ever acting job. As a star in the church Nativity play one year. The next year I had gone up in the world. I was the Archangel Gabriel, complete with my father's shirt on back to front, a pair of tinfoil wings and a tinsel halo. But my performances weren't reserved for Christmas. At the tender age of 11 I had risen even higher than Gabriel, or so you would think to hear some Methodists speak, playing the part of John Wesley in a "This is Your Life" presentation of his career for Aldersgate Sunday. Most of what I know ...

Been a bit irregular with my blogs lately, due to the sheer pressure of work and a few football induced injuries... but in order to fill the virtual space and to lay down for "posterity" some material that I wrote some years ago without the aid of an "IBM-compatible" (do you remember the days when that was the standard!?) computer, I'm going to be raiding my paper archives for some material, including the series entitled "A Life of Worship" which begins with the post below. It was originally "comissioned" (with no money involved) by the Methodist Newsletter, but the eventually stopped asking for it when they got letters complaining about it... It was intended to offer insights regarding worship (from a vaguely humourous perspective) based on real experiences down through the years... One of the most challenging statements about worship was made by the theologian Karl Barth, who said: "Christian Worship is the most momentous, the most ur...

While preparing some material for a Bible Study on the nature of God, I remembered this old poem by Steve Stockman. The book it is in is no longer on sale, and he hasn't posted it on his own website , so here it is (with his permission)... Come come away Onto holy ground And in the silence Without a sound We tasted life Of a supernatural fashion Increasing our vision And holy passion Souls in awe and wonder The eternal now We beheld the power and glory The mighty spectacular wow. Come come away To the upper room With mouths wide open And hearts consumed There we celebrated With hands all raised Heirs of the Father On whom we gazed Souls in awe and wonder The eternal now We beheld his holiness and love The mighty spectacular wow. Steve Stockman © 1990 Youth Dept., PCI.