sustain:if:able kiwi

u2 conference: keynote Matt McGee @ u2.com

U2 online: “They could be doing better” says Matt McGee. (more…)

u2 concert: raleigh review

was fantastic. (and not just me – see this review “Amazing. Brilliant. Electric” – here).

apart from the over officious security man who demanded to see my ticket, turning a “beautiful day” into a “stuck in a moment.”

the size of the claw is breathaking
the vision that can make an iron stage a thing of aching beauty stunning

American football stadiums are much more intimate than Kiwi/Australian football grounds, allowing a whole new level of crowd singing/engagement.

should U2 go down in history not as a great band, but as rock visionaries who reinvented (a number of times) the live concert going performances?

Oh, the U2 conference got a mention at the concert, and the “organisation” (band) apparently are very impressed with the calibre of the conference and did shape the concert last night in dialogue with some of the conference themes!!

The songs were as follows (more…)

wordle: u2 bullet blue sky evolving performance

Hat tip Tim Neufeld. Here’s my U2 conference paper visually.

U2 conference: keynote Jim Henke Rock n Roll Hall of fame

I was trying to get them on the cover of Rolling Stone – Jim Henke.

This is a video produced especially for the conference, reflecting with Jim Henke, from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, on U2’s 30 years and why they are still with us: genuine, continued to grow musically and were addressing real issues. (more…)

U2 conference: Whither the spiritual? Reviews of NLOTH

Faith plays a role in U2’s music. So what do mainstream reviewers think of NLOTH? Do they see spiritual? (more…)

u2 conference: Until end of world, finding Jesus in music of U2

Easy to find Jesus in U2’s music. But what is the nuance?

U2’s Jesus does not promote dark apocalytpicism, but hopeful optimism for encountering heaven on earth. This eschatological Jesus propels them into social action. With three strands:
– New life extended to human king thru death
– New life is a hopeful vision of future
– New life is real earthly vision of Kingdom of God following Jesus example. (more…)

u2 conference: Bono, Nick Cave on Jesus

I don’t believe in an interventionist God – Nick Cave. How does Christ figure in the two artists – Bono and Cave? (more…)

u2 conference: keynote Anthony Decurtis

“Welcome to planet earth. There is so much for you to do.” Bono

“The job of artists is to help us understand our time.” Decurtis. (more…)

made it: updated

24 hours of flying. a few unexpected moments, but sailed through LAX inside my 55 minute transfer.

exhausted. shower and bed, here I come.

But first: fresh fruit and muffins procurred from local supermarket (always cheaper than hotel and in case jetlagged person has munchies at midnight). And a Starbucks to confirm this really is America.

the evolving performance of Bullet the Blue Sky: U2 paper to speak

Just finalised my paper for the U2 conference. Huge relief to have it done, leaving the flight to work on the powerpoint. Just for fun, here is one of the sections. It is the 6th section, of 7, titled:

Installation: an art by any other name

“it was the total experience of a U2 set that counted.” (U2: The Early Days).

Having used narrative mapping to analyse key features of the evolving live performance of (Bullet the Blue sky) BBS, one way to consider the data is through the lens of installation art.

A key element in installation art is what De Oliveria calls the “unexpected awakenings of communal memory.” (Installation Art in the New Millennium: The Empire of the Senses) With specific reference to BBS, U2 are employing samples – the blindfold (Vertigo), the fighter planes (Vertigo), the lyrics from When Jonny Comes Marching home (Vertigo) or the chant from Irish singer, Sinead O’Connor (Go Home), the sampling of their own songs (Vertigo) – the collage-like re-appropriating of already existing elements in the pursuit of creativity – to awaken communal memory. They are engaging a shared “desire for immersion in a communal activity with repetitive conditions.” (Installation Art in the New Millennium)

Installation Art in the New Millennium et al describe the “strategies of de-familiarization”, the deliberate attempt in installations to create another world. With specific reference to U2, lighting director Bruce Ramos, describes his work as shifting people from their head to their bodies: “I take them out of their heads and into their bodies and hold them there for their concert.”

This is not escapism. Rather it can be framed as what Installation Art in the New Millennium et al name as a key dynamic in club culture – an experiential space that is introspective, immersive and social; a “viewing of the self contemplating the external world.” This surely is what is happening as communal memory is awakened in the evolving performances of BBS: the self can lament at the external world (Paris), the self can confess (Go home) and the self can both confess and petition (Vertigo).

An outcome is that in a culture which “mourns the loss of public space” a concert is one of few “public space experience” left in our culture. (Installation Art in the New Millennium)

What seems to be happening is a sort of humanisation. Through the evolving live performance of BBS, war is no longer a disembodied experience in El Salvador or Iraq. It is what happens to “those brave men and women of United States,” the “sister or a brother overseas and they’re in danger or whatever.”

Thus my argument is that the lens of installation art enables us to appreciate the evolving live concert performances of BBS. A song grounded in a specific context, through the practice of installation art and the technique of sampling, becomes a facilitator of communal awakening.

Select bibliography:
U2 by U2
U2 Show: The Art of Touring
Joshua Tree (Remastered / Expanded) (Super Deluxe Edition) (2CD/DVD)
U2: An Irish Phenomenon
Bono on Bono

I’ve found grace inside the sound: a benediction of incarnation

“I found grace inside the sound,
I found grace, it’s all that I found”
Breathe, from U2’s NLOTH album.

This works for me today as a benediction of Incarnation. Bono has made his career from “sound,” living inside the rock world all his adult. While initially warned to avoid “the secular world” of rockmusic, while enduring scorn and criticism for his actions over the years, here he sings of finding grace inside that “sound”. Unexpected favour. That is my prayer today: that in the midst of my life, my uncertainties, my insecurities, in my taking decisions to follow Jesus, grace is what I found.

There is a strong personal note to this blogpost. It’s now my 7th day on the road and I’m missing home. My three speaking engagements have been enjoyable, fulfilling and gone well, but have all been demanding and nervewracking. Today I begin my odyssey/long weekend road trip to the US for the U2 conference and concert. All exciting, but it will involve about 40 hours of flying and 10 airport connections. I have 55 minutes in Los Angeles and I will be lucky to make the connection. Yesterday I had 5 appointments, meeting key people in relation to my new job. I came away excited, but also quite daunted by the processes of change I am stepping into. In the last days I’ve had visits to 4 schools and phoned 2 more, keen to find supportive learning environments for my two “migrant” daughters next year. I’ve started to look at home and rentals and simply been overwhelmed by the choices facing us and the complexity of unknowns we as a family face. I’ve started to doubt the wisdom of our decisions. In other words, I’m needing today to be placing my hope in finding grace, inside the sound of US travel and Adelaide migration, and at a whole range of personal and ministry levels.

Rather than fret, I need to, as Breathe begins:
Walk out into the street,
Sing your heart out.

PS. I actually hate Breathe as a song. Love the lyrics, don’t like the tune.

For more U2 NLOTH reflections see here and here.

getting excited

Today I will walk past this letterbox.

Tucked in behind Tabor College, where I will speak on Discerning the emerging church in the afternoon. Then in the evening I will speak on Picturing Christian Witness at Coromandel Uniting.

But first I will walk past this letterbox. It was shown to me last year by Mark Stevens and lies on the way to the funky Brown Dog cafe.

At this letter box, I will pause. And give thanks for creativity and spirituality and culture. And count down the hours until.

Discerning the emerging church

I have just playing around with what I might say on Tuesday at Tabor College. I am due to give a 2 hour seminar, titled Discerning the emerging. The audience is meant to be a mix of under-grad and post-grad. So it needs to be simple, yet have some intellectual depth. A free night after a relaxed weekend has allowed me to pull together quite a few threads on my hard drive, which will ensure an all new, “fresh bread” presentation.

Here is my current working outline

1. Defining the emerging: some humour, some definitions.
2. Discerning the emerging in history: Acts 5, Acts 15 and an overview of the insights from The Holy Spirit in the World: A Global Conversation
3. Carson’s duality of truth from experience in Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications
4. John Drane’s marks of maturity: old and new.
5. LeRon Schults reforming ecclesiology: the emerging as one, holy, catholic and apostolic church
6. Post-colonial mission: Luke 10:1-12 and an overview of An Introduction to the Study of Luke-Acts
7. Conclusion: Discerning is a gift, which we can nourish by working on our skills. Part of this working at our discerning skills is becoming aware of the methods of others – their strengths, their weaknesses. It is fascinating to see the development in the last few years of a range of approaches to discerning the emerging church. We need these resources, for discerning is an essential Christian discipline.

we go to a new land downunder

“change or newness is most likely to come from having people work at both the centre and the edge” Jonny Baker.

Which serves to introduce a pretty big move for the Taylor family. Over the last days we have been announcing to church, jobs and school that we are moving to Adelaide, Australia at the start of 2010 to take up a role as Director of Missiology at Uniting College.

Organisationally, I am intrigued by their desire to make a clear focus on developing leaders for a missional church, and feel that my experiences and training might add strength to that. I like their suite of teaching: under-grad and post-grad; lay and ecclesial; distance and on-site. I am fascinated by the way they are seeking to make context their primary forming place (cf the classroom). I’d like to explore the possibilities of what could happen when the seminary of a mainline church places mission not as an extra or an addon, but at the centre of it’s intention.

At a personal level, the job offers me more time to write. It continues my lecturing focus and my leading focus, building a team of lecturers. It offers some new leadership stretch, including working on a personal dream, of gathering critical reflection around missional experiments (hopefully through post-grad offerings). There is encouragement to continue in congregational ministry, but that would need to be as part of a team, not as the primary can-carrier.

At an emotional level, it’s a big change and we’re all pretty nervous. But it’s very much been a family decision. We were very comfortable, very settled, loving our current life. But at Pentecost I preached on God as a God of surprise and that week took a call, asking me to consider the role. As we’ve prayed together as a family, there was an overwhelming sense that we need to trust (again) the God who has given us such good friends and church here in New Zealand.

Our “Opawa” announcement letter is here and includes more of our discernment process, including our kids participation. Everyone at Opawa has been so gracious and caring. However it is fair to say we are all pretty disappointed, because we as a church are in the midst of such a good season. So we are all pushed back to trust God.

So if you’re the praying kind – Taylor’s need to find a house, 2 new schools and move our lives across the Tasman sea. We also need to find a church community, ideally something nourishing for our kids, yet also something that lets Lynne and I play, cos we’re both keen to be part of (not carry the can for) a team in a missional context. Lynne will need to find a job once the children are settled. And Uniting
College/denomination need to get used to a Kiwi baptist. Our extended families need God’s love and assurance. That’s lots to pray.