After Christendom Seminars and Book Launch in Leeds

By 'eck this looks good. If I were you I'd sign up now. For the Leeds event, obviously.


To celebrate the arrival of the fifth book in the ‘After Christendom’ series, Worship and Mission after Christendom by Alan and Eleanor Kreider, the Anabaptist Network has organised two seminars – one in the north of England, one in the south.

Speakers at these events will include authors of books already published and those who are currently writing further titles in the series. These seminars are an opportunity to engage with the authors, discuss issues raised in the earlier books, and have a preview of what is coming soon. There will also be a guest appearance – through the medium of DVD – by Alan and Eleanor Kreider themselves, introducing their new book.

Northern seminar Venue: Harehills Lane Baptist Church, Leeds Date: Saturday 9 January 2010 – 10.30-4.30 Speakers: Glen Marshall, Nigel Pimlott, Stuart Murray Williams

Southern seminar Venue: London Mennonite Centre, Highgate Date: Saturday 30 January 2010 – 10.30-4.30 Speakers: Lloyd Pietersen, Nigel Pimlott, Stuart Murray Williams

Cost: £20 (including lunch)

Copies of the books in the ‘After Christendom’ series, and others, will be available to purchase.

To book a place
Leeds: contact Ali Phelps: ali.phelps@ntlworld.com or 0113 219 1933
London: contact Phyllis Shirk: hosts@menno.org.uk or 0845 450 0214

Incarnate Gathering house party 23-25 March 2010

Here's a plug for an event that should be of interest to Baptist Church planters.
To book in go here.

Tord Gustavsen Ensemble

Just got back from another cracking evening at the RNCM. The Tord Gustavsen ensemble were truly superb.

Tore Brunborg on Tenor and Soprano saxophones ran the full gamut of his horns from a smoky subtone that was little more than musical breathing through the kind of plaintive keening that slices into you, to a beautiful, crystal-clear top register. Jarle Vespestad on drums was subtle and inventive, playing with the kind of musicality that goes way beyond mere rhythm. (I’m sure that Mats Eilertsen was also top notch but I must confess to finding it hard to get excited about the bass. Sorry.) The real hi-light though was Gustavsen on piano.

The elfin Norwegian seemed organically melded to his Steinway, by turns stabbing away a la Thelonius Monk and then deftly easing, coaxing, conjouring sublime beauty from his instrument. Melodic and mesmerising. Bleakly beautiful like a Scandinavian snowscape.

It’s testimony to just how good Gustavsen was that (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) I think I would rather have the trio than the quartet, yes it would have been even better without the sax. Saxophones have a way of taking centre stage, demanding that you pay them attention. This meant that Gustavsen himself didn’t feature quite so prominently as I would have liked. That’s not a criticism, it’s just about he highest compliment I can pay. If you get the chance check him out for yourself.

Awakening

Awaken
Originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk

This is not so a much post as a tentative stirring, the blogospherical equivalent of rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Been on sabbatical. Thought I’d blog more. Didn’t. Got out of the habit. Stopped. Decided to warm up by flinging a few fragments from the past few months at the screen.

Sabbatical: a huge, huge privilege, one of the truly brilliant things about being in ministry. Thank you Baptist Union. Thank you Northern Baptist College.

Writing a book: harder than I thought. Started well. Always was a good starter and a not so good finisher. Not given up yet though. No way.

Taking a break from Sunday worship services: an unplanned bit of the sabbatical. Kind of an experiment: how much of my ongoing journey of faith is simply down to momentum? Turns out the answer is not much. It’s good to be back.

A month on the road in France with my wife: further confirmation that marrying her thirty years ago was a smart move.

Visiting Lourdes: all my prejudices confirmed – kitsch central, tatsville, bad taste turned up to eleven. Yet, through it all, strangely moving and undoubtedly Godish.

Mum dying: rubbish, of course; the tragic completion of a long, slow dying. But it really did help knowing that this is what she wanted. I’m glad she was spared the indignity of the alternative. I’m also glad I managed to hold it together long enough to give the eulogy, a chance to do one last thing for someone who did so much for me.

Thirtieth wedding anniversary: see above. (Nice mother of pearl fountain pen too!)

Missing seeing England win the Ashes: a sore temptation once again to take out a sky subscription. Get thee behind me Murdoch.

Hearing The Tord Gustavsen Ensemble: see next post.

A weekend in the van at Pystill Rhaeadr: cracking place, beautiful, peaceful, dripping with God. Don’t tell anyone about it.

Returning to work: perfectly fine.

Preaching as Oral-Aural Event

One of the delights of research, and indeed life, is finding someone else who agrees with you. At least it is for me. Especially when they express themselves well. And also when they carry a degree of authority. Not sure just how authoritative Bruce E. Shields is but he certainly fulfils the other two criteria.

I have become quite attached to the bee in my bonnet that is the importance of the Oral-Aural nature of the preaching event. That happens when a bee has been buzzing around your bonce for a long time. Clyde Fant set me off with his Preaching For Today back in the early 80’s and Bruce Shields has just had me shouting “Amen” as I type. Here’s a couple of snippets from his, From The Housetops: Preaching in the Early Church and Today

… we preachers … at the end of the twentieth century find ourselves in many cases conceiving of the sermon as a document, that is, as a set of written symbols on a page, which will then be read, with more or less directness, either off the page or from memory, to a silent audience. Thus we “finish” a sermon one day in a given week and deliver it to a congregation on Sunday. “Preparation and delivery,” seems to be a commodity-orientated way of thinking about preaching, and it is hard to imagine a first-century Christian thinking in these terms.

Perhaps the single biggest failure in the teaching of preaching is that young ministers are not fully impressed with the difference between textuality and orality. Shaped by mountains of books, called upon to write scores of papers, and graded largely by what they commit to the page, aspiring preachers train the eye but neglect the ear. Yet it is to the world of sound that they will go, plying their wares acoustically. The major moments of public ministry (the sermon, the funeral eulogy, the marriage ceremony) are all rhetorical [oratorical to be more accurate] moments.

If we try to hear the preacher producing the epistle as we study the text, then some of the passion in the original setting should begin to bleed through into our preaching. Our contemporary hearers are not, of course, first-century Roman believers, but that is no excuse for presenting cadavers instead of breathing organisms as sermons.

We preachers need to break out of our literate ways of thinking and prepare for effective communication in this borderland between the older culture of primary literacy and the coming culture of secondary orality.

Preach it brother!

The British National Party and The North

British National Party
Originally uploaded by Hannah Lucy Jones

Today I am saddened. My problem is I’m a northerner and I have just heard that last Thursday my part of
The North decided that it would like to send two racists to represent it in the wider world. Both Yorkshire, where I was born and brought up, and the North West, where I now live, have voted in BNP MEP’s.

How do I cope when people whom I love embrace something that I hate? This is the part of the world where the co-operative movement was born and flourished; it was here that The Labour Party (in the days when it was genuinely the party of the people) had its heartland. And now this.

Full-Time Tutor in Biblical Studies

NORTHERN BAPTIST LEARNING COMMUNITY
(on behalf of ‘Northern Baptist College Ltd’)
www.northern.org.uk

(a member of the ecumenical Partnership for Theological Education, based at Luther King House in Manchester)

intends to appoint a

Full-Time Tutor in Biblical Studies

with a major focus in EITHER Old or New Testament

(Whilst not an essential requirement for appointment to this post, there is potential for the successful applicant to play a significant role in the development and delivery of the ecumenical Partnership’s post-graduate programme.)

Requests for information can be made to:

Revd Dr Richard Kidd (Co-Principal)

richard.kidd@northern.org.uk

(Completed applications must arrive by Monday 22nd June 2009, and interviews will be held on Wednesday 15th July 2009)

[Northern Baptist Learning Community has an Equal Opportunities Policy]

On the down side I'm a bit late with this; on the up side if you get the job then you get to work with me!