James Henley

Sacrificing everything, sacrificing nothing

Been trying the push the idea a lot with the Lab recently that worship can't be worship unless sacrifice is built into it - challenging this modern idea that we come to worship God to seek His blessing and getting back to the ancient idea that we ascend the hill of the Lord to make sacrifices of worship to Him.

In 2 Samuel 24, King David is offered livestock for him to sacrifice to Yahweh - but declines to take them for free, saying "I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing." (NIV). The Message puts it like this: "I'm not going to offer God, my God, sacrifices that are no sacrifice."

Worship is meant to cost something by its own definition.

Otherwise it's simply self-indulgent words - why would it count that you ascribe worth to something if there are no consequences that action?

Could write loads on that, but won't bore you - will maybe save it instead for if we worship together as the Lab on Sunday. Haven't yet decided what we're going to do.

Anyway, today I've been juxtaposing this idea of sacrifice and worship with one of the most beautiful and important images of worship and the Christian life which has stuck with me since I first felt called to lead worship - this is from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.

Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, 'Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.' Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

We sacrifice knowing that our sacrifice is already worth nothing - but we do it anyway. And our Father loves it. It's not the fact that the Father gains nothing through the whole thing, but that he delights that the child gives it to him anyway.

And I think that's well cool.

Of course he's not safe...

Spent yesterday mainly studying the Anabaptists in college. They probably have the closest theology/ecclesiology to the majority of the emerging church. A lot of what the emerging church seems to be about is a response to the ways in which the reformation over-compensated in it's response to the problems with Catholicism - where as the Anabaptist radical wing of the reformation seemed to already have some of this sorted - especially the preservation of mysticism and contemplation as part of their faith and the emphasis on works as the evidence/results of a soul justified by faith. Think I would probably be an anabaptist if I wasn't such a good Anglican boy ;-)

Key to the Anabaptists understanding of what it meant to live a Christian life was the concept of the Fear of God as evidence of a converted, Christian life - the idea that a real fear of the Lord result in a lived-out, radical way of living. When Chris (our theology tutor) was teaching us about this, one of the questions from my classmates was how this can fit in with a concept of a God who is all loving? Found a completely unrelated blog today, which quoted CS Lewis' Narnia books and got me thinking.

I love the image of Aslan in the Narnia chronicles - the idea of this strong, courageous, unpredictable figure, but who also is gentle and comforting and noble.

Love the way Mr Beaver speaks of Aslan (cribbed from that blog entry) - "Course he isn't safe. But he's good."

So much today we try to rationalise God - we listen to speakers who say "if you do this, then God will do this in return" and "if you don't do this, then God will do this". What happened to this picture of a God who is unsafe?

I love that my God is unsafe, untamable, as unpredictable as the world he created. And yes, that means he's going to be a little scary.

I don't want my God to be imprizoned within a cage of human logic. I want him roam free all-powerful, all-knowing, but never predictable - so that all I can do is find myself lost in awe and fear, clinging to the promise that he loves me and his plans are to prosper me and not harm me.

creativeprayer.com

There are loads of good ideas for prayer stations and contemplative prayer at creativeprayer.com. Added it to my bookmarks for future reference with the Lab and stuff.

HT: jonny

Indy returns...

Caught the first midnight showing of the new Indiana Jones film last night / this morning.

Was definitely an experience - so many awesome camera shots and great humour from Harrison Ford as the aging Indy. Jury's still out on the storyline - there's definitely at least one huge plot twist - but you'll have to check it out. Oh, and Shia LeBeouf is reassuringly better than it looked like he might be in the trailers.

Love the whole mid-20th century, supernatural, mystical, slightly "James Bond", cowboy meets explorer, pulp vibe that Indiana Jones gives off and the new film was definitely true to that. I'm not an expert, but the one of the film students I was with talked about how good it was that Spielburg was true to the feel of the original movies - you could cut bits from the new film in with stuff from the old films and it would fit in totally. Classic Indy.

Archdeacon's Visitation

Went to to an Archdeacon's visitation out in a really old church in a little village just outside of Newport tonight to get my license renewed. Only got it in February, but have to go to one this year to get into the ongoing rota of visitations - which is where all the clergy and people who hold licences from the bishop in a particular area get together in one place so that the Archdeacon (Bishop's right-hand man kinda guy) can renew and check all the licences and child protection policies - and give a little bit of a lecture about stuff he thinks is important.

Was actually quite good fun - although I wouldn't recommend it for a fun night-out. Saw David Parfitt, my boss from last year, and had a quick chat, which was good; and got a few moments with the Archdeacon to chat a little as well.

I was easily the youngest there, probably by about 15 years or so - which also made it quite cool. Got a few raised eyebrows (and possibly challenged some pre-conceptions) when I got to pull out my little licence for Archdeacon Ken to inspect - at which point he had to explain to his aides "James has a special kind of licence - I don't think we have a list for this one." Felt quite important at this point ;-)

He asked me about the house and whether it was coming together, and wished me good luck for my "future ministry" - he retires in July. Haven't really encountered him that much in the short time I've been in Newport, but he seems pretty cool, and definitely dedicated to the Church. In his address he spoke about the need for the church to progress, and about the Church in Wales needing to borrow from the modern liturgy which is now being produced around the world.

Cheers Mr Archdeacon (as is, I think, the correct way to address him). It was an alright night.

Managed to get back to Newport in time to play a bit of parryball (a game which some of the guys made up last summer) at the end of the Christian Union BBQ - until the ball got smashed over the fence into some bushes and we couldn't find it.

The Lab House

Last week, went with Justin, Del, Cat, Steph and Dan to look around what will become our first Lab house. It's a plan which has been in the works for a long time, but it's really starting to become real now we have the house and we've been able to look around it.

I'll be living in the house with Dan, Steph and Cat - who are all graduating this year in Newport and are taking a year out to work with The Lab, the university chaplaincy and St Paul's, and hopefully to achieve something for the kingdom of God on Alway Estate - where the house is situated.

We'll be living together in community with some form of neo-monastic-type rule to bring us together and keep us focused on God and on partnering with His mission for the estate around the house. The house was built as a vicarage and was found for us by Bishop Dominic and the wonderful important people (the RB) in Monmouth Diocese - who are letting us have it for free. It's currently being renovated a bit to make it nice for us to live in, and so that it fits in with the Mulitiple Occupancy regulations.

Alway is one of the tougher (I think) estates in Newport - at least that's what I keep being told - but it's full of potential. Over the summer we're hoping to work on some ideas for how to reach out and help the community around us so that we can really start something with the Lab community when we re-form in September. Ideas so far stretch from detached youthwork to a dog-walking service :-) Also, in September I'll be starting working in an open youth club run by the Methodists which is just down the road in a neighbouring estate.

Our little project is creating a bit of a stir amongst the Anglicans and the Methodists across Newport who are pretty excited about it. We've got a few stumbling blocks to get over on the way, but things are really beginning to come together.

Stumbling block 1 is that we need to furnish the whole house from scratch, including beds, kitchen appliances, sofas etc. The diocese are putting in a new oven for us though.

And we also need to be able to replace at least some of the carpeting, which is damaged. This is going to cost a bit of money which we need to find.

Off to a Lab team meeting tonight to discuss next term and the house. Had a late start to the day after I (stupidly) left my lights on on my car overnight so had to get the AA man out to jump-start me. Thank God (and my mummy) for my AA membership.

The silence ends...

Wow, over a month since I last blogged... Managed to get caught up in life and the Lab and unfortunately in the busyness the blog got forgotten.

Although I am heading towards the final deadlines for my first year at CYM in a month, I promise I will try and get in some regular updates on the blog - even if they're only little ones. Rather than an actual post, this is more of a commitment to try and write more. Must. Try. Harder. ;-)

Got a lot of big things planned for the Lab leading up to the new academic year in September which I'll hopefully discuss a little on here in the next few weeks. Can't actually believe the first year is nearly done. Heading off to an inpromptu BBQ this evening (summer is great, if a little distracting from work). In Trinity Methodist Church (Del's church) tomorrow morning before we have Del's official goodbye service with the Lab in the evening.