News

Upcoming Day Conferences

07/01/2009

The Cliff College Postgraduate Department are running several Day conferences this year, here is a list of the next three upcoming events!

Vulnerable Mission: an understanding and practice
Tuesday 10 March 2009, 9.30am - 4pm
Speakers include: Dr Jim Harries (Kenya) and Dr Richard Briggs (Durham)

A booking form is available here.

Liberating lay people for mission in the world of work - reappraising the role of church leaders, chaplains and sector ministers
Wednesday 25th March 2009, 10.00 am - 4.00 pm
Some key issues this day will be addressing:

• What is the meaning and nature of "mission" in the world of work?
• How can lay people be supported and equipped for mission at work?
• In what ways will the role of church leaders need to change to give primacy to lay people in this sphere of mission?

A booking form is available here.

Celtic Mission: an understanding and practice
Friday 19 June 2009, 9.30am - 4pm
Rev Dr Roy Searle
(Northumbria Community)

A booking form is available here.

A Multicultural Faith

04/12/2008

Most of my ministry has been spent abroad. For 14 years I was based at St. Paul's United Theological College, Limuru, in Kenya, where we had students from 14 different African nations and 14 different denominations, and an international staff as well. It was a wonderful experience of ecumenical co-operation. Though inevitably there were tensions from time to time as people from different backgrounds sought to understand one another and live together in a close-knit community, there was also a wonderful sense of unity through our common faith in Christ. It was also a good example of the kind of fellowship Jesus envisioned when he prayed that those who believed in him might be 'one' as he was one with the Father (Jn. 17.21-23). Though our varying cultures should be viewed as part of the rich diversity of God's creation, nevertheless as Christians we recognise that it is God's will that they should never become barriers which separate us from one another, but should rather be transcended by the recognition of what we hold in common as Christian believers.

My experience at Cliff College is in this respect similar to my experience at St. Paul's. One of the things which have impressed me since joining the staff in September this year has been the variety of its student body. There are over 400 students attached to the College at the moment, of whom about 60 are residential and full-time, about 190 non-residential or part-time in this country, and a further 150 non-residential and part-time in Nigeria, studying through the College's International Learning Centre. The student body is made up of people of different ages, backgrounds, denominations and nationalities, including students from Belgium, Brazil, Burundi, Canada, Finland, Gambia, Ghana, India, Italy, Kosovo, Nigeria, the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, USA, and Zimbabwe, as well as all parts of Great Britain.

Cliff is a place where all students are welcome, whatever their background. In an inter-connected world, which is increasingly becoming a 'global village', it is important for the church to model that unity which is God's will for his creation, and I am pleased that Cliff is demonstrating the possibility of realising this vision in its daily life.

Peter Ensor - Director of Undegraduate Studies

A Somewhat Modest Proposal

25/11/2008

I have a confession to make. I'm not normally inclined to confess to an audience I can't see, but confess I must. I'm a labeller.  Well, actually, now that I think about it, that's not who I am, it's what I do. I label people. Maybe you know some labellers yourself.

Labellers live and operate as if everyone fits into nice, neat, definable, knowable categories. By assigning someone a label or labels it gives the assigner a sense of security, knowing, maybe even of power. We have Ian or George or Sybil all figured out once we can give them a label or two. 'Well that's George. He's a southerner after all.' 'Ian's an evangelical, would you expect any less from him?' 'Of course Sybil's a good student, she's Asian.' Then we all nod knowingly, as if that word, or those words, captures the essence or explains the behaviour of George or Ian or Sybil.

I remember when I pastored in the United States, people would come to see me and they'd begin their conversation with: 'Well Ron, my problem is that I'm your basic OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) . . .' or 'I think I might be a manic . . .' or 'I've had ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) my whole life.'

It used to blow my mind how we sum ourselves and others up. Who taught us to talk like that? And when did we become convinced that we could adequately synopsize the totality of our or another's existence by a label or two or ten?

It happened to me a few months ago. (Now don't tell anyone this, it's kind of embarrassing.) A buddy of mine from the States was over for a visit. We were chatting about whom I worked with and that sort of thing, when I get to telling him about this fellow I work with that I respect a good bit. I said something like 'Yeah, he's an Irish Evangelical Missiologist.'  I just paused and we both laughed. When did I start talking like that? When did I start talking about other people like they were brands of cereal or appliances or something other than living, breathing, complex, mysterious, human beings?

What I should have said about my colleague was something like: 'Yeah, he's originally from Ireland. Been through some stuff in his life. He came to Christ as a teenager, so he hasn't forgotten what it was like to be lost. He loves Jesus. He's an intelligent man who will challenge your worldview.' That's what I should have said.

Notice the difference? The former lacks a certain humility, don't you think? And I remember reading in the Bible somewhere that humility is a pretty good idea. Come to think of it, Jesus said something about those of us who follow Him should serve one another. Labelling and stereotyping doesn't strike me as terribly servant-like.

So, here's my proposal. I propose we go one week without labelling others. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but I think we can do it. Just one week. We'll put words like conservative, liberal, traditional, modern, post-modern, charismatic, etc. all in our vocabularic closet. (I know vocabularic isn't really a word, but I'm a tutor so it's ok.) What do you think? Then we'll be free to get to know people and we won't have to pretend that we have them all sorted. And maybe, just maybe, along the way we'll discover that following Christ is easier without the use of labels.

It's just a thought.

Ron Willoughby - Tutor of Contemporary Christian Studies