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In the past couple of days I’ve seen the subject of worship come up on Twitter a bit more than usual. Initially it was a series of joke #machoWorshipSongs and this seemed to evolve into a discussion about the use of masculine/feminine/romantic language in worship songs.

In the first instance I and a few others commented to each other that the “joke” was somewhat lost as so many of the songs we use in worship have a masculine or (as one person put it) pseudo-aggressive tone to them. In the second it emerged from a comment about how men don’t like the “Jesus is my boyfriend” type songs intoa debate about the appropriateness of this language and how it’s not just men who dislike them.

What I find interesting is that both fell into the standard trap of presuming “worship” is a) collective/corporate and b) uses words and language. Yes it’s true we get as many “Worship is more than singing!” declarations as we do “The church is the people not the building” ones and to the most part both are valid statements but what these discussions reminded me of was something I preached about a few years back.

What is worship?

It’s a well known meme that wroship derives from worth-ship, that is when we worship we are giving God worth, telling him what he is worth to us. This is interesting because it makes it easy to extend worship into the rest of our lives. Sometimes I struggle to think of worship in any other context than singing, praying, making, painting, playing etc. in a collective sense. It’s easy for us to say our lives should be worship but how do we do that.

The answer – I believe – is found in the following passage:

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. _{Matt 5:14-16 NIV}

When we shine, when we show our best in service to others we are giving God value in our eyes and in theirs (note v16). This is something that I find very important and it’s the inspiration behind #EntertainingAngels (formerly known as Give Up bad Coffee For Lent).

We give God worth.
We worship.

Service is worship, worship is service

Serving others is worship. Putting the needs of others before yourself is worship. Look at how that passage appears in the Message (emphasis mine):

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand-shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. _{Matt 5:14-16 The Message}

So let’s stop worrying if Church doesn’t appeal to our particular tastes and start figuring out if we leave a good taste in the mouths of those we meet. Because I have a sneaky feeling that in heaven people will spend a lot more time interacting with each other than they do standing beside each other singing.

As a side effect of this, once we also start to think of worship emerging from service it puts our roles in church in a new perspective, particularly if we are “worship” leaders.

I have noticed an increase of problem caused by these people:

These people are the ones we blame when we’re too lazy to give an appropriate name to those we accuse.
These people exhibit behaviour we deplore but that we rarely have evidence of.
These people follow whatever thought processes (if any) we wish to assign to make our point.
These people are a group of varying size but rarely do we think they really count.
These people are a convenient way for us to write real people off by lumping them together and not treating them as people.
Jesus said “Treat other people the way you want them to treat you.” Fortunately for us he didn’t specify how we should treat these people.

Too often we lump people into groups of our making so we can dismiss them out of hand and write them off. We decide what these people know, what they think, how they act and how they should be treated. At no point do we consider whether those we group together as these people actually want or – better yet – deserve to be in that group.

We owe them more than that. We owe them what we’d like them to owe us. A chance. A non-judgemental, open minded chance to be treated as an individual. Probably like you, I have had my turn at being grouped with these people and on occasion I have looked at those I am grouped with. Rarely do I find much in common with them. Other than being a human being who is being stereotyped by another human being of course.

This video is pretty well known and speaks for itself. But it’s good. Let’s stop talking about these people. Let’s talk about a person. Let’s look at them in the way Jesus did: one at a time.

I came across this video the other day. It’s cute and one of those ones that can make you go “awww” but as I watched I started to think about the parallels we have with the baby squirrel. Watch the video, I’ll explain afterwards…

… So here’s what struck me:

• sometimes what stops us is the knowledge of how to progress
• when the knowledge is there the problem can be lack of courage
• even when help appears it may not be in the form we expect and tackling that requires a whole new batch of courage and knowledge
• perseverance works if you are a) motivated, b) encouraged and ultimately c) helped

But you know what really struck me? It was the big squirrel. To me it seems to get very frustrated yet it keeps trying to get the baby to jump – even to the point of pushing it up the wall. I looked a that squirrel and I wondered how often am I not like that? How often do I allow my frustrations to get the better of me and I end up giving up on someone who needs help? How often do I give in too easily and just help the other person take the short-cut? And how often am I the baby squirrel without realising or recognising it?

Another quality video. Although sometimes these types of productions can become a bit “samey”, I think the presentation here really brings the text to life and in the end it is a cracking text.

( h/t @biblefresh )

I’ve seen and heard an awful lot of stuff about tomorrow’s referendum on voting and to be honest a lot of it is the same-old, same-old. The main Yes and No campaigns seem to be more concerned with scaring us about the opposition than promoting their own case. In addition I’ve yet to see anyone describe what might actually happen in each case.  So I’ve decided to have a go at it myself. I’m well aware that this might actually make things more confusing but I think you can handle it – you clever people.

First past the post (FPTP)

This is what we use now.  Here’s a nice diagram of what NoToAV supporters suggest happens with FPTP.

Simple idea:  count the votes and the one with the most wins. That sounds good but it’s not usually what happens. They’ve ignored things like tactical voting (voting against the candidate you don’t want) and the 30-40% of people who don’t vote at all. The end result is that the winner probably has the support of far fewer than half the people they represent (let alone a majority).  Here’s a revised diagram.

The irony here is that with FPTP many people already vote for their second choice (represented by the red and yellow votes above) as they don’t think their first one has a chance (or they are not standing). So when the NoToAV campaign claim AV will let the second choice candidate win, they’re ignoring the fact that the current system does that already.

Alternate Vote (AV)

This is the competition. YesToAV campaigners suggest something like this will happen if we switch.

Another simple idea. You rank the candidates in order of preference and the winner is the one who eventually ends up with at least 51% of support. Except that’s also neatly avoiding some of the realities like the 30-40% of non-voters and the people who only put down one preference. Here’s a diagram showing what would probably happen.

So you see the winner is the one with at least 51% of the remaining votes not all the votes and certainly not all the people they represent. That said there is a greater chance that more voters prefer the winning candidate than with FPTP.

What to do?

I’m not trying to convince you to vote one way or another – make your own mind up but don’t fall for the campaign lines. Read up on both systems and work out which is best for you butdon’t just fall for the campaign leaflets. They are after all very biased.

That said it is difficult to write a piece like this and not have your own preference come through. For the record I do prefer AV over FPTP ( given the option I’d rather STV or another PR was on offer ). My reason is – I think – simple: I live in a very safe seat and AV would give me the chance of showing my preferred candidate that they have my support and yet still allow my preference between the two front runners to make a difference. I can see some of the benefits for FPTP in an ideal world but in truth we don’t live in one of those. What concerns me most is the way that these campaigns have been pushed as if letting the “wrong” system win would mean automatically letting the candidate or party you don’t want in as well. Both sides are claimimg the extreminst groups would have more chance under the other system. This is not true by the way. There’s no evidence to suggest that extremist groups would have a better chance under either system. Most commentators say that changing to AV would not have made much difference to recent elections so why would I want to make a change if it made no difference? I believe that over time AV (or better yet STV) could make a difference. After the election candidates would better know what kind of support they have among the electorate and could campaign and work to increase that support. Rather than grow somewhat complacent each candidate would need to work to gain not only more first preference votes but increase their second preference ones too. In the end that sounds to me like prospective MPs would have to do something I rarely see or hear of: campaign on behalf of consttuents at times other than elections. It could also mean the candidate who is prepared to win the most support locally will win. This sounds better than the red, blue or yellow campaigning we have now.

Having said all of that I am concerned that this referendum coincides with local government elections and yet I have seen no local campaigning at all. It would appear that not one local candidate really wants my vote. Given that state of affairs I am beginning to see why so many people don’t even bother. So above all else this is a call to candidates in any election – don’t presume upon our votes – win them. Convince us. Not with scaremongering or bogey-men but with work and effort. You want me or my neighbours to vote for you, then sh ow us what our vote is worth. Not with leaflets but with action and if you are going to send me leaflest or run billboard campaigns – make them a little more honest rather than marketing material. because if you don’t do those things then you will find an increase in the non-voters.

Update Although I said much of the AV stuff is same-old, same-old it’s nice to find that there are still some refreshing views out there. My friend Kneewax, for example, has a very interesting one with which I wholeheartedly agree.

Sometimes I wonder if I understand what trusting in God means.

I don’t need to add anything here (except for my UK friends 8th grade is about 13-14 years old).

( h/t Jesus Needs New PR )

Do you see people who speak too quickly? There is more hope for a foolish person than for them. ^{Prov. 29:20 NCV}

In what seems to be an effort to show that we can be just as daft as the rest of the world (if not more so) there have been two very good recent examples of Christians not paying attention to the above scripture. The first concerns author and speaker Rob Bell. Apparently he has a new book coming out soon and it may or may not be a bit controversial. What has caused the controversy is quite frankly irrelevant because as yet only a handful of people have read the book (it is yet to be published after all). Now the cynic in me says that the publishers are quite happy with controversy and the associated furore as it will probably lead to more sales but like others it galls me to see so much vitriol directed towards Mr Bell (and even those who share his name) from so many who call themselves Christian and yet have somehow forgotten to think before speaking or acting – let alone actually consider showing any grace at all. This kind of behaviour reminds me of the mess with the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand phone call “scandal” where thousands of people who hadn’t heard a radio show, read that they might have been offended if they had heard it and so duly complained without actually hearing it! I posted a link to a very apt video a while back which might be useful for some of us to see.

The second example is the much-publicised case of the Johns. This Christian couple were reported as being banned from fostering because of their views on homosexuality. Except as the ever trusty Church Mouse reported (with credit to Peter Ould and Gavin Drake it never happened. The Johns were not banned. No Christian couple is banned from fostering and there wasn’t even a fostering case at the centre of this. The Johns were asking a Judge to rule against the possibility that their Local Authority might try to prevent them fostering on the grounds of their “traditional view of marriage and sexual ethics”. Yet again the Christian knee-jerk machine went into action and the “We are offended” placards were picked up and because we are in a connected world, the “fight” soon crossed to other countries. Again though is this a case of Christians taking an “offended” stance without checking if we actually should be? In fairness the popular media has clambered all over this story and mis-reported it so it really boils down to not believing everything you read in the papers at face value.

There is a worrying trend in the UK (at least) where Christians seem all too keen to presume that the world is out to get us and that we are being “persecuted”. The basis for this seems to be that because some people voice opinions opposing our own (and let’s be honest that happens enough within the Church) we are being persecuted. So we have mass band-wagon jumping whenever cases like these occur. The danger as I see it here is that the rhetoric used to defend Christians is remarkably close to the supporters of extremist political groups and we end up fuelling our own fears with talk of victimisation and persecution. But to date, in the UK: I have not heard of anyone imprisoned for saying “Jesus is Lord” in a public place; I have yet to hear of somebody being physically attacked for being a Christian and nobody has ordered a church closed down simply for being a church. Let’s stop jumping the gun here and pay attention to the scripture above. Okay, sure sometimes people might say or act towards Christians in an unkind, unfair and prejudicial manner but as the first of the examples above shows, the perpetrator is just as likely to be a Christian as well.

Recently a phrase I hadn’t heard for a while has popped into my “life stream” again. (By which I mean I’ve heard it a few times recently). It is “the wisdom of the crowd” and it refers (usually) to the way that online forums and social media allows many people to share “wisdom”. Often this will be where one person can ask a question and get several answers with the best one normally floating to the top via some kind of peer review. This review will be a function of the interface or quite often just indicated by contributors saying “I agree with them”.

But are crowds really all that wise?

You can buy these posters from Despair.com

There has existed for some time a series of de-motivator posters which are intended to be a humourous counter to the often cheesy motivation posters that once (and maybe still) adorned office walls. One of my favourites is the one to the right. The caption reads “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups”. Sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is not only found to be lacking but that lack is amplified by being within a crowd. A good example of this, as others have said, is the Facebook cartoon picture chain.

Someone – nobody knows who but best guess is that it started in Greece in November – started a chain by suggesting everyone on Facebook change their profile picture to a cartoon character from their childhood. Not only was this bringing a warm glow of nostalgia to Facebook but – the chain said – it was supporting the NSPCC in its campaign against child abuse. Of course the problem was that not only did NSPCC have no idea about this but that simply changing your picture in no way supported their cause. Many, including myself, advocated also donating to NSPCC. And yet the “wisdom of the crowd” meant that people were copying the status text verbatim and changing their picture without stopping to think if or how this was going to help stop child abuse.

Skip forward a few days and a second chain began going around. This one decried the first chain claiming that the people behind it were in fact a paedophile ring and that this was confirmed on “Tonight’s news”. No link or reference was given to the news item or even which night it was on. And yet again the “wisdom of the crowd” meant people began copying this new status verbatim and swiftly removing their cartoon profile pictures. Once it gained enough traction it was picked up by the Daily Mail and the circle was complete.

So I ask again are crowds all that wise?

All is not lost

To be honest that’s a rhetorical question. The answer is to be found just a day or so later. Despairing as others have at the speed at which particularly the latter chain propagated I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of comments appearing against the “it’s all run by paedophiles” status updates. Suddenly people were asking pertinent questions: “Which news program was this on?”, “Did you actually see it?” for example. Others suggested using well known hoax websites such as Snopes.com. Others highlighted the tell-tale signs that both of the chains were probably not founded on any real truth. Slowly, much slower than the original chains though, the wisdom of the crowd is percolating through.

So it seems the crowd can be wise if you give it time. Perhaps the issue is how fast we expect the online — and thus the offline — world to move these days. Instant updates on our mobiles, feeds to our laptop, netbooks, desktops and tablets all drive us towards a dangerous tendency to knee jerk reactions. Even those of us who would consider ourselves above falling for such urban legends could still do with applying some patience before we fly off on a rant about other well-meaning souls. I lose track of how often I have seen (and sometimes joined in) the ridiculing of Facebook users by those on Twitter. And yet Twitter has it’s own variety of such chains. Every now and then you’ll see a flurry of auto tweets from some wunder-app which promises convenience and delivers annoyance. “I’ve found the greatest…” the tweets start and sometime later are followed by “Remove that app – it’s a spambot” or similar.

The truth is that crowds — like the people they consist of — have both wisdom and foolishness, common sense and little sense and can be incredibly annoying and uplifting. Often these things occur shortly after each other or even simultaneously. People, whether on their own or in a crowd are remarkable things and the world is frequently both better off and worse off for having them in it. “People” is also a term that includes me, in all my stupidity and (somewhat rarer) wisdom. I would like to apologise to anyone I have upset or offended with any outburst or ill-thought out flippant remark. I should remember that I everyone is still learning (and that includes me) and that my time would be better spent trying to help rather than ranting.

So here’s the idea: why don’t we all start taking a moment to wait, reflect and consider before posting any tweet, facebook status update, blog post or even opening our mouths. For the Christians among us it is worth noting that patience is a fruit of the Spirit. Wisdom is not in that list.

Should our churches adopt this model for teaching? (image by weathertation CC:By-NC-SA)

Yesterday I attended Evangelical Alliance’s Social Media for Social Change event in London and thoroughly enjoyed it . As others have noted there was probably greater emphasis on social media than social change but this was not really surprising or a negative thing. Something that came up almost as a side comment in one of the Q&A sessions was the issue of teaching within our churches. A comment was made about how the education system underwent a change from “a sage on a stage to a guide by your side”. This is rather catchy but it does sum up the issue well. I attended school well within the “sage on a stage” era but still encountered teachers who would very much work with me and were approachable, encouraging and available. They really did guide me through my studies rather than dictate what they felt I needed to know to pass an exam. By stepping away from he blackboard, taking time to listen and being more human they gained a greater respect from me than other teachers. Coincidentally I find I can now – all these years later – remember more of what they taught me than those who simply lectured.

A change or a return?

Anyway back to the church. Can and should the way teaching is undertaking in our churches undergo a similar change as the education system? And if so how? A round table discussion took place at the conference on these very points and various concerns were raised. Moving people out of their comfort zones is a risky business. Churches who had tried something other than a preach-cum-lecture approach had received significant negative feedback and yes as expected threats were made.

And yet something in me thought of this passage from Luke 4:

¹⁶ When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. ¹⁷ The scroll containing the messages of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him, and he unrolled the scroll to the place where it says: ¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, ¹⁹ and that the time of the Lord’s favour has come. ” ²⁰ He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. Everyone in the synagogue stared at him intently. ²¹ Then he said, “This Scripture has come true today before your very eyes!” ²² All who were there spoke well of him and were amazed by the gracious words that fell from his lips. “How can this be?” they asked. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” _{Luke 4:16-22 NLT}

When Jesus finishes reading the scriptures he sits and every eye is on him. This is because it was traditional at the time for Rabbis to sit in the synagogue when they taught. By sitting down Jesus indicated he was about to teach. I’ve been to a few Bar-Mitzvahs and most synagogues I’ve been to are not arranged in the same way as churches. There is no pulpit and the “congregation” are not facing in one direction. They sat around the teacher and listened. Another way to put it is that the teacher sat among them. Scholars suggest this may have been how synagogues were arranged in Jesus’ time. How different is this to the arrangement in our churches? Another difference is that Jesus when he teaches permits and even encourages interruption. Witness how he permits the children to come to him and how often we read of someone asking a question while he is teaching. How often have you sat in a church and somebody has raised a question only to be told that they can “have a chat” later with the preacher – which often sounds like “Sit down and be quiet while I make my point”. (I do appreciate why this is done and that it is not often what is really meant but it does sound like that).

A challenge

So here’s the challenge:

Can and should the teaching methods in our churches change? What would happen if the preacher/teacher sat among the congregation? What would happen if they were not only allowed but encouraged to ask questions?

It’s interesting to note that this happens in many churches already. Those who run a “cell church” model will already meet in a more “guide by the side” way. Home groups are often similar and many a youthworker will tell you that is how they work. All these are often successful within those contexts and yet when all this is put aside and we come to “do proper church” we revert back to “the sage on the stage” model. Another point to make is that I personally — and I know I am not alone here — am uncomfortable with the gravitas that is automatically bestowed upon anyone standing up the front. Sometimes it feels like you are taken as some kind of super-Christian when nothing could be further from the truth. Thankfully this is on the wane as people are remembering that preachers put their trousers on (if they wear them) the same as everybody else and might even get annoyed if they get their foot stuck.

I’m not sure how or even if this change should take place but surely it must be worth thinking about?