Risk-taking, ‘village leaving’, active experiences

One of the things that’s been troubling me about this project is telling my church members about it (for various reasons). However, they each have friends, and it would be instant access to people through them. On the other hand, if they don’t get the whole idea of emerging church, I don’t want them just to see it as a way of bringing new people into our existing fellowship, as that’s not my purpose. But I’m not sure if they’ll understand the idea of a self-sustaining community that isn’t ‘church as they know it’.

Anyway, Steve Chalke wrote an article in Christianity magazine in January 2009 that featured (in brief) a story about a young man setting out to find the source of the river that flowed through his town. He sets off and goes missing for a year until the annual river worship time comes round, when the young man re-appears and discloses that he’s actually found the source of the river. Maps are drawn of how to get there, books are written about it and other paraphernalia produced, yet no-one goes and does the same. After a while everything reverts back to normal – no-one ventures out on their own adventure to discover the source for themselves because it is still considered too dangerous a journey to make.

The point of the story was that Jesus gathered followers (apprentices to his style of living) to journey with him, to live alongside him and learn through practice. As a rabbi He taught on the move. So life for every rabbi’s apprentice became a literal journey of learning (i.e. not book learning or knowledge gaining). With a rabbi, the whole of life became a risk-taking, ‘village leaving’, active, experience. Somehow, this is what I need to show to people through this new emerging church – a journey through life, making mistakes, getting it right, reflecting on experiences and trying alternatives, all in the manner of our true rabbi, Jesus. If you know the Rob Bell Nooma DVD 'Dust', it's time to get dusty!

I’d pondered how to use this article in a sermon for my congregation, and then one day, when I was re-reading it, it dawned on me – I could tell them that this is what I’m going to be trying to do with my emerging church project. So last Sunday I cast my doubts to the wind, and told my congregation Steve’s story and something about my project. Luckily, I didn’t hold my breath expecting a barrage of eager questions, as absolutely none were forthcoming! Nor did I get anyone asking if they could join in. …. Which leads me to wonder:

(i) Is a travelling dialogue better than just preaching at people?
(ii) Will I ever manage to get anyone to come with me?
(iii) Were they all asleep anyway?
(iv) Why was I so worried?

Back to the drawing board…..

Is this furkling going to work?

Been trying out the actual geocache business myself. I now have 7 finds to my name, which means that soon I'll be on my first milestone of 10 finds (and Stephen was right when he said I would turn into some sort of nerd/anorak)! I've also had a few that I couldn't find. And then there was the one I did after giving a talk for work, so I was in a skirt! I thought I'd try and fit in a quick one on the way home and found myself furkling in the undergrowth amongst knee high nettles. There I was mincing about trying to avoid getting stung and thinking 'Will this furkling about really work?' Needless to say, I was unsuccessful at finding the cache, so will have to try again.

So far I've taken a friend from back home with me and she seemed quite keen on the idea. She likes a little walk now and then, and thought this treasure hunting idea would be a nice additional twist. Then I took another lot of friends who were visiting us, a family of four with a pushchair, gave the 5 year old the GPS device and told her she was in charge. Oh, the power!! 'You can't walk in front of me because I'm the leader' became quote of the day - sounds a bit like the sort of thing we say to God: 'Follow me, I'm in charge of my life and if you could just fit in with my plans, O Creator of the Universe, and not interfere, that would be really helpful.' They enjoyed themselves and were found checking out the website later on. I explained my plans to both of these sets of friends, and they think it could catch on (nettle rash more than anything else, I think).

Then my charity shop manager asked me what I was doing this weekend, and wrote down the geocaching website address to check it out for herself. It's in the bag!

So the upshot of all this is: it seems converting people to geocaching is easy. Converting them to Jesus will be another matter! Well at least I'm getting some sermon illustrations in the process and enjoying the Norfolk scenery and wildlife - on my last cache today I walked past a quail and her family of 6 new-born babies (quailettes?), they were embedded in the hedgerow and the babies were no bigger than the top of my thumb - wished I'd had my camera. Been watching too much Springwatch obviously.

Why hidden treasure?

Welcome to my first ever thoughts in cyberland!

Why hidden treasure? I'm doing an emerging church course at Cliff College (and having a lot of fun too). One of the assignments is actually starting an emerging church. So having struggled to get to grips with the fact that a thinker, reflector could possibly become an activist and do something, I then had to rack my brains about what this possible emerging church could be!

Finally hit on this idea, given that our tutor said church should be fun (and I'm all for that - I need some fun in my life) - I'm going to start a geocaching church. Cool, hey?

Never heard of 'geocaching'? Geocaching is what I would call high tech treasure hunting. Alternatively, it's walking with a purpose. Get a hand held GPS, log on to the geocaching web page (geocaching.com), find out where there's a cache hidden near you, bung the co-ordinates in your hand held and then you're off. The great thing about this is that you go outdoors in the gorgeous weather we've been having, get the wind in your hair, the sun on your face (or the rain down your neck) and experience life as it really is!

The 'hidden treasure' concept is that Jesus often talked about the kingdom of God being like hidden treasure, so in the process of having fun, chatting with anyone I can persuade to come with me, and hopefully throwing in some food along the line, I'm hoping that we might be able to discover some important things about God's hidden treasure of the gospel of Jesus.

Want to join me? Hop on.