Tying truth's shoelaces together

"A lie can travel half way round the world while the truth is putting on it's shoes"   

Charles Spurgeon

I remember once, a few years ago, writing an email that I felt tremendously proud of.  At the time I thought that upon clicking send I would be injecting such challenging & arresting truth into the life of the recipient that they would be arrested by my wisdom & razor sharp critique.

I thought their whole world would be redefined because of my brilliance.

Surely they needed to hear what I had to say.

So I clicked send.

Unfortunately for both of us the reality is something altogether different.  Within my email's paragraphs were line after line of damaging, hurtful criticism untempered by any kind of grace.  I had originally thought it inspired.  But on reflection my words were fuelled by huge measures of arrogance, hurt & a tragic lack of self-awareness.  It was full of self-centered lies which suffocated any hint of the truth from which they sprouted.  Yes, there was some truth.  But it was smothered.

An email written in haste.  Sent in haste.

Needless to say the phone call I quickly received back from the recipient rejuvenated my evidently residual supplies of humility.  I still feel the pang of shame as I remember the episode today.

Spurgeon died in 1892.  He didn't know about my email.  Nor for that matter did he know about aeroplanes, the atom bomb or facebook.  (In fact, when I wrote that email I didn't know about facebook... but that's beside the point)

More to the point I'm sure he had no idea how the wisdom quoted above would resonate and clang with ever deepening gravitas in a contemporary world where gossip & lies are spawned, shared and strengthened in the time it takes to tap a return key.

If today you have, like most of us, the opportunity to post your status and comment to the masses then do so But think twice unless you want to make the same mistake that I made. Sometimes... no... often it's better to not say anything at all rather than risk perpetuating something you know with cool  judgement to be hurtful, ungracious, unkind or simply unhelpful.

Just a thought.

The Mission Symposium

A few weeks ago a few gathered at William Booth College to think about the missional focus of The Salvation Army. Where is it headed.... now... in 3 years... in 10 years?

My experience of the 'Symposium' was, I suppose, unique.  A group of us were invited to attend a song writer's stream - with the challenge to begin a process of crafting songs which echo themes presented at the Symposium. We were to attend as many sessions as possible and then assimilate that which we heard into song.

My reflection is that we had some small success in this too.  I think that the songs we landed on did indeed point towards themes explored in the main sessions.  In many ways the process of writing was chaotic... perhaps in the best sense... Our aim, we decided, was purposefully to create as many songs as possible in the time that we had with a view to crafting and honing these later; after the event.

On Wednesday evening we shared the songs we had written to a patient and kind congregation of the symposium.  By no means would I say the songs we had written were works of art - far from it - but there was something of a knitting together of the message, the undertone, the momentum of the event.  It did feel as though God was opening our eyes to something.  Something on the very edge of the canvas... and it was beautiful.

My reflection as a worship leader is that i would never even think of using so many baby fresh, brand new songs in an act of worship so I think this was a courageous & trusting move.  It was an exercise that we as an entire symposium were in on together... indeed we had to be as there was a great deal of vulnerability laid on the altar. And it is something you could only do in certain contexts.  But we need to have space for this, and I believe the symposium was an appropriate space.

Would I have suggested we do things differently if we did them again?  Yes.  Probably.  

I think the artistic out-working of the symposium could have been more multifaceted. We could have and should in the future invite Salvationist graphic artists, film makers, bloggers, sculptures, poets, rappers, electronic musicians, et al to join in and interpret.  

Any rekindling of vision & momentum within a movement should result in an explosion of art.  This is something we can encourage on every level - and have more than half an eye out to recognise the prophetic voice through this medium both; within and alongside the scholarly.