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description=Theoreo means, in New Testament Greek, to wonder, ponder, or chew over. Theore0 s are my reflections on current issues, facing the Church and Christians. I frequently consider issues such as the relationship between faith and economic life, Christianity and leadership and, other ethical issues. Many of these issues are covered in a book I co-edited called Theonomics (available either through Amazon or direct from Sacristy Press). All views are my own. I aim to provoke and stimulate wider debate, for the common good and hope not to offend.;

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advocate for equal marriage and the blessing of civil partnerships as a quick aside his method of biblical exegesis is in many ways old fashioned traditional even with it s stress on the use of analogy cf origen in biblical reasoning what steven offers is decisively not some uber liberal progressive let s throw away all the rules model of biblical exegesis whatever his critics say so to conclude in just forty eight pages bishop steven offers a thoughtful theological and narrative reflection where his data sets include the personal the pastoral the ethical and the doctrinal all considered through the primacy of scripture and where he also reflects on as any member of the clergy in an established church should the nature of the relationship between church and society or state disagree by all means with his methodology but please leave the oven ready one liners on the shelf they really don t help 3 comments september 7 2022 by alightbown will strategy save us or kill us a very few thoughts it s a long time since i wrote a blog and i am not sure if i will write many more for there is a real and present danger in the blogosphere of writing for the echo chamber but i thought i would write one more piece on strategy all in my echo chamber may be pleased to hear my trouble with strategy is this i don t know many if any good strategists i know plenty of people inside and outside the church who have acquired the language and techniques of strategy but i don t know of many good strategists i know and know of a lot of people who have had enjoyed considerable short term success whose businesses have flown whose churches have grown only to then come crashing down and of course i also know that down right good luck looks a little bit more rational planned and envisioned when subsequently written up claimed as strategy it s far better for the ego personal or corporate to be regarded as a strategic master than a lucky so and so even if luck in fact turns out to be providence but to repeat i really really find it very difficult to identify the cadre of strategic gurus and leaders who we should aspire to emulate i feel we need to be honest and accept that success in business politics sport and yes the church is normatively short lived fleeting and of the here today gone tomorrow variety actually awful word i know i want to push my argument further by stressing that i am a fully signed up member of the death by strategy movement and yes this really is a thing which stresses that the more institutions and their leaders focus on strategy whatever this word really means the greater the likelihood of accelerating their decline crafting strategy frequently leads to opportunistic myopia doing strategy is neither a guarantor of success nor a palliative slowing down an inevitable decline broadly speaking it s a waste of time and yet the myth of the strategic leader or do i mean idol persists i wonder why o dear you might say this is all horribly fatalistic and of course it may well be for the majority of businesses by the way check out the average life of a quoted business the majority of whom have been led by a leader appointed for their assumed strategic genius but maybe its far less fatalistic for the church the reason for this is that the strategic pursuit is essentially despite its claims inward looking self centred even what can we get out of it and how can we measure what we get out of it being the two key strategic questions yes strategists like to say that s it all about the customer but this is only true in the narrowest of terms customers stakeholders are cared about primarily on the basis of contribution to the bottom line no business is really interested in a loss making non contributing client or customer but in the church we are not supposed to be like that we are not supposed to favour the successful the profitable and the useful we are not supposed to evaluate people on the basis of their contributory potential we are supposed instead to serve the poor the hungry the alienated the down cast the lonely and so on and so on what we need to rediscover is the ministry of service social holiness in other words a ministry that is vested in a sincerely held belief in the god given dignity of every single human being secular business strategy almost by definition is built on a different set of premises and values it really can t be escaped however nicely it is dressed up secular strategy instrumentialises and perhaps that is why it ultimately fails part of our vocation is also to speak truth to power the prophetic mandate and this at the very least implies accepting ridicule rejection and scorn i know of no strategic model that capable of accommodating the prophetic mandate with all that this implies and then there s prayer but let s leave that one for now okay let s not for my strongly held belief is that the church should be rooted in prayer routed from prayer it is through prayer that strategic opportunities seem to providentially emerge and this simply can t be fed into a strategic model my prayer for the church is simply this that we may be rooted in prayer and routed from prayer that we may be bold in action diaconal and outspoken in concern prophetic and that we may be a community where all may flourish and none need fear so my pleas to the church are that we learn to sit lightly to strategy so that we are alive to opportunity that all we do flows from prayer and that we are energised through a commitment to diaconal and prophetic expressions of ministry leave a comment august 7 2022 by alightbown speaking of a transfigured church how are we to behave in the world posits paul it s a question that s been bothering me all week it s been bothering me because of the shenanigans that have surrounded the lambeth conference the conference at which the partners and spouses of gay anglican bishops have been so very cruelly excluded i think know i speak for many here at the cathedral when i say not in my name now the thing about behaviour is that it s observable empirical even it gets picked up by the media it gets picked up by celebrities and it gets picked up by so called ordinary people people ordinary people will come to a judgment about the christian faith based on their perception of the church and how the church relates to them that is if it relates at all this week i met a member of the pride in the port committee who cried when i told him that we were going to fly the flag over the pride weekend this week i met with another person who said i want to believe in god but god s people don t want to believe in me today i received a message you can read it on twitter from a near neighbour someone who lives just up the road from the cathedral who wrote slowly coming to realise that so many of have been lied to about god and what we deserve more positively members of our local community through the work of pantry on the hill have said some kind and interesting things about the church and some have even said that they might come and join us for worship and other activities i am also very excited about other missional relational possibilities that seem to be emerging how we behave in the world matters for how we behave both as the local church or cathedral in our case or the national and international the one holy catholic and apostolic church if you prefer is the evidence for who and what we value what we stand for and who and what we care about at a very simplistic level what we value how we behave and what we look like to the world outside the church equals mission jesus you see isn t an empirical phenomenon but we are this is why the church is described as the body of christ so when we ask how we are to behave in the world we should also ask what do we look like to the world behind this question however there is a massive assumption and question visibility are we a visible church and do we want to be a visible church do we want to be a church that stands out and shines as a transfigured beacon of faith hope love and radical christian inclusion let s assume the answer to these questions is yes this sunday i would like to do something a little different with my sermon instead of giving a homily or carrying on with my homily i would like to offer a pop poem pop because i don t really understand the rules of poetry entitled a transfigured church some of the words i have used are taken directly from the readings others are mine a transfigured church i want to belong to a transfigured church an enlightened shimmering shining church a pulsating vibrant and vivacious church a fluid responsive and adaptable church a church both restless and patient a church that knows how to run fast and stand still a church anchored in tradition yet through reasoned critique set free a church bold in action and outspoken in concern a paradoxical sometimes confusing yet consoling church a church that understands that reaches out embraces and peaceably shares bread and wine with all a church that s sincere frank and true a church trusted for its integrity valued for its hospitality known for its charity esteemed as a place of sanctuary i want to belong to holy church a godly church a transfigured church a catholic and apostolic church a church which others can look at and join with all in saying i too belong and i too believe amen 1 comment may 24 2022 by alightbown a litany for newport newport our city we pray for newport our city for all that it has been is and will become a city that has insisted upon fought for and witnessed men dying for the right to vote a city that marks its seven women women of courage women of virtue women who claimed their right to be heard women who claimed their right to be counted just the same a city known for its song and its sport a city where matches have been played and victories won a city known for its industry commerce and trade a city of ships and docks a city which transported worldwide the work of hardened labourer s hands we pray for a city that has left its mark yet has been left to languish a city that resides in betwixt and in between a city of green spaces wonderful victorian civic parks and post industrial waste lands a city where steel was king and yet no more a city that cries out what are we to become we pray for a city full of schools where so many languages are learnt and spoken thirty five in one i heard we pray for our shops open and abandoned we pray for our for they are ours migrants refugees asylum seekers may they know the love of good neighbours we pray for the hungry and the homeless of who there are far too many we pray for the young and the old for the challenges they face we pray for a city with a rich religious heritage chapel church cathedral mosque temple synagogue and other places of prayer we pray for a fresh and bold vision for this city for all that she may become we pledge ourselves to newport may we serve her love her pray for her and speak for her may we be a people in and for this city for ever daring to pray thy kingdom come here in newport on earth as in heaven amen leave a comment may 22 2022 by alightbown learning to speak newport with thanks to newcastle cathedral vision easter 6 i suspect many of us will be familiar with the radio game just a minute the rules of the game are as follows the participants i think there are usually four are presented with a word or phrase and they have a minute to talk about it someone starts but as soon as they are successfully challenged on the grounds of hesitation irrelevance or repetition the participant who made the successful challenge then continues and so on the winner is the participant who is speaking when the whistle blows this week i am make no apologies for repetition i am going to talk once more just like last week about vision imagination creativity and flexibility they are amongst my post easter buzzwords so you better start looking forward to trinity which is my favourite season i am going to talk about vision imagination creativity and flexibility once again for the simple reason that they are the very stuff of today s reading from acts and revelation during the night paul had a vision acts16 9 and in the spirit the angel carried me away to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city of jerusalem rev 21 10 so over the course of the last two weeks we have heard about peter having a vision paul having a vision and john the writer of revelation having a vision surely we must therefore conclude that being visionary or at the very least imaginative creative and flexible in our thinking is normative to those who dare to say that they believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church and the communion of saints in fact i would go far further and say that if these two phrases which you will be affirming in just a few minutes are to have any currency whatsoever we too must be visionary imaginative flexible and creative in our thinking for the alternative is to be well just plain boring o and irrelevant too who would want to join a boring and irrelevant church not many people but who would want to engage with a visionary and imaginative church quite a lot of people i would suggest to be apostolic is in part to be visionary if we want to be relevant we need to allow imaginations to be inspired so that we like these three biggies of the new testament peter paul and john become visionaries like john in the book of revelation we need under the inspiration of the holy spirit to allow ourselves to be guided into seeing a new vision for this city newport and what it means to be a healing presence in and for this city and indeed diocese if we are open to the work of the holy spirit amongst us in and through our prayers we will be granted a new fresh and exciting vision this week dean ian and i attended the national cathedrals conference in newcastle the big theme of the conference was justice and we spent a long time listening to some wonderful speakers talking about social justice in particular as it relates to younger where the statistics and the stories should fill us with righteous anger climate justice and racial justice we also spent a great deal of time thinking about hope what it means to be a hopeful community alongside what it means to be a place of sanctuary and the importance of the prophetic voice i am sure that you will hear more about these themes in the weeks and months ahead we were challenged as we build our vision to be prophets for a future not of our own and to be bold in our action and outspoken in our concerns sir john major we were told that we could and should expect to be criticised for speaking out for and spending our time and resources with those who society excludes and with all of this i wholeheartedly agree but in many ways the most interesting presentation was from the staff at newcastle cathedral who over a great many years covering three deans developed a vision for what it means to be cathedral in and for ...