A few weeks ago we mentioned Biblefresh, a new initiative to encourage churches across the UK to celebrate the Bible in 2011. Timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, Biblefresh will see agencies, colleges, festivals, churches and denominations working together to help christians to engage with the Bible in new ways.
SGM Lifewords is taking part in a variety of ways, and you can find out more about our plans here.
That’s the question raised recently by a research report from LICC and Spring Harvest. They surveyed 3,000 British Christians to see what kind of issues people faced in their lives, and the challenges they encountered in their faith. 55% of respondents replied that ‘fatigue’ was the main challenge to their walk with God.
The same number of people, 55%, reported that time pressure and stress were problems for them, 45% struggled with long working hours, and 47% wrestle with the so-called work/life balance.
The report was commissioned ahead of the annual Spring Harvest conference, and aimed to pin-point specific challenges to the church in the UK.
What should our response be to this? Perhaps we should be more aware of the pressures that people are under, and think carefully about whether the church lifts burdens or adds to them. We also need to ask some questions of ourselves – the gospel is a message of freedom, and Jesus calls us to rest in him and in his presence. Shouldn’t Christians in the UK be wary of kudos in busy-ness, and be confident enough to live at a slower pace? It is, after all, only when we slow down that we have time for others around us, and time for community.
It was with the issue of busyness and burnout that SGM Lifewords released the booklet Walking in the Desert. It uses the story of Elijah to tell a story of exhaustion and new strength found in God. You can order it here.
SGM Canada is doing an extensive research into why people do or don’t connect with the Bible. In particular, they are ultimately interested in what helps and what hinders people connecting with the Bible. You can help by completing a short survey they have prepared. Thank you very much in advance!
Colin Greene, theologian in residence at SGM Lifewords and co-author of ‘Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an age of Imagination‘, was recently interviewed by Paul Fromont. The conversation takes in the place of the Bible, the role of the church, and the nature of mission. All fascinating stuff, and here to read and discuss on the Metavista blog.
If you haven’t read Metavista yet, you can order a copy from Authentic Media or from Amazon.
Operation Noah has launched an advent initiative for 2008 calling for ‘reclaiming christmas‘. As a response to the increasing consumerism of the Christmas season, they are suggesting a series of events for the first weekend of December, all about sustainability, and simpler living. Activities will include special services, present-making workshops, and clean-up operations around shopping centres. Several cathedrals will be taking part, including Birmingham, who recently hosted SGM Lifewords‘ Space Encounters prayer stations.
For more about the project, click here. Resources include liturgy and prayers, and check back soon for their alternative Christmas play, described as ‘Dr Who meets Dickens’ A Christmas Carol’. The project will be launched formally on 11th November with a lecture from Abbot Christopher Jamison, best known for the BBC series ‘The Monastery’, and the book ‘Finding Sanctuary’ (a book a number of us at SGM Lifewords have read and enjoyed.) Jamison introduces the idea:
“Advent is the traditional month of preparation before Christmas, a time of fasting and intense prayer, a time of eager expectation. It is above all a time to celebrate waiting as a normal part of human experience, when the Christian tradition invites us to wait for the birth of a child. In Advent we rejoice that we are waiting, that there is still time to prepare a way for the Lord and we celebrate the virtue of patience. By contrast, the consumer world tells us not to wait but to ‘buy now.’ Greed cannot wait, so to learn to wait is a simple antidote to greed.”
Operation Noah is the climate change initiative from Christian Ecology Link and Churches Together’ Environmental Issues Network.
Colin Greene (SGM Lifewords‘ Head of Mission and Theological Development) and Martin Robinson have just written a new book looking at the future for the Bible, Church, and Mission in “post-postmodernity” … Definitely worth a read. The chapters on Cultural Engagement and Biblical Theology are particularly thought-provoking. You can get the book from Amazon or Paternoster … or check out the Metavista website to find out more about the book, and the wider conversation around the issues.
A recent report from the University of Warwick suggests cathedrals may serve Christian visitors better than non-Christian visitors. In a survey at St David’s Cathedral in Wales, the research team found that visitor experiences were quite different between those who professes Christian beliefs, and those who did not.
Visitor satisfaction was very high among regular church attenders – 97% said they found the cathedral inviting, 95% said it was uplifting, 87% ‘awe-inspiring’ and 77% said they felt a sense of God’s presence. Among those who did not attend church regularly, 88% found it inviting, 77% ‘inviting’, 68% ‘awe-inspiring’. Just 18% felt a sense of God’s presence.
This may not be particularly surprising, considering visitors pre-dispositions. For Christians, cathedrals can be a place of deep spiritual significance, whereas casual visitors may consider them buildings of primarily historic or architectural interest. However, the survey also covered the cathedral shop. Christian visitors were much more likely to purchase something, and to approve of the overall range. 74% appreciated the range on offer, and 55% made a purchase. Only 41% of non-Christian visitors thought the shop offered a good range, and just 31% bought something.
This is perhaps more telling, the researchers suggest, as it shows the cathedrals’ target market is skewed towards Christians, and positions the cathedral as serving Christian needs first. “This strategy,” says author Emyr Williams, “misses the great challenge held out by the Archbishops’ Commission on Cathedrals of engaging in their mission of teaching, evangelising and welcome among secular tourists. More problematic still is the implication of the finding that the focus of the cathedral shop is symptomatic of the positioning of the whole cathedral which seems to understand the secular visitor so much less adequately than it understands the pilgrim.”
As we have discovered in our own research for our Historic Churches programme, each cathedral has its own approach for reaching out to visitors. Some have produced audio tours, invested in multimedia elements, or commissioned new artworks. Others run regular, easily accessible services at various points in the day. Some have experimented with special events, from late night opening at the weekends to spirituality fairs or Narnia theme days. Whatever the individual response has been, most cathedrals recognise that the needs of pilgrims and tourists need to be held in balance. This was notable at the Mission Shaped Cathedral event, which saw dozens of cathedrals represented at a consultation in Coventry to discuss the unique role of their buildings in mission.
This is a conversation we are engaged in ourselves at SGM Lifewords. Our Historic Churches programme aims to help churches to think through the welcome offered to visitors, at whatever stage of faith they may be. Our prayer cards are designed to facilitate prayer for those who are perhaps unfamiliar with praying. The Look Around You card is a fold-out tour of any church building, that leads visitors around the building, using the architectural features as cues for reflection. Each title was developed in consultation with practitioners, and several cathedrals are using these materials already, including Manchester, Oxford and Coventry. We are also developing interactive prayer stations, offering visitors a point of response to what they see, hear and feel while in the ’sacred space’ of a church building. We are still exploring the many ways to use church buildings in mission, but we would hope that wherever the conversation takes us, secular tourists as well as pilgrims would encounter God in our historic churches.
