commission4mission creative retreat 2019

Thanks are due once again to Mark Lewis for organising another creative retreat for commission4mission artists at the Othona Community, Bradwell-on-Sea.

As previously, this was time for reflection, creativity and fellowship combined with creative time. Services were in St Peter's Chapel Bradwell-on-Sea, and meals and accommodation with the Othona Community. Creative times included drawing, painting, photography, reading, writing, poetry and beach-combing etc.

Mark says, 'The Othona retreat seemed to go well. The weather was mixed, but it made for some dramatic skies. We took a lot of photographs.' The photographs above are from Susan Hitching and Harvey Bradley.

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Alison Krauss - Down In The River.

commission4mission's creative retreat

I'm currently on a creative retreat with other commission4mission artists at the Othona Community, Bradwell-on-Sea. This is a time for reflection, creativity and fellowship combined with creative time. Services are in St Peter's Chapel Bradwell-on-Sea, and meals and accommodation with the Othona Community.

Our creative times include drawing, painting, photography, reading, writing, poetry and beach-combing etc. I've been taking photographs on the beach this morning.

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Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea.

Music for the Soul: where music flows from heaven to the soul

St Peter’s Chapel, Bradwell-on-Sea, is a uniquely spiritual place that is the focus for people all over the world. 

During July and August, the evening services at Bradwell-on-Sea are held in St Peter's Chapel, at the place where the land meets the sea and the sky comes close. A place where the distance between heaven and earth is tissue thin. All services start at 6.30 pm.

The theme of this year’s services is Music for the Soul where music flows from heaven to the soul.

Peter Banks and I are contributing with a service based on themes drawn from our co-authored book, The Secret Chord.

Summer Services 2017

JUNE

• 11th Confirmation Service with the Bishop of Bradwell

JULY

• 2nd The Secret Chord with Revd Jonathan Evens and Café Musica and Friends
• 9th Evening worship with Lynne Creasy, Harp and Harvey Nightingale, Baritone
• 16th Taizé Service
• 23rd Evening worship with John Glynn. John is a singer and a songwriter – A former Roman Catholic Priest in the United Kingdom with a talent that spans the world.
• 30th Revd Dr. Jenny Williams. Following the Quiet Day on July 29th Jenny will lead our worship reflecting on the words of the Aramaic Lord’s prayer.

AUGUST

• 6th Evening Worship with Canon Ivor Moody – Songs for the Soul
• 13th Reflective Worship with Music for Healing led by The Asaph Ensemble with support from the Asaph Christian Trust
• 20th A service of Music & Healing with Revd Brigid & Laurie Main
• 27th Music for the soul. A celebration of the summer evening services

Come as individuals or as part of a group. Bring a picnic and enjoy the peace and beauty of this ancient Holy Place.

Further information from Revd Brigid Main - t: 01621 776438 e: stpeterschapel@outlook.com w: www.bradwellchapel.org

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Cafe Musica - Time To Think.

Past Life - Present Mission (4)

Chapter 3: Christian life and mission in the light of Celtic Christianity

St Edmunds Tyseley

Tyseley is a large geographical area in East Birmingham, 2½ miles from the city centre, known as ‘the forgotten triangle’. It is an older working-class area of mixed residential and industrial land use with high proportions of minority ethnic people together with a rapidly increasing young family population with a high birth rate. Social needs in Tyseley included high levels of unemployment, large numbers of elder people and lone parents, a lack of youth facilities, congested roads and heavy industrial traffic, a polluted atmosphere, high levels of illness, and few open or play spaces. On my arrival at St Edmunds in 1989, a social worker told me:

“The thing you will soon discover about Tyseley people is that they have no hope. If they are middle-aged and unemployed they will never be employed again. What they have got in life now, won’t really be added to before they eventually die.”

The Church buildings and site were in need of refurbishment although the facilities were used by the community and the Church members viewed themselves as being an extended Christian family committed to being a church for their community. Change occurred in our situation as major building works were financed and completed and through an experimental Neighbourhood Project, StEdicare – Tyseley. The building works and StEdicare created an environment where, by the mid 1990s, we were motivated to search for a fresh and relevant set of Christian mission principles that applied both to our own lifestyle and were relevant to the local community. The use of Celtic materials in worship and study were a key part of developing this fresh approach.

Using the Biblical themes

Mitton’s biblical themes were used by three housegroups and several individuals (45 starters, 40 completers) as a set of notes with the following format:

1. Consider an historical story about one or more of the Celtic Saints which illustrates each Biblical theme.

2. Interpret the story and its theme and apply it to the Church of today.

3. Read a relevant Bible Passage for each theme.

4. Discuss questions arising from the text.

5. Conclude with prayer.

When each group had finished studying the material I visited them and discussed their response. Behind my approach lay the question: “Is it possible for an ancient form of indigenous Christianity to act as an important guide line for Christians living and mission in a deprived UPA 1500 years later?”

Responses

Category 1 responses: This included the majority of participants (a total of 32 out of 40), most of whom were long-term residents of Tyseley. As a group, Category 1 people were untroubled and perhaps unaware that there could be a problem in accepting, that an ancient, indigenous, Christian approach could be relevant to their own spiritual growth and awareness. In general they set aside what one might call the structural and historic differences between rural, agrarian people and themselves as urban dwellers immersed in the culture of Tyseley and St. Edmund’s Church. They were prepared to consider what the biblical theme itself offered. As a part of that, they accepted themes and aspects of themes that affirmed existing Christian life-style, and any challenge toward new ways for them, to live out that theme.

Category 1 people coped with the ‘Woven Cord’ programme notes through the strength of the story approach, and the sense of concreteness it brought to their discussions. The success and centrality of the story approach with its visual and descriptive imagery should not be lost sight of. Neither should the use of biographical content and illustrative testimony by group members, which became a positive part of their own involvement with the notes. The notes were totally focussed on examples of Celtic Christian principles and practices. So this was what participants accepted and applied to their lives. Equally themes which were not accepted reflect positive decisions as these emerged from the exploratory process they had practised.

People in this first category were warmed by stories of Celtic Christians and connected with them at a feeling level.

Category 2 responses: These people were a minority (8) of participants in the ‘Woven Cord’ programme. Category 2 people found the issue of responding to cultural knowledge and life style from an ancient Christian people somewhat difficult. They perceived the Celtic way to be ‘romantic’ and rural and, therefore, irrelevant. Their reasoning was academic and the question arose as to whether the use of ‘non-academic’ faculties such as intuition, story and art was viewed as a threat.

This also raised the question, are well-educated Christians who occupy a high social class but choose to live in or near a UPA and worship within it, less motivated to consider alternative Christian life-styles than the ones they currently live out? Whilst this is merely a possibility it could be relevant to the way mission was planned and structured in UPA parishes. After a lifetime’s involvement in working class areas, I am of the view that well-educated, professional people are needed to worship and live in UPAs. They have lots of gifts to offer, but the essential question is how effectively they relate to Christian living and life-style of local people who are long-term residents. In this instance the two categories seemed to be within two different worlds.

I asked myself the question, why were the Category 2 people so unaccepting of the Celtic themes? Various possibilities seemed relevant: What was their commitment to living in a UPA, was it for ‘Romantic’ reasons? Was their response related to the kind of worldview they implicitly accepted, which (perhaps) made receptivity to the past difficult? What theological position had they adopted with respect to tradition? Had they thought through the question of ancient text (the Bible) or story (the Celtic) in relation to contemporary life? Did they assume the Biblical text transcends the historical and cultural in a way which other texts do not?

Themes that resonated

The following are themes that particularly resonated with the Category 1 participants. They are themes that were transposed directly into their approach to Christian living, and are not presented in any particular order:

• The importance of authenticity, simplicity of life-style and holiness within daily Christian living.
• The centrality of the Bible and the commitment to living out its teaching in a direct manner.
• The acceptance of the presence of illness, death and dying and the significance of faith in relation to that awareness. ‘Life’ beyond the grave.
• The sense of unity with the world of creation.
• The reality of spiritual powers, including those of evil, and the fact of spiritual battle.
• The place, work and gifts of the Holy Spirit...Discernment, prophecy and healing.
• Acceptance of the ministry of women, and the place of children within the Christian setting.
• The importance of prayer in the daily life and worship of Christians.

Other themes that strongly emerged included:

• The possibility of experiencing peace, quietness of spirit and hope in the living out of faith.
• The sense of freedom in Christian living and worship.
• The awareness of Christian belonging and sharing faith with others.

Themes that did not resonate

In the main these were as follows:

• Celibacy seemed to be regarded as irrelevant to their lives. In terms of gender, their view and assumption was the acceptance of heterosexual family life as being the norm. 
• Asceticism was regarded as strange and irrelevant. They were aware of the challenge toward discipleship but now saw that in terms of direct Christian living within their daily lives. Asceticism was not applicable to their view of growing in holiness. 
• Poverty was a matter most knew something about. For them it had not involved choice. As a factor that was chosen as part of a Celt’s life of faith, it did not appeal to participants in the ‘Woven Cord’ programme. 
• Christian Monastic Community was ignored as significant to their lives. In general the response of participants was biased towards direct examples of Christian living as demonstrated in the ‘story’ approach. This particular theme illustrated their unreadiness to approach issues from the basis of Institutional life.
• Peregrinatio was discussed with interest and felt to be Biblical. We have already established that with most themes that resonated, they were then applied directly to people’s lives, especially any scriptural teaching. The fact this theme did not resonate related to the lack of feasibility for them to practice peregrinatio i.e. it was a Celtic Christian practice that did not transpose into their social structure. The fact it did not resonate, thereby showed the critical ability of Category 1 participants to show that not everything about Celtic Christianity was suitable for them.

The common denominator in these negative responses was that even where they were individual practices, they had a particular link with the institutional structure of the Celtic Church. As a result, there was not the same acceptance by the Category 1 participants.

Key factors

The key factors which made these themes of significant meaning were:

• People’s identity and self-image: Many UPA Christian people do not have a strong identity or confident self-image in relation to the wider society. They are not confident about many roles. Roles that for example, most middle-class people are automatically prepared for by family and life experience. In the Christian context of St. Edmund Tyseley that included such common roles as: becoming a Sunday School Teacher; taking a Bible reading in a Church Service; or joining a visiting team. All of the themes that resonated had this linking strength. Acceptance of the themes aided that person’s identity and self-image as a Christian believer.
• Direct applicability to everyday Christian life as a UPA person: The social context for the target group of Tyseley residents was one of ‘deprivation’ and marginalisation from affluent Britain. Within the Church context of St. Edmund’s there had been an absence of ‘hope’. The movement into using Celtic Christian principles and practices as a set of guide lines for spiritual growth within the Church reinforced in the mid 1990’s, a movement away from this no hope perception for the individual and the Church. As the ‘Woven Cord’ programme progressed there was an increasing awareness of the presence of God, a God who was at the centre of the new openness to directly apply the practice of Celtic spiritual material into daily living. The story of the way Celtic Christians saw and lived out their faith became relevant and accessible to participants. The manner in which this happened, suggested that Category 1 participant’s perception of renewed Christian living did not depend on institutional or social class definitions of the correct type of image or behaviour. One of the more significant changes in absorbing Celtic Christian practice, was the move away from coming to Church “to get your batteries charged” – to viewing Christian living as a daily affair involving prayer, worship and service to others. The themes that resonated had this “direct applicability” element to the participant’s everyday Christian life as a UPA person.
• Need for a sense of belonging and to find their Christian roots: Within UPAs’ there is usually found a locality-based, neighbourhood sense of community. Social networks are often locally based also. This, together with family and friendship networks, link strongly into a person’s identity and self-image. Tyseley has been very much a white community with a great emphasis on extended families. That structure is now in rapid change into a multi-ethnic community, surrounded by the influence of contemporary social values and rapid social change. This means there are areas of new vulnerability within the local neighbourhood, within family, Church life and for the individual. The whole structure of belonging and the sense of roots has been dislocated through rapid social change. It is hardly surprising that for Christian UPA believers, anything that helps their sense of belonging and discovery of significant roots is welcomed. This programme and its Celtic Christian backcloth together with the themes that resonated, strengthened the participants sense of belonging to each other and to God through Christ. Their sense of dignity and worth as a child of God gained new roots through their identity with Celtic Christians. A significant factor in this was that their faith was no longer to be so determined by their UPA human context or definitions about them stemming from social class attitudes and behaviour.

In the earlier Chapters I noted two developmental stages in the evolution of Celtic Christianity. First, the age of the Sancti, where there was a major focus on the Saints of the 4th-6th centuries AD. These were the men who were the Christian equivalent of the Celtic war-lord heroes of which Ninian, Patrick and Columba were distinguished examples. Second, this was followed by the movement into structures that were to characterise the Celtic Church, in particular monasticism and Peregrinatio from the early 6th Century onwards. The Themes that resonated with UPA people were particularly illustrated by stories from the first time period of the Celtic Sancti. The Themes that were rejected or ignored, were generally related to the period when the focus was upon the characteristic structures found within Celtic Christianity and its practice. In terms of the wider study of Celtic Christianity, both divisions include major themes. For future programmes the different contemporary contexts within which such themes may be placed, will help to determine whether they are regarded as major or minor Themes.

Implications for developing future programmes

Some excellent material has surfaced in the last few years, that greatly improves the position. This comes, for example, from the Rev. Martin Wallace who initially published a series of low cost, samizdat publications based on Celtic style talks given at St. Peter’s Chapel, Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex. This was the Church St. Cedd built in 654 AD. Wallace’s basic value in writing such books was to “combine the lives of the Saints together with radical lessons for today.” These were followed in 1998 by Wallace’s “The Celtic Resource Book”. This excellent book uses the same type of worship resource material we used at St. Edmund’s, which included material from David Adam, the Carmina Gadelica, Wild Goose Publications (Iona), the Northumbrian Community and the like. Content is divided into sections that include: Liturgies; Prayers; Lessons from the Saints; Practical Meditation; Artistic Activities; and Going on Pilgrimage Today together with exploratory ideas on different ways of using the Resource book. Any future programmes about Celtic Christianity among UPA people would be helped by making use of Wallace’s ability to relate Celtic Spirituality into the context of modern urban living, particularly that of ‘deprived’ communities.

Learning patterns

The following were important to the way the Study developed:

• Celtic Christian prayers, poems and meditations used within Church worship from 1994.
• A series of sermons during 1996 that transposed Celtic approaches into life, living, and Christian faith within a UPA context. 
• The use of everyday objects as visual aids or as a sacramental symbol. For example: offering the congregation, after a sermon about Columba’s life and ministry, a small pebble from the beach on Iona where he landed. It was offered on condition that if accepted, the pebble would be used as a symbol for that person of a commitment to share the Good News about Jesus with others. Another image used was that of the ‘Open Gate,’ signifying movement in our Christian pilgrimage individually and as a Church.
• A series of visions that occurred at the time of a PCC Away Day in 1996 and their challenge about responding to the Spirit’s work in rebuilding Church relationships.

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David Fitzgerald & Dave Bainbridge - I Arise Today.

Paying attention to sacraments and epiphanies

Tonight I led the evening service at St Peter's Bradwell with Peter Webb of commission4mission and Café Musica led by Peter Banks, with whom I co-wrote The Secret Chord. 70 - 80 people filled the chapel to participate in a liturgy which celebrated the Arts, view artwork by commission4mission artists, and be led in song by Café Musica. Click here to see photos of the artwork in the Chapel.

Here is the sermon that I preached:

Take a look at Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus by clicking here and ask yourself three questions: What is central in this picture? How does the artist point us to what is central? Why are those things central?

At the centre of this picture and at the centre of the story it depicts is a very simple and ordinary action; breaking bread or tearing a loaf of bread into two pieces. Although it is a simple and ordinary thing to do, it becomes a very important act when Jesus does it because this is the moment when Jesus’ two disciples realise who he is. They suddenly realise that this stranger who they have been walking with and talking to for hours on the Emmaus Road is actually Jesus himself, risen from the dead. They are amazed and thrilled, shocked and surprised, and we can see that clearly on the faces and in the actions of the disciples as they are portrayed in this painting.

Something very simple and ordinary suddenly becomes full of meaning and significance. This simple, ordinary action opens their eyes so that they can suddenly see Jesus as he really is. That is art in action! Art captures or creates moments when ordinary things are seen as significant.

When our eyes are suddenly opened to see meaning and significance in something that we had previously thought of as simple and ordinary that is called an epiphany. Caravaggio’s painting is a picture of an epiphany occurring for the disciples on the Emmaus Road but it is also an epiphany itself because it brings the story to life in a way that helps us see it afresh, as though we were seeing it for the first time.

The disciples realise it is Jesus when the bread is broken because Jesus at the Last Supper made the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine (the Eucharist) into a sacrament. A sacrament is a visible sign of an inward grace and so it is something more than an epiphany. In a sacramental act there is a connection between the symbolic act and the reality being symbolised, which does not need to occur in an epiphany. So, an epiphany is a realisation or sign of significance, while a sacrament is a visual symbol of an inner change. For Christians the taking of bread and wine into our bodies symbolises the taking of Jesus into our lives. As a result, art (or the visual) can symbolise inner change and be sacramental.

This understanding of epiphany and sacrament is based on the doctrine of the Incarnation; the belief that, in Jesus, God himself became a human being and lived in a particular culture and time. Jesus is an epiphany because he is the visible image of the invisible God. For the Church this has been the primary reason why we have such a strong tradition of figurative art. As Rowan Williams has written, ‘God became truly human in Jesus … And if Jesus was indeed truly human, we can represent his human nature as with any other member of the human race.’ But when we do so ‘we’re not trying to show a humanity apart from divine life, but a humanity soaked through with divine life … We don’t depict just a slice of history when we depict Jesus; we show a life radiating the life and force of God.’

Williams goes on to write that it is when ‘we approach the whole matter in prayer and adoration’ that ‘the image that is made becomes in turn something that in its own way radiates [the] light and force’ of God. He is implying therefore that an important element of prayer is paying attention.

In 2007, the Uffizi Museum in Florence lent Leonardo da Vinci’s The Annunciation to the Tokyo National Museum for three months. More than 10,000 visitors flocked to the museum every day to see the renaissance masterpiece. A number which, when divided by the museum's opening hours, equates to each visitor having about three seconds in front of the painting - barely long enough to say the artist's name, let alone enjoy the subtleties of his work.

By contrast, a well-known art historian, observed as he entered the first room of the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery, went nose-to-nose with Leonardo's The Musician (1486), and there he stayed for about 10 minutes, rocking backwards and forwards, before moving from side-to-side, and then finally stepping back four paces and eyeing up the small painting from distance. And then he repeated the exercise. Twice.

The 10,000 visitors per day visiting the Tokyo National Museum during those three months wanted to see Leonardo’s Annunciation, but did they really ‘see’ it? They certainly didn’t see it in the same way that the art critic saw Leonardo's Musician.

Art historian Daniel Siedell has said: ‘It is a cliché, but I would suggest that one must approach contemporary art with an open mind … Attending to … details, looking closely, is a useful discipline for us as Christians, who are supposed to see Christ everywhere, especially in the faces of all people. If we dismiss artwork that is strange, unfamiliar, unconventional, if we are inattentive to visual details, how can we be attentive to those around us?’

The Bible is full of encouragement to reflect. The words, reflect, consider, ponder, meditate and examine, crop up everywhere. God encourages us to reflect on everything; his words (2 Timothy 2.7), his great acts (1 Samuel 12.24), his statutes (Psalm 119.95), his miracles (Mark 6.52), Jesus (Hebrews 3.1), God's servants (Job 1.8), the heavens (Psalm 8.3), the plants (Matthew 6.28), the weak (Psalm 41.1), the wicked (Psalm 37.10), oppression (Ecclesiastes 4.1), labour (Ecclesiastes 4.4), the heart (Proverbs 24.12), our troubles (Psalm 9.13), our enemies (Psalm 25.19), our sins (2 Corinthians 13.5). Everything is up for reflection but we are guided by the need to look for the excellent or praiseworthy (Philippians 4.8) and to learn from whatever we see or experience (Proverbs 24.32).

Clearly all this reflection cannot take place just at specific times. Just as we are told to pray always, the implication of the Bible's encouragement to reflection is that we should reflect at all times. We need to make a habit of reflection, a habit of learning from experience and of looking for the excellent things. We can do this by paying prayerful attention to all that is around us – what we see, do and experience. Everything around us can potentially be part of our ongoing conversation with God, part of which is reflection. This is a style of prayer that seems to go back at the very least to the Celtic Christians, who had a sense of the heavenly being found in the earthly, particularly in the ordinary tasks of home and work, together with the sense that every task can be blessed if we see God in it.

David Adam writes that, ‘If our God is to be found only in our churches and our private prayers, we are denuding the world of His reality and our faith of credibility. We need to reveal that our God is in all the world and waits to be discovered there – or, to be more exact, the world is in Him, all is in the heart of God.’

Attending to details in the way Daniel Seidell suggests is the outworking of St Paul’s words in Philippians 4. 8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things” (Philippians 4. 8). We are called to look for and look at these things as we go through life. This is an excellent approach to bear in mind when also looking at art.

Then, as Rowan Williams writes, visual images will be to us ‘human actions that seek to be open to God’s action’ and which can ‘open a gateway for God.’ If we pay prayerful attention, art can truly be epiphany and sacrament to us.

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Tom Jones - My Lord Did Trouble Me.