Warning: Stories Cause Discomfort.

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So why did Jesus tell stories?

Sometimes we say things like ‘Jesus was talking to simple farming people, not scholars’. Well, yes, he was talking to normal people, but that doesn’t mean they were slack-jawed peasants who couldn’t put two philosophical thoughts together: I think there were other reasons besides.

Perhaps one was that Jesus knew the danger of the abstract. This thought hit me while reading a piece about the Trinity written by Mark Van Steenwyk of the Missio Dei community on the West Bank, Minneapolis:

“Abstracting things usually makes it so that we don’t have to do anything about those things. When we abstract love, for example, we can find ourselves affirming the idea that we are supposed to love everyone, while, at the same time, support war or affirm our property rights over and against the poverty of others. “

Source: http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/2010/05/trinity-sunday

When Jesus was confronted with an abstract question like “Who is my neighbour” he didn’t begin with a sermon on the concept of neighbourliness in Torah, He told a story. Why? Because a story is about real life, people, conflicts, pain and suffering, which is what the flesh-and-blood Messiah was part of, understood and lived. Once we’ve heard the story of the Good Samaritan, We can’t get around the notion that my neighbour is next to me, here, now, and that my urgency to get to the next church event is not as important as loving them. At the same time we can’t wheedle our way around the unconditional love of God in the Prodigal Son, or the clear justice shown in the story of the unforgiving servant.

If, as Van Steenwyk says, abstraction is an enemy of the Christian life, then storytelling is a vital, fundamental, prophetic, part of our faith because it forces us to stop vaguely agreeing to concepts and forces us to confront our own attitudes and lifestyles.

The trouble with that of course, is that it’s dangerous. When we hear a story about people, we can’t as easily put a label on it or package it away as a nice theological idea: we have to do something about it, which makes stories very inconvenient and is why we prefer not to have such dangerous things in our church services, thank you very much: better to stick to nice (abstract, story free) songs, and safe, abstract sermons. If we tell stories, life gets dangerous, and we don’t want that.

(Originally posted in May 2010)

New year resolutions

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New year resolutions seem to be an all-or-nothing affair with me. Most years I just forget them: I don’t mean I make them and forget about them: I mean I forget to make any. This year will be different: not only have I tentatively made some resolutions, I’ve even written them in my diary in the hope it will shame me into actually doing something about them. Perhaps.

1: Finish the storytelling book I’m working through.
Fairly easy one that as I’m halfway through, but you’ve got to start somewhere…

2: Run one (English) storytelling evening.
This is one of the exercises in the storytelling book, but it may be difficult to achieve in Germany, especially as I’d like it to be people I’m not related to, so I can get more honest feedback. I’ll get back to you on this.

3: Draft for the ‘Ordinary people’ project.
Another storytelling project. The idea is to get twelve stories of ordinary people who did extraordinary things. (for example, smuggling their girlfriend out of the DDR in a specially altered Volkswagen bus) Three people are ready to be interviewed and I’m organising fixed appointments. The idea is to have stories to encourage other ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

4: Write a book.
Not so it can be published, but to get more storytelling experience. The book has a provisional title of ‘elements’.

5: Try and run a workshop…
…that isn’t in our home church. This is an attempt to reach out to other people who are creative and storytellers in churches so we can get networked and start sharing ideas and experiences and encourage each other. It’s also quite a challenge.

6: Ride a Century.
This one has been on my mind for some years. A century is the cycling equivalent of a Marathon, 100 miles (160km) in a day. I cycle a fair bit, but not much long distance. Several of our young people enjoy cycling so I’ve laid down the gauntlet and invited them along. Hopefully this will give us lots of time for relationship building and discipleship, except that they’re all younger and fitter than me so they will probably be no more than a dot on the horizon.

7: Run the cob workshop and sort out the garden.

All this on top of applying for a job/training. Methinks I could have aimed a bit too high there, but I’m not going to get angry at myself for not succeeding: the point is to try, to make mistakes and risk failing.

And the success or failure will make for good stories anyway.

Where the road leads…

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Absolute Story is a small community based arts group. Organisations like ours don’t have a vast amount of money at the best of times, because one of the things about community arts is that everyone loves the idea but it doesn’t make any money, so we’re very vulnerable to economic downturns: a while back one church supporting our work sent us a warning to the effect that they won’t be able to help us any more, which we understand: they’ve stuck with us through thick and thin over the last decade and bless them, they did manage to send one final cheque which we appreciated: eating is a tough habit to break.

Now we’re looking to the future and we think the future is tentmaking. Not literally you understand, more following the example of Paul in the Bible, working in his trade as a tent maker and using the money to support his calling. (Acts 18 verse 1-4). Since we started down this route, the people around us who we trust seem to think it’s thr right thing to do, which is encouraging.

Working this way would mean we can use the money earned for the rent and the money given to us by our supporters can be used for our work directly. Obviously we’re looking for a job that would allow us to stay here and maybe even get some relevant training in the bargain as my theatre training was in the USA  and not officially recognised here, meaning I have effectively no qualifications in Germany.

We’re praying and trying to do what God says. So far we’re following up a couple of options, and being in south Germany which so far is relatively unscathed by the financial crisis, but obviously it depends on who responds and what sort of work I’m offered and where, and if all goes very not to plan we may end up moving house again.

Mind you, it’s not like we are alone in that right now, and given the eye-watering rent and utilities prices in the Stuttgart region it may be a financial blessing in disguise, but as that would mean moving the family and losing all the work we’ve built up here we’ll save that for when we’ve exhausted every other avenue. We’ve also got some exciting storytelling projects coming up this year, and I’ll write more about that next week.

 

Storytelling? Luxury!

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From the introduction to Dangerous Stories:

Is storytelling a luxury? Is having a storytelling team a mere pandering to consumerist Christianity? A way of making another ‘cool programme’ in the church so people will come and see what we’re doing?

It’s a fair question. I’ve often been part of groups which see storytelling like this, or at best, as a way to ‘get attention’ before preaching at people.

On the other hand, this group of people we call The Church’ exists because of a story: The Story about a God who loves us and died for us. Imagine if the gospel writers had decided that storytelling was a luxury and they’d better concentrate on making good music or a children’s club? If we see storytelling as a luxury we’ve got at the very least a contradiction, and at worst a theological problem in the church.

Either way, we’re missing a vital part of our ministry. Stories cross generations like nothing else, because they are a part of who we are. We want to know that things can be better, that life has a meaning, and stories bring that sense and meaning. When we see this we realise that stories have power: they shape cultures they -in fact, they are the foundation of cultures- and they change lives.They can hold people down under oppresion, and they can free people.

Stories are dangerous things.

The church used to be brilliant at telling The Story, and at being The Story, but we’ve forgotten this: the last traces of interactive storytelling are found in liturgies like communion, but they’ve become repetitive, not creative and vibrant. Storytellers are not encouraged or challenged to grow in their skills.

Storytelling can include a wide variety of people: we can ask people what they love to do and then work with them to help them tell stories as a community activity. We work with amazing people who probably wouldn’t ‘fit’ that well into church otherwise but who have found and developed gifts the church has otherwise forgotten to value. Others have learned social skills in an environment where they are loved, and still others have learned leadership skills they now use elsewhere in the church and in full time missions. We now have several young people in ‘full time’ missions, for whom the storytelling team was a vital part of their personal development and faith journey.

A storytelling team is not a luxury in a church: it’s a vital, prophetic part of the whole body of Christ, which allows people who wouldn’t otherwise be valued to be part of the community, and helps support members of the body. Storytelling is as essential to our faith as music or preaching, and deserves as much time and resources. We need to encourage and treasure those whom God calls to be storytellers in our churches.

Welcome to church.

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Here’s a quick video for you to enjoy this New Years Eve, with thanks to Changing Worship for posting this. I well remember a similar experience almost exactly seven years ago when we came into our current church the first time. With old ladies rather than scary bikers though, and unfortunately without the fun bit at the end.

I’m not sure that much has changed, to be honest.

How can we make the experience of coming to church like the second part of the video? What about making it a new years resolution to make church like this for new people, by  next Christmas?

The publisher…

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(Originally published in June 2010)

(Stage is empty, except for a desk and two chairs. The Publisher is sitting behind the desk as Mark comes in.)

Publisher: Mark. Good to see you… How was the journey?
Mark: Bit awkward at times, Got shipwrecked once, and jailed twice, but overall, not too bad.
Publisher: That’s package tours I guess.
Mark: Well it gave me some time to work on the book. Did you get my manuscript?
Publisher: The what? Oh, yes, the book. I’ve got it here somewhere… (digs manuscript out of pile) good stuff, very well written. Immediate, fast. Excellent work.
Mark: Thanks. er… and what do you think?
Publisher: About what?
Mark: About publishing.
Publisher: That’s not as easy as it sounds, Mark. There’s not a lot of call for stories, you see. Songs, yes: churches are telling me the new songs are just the thing for getting folk through the door, but stories… not so much.
Mark: Well, these aren’t just any stories are they?
Publisher: But what’s the point?
Mark: I thought it could help, you know, the other churches in the empire.
Publisher: Mark, Mark… those churches… well, they’re struggling. They need encouragement.
Mark: That’s why I wrote…
Publisher: Yes but Mark, it’s not really what they’re after: I need stirring stuff, stuff that’ll appeal to people’s emotions and make them look beyond the everyday to the victory we have in Christ.
Mark: Er… well, that’s what the book is about…
Publisher: Oh, come on Mark. It’s sixteen chapters long for one thing. Sixteen. Do you know how long it takes to read it? People want a short sermon, something to lift them up, make them feel better, not long turgid accounts about what I did with the Rabbi. I don’t think the church really needs it. Did Jesus tell stories all the time?
Mark: Yes.
Publisher: Well… even if he did, I don’t think it’s scriptural. The Old Testament tells us to sing… ooh, lots of times.
Mark: About what?
Publisher: What do you mean?
Mark: Well, what are we supposed to sing about?
Publisher: Haven’t you read the old testament? What God did?
Mark: The… stories, you mean?
Publisher: Oh, come on, I’ve been reasonable: I’ve looked at your book. I read it through, and really, I can’t see anyone remembering anything in it, or wanting to. It’s depressing. Arguments every second page. It gets pretty violent too, at the end.
Mark: But… that’s what happened.
Publisher: Mark, we’re trying to start a new faith. People don’t like us. I don’t know if you noticed. We need to attract people, get bums on seats. To do that we have to make it look cool, exciting. We need a cool worship time, and a fast preach on how Jesus can make your life better, Not three years of opposition and death. Sorry Mark, you’re not going to get anywhere with this.
Mark: But this is the foundation of what we believe.
Publisher: And if you present it like this no-one will remember it in ten years. If you want it kept for posterity, come back to me with a song. Now, If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a meeting in half an hour with some people from a record company. Here’s your ‘Gospel’. (walks him to the door) See you soon…
Mark: But…
Publisher: Good Bye (Pushes him out of the door)
(Exit Mark)
Publisher: Now, where did I put those song lyrics?
(Exit)

‘The Publisher’ is published in “Dangerous Stories“: a book of twenty-five stories told using many doifferent types and style of theatre,written for small teams working church setting.

Königstausch: The Tour (1)

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We try and take some material on tour each year, because life is far too simple and there’s nothing like making it complicated.

Touring isn’t just a matter of going to a new location and doing the same thing again: it’s more a case of going to visit the location, finding it is completely different to where you last made a presentation, redesigning the piece and rehearsing the new presentation, finding the timing doesn’t work, rebuilding several scenes to allow someone to run through the building and make an entrance in a different place, setting off to the venue, forgetting something essential like a costume, coming back to get it, then arriving to find that it isn’t quite like you thought.

In this case, we’d agreed to take ‘Good Prince, Bad Prince’ our ‘big’ project, to a new venue a couple of villages away. We’d designed the story for a venue with two doors on the left hand side of the room, so naturally in our new venue we had a door on the right side of the audience and one at the back. Except that the door at the right of the audience was behind a bar, with a very narrow swing door. And this was not behind the stage like the one in our original venue, but halfway through the room which meant several chasing scenes had to be rebuilt from scratch, but we worked it out. In fact the team made it better than the original, and the sight of Alex and Andi fighting to simultaneously get through a gap barely wide enough for one will remain with me for some time. We had time to eat some Pizza with our kind hosts and even managed to play some of the worst pool in history for twenty minutes while the resident band rehearsed.

My biggest challenge when touing is the whole business of meeting new people. I like people, honestly. It’s just that as an introvert I get tense in a new group, or even in a room full of people. My personal pat hate is suddenly being hauled up to the front which is the sort of thing that people like to do to the directors of visiting theatre teams, which is why after the presentation I lurked in a nice comfy chair just outside the main meeting room. And this set the scene for the best bit of the evening by far.

The band leader suggested that if anyone had any issues or questions they could always approach the speaker who was over there, (everybody looked at the speaker) or Andy who was… er… He looked at Xpresso bunched up in the doorway. Everyone else looked too. My crew, -who could all see me and knew very well that I was hiding- grinned back and waved vaguely into the outer darkness.

Fresh Produce

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Yesterday afternoon I was helping Eldest Son with his homework, when I was reminded that I had an important appointment, as in: now. As this was the culmination of several weeks telephoning people, emailing, and chasing up contacts, I wasn’t about to let it slip by so after five frantic minutes finding gardening (ie: ‘filthy’) clothes, work boots and gloves I legged it out to my friend who was waiting in his 4×4 with trailer.

The reason for all this activity?

Cow Poo.

Such is the way my life has turned out.

With seventy cows the local farm wasn’t about to suddenly experience a Bovine Excrement Deficit, but it seemed polite to go and check before reversing a trailer up to the pile and loading up. Ringing the bell at the farmhouse got the expected lack of response, but after wandering about for a bit I met an elderly family member. Unfortunately he spoke a very strong version of the local dialect, and was was deaf so we spent several minutes failing to communicate while the farm geese tried to provide translation and encouragement by honking.

I gave up and wandered around to the farm yard where I discovered it had all been unnecessary as there was a queue. A spotless Volkswagen was standing by the muck, and the owner was delicately scooping winter compost into the tiny trailer. As the pile was bigger than the car we figured there was no rush.

When our time came we filled the bottom of the trailer with sawdust and then covered this with as much cow produce as we could, which proved surprisingly difficult, cow manure seems to achieve great density when dropped from a crane. We wiggled our way through the lanes to the Very Smallholding, and I offloaded the trailer while my friend drove to the end of the track and made a 37 point turn to get back. On arrival he remarked that the trailer load of manure didn’t look that much now it was on the ground, and I jokingly asked if he wanted to go again. His response of ”Well, we’ve got more sawdust and the trailer needs cleaning anyway” elevated him to a Hero of the Very Smallholding, and we went and got another load.

I now have a parking space full of very smelly stuff, which is possibly the best anti parking deterrent known to man, and now all I have to do is shift the whole lot down the steps and over the the future vegetable beds, in buckets.

And to think some people go out at weekends.

Non Combatants

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This Sunday is ‘Volkstrauertag’, the German equivalent of Remembrance Sunday or Veterans Day. For obvious reasons it is a bit different here. In particular Germany makes a conscious effort to remember all victims of war, including civilians.

My paternal Grandfather was never in the millitary. This was not because he had any strongly held anti-war convictions, but because he worked on the railways and they needed him to do his job there during World War Two. During world war two, if you were in the south or east of the UK, you were on the front line, especially if you worked on the railways, and three months before the war began my Granddad was made a shunter guard, a “Special Man” -which we suspect meant he was paid as a shunter but worked as a guard- based in one of the biggest freight yards in the Midlands, the industrial heartland of the UK. Freight yards are dangerous places at the best of times, with wagons moving in u predictabledirections, with and without locomotives pushing them. The shunter had to run alongside moving wagons and put the brakes on, then couple wagons together with a wooden pole. During the war there was a strict blackout at night, and all movements were carried out in near pitch darkness, so he would be dodging rolling wagons and trying not to fall over track, run into posts, or trip on point levers, surrounded by several trains full of things like high explosives, weapons, food, oil and petrol, with steam locomotives showing a lovely white plume of steam. And then there would be an air raid.

Beyond the freight yards were factories, each one as likely to be bombed as the trains, and air raid shelters were of limited use right next to a train full of high explosives. In other words, my Granddad spent his working days and nights in the middle of a vast target area, and often the best he could do was put a helmet on and keep working and hope that his yard wasn’t the designated target that night, or that an equally terrified bomb aimer wouldn’t decide to dump his not-very-accurate bombs just as he was overhead so he can try to get home alive.

People regularly worked twelve hour shifts and my Granddad fell asleep riding his bicycle home several times. For guards the shift would end wherever they were at the time, so if he was on a train it could be stopped because of a raid up the line, sent back a bit, and then shoved in a siding until another train passed. He could be dropped off miles from home.

Always assuming, of course, that his home hadn’t been destroyed.

This would happen every night. For weeks. No leave, no ‘rest and recovery’ time, just a 12 hour break and the knowledge that next shift he’d have to do it all again.

Granddad wouldn’t talk about the war. Not many of his generation did: they just got on with what needed to be done, and and if they survived they went back and did it again the next day, so many selfless acts by non-combatants were forgotten. I do remember one conversation we had when I was a child which made me think there was more than he would tell. There was an old war film on television and he suddenly turned to me and said: “Just remember, when we see an explosion there, no-one is killed. In the real world it was different.”

He wouldn’t say any more.