Character of a Servant

I had this film recommended to me and managed to see it Easter Monday. Some reviews seem to belittle it for 'sentimentality', but well I am happy to take that risk. It has subtitles, but if you have enough French from school the pace allows you enough to make it out. It is told by 2 old boys who are significant characters in the main story set back in post war 1948/9 France. They read the diary left by Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot) and the film follows his life through the school from when he arrives at the Fond-de-L'Etang boarding school, an imposing, even intimidating, reformatory boy's school for orphans in the countryside, where he is to be a supervisor, till he leaves. Some critics have slated it for sentimentalising redemtion and hope. I disagree. I actually think that there is an angle that struck me, having simply gone not to analise it but take it and see... for me it was about the character of a servant in Clement Mathieu. His diary entry closes with how he has not done much of significance as a teacher. Yet one discovers the significance was great. An unsung hero, someone who played the second fiddle well and bore the pains of that too. I liked it. I reckon that the message I took from it is simple, straightforward and one that speaks to us about the sort of disicples and leaders the church needs. If you can get to see it go... it's out on DVD in May too.

Credible witness

I came across this today on Paul Fromont (Prodigal Kiwi) he quotes from John Drane in his recent reading.(his blog 16th March -John Drane - Community Mystery and the Future of the Church) It seems to resonate with my own processing and poins in some other way to the character task I mentioned yesterday.


We need to rediscover how the church can be a place of community, nurture, and personal growth…In a fragmented society people are looking for a place to belong, a place of safety, a place where we can be empowered rather than stifled, a place where we can be open with others, acknowledging our needs and inadequacies with an expectation of support rather than a fear of condemnation, and finding acceptance for who we are rather than having to conform to images of who other people think we should be…This will inevitably be challenging – more for some than others – because it requires us to value one another as persons made in God’s image, regardless of class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality or other characteristics that may appear to divide us. This seems to be a particularly problematic area for the church,

And further,
Finally, we need to rediscover church as a focus for witness and service. Christians love to correct other people. But an appropriate prophetic attitude for a renewed and faithful church will begin with the recognition that we can only effectively challenge others to follow the way of Christ if we are continually hearing God’s voice for ourselves, and allowing our own understandings to be changed in the process. We have something to share with others not because we are different, but because we are no different, and we can become credible witnesses not as we condemn others and dismiss what we regard as their inadequate spiritualities, but as we constantly listen to the gospel and appropriate its challenge in our own lives…. ‘God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in that world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing the things that are…(1 Cor. 1:27-28). In our struggle to find new ways of being church in a context of rapid cultural change, that is perhaps the best news of all, and the most truly empowering message for the postmodern age…” (pp. 98-100)

A Character Task (Kierkegaard)

In the midst of the church’s experiences of relativism, pluralism and fragmentation, have we lost our way because we no longer are sure ourselves or about the Gospel truth that we too have relativised, pluralized and fragmented church. I recall many years ago now when a survey was taken in the Presbytery I was part of. We asked people 2 simple questions: What do you think about Church? and What do you think about Jesus Christ? It was part of larger national research in the Church of Scotland. The returns pointed out that the majority of people church or not, had many points of view and much to say about ‘Church’. But when it came to Jesus there were few responses. In a very simple way it was felt that we seemed to convey a great deal and talk much about ‘Church’ to the detriment of Jesus. We still seem to be living according the rationalism of Enlightenment and modern Christendom that in one way causes us to place the Gospel in a ‘knowledge framework’.
Hoedemaker’s Secularisation and Mission states that the relationship between Christianity and rationality has become problematic. It calls therefore for a rethink about what ‘mission’ might mean, since secularization questions the suppositions much tradition in faith and mission. The challenge being to rethink the place of ‘religion’ in culture, especially when religion has been privatized or is relative.
Indeed this pervades us at all levels and the tensions between this and the new realities we encounter have caused us to have a sense of displacement. The in word of course is ‘liminality’ which is the place of such crushing removal from our ‘comfort zones’, but equally is the place of potential for the new. Herein lies some hope to be seen.
This is very much where the Highgate is itself. But the crucial question I keep hammering out of late is that how we operate is or should be determined by our vision for this context in which we stake a claim of the Gospel truth. My challenge for us here as I see it is to exercise Sabbath rhythms. Herein lies a challenge for our mission. This means that the leadership and the church needs to shake off all the busy DOING stuff that runs to keep the Prebyterian cogs turning, but which for all the many of them few make a difference to what we should be concentrating upon more effectively We are burning people out, we are keeping people away because we give off all the wrong signals about church, but more about the sort of Gospel we hold to. Hence when we explore what future mission will be its hard to not be all activist and doing and to have an urgency to ‘set priorities’ as PCANZ meeting, or fill the gaps with stuff to get busy as there is a sense that a busy, active place is buzzing and MUST be a good going church that people will want to come and be part of. It is perhaps all too easy in a relative, plural and fragmented world for us to operate this way. Such ‘knowledge’ based approaches almost tend to process people through faith and church. Our mission is surely beyond such!
Rather, my task, as I see it, is to set a different ‘rule’ in place. I fear if we play to the ‘world’ tune we will deny God and seek to control all that is called church and we have all seen that route and lived in it. Emerging, we need Godly Sabbath rhythms that are patterns for us as individuals, as groups, as congregations. Why? Because I believe that if the Gospel is to fulfil its mission then first of all we must begin with ourselves, as Newbigin reminds us “the locus of confidence is not in the competence of our own knowing, but in the faithfulness and reliability of the one who is known.”( Proper Confidence Newbigin p66,67) He further states; “We are not given a theory which we then translate into practice. Instead, we are invited to respond to a word of calling by believing and acting, specifically, by becoming part of the community which is already committed to the service of the Builder.”
It is the Who? question that grounds us. In this way we actually move from knowledge to praxis. By this I understand praxis to be theology is embodied in the practices of the church, it isn’t simply something to be known. The dynamic is also one where practice – living and experience- equally informs theology. Hence, ‘Christianity is praxis, a character task’ (Kierkegaard)

Coming to terms with discontinous change

Since returning from holiday I have been silent mostly in this blog space. I have in part been working out a rhythm of rest/work. But next week we have Holy Week and a few things have been cropping up as I have begun to process the Easter truth. So I want to begin some reflecting in the hope that others might help me process some stuff regarding our mission approach.
It would seem that the church’s missionary struggle today is concerned with an ever increasing engagement with matters of ‘relative truth’, where the manner of our knowing, though a thoroughgoing relativism would deny any truth being known. It means we can chose what we want, hence there is also a pervading pluralism in ethics, culture, personal, religious/spiritual. Here is the supermarket for lifestyle choice, church/ denominational choice, etc. Hence, we see and indeed, experience fragmentation whereby the new forms of community are no longer purely geographical, indeed they transcend such bounds on a large scale. However, not all bring people into face to face relationships/community.

In a world as complex as this, the church as a community is falling apart. The frayed edges may be seen as part of the fragmenting and impact upon the church of these wider issues. In recent days Chris Erdman on leadership has been engaging:

The Gospel of Leading “Out of Control”Says Roxburgh: Leaders must develop capacities to lead change when congregations are living in the tensions of discontinuity. You lack clarity on the shape of the future and how it is going to be shaped; this is expected. Therefore, those leaders who believe they can address the kind of change we are facing by simply defining a future that people want and then setting plans to achieve that future are not innovating missional congregations. They are only finding new ways of preventing congregations from facing the nature of the discontinuous change that confronts them.


Just last Monday I attended a meeting entitled ‘Focus on the future conversations 2005 . It was part of a series of national gatherings throughout the PCANZ’. It was concerned with the future priorities and tasks of the PCANZ, but it reflected our difficulty to face the nature of discontinous change that is confronting us. In the Foreword of the ‘Focus’ document is a vitally reflective quote from the Presbyterian Outlook (USA) which, as stated, may be said to be the opinion of any member of the PCANZ; ‘budget cuts, painful staff eliminations and heavy turnover… are signs of a denomination that does not understand who it is and how it’s members are connected to one another.’ (bold mine) The reformation or reshaping for today’s mission context asks of us ‘how are we connected?’ What was striking, indeed frightening was the sense of desperation, albeit with the sincere desire of all to find a way through the relativity, pluralism and fragmentation the church is experiencing head on here, where secularization and postmodernity is not simply an arms length encounter for the church, but here in Aotearoa New Zealand is being rubbed in our faces. I use the term ‘desparation’ not simply emotively, but in terms of the confusion of language and a jumping to ask the ‘What should we do…? sorts of questions. The setting of new priorities was immediately set against the financial budget situation we find ourselves in. A prior question to be considered before we can effectively look at future priorities, is to ask ourselves, Who are we? What is the core calling/purposes of the Church (PCANZ)?
Do not get me wrong, my critique is borne out of a desire for this church to be obedient to it’s call to mission and I am committed to it. It is painful, and I am not the only one to see, that we were truly reshuffling the deckchairs on the sinking ship.
It is at this point that I would contend that we can repackgage ‘church’ through various means in our congregations, we can repackage faith as a life option in the supermarket; indeed, we can market our church to bits by resetting our priorities, but does this not simply reveal that we are so consumed by maintaining a Christendom model that we have lost touch with what is at stake in regard to the gospel and not understanding people today.

How can gospel truth claims fulfil their mission in a world of relativity, pluralism and fragmentation?