Boredom, distraction and emotional eating.

When was the last time I was bored? Do I lead a boring life?

“Boring” is such a powerful criticism. We fear our lessons being labelled ‘boring’, or worse that we ourselves are seen as somehow boring.

But I wonder if I do get bored, perhaps bored too easily. I look at my little boy (who admittedly is only 21 weeks old) and I see a personality emerging, a personality that is fundamentally curious interested, but seemingly quickly bored. He needs to be on the go all the time. We have friends whose now very bright toddler, has always been quickly bored. Or was it a more easily distracted disposition?

I wonder whether this is a distraction thing (as opposed to boredom), because I think I have this problem.

Firstly, I think I am so worried about what people think, that I actively encourage a hectic lifestyle. This lifestyle means we couldn’t possibly be labelled boring, but at what cost?

But then secondly, I very quickly start new projects, but don’t finish them. Is it that I get bored of the many ideas, or that a newer/fresher idea pops up that piques my interest more?

This may seem a bit nit-picky, but I can’t help worrying that this is all realted to my weight battles and eating habits. I wonder whether I eat from boredom? Or maybe as a distraction? Or maybe it's about something deeper? Emotions.

Where do I derive my emotional pleasure? Where do my endorphin releases come from? I eat because I say "I'm hungry", when I know in truth I’m not hungry.

There are two real reasons: the feeling (it is a pleasure) and from boredom (it’s something to do)
But this is a scary idea. Am I bored at home? Have I forgotten how to enjoy the company of my wife – chatting to her about anything and everything, or am I bored of the same old conversations? Am I so paralysed by fear of boring-ness that I resist doing things that might eventually lead to balance and comfort and a settled lifestyle for fear that people will see this 'growing up' as getting boring?

Or am simply stressed?

Or maybe I’m wired to be distracted and bored easily?

I posit this idea because I do think I’m a certain type of person who needs to constantly look to new projects. I have taken, on many occasions, a typology test, the results of which can be researched further.

In personality terms I am an ENFP (Extroverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving – the opposites being Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging) There are two sites that explain more of what this person is like: http://keirsey.com/4temps/champion.asp, and http://typelogic.com/enfp.html

It’s interesting to note how they suggest that Idealists (the broad category of four types I sit in) need to have alone time to recuperate when stressed. I’ve always battled with Jen (my wife) on this one.

This is a fascinating area for me...one that holds lots more questions than answers.

For certain, I need to review my life patterns and start to complete projects I start.

I also need to stop making excuses and get walking...

Living as a minority

Our bishop, Nick Baines, has blogged today on comments he's made about being a minority. I think this is a very important debate to had - how do we function as a 'national' church if we're a minority. However, I'm not sure about Nick's suggestion that we should look to the Muslim community as an example. This is my response to Nick:

This may seem somewhat facile but is it not more appropriate to think of
dwindling Christian communities as early church, where they were more
mission-orientated and certainly a minority?

There is a fundamental difference in the histories of the two faiths. Christians look back to an early church that was persecuted; Muslims look to a more triumphalist origin. This creates a different mindset.

I agree with your final paragraph that there are important challenges facing the church, but what conclusions could we draw from the Muslim community?

It is certainly true that parishes in Bradford are overwhelmingly outnumbered, made all the more frustrating when members of the congregation 'drive in' to church on a Sunday having left some time ago when the tide of immigrants became a worry. (This is a worrying trend, perhaps - Christians who feel called to worship in an area but not live there?)

The concern is that we end up with a siege mentality if we compare ourselves with our Muslim brothers and sisters. Churches don't think of being active, rather it's about protecting their church, the culture and congregation. We are about maintenance not mission.

Instead, we should, as you suggest, see the opportunity, which is to rethink our strategy of outreach, how the building is used by the community, how we present the gospel, how we seek to find culturally relevant ways of presenting Jesus. These are all things the early church did. I am not, as a Bradfordian, convinced we see this in the Muslim community around us.

Perhaps I'm not seeing this in the same way?!

What do people think?

The Venns

The name Venn conjures images of diagrams, does it not? This Venn diagram shows the intersections of the Greek, Latin and Russian alphabet. They are rather pretty in their own way. A chap called John Venn created them. Good for him.

Fascinatingly, the church commemorates John Venn's family today: his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather: Henry Venn, the great-grandfather; John Venn, the grandfather; and Henry Venn the younger, his father.

There is a helpful entry about them at this site.

Henry Venn (great-grandfather) was a clergymen who was deeply influenced (as a member of the Clapham Sect) by William Law's important book, 'Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life'. Over time he altered his view of Christian living.

"...Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God." So begins William Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Originally published in 1729, Law's book stands as a powerful challenge to Christians. Law teaches that if God is "our greatest good," then the wisest way to live is to please God through a life of worship, adoration, and devotion. Since many fail to live this way, Law diagnoses why and suggests certain concrete practices as a remedy. Thus, no one interested in becoming more devout could ignore this dynamic book. Law's call has encouraged several generations, and does not fail to encourage believers even today with a serious call to a devout and holy life.

Henry Venn changed his Christian perspective, and through personal and generational influence came to personify the evangelicalism many of us adhere to today. I am particularly mindful that this year's Keswick has as its theme - Word to the World. John Venn (grandad) came to help found the Christian Mission Society (CMS). The spiritual background to the emergence of CMS was the great outpouring of energy in Western Europe now called The Great Awakening. John Wesley an Anglican priest and failed missionary became a key player in the UK version of the story. Not all those influenced by the revival left the Anglican Church to become Methodists. One such was John Venn, the saintly rector of Clapham. His son (the diagramatician's father) Henry Venn the Younger, was born at Clapham in 1796. He also eventually devoted himself in 1846 entirely to the work of the Church Missionary Society. He was secretary for thirty-two years, and his organizing gifts and sound judgment made him the leading member of the Society. His aim was that overseas Churches should become “self-supporting, self-governing, and self-extending”. He was instrumental in securing the appointment of the first African Anglican bishop, Samuel A. Crowther, in 1864.

"What Venn the Younger did, in essence, was to wrestle with the reality of
cultural distinctiveness and to map out a missionary strategy that both took
this seriously and sought to extrapolate an implement biblical and historical
principles of church growth. And in doing this he was no lonely beacon seeking
to spread light amid the darkness of his generation. He was rather the most
articulate and systematic exponent of ideas that had a very wide currency in
missionary circles and beyond…"

...writes Peter Williams. The Venns saw the powerful transforming power of the gospel, but crucially saw that it had to take root in a persons living - all of it, which means a persons culture is to be taken seriously.

These men embody the spirit of the Clapham Sect. Its members were chiefly prominent and wealthy evangelical Anglicans who shared common political views concerning the liberation of slaves, the abolition of the slave trade and the reform of the penal system. The group's name originates from Clapham, then a village south of London (today part of south-west London) where many of the group's meetings were held.

After many decades of work both in British society and in Parliament, the group saw their efforts rewarded with the final passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, banning the trade throughout the British Empire and, after many further years of campaigning, the total emancipation of British slaves with the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. They also campaigned vigorously for Britain to use its influence to eradicate slavery throughout the world.

What strikes me is that this group were lampooned in their day as "the saints", which says as much about the life we are called to lead and the worries and fears we have.

These were a deeply evangelical body who were persuaded of the need for God to be felt in personal devotion, in public proclamation and societal reform. The group published a journal, the Christian Observer, edited by Zachary Macaulay and were also credited with the foundation of several missionary and tract societies, including the British and Foreign Bible Society and, as mentioned above, the Church Missionary Society.

Indeed, the Clapham sect have been credited with playing a significant part in the development of Victorian morality, through their writings, their societies, their influence in Parliament, and their example in philanthropy and moral campaigns, especially against slavery. In the words of Tomkins, "The ethos of Clapham became the spirit of the age".

What a bunch of individuals, eh?

Two thoughts to go away with:
1. To what extent am I living a life that pleases God through patterns of worship, adoration, and devotion?
2. Am I engaging with mission? Do I spread the good news?

Ignatius Who?

I'm going to loosely follow a friend's commitment to a 31-day challenge with Ignatius.

My friend Bryony has a great blog type thing.

Maybe you might like to check it out.

I often refer to Richard Foster, who himself often refers to Ignatius of Loyala as a source of great instruction about the examined life.

Lying lips and evil lives

This mornings readings have struck me in two ways.

Firstly, Psalm 31: 18

Let their lying lips be silenced, for with pride and contempt they speak
arrogantly against the righteous.

It really hit me how strange a prayer this is for modern lips. And yet, I know that yesterday I was writing in a questionnaire about my fears regarding the shifts in the legal position of faith and belief. I contended that the media do two dangerous things. Firstly, they misreport what people of faith actually believe - often because it's too subtle; and secondly, the overall tone toward faith is that it represents a deficieny in a person. They use phrases like "out-dated" to describe what peculiar people we are. We are abberant, incomplete, somehow flawed.

And this is a lie.

I am more fully who I am meant to be. More Rolf than a non-Christian Rolf would be (perhaps he'd shave his beard off?)

So maybe this prayer is relevant - despite its strong tone.

Maybe we should petition God to silence the arrogant godless who spread false lies?


Secondly, as Judah slipped, somewhat inexorably, toward exile an 8 year old is made king. Yes, an 8 year old, Jehoiachin (2 Chronicles 36:9-10). Now it's not his age that is remarkable [Edward III was 14 when he was CROWNED King of England. Edward VI was 9 when HE was crowned.
BUT Henry VI was nine months old when he was declared King at the death of his father.]
No, age is not the thing.

It's his description.

"He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord"

What!??!! He was only 8!

But that is the testimony of Scripture - he did what was evil. Does this mean he was evil? Or was he tutored to not challenge the evil behaviours in Judah? After all, even good king Josiah stuffed up in the end when he opposed God (2 Chronicles 35:21), which he did by failing to recognise God's voice. Maybe Jehoiachin simply did the same?

He might have indulged in some immoral practices though? Soothsaying, worshipped Baal, or consulted mediums (it's pretty certain he won't have sacrificed any children!). Did he practice that which was forbidden? Surely he could be forgiven for doing what his fathers before him did?

Or maybe, more worryingly, he was, in himself, evil.

What might this do to our view of schooling, of Sunday school, of the role of parents? When I was 8 was I evil?

Not sure there are easy answers to this...

One thing is sure:
- Am I invovled in practices I know God has asked me not to?
- Do I resist or oppose God? Do I shut out the Spirit? Have I submitted to Jesus as my Lord today?
- Can I discern God's voice? Am I listening to God's words from scripture?
- Am I praying for God's protection?

Not just any old Friday, eh?