A Useful Read for Rural Christians

Bishop James and I attended a national conference called Faith and the Future of The Countryside in 2010. It was the subject of my very first ever blog post back in November of that year (when, as I recall, the countryside was under a thick blanket of snow and the farmers were struggling to get out to feed their livestock.) Alan Smith and Jill Hopkinson have now published material that came from that very significant conference and their book is an excellent resource for churches, providing theological reflection and practical pastoral insight for everyone who is concerned about rural life and the place of Christian communities. It tackles more than just churchy issues. There are chapters about

England's Rural Economies
Land and Human Well-Being
How Should We Eat? The Principles and Practice of Just Food
A Theological Perspective on Sustainability
Planning and Housing; Power and Values in Rural Communities
Climate
Older People in the Country
Rural Mental Health and Well-Being
The Metaphor of Trees, Woods and Forests as Symbols of Creation
A Rural Perspective on Christian Formation and the Big Society
The Contribution of Church Tourism to the Rural Economy
The Spread of the Gospel Through the Occasional Offices in a Small Rural Village

12 really engaging chapters (perhaps one a week as a focus for preaching or for reflection at prayer groups?) I am still in the middle of it and finding that the themes of the chapters chime in very much with my everyday ministry. Alan Smith is Bishop of St Albans and co-author with Peter Shaw of The Reflective Leader. Julie Hopkinson is the National Rural Officer for the Church of England and has attended training events for rural and multi parish benefices in our Diocese recently. She co-edited Re-Shaping Rural Ministry. The book is published by Canterbury Press, 2012.

Alive to the Word!

Announcing A Festival of Preaching

Saturday 19th May

Ripon Cathedral

To book, contact gail.matthewman@riponleeds-diocese.org.uk

Maggi Dawn; Advent Frustration

http://maggidawn.com/

I do so agree with Maggi - I always get tremendously confused when preaching in Advent!

The Bible in a Digital Age

Codec (n) co'dec:  A device for coverting data from one format to another, esp. from analogue to digital format. In communications engineering, an integrated circuit or chip. The term is an acronym for 'coder/decoder'.

Research Centre in Biblical and Media Literacy
Durham University

 http://www.durham.ac.uk/codec

What difference does the digital age make to the ways we think and do things in our churches and faith communities? We're living through a revolution that will have as great an effect on society as the printing press did - probably much greater and more far reaching, in fact. Whether we understand the digital world and use socia networking media or not, they are having an impact on our lives all the time. Life is speeding up, information about us is held in ways that we don't know about but which shapes our lives, relationships are formed differently and are less embodied, our real and digital identities may not be the same, so questions of authenticity and truth arise. I could go on... The other end of the spectrum leads to the realm of the really quite mind blowing. What does theology have to say about brains that have been digitally enhanced and can therefore out-think everyone who has only a 'natural' brain? It makes in vitro fertilization and genetic engineering seem a bit tame, really! Then there are the justice and power shaped questions about who is included and excluded from the digital world. And the questions about sacramentality in a disembodied world.  

I spent a fascinating day in Durham, yesterday, hearing all about CODEC, a research project based at St John's College, Durham University. It was established in 2008 to develop a national survey of levels of Biblical literacy. Since then it has gone on to gain a national and international reputation in the whole area of Christian communication in the digtal age. The project is asking

• How does the 21st century world interact with the world of the Christian faith and vice versa?
• How do we communicate our faith with its ancient roots in a digital world?
• How do we allow the insights born of faith, discipline and wisdom in a Biblical sense to help us be properly critical of a digital world in which the impetus to react to everything out there, or as much of it as possible, is very strong?  

CODEC has done work for a number of agencies and individuals such as MPs and peers, the Church of England, the Methodist Church, Premier Christian Media, the Bible Society and SPCK as well as contributing to TV and radio in the UK and abroad. It has worked with the Faith and Globalisation Porject at Durham University and the Tony Blair Foundation to establish Faith online 0.2 We benefit from it locally because of the North Yorkshire Dales Biblical Literacy Project which has a project worker, David Wood, working in Swaledale and Wensleydale to promote understanding of the Bible and to reserach how it has an impact on community life in rural communities. 

The Revd Dr Pete Phillips, Director of CODEC
 at Durham University

You might be interested in looking at the BigBible website which has a mass of material about the Bible - events, stories of social action inspired by the Bible and projects focusing on the Bible, including Tom Wright's The BigRead12 - Lent group resources on Mark's gospel.  http://www.bigbible.org.uk/

CODEC also hosts preaching conferences which concentrate on apologetics in a digital age and the use of imagination in preaching. The conferences make use of research and material by some of the leading Biblical scholars. You can find details of these on the CODEC website http://www.durham.ac.uk/codec

The Revd Kate Bruce,
Research Fellow in Preaching,
CODEC, Durham University

This is a wonderful (and very practical) resource for us in North Yorkshire, especially those of us who preach, teach, blog and use other social media. This is the up and coming area of hermeneutic study - the study of interpretation across languages, social groups, media which is at the heart of incarnational theology.

Charles Simeon

The 24th September is the anniversary of the birth of Charles Simeon who was one of the great preachers of the late 18th and early 19th century. He is part of my inheritance as a Christian. He was Vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge for 54 years (from 1782-1836) and his influence was still felt there when I was a student in the 1970's. What was so great about him? Well, he inspired generations of students to a living faith in God at a time when gospel preaching was often scorned, even by the clergy and members of the church. His teaching brought many to worship and to a lively faith that led to service overseas, ordination and commitment to some of the great campaigns of the 19th century such as the abolition of slavery and housing reform. Holy Trinity church followed (and still follows) in this proud tradition; in my time there I remember wonderful after-sermon discussions, prayer meetings and fellowship meals that attracted scores of people.  Many of my generation committed their lives to God's service at that time as well as making life long friendships that have sustained us in our faith. 

But the really remarkable thing about Simeon was, I think, the fact that he combined being a truly great preacher of the gospel with a staunch love for the church (not always found in evangelical Christians.) Although critical of the luke-warm and sometimes corrupt nature of the church of his time, he set out to serve the church with devotion and, in the words of John Moorman in his book A History of the Church in England, he 'did much to strengthen the bonds between those influenced by the religious revival and those who looked on it with some misgivings.' It can be difficult to be an evangelical who loves the church (was it Robert Runcie who famously said that evangelicals have no ecclesiology?) but Simeon showed the way. For that and for his humility he has always seemed to me a worthy exemplar.

He was a founder member of the Church Missionary Society and one of the first supporters of the British and Foreign Bible Society and, famously, inspired Henry Martin who translated the whole of the New Testament into Urdu and Persian. His legacy to the Church of England included the formation of the Simeon Trust; he used his own family wealth to acquire the patronage rights of many churches, often in strategic places in cities and towns around the country. The Trust is charged with ensuring that these churches are served by clergy who are faithful in prayer and in living and preaching the gospel. In Simeon's time patronage was often exercised in a manner that allowed men to be appointed to livings in the church who were of doubtful calibre as ministers of the gospel and priests. Simeon's charge to the Trust urges...

First that they be very careful whenever they shall be called upon to fill up a vacancy which  they must invariably do within three months of a vacancy occuring, that they elect no one who is not a truly pious and devoted man, a man of God in deed and truth, who, with his piety combines a solid judgement and a perfectly independent mind....Secondly, that, when they shall be called upon to appoint to a living, they consult nothing but the welfare of the people for whom they are to provide and whose eternal interests have been confided in them. 

A marvellous set of principles, I would argue! The clergyman Simeon is looking for is  someone devoted to God, loyal to the church, independent of mind, willing to care for and serve the community - and the Trustees are to get on with it! None of these long vacancies which, as Bob Jackson's research shows, are not good for the health of parishes! 

For more information about the Simeon Trust http://www.simeontrust.org/