At Uni on Tuesday we were discussing Pete Ward‘s book ‘Liquid Church‘ and critiquing the premise it contains:
“a vision for how the church can embrace the liquid nature of culture rather than just scrambling to keep afloat while sailing over it. Pete Ward presents his vision of a Liquid Church that addresses the needs of the isolated consumer-Christian by providing connection and community, located in common cause and similar desire for God.”
As we’re at the start of our module most of us haven’t read the book, so we were relying on the analysis and overview of others who had. At times there were misunderstandings about what the book (or rather the author) actually says. But during our discussions someone suggested that what we need is not ‘solid Church’ or ‘liquid Church’ – but rather something in between. At this point I coined the phrase ‘custard Church’ as something which might represent the middle ground.I don’t have much time to write now (as I’m getting married tomorrow!) but I wanted to stake my claim as the originator of the phrase ‘custard Church’.Following the coining of the phrase we had a brief discussion about the idea of ‘custard Chruch’ and noted that custard is a non-newtonian fluid which in simple terms means that the more you stir it, the more solid it becomes…[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XQ97XHjVw]…perhaps the Church is the same. Maybe Church is intended to be more liquid in the way Ward suggests, but that the more we stir it up (or perhaps agitate it) the more solid is becomes. The more solid, the less responsive and able to change it becomes.Stretching the point? Possibly…but what do you think?
[When I get back from our Honeymoon I promise to read the book and make my own conclusions than relying on the thoughts of others.]