Stories and Reflections

Changing the Conversation

The church in the West carries the baggage of hundreds of years of Christendom into many of its interactions. Although this is not necessarily negative, it at least creates the impression that Christianity has been well tried in our contexts. Its voice is very familiar.  And in some cases the baggage may be entirely negative, as in the case of Calvin’s Geneva described in the example below.

We have collected a few stories, mostly from our student community, showing some attempts to create a new conversation. Churches have listened carefully to the communities around them, and have responded in creative and surprising ways….

A community in pain

Stephen and his church responded in an open and perceptive way to local tragedy. In this way they were able to help their local community to share their pain with God, and to grieve. Stephen is in conversation with Martin Robinson.

Stephen Hough’s story made available through Vimeo.

Meeting a New Community

Matthew Frankum’s story is about his licencing ceremony as vicar at his church in Bath. It was important to “get the priorities right” as the church sought to make new friends in the community. These priorities are very different for a post-Christendom church with mission as its main focus.

Serving the poor with the Secular World

Will Horwood is CEO of Hope Worldwide, a Christian charity which provides opportunities for both Christians and non-Christians to serve alongside one another. Hope Worldwide helps people of goodwill to engage with the homeless and with recovering alcoholics.

Christians In Politics

Andy Flanagan has recently been appointed director of the Christian Socialist Movement. He reflects here on “changing the conversation’ within the Labour Party. There has been some resistance to overcome. Andy has found that as he engages relationally with other activists on the left, they find a common heart for “the last, the least and the lost”.  As Andy describes, there are particular sticking points, even taboos, in these conversations but he does feel that he and other Christians are beginning to be heard. There is another interview with Andy, in Cafe Vista, here.

Reading a Community- Changing the Conversation

Martin spoke at a day conference organised by Reaching the Unchurched Network (RUN) in October 2008. He spoke on Reading a Community. These podcasts are taken from the introduction and set the scene. In Part 1 Martin talks about the challenge of culture change, and how the church has coped with this over the centuries. What can we learn from this as we re-imagine church for today? Patrick Kiefert has described a church which is called, gathered, centered and sent, and Martin uses these categories to think about how the church may respond to its new and challenging context.
So how do we engage with our communities, and change the conversation so we can be heard. Martin explores this in Part 2, and in the process picks up some of the stories from this page.

Part 1

Changing the Conversation in Calvin’s Geneva

Here’s an extract from Martin’s blog:

I recently visited a church that is cited by others on the web as an example of a emerging church experiment in Geneva. The group operates under the name Shema. Two of the key leaders, a Dutchman – Lammert and an American – Scott, explained their core strategy for planting a church in Geneva.

From their perspective, postmodernity represents an open table to which all are welcome – except for Christianity. Lammert used the picture of a naughty boy who has been told that he can’t come to the table, he must stand in the corner. That perceived “naughtiness” has a great deal to do with how the church has used power. That is a huge issue across Europe but especially in Geneva, the city of Calvin, where heretics were once executed. The Christians of that time behaved more like the Taliban. So how might Christianity come out of the naughty corner?

Shema have begun their time in Geneva by developing a concept called Engage which is essentially a framework to allow anyone to make a positive contribution to the city. That initiative has gradually earned them an invitation to speak in a whole variety of situations. For example, this Christmas they are running a series of events in a pub – Mr Pickwick – called Pub Noel: Christmas for Everyone. The themes are amazing – The owners of the pub normally charge £400 a session to rent the room but for this event they are charging nothing. “We can’t charge you guys, you do such great things for our city.”

One of the projects that Engage has assisted is a battered wives hostel. They asked Shema, “Will you hold a carol service for us?” The reply was obvious. And they then said, “And would you be willing to read from the Bible for us?” Again it was easy to say “yes”. “And would you also preach for us?” This last request was made in such a hesitant way that Lammert wanted to know more. This was the story he heard. “We have had other Christian groups want to hold carol services for us before but because we did not know them we asked them not to preach. We got two kinds of reactions. They either refused to come or they came and found ways to get around our request. We have noticed that you guys only do what you say you will do and so we trust you. Please come and preach to us.”

These stories reveal that Shema are in the process of changing the dialogue between a group of Christians and the city of Geneva such that Christianity can come out of the naughty corner. For Shema, the emerging church is simply that which emerges from the context of doing mission rather than coming with a “cookie cutter” version of church which is dropped into the context from outside.