Celebrating baptism

Tonight I am teaching the final session of our course on Christian baptism. We are looking at the spirituality of baptism. Earlier today, our staff team heard about the recent national survey of biblical literacy, and we were shocked to hear how little knowledge of the basic biblical stories is retained, not just by the population at large, but even more by people who call themselves Christians and who attend church regularly (at least twice a month).

One of the things I think we could do to bring these two things together that would provide a real witness throughout the Diocese of Oxford would be to have a week of celebrations of baptism across the diocese, maybe next year when we are looking at how we 'sustain the sacred centre' of our lives as Christians. We could publicise events that our churches would run in which people could find out what that christening that they had as a baby was all about. It wouldn't be too expensive to produce a leaflet that gave some of the Bible stories which are integral to baptism. We could include interesting factual information and some gorgeous pictures of baptisms. Maybe we could give one to every family that had had a baptism in the past year, if the local church took this project to their hearts. And we could invite everyone in our communities who had been baptised at the local church to a great party, with a creative act of worship as part of it.

Perhaps later we might even have another diocesan Convention, with an emphasis on the theme of the sacraments, and amongst other things, to include an exploration of evangelism through the new Christian initiation rites, through the Biblical themes around baptism, and through nurture groups like Emmaus that have an element of the catechumenate about them. All this would equip us to help people who come with their children and say that "Granny wants him or her 'done' properly", which I take as 'code' for "We would like to have our baby brought into the kind of relationship that will help him or her grow up to find out something about the God who we think exists, but who we are to scared to ask about, or who we don't have the language to talk about."

What about it? Or maybe, even a national celebration of baptism? I don't think 'inherited church' has run out of steam yet in terms of mission and evangelism and this could be one way to help people hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

New start

Back to the new term with a new group of ordinands. We spent Saturday together looking at the Diocese of Oxford's Living Faith strategy, thinking about what it means for the mission and ministry of people who are training to be ordained and who will be encouraging the mission of all the people of God in their churches. We had an interesting discussion and there was clearly energy for thinking through practical applications for churches which are from the liberal, anglo-catholic and traditional ends of the Church which essentially were what the students represented.

Once again, I am drawn to the view that when people are mobilised by the Holy Spirit, they are ready and eager to talk about their faith to anyone around. The problem may be that they then get sucked into the kind of church-based activity that reinforces the old paradigm of attractional church rather than getting out there in incarnational mode, to use Frost and Hirsch's language.

I think there are key elements of the Christendom paradigm that still provide a vital platform for mission and evangelism; for example, the Weddings Project takes this view, and by all accounts, may very well be onto a good thing. But, at the same time, if we in the church can't be open enough to get out there where people are, who are we going to attract in?! I don't want to see just Back to Church Sunday projects. I also want to see Out of Church Sunday experiments! What about commisioning 20% of the church folk to be out in the communities and neighbourhoods on one Sunday a year, with the rest of their church praying for them? Anyone out there tried it?......

More on Street Pastors

I've learnt this week that Street Pastor schemes are being planned for some of the towns in the Diocese of Oxford, notably, Reading and Oxford. Come on, churches in High Wycombe and Slough!

Street Pastors

Street Pastors Schemes are a relatively new introduction in towns and cities across Britain. Begun in 2003 in response to knife crime in urban areas, teams of trained street pastors are available in some places from 10 pm to 4 am to help or to listen to young people (mainly) when they emerge from pubs and clubs. It's an effective form of practical Christian mission. I learned about them from a friend who is a Street Pastor in London, and I have recently discovered that they exist in many towns not too far from us, including Salisbury and Weymouth. I'm not aware if they have arrived in the Diocese of Oxford yet, but if not, it would be great to get something going!

http://www.streetpastors.co.uk/Home/tabid/255/Default.aspx

How to Pray

St Nilus

Chapter 3

Prayer is a mental conversation with God; obviously then, one's mind needs tranquility, so that it may be quiet and stand attentively before the Master of the household without distraction, and discuss matters with him with no-one interrupting. Translated from the Greek by John de la Tour Davies.

Comment

Nilus was alert to the power of distractions to interrupt our prayer. For him, distractions arise from anxieties; so it is necessary to arrive at a state of tranquility if mental prayer is to be possible. In this analogy, God is the Master of the household and the one who prays is like God's steward, who as a good servant would put aside his own concerns and agendas, and come daily before the householder to listen carefully and to receive his instructions. The steward would not act until he had heard his master's wishes. Nothing and no-one would come before that meeting of the steward and the master: it might be the only opportunity that day for the steward to receive his briefing, and if he missed it, the master's plans and purpose could not be effectively carried out.

Anglican Diocesan Missioners conference 2009

I spent the last week in June at the annual Anglican Missioners conference, held in Merville, France. The theme was 'How do we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?' and was focused on the subject of exile. In a post-modern world, the church (often still in Christendom mode, and expecting to draw people in and therefore to Christ through occasional offices such as weddings, christenings etc) is 'in exile', and its song is a strange one to the people of the 'land', whilst our experience of 'singing' it is often of not even speaking the same language any more.

So how do we communicate the good news of Jesus Christ in today's world? How do we achieve cross-cultural mission and evangelism? Things talked about were:

1. Spirituality: people are attracted to things which offer an experience of the 'spiritual dimension'. How do we ensure it is Christian spirituality they turn to?


2. Discipleship: we are called by Jesus to make disciples, not to build churches, so why do we so often start the other way round? Perhaps, I thought, because we focus first on spirituality, offering what we consider to be attractive worship where the presence of God may be 'felt'? Or perhaps, because we feel constrained to stick to what we know: Alpha; house groups; liturgies; structure and order?

I kept saying, "But what about the Holy Spirit?"

I think that I was wondering if we were rather missing the point a bit and getting sucked back into evangelism by works rather than grace.

What I was trying to say was that if the mission is God's mission, the Spirit has gone before us and is already making a home in the land of our exile. To be exiled is to become marginal, and the places where people are marginalised are where God is always at work. So all we need to do is presence ourselves with the Spirit where the marginalised are to be found, and hang out with them.

That's the way all my best evangelistic opportunities happen - when I am alert, and available, and somewhere on the margins. For example, waiting for a bus or at a train station, in transit, people will randomly speak to me and we will have an in depth conversation that has evangelistic undertones. What I find helpful in such situations is to pray in advance of my journey and ask the Holy Spirit to open my eyes to the ones who are searching for God, so that when they speak to me, I will be ready to listen.

Dog walking

Dog walking is a great way of meeting people and enjoying getting to know them. This weekend, our labradoodle Sophy met another labradoodle, a cream one called Skippy, in Albert Park in Abingdon. Bertie, our 'Jackschund' thought Skippy was great; Sophy, being by nature 'Grand' wasn't much interested and soon raced off to chase squirrels. Skippy's owner was happy to chat to Julian and I all round the park. And next time, maybe ...