An Evening with Jason Clark

Jason Clark brought a honest and open style to an evening which touched on some quite fundamental issues about what is going on in contemporary society and particularly how that might impinge on the life and mission of the church today. At the start of the evening Jason described his background and early life. He then talked candidly about developing a lifestyle of overworking and the effects of the consequent breakdown he suffered. He has been asked by well-meaning people, “Do you not want God to heal you?”, to which his answer was, “Not if that means going back to how I was before”.

Having studied at London School of Theology, where he is now embarked on a PhD course, his church life has been largely spent in the Vineyard stream of churches. He is a leader of the Vineyard church at Sutton in Surrey. However, his thinking has been greatly influenced by the Emergent organisation and the work of Brian McLaren in the US. Emergent, he explained, is related to but not the same as “emerging church”. The phenomenon known as emerging church is diverse, spontaneous and uncoordinated in its nature but is widespread and identifiable. It is springing up naturally all over the place. It describes a way of thinking about the Christian message and of being church that reflects the movement of western society into post modernity.

In this new world there is less emphasis on pressing enquirers to accept arguments about a wide range of objective beliefs and more on meeting people where they are and encouraging them on a journey towards God. Challenged by a member of the audience as to whether this meant taking a woolly and vague view on matters on belief, Jason gave a robust and orthodox response. He differentiated between dogma, doctrines and matters of opinion. On the fundamentals of the traditional Christian faith he took a clear line. The issue appears to be how much the church insists on getting people’s heads straight before encouraging them towards encounter that leads to spiritual understanding. This does not undermine the importance of “truth” but questions what comes first.

In a questioning and sceptical age it may not be good enough to be told exactly what to believe before you can feel and know about God and spiritual realities. The challenge to the church is to relate to those honestly searching souls that just don’t work that way.

Jason had succeeded in raising many questions and, “Ah, but..!” points in the audience by the time the evening drew to a close. This will not be the last word on these issues in the minds of those who came. But I am sure his clear thinking, and obvious love for both the traditional creeds and the contemporary seeker, will have been encouraging and useful to many. was