Where do we start?

by Simon Edwards.

I was recently convinced by two of my children that they were ready to make use of ‘my’ Lego, which has been stored in several lofts since I was about 16. The instructions have long since disappeared, and the once bright white bricks are now pale yellow, but I know what they can become, I know which boats or aeroplanes or cars could be built. As the children examined the contents, one said to the other “where should we start?”, and the reply was “let’s look at the pieces and see what we can build together.” I returned to later to see that a boat had emerged, a boat that looked familiar, but had never been created before. As I pondered whether my Lego should be used to create things that I hadn’t thought of, I realised that this was an example of how we engage with theology. The church has a treasury of history, tradition, ecclesiology, theology and experience, but perhaps the first step should always be to “look at the pieces and see what we can build together.” 

I am fascinated by the discipline of Practical Theology, which calls us to explore and reflect on experience to gain new theological insight, as Eileen Campbell-Reed notes, practical theology ‘is nothing without a context. Whatever it tries to be without context will be neither practical nor theology’ (2016, p.38). The theological process is a cyclical one, as any experience continues to be explored; it becomes a cycle of reflection which informs theory or practice and leads to further reflection. The aim of this cyclical reflection is articulated by Bennett et al., who propose that the ‘principle of practical theology to date has been to undertake work that makes a practical difference to the life of the Church and the world’ (2018, p.154). In a sense, a new understanding that comes from a commitment to “look at the pieces and see what we can build together.” 

Where do we start? We start with what we have: experience. But it might not be quite as simple as that, because there are (at least) two ways to approach practical theology. Both approaches value the knowledge that can be gained through exploring an experience, but differ in their method. The first potential approach is to begin with established theological principals and use these as a lens through which an experience can be explored. Swinton and Mowat argue that in this exploration, theology must be privileged because ‘the overarching framework within which practical theology takes place is theological. Theology offers a perspective on knowledge, truth and reality’ (2006, p.76). The exploration of an experience provides new ways in which a previously established theological principle can be understood, revealing new perspectives within an theological existing framework. A second way to engage in practical theology is to give priority to the experience without imposing any existing theological framework. Bennet et al argue that in practical theology, ‘everything is up for questioning and critical scrutiny, including the taken-for-granted processes, beliefs and thought patterns of human societies, religious beliefs and practices, and theological constructions’ (Bennett et al., 2018, pp.29-30).

Some of my current work in circuit is amongst pioneers, particularly working in buildings and communities where the Methodist society has ceased to meet, but the building remains open. ‘Where do we start?’ is a question that we return to regularly as we seek to build new ecclesial communities that are embedded within the context. Do we start with what there was and seek to recreate a society where Sunday morning was the principal act, to start with an established theological principal? Or do we do as my two children did and “look at the pieces and see what we can build together.”  We look and see, we examine, and we reflect together asking what there might be of God here; we follow the model where everything is up for questioning and scrutiny. We carefully explore and listen to the voices in the context, and we are beginning to see something new, familiar, but most certainly new, emerge, even though we might not know quite what it is yet! 

With the growth of New Places for New People (and Fresh Expressions or Emerging Church) we are seeing new kinds of ecclesial communities being born. They bring a certain familiarity, but also a wonderful newness as they deeply explore their own context, all that they have, and together see what can be built. 

The key to all of this is that we take seriously the idea that the world in which we live and have our being has much to say theologically, and that every context offers something different, perhaps familiar, but different. We then return to where we began, as we explore theology, all that is familiar, history, tradition, ecclesiology and theology but without imposing existing principles as we “look at the pieces and see what we can build together.”  When we do this, I think that we can find that theology is truly everywhere and sometimes it can even surprise us.

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Bennett, Z., Graham, E., Pattison, S. and Walton, H., 2018. Invitation to research in practical theology. Oxon: Routledge.

Campbell-Reed, E.R., 2016. The power and danger of a single case study in practical theology. In: J.A. Mercer and B.J. Miller-McLemore, 2016. Conundrums in practical theology. Boston, MA: Brill. Ch2