Kester Brewin

Hopelessly Utopian [1] Hopelessly Utopian [2] Thanks for the comments on the above posts. In response to Cheryl and Becky, yes, of course every church movement has felt ‘no one else has ever felt this way before’. And it’s actually important to recognise that, as Gray does in Black Mass, suggesting that ‘the utopian instinct [...]

You may not have picked up on this Stateside – unless you’ve been trying to follow coverage of Wimbledon – but it’s been raining here in the UK. A lot. Every day for weeks. There have been floods, and some people have died. In one tragic incident a man got his foot stuck in a [...]

Thanks to Mark for a great post around Gerald Arbuckles “From Chaos to Mission – Refounding Religious Life Formation“. He includes this diagram, which prodded me to think not only about how renewal occurs within religion, but more generally about how religions are founded. Mark notes: “Arbuckle talks about three stages; 1) Initial unease, the [...]

On a slightly behind the scenes UK Emerging Church discussion forum, the issue of leadership/ordination/vocation has reared its ugly head. I’ve posted on this fairly extensively before (post here / Self-Organizing Leadership series here), and I’ve a fuller article coming out on the subject in Relevant Leader shortly but wanted to just re-iterate some key [...]

‘Thought for the Day’ this morning was an excellent piece  by Martin Palmer. MP’s have recently voted to exclude themselves from their own Freedom of Information legislation – a move that has angered many. It seems the law-makers want everyone else to be accountable save themselves. Palmer made an interesting connection with Abraham’s bartering with [...]

Just got back this afternoon from darkest Wales, where there was no internet, no mobile coverage, and virtually no radio reception either. Just a wonderful beach, and an old clap-board cottage. Great medicine. Nice to come back to some good debate though. I just wanted to write a final post in the series (may be) [...]

I’ve been attempting to argue over this series of posts that Jesus’ passion, in contrast to Judas’ scheming to catalyze Jesus into revolution, and Paul’s strategizing to get to Rome, critiques the power-plays that we try to make as Christians. Through Game Theory we have been duped into thinking our best strategy is to not [...]

Tragically, last night a 3rd boy was shot dead in South London, the latest victim of a possibly-connected spate of black on black youth killings. The police have responded by saying they are going to have armed patrols on the streets now. Like that’s going to work. Two of the boys were shot in their [...]

Over at TallSkinnyKiwi Andrew has posted some thoughts on How To Ask Foundations For Money. This isn’t the first time Andrew’s posts have made me feel a little uncomfortable. And it won’t be the last. And I’m glad about that. He’s a guy who keeps me itching. But, I have to say, the post did [...]

As some of you may know, I’ve been working on a novel for the past few months, playing with themes, among others, of the links between identity and consumption. One of the books I’ve picked up to feed the furnace has been Thorstein Veblen’s 1899 satire Conspicuous Consumption (an excerpt from his longer work The [...]