e~mergent kiwi

the place of conferences in contemporary church life

What is it with larger, newer churches and conferences?

In the mail has just appeared my invitation to participate in some new thing that God is doing in New Zealand. And the vessel is some newer, larger church, via their conference, loaded with overseas speakers, who will bless me.

It's my second this week. Which got me fascinated by the motive and the desired end point.

Is it because other churches have done it, so it's sort of like a badge of honour, a mark of arrival?
Is it a marketing tool, hoping to raise the profile of their church?
Is it a recruitment device, luring other Christians who might then stay because the music is better?
Is it because God is more present in larger numbers and so in some spiritual way such events are useful?

I don't want this post to become a bagging of larger churches. Instead, I am genuinely curious as to why a church would put advertising money and energy into this type of thing. Any ideas?

emerging church as countercultural

Is the emerging church a sellout to current culture? I am addressing this question at a BCNZ forum next Thursday.

Today, as part of my research, I am surfing the web and scouring the literature, looking for examples of emerging church as countercultural, as swimming against postmodern tides, as offering prophetic critique to the whims and whimsy of our world.

If you know of any examples, I'd love to hear them.

Update: In response to helpful comments, here is my basic framework.
1 - some stories of cross-cultural sell-out
2 - what is emerging church
3 - the missiology of Luke 10:1-12
4 - encouragements to the emerging church from Luke 10:1-12
5 - challenges to the emerging church from Luke 10:1-12
6 - so, is the emerging church a sell-out ....?
(If you want the paper, let me know and I will see what happens to it post-delivery).

broken glass Pentecost prayer

Pentecost invites us outside the walls of the church. So as one small part of this year's Pentecost celebrations at Opawa, we offered an afternoon walk around our community, to visit sites of significance and hear their stories. We visited where the new motorway had cut a swathe in the 1970's, the first bridge in the 1880's, the historic local homestead, our school and a local community centre.

At the school, we heard the census data, that makes our community one of the poorest in the city. We were then asked to walk on, praying in silence.

We walked across the play ground. A broken bottle had been smashed and one by one, the group bent down to pick up the pieces.

Silently. And then carry the pieces in our hands back to rubbish bins at the church. Silently.

I think I saw the Kingdom. The people of God praying by picking up the broken glass in our community. In anger at such stupidity. In practical expression of God's Kingdom come in our school playground as it is in heaven.

It's a Pentecost moment I will never forget and there is no other place and no other community and alongside no other people I would have rather been than today at 5:15 pm on a bitter, rainswept Christchurch afternoon.

disturb us O Pentecost Spirit

This week is Pentecost Sunday. In Acts 2 we find the story of the first Pentecost. It is the story of a group of dispirited and scared Jesus followers. Touched by the Spirit they find themselves disturbed. Such a disturbance becomes a profound reorientation, as they find themselves outdoors, in God’s mission outside the church walls.

As a church, we celebrate both these dimensions over the next weeks. Our worship space has been disturbed – both in the Pentecost art installation and in the new screens making a new front. It is part of a month long experiment. In the disturbance of these physical changes, we are invited, like the first followers of Jesus, to let God to profoundly reorientate us.

Spirit as fire, as gaunt, twisted willow; touching coloured houses; connecting with God's world, and

Spirit as fire, as gaunt, twisted willow; touching coloured houses; inviting your move; a jump toward black, or toward white?

In addition, we are providing 3 ways to make this reorientation practical:

1 - Join us at 4 pm this Sunday either for a seminar on Mission trends in the 21st century OR to Prayerfully walk and listen among our community.

2 – Join us at 7 pm this Sunday for a prayer concert, an evening of song and prayer for God's mission, led by Jamie Wood, from Pioneers Mission agency.

3 – Takehome a self-denial globe as a practical way of considering your place in God's mission outside the church walls. This will then become the focus of our 7pm evening services, Grow through Colliding Worlds, on May 18 and 25.

discipling today

Email from a pastor: I have been thinking quite a bit about discipleship in the church. The question that is in my mind is this. How do we do discipleship in the 21st century and in a missional context. I grew up as a Christian where discipleship was done in a formal group setring and it is all about how I should live a life that is opposite to the world. But I realise that if we are to resource people to be salt and light in the community, I would need to rethink discipleship and to look at how we can disciple people in the context of missions. I was interested in hearing about the preaching series you did at Opawa where you focused on behaviour and you gave out little information cards for people to reflect on and apply.

2. Could you tell me more about the preaching series you did? What were the
topics and could you send me the outlines of what you did and a set of those
information cards you gave out?

I thought there might be other's interested, so have decided to post my email response, as follows .......

Excellent question. It's a process/environment issue not a program issue, but that is not always helpful, so here are some concrete ways that we express our discipling:

1 - individuate with growth coaching - we have developed 1-1 whole of life coaching that allows us to start where people are at and walk alongside them relationally. It was joy to sit with our Growth coaches last nite and hear stories of lives changed. Lots of work has gone into this and a good place to start is here and follow the links.

2 - offer frameworks in regular weekly, evening block courses during term time eg Work/life balance, How to read Bible. These allow us to add concrete input into our seekers. So at the moment, we have quite a number of people new to the church, seeking God and bringing very little Bible knowledge. So short term courses allow foundations to be laid.

3 - shift from talk to walk, in our 7 practices of faith For more on this go here, for what is a mix of input, takeaway practices and return storytelling. It started life as a Lent series and we are now seeking to use them as a sort of introduction to discipling and membership, to give us a common vocab around a life lived Christianly.

4 - create accountable community in our God at work group - this might be a bit out there, but it is a process designed to focus people as salt and light in workplaces. It took a lot of foundation laying but the result is here . The group has been meeting now for over 18 months, quietly running themselves. They took our service on Sunday and it was magic to here them talk about God in their workplaces and the salt/light benefits gained by them meeting monthly around simple practices.

All this is the results of lots of trial and error. No formulaes or programmes, simply having a go.

worship and new zealand music month

To celebrate New Zealand music month, I posted a short review of 5 Kiwi albums released in the last year. It has occurred to me since that each of the 5 albums have been incorporated in various shapes and forms into worship here at Opawa Baptist. For those what are interested in worship as "all that we are responding to all that God is" (superb definition from John Drane), here is how:

Salmonella Dub's Heal Me has a track titled "Seeds" We used it to as part of Grow through gardening, over 3 weeks. We had a hanging basket. Everyone got given a "flower" laminated, on which they wrote their name and planted themselves in the hanging basket. It served as a call to worship. It became for me a very spiritual moment to hold that basket and then pray for those gathered to worship that evening, that they would grow.

Two albums; Tiki Tane, and Little Bushmen start with a track using traditional Maori instruments. We have used these tracks in recent weeks in our morning service as a call to worship, followed by this prayer:
We gather at a place on which many have gone before. Thanks for land on which we gather. Thanks generations worshipped in this church. Thanks for those who have shaped our faith, mentored and encouraged us. May our acts of worship continue your work of shaping generations for ministry in our world today. Amen

SJD's album has a funky track titled Jesus, full of questions about the place of Jesus in our world today. We used it in our Grow through searching for the real Jesus. The service includes a time in table groups, in which people discuss together - as we listened tonite, what did questions would we like to ask Jesus if he was sitting beside us; and as we listened tonite, what words would we use to describe Jesus. The song "Jesus" made for a helpful soundscape as people talked in groups. What people discussed is then collected up, and placed on the Grow service website.

And, as for my top album, Into the Dojo, by the Blackseeds. Well they have a track titled "One by One." With lyrics like "Come on and take me up, one by one" and being a song filled with up-beats, well, it's a great song for during the offering! With a smile of course.

So there you are. Five examples of using songs in worship, honouring that pathway, as a layer allowing, "all that we are - even our contemporary musical life - responding to all that God is - alive in Aotearoa New Zealand today."