RnBMail 17 September 2008

by Andrew Francis

God is good. Definitely so, when we had one of the last days of summer sun on the occasion of the wedding of two of my good friends. Particularly as the reception was held in a marquee in an orchard, with bouncy castles for the children and croquet for the adults. As we sat into the dusk, glasses in hand, the chill came from an autumn breeze.

But it made me think of how important times and seasons are. Although I enjoy the warmth of a summer beach, the crispness of a snowy winter morning or the smell of spring flowers, autumn is now my favourite season. Autumn officially begins on September 22nd, and the nights will become longer than the days. But like the poet Keats said, it is a season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ as well as trees full of their copper tantrums.

Autumn is a great season of change, a time for endings, for thankfulness. That is why many churches, schools and communities celebrate Harvest. I have just picked the last of my tomatoes off their vines. I continue to pick and prepare the apples from my garden’s trees. But it is not just the final crops of produce and foodstuffs which the autumn brings. For most of us, autumn is often a time when our life changes, too

For many, it is the new school and college year – another time of change. For some, it is settling into autumn’s routine of work. For my newly-married friends, it is settling into life together. For others, it can bring individual change. For another friend, it means entering hospital for life-changing surgery...

by Jo Frew

It is clear that our lifestyles, and the operations of companies who sell them to us, are having an impact not solely on our neighbours across the world, but also on the world itself. The weather, the sea, the sky, the wind, the air we breathe, the thousands of precious species we share this space with and rely on, are all being affected. Climate change impacts most those humans who do not have the safety net of wealth and infrastructure – the poorest people.

A recent report by Christian Aid found that, while the UK’s share of global carbon emissions stands at 2%, it soars to 12 – 15% when you take into account the activities of UK companies.

We have a great opportunity to use our campaigning on Corporate Accountability to support the urgent fight against climate change. Making multinational companies accountable is a climate issue – a danger that your least socially aware friends should have heard of by now!

This year will give you an opportunity for loads of learning and action, whether you’re in a group or on your own:

Unfinished Business MP3 Petition...

Breaking Europe: Lobby Your MEP!...

Climate Change...

Special discount for Bridge Builders’ Course:

If booking by 31 October 2008, receive £40 reduction of cost on
Church Leadership & Family Systems
2-5 June 2009, London Mennonite Centre

Running for its fifth year, this course introduces participants to family systems theory in hopes of creating opportunity for personal growth into mature leadership through examining one’s family background and considering implications in church life and leadership. This course has no prerequisites.

For more information, visit http://www.menno.org.uk/CLFS2009June

Help disrupt illegal work on WMD at Britain’s nuclear bomb factory

In 2006/7, Faslane 365 saw well over 1000 arrests during a year-long blockade of the Trident submarine base in Scotland . Last Easter, AWE Aldermaston saw its biggest demonstration in two decades as 5000 people surrounded the base to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Aldermaston march.

Trident Ploughshares now invite you to a major blockade of the Berkshire nuke factory, where billions of pounds are currently being spent developing new warhead facilities that will scupper nuclear disarmament for another 50 years. Help us uphold international law by blockading this factory of death in what promises to be a colourful celebration of life and people power. There is a role for everyone. This event is supported by CND...

ALSO

Christian Peacemaker Teams announces delegation to Iraq, 8-22 January 2009

The Kurds of northern Iraq faced discrimination, terror, and death under the regime of Saddam Hussein. As the security situation deteriorated in southern and central Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, thousands of displaced persons fled to the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG)-controlled area in the north. Recently, northern border villages have suffered military attacks by Turkey and Iran. CPT's January delegation will be based in the KRG city of Suleimaniya.

Delegates will meet with representatives of non-governmental organizations and human rights groups, displaced persons, government officials, and others. They will gain perspective on the challenges facing people in northern Iraq and the impact there of violence in other areas of Iraq and along the border. The delegation will participate in the work of CPT's longer-term project of building bridges and human rights reporting. CPT has had a presence in Iraq since October 2002, first in Baghdad and since November 2006 in the Kurdish north...

Participation in the Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival in England gave Vic Thiessen an opportunity to use the prophetic nature of science fiction films as a springboard for discussions about Anabaptist theology.

From August 22 to 25, more than 20,000 people gathered at the Cheltenham Race Course for Greenbelt, an annual event exploring Christian faith and justice issues in the arts and contemporary culture. As the Director of the London Mennonite Centre and a Mennonite Church Canada Witness/Mennonite Mission Network worker who reviews film for the magazine Canadian Mennonite, Thiessen was an invited speaker, along with numerous other noteworthy guests including author and speaker Brian McLaren, musician John Bell, and fiction writer Salley Vickers.

Mennonites have been involved in Greenbelt since its inception in the mid-70s. This year, for the third year in a row, Thiessen addressed issues of film and Anabaptist theology. “It has become a key way for me to subtly introduce our Mennonite insights and distinctives into the wider church,” Thiessen reports. “All my talks deal with some aspect of Mennonite theology, whether it is highlighting the call to follow Jesus, or the fundamental importance of social justice, or the prevalence of redemptive violence in our world or the need for Christian community.”

Anabaptism and Mennonites were brought to the forefront this year through one of the festival’s five featured films, Silent Light, the story of a crisis unfolding in a Mexican Mennonite community.

Thiessen spoke to approximately 1700 people in five opportunities over the course of the event. He reports that his best attended talk concerned the search for God in science fiction films. From the classic films, Metropolis and 2001: A Space Odyssey to Alphaville, 1984, THX-1138, and more recent films like Children of Men and this summer’s hit, WALL-E, Thiessen showed how sci-fi films prophetically warn us about dystopian futures where the rich minority exploit the poor majority, and governments and large corporations manipulate people with fear mongering and lies to maintain war expenditures.

“Every time I watch one of these films,” Thiessen says, “I hear God calling the followers of Jesus to be the prophets of our time..."

Christians in western culture are facing profound challenges and fresh opportunities. The long era of Christendom is coming to an end. We now live in a plural society, with multiple religious options alongside secular assumptions, in which Christianity has largely lost its position of dominance and privilege. Although we seem to be declining in numbers and influence, this new environment offers new possibilities – if we have the courage and imagination to grasp them.

Crucible is a training programme for Christians with courage and imagination. It assumes that:

• We live in a mission context and need to think like cross-cultural missionaries.
• We need to think creatively about church in diverse and changing cultures.
• We serve the God who does new things on the margins.

Crucible runs three intensive training weekends in Birmingham each year to equip Christians to create church on the margins:
• 25-26 October 2008: Creating New Churches examines the principles and practicalities of starting new churches in contemporary culture.
• 21-22 February 2009: The Urban Challenge explores some of the opportunities and challenges of starting churches on the margins in urban communities.
• 4-5 July 2009: Emerging Church investigates the fresh expressions of church that are emerging on the margins of both church and society.

Isaiah 11.6- 9

Romans 8:18-25

James 5:13-16

Does God heal today? My Christadelphian in-laws would say a clear No. They believe that miracles of healing were only for the early church, and that we are now in what they call a different dispensation. On the other hand, some out and out charismatics would say a resounding Yes. They claim to have witnessed dramatic healings through prayer and laying on of hands, which is what we are going to do today.

I’m going to sound like a fence-sitter here but I want to say Yes and No. The best way I can explain this is to tell a few stories.

Story one. When I was last working for Third Way magazine, my editor, T, got leukaemia. This was his second battle with cancer: the first had been 12 years earlier when he had had Hodgkin’s Disease. He went through chemotherapy with some success, but abnormal cells were still showing up. At this point the doctors didn’t know what to do with him, because only seven other people in the country had had the combination of diseases he had had, and the other six were dead. So they decided to just zap him with a bit more chemo and see what happened. And amazingly, he got better. And although he once told me he didn’t think he’d see forty, he’s still around today at the age of 56. He travels all round the world teaching radio management, and last year I went to his ordination into the Anglican ministry.

T is a popular man, and there were people all round the country, probably all round the world, praying for him. So was he healed by prayer or by medicine? I don’t know, and I don’t think he does. In a way, does it matter? If we thought only medicine could heal, those of us who prayed would still have prayed for him. The important thing is that he was healed. And God created medical researchers and doctors as well as calling us to pray...

'What are the implications of an incarnational approach to mission?'

'How can indigenous leaders be empowered and released?'

These are the two questions we have invited Michael Frost to address in a day conference on Incarnational Mission sponsored by Urban Expression in Oxford on Thursday 9 October.

Michael is the vice-principal of Morling College, Sydney, and is involved in an emerging missional community in the city known as smallboatbigsea. He is also the co-author, with Alan Hirsch, of The Shaping of Things to Come and the author of Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture. Michael has interacted extensively with emerging churches in North America and the UK but brings a distinctive Australian perspective to discussions about mission and church today.

Michael has strongly advocated an incarnational approach to mission, rather than the attractional approach that characterised mission in the Christendom era. But what does this mean in practice? How different is this? Are there any dangers in this approach? Is it sustainable? How important for incarnational mission is the release of indigenous leaders? And how can such leadership be empowered?...