Alister's Blog
If you are interested in reading more about Cafehchurch-y stuff, you might find our pastor Alister's blog interesting. Rather unimaginatively, it is at alisterpate.com
He is particularly proud of
Submitted by cafechurch on
Cafechurch, Faith, and Mystery
In a segment filmed for Oprah Winfrey’s OWN channel, author Brene Brown reflects on why she left the Roman Catholic faith of her youth, and how she has found herself back in the Episcopal church.
One of the key points she makes is that she originally “fell in love with the faith and the mystery piece.” However, over time her experience of church, “became less about faith and mystery, and more about politics and certainty.”
Submitted by cafechurch on
Deconstruct / Reconstruct
In the second half of 2019, we are going to have our second go at our new four week course called deconstruct / reconstruct. Alister is blogging about it here. A lot of our members have come out of big Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic churches over the years, and our aim is to take what we have learned about that journey as a community and look at some tools which can help you build a generously orthodox faith which works.
Submitted by cafechurch on
Spiritual Growth
Is spiritual growth more like climbing a ladder or like being a plant? A lot of us have come from churches where a linear model of spiritual ascent was more or less explicitly at work. As well as being a human-centric ego project, it is a profoundly un-scriptural way of looking at spiritual growth. Rather than think of the spiritual life as a sort of ladder to heaven, Scripture is full of images of growth and fruitfulness. To grow spiritually, to bear fruit, is to be much more like a tree than a ladder.
Anne's session from 5/3/19 explores this idea more thoroughly
Submitted by cafechurch on
The Baptism of Jesus
Have you ever wondered why Jesus got baptised, given that he was without sin? In this presentation we explore three different levels of meaning in Baptism, which suggests an answer to that question.
The presentation draws on Rowan Williams' excellent little book Being Christian.
Submitted by cafechurch on
Making Good Decisions Part 3
The Ignatian tradition of Christian spirituality is a wonderful resource for making decisions when we want to collaborate with God's redemptive work in the world.
In this presentation from 13/11/2018, Anne talks us through it. It's easy to talk about "discernment", but what does it actually look like in practical terms?
There is also a document -"Prayer Exercises using Reason and Active Imagination" - which will give you some powerful tools to use for prayerful decision making.
Submitted by cafechurch on
The Mission of Cafechurch
It’s important to start thinking about Cafechurch’s mission from Scripture, so here is a good place to start.
Jesus said to them again ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ John 20:21-22
Submitted by cafechurch on
Making Good Decisions Part 1
One of the great challenges of life in our culture is how to make good decisions. We have so many options that it can be fatiguing.
Like Mr Bean trying to pack for his holiday, we aren't sure how to proceed.
In this presentation, Anne gives us a few criteria for making good choices
Submitted by cafechurch on
The Sea of Faith
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Matthew Arnold - On Dover Beach
Is this really true? Is the decline of faith some sort of natural law?
Submitted by cafechurch on
Big Universe, Uncaring God?
On Tuesday 17/7/218 we considered the size of the universe and what it means for faith - or the lack thereof.
It is true that the universe is huge. Staggeringly, vertigo-creatingly vast. But does it therefore follow that any hypothetical God would therefore not care about humans? Consider the question: which is more important to me - the external monitor I am looking at while type this, or the laptop which is plugged into it?
Submitted by cafechurch on
