A regular Friday round-up of articles which I have found interesting / thought-provoking / challenging / amusing during the week, pointing you in the direction of some stuff you might have otherwise missed.

This week: thinking about music in worship, and the culture around us; N T Wright on ‘How God Became King’ and Clay Shirky’s 2005 visionary talk on institutions v collaboration.

Fresh Expressions: Making contact with today’s culture

The church exists for God’s purposes in Christ for its culture. It is not primarily a refuge but a community bringing the kingdom of God to bear on its locality and culture. According to Bishop Lesslie Newbigin,

The character of the local church will not be determined primarily by the character, tastes, dispositions of its members, but by those of the society in which and for which it lives – seen in the light of God‘s redemptive purpose revealed in Jesus Christ for all men.

In other words, decisions about worship are to be shaped more by the church’s missionary calling, than by the congregation’s preferences. The point is not what we like or dislike, but what the worship of God and our share in God’s mission in the world both require.

Outreach Magazine: Should Churches Have Multiple Worship Service Styles?

Too many churches have fully consumed consumerism, a trend that desperately needs to change if we are ever to engage our context wisely. It has proven impossible for us to constantly feed our own preferences and have any appetite left to help the actual needs of those outside the satisfied family.

Patheos: “Let the Gospels Speak for Themselves:” N.T. Wright on How God Became King

Jesus is not simply teaching us how to believe a bit better or behave a bit better. He is actually announcing that something is happening which is changing the way the world is. In the stories of Jesus’ life, you have those two things: a) yes, this world really does matter to God, and b) he’s now taking control of it, even though that doesn’t look like what we might have imagined.

TED: Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration

This last link today is a talk given in 2005 by Clay Shirky. You’ll need twenty minutes but it’s worth it. I listened to it with the question of how we ‘do’ church in mind. What are the implications for us at FBC?

How do groups get anything done? Right? How do you organize a group of individuals so that the output of the group is something coherent and of lasting value, instead of just being chaos?

 

PS. I think I now understand how we got into such a muddle with our banking system . . .

Young Tarquin bought a donkey from a farmer for £100.The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.

The next day he drove up and said, ‘Sorry son, but I have some bad news. The donkey’s died.’

Tarquin replied, ‘Well then just give me my money back. ‘The farmer said, ‘Can’t do that. I’ve already spent it. ‘Tarquin said, ‘OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey. ‘The farmer asked, ‘What are you going to do with him?’ Tarquin said, ‘I’m going to raffle him off.’

The farmer said, ‘You can’t raffle a dead donkey!’
Tarquin said, ‘Sure I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.’

A month later, the farmer met up with Tarquin and asked, ‘What happened with that dead donkey?’ Tarquin said, ‘I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two pounds a piece and made a profit of £898’

The farmer said, ‘Didn’t anyone complain?’
Tarquin said, ‘Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two pounds back.’

Tarquin now works for Barclays.