Sean the Baptist

(Faced with preparing for a ladies' meeting tomorrow or reading Blogs...)

I like this a lot. Space over place and only as much as you need: quite a functional view I guess, but seems to resonate with stuff we're trying to do/be here. Ironic that since we lost 'place' and have to borrow 'space' we do more 'witnessing'

Posted by: Catriona | Tuesday, 13 June 2006

Sean, thanks for this timely reminder of Bonhoeffer's ethics and this central insight of his. It was this awareness that enabled him to lay foundations for a theology and ethic to engage the post-war and indeed postmodern world.
For me there are two central implications in his ethics here.
First, Bonhoeffer was the first person to say so clearly: It is not the job of the church to 'fill' the world, nor to draw all the world into the church. The church has its place and its role, within the world—which for him was the arena of God's reign.
I remember how powerfully this insight hit me, having been formed by a church which claimed that it, the church, is the kingdom of God.
No it is not. Rather, and this is the second point, Bonhoeffer wrote of Christ 'taking form in the world'. So the job, and the space, of the church is to be conformed to and with Christ: to engage with him, in what he is doing in the world.
In this way, the world has its own life, and the church its life, and the two related in and through Christ.
These insights formed the basis of my work on the servant model of the church, which seeks to preserve these relationships.
Although it is such a long time since his death, Bonhoeffer's thought is still so powerfully relevant.
We are commemorating the centenary of his birth this year.

Posted by: Frank Rees | Thursday, 15 June 2006

Hi! I’m Frankie Ward and with Elaine Graham and Heather Walton we’re the speakers at the British and Irish Association of Practical Theology conference that meets in Manchester July 18 – 20th this year, with the theme of theological reflection. I’d like to do something at the conference on blogging as a method of theological reflection – and would be really grateful if you could answer any or all of these questions – and forward them on to anyone else you know who might be prepared to answer them too. I need responses, if possible, by July 3rd …
I don’t blog (yet!) so responses to my email address at fefward@btinternet.com although if there’s any way that some dialogue can be generated within whatever blogging community you belong to, it would be great to be notified of any links etc that I might otherwise miss.
Many thanks in anticipation …


1. How long have you been blogging?
2. What got you started?
3. Do you have a history of diary/journal/log writing beforehand?
4. How in your own mind do you negotiate the boundary between private and public? E.g. are there things that you would not put on your blog that you would put in a journal?
5. How do you decide? What criteria do you use for inclusion/exclusion?
6. How much time, on average, do you spend blogging each day or week?
7. How many other people do you actively engage with – e.g. are part of your blog community?
8. Who is your readership – literally; as far as you know?
9. and metaphorically? Do you imagine someone to whom you write/with whom you engage?
10. What counts as successful blogging?
11. What does blogging offer as a method of theological reflection?
a. Its opportunities
b. Its draw backs
12. What potential do you see for blogging as a method of theological reflection?
13. Do you know of examples of theological education programmes where students are required to keep a learning journal and blog as a form of journal?
14. Blogging and gender: do you think gender makes any difference to any of the above questions?

Posted by: Frankie Ward | Tuesday, 20 June 2006

Bonhoeffer is right - and is certainly an important corrective to the Christendom model. I've always agreed with him on this, but ... And yes, there is a "but", and I'd appreciate your thoughts on it. I've found myself thinking about this question more deeply of late. My thinking runs like this:

Let's grant Bonhoeffer's point that it is not the task of the church to engage in a territorial dispute with the world. The Church doesn't need space - certainly if the motivation is self-aggrandisement (that spelling looks wrong- they need to develop a spellchecker facility here!). It is the kingdom that is the telos of creation and redemption, not the church. This works, therefore, as a timely reminder to an ecclesio-centric theology that is focussed on maintenance rather than mission (to use that hackneyed but useful distinction).

However, what happens when we read ecclesiology through a missiological lens (as we ought)? The "competition", then, is not between the church and the world for space, but for the extension of the kingdom. In other words, put in Markan terms (hey, why not at least pretend to be relevant???), it's about competition with the Strong Man. Issues about space - who has it, how much etc - become important.

And this has relevance to the Church, because one sign of the kingdom is that people respond in love and worship to God through Christ. The Church, therefore, ought to expand in relation to the kingdom, but not at the expense fo the kingdom, oughtn't it?

My question at the end of the day is one of expectations. What ought we expect to see happening? What ought we to pray and work for? Theer's the issues of "getting Church right", but lest's assume for a moment that we do: what then?

Posted by: Lawrence | Thursday, 22 June 2006

Challenging questions, Lawrence.
I agree that this cannot be about 'competition' for space.
It has to do with what we can expect from God, and this I think is where the Christendom thinking is most seductive, and most wrong.
What can we expect in the world? What is God's will and way for the institutions of our society, such as a health service, justice system, and sporting clubs, political parties, not to mention neighbourhoods, kindergartens, local communities?
My own thinking is that there is still something to be said for the 'servant' model, developed from Bonhoeffer's thinking, in the 60s and 70s especially. (This model is in fact not well represented in the literature, such as in Dulles' book, Models of the Church. There are better representations.)
The servant model is predicated on the idea that God's Spirit is actively at work in all the processes and systems and institutions of the world, in short, in life itself. It presupposes a creation theology, which values the world as the arena of God's way.
What can we expect from God? We can expect to see God at work, doing the kinds of things we see God doing in Jesus: working for food, for the hungry, for liberation of the oppressed, and so on ... Where these things are happening, there is God, and there the people who call themselves 'church' ought to be (as Bonhoeffer put it) being conformed to Christ. There the body of Christ is to be taking shape in the world.
This means that 'the church' is indeed an expression of what you call 'the kingdom'; but it is not the institition of the church that is doing this.
It is the life of the church as people, the servant people—this is how the church can be an effective sign of God's way.
And this is the only sign which will have any missional credibility, at least in the place where I live. The institutional life has none.

Posted by: Frank Rees | Thursday, 22 June 2006

I have enjoyed and been challenged by the deep and meaningful thoughts of others on this insight from Bonhoeffer, so far removed from my simplistic 'I like this' - though I still do.

Just a thought, not profound, not thought through even: if the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed then it's more about potential and effects than about space (which seems to get equated with size). Or is this just comforting for ministers of small churches?!

Posted by: Catriona | Tuesday, 27 June 2006

I've just realised what it is that I don't like about the current BU talk of core competencies for ministers, and disciplinary procedures and so on. All necessary things, no doubt, but the way they're being done they turn ministers into servants of the church, whereas ministers should be servants of God, whose purposes are far larger than the church.

Thanks, Dietrich.

Posted by: Stuart Jenkins | Sunday, 02 July 2006