Theology of Public Presence
about a year ago over at open source theology Andrew started a thread entitled "towards a theology of public presence" i immediately responded with some questions which were answered in the following quote.
"""Paul, thanks for your comments – it’s certainly good to push this in a more practical direction. Let me just make it clear, though, that we are complete novices at this. We have taken a couple of steps forward and seen some small things begin to happen – but it could all die tomorrow. So I’m reluctant to draw too many practical lessons from our experience at this stage – still, here are some bits and pieces of ideas, values, principles, that are beginning to coalesce in our minds.
Be there: it may simply be that we have had to learn the hard way by going right back to square one, but I think that we must get it into our heads that being there is far more important than doing things; we have tried to arrange ‘events’ that haven’t come off and as a result we were simply left there with nothing to do – except buy a few drinks and talk to people.
Be consistent: I don’t think we will get very far if we regard this as a means to an end; it may be that church-like gatherings will emerge out of this sort of public presence, but I would suggest that the long-term objective is still just to be there, a puzzling, godly presence in people’s lives. In my view, the overriding need at this point is for the church to regain trust (relationally, ethically, intellectually) – which means that the church must become trustworthy (relationally, ethically, intellectually), and this takes time.
Be accessible, open, friendly: again, we have sometimes felt torn between doing something that we had planned and responding to whatever happens relationally on the night. But really it’s not that difficult to keep a balance between maintaining a sense of identity as a distinct body of believers and being open to developing friendships with others.
Be transparent: this is hard – Christians can get very secretive and underhand in their relations with the world. We are looking for a ‘discourse of faith’ that works both amongst believers and between believers and non-believers. We don’t want to be perceived as having ulterior motives, a hidden agenda. As it is, I feel uncomfortable writing even in such very general and vague terms about what we have been doing: I don’t really want to treat these friendships as an experiment in mission, create a meta-dialogue around them from which the people themselves are excluded.
Be underwhelming: we have rarely had more than seven or eight of us round a table: I would like to see it grow, and there may also be ways of bringing a larger group (from an established church, for example) into this sort of environment on a regular basis, but for now I suspect a larger group would disturb the fine balance between inward and outward relationships: either the group would close in upon itself and become a clique (get too many Christians together and they will stop talking normally and start speaking their own peculiar religious language) or it would become a rather overbearing, disruptive Christian presence. Perhaps we just need fragments of Christian community that will feel incomplete until they have connected with people around them.
Be creative: we are always on the look out for creative ways of stimulating thought, engaging people in conversations, discussions: for example, we passed round some questionnaires on personal happiness that elicited some interesting responses, opened some windows into people’s lives; we’re thinking about planning an evening of short entertainment items with some of the regulars. This will be a big part of the challenge – finding the paths that will get people walking across a spiritual landscape."""
The whole discussion can be found here
and why reinvent the wheel when a fellow canadian has done further work on this. you can find a pdf at this link
"""Paul, thanks for your comments – it’s certainly good to push this in a more practical direction. Let me just make it clear, though, that we are complete novices at this. We have taken a couple of steps forward and seen some small things begin to happen – but it could all die tomorrow. So I’m reluctant to draw too many practical lessons from our experience at this stage – still, here are some bits and pieces of ideas, values, principles, that are beginning to coalesce in our minds.
Be there: it may simply be that we have had to learn the hard way by going right back to square one, but I think that we must get it into our heads that being there is far more important than doing things; we have tried to arrange ‘events’ that haven’t come off and as a result we were simply left there with nothing to do – except buy a few drinks and talk to people.
Be consistent: I don’t think we will get very far if we regard this as a means to an end; it may be that church-like gatherings will emerge out of this sort of public presence, but I would suggest that the long-term objective is still just to be there, a puzzling, godly presence in people’s lives. In my view, the overriding need at this point is for the church to regain trust (relationally, ethically, intellectually) – which means that the church must become trustworthy (relationally, ethically, intellectually), and this takes time.
Be accessible, open, friendly: again, we have sometimes felt torn between doing something that we had planned and responding to whatever happens relationally on the night. But really it’s not that difficult to keep a balance between maintaining a sense of identity as a distinct body of believers and being open to developing friendships with others.
Be transparent: this is hard – Christians can get very secretive and underhand in their relations with the world. We are looking for a ‘discourse of faith’ that works both amongst believers and between believers and non-believers. We don’t want to be perceived as having ulterior motives, a hidden agenda. As it is, I feel uncomfortable writing even in such very general and vague terms about what we have been doing: I don’t really want to treat these friendships as an experiment in mission, create a meta-dialogue around them from which the people themselves are excluded.
Be underwhelming: we have rarely had more than seven or eight of us round a table: I would like to see it grow, and there may also be ways of bringing a larger group (from an established church, for example) into this sort of environment on a regular basis, but for now I suspect a larger group would disturb the fine balance between inward and outward relationships: either the group would close in upon itself and become a clique (get too many Christians together and they will stop talking normally and start speaking their own peculiar religious language) or it would become a rather overbearing, disruptive Christian presence. Perhaps we just need fragments of Christian community that will feel incomplete until they have connected with people around them.
Be creative: we are always on the look out for creative ways of stimulating thought, engaging people in conversations, discussions: for example, we passed round some questionnaires on personal happiness that elicited some interesting responses, opened some windows into people’s lives; we’re thinking about planning an evening of short entertainment items with some of the regulars. This will be a big part of the challenge – finding the paths that will get people walking across a spiritual landscape."""
The whole discussion can be found here
and why reinvent the wheel when a fellow canadian has done further work on this. you can find a pdf at this link
posted by Paul Seburn at Tuesday, May 31, 2005
4 comments
