https://christianaudio.com/

‘christianaudio.com is the largest online source of Christian audiobooks. We have over 250 exclusive audio products that cannot be found elsewhere, and more than 850 premium products in all. And our emphasis on carrying thoughtful titles means that christianaudio.com is one of the most trusted resources on the Internet for the refreshment of your soul. Listen Enjoy Think Grow’

Christian Audio gives away a free audio book each month. Last month was The Future of the People of God by NT Wright.

This month is Spiritual Disciples for the Christian Life (Unabridged) by Donald S. Whitney.

 All you need to do is sign up and you have 12 free downloads per freebie.

Andy Peck in Christanity Magazine writes about the ancienst paths and the new journey for monastics from the modern church.

‘Why are increasing numbers of evangelicals embracing ancient Christian traditions? Christianity magazine looks at the reasons behind this emerging trend…’

He asks..read on

So you discover that a friend has left your Anglican church and is now worshipping with Baptists. Are you bothered? It might depend why he or she left, but in these days when denominational ties are weak you’d probably barely give it a thought. After all, within evangelicalism the beliefs and service style will be pretty similar whatever the name on the building.

But what if you were in an evangelical/charismatic church and your friend departed for a church known for its ‘bells and smells’ – Anglo Catholic, Roman Catholic or Orthodox? How would you feel then? More serious? The journey ‘up the candle’, as it’s colloquially known, may put your friend on the prayer chain – as brows furrow and people start asking, “why?”

But this is happening in growing numbers. Many evangelicals have moved to join the Catholic and Orthodox Churches or embraced some of ancient traditions (practices typically associated with these churches) within the last 30 years.

Some of these figures are quite high profile. Francis Beckwith, the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, for example, reverted to Catholicism. On this side of the Atlantic, Michael Harper, at the forefront of the Charismatic Renewal in the Anglican Church and one time editor of Renewal, which later merged with Christianity, left the Anglican Church in 1995 to join the Orthodox Church; Rev Prebendary Nick Mercer, one time minister at Upton Vale Baptist Church and later director of training at London Bible College, now serves as vicar general for the London College of Bishops within the Anglo-Catholic tradition. And there are many like them.

Interesting perhaps, but how is it relevant to you if you are in an evangelical fellowship? Many evangelicals are bringing these ‘ancient traditions’ – practices normally associated with the High Church/Roman Catholic Church – into corporate worship and private devotions: liturgy, incense, meditation, fasting (when it isn’t even Lent) retreats, spiritual direction, scripture reading and prayer using methods perfected in monastic life.

Andrew Walker, professor of theology and culture at King’s College, London, was brought up a Pentecostal and now worships in an Orthodox church from the Russian Tradition. He gave a paper at St Paul’s, Hammersmith in 2003, and said that, “The Principal of Spurgeon’s College identifies himself as a ‘Catholic Evangelical’…. Canon Tom Smail, veteran of the Renewal, considers himself an ‘Evangelical Catholic… In the New Church sector, Roger Ellis in Chichester has incorporated elements of Celtic spirituality and prophetic symbolism into Charismatic rhapsody.”

These people don’t see ancient traditions as ‘lifeless ritual’ but a vital part of their moving forward with God. So why are some evangelicals switching churches and others embracing ancient traditions? Here are five explanations they might give.

1. We believe the same things

On February 8 1952, CS Lewis wrote to the Church Times of the great unity that existed between the high (Anglo- Catholic) and low (Evangelical) churches over against the liberal and antisupernatural churches. He used the phrase ‘Deep Church’ or ‘Mere Christianity’ to describe their common faith. Recently this ‘Deep Church’ language has returned to describe the truths shared by Churches (such as Catholics, Orthodox and Protestant). But most evangelicals typically didn’t accept this: jumping from the book of Revelation to the Reformation and the break with Rome. Evangelical essentials including salvation through grace by faith reminded them (as every new believer came to faith) of the evils of any religious approach that favoured works rather than the work of Christ, which would include of course classic Catholic and Orthodox doctrine – at least as they understood it. Many forget, or render insignificant, that for a thousand years from AD 37-45 to AD 1054-66, all believers in the UK were part of the undivided Orthodox Catholic Church – the latter date representing the time when the Bishop of Rome split, forming what we know as the Roman Catholic Church. In those days of course, the visual and symbolic were especially important in telling the faith story.

In recent decades many have realised that evangelical heritage has to include this period, (or was God absent for 1,000 years?) and concluded that the basic tenets of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Churches are the same: indeed David Watson, at the forefront of charismatic renewal in the 70s and 80s, even concluded that the Reformation was not necessary!

Professor Andrew Walker, an avid supporter of Deep Church, says, “It is about the marriage between the ‘new thing’ God is always doing in our lives, and the ‘old things’ – the historic givens of the Faith – that he has already done which includes the means of Grace that he has provided for our spiritual nourishment. Deep Church, then, is not just about something old for something new (or the other way round). It is about anamnesia [remembering] and re- imagining. It is about catholicity and a holy separation. It is about a re-collected history and writing a new chapter in the annals of faith.”

Many evangelicals have concluded that we can happily drink from one another’s cup without becoming contaminated; it is time that the old divisions were repaired.

2. We have the same spirit

For many, the impetus to be open to ancient traditions came when evangelicals and charismatics discovered that people with a Catholic or Orthodox (such as Greek, Russian) heritage were exhibiting the signs of the very life God had given them – indeed at an experiential level, charismatics found they had more in common with charismatic Catholic and Orthodox believers than their conservative evangelical cousins. Evangelicals were forced to either conclude that this was ‘human’ or the devil, or indeed the work of God: maybe God didn’t have the same theology of the Reformation which they had!

Asked why he had left Anglicanism to join the Orthodox Church, Michael Harper said, “The Holy Spirit!” and that for him and his wife, the experience felt like “coming home”. Many within a charismatic background are finding that they can combine openness to the spirit with aspects of Deep Church.

Many more, weary of hype concerning predicted revival about to head over the horizon, preferred a backward look to a creedal faith and practices with firmer foundations than the shifting focus of the latest fad.

3. We want to grow

Other evangelicals have found that the staples of Bible study, prayer and strong preaching weren’t leading to godly living. They knew the truth but it didn’t change them at a heart level. Looking for more, they found writers like Richard Foster, who in his book, ‘Celebration of Discipline’ explains that disciplines such as fasting, solitude, silence, meditation (so called Catholic practices) had actually been in the Bible all along. These were not ‘works based’ as often thought, but a God-given means of growth. More latterly his mentor, Dallas Willard (author of ‘Spirit of the Disciplines’, among others) has shared in print and in conferences how he learned to value the pre-Reformation saints. John Ortberg popularised such teaching further in ‘The Life you’ve have always wanted: spiritual disciplines for ordinary people’.

Publishers such as that bastion of evangelicalism, IVP, now have an imprint, ‘Formatio’ dedicated to such material. Many have sought out ‘spiritual directors’ skilled in the art of helping people notice and welcome the presence of God into their personal lives, skills largely found within Anglo Catholic, Catholic and Orthodox settings. Hence even evangelicals deeply suspicious of ecumenical unity, and even of the legitimacy of modern non-evangelical denominations, were prepared to practise what the ancients practised and many found, to their surprise, God working in ways they could scarcely have imagined.

4. We want to build community

But if it is starting to sound as if this ecumenism is all about evangelicals who have become more broad-minded in their old age, there are streams within the emerging church movement (typically younger people) which are mixing vintage wine along with that newly harvested.

In ‘Punk monk: new monasticism and the ancient art of breathing’, Andy Freeman and Pete Greig chart the rise of Boiler Rooms – places where prayer is conducted 24/7 and a community is built around a pattern of prayer, study, celebration and caring for the poor and lost: patterns which sound remarkably like those in a monastery, but then you guessed that already. From humble beginnings in Reading, there are now 56 Boiler Rooms in 14 countries.

Reflecting on ‘Punk monk’, Canon Rev Dr Adrian Chatfield, who heads up The Simeon Centre for Prayer and the Spiritual Life serving Ridley Hall, Cambridge and wider afield says, “There is something in the rights of prayer and the rule of life and a true realisation of community that is attractive. It was seen in Lee Abbey in the 1950s and Northumbria more recently. Young people are saying: ‘We want to belong – we want to join community.’”

In his book ‘The new conspirators’, Tom Sine highlights the ‘new monasticism’ that has developed, including The Order of Mission at St Thomas Crookes Church, Sheffield and The Iona Community, Northumbria Community and the Order of St Aidan and St Hilda who both follow a ‘rule of life’ under the oversight of Franciscan brothers.

Practices thought by evangelicals to signal withdrawal are seen by some to represent the very basis for engagement and service that a modern, rootless generation needs.

5. We want to value the arts

Inevitably many church trends mirror the cultural environment. Is it any surprise that a postmodern world with its mistrust of texts and authority would value the visual and aesthetic offered by ancient practices?

John Drane, author of ‘After McDonaldization’, says, “Our culture is more visual today. Classic evangelicalism is so abstract. Jesus called us to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Evangelicalism has focused on the mind to the exclusion of the other three.”

“Do we know God cognitively or affectively?” asks Chatfield. “There used to be a belief that words were sound, whereas art was more slippery. The advent of postmodernism showing that words themselves are be interpreted by the reader/hearer and reminds us of the affective nature of our faith. It is not just in doctrinal formulations that we experience God.”

Hence many evangelicals who once eschewed anything showier than a text on a banner or a decorative communion tablecloth, see the majestic, almost theatrical services of High Church as potentially attractive to seekers – witness the recent boost in attendances of Christmas mass at cathedrals nationwide. Some within the emerging church incorporate ritual, art, symbolism and liturgy into their gatherings as they help postmoderns connect with God.

A healthy trend?

So what do you make of all this? Should you welcome it, be alarmed or just be neutral?

For a start we need to say that it’s not a case of ‘We are all going to Rome, Moscow and Athens, will the last one to leave evangelicalism please turn out the lights’. We don’t yet know whether to describe this as a trickle or a stream.

Clearly there is a difference between changing churchmanship and adopting practices which cohere with evangelical distinctiveness. Maybe evangelicals can be positive if changes in churchmanship are made out of genuine convictions in a heartfelt embracing of how God is leading them. And it would be churlish in the extreme for evangelicals to be prejudiced against practices included in scripture just because they perceive them to be ‘High Church’ or ‘Roman Catholic’.

However, it also needs to be noted that although evangelicals have missed and lost some of the insights of pre-Reformation Christianity, let’s be clear that this wasn’t all good either. The ancient traditions did not save the ancient churches from a quagmire of ritualism that gave Christianity a bad name. God had to send a new wave of the spirit in Pentecostalism in the early 20th century.

So as evangelicals reject a sectarian approach, they need great wisdom to assess what it is appropriate to embrace. There were good reasons why evangelicals historically rejected the aesthetic and visual dimensions of faith knowing that the New Testament was keen to break with those visual and ritualistic parts of Judaism that had been replaced with Christ.

All spiritual disciplines, (evangelical classics such as Bible reading, prayer and listening to God’s word preached, as well as fasting, meditation, spiritual direction and monastic living) are tools God can and will use, but need to be used properly lest they merely pander to a self-obsessed age and aid a Christian retreat into cloistered environments.

The touchstone should surely be, “Does the way I worship and practise my daily devotions help or hinder godly living for Christ where he has placed me?”

For many, embracing ancient traditions has served that end – and even if you decide it’s not for you, hopefully it will be with a greater respect for those who kept the torch of the gospel shining in the past so that future generations, like you, may live in its light.

Ash Wednesday

No sooner is Christmas over than we are dashing towards Ash wednesday and forty days of lent.

I am leading our service for lent this year and it is as follows:

Welcome

Start with images of the desert/sam brown music

Opening prayer
Marc: Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
All: Teach us, Lord, to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Through Christ our Lord Amen (from Psalm 90)

Paul: Worship song one

Marc D Reflection on giving things

Laraine: Lectio Divina, a meditation on the word Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

Paul Worship song

Spent a bit of time in reflection with some Gregorian chant

Marc:
Gracious God, out of your love and mercy
you breathed into dust the breath of life,
creating us to serve you and our neighbours.
All In this season of repentance,
restore to us the joy of our salvation;
strengthen us to face our mortality,
that we may reach with confidence for your mercy;
in Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.

Paul: Worship song 3

The Blessing
Lord, during this time of Lent, teach us how to pray, so that those for whom we pray may know your help, and that we may rely on you for all our needs. We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The end

A happy Christmas to our Orthodox Brothers and Sisters who celebrate Christmas on the 6th of January.

He had been sick for some time. Alexiy II was credited with helping restore the moral authority of the Russian Orthodox Church after decades of repression under communism, no easy tak I should think.

Alexiy II became its head in 1990, shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union.

He brought the scattered branches of the Russian Orthodox church back under the control of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said he was shocked by the death. “I respected him deeply,” he said.

Born Alexei Rediger to a Russian Orthodox family living in Estonia in 1929, the future patriarch rose swiftly through the ranks of the Church after studying theology in St Petersburg.

By the age of 32 he was a bishop, by 35 he was an archbishop.

He served as the Moscow Patriarchate’s chief administrator and the deputy head of the Church’s external affairs department before being elected as its head.

O Master, Lord our God, Who in Thy wisdom hast created man, and didst honour him with Thy Divine image, and place in him the spirit of life, and lead him into this world, bestowing on him the hope of resurrection and life everlasting; and after he had violated Thy commandments, Thou O Gracious lover of mankind, didst descend to the earth that Thou mightest renew again the creation of Thy hands. Therefore we pray Thee, O All-Holy Master give rest to the souls of Thy servant, Alexiy, in a place of brightness, a place of green pasture, a place of repose, and, in that they have sinned in word, or deed or thought forgive them: For Thou art a good God and lovest mankind and unto Thee do we ascribe Glory, together with Thy Father, Who is from everlasting and Thine All-Holy and good, and ever giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

When I was a child Christmas Eve was special time.

The milk and mince pie were carefully placed by our fireplace, oh and not forgetting for Rudolph; I didn’t want to upset Father Christmas or his reindeer.

 After all he was the one coming with all the gifts and I had been a good for the whole year… well most of the year anyway!

The presents would be wrapped in a multitude of bright colours, the red of Santa’s coat, the green of the Christmas tree, with silver and gold, shinning and glistening…always beckoning me ever closer in those dark, still, early hours of Christmas day.

I had helped my mum put the decorations up. After hours of licking and sticking, the paper chains finally crissed crossed the ceiling.

Then my dad scrambled up into our dark, and I have to say somewhat scary attic. It was mysterious and creepy darkness with cobwebs and spiders.

After fumbling around for some time dad would bring down some large dusty brown boxes with the words ‘xmas stuff’ scrawled on the side. I knew what treasures lay within.

Our Christmas tree stood in the corner of the room – it looked huge. Its tip leaned ever so slightly to the left with the weight of the gold star. Was it real gold I’d wondered?

We hung baubles after bauble, old and new. The chocolates hung temptingly in their shiny foil, but no – I mustn’t, Santa was coming – I wanted my presents and I was good, honestly!

And then we put out our little nativity scene, Mary, Joseph, two sheep, one cow, three wise men, two shepherds and my brothers contribution…a cowboy on a horse!

And of course Jesus in his manger, in the middle, between his mum and dad, it was after all his birthday.

And then it was time for bed, not that I could sleep….

I heard someone complaining the other day that Christmas is for children and they are right. Christmas is for children and we are all children of God. And we await the coming of Jesus with the awe and wonder of that child on Christmas Eve.