The End of Time

Callie manged to watch her first full grown up Doctor Who story over Christmas. She joined ten million in the now regularly Christmas tradition. But this was not just another Christmas special. It was David Tennant's final story as the Doctor and featured a show down between the Doctor and the Master.

I felt it was pitched about right for Callie's introduction to Doctor Who. It wasn't too scary and there were some exciting and moving moments. As usual there were a number of moral and spiritual themes. The Doctor reluctantly takes a gun to face the Master. The Doctor's pacifist beliefs win out in the end as he doesn't end up using the gun on anyone. The returning Time Lords plan to ascend into an etheral state and destroy the universe in the process. But of course the Doctor stops them.

It is interesting that the writer R.T.Davies continually plays not just with morality but also with ideas about the afterlife.

Merry Christmas from the Derbyshire family!

Merry Christmas from our family! Hope you are having a wonderful holiday. Christmas is a much needed rest for us – it is great to take a break from our busy schedules. I just want to give you this opportunity to catch you on what we’ve been doing this year.

Nettes is continuing to do agency work as a support worker in City College with adults with additional needs/learning difficulties as well as running a crèche for an ESOL group one morning a week for Karis Neighbour Scheme, a charity that has links with our church. Nettes is still also leading our church’s Sunday school. After a recent recruitment drive we have a few more workers. This is good as some children have come up from crèche and we are now running three groups rather than two. But that’s not all she does. After getting a Grade 2 in last year’s module she now has only one more year to go on her Open University Degree in Psychology.

I am still teaching Psychology. This year the merger of Matthew Boulton College and Sutton Coldfield College to form Birmingham Metropolitan College was finally made official in September. As well as teaching some time in the sixth form I still have my evening class although because of funding issues it is not certain that this will continue next academic year. We both continue to visit our church’s drop in centre that grew out of the work with the homeless. Over the summer I went on a trip with them to Stratford. And this year I have taken over some responsibility for the church’s website.

Our little daughter Callie is now in Year 2 and is getting some glowing reports from school. This year she has enrolled in Rainbows. On her birthday she enjoyed a visit to Blakesley Hall with friends, and has had fun sleeping over with her friends on occasions. In the summer holidays she went to Stratford with Nettes and one of her college classes. They all had fun brass rubbing. Callie has just got back from Cadbury World which was a very special treat!

This year as a family we went to Spring Harvest at Easter, which we all enjoyed very much. Nettes and Callie then went on from there to visit Callie’s friend Holly at Ashford in Kent. Over the summer we were very involved in our local community fun day, where Nettes ran a bric-a-brac stall. And then we went to the celebration event for our network of churches that was held in Swansea.

We regularly visit my mum Joyce who is in a residential care home in Birmingham. She is continuing to slowly decline in health. She is now in bed all the time being turned every hour and it doesn’t help having a broken leg that refuses to heal.

Anyway, Merry Christmas! Have a great one! God's richest blessings on you this season!

Recession hits Wesley Owen

One of the latest victims of the recession is Wesley Owen - Britain’s largest chain of Christian Bookshops.

Across the country many of their shops look like they will be closing shortly unless more buyers step in. Some have been taken over by CLC and some – including the one in Birmingham - by Australian Christian bookshop chain Koorong who have also taken over the related publishing business of Authentic Books. Authentic Music has been taken over by Kingsway.

Not long ago we saw the collapse of SPCK and possibly this is partly due to a knock-on effect. I also suspect that a lot of people now buy books through Amazon rather than making the trek to their local bookshop. If you consider that a lot of Christian bookshops rely on volunteers then you will realise that situation is even worse than you might have thought.

This means that a lot of the Christian bookshops in the UK are now either closed, for sale or broke. Is this the end of Christian bookshops in the UK? Some like St Andrews still appear to be going strong. But generally the future of Christian bookshops doesn't look promising.

Lord we pray for those affected who might be worrying about their jobs over Christmas. Give them your peace.

HT: Church Times on Wesley Owen

Candle Lit Carols with Wisemen Video

We've just got back from our church's candle lit carol service.

It was great that there were so many candles and that there were a few creative contributions. Andy read my advent poem and Nettes did a monologue as Mary with a few slides I'd prepared.

I really enjoyed singing carols such as 'O Holy Night' and 'Little Town of Bethlehem'. (As a family tonight we just put our little daughter to bed and sung 'Away in a Manger'.)

I was out preparing the mulled wine, being careful not to confuse the alcoholic with the non-alcoholic versions, so I missed Joe and Ellie's video. But I just got an email telling me that it's on YouTube. So enjoy...

Jesse Tree

It's that time of year again!

Building According To The Pattern

Thank you to Helen Watts for a creative Sunday morning.

What Are We Waiting For?

Dissatisfied with our own worlds
We step into our HD screens.
To escape the stress of our work
We long for our lives to be changed.

We are waiting. We are longing.
We are waiting. We are longing.

Waiting for the doorbell to ring.
Preparing food, tidying up,
In all the busyness of life,
Suddenly catching breath we stop.

We are waiting. We are longing.
We are waiting. We are longing.

You crossed the threshold to this world
One day you will break in again.
Your kingdom has already come,
So, here and now, please in us reign.

We are waiting. We are longing.
We are waiting. We are longing.

In scary new exciting ways
We’re ready to engage with this.
Open up the conversations.
Creative God you’re worth the risk.

We are waiting. We are longing.
We are waiting. We are longing.

Not passive waiting; active change.
A growing yearning deep inside.
Some attitudes to still adjust.
Dear God break in upon our lives.

We are waiting. We are longing.
We are waiting. We are longing
For you.


© David Derbyshire 2009

wondering about the implications of paradigm shifts

I’ve just been looking up some material on the philosophy of science to teach my second years – especially the work of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper.

Kuhn said that science exists in a cultural context. This tells scientists what is acceptable to study and what research methods are reasonable to use and what constitutes legitimate data and acceptable evidence. He called this context a paradigm.

He said that rather than seeing science as building one idea upon another actually it involves revolutionary change where one set of assumptions is abandoned in favour of a new set. Scientific disciplines advance through stable periods of one paradigm to moments of crisis or paradigm shift like this to times when a new paradigm is established.

In physics we see a crisis moment when Newton’s theory of gravity was shown inadequate by Eddington’s astronomical observations. Einstein’s ideas were then accepted as the new paradigm. Events such as these have become known as a paradigm shifts.

According to Popper for a theory to be scientific you need to be able to show that it is false. One example that contradicts this is enough. For example the discovery of the platypus shows that not all mammals give birth to their young alive – at least one mammal lays eggs. But actually one example is rarely enough as often there may be other explanations offered. But as these examples build up we slowly loose faith in the way that we thought and start looking for a new way to explain things.

On this basis psychoanalysis can be rejected as unscientific as it cannot be falsified - interestingly according to Popper we can reject Darwin’s theory of evolution on the same criteria. But in psychology we can still see paradigms such as behavioural, cognitive and biological all competing to be today's paradigm.

But across disciplines there is a growing view that an important paradigm shift is occurring. This is a move from 'modern' thinking (that wants everything to fit into the logical propositions of the enlightenment) to 'post-modern' thinking (which based on narrative and is more tolerant of ambiguity). Perhaps that means the new paradigm is tolerant of competing paradigms like those in psychology?

Of course none of this is new. These ideas have been around for decades and I'm probably way behind in thinking about these. But I’m still happily wondering about some of the implications of all this.

at a church leaders weekend away

Last weekend it was my privilege to join our church's leaders on a weekend away at Hothorpe Hall with over 150 other leaders from our network of churches.

It was great to see Scott Lencke and his wife Cat and to chat at the dinner table with among others Joel & Beth Tarbutton from New Life Church Letchworth. There was plenty of time for food and fellowship and also teaching, sung worship and loads more. Here are some things that I hastily scribbled down over the weekend.

Geoff Brown spoke on moving on with God. When Israel was in the wilderness they would camp for a time and then move on – lead at the front by the tribe of Issachar – ‘who recognised the times and the seasons and knew what Israel should do’. The climate is changing. In the past churches have split when new revelation came. Now churches are coming together. When Israel moved on they took the tabernacle with them. As we move on there are things we hold on to even if for a time they are ‘folded’ like the canvass of the tabernacle.

Ian Rawley began the next day with some leadership lessons from Nehemiah encouraging us to not to neglect ‘building the walls’ that is not just building the church but also engaging the world. He gave a good critique of post-modern thinking: narrative is important but we must not forget the need to be clear about the church, the gospel and the kingdom. The church should be a safe place. Flat structures are good but there is still a place for leadership and authority.

Alan Scotland encouraged us not to hold back. He warned of the virus of individuality and to beware the illusion of connectedness through media. We need to ensure that we seek authentic community.

In the evening David Latham spoke about the power of God. He was very impressed with our churches especially how we live out authentic community. Something that I noted in what he said was a line from one of Wesley’s hymns: ‘the mystic power of godliness’.

The day ended well with us simply breaking up into small groups to pray.

On Sunday Kobus Swart talked about being in a time of transition. He said that it is God who changes the seasons. He quoted George Barna who had said that by the mid-21st century the church would be totally irrelevant - unless there is a new move of God. Kobus spoke of the present move as ‘the apostolic reformation’ and of his own involvement in working with other very different churches in what he called a ‘city eldership’. In this time of transition we need to hold onto the revelation we have as we embrace the new.

Finally Tim Morley taught us some lessons from Timothy & Epaphroditus (1 Timothy 2) mentioning unity in diversity and emphasising the importance of relationship above gifting.

We finished with a time of breaking of bread and prayer followed by a Sunday lunch together before we all headed home.

Faithworks

I’ve recently been looking at the Faithworks site and downloading some of their resources. Faithworks is a Christian organisation founded by Steve Chalke committed to serve the community and influence society as a whole. Their website contains lots of resources to help churches and other Christian organisations as well as individual Christians about how to do just this.

The faithworks site contains some good material to get you rethinking your commitment to building stronger links with other groups in the community. This is something that we are doing as a church and recently we had a great opportunity to be involved with a community fun day.

They have some challenging thoughts about having greater transparency and accountability with finances and the like. This is important in developing a sustainable funding structure and ensuring that not only meet legal requirements but that people have confidence in how things are handled.

There is also quite a lot about developing procedures and policies. Faithworks even have a charter that churches and other Christian organisations can choose to adopt. As a church that values informality being based on relationship rather than hierarchy we are not overly keen on things like policies and procedures. But it makes you aware that some of it is essential such as police checking and child and vulnerable adult protection policies.

An interesting and challenging site.

This Is My Church

I have recently taken over responsibility for our church website. I just thought you might like to check it out to find out a bit more about the church that I’m involved in.


The first think that you’ll notice is that it’s got plenty of photos of us. A key to understanding Church Alive is to realise that it is based on relationships. We are in essence a group of friends who gather together in various places and ways both to enjoy each other’s company and to enjoy God.

There are also some sections on what we believe. But this is not dry doctrine. We believe that what we learn from the Bible has practical application to our workplaces, family life and neighbourhoods. And we outwork that in our relationships with each other.

An essential part of what we believe that church means people and not a building. But we do have a small building - the Ledbury Centre - situated centrally to Ladywood in Birmingham - the main urban area which we wish to reach. But most of the time we meet either in the adjacent community centre (most Sundays) or in each other’s homes (most weeks). Though we meet in the Ledbury Centre on occasions we mainly use it as a Drop In Centre one day a week.

On the website you can read about the Drop In Centre and the Ministry to the Homeless And you read about Kids Alive our weekly kids club that Nettes help run. You can follow through the link to a local charity Karis Neighbour Scheme, with which we have a long standing relationship. Through Karis we have developed relationships with people in the area including a number of asylum seekers and refugees.

Perhaps one of our main challenges comes from us being mainly (although not exclusively) white professionals living some distance from Ladywood, which is much more ethnically diverse area with a lot people of a lower socio-economic status. Yet we are finding opportunities to serve our community – particularly the people on the margins - and be like Jesus to them.

We all live very busy lives and don’t always find it easy to find time to do the things we would like to do as a church. Nevertheless I am always amazed how people give generously both of money and time volunteering.

This is my church and I am proud of it.

72 Christian leaders meet at Antioch to seek God about mission, the kingdom and apostles

antioch 2009

Thank God for Darwin?

Earlier this year we celebrated Darwin’s 200th birthday and next month it is 150th anniversary of the publication of his famous book ‘The Origin of Species’. So it is not surprising that I keep coming across references to the evolution creationist debate when surfing Christian sites. But what I do find surprising is the number of Christian posts that are so positive about evolution. perhaps it just reflects my own interestest. I don't know.

Anyway here are a few of the links that I have found:

Here is a very positive and thoughtful review of the 2009 film Creation which examines Darwin’s relationship to the church in a sensitive way.

The review also has a link at the end to some resources that can be used to host some sensible discussions about the movie.

Nick Spencer author of God and Darwin discusses the relationship between Darwin’s ideas and the Christian faith in this podcast.

Here is an interview with Michael Dowd about his book Thank God For Evolution, which uses evolution to discuss the nature of sin.

And finally, here are some quotes from Charles Foster’s The Selfless Gene - a book that David Matthew rates as outstanding book. It makes a very convincing case for evolution that cannot be easily dismissed by Christians and sees it as compatible with the Bible. If you’re interested you can download a PDF of David Matthew’s notes too.

Of course there still are a lot of fundamentalist seven day creationism ideas out there too. But I am more and more drawn to the idea that evolution as a sound scientific basis and is compatible with a level headed view of Biblical Christianity.

An Evening With A Real Live Apostle

Last week our church met with Alan Scotland. He had just returned from Thailand and mentioned how micro-industries were being set up to save children from prostitution. Alan works as an apostle and heads up Lifelink International our little network of churches.

Alan discussed with us the role of the apostle and the apostolic ministry. He looked at Ephesians 4 which talks about the ministries of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers which he saw all working together in relationship to produce growth - each ministry being like a different finger of a hand. He talked about how apostles worked together in what he called ‘apostolic companies’. These weren’t just teams working on job but companions who were also friends.

He showed that an apostle wasn’t necessarily a church planter but someone who was sent by God. This might involve pioneering but it might also involve building up the church. Alan himself spends a lot of his time in the background supporting church leaders. Having discussed this tension he went on to explain how the church itself should be apostolic. The true church is a church sent by God on a mission. ‘This mission is glocal’, he said, ‘both local and global at the same time’, as in the HSBC slogan ‘The World's Local Bank’

Alan talked about the diversity of the early apostles and discussed how today each church, he works alongside as an apostle, is unique. He mentioned Jonathon Sax’s book on diversity The Dignity of Difference and discussed how he saw this diversity in the church as being like a family – messy at times. And though it might involve fights and fall outs – it certainly did in the book of Acts – there is a great sense of purpose as we all work together for God.

UPDATE: It is worth checking out the account of Alan's recent visit to Syria with the Awareness Foundation whose work involve dialogue between Christians and Muslims. In the video Alan makes is an impassioned plea for peace in the Middle East.

Callie Enjoyed Godly Play Last Sunday

On Sunday afternoon I took my little daughter Callie to Kidz Aloud – a kid’s club/children’s church that runs once a month at Carr’s Lane Christian Centre. They alternate between Godly Play and their own form of story telling, building props and acting out the story with a rap. This time they were doing Godly Play.

Godly Play is a very specific way of telling Bible stories based on the Montessori teaching method. The stories are tightly scripted with simple carefully crafted props. This time we heard the story of Moses bringing the people of God out of captivity in Egypt.

After some starter activities we queued up to go into another room for the story. Callie helped carry the Kidz Aloud cloth that holds our badges as we process in. All the children then sat down quietly on cushions and listen to the story teller. (I wonder if by having in the other room explains why the children behave so well?)

The story teller told used a simple sand tray with wooden figures and two pieces of blue cloth to represent the Red Sea. She then led a discussion about the story with some standard question which worked well. We could then respond to the story using different forms of art materials. Callie loved this.

To conclude we had the ‘feast’ a simple meal of grapes & juice but this time also with also some matzo as we had been talking about Passover. Callie was very good helping serve the feast as well as carrying the cloth out at the very end.

Callie thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. Could Godly Play be something we could do at our little Sunday school? I wonder.

More Thoughts On Social Enterprise

I am still thinking about social enterprise. Here is one idea:

On the notice board in the Ledbury Centre - our church’s little building - are some leaflets about All Being Well. This is a project serving Ladywood set up in partnership between Karis Neighbour Scheme - a Christian charity that we work with - and Spring To Life – which runs as a Community Interest Company (one of the relatively new legal statuses for social enterprises). All Being Well is run by Jude Greenwood whom I met at the recent Community Fun Day. Jude runs a number of courses such as stress management, assertiveness training and anger management. These look like places for locals to discuss how to overcome their problems and learn principles that they can apply to their lives.

These courses reminded me of the personal and social development courses that I've been to at Fircroft College. The idea is to discuss some really practical psychological principles and apply them to your life. On Fircroft's site there are testimonies of how they have impacted people lives. I assume at Fircroft they are funded like other college courses as we did learner agreements and achieved qualifications whereas the All Being Well courses are funded by the National Lottery. It is clear on the Spring To Life site that they are working with a Christian ethos.

Interestingly I have just noticed that the same people who taught me on the self development course at Fircroft also teach a couple of courses on bid writing and funding strategies. Might be worth doing these courses next?

I seem to remember that one of the original aims the Ledbury Centre was to run projects into the community. It’s great that now we have our Drop In Centre running there one day a week. These sound like the sort of courses that our church was thinking about running when we first got this little building. I wonder if there still are lots of things that could be set up and run in Ladywood. How would a multi-media or multi-sensory approach to such courses go down in our community? Perhaps we could incorporate music or art? A community arts project even? Just crazy some ideas!

Karis Neighbour Scheme probably knows more about the needs in Ladywood and whether there could be any need for anything like this. The examples of social enterprises from Greenbelt made me think along the lines of fair trade stalls perhaps selling eco-friendly stuff as well. But we can see from the All Being Well example that if someone knows what they are doing they might be able to set up social enterprise to get sustainable funding perhaps from a variety of sources to run courses and projects like these into the community.

What do you think?

Looking into Social Enterprise

I’m currently reading ‘Your Chance to Change the World’. You see, recently I've been hearing a lot about social enterprise - business ventures that aim to help society rather than just make money. This book is a step by step guide on how to set up such a social enterprise by someone who has. Though these ventures may sell products or charge for services, they also get grants both from government organisations and from charities. People may also give donations.

There was a brilliant article on this in the New York Times a couple of years back: Businesses Try To Make Money and Save The World that is quoted in Andrew Jones’s post on the Fourth Sector. Andrew has just been at the Feast – a conference for social enterprise.

There is a growing trend of people starting social enterprises. Hopefully this trend may help bring us out of recession. Many Christians are setting up such projects. Last year Nettes went to some sessions at Greenbelt about social enterprise run by NET - network of entrepreneurial talent. Christians are seeing it as part of their Christian mission to serve the world and the communities where they are based. Over the next year the Jones’s plan to travel around Europe helping to equip what they refer to as missional entrepreneurs.

Also on this topic the Faithworks site is worth checking out. For instance, their Community Audit Pack looks interesting. It is about assessing the needs in your local community. And they have links to information about funding.

You know what? This is beginning to look doable.

Was Jesus like a pirate? Should we be pirates too?

I have just been reading an interesting blog debate on this subject.

The romantic image of pirates often overlooks their violent criminal behaviour. But historically this behaviour can be understood. ‘Let’s plunder these ships for ourselves rather than for the government’, was the thinking behind piracy in the 17th & 18th centuries. As such pirates are anti-establishment rather than purely anti-social. Their behaviour could be seen as a critique of the established order of greedy capitalism rather than just as personal selfishness. So argues Kester Brewin in a recent series of posts.

Illegal rebellion in this way can be seen as a way of social change. Pirate radio stations originally transmitted new styles of music that the legal radio stations did not. But eventually Radio 1 was born. Similarly, illegal music downloads eventually gave way to legal ways such as Spotify. Change occurs and we realise that the pirates were there before us. In the same way, Kester Brewin argues that Jesus was like a pirate in the way that he broke the religious rules overturning the stated order of his day.

Is there a motif here for Christians? Well, we do seek to be radical and do things differently. This inevitably critiques the established order – both of the world’s way of working and of religious ways of thinking. So why is this idea controversial? I am oversimplifying it, but in an answer to Kester Brewin, Richard Sudworth posts that we should not so easily dismiss Christians with a different revelation who are actually following God. Pete Rollins then takes this up arguing the importance of being considered heretical in order remain orthodox and Richard Sudworth comes back, among other things, playing the faithfulness card.

I think there is an important tension here between producing change by overthrowing systems in order to make progress and maintaining cohesive effective systems. It isn’t that that Kester and Pete are going too far. Surely we should look for innovation and not be afraid to make big changes? But if posible, shouldn't we do this without alienating others? Yes, sometimes Jesus and Christians may appear like pirates but I think there are some dangers with this image and that it needs to be carefully balanced with the concept of faithfulness.

Birmingham Artsfest 2009

Last weekend we went to look around this year's Artsfest.

On Saturday we had some of Nettes' family with us who took part in the record breaking bhangra dancing. While they were doing that I took Callie to see a a Rainforest Symphony a taster for an interactive children's play by the Play House about the rainforest at the REP. There was plenty to see as we wandered around the stalls and exhibitions and caught two or three of the bands. We dropped in on the Barbar Institute of Fine Arts doing their usual story telling session based around a painting.

On Sunday Callie and I ventured into the city centre again exploring some of artsfest again as we walked over to Kidz Aloud in Carrs Lane Church Centre that happened to be on the same weekend.

I thoroughly enjoy this weekend. Artsfest has now become a regular tradition.

revealing the secret identity of the Evangelical Universalist

The Evangelical Universalist is just one of the excellent books that I read over the summer. It argues well, from the Bible, the case for universalism – the doctrine that everyone is saved in the end. As this is such a controversial topic it is not surprising that the author published the book under a pseudonym. Many Christians might consider his conclusions as heresy.

Now this book has received some circulation he obviously feels the situation has changed slightly. The author feels that there are now enough people that have read the book and seen that universalism can be argued from the Bible, and so is a legitimate evangelical position – even if they don’t agree with it. Hence he now feels confident enough to reveal his identity.

So who is the Evangelical Universalist?

Robin Parry - the Editorial Director for the Christian publishing house Paternoster Press and author of Worshipping Trinity.

Thanks to Maggi Dawn for the tip off.