IBTS Community Blog

Last weekend, and some days prior to it, have been spent by me, Lydie, Parush and Keith in the meeting of the Consortium of the European Baptist Theological Schools and the European Baptist Theological Teachers’ Conference. It was a great time indeed – great somewhat unexpectedly for me as I approached the event with anxiety, being involved in its organisation, with a concern how it’s going to work out given that our numbers were much smaller than usual and  some bits of Europe weren’t represented at all. It seems to be a tough year for conferences of any sort.

But the hope that small numbers might result in deeper and remarkable exchange of ideas and experience was fulfilled over the full measure.

As another member of the CEBTS Core Team, Richard Kidd of the Northern Baptist Learning Community, has observed, you don’t often see folk going on discussing the topics of the presentations after the sessions are over; but this kept happening time and again, and especially over the meal and the drink. I think it was partly that we could see how all these topics – under the heading of “Baptist Learning in Community: Cognitive and Non-cognitive Expressions of Identity”. At least some of the presentations we hope to publish in our own JEBS.

Yet the most powerful impression for me personally from this conference was an Urban Pilgrimage some of us took on a Saturday afternoon. Glen, one of the tutors at Northern Baptist Learning Community, which was hosting us, has done it a few weeks ago for their MA students – you can read about it here.  Going out into the centre of Manchester with an encouragement and the permission, so to speak, to watch, listen, smell, touch, and think of God’s presence there and what God might be saying, turned out to be a really special experience which I certainly want to repeat in Prague.

These have certainly been days well spent – and I’m not sorry at all it involved a summer weekend.

- Lina

My bags are packed.  It’s almost time to go home to the UK after ten months of living here at IBTS.  It’s an emotional time right now – I’m excited about going home and reuniting with family and friends but there have been so many tearful farewells to get through…

Last summer, when I retired from full-time work and made plans to come out to Prague, I wasn’t quite sure what lay ahead of me.  Come to think of it, that was a time of mixed emotions as well – excited anticipation mixed up with nerves.   I needn’t have worried though; I felt warmly welcomed from the outset and could quickly tell I wouldn’t be bored.

Here’s a flavour of my year.

Teaching English to the CAT students was stretching due to my inexperience but turned out to be great fun and rewarding.  Working in the library gave me the chance to get stuck into a project and have the satisfaction of seeing it through to completion; I liked that.  Taking over some conference administration had a different set of challenges and rewards  (“Help, how can we accommodate all these people coming next week?  We don’t seem to have enough rooms!”)  Checking the English in many students’ papers was a privilege and turned out to be very informative and educational!  However, it is the people who will feature at the core of most of my memories.   Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned opera, jazz, art, culture, architecture and everything else the beautiful city of Prague has to offer.

So thank you IBTS.  Thank you for embracing me in this wonderful community.  Doing a ‘gap year’ here has given me the opportunity to live, work and worship in a multi-cultural and international environment.  It has been at various times scary, rich, challenging, fun, satisfying and generally brilliant.  I’ve made friends for life.  How will I ever settle back at home?  Yet I know I will, because God gave me a job to do here for a while, stretched me, challenged me, taught me new things and I am going home a different person as a result.  I wonder what He has for me next.

Barb Binder

IBTS Volunteer 2009/10

Hello to all! So, now you can come back to us with your comments, questions, suggestions, and what not    -You won’t need to register with WordPress or jump through similar hoops anymore.

It would be great if some of our readers would try it soon, so that we can indeed be sure commenting has become EASY!

- Lina

I don’t know what’s the proper name, but I call it ‘the local’s syndrome’: if you live in some place, you are likely to be much lazier in taking advantage of the cultural or other delights that the place presents, than if you were coming for a shorter or longer visit.  I’m reminded of this each time I see one of our volunteers or a student enjoying Prague just as one should!

Well, that’s certainly true about one of the music festivals which was born in the context of the Czech Republic joining the EU and has already taken place in Prague 7 times, called the United Islands of Prague. I’ve known about it for several years already, seeing the adverts and hearing enthusiastic recommendations, but it took our Administrator, Katka, to push me finally to decide that this year, I’m going to make it to the Islands. (It’s called the United Islands because it takes place on the islands of the Vltava river running through Prague.)

So on a lovely and (bearably) hot Saturday afternoon, I enjoyed listening to Kila, an Irish folk-world music band – a tiny fraction of this rather massive festival of more than 100 bands – looking around at the people sitting on the grass or walking around with their beverages, and I thought once again how rich indeed this country is, to offer such things for free. Yet, as many things free, it’s not always as appreciated as it deserves. Once again I want to promise to myself to look at Prague with the eyes of an eager visitor.

- Lina

All across Europe governments are cutting back on public expenditure in the face of mounting budget deficits brought about by the bankers and their profligate lending and subsequent bailing out by taxpayers like us. Sir Fred Godwin (“Fred the Shred”), former CEO of  the Royal Bank of Scotland and his ilk, still have much to answer for.

For instance, the new Czech government is planning a 10% cut in funding Universities and their Master’s programmes. However, in our case (IBTS) 10% of nothing from the Czech government is not too hard to bear.

Meanwhile, celebrating HM Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday in the Thun palace (the UK Embassy in Prague) seated comfortably under the gardens of Praha Hrad (Prague castle) the British Government cut backs are very noticeable. That dour Yorkshireman, William Hague  (UK Foreign Secretary in the ConDem coalition government) has obviously decreed a cut in the number of invitees and a cut in the food and drinks served. Gone are the “pigs in blankets” and “prawns in batter”, in are the sponsored foods of Tesco, Marks and Spencer and local “English- style” butcher Robertson.

Now we are true northerners with sausage rolls and small sandwiches made from cut loaves!

Her Excellency, the Ambassador, put a brave face on it all, but things have come to a pretty pass indeed. I guess President Klaus had heard the food was not up to past standards and didn’t show up, but there was still a good turn-out of the military attaches of our allies in NATO and the Commonwealth and the Russian Ambassador was prominent – no doubt he had come to observe the collapse of this former cold war adversary.

- Keith

Professor Alistair Macintosh spoke to the 8^th ECEN Assembly about the reality and dangers of human-induced climate change. Of the 100 most recent scientific papers all confirm the trajectory of Global warming.  Scientists now generally agree without urgent action we are on track for a 3 degree rise by 2080. Macintosh argued we have been colonized by the powers that drive climate change. Modern marketing drives consumption in excess of what is needed for dignified living.

Macintosh took hold of the insights of Walter Wink – we must name, unmask and engage the Powers. We have to see the interiority of the present outer structures. So we have to engage consumption with Christian spirituality opening our spiritual eye – the courage of opening the heart to community with the Trinity, creation, one another.

Macintosh was engaging and provoking. We have bought his books for the library!

- Keith

(More on this assembly of ECEN can be found here.)

IBTS is playing host to the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN) this week as they hold their 8^th Assembly. ECEN is a network which IBTS has been involved in for several years. Now it is our delight to  welcome people here. There are about 75 delegates from most parts of Europe.

Reflecting on the theme “Our Daily Bread: Living in a Time of Climate Change,” the Assembly has opted for a vegetarian diet – itself an unusual feature in central Europe, where meat is the main part of any diet and cooked vegetables, certainly, are an after thought. (In fact, when you go to a restaurant in Prague, you may still see the vegetarian section of the menu titled as ‘Meatless dishes’!)

Climate change issues continue to be in the focus, but differently from last assembly, participants are exploring the connections between climate change and food – our patterns, our attitudes, the complexities  involved in food industry, etc.

Debates go on with great intensity about mobility – issues of transport, the place of renewable energy and the place of animals in the whole created order. We Baptists certainly have much to learn and only a limited amount to contribute to the debate.

On the other hand, Orthodox Christians help us understand better the sanctification of all of creation. On Thursday this Orthodox theology was helpfully explored for us by Metropolitan Krystof of the Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church. He talked with us about Christians as ‘priests of creation” and how humanity has generally ignored the teaching of the church about our  relationship with creation. Now we must share in some of the pain of creation through our acts of despoiling. In a moving pastoral approach the Metropolitan called upon us to use all our senses in worship and in daily life. This is an important insight from Orthodoxy we Baptists ought to ponder.

- Keith and Lina

This is actually an apology – seems it has become impossible to leave a comment on entries at IBTSCommunityblog. So if you tried and had to give up, it wasn’t your skills at fault!

Once again, sorry. It’ll take a few days to get this fixed, and if in the meantime you are burning with desire to comment, just forward it to me.

From very hot campus -

Lina