It's been an eventful few days. On Thursday I went to Cambridge to see A Wilde Life, a crowdfunded musical about Oscar Wilde, with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
emperor and atreic. On Friday I went to one day of Focus, a weekend of worship and fellowship for HTB network churches. On Saturday I went to Sheffield to visit djm4 and sfred, and then yesterday I took my parents to Underneath the Stars, their very first folk festival.
Focus was A Lot(tm). HTB, or Holy Trinity Brompton, is the church which created and popularised the Alpha course, and has a practice of church planting - that is, sending out ministers and members to create new churches with a similar ethos and style of worship, and the HTB network is all those church plants, of which St Luke's is one. I arrived about half an hour before the big morning worship session, which gave me enough time to find the St Luke's campsite, say hello to a few people, and then head over to worship. Whilst walking over and waiting for things to get started, I had a good chat with P, who is doing a PhD in quantum computing at UCL. His childhood experiences of church were fairly middle-of-the-road Anglican, which I think helps him empathise quite well with what a culture shock it is for me to submerge myself in charismatic worship after a lifetime of traditionalism.
Worship took a shape which is starting to become somewhat familiar, although the order and details still change rather more than I'm used to. In this case we started with around half an hour or so of singing worship songs, although with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, a big stage and screens and lights, it did feel rather more like a concert than a congregation. After the music there were a few announcements and notices, followed by a sermon about identity and names, which drew on the books of Daniel and Esther. This was followed by a period of prayer, which is definitely the part of charismatic corporate worship that I continue to find the most uncomfortable and unfamiliar, and unlike a more traditional service there was no specific endpoint, but instead people gradually drifted away. I went to grab some lunch from one of the food vans, and then headed back to the campsite.
During the afternoon there were various activities available for people of all ages, as well as the opportunity to just spend social time together as a church. I went to two talks, and spent the time in between chatting to people. I met quite a lot of new people, and was also able to have some much longer and more in depth conversations than I've been able to previously in the post-service coffee chatting. Since a big part of my reason for being at St Luke's is to be visibly queer at the same time as being visibly devout, I tend to mention my husband quite early in a conversation if it comes up naturally, and it is interesting to note the responses. Most significant is that so far there has been absolutely no explicitly negative reaction, nor any discomfort sufficiently obvious that I've been able to distinguish it above my normal levels of "meeting new people feels awkward and uncomfortable." Some people do fall over themselves to make it clear that they are affirming, and depending on how they do that it can make me feel safer or just more awkward.
The two talks were by far the most challenging part of the day in different ways. The first was about "The church and secular culture", and contained a mixture of some things I disagreed with strongly, and other bits that could almost have been lifted straight from the bits of Thomas Merton's writings that resonate with me right down to the core. Amongst the former was the unexamined assumption that secularism is essentially bad and something to be fought against, rather than something which can either be valuable or damaging depending on how it is approached. Amongst the latter was his exploration of the idea that one of the biggest obstacles to a healthy relationship with God is the human tendency to make gods of ourselves, and the ways in which modern society and philosophies encourage that tendency. This talk also contained the most explicit homophobia that I've experienced so far in my exploration of charismatic evangelism. The speaker was talking about the reaction to some of his previous talks in which he made reference to sexuality. He claimed that some people (specifically affirming Christians) were so angry about his views that when he asked them what they thought of the rest of what he said, they couldn't answer, because they were too angry to listen to the rest. He then followed this up by saying that he understood that some people might find it difficult to hear his views, that they might feel quite personal if they applied to a family member or a loved one. And then he moved on to continue with the main thrust of his argument, and I realised with a bit of a jolt that it hadn't even occurred to him that there could be actual queers right there in the room. I must admit, I did find it a little more difficult to engage with the rest of his talk after that - not so much because I was angry, but because it felt like someone had just put a big sign saying "You're not welcome here."
The second talk, entitled "Spirit Led Life: The Transforming Power of Worship" was very different, and thankfully homophobia-free. My spiritual direction course talks a lot about listening for and responding to the movements of the Holy Spirit in our lives, so when I saw the phrase "Spirit Led Life", I was hoping that I might encounter some relatively familiar ideas transposed into a different context in a way that would make that context feel more legible, but that didn't turn out to be the case. The talk was sort of aimed at worship leaders, although also trying to draw other people into an awareness of how the whole congregation can encourage one another in worship without an official leadership role. This was all well and good, but there is a big disconnect between how it seems to be expected that one will encounter the Holy Spirit in worship, and my actual experiences. The talk was divided into two parts, the first of which was essentially theological, and the second of which was more practical. I liked the first half, which was familiar and comfortable, but the second half felt quite alien, and I think perhaps the connection between them was one where if you just get it, it's so obvious that it doesn't need to be made explicit, but if you don't, then it can be harder to draw out unaided. I did have quite a good chat on the way back to the campsite with a couple of people who had been at the talk and I drew a comparison between being carried away and waving ones arms around whilst singing worship songs, and the prostration of the ministers in front of the altar on Good Friday. Very different actions and feelings, but both examples of how physicality is important, and can change your experience of worship.
There was more time for chatting and getting to know people after the second talk, and then I went to the first half hour or so of the evening worship session, before someone gave me a lift to the station to make my way to Sheffield, with an awful lot to think about.
emperor and atreic. On Friday I went to one day of Focus, a weekend of worship and fellowship for HTB network churches. On Saturday I went to Sheffield to visit djm4 and sfred, and then yesterday I took my parents to Underneath the Stars, their very first folk festival.Focus was A Lot(tm). HTB, or Holy Trinity Brompton, is the church which created and popularised the Alpha course, and has a practice of church planting - that is, sending out ministers and members to create new churches with a similar ethos and style of worship, and the HTB network is all those church plants, of which St Luke's is one. I arrived about half an hour before the big morning worship session, which gave me enough time to find the St Luke's campsite, say hello to a few people, and then head over to worship. Whilst walking over and waiting for things to get started, I had a good chat with P, who is doing a PhD in quantum computing at UCL. His childhood experiences of church were fairly middle-of-the-road Anglican, which I think helps him empathise quite well with what a culture shock it is for me to submerge myself in charismatic worship after a lifetime of traditionalism.
Worship took a shape which is starting to become somewhat familiar, although the order and details still change rather more than I'm used to. In this case we started with around half an hour or so of singing worship songs, although with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, a big stage and screens and lights, it did feel rather more like a concert than a congregation. After the music there were a few announcements and notices, followed by a sermon about identity and names, which drew on the books of Daniel and Esther. This was followed by a period of prayer, which is definitely the part of charismatic corporate worship that I continue to find the most uncomfortable and unfamiliar, and unlike a more traditional service there was no specific endpoint, but instead people gradually drifted away. I went to grab some lunch from one of the food vans, and then headed back to the campsite.
During the afternoon there were various activities available for people of all ages, as well as the opportunity to just spend social time together as a church. I went to two talks, and spent the time in between chatting to people. I met quite a lot of new people, and was also able to have some much longer and more in depth conversations than I've been able to previously in the post-service coffee chatting. Since a big part of my reason for being at St Luke's is to be visibly queer at the same time as being visibly devout, I tend to mention my husband quite early in a conversation if it comes up naturally, and it is interesting to note the responses. Most significant is that so far there has been absolutely no explicitly negative reaction, nor any discomfort sufficiently obvious that I've been able to distinguish it above my normal levels of "meeting new people feels awkward and uncomfortable." Some people do fall over themselves to make it clear that they are affirming, and depending on how they do that it can make me feel safer or just more awkward.
The two talks were by far the most challenging part of the day in different ways. The first was about "The church and secular culture", and contained a mixture of some things I disagreed with strongly, and other bits that could almost have been lifted straight from the bits of Thomas Merton's writings that resonate with me right down to the core. Amongst the former was the unexamined assumption that secularism is essentially bad and something to be fought against, rather than something which can either be valuable or damaging depending on how it is approached. Amongst the latter was his exploration of the idea that one of the biggest obstacles to a healthy relationship with God is the human tendency to make gods of ourselves, and the ways in which modern society and philosophies encourage that tendency. This talk also contained the most explicit homophobia that I've experienced so far in my exploration of charismatic evangelism. The speaker was talking about the reaction to some of his previous talks in which he made reference to sexuality. He claimed that some people (specifically affirming Christians) were so angry about his views that when he asked them what they thought of the rest of what he said, they couldn't answer, because they were too angry to listen to the rest. He then followed this up by saying that he understood that some people might find it difficult to hear his views, that they might feel quite personal if they applied to a family member or a loved one. And then he moved on to continue with the main thrust of his argument, and I realised with a bit of a jolt that it hadn't even occurred to him that there could be actual queers right there in the room. I must admit, I did find it a little more difficult to engage with the rest of his talk after that - not so much because I was angry, but because it felt like someone had just put a big sign saying "You're not welcome here."
The second talk, entitled "Spirit Led Life: The Transforming Power of Worship" was very different, and thankfully homophobia-free. My spiritual direction course talks a lot about listening for and responding to the movements of the Holy Spirit in our lives, so when I saw the phrase "Spirit Led Life", I was hoping that I might encounter some relatively familiar ideas transposed into a different context in a way that would make that context feel more legible, but that didn't turn out to be the case. The talk was sort of aimed at worship leaders, although also trying to draw other people into an awareness of how the whole congregation can encourage one another in worship without an official leadership role. This was all well and good, but there is a big disconnect between how it seems to be expected that one will encounter the Holy Spirit in worship, and my actual experiences. The talk was divided into two parts, the first of which was essentially theological, and the second of which was more practical. I liked the first half, which was familiar and comfortable, but the second half felt quite alien, and I think perhaps the connection between them was one where if you just get it, it's so obvious that it doesn't need to be made explicit, but if you don't, then it can be harder to draw out unaided. I did have quite a good chat on the way back to the campsite with a couple of people who had been at the talk and I drew a comparison between being carried away and waving ones arms around whilst singing worship songs, and the prostration of the ministers in front of the altar on Good Friday. Very different actions and feelings, but both examples of how physicality is important, and can change your experience of worship.
There was more time for chatting and getting to know people after the second talk, and then I went to the first half hour or so of the evening worship session, before someone gave me a lift to the station to make my way to Sheffield, with an awful lot to think about.
