Return of War

This morning I arrived at the church for our prayer meeting prior to the Sunday morning service to find a police cordon round the church building; there had been a report from a member of the public to say that there was a suspicious car parked about 50 yards from the church. For about a hour it looked like church would have to be cancelled and we would have to try to get the word out to the congregation but then someone had the idea of setting up in the local school, which is just across the street. So a small group of people went to the school and started to set up some chairs so that, at least those who did turn up would have somewhere to go. To make matters worse we were having a few guests from L'arch, Belfast to talk to us about their ministry.

People in this part of Belfast are extremely resilient and don't tend to get too excited when these things happen. Even after 10 years of peace an action by the dissident IRA, if that is who did this, is not enough to surprise or frighten them. Since the foundation of the church in 1867 there have been many difficult times: the early years where years of expansion in Belfast with thousands of people coming up from the country to find jobs in the new Linen industry, but then there was the first world war and the rise in Irish Nationalism, this was followed by the years following the great depression and then the second world War. Then in the early 60s and 70s there was the industrial competition from the far east which led to the downfall of the linen industry followed by the heavy engineering and the ship building which once led the world [the fact that the Titanic was built in Belfast simply serves to remind us that it was ok when it left Belfast!!!]. Then we had the Troubles which lasted 30 years [we could call this the Thirty years war]and led to the break up of relationships and destroyed the industrial and social landscape of our beloved land.

You could say that this part of our city has known only heartache and trouble and it is certainly the part of the island that had witnessed more murders and violence than any other part and yet it is still standing: wounded, yes but still standing. It is truly amazing and certainly more than a little disturbing that we remain undisturbed by the threat of a bomb. And at this moment of writing I would even lay a wager, if I did such things, that it will hardly be reported at all.

What should our response be? What should the world be doing? What should the middle class parts of Northern Ireland be doing by way of response? In the past the government of the United Kingdom simply dug in the hells and sent in the troops to "keep the peace". while churches like ours have had windows blown in by bombs and had the congregation terrorised and while we have witnessed the destruction of a community little by way of positive and constructive action has been taken. Money has been spent in millions but what really needs to be done has remained undone because it is too costly. What needs to be done is that we need to send in a need breed of troops. We need seriously minded Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, to settle in the hard places like ours to help us to make our churches soft places. We need followers of Jesus Christ to take up opportunities to build "intentional communities" of peace and harmony but those who can do this have preferred to remain aloof and keep their distance.

We need to declare war on evil and on the one who lies behind that evil-we need to fight against evil with truth and peace. Not with the conventional weapons of deadly warfare but with ploughshares. Are there people "out there" who would take up the challenge to resist evil and to resist the evil one with the "full armour of God".

In the end we did get to worship together. At about 10.30am the police cordon was lifted and we were allowed to enter the building. we did hear from our friends at l'arch who told us stories of how the weak and the marginalised have defeated the strong and how those on the margins of society have been brought into the centre. My congregation is on the edge of life in Belfast; we have many social, economic and educational needs and now we sit on the inter-face between protestant and catholic communities but our dream is to see this place become an attractive place to live where there are no longer two separate communities divided by the walls of war but one community of people who have worked their way through our differences and have learnt how to live with them and how to disagree in an agreeable way. We want the God of heaven, the God of the bible to send in His troops to win the war and to liberate the community. Someone reading this blog could be among those troops.

A New Ireland

In this new Ireland we will be a people with a whole new set of values. No longer will we judge people by their name or culture:they will not be defined according to their name or the school they attended. They will be judged only by the quality of their lives, by the contribution they bring to society, we will have a society liberated from the shackles of the past, a place where men and women have decided that they will be motivated and identified by the principles of God's Kingdom and none else.

Unfortunately the whole of Irish society is under the constant threat of secularism. The institutional church is in meltdown and thousands of people who leave our churches, of all the denominations, never return. Many of them go nowhere to worship the next Sunday but some go to one of the new churches.

While the churches are suffering the net effect is for the mass of people to loose their anchor on life and they slip into the "me" culture which makes it demands on life robing the whole of society of its cohesiveness and stability. Marriages are either serial or simply take place and anti-social behaviour has become common place. While all this happens we scamper around looking for scapegoats; the police or lack of appropriate numbers of police, politicians who can't even be trusted to make appropriate expense claims never mind work together with those they disagree with and then there is the church. Few people are asking the right questions about the kind of society we really want nor about the price we are prepared to pay to get it.

How are we going to get out of this quagmire? Tghe Old Testament says that "without a vision the people perish" and we have no vision for the future apart from the limited view of a political dispensation depending on what part of the community we come from. My vision is for a community of people who fear nothing but failing God, a community of people committed to God through Jesus Christ who will learn to live together: who can deal with differences of opinion in a mature way and who see all people throiugh the eyes of that same Christ who had compassion on the weak and the poor and the marginalised. A vision where the poor are blessed and not the rich, where the peacemakers are blessed and not the war mongers, where the meek and th gentle are the people who are honoured. An Ireland like this will be a place wherewe would all want to live. What do you think?

SEND IN THE TROOPS

Belfast is my city: I was born here and have lived most of my life here. For most of my 57 years we have experienced community strife. Sometimes that strife has broken out into outright bloodshed and all that time we have been divided into the two major opposing camps of Protestant and Catholic. Since 1999 we have told ourselves that the Good Friday Agreemenet really was good and in time it will deliver peace and harmony even when some have refused to call it good.

Last night at the switching on of the Christmas lights some young people from both sides decided to have some fun throwing stones at each other, reminding us of those days when the city centre was abandoned because the population was afraid. What are we going to do? What can we do? The truth is that we can do nothing, we are powerless. We fool ourselves if we really imagine that we are in sovereign control. Our city is as much fragmented as ever; we have walls to keep us apart and help us to feel safe. Yesterday I saw three police officers walking up our street. One of them had a machione gun strapped to his shoulder and I thought tomyself, "Is that supposed to make me feel safer?" At the moment approximatelyhalf the population wants to see more police on the streets to give the community confidence that the police are on the ball but the other half are not so sure. With the daily fight between the governing partners over the latest dispute everyone wonders how we can eveer see improvement and truly feel safer but there wedre worse days, blacker days when men and women were killed daily, much like in contemporary Afghanistan.

Yesterday I had an interview with the District Police Commander who was expressing his frustrations at the impossible task of being a community police service. He mused on the difficulty of an officer having a meaningful conversation while carrying a gun and wearing a flack jacket and a hat pulled down so that all that can be seen are his eyes. Daily "joe public" expresses frustration and growing cynicism by blaming the politicians and the PSNI rather than asking tehe obvious questions as to how we can build a better society.

In 1969 the British Prime Minister sent in the troops to establish peace in Belfast and Derry/Londonderry. That was the begining of the break up of the political system which came to an abrupt end when Edward Heath, prorogued the Northern Ireland Parliament and set up Direct Rule which lasted some 30 years until the Good Friday Agreemenbt became the basis for an agreed Ireland North and South.

What we need today is a whole new breed of Irishmen. People who are able to think about the whole community; people who have the ability to see beyond their own political and religious desires. The contemporarty world is very different to the society of 1969. Today we are much more secular,much more pluralist; much less inclined to listen to the views of the institutional church. We need a security system based upon a communal desire for real peace. We need a security system that rests on the dismantling of the walls and looks to troops of people on the streets dedicated to peace and harmony. This calls for a new heart in the community. We, who take the name of Christ in our hearts and on our lips, need to demonstrate an alternative way of living in a divided country. We must refuse to wrap the Christ we follow in either the Union flag or the flag of the Republic.Why could we not call for amoratorium on the national question for a while to allow maturity to set in? Has the time not come for us to answer the question: what do we really want for this place we call home? Do we desire peace so much that we will put the question of sovereignty on hold? We will never settle the question of union until we find peace.

What we need is a new movement of troops, a new wave of people power. Send in the troopps and send them in today to win the peace. Let a new security policy take charge, a plicybased upona new kingdom and a new power-let Christ reign in our lives and in our politics. Jesus has alrady dismantled the barriers between Jew and Gentile but we insist on rebuilding them: can we not stop? If we are unwilliong or unable to do this we have no rigt to blame the men and women who sit up in Stormont. After all they are carrying out our wishes.

Working Man's Theology- a short thought/question

Why is the church so middle class? Or is it? Why do the mainline denominations appear to be middle class in the way they "do" church? Where is the working class theology or is there one and should there be one? In my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, we have one model of church: this is a model which works very well in the rural heartland of Ireland, north and south but, with increasing alarm, is failing in the urban city.

In our city we have to deal wit people who are in constant fear of the other side; over the years we have been terrorised by the terrorists but also by the fear of being taken over. We have learnt to be loyal to our side and to mistrust anyone who is unable to give their full support to our politicians, our police and our soldiers. Our experience informs our opinions even of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the middle classes keep their distance and talk of the need to remove the peace walls but fail to understand the gulf between the classes. How come the Jesus who earned His living by the sweat of His brow and by the skill of his hands is presented as middle class, educated and a voter of the Alliance Party?

The people who live in our community have a hard time when it comes to education because going on to third level education spells a break with the community and it has led to the removal from the community anyone with a positive view of learning. Even those who could go to university, would very often prefer to get a job and stay within their walls because it is, ironically, safer there but many people fail to understand this.

Much of the social work done in this community has been patronising and been done "for" people rather than "with" them so that far from building community they further make dependents and expect the "receivers" to show their thanks. Jesus was a working man who got alongside people.

A RIVER STORY

Belfast in 2009 is still a very troubled place. Despite the changes with the end of the official violence and the decommissioning of the weapons on both sides we are more divided today than we have been for quite some time. The power-sharing executitive is loosing its credibility because the two main parties cannot get past the past. With the rise of the dissidents on the Nationalist side and the opposition on the unionist side both main parties are looking over their shoulders.

There is a little elderly lady in our congregation who is nearly doubled up with arthrites who has a less than complete view of the world: if she could stand upright she would be much taller and have a much better view of the world. In this community we have too many people walking with their faces to the ground. Here is a real prayer to pray for us-"Lord help us to walk upright".

While we are divided into our tribal divisions there are people who realy want to reach accross the divide and work for a more homogenised community but they don't know how to start and they don't see how they can do it safely. Our political leaders do not have the power or authority to lead in this direction but the church really can. We don't have to depend on votes every four or five years and we are expected to lead. I cannot see how we can make any ground unless we begin to see reconciiation taking place. While the governing powers speak of shared space we have few and to make this possible we will need safe places but how can they be created? In my commmunity we have no shared spaces, no neutral places where people from both political cultures can feel safe.

When you stand on the steps of my church building you begin to realise that we are really a church on the edge-to the front of the church lies a strong nationalist community which sees no neeed to reach accross the divide: to the rear of the church there is a strong, some would ghettoeised unionist community which finds itself on the back foot,: to the right and to the left there is a similiar story. So what do we do? How can we show the way? Can we do anything at all?

For some time I have dreamed of making better use of the space our building stands on. The history of this place tells a story of a peopople responding to the popuplation explosion of Belfast and of great industry and community spirit. Since the late sixties it has being in decline. Some of the reasons are economic and some are social and some are about comunity conflict but we should not get stuck in the rut, we need to begin to create new stories, stories that are "river stories". We need to work for a day when people will look back and tell how Belfast said goodbye to the past and hello to the future, not that the future is right just because it is the future. These new stories will only be right when they tell of people who try to work for reconciliation and a better society, when Christians work for the good of the city [Jeremiah 29].

Recently I have begun to think of creating a new community: a communty which reaches accross the divide and acts as a bridge. It is not wrong to say that this is a very dysfunctional communithy and that is why we have so many damaged people and it is also true to say that we are all dysfunctional. There are people who are considered weak and poor because society tells them they are not normal, they are slow learners and need help. Another side of the story is that they are really people who can help us and demonstrate that they really are rich and strong. Could we build a community of weak and less weak that would provide a welcome mat for everyone? I have two dogs and when I take them for a walk hardly a day goes by without somone talking to them and then to me: they are like babies who attract people because they are cute and child-like. Could we create such a community which would be safe an welcoming? Could we gather together such an intentional community? Could we start a new story? Time will tell. Do you think you would be attracted to such an exciting opportunity?

Can we make something new out of the old?

Jesus came to bring liberation and life to the full but it soon became obvious that the old traditions were difficult to fight against. He found that the vested interests refused to listen to what h ehad to say. At this time of writing I am seated in a beautiful home on the west coast of the United States, looking out on the pacific oscean and everything seems well with the world-why would itg not be? Here we have everything we could possibly want. Here we have all the monmey we could need, here we are presented, on a daily basis, with CHOICE.

Having some time to think I wonder if it is at all possible to re-create the church? It is becoming increasingly obvious that the institutional church is in trouble, numerically. I have a problem with the emergence of the new churches who have little or no accountability either within the church or with other churches. At the same time I can see how thyey have been able to do what needs to be doner to become missional. In my congtregation I have to struggle with the expectations of the traditional "come" mentality. I have to be willing to service the machinery of church and have little time to think through the necessary changes. when I see a change that needs to be made I then hve to convince those involved in the machine to agree with me.

I wish we could develop a think-tank of people to talk our way through the problems of the way we do church?I long for a community, online or in real time, where we can think and pray ouyr way to a better netwwork of like-minded people to develop new models wqith the best of tradition and the best of contemporary. Like-minded people can contact me via thbis blog or by email-I look forward to your response

The Shalom of the city

For my sins in lived in England from 1971-81. I spent many hours driving up and down the M6, the M1, and the M62. At that time it was customary to see hitch-hikers standing at the start of the motorways with cards in front of their faces and above their heads-much like you see at the airport when people are waiting for passengers they don’t know. The story is told of one man who used to be seen standing at the start of one of the major motorways very regularly with a sign which was different to all the rest which had words like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham Leeds etc but his simply read-“ANYWHERE BUT HERE!”.

There are times when we think like that-times when we would prefer to be anywhere but where we are. That was the feeling of the people of God in the days of the exile when they found themselves in the wrong city-in Babylon instead of Jerusalem –they did not want to be in the city of the oppressor but God said-“Stay here...make this your home - build houses and raise families and increase don’t decrease in number-work intentionally and joyfully for the welfare of the city-work for the SHALOM of the city for as it prospers so you will prosper.
Walter Bruggemann wrote an essay in “Theology Today” [when John Dunlop was moving house he gave me a whole batch of TT and this was one of them- He said “there is no one single or normative model of church life” He goes on to suggest that there were three distinct models in the OT and by far the most appropriate or us is the EXILIC MODEL. Rabbi Daniel Gordis [Director of the Mandel Foundations Jerusalem Fellows] describes the exile as a meantime- the time between, the great acts of God in the past and in the future-yes it was meantime in the sense of the difficulties but it was also a brief period that would not last for ever-
Bruggemann says that this was a time very like our own-

1. It was a time when Israel had to learn that she was no longer influential in public life
2. It was a time when they were under severe pressure to conform and become like those around them
3. It was a time when they had to work very hard at keeping their identity –
JI Packer concurs in “Knowing God” when he says it was a time when the people of God thought the name of God would never prosper again.

The question, in the face of the sign “ANYWHERE BUT HERE” was - were they in exile or where they sent? We need to develop the ability to see opportunity as well as problem-a group of pessimistic children were placed in a roomful of toys-their conclusion was “It’s no good. As soon as we get used they take them away. Another group of optimistic children locked in a room which was full of horse manure-their reaction was-“there must be a horse here, if there is all that manure!”
The truth is that they were there because of their rebellion and sin-they were sent into exile –that was their circumstances but it was also true that God wanted them there-he wanted them to be the light in the darkness that they were always meant to be but had failed to be-yes they were in exile but they were also sent by God-stay there, build your houses, raise your families-the reality for most of our institutional churches is that we try to do ministry from a distance-a kind of distance learning-and, surprisingly it fails-we say-Oh you could not expect the minister to live in that community-he needs to be at a certain distance-that may be true in the business world , but it is not true for the urban community, it is not true for the incarnational model of ministry that Jesus Christ followed.
If we turn to the NT we find the same situation-in 1Peter we have the same incarnational model- they too were in exile-Peter says –“this world is not your home” yet he goes on to tell them to live exlemporary lives “so that your actions will refute their prejudices’” and this will win them over. David Winter, Warden of Tyndale House says that the Christians of the diaspora also lived insecure lives- it was a time of social insecurity and discrimination against them with “sporadic outbursts of local suspicion, resentment and hostility” when believers were brought before the courts yet they too are called to seek the welfare of the city. They had a three-fold call to:
- Declare the word
- To follow and
- To bless the people
So how are we to live out our calling?

One thing is fundamental-If you do not love this city you cannot minister to it-if you do not love this place then you had better go somewhere else. That is not an uncritical love but it must be genuine-you and I need to understand that while we are living in the exile of the city that is less than perfect God has called us to be here because he has a work for us. If we do not love this city then all our efforts will come across as self-righteous and condemnatory.
The call I hear all the time is that the churches are commuter churches were the members come in their cars, go to church, lock the gates behind them and then go home until next week.
Mark Gornik in “To Live in Peace” says

“a church with an inner-city address and a myriad of programs but minimal community involvement and proportionately little local membership may be more of a mixed blessing to the community than anecdotal accounts and program surveys of congregations suggest”
The first thing that we need to do to be kingdom orientated is to be

1. PRESENT
If you, if we want to be anywhere but here then it is probably better to be anywhere but here. There are many people who have developed models of ministry which are based on intentional presence-that is “loitering with intent”. It means praying for, inviting, encouraging believers to come and live among us.
Like them we have to understand that we may be here because of circumstances-they were in exile but they were also there because God sent them-Jeremiah would say that you are here today for one reason and one reason alone-to take part in the mission of God and that is your privilege and responsibility
John Perkins the civil rights leader who was left for dead and who spoke at one of our special assemblies and was here just two years ago has developed a community project which is based upon the thee “Rs” of
- Repent
- Return and
- reconciliation-
Here he encouraged Christians to return to the city and some to come for the first time-in the 60s the late David Watson did the same in York and that dying church became alive and the late David Shepherd also lived in an intentional community in London.
At the Coleraine Conference of 190 the address given by Harvey Conn he spoke of the survivalist model and the Guerilla church but set out the case for the incarnational approach of the “church as a model home community” what we call the show house.
As we seek of the metanarrative of the bible we see the one plot line all the way through which has the characteristic of incarnation, especially with the coming Of Jesus into the world.

The task of the church today is to tell the story in our own way-to help the community to see the church really is the gift of god to the world. So many of our stories act like “rut” stories-these are the stories that keep us stuck in our traditional ways-so when we speak of shared space and shared housing we think back to the stories of division and conflict, stories that while true do little to take us forward- what we need are new stories that are more like “river” stories-they are stories that show the changing situation in life and tell of how the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is still our God today-not as the God of the Hebrews but the God of all who will trust Him.
There is really only one way to catch the swine flu and that is from another person-if you have the real thing you have to stay at home-you can’t catch it in isolation. Neither can we influence people in isolation

2. We are called to PRAY for the city

Mark Gornik says that The “urban future belongs to the intercessors”. In the BMI manual for the developing of Presbytery Mission plans it says that the process is to be “bathed in prayer and birthed in conversation” Walter Wink sys that “history belongs to the intercessors”-this is not the last resort of the desperate but the beginning of the process. Wink goes on to say “even a small number of people, firmly committed to the new inevitability on which they have fixed their imaginations can decisively affect the shape the future takes. These shapers of the future are the intercessors, who call out the future, the longed-for new present”
I do believe that the most significant and important thing we have done in the last few years has been the decision to take prayer into the community-to Dunns’ Car park and to the school and to the PSNI. As Abraham interceded for Sodom so we are to intercede for Belfast. Jesus tells the story of the friend at midnight to re-enforce that God wants to answer us more than we want to pray and also the need to persist not to force God’s hand but to show our resolution.
Public Activity

This is all about putting flesh on the bones of our presence- we are to get involved in ways that will be to the welfare of the city. In the NT it was the Christians who did the dirty work that no one else would do-they were doing the work that Mother Teresa has made her own in India.

What has happened in our cities is that the Christians have left the scene so that those who are involved in public life are the atheists and the agnostics and the nominal Christians. We need to serve the community and so we will regain the influence we once had-from the bottom up.-we need to create those river stories that will be the 29th chapter of the acts of the believers.

By so doing we will help people to become familiar again with the plot line that is the Christ-story-his-story. Don Carson reminds us of the need to re-tell the story to a generation that has little knowledge of the bible
“the fact remains that the bible, as a whole document tells a story, and , properly used, that story can serve as a metanarrative that shapes our grasp of the entire Christian faith. In my view it is increasingly important to spell this out to Christians and non-Christians alike....”
Action?
- we need to see the city as a place of redemption-a holy place because God is at work here
- we should be praying for the city and becoming strategic in that praying
- we should be calling for people to live in the city, including ministers
- we should be encouraging our members to get involved even if that means giving them time off from Congregational duties to do so