10.8.08

indeed

7 comments:

Tim Goodbody said...

Most excellent indeed.
Sang this a lot at New Wine, but these visuals are better than theirs!

Tim

Jody Stowell said...

yes - did you go to a or b? i was at 'a' and was a venue 2 girl :-)

yes, it can be difficult to find non-cheesy visuals when you're reduced to youtube! these one's were definitely the best...

Tim Goodbody said...

week a venue 1 mostly (I'm too old for the volume of 2!)
Brother Andrew was the most challenging - I think you got him in venue 2 as well, no?

Jody Stowell said...

awww

yes, we had brother andrew too, but you know I preferred Frog and Amy's bible studies in the morning, and there was a kick ass emergent church woman who was fab too - but that's why it was good, different stuff for different types.

my one - substantial for me - critique, was the distinct lack of women in venue 1, as speakers I mean, there was one who disempowered herself by pronouncing that she wasn't preaching or teaching [the dancer], then proceeded to! at that point I defected to venue 2, but even there, there was only 1 female speaker in the evening. I think this is representative of the conservative element in the leadership team (a leadership team that is overwhelmingly male and where all the women are those married to the team...)

but, there were some things that I'd really want to affirm - and for me the kids work was amazing, really made it possible for us to be there and the kids came away absolutely buzzing about Jesus, which is what it's all about.

Tim Goodbody said...

Yes you are right about the gender balance, though there is one woman incumbent (Jane Morriss from St Gabriel's in London) on the LSE leadership team.

Did you go last year to the seminar by John and Anne Coles about women's ministry, at which they not only affirmed their (and so therefore New Wine's I guess) acceptance of the ministry of woman in all 3 orders, but also most movingly John apologised for hurt caused to women by New Wine in the past.
For us this was a real watershed and helped us to commit more heartily to New Wine, in the knowledge that a change is gonna come.

Sometimes I think its the white upper middle class social context, rather than any theological objection, that makes NW so male dominated.

Gotta love it though.

Jody Stowell said...

hmm, not so sure that the theological difficulty with woman in leadership is not an issue.

some on the leadership team would have difficulty with it and I do think this has an impact.

I had a conversation with my vicar about this and he helped me to see that John is on a journey himself - which you confirm about his talk last year - and perhaps my hope that he would be pioneering with regards to women on the leadership team and speaking etc is too much for the moment.

I was incredibly disappointed that he represented Fulcrum in a very derogatory way at his 'GAFCON' talk that I went to on the thursday of nw 'a'. I guess he did the same thing at nw 'b' too. His choice to stand with anglican mainstream and reform etc al on the point of GAFCON can only have an effect for the theological stance of new wine, I suggest. (especially as he firmly asserted that he did not stand with fulcrum)

Tim Goodbody said...

yeah, that is a downer. Still, I got a lot out of the fact that from the main stage, politics was off the agenda. Last time John got political (with that covenant thing) he had a heart attack...

It was also good to hear that when they were doing the collection (I think it was on Thursday)Mark Melluish and John Coles both repeatedly stated that it is not New Wine's intention to divert giving from the local church, because their vision is the renewal of the local church. This is in contrast to pressure from some CE groups we could mention to withhold giving.

In last year's talk on women in leadership John said that though at the time he "stood with" Reform on the covenant issue, he does not agree with them on everything. It's worth getting hold of that talk if you can - either by download or on CD.

If (unlikely, but ..)the communion goes into meltdown I suspect a lot of NW people will jump ship to Vineyard anyway so GAFCON is pretty pointless from that perspective.