No. 8: Hopeful Stories, Anxious Cultures
Editorial
Around the Table: March 2017
How might God be leading us in this time and place?
On March 31, 2017 we held our first virtual conversation Around the Table to invite others to join us in reflecting upon the work of the Spirit in recent JMP stories. A full recording of the webinar and shorter clips to view and share can be found on our YouTube channel.
Editorial: Hopeful Stories, Anxious Cultures.
Since Issue 7 of the Journal those of us living in the UK and NA have been overtaken by a series of events that have accelerated, beyond our expectations, the levels of fear, crisis and anxiety among citizens. It is becoming clear that trust in the structures of state and economics to address current challenges is tumbling. It is now apparent that elites and thought leaders...
Stories
Life on the Margins: The Saturday Gathering in Halifax
Linda is a minister, an Anglican priest, based in Halifax, Yorkshire, a town which has areas of high deprivation. She is curate of two congregations in this town, and also co-leads Saturday Gathering, a Saturday evening church which emerged from a Food and Support Drop-In and other services. In conversations with Martin Robinson and Mary Publicover Linda reflects on some of the challenges of this ministry, and her dependence on God to find a way through.
The Fragility of Goodness: Brexit Viewed from the North East
Perched on a stool at the end of the bar, just beneath an enormous screen showing Britain's Got Talent for those whose interests quite understandably lay elsewhere, I gave a talk on the way that Catholic social thought provides resources for thinking about the current migrant crisis. It was an evening when I was (unsurprisingly) cheered and heckled in equal measure: political theology as a fittingly extreme sport. At the end of my talk I suggested to the crowd...
Housing and Shalom in the New Commons
Vancouver housing has become so expensive that only the very rich can afford to live in a private home. About a quarter of the city have a more insecure existence in social housing, or for some, on the street or in shelters. These populations do not naturally mix. Tim Dickau, Joy Banks and Mark Glanville are ministers at Grandview Calvary Baptist Church and describe how their church has sought to be part of reshaping the city by living into signs of Shalom...
Wellbeing on the High Street and a Place of Prayer
Ruth Rice, minister of a Baptist church in a Nottingham suburb, pioneered a high street wellbeing café called Renew 37. This café has turned out to be helpful for the mental health of the local community and for the church- and a place where both can encounter God in prayer. Ruth’s story is one of amazement at every turn because this café was not part of some long term plan but has emerged from relationships within the neighbourhood and a compassionate conversation about some lonely people.
Welcoming the Stranger: When a travelling community turns up on your patch
Mat Wilson tells the story of the week a community of travellers moved onto the sports fields managed by the church on behalf of the neighbourhood. How would a church commited to welcome and hospitality navigate the tension between this group and the neighbours and their sports field?
In the Shadow of the Twisted Spire – Taking Reverse Mission Seriously
Although Pastor Toyin is a Nigerian and her congregation is part of a Nigerian denomination, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, interestingly the smallest national African group within the church is drawn from Nigeria. The white English community represents the single largest group. There are other white migrants present from various European nations and from commonwealth countries such as Australia. It’s an intriguing and remarkable mix. How did this come about?
Conversations
Around the Table: March 2017
How might God be leading us in this time and place?
On March 31, 2017 we held our first virtual conversation Around the Table to invite others to join us in reflecting upon the work of the Spirit in recent JMP stories. A full recording of the webinar and shorter clips to view and share can be found on our YouTube channel.
Around the Table: Willing Vulnerability
These three short clips from the Around the Table Webinar all describe the vulnerability of communities willing to be responsive as they encounter God in the stranger.
Around the Table: Hospitality
A central gospel metaphor for mission is hospitality. Jesus’ ministry was often conducted at an open table, it was ‘porous’, but how hospitable is the church in her central practice, the Eucharist? Which practices and postures do ready us to listen attentively among the many stories which confront us? Paul Weston and Mark Lau Branson raise these questions in two short clips from our Around the Table Webinar.
Theory
The Fragility of Goodness: Brexit Viewed from the North East
Perched on a stool at the end of the bar, just beneath an enormous screen showing Britain's Got Talent for those whose interests quite understandably lay elsewhere, I gave a talk on the way that Catholic social thought provides resources for thinking about the current migrant crisis. It was an evening when I was (unsurprisingly) cheered and heckled in equal measure: political theology as a fittingly extreme sport. At the end of my talk I suggested to the crowd...
Book Reviews
Book review: ‘The Wages of Rebellion’ by Chris Hedges.
The Wages of Rebellion is shaped initially by an analysis of Western revolutionary theory from the 19th century forward. Revolutions, Hedges proposes, are not fermented by ideas promulgated by elites. They occur when intolerable gaps develop between ordinary people and the reigning narratives of the state, its economics and its elites.
Alan Roxburgh reviews this book and introduces a number of other books on a similar theme.
Book Review: ‘Between the World and Me’ by Ta-Nehisis Coates.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a self-proclaimed atheist who rejects the Christian God, and yet his book, Between the World and Me, is what happens when God draws the curtains to unveil the evil of racism that prevails across the world. This book is a critical social commentary on life in the United States that should inform every conversation concerned with mission in places that live with racial and economic oppression.
Extended Book Review: ‘Together for the Common Good’ edited by Nicholas Sagovsky and Peter McGrail.
Together for the Common Good was written by an Anglican priest and a Roman Catholic priest and is part of a wider conversation. Both the book and the conversation are a product of discussions, meetings, action and prayer which seek to encourage people to work together towards change for the common good by overcoming differences, growing in respect for each other, as well as by learning from different cultural and religious traditions.