Need a little advice

Friends - are you out there? I'm back from New Wine and have manifested all week and I am home manifesting Toronto Blessing style stuff. Please email me if you can advice me about what to expect, do, how to take care of myself etc. Wow so awesome...

...if you can advise get in touch.

With God's healing touch and the medical profession, surely we can ditch all this other stuff?

God of Glory

Well, back on dry land for just one night. Wow - God is good - yes, God is good!!

Now you'll have to just go with me on this one because it is impossible to stay calm about what God is doing at New Wine.

When I think about what God is doing at New Wine through his Spirit, I am also seeing what God is doing on the streets of our urban centres, in China, in the Philippines and throughout the world at large so it is just awesome to think that God by his omnipotence and omniscience can be doing all these things simultaneously, but that's where the brain just has to quit trying to rationalise and just accept!

New Wine is packed to busting, over-subscribed, with more people than ever before...

We are listening to Bruce Collins and Michelle Guiness and Andy Hawthorne and others, facilitated by Ian and Nadine Parkinson. I have notes on bits of paper everywhere that I have to organise and then I hope to share some of what I have learned. I will return tonight to New Wine with one small, portable netbook - ah-ha - easier than scribbling all over the children's drawing pads.

Yesterday, I met Michelle Guiness and spoke to her about Kephale...emmm. She presented brilliantly on Paul in the NT and how his message about women has been so misunderstood. Oh, yes! 'love you, St Paul.

She gave an interpretation of 1 Tim 2 11-15 which is a little different from the interpretations I've read, but hey, that's hermeneutics for you - one day we'll know in full.

I've asked Michelle how I can blog her talk whilst at the same time accrediting it to her, so she will get back to me about how might be the best way to do that. If you're interested in hearing her interpretation of what God is saying to women or you have had experiences where the church has held you back or limited the effectiveness of your giftings, watch this space.

(Hi to Aldersgate, this site's new follower. You can always email me to tell me a little bit more about yourself, so glad you're dropping in. Let me know how I can give you a link back.)

As regards personal growth, which I don't always share on this blog because sometimes you just feel a bit plain embarrassed and wonder if you might slightly freak people out, especially if they're newbie Christians, well...I can't help but share a little...so remeber these are my experiences. God has a plan for us all, we are all unique and he has gifted us according to his plans and good purposes ... so for me, in no particular order...

I have tried to fight a call to empower women in ministry, I have tried to be more neutral, and I have healed and let go and forgiven and hope I am forgiven but God has made it very clear that speaking to women is going to be a part of my ministry so I surrender to that one and just rest back to see what God has in store for me and what shape that will take. I pray it will be godly. Men and women both need to be released from the gender cages that they can become locked in... but more about that another time.

I am so grateful to God that I can now speak in tongues, this began last Thursday, the day before I saw my DDO for the Bap breakdown, I won't say too much about it here. I am like a child learning but I'm getting there. It has been the answer to about two years of prayer... sometimes we just have to wait but it lends a clarity to my prayer life I've not known before. It's fab to have two voices, one aloud which is well, you, know...I don't know...there are no words to describe it and the other internal, interpreting, in English! Which helps! So there's where I might freak some of you out, depends on who you are I guess...but hey, I am really normal, honest!

I have also learned that I can put up a tent! Woo-hoo - I have practical gifts too. My husband was nicely surprised that when he arrived, our canvas house was ready. Tent-maker! Well, kind-of.

So I'm signing off. We head back later to send daughter number one to the club she's loving and to meet up with our church mates and the other friends who are coming to join us and I just bubble over at the thought that this is what I get to do with the rest of my life until I meet him face-to-face. My family are hopping aboard this train too and we are all hanging on for the ride of our lives. Bless you, Father for all your good gifts.

Rain down, rain down, rain down on me...

And it is...raining down, in both senses of the idea. Well, last night I got about two hours sleep so I'm realising that some of the feelings of 'otherness' are partly due to tiredness as well as the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is good to be discerning about these things. Having said that I am listening to one particularly anointed speaker called Bruce Collins, who proclaims with a real sense of authority and passion for Jesus, for a gospel that is not of the individualistic 'Are you saved, brother, cos I am' but of a gospel wherein God is reconciling the whole cosmos to himself through the blood of his precious Son. This guy is great on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, teaching us how to be loving but at the same time give witness to the Holy Spirit's power to our cessationist brothers and sisters - very encouraging stuff. There is a lot of healing happening and the Spirit is tangibly present. We have learnt about the Eden project this morning working in the most deprived areas of the country and listened to some excellent worship bands and some anointed women leaders.

I got two hours sleep because I had thought that the idea of a double sleeping bag was a good one - romantic, only with my husband's shoulders, I can't fit in. Anyway, our girls are going to clubs and we're off to the next session - notepad at the ready. I'll type up what I've learned once I'm back on dry land.

Next post from New Wine if I can get the technology to work but in the meantime, this looks like it could be interesting...

Chez and Mike

Love these lyrics

Just been listening to snippets of tracks from the new Phatfish album 'In Jesus' and while the musical arrangement isn't the sort of thing that usually gets my attention, the words of some of the tracks are just excellent. Especially this!

If I have not Love
I could build a mighty empire
Or be living on the streets
I could wear the finest jewellery
Or some coloured plastic beads
I could drive a rusty banger
Or a big olʼ SUV
I could entertain the down and out or dine with royalty
But if I have not love then I am just a clanging cymbal
And if I have not love then I am just a lot of noise
I must lay my pride aside, preferring others needs
O Lord help me to love
I could speak with words of beauty
But still have a heart of stone
I could fill my mind with wisdom
Try to deepen what I know
I could look as though Iʼm listening
Or could cry at my TV
But it really stands for nothing if itʼs only serving me
Jesus, Youʼre my great example
For You have shown your love to me
And in response I now must follow
In loving others faithfully
I canʼt take all my possessions
To the place that I am heading
But love stays, love remains, love paves the way

Lou Fellingham
©Phat Music/Administrated by Song Solutions CopyCare.14 Horsted Square, Uckfield, East Sussex, TN22 1QG. info@songsolutions.org.

¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13)

I think it is quite significant that I meditate on this. It is easy to carried away with the excitement of the Holy Spirit's giftings, but it is love that is the most important fruit, this is important to remember because the gift in which I am currently a little overly-interested, because it is a new experience for me, will eventually pass away when we see him face-to-face.

Came across this and was reminded about where I used to be, now so glad to be affirmed...

Ouch!

Enjoying an analogy with my 10 o'clock cuppa tea

Thinking myself a bit techie, (well, I am working on it), I am enjoying a break from Deuteronomy research, setting up tents in the lounge and endless tidying up (the kids are off) to do a bit of lighter reading, of sorts. I like this analogy. Any book recommendations on this topic would be appreciated.

Click above for link to the book I'm reading, which is a bit out-of-date. But I like the style - it's bold.

Excited that you will be even more tomorrow than you are today.

Deuteronomy 5:32
So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left.

This verse is important in my family-life right now, to keep trusting when the decisions we are making, from the world's point of view, are financially disastrous ones. The Holy Spirit gives us the courage to explain where we get our strength from and my husband is allowing this to happen as he explains to the people with whom he is in business that it is his faith which shapes the decisions he makes. Some of his business partners are beginning to be a little more accepting of this.

It is so exciting to see the growth of your friendships. When you can rely on one-another and be there for each other in any circumstance. I have been blessed within the last year with one very special friend who is going through some similar adventures to me and it is great to look back on how this friendship got started and how much it has grown. She is lending a tent to us for New Wine, alongside a double sleeping bag (now that's friendship) and a full gas bottle and a number of other essential items. But we can look at our relationship with God in the same way, it is not the same today as it will be tomorrow and by spending time with God, it will grow. Friendships can transform us a little, it takes quite a while but in relationship with God, transformation is exciting and life-changing and continues to happen.
Selwyn Hughes writes “Many Christians never get far in the development of their faith because they see it as something fixed and final and thus they have no expectation of growth. They point to the text: “God has dealt to each one a measure of faith and infer from this that our calling is to go through life functioning within our appointed and pre-ordained circle. But take a look at 2 Thessalonians 1:3 “because your faith is growing more and more” (Phillips translation says ”your faith has made such strides)..I consider the belief that “we are given a fixed measure of faith and cannot expect it to increase” to be one of the most injurious of all the errors in the Christian Church today.”

Selwyn Hughes, in his book “8 Ways to Deepen Your Faith”, answers the question - WHAT FAITH IS NOT?
Faith is not mere intellectual acceptance
College is not enough.
Faith is not blind credulity (something ridiculous and unreasonable)
It's a truth the world wants to measure when it is immeasurable
Faith is not naïve optimism
It is acceptance and seeing God in everything
Faith is not trying hard to believe
As I discovered last night, in the gift of a new Christian in house group, it is about asking questions and expecting answers.
Faith is not positive thinking
This is more a personality trait
Faith is not presumption
It's letting God be in charge of the outcome, whatever it is.

Who ever could have imagined faith would be so exciting.

God was in the Silence

I definitely do not get enough of this. I crave more of it and I definitely need it at least a couple of times a week - SILENCE.

God does speak more loudly in the silence and one of the great things about the Bap was the ability to go to chapel right next to your room and talk with God or rather listen, for I needed some help.

When I first started college I found silence very difficult and generally I am a filler of gaps in conversations because it all starts feeling uncomfortable but now I relish silence and I am becoming more and more aware of the noise that is all around me. Rob Bell's 'Noise' was very helpful for the way that he articulates this essential element in our relationship with God. You can get to see the whole thing on Youtube but this is probably not legal so here I post a preview which I think is more legitimate.

Just how affected are we by our preconceptions?

Looking at Deuteronomy (still). I will be doing so all week as I try to write an essay about its shape and its critical and theological issues. I am not ever so intrinsically motivated by the whole JEDP theory. I need to show though that it is a critical issue for people reading this hinge book of the Bible; this conclusion to the Pentateuch. I doubt I'll ever preach on JEDP but have been convinced that I need to understand it. However, I might be asked whether, in my opinion, Moses wrote the Pentateuch.

None of this unsettles me, as such, but it does make me wonder about all the presuppositions that we bring to the Bible.

I think that this is a great way of explaining the baggage which we all come with and also demonstrates just how much the modern translations of those sacred words might have wriggled far from God's original intentions.

There’s the story of the English professor who wrote "a woman without her man is nothing" on the blackboard and directed the students to punctuate it correctly.
The men wrote: "A woman, without her man, is nothing."
The women wrote: "A woman: without her, man is nothing."

The point being, even our punctuation is affected by our preconceptions.

A little humour is good for the soul

Just taking a break from my Deuteronomy study for lunch and a little web-surfing and came across this:

A new vicar moved into town and went out one Saturday to visit his parishioners. All went well until he came to one house. It was obvious that someone was home, but no one came to the door even after he had knocked several times. Finally, he took out his card, wrote on the back 'Revelation 3:20' and stuck it in the door. The next day, he found his card in the collection plate. Below his verse was written the words 'Genesis 3:10'.

It made me giggle.

Laing's ministry

I have been thinking, this evening, on returning from my last ever youth group about what ministry is all about. I have also got caught up in a thread on John Richardson's blog about whether ministers by their very existence might hinder rather than encourage the independence of the laity and how the very fact that we have categories such as laity and clergy is a reflection, in part of our brokenness. I am also aware that I am caught in a strange in between place, laity in training to be clergy, for want of a better way of putting it.

This has all led me to my first ever favourite book 'The Magic Paintbrush' adapted by Fran Hunia from the traditional Chinese tale in 1979, fantastically illustrated by Martin Aitchison. I am so pleased to have found it in its entirety here. I have been led to think about this book more than once lately. One thing the 'discernment to Bap process' makes you do is think about your life and the shape it has taken and where your influences have come from. You rediscover some of the things that were meaningful in your earliest days. My favourite books as a child were the one I mention and 'The Velveteen Rabbit' by Margery Williams.

But I think the story of Laing serves as a kind of metaphor for the type of ministry I would like to have, idealist as I am (I'm sure they will give advice about this when I get my report breakdown from my DDO later this week).

Laing learns that when he paints a beautiful picture on his canvas, it comes alive and in the case of the bird, it flies away. He has to decide whether to dedicate the rest of his life to painting unfinished pictures which he can keep or complete pictures which he will only ever know for an instant of time. I very much believe in a God who believes in us very much more than we believe in him and very much more than we believe in ourselves. I think I have been privileged enough to experience the paintbrush which inked in my empty spaces and filled them with colour so that I could be truly free. I find the gospel truly freeing, as I am sure a great number of you do. I am a new creation in Jesus and I exist redeemed in God's imagination so I simply play catch-up in this life with the redeemed version of myself that already exists with him. He is reconciling us all to himself and loves us completely causing us to transform into something much more alive and finished than we could ever be without him.

But the gospel message of freedom also exists in the church which nurtured me in my journey. I was trusted to attempt things, allowed to mess-up, allowed to painfully learn. I was given the chance to do things by people who trusted that God would work all things to his good purposes despite my fears and failings. I was painted on a canvas and then allowed to fly free.

I wasn't left unfinished, dependent on my ministers' approval, seeking their affirmation.

I hope so much that I never forget what the ministers at my church gave away so that others could grow and I so hope I have a ministry of empty canvasses because all of the paintings have flown free.

Problem or solution?

I had my mum and dad for lunch today and we wondered together, amongst other things, what the dog-collar actually means and how it is very necessary to discern when it can block and when it can aid people's access to God.

One of the ministers at my church does interesting things with a neck scarf which could be very helpful at times and I was very interested to be a part of group chatting the other day because when we were interrupted by someone wanting to know what my contribution was going to be to the shared lunch, the female vicar to my right introduced herself as the landlady of the local pub without adding she was also a vicar.

John Richardson has had his head in his hands this morning, wondering too so it was edifying and encouraging to read Chris Bishop's response to him, which I copy in full here:

I think one of the things to remember is that Anglicanism is essentially an historical construct in which Christianity can flourish (or not) as the case may be. I too don't get the impression that Jesus envisaged the whole gamut of national churches, clergy and laity, WO, moving pews and all the other paraphernalia and bickering that goes on do you?

Jesus Himself appeared in Israel at a time when the nation was far from being God's ideal yet Jesus worked within and outside the existing religious structures of His time.

The important thing is the message of the Gospel and the freedom to be able to preach it. This can still be done within the CofE - in fact the great advantage of the CofE is that most people still see 'the church' as being essentially Anglican. It is after all a visible presence in most towns & cities.

As a leader in a a Baptist church I find that people are less familiar with Baptists as a 'church' than they are with the CofE. Indeed, I have always thought that you Anglicans have one over on us here. I find it easier to invite people to an Anglican church than I do to a Baptist one despite the fact that unlike Anglicans we Baptists are wet all over..

In the parable of the wheat and the tares, although there were weeds growing, the real stuff was also. It is this that people will respond to if they can see the transforming reality of the Gospel in our lives. So I think we will always have this somewhat messy outward appearance of the 'church ' yet we must not forget that the wheat is there as well. At the end of the age God will clear the rubbish away but this is the current scene.

So I wouldn't worry too much about all the fuss re: ordinations and so on. Get on with preaching what you know to be true. You are in fact part of the solution, not part of the problem. You have a far greater effect than you imagine.

A saying by an Assembly of God pastor who I once knew and is now in his 90's which is somewhat pithy but I have to found be true, is

"Bloom where you are planted - you can be 'scent' where you are"!

Just thinking out loud

As information comes trickling through email about friends, for that's what they became, who did and did not get selected, it's finally beginning to settle in that the future, whilst now a little more mapped out, is sure to bring some real adventures.

I'm just writing the intercessions for tomorrow about how much we need to pray, as much as we need food and air and sleep. There will be a drama to make these points. This song came to mind:


It's so good that we have a God who never tires of listening to our voices.

8-)

The (wo)man from the ministry division........(s)he say........YES!

I have a feeling I may be behaving a little strangely...

I had an email today from a friend who realises how hard it is when everyone else knows something you're the last to know. She's praying for me.

I think I'm behaving a little strangely as I get through this day - which is the day before the ministry division let me know. I have just tidied out 6 drawers and 4 shelves, mopped two floors and made my glass desk shine with Mr Sheen. For me this is quite strange behaviour. Although, I am beginning to recognise this trait - my desperate need to tidy up before I receive news which I can not predict, or embark upon something 'heavy'. The thing is no matter how much I tidy up there seem to be a hundred and one things to do.

The girls seem to have the bug too and have helped to sort out all their felt-tip pens and taken two small plastic cars through a back-yard fairy liquid and washing up sponge car-wash. It's the first day of the summer holidays and life could be so different by the end of them.

We are all feeling restless about where we're living, how we're schooling our children and my husband about what he should do for a living so even if there are not changes for me, change is definitely a-brewing!

...right...now to the hoovering! How therapeutic is a good bit of housework.

I'm singing in the car...

I sing. In the shower. In the car. Anywhere really.
Just lately I have learnt to sing parts of Psalm 51 thanks to the Lord and a certain Graham Kendrick. I am also getting there with my 'God of the Empty Spaces' which at first I found a little disappointing, although I like the benedictus.

Psalm 51 bits

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy, the joy of your salvation

O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.

I guess it's not the sort of thing you often hear blasting through someone's sunroof at the traffic-lights!!

If anyone knows of any other resources ie psalms, prayers that are sung and on CD which I can learn so that eventually I might sing my way through most of the Daily Office, I would be grateful. Maybe I'm more of a closet Anglo-Catholic than those face-book quizzes realise, for at their latest prediction I am a liberal protestant. And all this time I figured I was an open evangelical - what's a girl to do with an Anglican identity-crisis ;)! Perhaps the same as the rest of the communion, really - just get on with it!

AC and TEC fracturing

It is with sadness that I read that the AC might split with the TEC and it causes me to consider where I stand again on 'Issues in Human Sexuality'. Call it cowardliness, if you like, I do not want to get too heavily embroiled in debate and I am also aware that by reflecting here, I am procrastinating. I should be writing an essay on the shape of Deuteronomy.

But a few thoughts:

If the approach is determined by what might bring about the best result for the most people (utilitarian), it should not be myopic. In consecrating gay bishops, people will still hear about salvation through Jesus Christ. They will form a relationship with a church which would be regarded as an inclusive institution. Contemporary culture prizes inclusiveness highly. The gospel message might seem to be ringing out. Those in same-sex relationships will feel valued as they are released into service for the benefit of others. However, the decision might be compromising the Church. Tyndale, the Bible translator, said that the gospel, 'signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man's heart glad...'1 but perhaps this sort of assertion and Romanticism, as a philosophical movement, have infected our sense of what constitutes love. Today's culture affirms freedom of choice and human rights but the Church needs to concern itself moreover with our responsibilities to each other and God. Christians, under pressure to do the most 'loving' thing can confuse love with tolerance: the 'great virtue' 2 of our times. Caught up in cultural relativism, people think they are promoting happiness when they affirm freedom of choice but we do not always make the right choices.

Fletcher was a homosexual episcopalian priest who made ethical decisions in accordance with a promotion of agape. Keith Ward claims that because biblical morality is 'motivated by the basic Christian principles of the self-giving, agapistic love ...[and we should] 'never try to disguise it by hiding behind a few written rules....Biblical condemnations of homosexual practice can be consigned to the morally primitive past.' 3 Keith Ward sets rules and love in opposition. The Bible, however, has Jesus; love incarnate, come to fulfil and not abolish the law, and so it is to be wondered whether Christians, who argue that love should motivate our actions, always understand agape. Biblical agape is a desire for the very best interests of another person to be secured. For Christians this is salvation and this might be promoted by bringing a sinner to an awareness of the need for repentance, forgiveness and restoration through God's grace. This has huge pastoral implications and there are organisations set up to counsel those who struggle to live within a biblical sexual ethic like 'True Freedom Trust.' (For more on my thoughts about such organisations see 'Sexual Ethics and the C of E', don't assume I haven't given this a lot of thought!)

The teleologist needs to make a decision which honours God by not compromising his message about the kind of lives he calls us to lead. She also honours God by protecting, comforting and welcoming the marginalised. Those in same-sex relationships should be affirmed in their membership of the church family and their giftings should be nurtured but priests should conform in lifestyle to either married heterosexuality or single celibacy because when teaching on these topics the church has to be a living witness to what it testifies.

One of the consequences for the church is that it must address issues of sexuality for us all. It must not operate a double-standard, but promote a sexual ethic to which heterosexuals and homosexuals are called to transform themselves.

'Issues in Human Sexuality' is, in itself, a rather ambiguous statement of the Church's stance. It describes how homosexual relationships are not faithful to a God-given sexual expression but that those who feel called to this way of life should be accepted... (point 5.6). It concludes that sexually active homosexuals within the Church 'would be seen as placing that way of life in all respects on a par with heterosexual marriage' and it 'cannot accept such a parity and remain faithful to the insights which God has given it through Scripture, tradition and reasoned reflection on experience.' What it fails to do is lay out pastoral guidelines for the church as it faces this predicament.

Less ambiguous is Lambeth 1.10, which sets a moratorium on the consecration of same-sex partnered clergy. This is what the TEC are deciding to break with. What Lambeth 1.10 fails to do is give a clear ruling for the laity, which in itself opens up debate about whether there should be a different set of expectations for ordained or lay leaders. After-all, there isn't a clear biblical basis for a strict three-fold order of ministry. Christians, in servant-leadership roles should all seek to transform themselves into the same pattern of Christ-likeness, without a hierarchical ascendency of pre-requisites, but that is another ethical debate!

A deontological approach can excavate passages out of the Bible. Christians read the story of their lives within the overarching biblical meta-narrative but also live in a post-modern society which embraces a fluidity of meanings. As a consequence there is no consensus on homosexuality. Traditionalists regard those who affirm same-sex blessings, and church leaders in same-sex relationships, as supporting innovations which are scripturally disobedient. Lambeth 2008 lost 214 bishops to Gafcon because of a refusal by some to break bread with those amongst them who supported TEC's consecration of the homosexual priest Gene Robinson. Quite often Revisionists are accused of reading the Bible through a post-modern, culturally relativistic lens and traditionalists are accused of reading it through a lens also contaminated by culture, a lens infected by a type of sub-conscious homophobia.

Revisionists and traditionalists each practise a hermeneutic which delivers a quite contrary exegesis of Genesis 19:1-11; Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. For traditionalists the story of Sodom prohibits homosexuality. The men of Sodom request to have sex with Lot's male guests where the word 'know' is taken to mean 'have intercourse with' and this secures Sodom's destruction. Revisionists contest the translation of the Hebrew word yada (know) but this seems unconvincing because earlier in Genesis 'Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived...' (King James Version). Where revisionists accept that it is homosexual intercourse that is being sought by the men of Sodom, they then assert more convincingly that what is being prohibited is homosexual rape and not homosexual relations between two consenting men in a monogamous relationship. For Robert Gagnon, the only difference between consenting and non-consenting relations between homosexuals is that with the former both have 'willingly degraded themselves', and with the latter only one is forced into 'self-degradation'.4 For Gagnon, the Bible condemns homosexual practice in any expression. He is very outspoken.

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 seem less ambiguous but, again, revisionists question translation, this time of the Hebrew word toevah (abomination). They argue that the abomination describes not homosexuality, per se but homosexual acts in the context of pagan worship. The implication being if homosexuality were divorced from its association with pagan worship, it might not be prohibited. The immediate problem with this is that the other sexual sins, of the Leviticus cleanliness codes, are prohibited when not bound up with idolatry. In the pastoral epistles, Paul has to warn Christian communities to guard against adultery and incest.

In Romans 1, the punishment for idolatry manifests itself in a disruption of everything that is natural, hence where heterosexuality is natural, it will become homosexuality. At this point, some pro-gay theorists assert that it is natural for them to be homosexual (God-given); what would be unnatural for them would be heterosexuality. Homosexuality has not been found to be genetically determined. If it were Christians would perceive this to be resulting from the fall, which disrupted God's ordained order for relationships. The problem with the revisionist reading is less that it calls for further medical investigation into homosexuality which is complex, and more that it relies on a very particular reading of the word 'natural', applying it to one's own nature and not nature as creation breathed into life by God and ordered as he purposed it. Jeffrey John's discussions of this epistle, wherein he states, 'Those who claim to be repelled ... by homosexual forms of intercourse might ask why they are not disgusted by a painter who expresses his creativity by painting with his feet'5 is weakened by his failure to locate his understanding of 'nature' in the creation account.

A discussion of nature, (creation) and the fall, as hinted at above, provides a better framework for ethical decision-making than inconclusive proof-texting. Each time homosexuality was condemned in the famous passages, it was abusive in its expression, whether that abuse be directed towards humanity in sexual violence or God through faithless idolatry. The other two texts, 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10, which speak into the issue, emphasise again the linguistic, exegetical debate. Where they list sins and one sin is translated as homosexuality, revisionists argue that the term was only invented in the twentieth century and is anachronistic and what Paul was really condemning was pederasty and male prostitution. It is thought that Paul had no understanding of same-sex, faithful, monogamous Christians because he had not encountered any.

If 'All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness' (2 Tim. 3:16), then we are limiting God's intelligence, if we suppose he was naive about same-sex attraction and it is for this reason that he said little about it, in its monogamous expression. The case made for the homosexuality of same-sex, faithful, monogamous relationships between Christians becomes a kind of advocacy from silence, which is not persuasive.

God's sexual ethic is best revealed by looking at creation. The question over the consecration of gay bishops might be settled this way. This is more helpful than perhaps looking to redemption because of its pollution by the rise amongst pro-gay theologians of a redemptive-hermeneutic in which arguments about God's unfolding revelation and how it has uncovered our exegetical errors in the past, is being used to justify homosexuality, morally. In our ever supposing that God wills slavery and the silencing of women, Christians were wrong. That slavery was ever justified theologically, highlights man's exploitation of the Holy Word. That we now ordain women is still questioned by some because passages in the Bible are ambiguous on the issue, but quite simply, even natural law testifies to the biblical truths at creation of what God intended for our sexual expression because our anatomy testifies to it. Scripture's sexual ethic and our biology will not change despite the changing sexual ethics of the societies we live through. Male and female fit together in a way that male and male, and female and female do not. Even if the much quoted passages addressed in this essay were discarded, Melvin Tinker describes how Homosexual sex is a 'disordered form of sex...[because it] frustrates the structures and purposes of God’s creation.'6 Reductio as absurdum, if we applied Kant's categorical imperative to the dilemma and homosexuality was thought good for everyone, everywhere, humankind would die out.

It is for fundamental reasons that God's blessing is reserved for the sexual act set inside marriage. In same-sex unions, unblessed as they are by either God or children, humans are not endowed with the same urge to commit to one another. Having children, in part, fuels reasons to stay together and monogomy is for theirs and the woman's protection and in this sense marriage echoes the covenant between God and his children Israel in the Old Testament and Jesus and the Church in the New Testament. Sexual expression is for mutual comfort too, and not always pro-creative, but in a same-sex partnership, sex isn't 'a good tied by God to his good gift of marriage'7 because it is not something pleasing to God because only a sexual act between two complementary humans becoming 'one flesh' reflects God's perfect community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Male and female together reflect the Godhead (Image dei). This pattern for relationships was established at our creation.

Is homosexuality a consequence of the fall? The fact that the world seems undecided about whether homosexuality has its locus in nature or nurture does little to impact the debate. Even if the gay gene is found, it could still be argued that homosexuality is simply a consequence of our fallen world and a frustration of God's original intentions. Redemptive-hermeneutics perhaps misunderstands redemption. Through Jesus' saving grace we are not going to become more and more free from the law eschatologically, we will become more and more the people for whom the law is written in our hearts. As Paul explains in Romans, we are justified by faith and our slates are wiped clean and we are made righteous in God's sight, but we will transform more and more into the likeness of Christ as a consequence because we give up our sinful natures; we do not rebel but conform to God's will. At the consummation, when we live in our Heavenly bodies, Jesus tells us there will be no marriage and Revelation implies through its symbolism that there will no more sex. It would seem that sexual expression, whether it be God-honouring or God-dishonouring, will be done away with completely. Peace and fulfilment might reign here instead where once there was tension, addiction and confusion. If the Church speaks with an eschatological voice, which is not the voice of the world, it must not succumb to the world's categorisation of people into homosexual or heterosexual. We are human beings, men and women, living in the love of God and under his authority. The Church must not condemn homosexuality as a more grievous sin and speak of it like Gagnon as degradation, when heterosexuals also fail to embrace God's ordained sexual ethic when they engage in any sexual expression outside of a heterosexual marriage.

The Church must, in turn, not condemn sexual sin as more grievous than any other sin. Homosexuality, like any behaviour that dishonours God, should not be affirmed. In practice, this means that I do not agree with TEC's proposals. If I had decided otherwise, I would be asking the Church (universal) to rethink its entire teaching on sexual ethics and that would involve a serious break with with what was ordained at creation.

Jesus and the early Church in Acts 15 prohibited sexual immorality (porneia). Paul specifically warns against an acceptance of porneia in the church in 1 Corinthians 5—7. The body of Christ is a broken body, made up of broken people. Jesus was broken for us and is tolerant of the broken. Jesus’ response to the woman taken in adultery in John 8, secured her redemption but it also required her to 'sin no more'! At the consummation we will be made perfect and what qualifies someone to lead a church is their faith, just as it was with Abraham, who was chosen for his faith. But faith manifests itself not just in words but in actions. The fruits of faith are displayed in the gifts of the Spirit and a lifestyle that conforms itself in likeness to Christ. If Christ is logos made flesh and we have the mind of Christ, then we should be able to fathom to some extent, albeit with error because we are flawed, the mandate for our lives set down in the Holy Word, fulfilled in Christ and revealed by the Holy Spirit.

Bibliography
Brown, Paul, E., ( 2007) Homosexuality Christian truth and love, Day One publications, Leominster.
Gagnon, Robert, A. J., (2001)The Bible and Homosexual Practice, Texts and Hermeneutics, Abingdon Press, Nashville
Goddard, Andrew, (2004) Homosexuality and The Church of England: The Position following 'Some Issues in Human Sexuality' Grove booklets, Cambridge
John, Jeffrey, (2000), Permanent, Faithful, Stable: Christian Same-sex Partnerships, Affirming Catholicism, Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
Tinker, Melvin, (2001) Alien Nation, Christian Focus Publications, Scotland Ward,
Keith, (2004) What the Bible really Teaches: A Challenge for Fundamentalists, SPCK, London

Secondary sources
Robinson, Gene, (2008), In the Eye of the Storm, Canterbury Press, Norwich
Short, Rupert, (2008) Rowan's Rule, the biography of the Archbishop, Hodder and Stoughton, London
Stott, John, (2006) Issues Facing Christians Today (4th ed.), Zondervan, Michagan

Footnotes
1Brown, Paul, E., Homosexuality Chrisian truth and love, p.5.
2ibid, p.9.
3Ward, Keith, What the Bible really Teaches: A Challenge for Fundamentalists, p.176
4Gagnon, Robert, A. J., The Bible and Homosexual Practice, Texts and Hermeneutics, p.78
5 John Jeffrey, (2000), Permanent, Faithful, Stable: Christian Same-sex Partnerships, p.21 6Tinker, Melvin, Straight or Narrow? Sexual Confusion Genesis 2:18-25, p.6
7 Goddard, Andrew, Homosexuality and The Church of England, p. 10

Worth a read

Wondering if it's okay to sing this?

Congratulations Pray-as-you-go

Hooray! I love 'Pray as you go'. So deserved. They received the Surefish innovation prize.

2009 Most Innovative Christian Website of the Year

Pray As You Go - innovation

When I arrived in Ely too early last Monday their prayers, through my creative Zen, helped me to see the God that is all around me as I sat with a huge cuppa and a sausage roll in a quirky little cafe, flicking through my 'Going to a Bishops Advisory Panel' brochure, wondering when I should really turn up - 3 o'clock too early and 5 o'clock too late. As it was I chose the wrong time to walk through Ely centre to the retreat house because the only thing that I had forgotten to pack was my brolly and so I arrived to greetings of laughter, I looked like a drowned rat and appeals that I had started the day looking smart, honest!

It's been good to be in touch with all the Ely warriors, as we have come to refer to ourselves, and once again, I am enjoying the fellowship that the web enables through its social networking tools - the good side of the web!

Thank you for the clarification, ma'am.

This makes interesting reading after my musings about this.

What is Church? And the theology of blogging

As an Anglican blogger, I want to reflect a little bit on the theology of blogging and why the church must engage with the digital age. Contemporary society demands it is in constant communication. Each communication culture impacts the Church as God speaks through the tools we invent. We are in the digital age. There is a cyber-space mission field out there. Are we engaging in God's mission on the net?

According to the Pew Internet Project, there are close to two billion people online. We have millions of neighbours in the digital age. E-church will never replace established Church as we understand it, but it is something which the established church needs to be involved in. Dave Walker who runs the Church Times blog captures this with his cartoon. There is not actually any competition between the two expressions of Church. E-church looks down on established church here only because it's in a tower-block – higher-up.

The Acts 2 church model is of a body of believers who share everything. So you could argue that e-church fails to conform because we only share words. However, one virtual church born out of the 'Ship of Fools' website: St Pixels, discovered that 38% of its members had phoned each other or met in face to face meetings, like those in our tower block. As members of the Anglican church, we would do well to profess article 19 of the 39 articles which defines Church as 'a place where the Word of God is preached and the sacraments are administered.' I don't think we can administer the sacraments virtually...(!) :-) But we can preach the Word of God and share our Christian journeys.

Pete Ward, in his book 'Liquid Church' defines church as 'something that we make with one another by communicating Christ...' We have always communicated the gospel, without being face-face. Paul set this precedent, communicating with churches by letter when he was behind prison bars.

The reason why I am passionate about internet evangelism is because I believe it is interactive in a way that none of the other communication tools have been. Christians have communicated the gospel with the printed word and the aired broadcast but with the internet, the dialogue is two way: we communicate Christ with one another. The word on the screen is no longer static and the web in no longer just a library of information, it is a place of conversation. Through facebook, myspace, blogging and other social networking tecnologies we are talking to each other around the clock and around the world.

I want to speak about one of the technologies I use to do this: blogging. Blogs or web-logs enable you to write your thoughts up onto the web and converse about them in a thread which drops down beneath. They are hosted in the public domain for free and you choose a template to create your site, so no need to be a programmer. Your site can be produced in about 5 minutes and you can be in conversation instantly, as I was just over one year ago. Blogs capture for me the notion of conversation which I think is so sacred. God expects His followers to engage people with his message wherever communities are forming.

So the technology might be recent but the idea begins in God.

This is how we can articulate the theology of a blog. It reaches inwards and is a space of reflection. Christians have always recorded their journeys with God and I remember Nicky Gumbel, during Alpha, encouraging us to keep a prayer diary. Many bloggers reflect on how the gospel is impacting the smallest details of their every day lives.

So blogging reaches inwards, it also reaches upwards. It's a confessional and prayerful place. It is a place to which we can have the Daily Office delivered by the C of E website as well as some other electronically delivered prayer resources.

Inwards and upwards, a blog also reaches outwards. You can engage Christians and non-Christians in all nature of topics and decide together what God might be saying about an issue. It becomes a place of testing and accountability, a place where we can teach each other.

It becomes a place for reaching out as people pool expertise for their missions and ministries. I have links to resources I've used which I make available to others. So blogs are about establishing community and sharing best practice.

Most importantly, blogs help you to reach out to those seeking a relationship with God ; to those who are curious. I was recently contacted through facebook by the first class I ever taught as an English teacher. We are now in communication which we probably wouldn't have engineered face-to-face. They access my blog from facebbook and get to read about the gospel and the impact it is having on my life. I met one of my ex-students in a book shop just the other day and we were both able to share this common ground and exchange invitations to each other's churches. The opportunities are unlimited.

So to conclude: If we are going to take Matthew 28 and the Great Commission seriously, we need to explore how to be present in this new frontier. We need to navigate it, speak into it, cross its seas and journey through it to reach those who might need to be dragged back to shore and have church experience resuscitated in their lives. Seekers are caught in the safety-net and I hope that in being caught up in the web, they might be caught in a bigger net, the one cast out by Jesus into the teaming seas.

************************************
What are the disadvantages as you envisage them of a community that is defined by its communicating rather than its gathering?

I suggest that the net is nourishing faith – what do you think? In what ways does IT help you in your discipleship.

What is your definition of Church?

This really does it for me...

It's been great to hear my four year old singing this tonight as she cleans her teeth!!

An itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny reformation...

Well, there's an itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny reformation going on in my house this weekend. My husband was brought up as a Catholic, a Polish Catholic and in its outworkings this is a more traditional expression of Catholicism than Catholicism today because the rest of Poland has moved on but not the Polish community who gathered here after the war.

So your Saints Day was celebrated over your birthday, fasting was required before consuming the eucharist and sins needed to be confessed in one of those wooden boxes to the awaiting priest. Mary remains a virgin despite Jesus' brothers and sisters and generally the church is ardorned in much goldleaf and with many statues and relics to whom prayers can be offered. anyone outside this expression of faith is destined for Hell!

My husband will become an Anglican in our Church tomorrow with a piece of liturgy built for the purpose and we will all clap, no doubt. He has been a closet Anglican for years, time to burst out. Direct access to God through Jesus! Wine and bread for all! Mary loved but in her appropriate place.

Please pray for us as we spend time with my husbands' parents tomorrow afternoon when we visit them after this service. From their point of view, he is rebellious, I am even more so for seeking ordination, mine is an influence rather malign because perhaps being a woman, it is I who should have become Catholic. We love our parents (in law) dearly but when their understanding of Anglicanism is so poor that they have to ask us whether we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, it requires much grace to smile and reassure them politely that yes, of course, we do.

Arguments. Avoid 'em:

Trying to claim Technorati again - so nothing to see here

rz2wjaei43

church within a Church

Epiphany moments.

Last night I was thinking on my fear of church within Church which has been alerted by my meditating on all things GAFCON, FOCA, FCA, JD etc

Am I not also constructing a church within a Church?

I look at my blog roll and see that I have elevated to the status of brother and sister, Christians with whom I share theological stances, although I do cross denominations, I have to say.

In actual fact, you are all my brothers and sisters in Christ so it is time to change my blogroll. I am 'open' in my evangelical expression but I seek to have a 'teachable spirit'. I have much to learn and I hope to gain experiences of other expressions of the faith. I would like to go on a church placement in an Anglo-catholic parish and also experience a mainstream Church of England church which is not evangelical.

I have for too long fixed my gaze upon conservative or open evangelical expressions, perhaps, it is time to stand back and look at the landscape and see what I can learn from the stretched canvas.

The FCA: choosing their queens carefully

This makes for very confusing reading and in my headline, I am alluding, of course, to the fact that this controversy over an alternative gospel being preached, which is FCA's charge, surely has a lot to do with women and gay people and perhaps actually less to do with the presentation of an alternative Jesus. Those who hold to inclusivity are not preaching another gospel. They are simply preaching the good news to women and to people in same-sex relationships and not excluding them. So it makes for an awkward read - FCA hold to Male headship for the most part but choose to quote the support of one particular and powerful woman when it suits them!

Later amendment my moi: I have since read around a little. There is a lot of talk out there about the Queen's 'support' of FCA and it transpires, according to Ecclesia Thinktank, that Royal sources said the Queen was not endorsing the FCA and pointed out that she corresponds with a great number of organisations. There seems to have been a fair amount of misquoting going on at FCA conference. On Monday I looked at what had been read out from John Coles, leader of New Wine but it transpires that the original correspondance was shortened and Jody has written to explain that she did manage to talk to John Coles about it and the paragraph thatwas read out was only half the story. John said that New Wine were about affirming women in ordained ministry. 'I realise that there are many in FCA who hold views which are very different from ours, for instance excluding women from church leadership. But with Henry Orombi right at the heart of it I know that our views on women in leadership will be upheld.'

So I guess to conclude my dabbling just a little in exploring all things GAFCON, FOCA and FCA on and off for 12 months or so, I would not be able to sign up to these organisations, what a sad thing in some ways when I feel just as passionately about the gospel as they do, and that's THE GOSPEL, not some alternative one.

The political stuff I continue to find interesting but in some ways it is sad. When I started to explain all the different denominational differences I had explored in the course of discerning where I stand on issues, it dawned on me at selection conference, that I am hoping to join a very, very messy church. I really hope that we do not have a 'break away church'. It does feel painful to think that there is a body of people out there who think that you love Jesus somehow less than they do or that you are less obedient than they are. I am saddened by the absence of open evangelicals at FCA. Surely, we have so much common ground?

One word

One word...

Awesome.

Now I await the result. They suggest you debrief with someone, not sure here is the place to do it, good friend and lots of coffee I think. Here is where I become a critic of my own presentation, which was about E Church and decide that however great you lot out there are, I can't get a hug from my lap-top.

I will say I met some fantastic people who will leave their indelible impressions, ink in many colours: the startling bright - a bullet-proof vest and a mission in Kosovo, serious passion: how much do we martyr ourselves for our faith? What does martyrdom mean? When is it not what Jesus intends? When does it have integrity? Where's the martyrdom in the everyday and the mundane?

The gentle pastel - the glow, the calm presence of Ray, his sensitivities, his inspired movements between the secular and the sacred because God makes the secular sacred.

Caroline - a strong colour, vivid and definite. One you can't help but notice and want to absorb, one to bask in so that it might become a part of your palette too, creative and intelligent - 'spirit charged brain cells' and so funny - alternative, able to see the other and bring joy in laughter.

Kate - bright and definite, daring - so real, vivacious - connected with the world, on the ball, setting everyone at ease.

Ian - iridescent - moved and moving others, simmering passion spilling over. A heart for youth and those without a space. ... and I could go on...

So many different shades, God's creative power - to make us all so unique and able to bring our particular gift to the table as an offering.

I feel a little like a towel that has been dropped in the bath (I've done that) and has then been wrung out. I feel like I've just given birth! Weird! Exhausted but so happy and a little changed, not the same as I was before. Something difficult and wonderful ahead to nourish but not sure into what shape it will grow; out of control a little but firmly resting in my Father's hand, nursed. Crying in the night, not a baby, but me. I had very vivid dreams, crying about leaving friends and having to say good-bye.

God brought me full circle so what is beyond the circle is just an added extra. You see God got my attention with 1 Timothy a few years ago. He shouted, hey, I'm so here, what are you going to do about me? I will give you rest and make you restless, sing to me, I'm listening, shout if you want, I can take it, so I did!

He took me to Rev 21. I heard the call, eternal life, his purposes, his 'it will all be okay' - tell others, tell others about my son.

So when I went to 'church' an hour after I landed (that's how it felt a little, back home, off the motorway from selection conference at Ely), he presented me and with 2 Timothy and Rev and I gulped for this time he showed me, and all the other people at our meeting through the speaker, American and passionate, the crowns we inherit and what we do to stay in the race which is actually a marathon. So yes, it's a marathon - the roller-coaster slows, in fact in some ways it's stopped until I get my result and I'm collecting myself, straightening my clothes and breathing again but not getting off just yet until I receive the next commissioning, then I'll put my trainers on and start to gently jog towards whatever horizon God is leading me.

***

They got the lot those advisers, heaven help them! I spilled big time, it was all on display, nothing held back. God was so good and faithful to me, giving me the words so that the result is his and his alone. The words he gave me were either because he wants me to communicate that what lives in me is not what is needed for ordained ministry or that what lives in me is what is needed for ordained ministry. I don't think there is any half-way. My DDO said it was likely to be a definite yes or no and not a half-way house. So I will wait. God knows (as do the advisers at this point, who stayed an extra 24 hours because they need to come to a unanimous decision about each of us). I am the one left unknowing!!

So glad to now be the other side of 'it', whatever the 'it' turns out to be...

Catching up on the FCA

Back from Bap and will say more about that later just writing a post to self really.

Livestream FCA

Interesting stuff.

Interesting that John Coles from New Wine had a message and stands in solidarity. He worries about secular humanism, fair enough. Jody has had her concerns that New Wine seems to be unrepresentative when it comes to women in leadership. I wonder. Does affinity with FCA always mean belief that women shouldn't be ordained. Probably not. Not sure.

It will be interesting to see what Fulcrum make of it all.

Unity? I dunno. The communion? Well, it's all very interesting.

'A new reformation?' Not sure.

Feeling unsorted

It was good to read Adrian Warnock's latest blog post because I'm feeling a bit 'unsorted' about tomorrow. I have fussed about shoes and clothes- a little, stared at all the books I want to read - a lot, sang some songs - on and off all day, received some prayer ministry at Church- very encouraging, but otherwise got on with having an ordinary day - church, preparing lunch, taking the children to swimming lessons etc. I will gather paperwork together and have an early night and set off tomorrow for selection conference.

I will carry these words with me: We don’t wait till God sorts us out to serve him. As we serve him, he will sort us out.

See you in a few days.

Seriously cheesy stuff...

We went to 'Twin Lakes' today, which is a theme park for little kids and every year 'Destiny Kids' put on a worship slot on site for an hour and a half. We always arrive to eat our sandwiches as they begin and then join in with lots of action songs about how great Jesus is etc. The lyrics are very cheesy but very catchy and are aimed at the under 12s.

There was a lad of 12 with an electric guitar who had written his own song and it really was very good. His name was Joel. It was great for my kids to see Joel because he was cute and trendy but loves Jesus. My four year old is just completely accepting of Christianity, she knows no different. The school my girls attend has a really obvious Christian ethos because the head and his wife are Catholic and it is a private school so in some ways does not have to conform to the pressure that the state system is under to tread a very inclusive line re faith or just not include faith at all, which seem to be the only choices. So at school and at home there is a Christian ethos.

My seven year old, on the other hand, is just beginning to distinguish between what is cool and what is not cool and sometimes Christianity is not cool so I was really pleased to see her joining in today with the songs, not all of them but she did like Joel and managed to last an hour of the hour and a half, even saying, 'actually, I've changed my mind, let's just watch the last bit', before we scooted off for the mini roller-coaster and train-rides. When the main musical influence for seven year olds at the moment is High School musical with its:
I want fabulous,
That is my simple request,
All things fabulous,
Bigger and better and best,
I need something inspiring to help me get along,
I need a little fabulous is that so wrong?

Now adults might get the irony here. The character wanting to be fabulous is quite obviously shallow and deserving her comeuppance but I don't think all seven year olds are going to get the subtlety.

So, quite honestly, I'm quite grateful for lyrics like these, no matter how cheesy they are:
Jesus, you're my superhero
My love for you will never end
You shine like the brightest star
You're my bestest ever friend

...or at least it went something like that...

Thanks 'Destiny Kids' - it all helps!

Unique?

I am having an interesting discussion about the uniqueness of Christ in the thread under my 'Until September...' post. This is why I blog. My blog makes me tackle the issues that I wrestle with.

On Monday my first task at selection conference will be to fill out a personal inventory with my gut reactions to certain situations; my responses to certain questions. I have no idea what will be on it but I just have this gut-feeling that there will be a question or two which will attempt to draw out my thinking about other faiths.

I was very interested in Peter Ould's coverage of the Synod debate in February on the issue of the uniqueness of Christ .

I want to be able to answer questions that best reflects how I feel. Page 184 of The Mystery of Salvation helps,

'...mission remains the central task of the Christian Church. The task is to proclaim by word and to display in action that God has created a world that is good, and that we are responsible for that creation; that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of justice and peace, has already begun in Christ, and that we can be assured of its future consummation through him; that the gift and assurance of salvation and eternal life is available now, and the mark of this life is love. We deny the fullness of that love if we deny the truth and goodness which Christ, as Logos, and God by the Spirit, can
also inspire in those of other faiths and of none. We believe that God has chosen to provide the fullest revelation of himself in Christ, and the fullest revelation of his love for all humanity in the cross and resurrection. Hence we naturally pray that God will bring all people, including those of other faiths, to explicit faith in Christ and membership of his Church. This is not because we believe that the God revealed in Christ is unable to save them without this, but because Christ is the truest and fullest expression of his love, and we long for them to share it. In the Lord’s words in St John’s Gospel, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10.10).'

...so it is good to talk and be challenged.

If there's one thing I have learned from blogging, it is how our words can misrepresent us. I am glad that I will meet my selectors in a real and not a virtual world. We do communicate body, mind and spirit and there is something often quite gnostic about our virtual dialoguing. I guess this is why we have invented emoticons, it is amasing how a ;) or a :-) can completely change the whole tone of an incoming email.

...so I think I know now what I will do with any half hour reading opportunities I might get over the weekend, is to flick again through 'The Mystery of Salvation' just so that I might be able to better express what I mean without all the circumlocutions.

When I went to meet the Bishop who has put his name to my application, it was good to share with him how there were certain things that I am careful about how I articulate. The doctrines that we hold to have a variety of outworkings in practice.

So I hold to the uniqueness of Christ as the only means to salvation, this does not mean that I do not think Christ is at work in the lives of Sihks or Hindus or Buddhists or Muslims.

I believe that God created us to be in marriages that are between a man and a woman but I would still be quite happy to accept the bread and the wine from Gene Robinson for the sacrament is not given in the minister's name but in Christ's and we are all unworthy but the effect of Christ's ordinance is not taken away by this, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished, the eucharist is effective because of Christ's institution and promise.

I believe in women's ministry and that the Bible witnesses to women in ministry and women teaching and preaching but I can understand how people can walk a different hermeneutical bridge and come to a different opinion.

This is why I am 'a happy under Rowan not Bob kind of Anglican'. I would not be able to join the FCA which launches at about the same time I will be filling out my personal inventory. They seem to be reacting against, I want to work with. They seem to be gathering around a declaration which makes claims with more certainty than I think we are perhaps able to; they seem to be doing a lot of stating and voicing and rallying when I would prefer to sit with Rowan Williams and listen and indaba. I love the via media, the middle way, the sitting on the white lines despite the fear of being hit by both lines of oncoming traffic. I like the parantheses and the explanatory asides. I like the caution and the choosing our words carefully, the listening process and the wiggle-room.

In essence, I believe in the infallibility of the message of Scripture and the infallibility of the Spirit's communication of that message but I hold closely to my own fallibility, that I will mess up and not pay enough attention to the Spirit's communication and so I lack a kind of confidence when it comes to expressing things emphatically. I will get it wrong because of my sinfulness so I am always prepared to be taught.

I am hoping that when I get to Heaven I will present myself like one of those very scribbly kids pictures, to which as a parent you ask what is it and then declare how wonderful it is. I am not saved by my doctrine, I am saved by Jesus' blood. He will love me in my attempts to get it so right when it actual fact all I was able to produce was a glorious mess.

Google books

Google books search is excellent. I'm realising that it might be a way to cut down on the number of books I have to buy. Access to short-term reading is such a scramble and you have to stay put in the reading room, which isn't always something you want to do. There are an amazing amount of books available in full at google books. The only down-side is you can't copy and paste selected quotes across for your notes, you have to type them out. I'm also realising you have to be selective. I banked between twenty and thirty books over to 'my library', this afternoon - I'll never read them all. But it's been fun making better use of this resource.

I came across this which made for an interesting read. But really I should be concentrating on this kind of thing.

During teaching, ten years ago or so I discovered Project Gutenberg which has put many of the classics online and available to print off and found this immensely useful. We created our own abridged Canterbury Tales, for example, so there would be less for the A level students to learn - ruthless carving up of the text, I know. Google books search reminds me of this site and how it really changed the way I prepared for lessons. I feel much more hopeful now about my Deuteronomy research. Nevertheless, an appeal now to my more learned friends: any suggestions for good books to help with this one- nothing too hard please.

Discuss the overall shape of the book of Deuteronomy, considering the key critical and theological issues that arise for Christian readers today, and drawing on verses or passages from different parts of the book to illustrate your answer.

I need to try to get the words 'redaction', 'form' and 'source' into the essay at some point!

Campervan excitement

My husband is sitting next to me getting very excited about campervans!!

Big desk, two laptops side by side and this morning's breakfast dishes bestrewn, he is interrupting my procrastinating with 'wow' and 'woahs' as he looks at the inside shots of million pound campervans (mansions on wheels) as he surfs the web to hire our van for New Wine.

It's a beautiful day outside and I am wondering if we're all going to boil in our van for despite what he is looking at ours will be missing the air-conditioning unit as well as the plasma TV screen and the built in all round entertainment system.

Just a bed each and if it had a shower - well - that would be fab!

We're all looking forward to it.

...until September

...we ate together.

Christianity.

What other faith unites its disciples as sisters and brothers, encourages them to share all that they have and most often around the table? Table-fellowship - eating and talking. We share our lives and wonder how we might add members to the family; how we might go out to be salt and light. We are encouraged to share our diversity and marvel at it, how each one of us is made unique by God with particular gifts which we can use to his glory. Living passionately and gratefully and looking to Jesus as an example for what life and death should look like, we are accountable to one another and to God.

It is a truly radical and exciting way to live. To take your hands off the wheel and allow God to drive the vehicle (don't push the metaphor too far), you do not know quite where you will end up but only that God will be there behind you, in front of you and besides you and so you will be okay...you'll be more than okay...

...we ate together. We all came together with a diversity of needs and backgrounds, with concerns and questions, some about the health of our children, some about landing times in Chicago, some off to start a ministry in a seaside town in Wales and some of us with no idea what the future might hold but a confirmation that a husband and wife ministry will develop with outreach to the Muslim community and that this is what the last three years had been about; one to start ordination training at Ridley and others to continue in their house groups, one to speak for Torch Trust and one to sing in a Pentecostal Church...

...and me...well, who knows...

...so until September...

May God keep us all safe in whatever we might do, walking with him daily, our guiding light and the reason that we have all come together to eat.

Today was my last day at college. I will return in September; maybe as an ordinand and maybe not as an ordinand. In some ways and in the bigger picture, it matters very little.

I am very grateful to all the people who have helped to rub my rough edges a little smoother this year. I am also very grateful to all the people who helped me to become a little more comfortable about the things which make me - me; to the people who celebrated my 'energy' - how kind; who smiled at my muddled wonderings...

Looking back, I started theological college on a mission. But whose was it? Was it God's? Was it mine? I had my questions. They needed answering! Wow! My questions are everyone's questions and everyone is wondering about the answers. I wasn't the first to ask them and nor will I be the last! Have they been answered. No. The fundamentals - yes. The secondaries - no. So we live with the tensions and that's okay and we live inclusively. We submit to one another as to the Lord. We elevate the other as God exalts Jesus and we see the Jesus in one another. So, there is nothing that can cut us off from the love of God, not our gender or our sexual orientation, our creed or colour or culture. Denominational difference is nothing to the Lord, nor are political affiliations or stance on secondary issues. So I have mellowed a little. More passionate about some things and less so about others. I no longer battle an imaginary injustice but care more about the real injustices. I no longer race at this thing, cramming as much of it into my brain as I can but realise instead that God has all the time in the world, beyond world. I no longer bristle at the thought of the quiet times for there is no longer a 'nothing to do then' but an 'everything to be then'. So unfinished but at least at the starting line with a vision of the road ahead but asking to be equipped for the long-haul and not so much running as being carried.

My lecturer Daryl will return to teach the Pauline epistles to some blessed students in America and in the evenings he will wait tables (the original deacon). Daryl taught me much: about the Old Testament - a little and about life, a lot. He did suck the marrow from the bones of life and considered every day a gift. He did live vibrantly and expect life to be vibrant. He looked for the beauty and the sorrow in everything and wore his heart not just upon his sleeve but upon every part of his attire with each of its beats so raw and on view so that he might inspire us too to live a little more honestly and vulnerably, extending invitations to all, as if saying come witness the near mess I made of it all but in God I am redeemed. Come see my soul and find the dark places amongst the bright. It's okay. There is always hope. So love God, love his Word and love life and make sure you live it in relationship with God and other people no matter how hard that can be.

I have not cried so much in a classroom since I was five years old!

Thank you dear Daryl who referred to us all as his 'dear-hearts'.

I have learnt loads this year about myself and God and other people. It's all just beginning, whatever it is and I am so happy to be here.