..Church is a fruit...

A friend of mine wrote this little nugget of insight the other day that I just had to share:

Church in most of its forms doesnt seem to suit me, but I think this goes much deeper than me just being "picky".

I am interested in Jesus. I am interested in prayer, and faith, and community and exploring these ideas.

But it's a bit like someone offering me an apple and saying "Here have a piece of fruit", and me replying, "I dont like apples".

"Well there's pleanty of different types of fruit", offering me a cox apple.

"I dont like apples"

"There's lots of variety, fruit is good for you, etc" offering me a bramley apple.


Its not that I dont want fruit, its just where are all the bananas and grapes and strawberries. There's lots of different apples on offer.... but what about real variety?

Much has been written about a postmodern mindset/ cultural creatives/ post evangelicals etc, enough to encourage me that I'm not the only one who thinks like this. But what to do about it I dont know...

Churchless Christians form 'fastest growing church'

News article quoting the TallSkinnyKiwi:

"Andrew Jones, a consultant on 'emerging culture' with the DAWN European
Network, stated last week on a national conference in Norway that "the
fastest growing church is that of the churchless Christians." Many people
(and especially 'cultural creatives' like the new media folks) leave church
because they want to grow spiritually and the church is limiting that. They
rather connect and interact with people who see life as a journey with
Jesus and each other.

For the same reason new agers and other spiritual seekers don't feel
attracted to church. They think Christians are immature and unspiritual,
and cannot really engage with their questions and pursuit of a relevant
lifestyle. The other side of the coin is that a good percentage of
churchless Christians explore new ways of being the Body of Christ in the
emerging culture, and seem to connect well with spiritual seekers."

Source: joelnews.org

Makes me feel better about what we're doing at breathing-space might not be so weird after all!

..church.... the way it could/should be...

The ever profound Steve Collins just posted this on his blog after a visit to the Weather Project which I'm that miffed at missing.... Like him, when I read his recollections it just screamed 'CHURCH!' to me - or rather, how i'd love to see church 'done'.

...people lie around on the floor, chilling out in the misty 'sunset', gazing at their reflections in the ceiling. they make letter shapes with their bodies or swim around on their backs. there is a murmur of amused talk and quiet laughter. people arrive, exclaiming and smiling, join the quiet party while others get up and drift away. the mirrored ceiling stretches the full length of the hall to the main entrance doors. one can watch the far-off reflections of people entering, seeing them stare and point and make their way down to the front. sometimes my brain flips around and it's as if i'm hanging from the ceiling, which is a little bit frightening since the floor's a hundred feet below...

Now I know this doesn't encapsulate everything church should be, but to my very spatially/visually oriented mind, this just sounds like an awesome start to me, with a lot of the elements that I'd love to see in what we see as church, prayer and worship.

You can read Steve's thoughts here for now.

I know a lot of my fellow bloggers out there use PayPal for donations and such, so I felt it might be worthwhile passing this link along.. I don't know how reliable the information is, but I'll leave that discretion in your hands. Feel free to let me know if it seems like a load of vengeful codswhallop!

WHAT ALTERNATIVE-WORSHIP/EMERGING CHURCHES ARE THERE IN MELBOURNE?

Over the time we've been running breathing-space, I've had quite a few queries from people seeking out churches that are either 'emerging', or doing 'alt.worship' in their area, and I've realised that I don't know of an up-to-date list of these Melbourne churches/groups.. And that makes it hard to get involved, as we discovered when we first left a mainstream church and went in search of an alternative environment.

So I thought I'd have a bash at a bit of a directory and ask you what I've left out... I'm aiming for this to be an ongoing, up-to-date list, so if your details aren't here, or if they change, email me with them and we'll keep this fresh!


Connection Community - Various times/gatherings - Croydon
Solace - Sunday, 10:30am - Carey Grammar School Chapel, Kew.
Living Room - Tuesday nights, North Fitzroy.
NCCC - Various places/times.
Interact - Essendon. For details see Luke's blog.
Foothills Community Church - Ferntree Gully.
Port Melbourne Holy Trinity - Various services/opportunities. Port Melbourne.
South Melbourne Restoration Community - Sunday mornings - South Melbourne.
Cafe Church - Tuesday evenings, 7:30 - Universal Cafe, Hawthorn.
South Yarra Community Baptist Church - Sundays, 6pm - South Yarra.
Surfside Uniting Church - Ocean Grove.

Of course, a lot of this comes down to a matter of definitions, and whether we're talking 'emerging church', 'alternative-worship', 'postmodern', or whatever label you want to attach to it - And that's probably another discussion! My zeal is for alternative-worship so apologies if the list is somewhat skewed that way...

The Christian bookstore

I hate sounding cynical, but I had the most bizarre experience last night that I have to share... I went to a Christian bookstore...

Now, it's been a while since I've been in one of these large, non-denominational stores, and I have to admit it completely gave me the heebie-jeebies. So what did I run screaming from the store from?

- Being horrified by the massive displays of book series based more on merchandising and brand-name recognition than on quality of writing: Left Behind, Purpose Driven, Prayer of Jabez, Alpha, Willow Creek, First Place (a Christian dieting series), the list goes on: These are series that started with perhaps one or two popular books which on the basis of that expands to bible studies, journals, commentaries, devotionals, wall plaques, calendars, and all manner of things which I personally feel far outreach what it was ever designed to do but is now a simple matter of cashing in on a fad, and using the 'trust' they have created from their first books to flog anything else they feel like, regardless of how unsound it might be.

- Getting disturbed on browsing the 'teen' section to find more books which seem interested in making parents feel their children are chaste and conservative rather than growing as mature, independent-thinking adults, and books which think that 'youthwork' consists of repackaging the same fundamentalist message in secular clothes by using such words as 'extreme' and 'power' and so on. Not to mention the gender-specific books which assume that girls only want relationships and guys only want success and to 'make an impact'.

- Being confronted by more books which seemed to reflect middle-class Western 'success-oriented' and motivational-speak attitudes than those seeking to express a life of humble and sacrificial faith to a loving, mysterious God. I seriously breathed a sigh of relief when i found myself in the stuffy commentary section (up the back of the store!) where I was no longer faced with book covers of smiling, well-dressed Anglo faces surrounded by pastel colours, telling me how I should live my life.

- Confusion at the thousands of books offering quick-fix/6-step/32-day 'solutions' to every problem (Christian or otherwise) under the sun. The mere magnitude of these books makes you wonder how many solutions we have posed so far, each proclaiming to be 'the answer'.

Now don't get me wrong - there is some good stuff in these stores if you filter out the crap. Indeed, I found a few good alternative and prophetic authors lurking here and there on the shelves. It just really frightens me how much nonsense is in there and you can't help but wonder how much of it is more about turning a profit than sharing our own understanding of God to help those who may find it helpful. I guess what terrifies me most is the number of Christians who assume that because something's in a Christian bookstore, it must be true... And because of that how many people give up thinking for themselves and pay money to have someone else do it for them.

Rant over... And I hope you'll excuse me if I do all my book shopping on Amazon for a while!

P.S. Some similar/related thoughts are posted by Greg over at Emerging Minister, and by Mark Riddle

Creating Community:

Following on from my last post, I've been doing some thinking on what some of the integral components of true 'community' might be, drawing from my experience of 7 years of beach mission...

- Shared language - injokes, mottos, slogans, nicknames, creeds... All of these help provide a sense of shared knowledge and belonging.
- Common purpose - I don't think this needs to be a 'vision' per se, but definitely a shared reason for being together... Is that to do something (like run a beach mission), or simply because we all live in the same street or believe in the same God...
- Rituals - No, they don't have to be stuffy 'bells and smells' things... The Christmas bbq at Fred's place. A secret handshake. A certain form of worship.
- Respect of roles - That each person is valued for the role they play in the community, and indeed are valued simply for who they are.
- Evolution of the Story - I think all communities need to develop, because in development, the 'story' of the community develops, which creates history and a richness to the community which they can call their own.

Just a starting list - I'm still thinking and may add more as we go... Would there be any other thing's you'd regard as essential to community?

Of course, we can also take these things too far to the point where community becomes sectarian through its inability to accommodate new people and be flexible enough to develop its story with them.

Just back from holidays and a little trip down to my old beach mission (SUFM) at Port Fairy... Great to see Christian community at work in a very real and wonderful sense as they work together for 2 weeks - Building relationships with each other and the kids holidaying down there. It's an amazing environment, and I'll be brave enough to say that Pt Fairy is one of the more progressive and creative SUFMs out there... (Of course, I'm biased...)

Has got me thinking about the integral ingredients of true 'community'... If I find the right words I'll post about that soon too.