Your invitation to the First Supper!

The new Centre for Living Christianity, dubbed CLiC for short, is starting up in Edinburgh this weekend with an informal social event reflecting its “relaxed but thoughtful” approach to exploring religious faith in a sceptical age.

CLiC’s ‘First Supper’, from 7 to 8.30 pm on Sunday October 7, takes place at Henderson’s Café at St John’s Church, located at the corner of Princes Street and Lothian Road, in the heart of the Scottish capital.

There will be food and refreshments, plus an opportunity to hear about the vision and plans for the new initiative, which describes itself as “exploring faith at the crossroads.”

The full CLiC programme can be viewed and downloaded on the Centre’s new website.

The ‘First Supper’ at 7pm on Sunday 7 October is open to all. There will be a charge of £5 to help cover costs.

Those planning to attend are asked to drop a note to: Donald Reid

Announcing CLiC

The Centre for Living Christianity is beginning operations this weekend, with the First Supper social event at Hendersons Cafe at St John’s.

It has also been publicised here on AllMediaScotland.

CLiC will have its main base at St John’s, a high-profile church in Edinburgh which has also been the venue for the annual Festival of Spirituality and Peace for the past twelve years.

The venture has been founded by a range of organisations, including Edinburgh City Centre Churches Together, the religion and society think-tank Ekklesia, the Cornerstone Bookshop, and the Episcopal Diocese of Edinburgh’s Adventures in Faith programme, alongside St John’s.

CLiC is open to people of all backgrounds and traditions, its organisers stress. Its low-cost events will run from a number of locations and will involve socialising and reflection, as well as thinking, discussion and exploration.

The Centre for Living Christianity aims to take traditional faith very seriously, but in an open and engaging way that recognises the fears and doubts many people have about “organised religion” and unthinking dogmatism.

“CLiC is for those interested in exploring how to live out Christianity in the modern world, in a way which is thoughtful and faithful,” says the Rev Donald Reid. “It is about how to understand Christianity from the margins of a society which is both diversely spiritual and secular.”

Faith in Film

A discussion of issues of faith and life explored through film – either DVD or cinema.

Dates to be arranged.

Cost £5.

To express interest, please email: Donald Reid

Moving beyond ‘organised religion’

New date being negotiated.

Many people today feel an instant disconnect or disinterest in ‘institutional’ or ‘organised’ religion. There is a sense abroad that faith, not least Christian faith, has been turned into a self-perpetuating bureaucracy which operates out of self-interest, refuses difficult questions, and suppresses alternatives. This afternoon event revolves around the new and experimental shapes Christianity might take in a world where ‘top-down religion’ (along with ‘top-down economics’ and ‘top-down politics’) appears to be in crisis.

1  A new world coming: the shift from Christendom to post-Christendom. What happens next when Christian institutions, beliefs and behaviours become suspect and unapproachable for a growing number of people?

2  Radical traditions: looking at the history and promise of faithful dissent within Christianity, yesterday and today. How can we adapt to the subversive way of Jesus in a conformist church and world?

3  The church as a movement for change: Can we break free of institutionalisation, and redo our structures according to a vision of hope in a broken world? Can we hold inherited and emerging church in creative tension?

Cost: donation of £5 suggested.

To express interest or confirm attendance, please email: Simon Barrow

God Matters – An Introduction

An introductory exploration of Christian thought and practice

Six Sunday evenings from 24 October to 28 November 2012.

This six week course will explore the Christian tradition, seeking to answer the question ‘What does it have to say to, and demand of, us in our current context?’ Rather than following a model that argues that we must be intellectually persuaded before we assent to a tradition, the course starts from the assumption that a living tradition is explored best through participation. The course will therefore engage heart, brain and gut:

• prayer/stillness/worship will be woven through the sessions
• both what we believe and how we act, and their interrelationship,
will be considered together
• the sessions will have input but consist largely of facilitated conversation that seeks to engage all

It will not have a separate session on ‘the bible’ but weave scriptural reflection through the sessions, so that we explore the role and place of scripture through doing.  The six sessions are:

1  God matters: If God is no-thing, what has that to do with anything?

2  Are we free? Why should we hope to be? The search for meaning/wholeness in our society

3  God matters but does Jesus of Nazareth?  Engaging with the man from Nazareth.

4  Why Christ-ianity? Engaging with the apostle from Tarsus.

5  Believing and belonging: does the church matter?

6  Living Spirituality: where do we go from here?

Cost £15.

To express interest, please email: John Conway

Faith in Children

Research into children’s spirituality has suggested a natural and acute awareness of mystery, wonder and a connectedness that can become suppressed or even lost as we grow older.

Plans are in hand for Dr Rebecca Nye, preeminent researcher and something of an authority in this field, to visit Edinburgh for a day event drawing on her research and exploring what the wider church can learn from the insights she and others have gained.

For more details or to register an interest in this event, planned for the first quarter of 2013, contact: Andrew Wright

In a Strange Land: Dementia

A group for those living with dementia and its effects, lessons and (im)possibilities. What is it, how do we approach it, what does it mean for how we see each other as persons? What does it mean for how we see the image of God within each of us?

There is a continuing series of informal support meetings for sufferers and their carers beginning in late summer. It is intended to begin a course of study and reflection shaping the response of St John’s to the needs and contribution of those affected by dementia to the community of faith.

To express interest, please email: Amanda Wright

‘Speaking Christian’ (2013)

New language for old?

A five week exploratory course OR a one off evening leading to an experimental course. Dates, location and price to be agreed.

What does it mean to listen, speak and act Christianly in a changing culture where many have lost contact with inherited Christian language, where public skepticism (‘new atheism’) has grown markedly, where Christian is no longer enjoys an automatic market monopoly among faiths and beliefs, and where an increasing number of people consider themselves ‘spiritual but not religious’?

1  Speaking new languages? Looking at how popular culture, advertising and the media addresses religion in general and Christianity in particular – and how Christians have been responding.

2  The grammar of Christian faith: revision or re-pitching? Looking at why ‘doctrine’ has become a dirty word, and how it might continue to resource us to make Christian sense in a changing world and church.

3  ‘What language shall I borrow?’ Experimenting with metaphors, parables and analogies for today. Christianity for a religion-lite society?

4  Sense-making faith. Exploring Christian truth in language and practice through the five senses and beyond.

5  Re-speaking church. What do Christian communities need to hear, learn, reaffirm and reconsider to be effective communicators of the depth of Christian faith today?

To express interest, please email: Simon Barrow

Pentecostal Ecumenism? (2013)

A day/ evening of discussion and reflection

‘Ecumenism’, the search for Christian unity in a fractured world, has made remarkable gains in the past century. But many now feel that it is stuck. Arguments among Christians are on the rise, ecumenical structures are in crisis or being cut, and the promotion of Christian unity seems to have become a hobby for a dwinding number of people.

Does ecumenism still matter? If the word oikumene means “the whole inhabited world” as God’s concern, why are we so focused on the church as God’s unifying concern? Does the unity-in-diversity marked by Pentecost give us fresh and exciting clues as to how the churches might move forward on a common pilgrimage in a globalizing world?

To express interest, please email: Simon Barrow

Faith in the Planet (2013)

How do our faith based resources equip us to respond to the challenge of climate change?

What do the resources of Christian faith and religious belief have to contribute to re-thinking our relationship with the environment that sustains us?

To express interest, please email: Donald Reid