Music and Spirituality

Been preparing for a session that I'm teaching in a week or two on our MA module "Contemporary Spirituality".  Came across this from Don Salliers in Minding The Spirit Elizabeth Dreyer and Mark Burrows (eds.)

Music itself … offers us a pattern of how we actually experience the world and our lives.  It presents to us a morphology of human existence.  … I propose that spirituality has to do with sounding life before God.  Because we live through time music is perhaps our most natural medium for coming to terms with time and attending to the transcendent elements in making sense of our temporality.  Our lives, like music, have pitch, tempo, tone, release, dissonance, harmonic convergence, as we move through times of grief, delight, hope, anger and joy.  In short music has this deep affinity to our spiritual temperament and desire.  Our lives like music can only be understood in remembering the passage through time.  The order of sound is comprehended as we remember and reconfigure the previously heard in light of the yet to be heard.  So, too, the deeper desires and yearning of the human soul are not understood until a larger pattern emerges.

I liked it so I thought I'd share it.  Hope you like it too.

The Faith of Girls

Over the summer my colleague, Anne Phillips' book, the Faith of Girls has been published.  Based on her recently completed PhD it is a unique and very valuable piece of work on a much neglected area.  Here's some of the blurb from publishers, Ashgate.

• Exploring the spirituality and faith of girls on the verge of adolescence, this book presents fresh insights into children's spirituality and their transition to adulthood. Phillips has listened to girls' voices speaking in depth on the themes of self, God, church, and world, and reflected on their experiences and understandings in the light of current psychological, philosophical and sociological thinking, all placed into dialogue with a feminist approach to contemporary theology and bible. Phillips offers 'wombing' as a metaphor for their transition to young adulthood, and suggests strategies faith communities might adopt to companion girls more effectively through the fragility of puberty. This book will appeal to all those exploring areas of youth ministry, pastoral care, Christian education, nurture and childhood studies, psychology and theology.
  
• Contents: Preface; Introduction; Breaking the silence around girls in transition; Methods for learning from girls; Girls in transitional space; Theological reflection 1: Lucy; Girls in Godspace; Theological reflection 2: Rosie; Girls in nurturing space; Affirming girls through transition; Bibliography; Indexes.
  
• Reviews: ‘This is a landmark text which breaks new ground in the study of the faith of girls. It deserves to be widely read and reflected upon. Grounded in nuanced biblical readings of neglected texts about girls, an impressive range of diverse theoretical perspectives from theology, gender studies, psychology and sociology, and offering original qualitative field work, Anne Phillips skilfully works all this together into a powerful text which will excite feminist scholars and practical theologians alike, while being of immense value to practitioners. Both church and academy should welcome and honour this text.’
  Nicola Slee, The Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham, UK

Missiology Podcasts From Fuller

I've just posted a number of links to podcasts from Fuller Theological Seminary on my Links To Other Stuff page.  (See the tab in the green bar at the top of this page.)  There's all sorts of good stuff to be had including Graham Cray on Fresh Expressions, Darrell Guder on Missional Leadership After Christendom and Allan Roxburgh on contemporary mission.  Go take a look.

I will stick up a few more links when I get round to it - I've particularly enjoyed listening to John Goldingay's Old Testament lectures - and I'll keep on adding stuff as I come across it.  Keep on checking back from time to time just to make sure you don't miss out.

Gaga Again

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned Pete Philips' observations on Lady Gaga's Judas video.  Now Steve Holmes has chipped in with a few reflections.

Has anyone else made use of this in worship or teaching?

Talks And Sermon Notes On Scribd

Every now and then I get asked for copies of notes from my talks or sermons so I've set up a Scribd account and will from time to time upload notes.  You can download pdf's of the notes either directly from Scribd or using the widget in the sidebar on this blog.  I won't be putting up notes of all the sermons and talks, only those in which people show an interest and only those that are substantial enough to be worth the effort - many of my sermon notes are little more than headlines that wouldn't make sense to anyone but me (a bit like the sermons themselves!).  Anyhow if you'd like copies please help yourself.

(BTW while I'm at it I've also decided to start uploading my Outside Edge opinion pieces from the Baptist Times so that they'll be easily getattable in one place.)

Monsters and Jesus

Now there are of course many many lenses through which to interpret Jesus Christ - history, politics, spirituality, post-colonial theory ... .  Came across one this morning that was rather, well, shall we say, "novel"?

Mission in Britain Today - What Would You Teach?

I've decided that time has come for a significant revision of my introductory degree module on mission in Britain today.  I've been teaching this course for the past six years now with only minor tweaks and that word "today" in the title is a rather insistent demand to keep things freshish. I've got a number of ideas in mind but it would be awfully decent of you if you would offer up some suggestions of your own.

Here's what we cover at the moment: