sustain:if:able kiwi

lifeshapes for discipleship: updated

In the last few months of last year, I discovered Mike Breen’s The Passionate Church and the use of lifeshapes. There are 8 of them, things like semicircles for work/life balance, circles for discipleship, triangles for purpose, hexagons for prayer. (More resources here).

Mike had given me a copy of the book in Los Angeles in 2006. I’d said thanks, but never read it. Browsing my bookshelf last year, I re-found the book and a number of things clicked. I shared one lifeshape at church that Sunday, using the semi-circle and the need for work/life balance in a pendulum to frame my sabbatical. I was surprised by how widespread across the church the positive feedback was, connecting with people new and old in the faith. So I preached the triangle – a Christian life going up to God, in to people and out to the world – and again got widespread positive feedback.

The upshot is that we’re experimenting with the lifeshapes as a discipleship course. Starting this Wednesday evening, for the next 8 weeks, we’re using a shape a week to reflect on the art of life-changing discipleship. We hope to provide it as post-Alpha next step while also a learning experience for any in the church.

What I like is that the shapes are visual, they are something people see. (We’ve got shapes hanging around church and in the foyer). The shapes are also practical, they provide a way to life and seem appreciated no matter what stage of people’s journey. (Which makes sense, since discipleship is lifelong, not at the beginning). So in terms of learning styles, it engages visual and tactile learners, while much discipleship stuff is more focused on learners who read and talk. What this means is that discipleship is being framed fundamentally not as stuff you need to know, but discipleship as living life to the full.

So, the nervous wait begins. We’ve discerned energy and in response have prayed, advertised and invited and now we wait for kick-off … Update: One of the best opening nites I’ve been part of. Partly based on those in the room – thoughtful, honest. But again based on the material. There is this uncanny ability to talk to a huge breadth of human experience, making an excellent conversation starters and there is Biblical and theological depth (and I can’t say that about a lot of discipleship stuff I see). On nites like this, I remember why I wanted to be a minister – to engage life and the Bible with real people across the diversity of life’s spectrum.

a non-Christian lords prayer

“How come there are so many flash churches in our poorest city suburbs? That’s my problem with Christian religion.”

I sat with a stranger at Auckland Airport yesterday. He’s not a church goer and he told me why. Growing up in Mangere, one of Auckland’s poorest suburbs, he could walk past 10 flash churches in the space of two minutes. All these big and beautiful churches, and slowly, as he grew, he connected what he saw with all the people he knew, struggling financially in the streets around him.

What’s flash churches got to do with God? Are flash churches keeping people poor? Why isn’t faith changing this suburb?

What’s kept me pondering the conversation is this uneasy sense that I actually heard the Lord’s prayer being prayed. Amid the blare of TV and the boarding calls, I think I heard a plea that God’s will be done, God’s Kingdom come, on earth as it should be in heaven. A cry that the poor would see justice and a suburb changed.

Sort of ironic when that prayer emerges with such clarity in a busy airport from a religious sceptic.

the fine art of mediation

I’ve spend the last three days learning about Mediation. Hosted by Resolve, and led by David Newton one of Australia’s top mediators. He’s done over 1000 cases, so had an amazing breadth of experience and life skill to pass on.

Long days, 8:30-6 pm. So practical, with opportunity to actually mediate and negotiate our way through a range of “real life” situations – redundancy payouts, construction dispute, parents meeting to repair the damage of a child badly hurt in an accident, marriage breakups, medical ethics.

What a breath of fresh air – to watch someone else teach, to be offered a range of skills that work in so many areas of life (parenting to lecturing, being married).

What was particularly refreshing was to be in what was for me a very gospel environment, yet one that so rarely discussed church. (Although David did suggest that the most difficult places to mediate in, from his experience, where religious communities. Him and I had a long lunch chat about that, and he began to see a different side of church as I talked about the linkages between change, life, health and conflict as essential in a positive way.)

So often I am part of conversations about how to change church, wheras this was about how to restore, how to speak truth, how to enhance compassion for the other – all deeply gospel and deeply part of church. But great to come at them from such a different angle.

It reminds me of the story of Ruth. In Ruth 2:12, Boaz prays a blessing on her: “May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” Then in chapter 3, Ruth goes to see Baoz, asking him to spread his cloak over her. The word she uses (kanaph) is exactly the same word as is translated “wings” in chapter 2. I wonder if Ruth is challenging Boaz to ground his theology. He can pray good prayers and speak fine words. But she is still hungry and so is her mother-in-law. Will Boaz make his prayer practical, actual do something and live different. Or will he just keep praying fine words. That is the challenge of mediation for the church, to actually put legs on faith and make reconciliation not just a prayer word, but an action word.

auckland to learn not to speak

Yah. I’m off for 3 days of professional development in Auckland. I am embarking on a Mediation course, taught by David Newton, who is one of Australia’s most experienced mediators.

Resolving conflict has been an increasingly important part of my ministry in recent years, whether it’s working with marriages, among families and in churches. I don’t see that as negative, since reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel. Healthy things grow and that inevitably brings the need of change and resolution. So when I saw this course advertised, I know that although I didn’t have the time, but I needed to make it a priority.

3 days to be a student, to sit and watch and grow. Yah!

mission, change, leadership course in Christchurch

After taking my Missional Church Leadership course on the road, to Auckand, Hamilton and Adelaide, in the last year or two, it is being offered back in Christchurch this year (2009).

The course mixes lecture input, reading with on-line engagement and practical projects based on one’s ministry context. Because it is monthly and because so much is on-line, I have had students travel for up to 5 hours to attend, so if you are anywhere in the South Island, don’t dismiss it immediately! 🙂

My ideal is to have a mix of denominations, mix of people in ministry and students and a mix of pioneers and established church ministers. Steve Graham, Dean of the College, just mentioned that the course was consistently mentioned in exiting student feedback as the one that joined lots of ministry dots for them, so that was encouraging.

Practically, it is on Thursday’s, 9:15 am-12:15 pm (5 March; 2 April; 7 May; 4 June; 23 July; 13 August; 3 September; 8 October; 29 October)

More info here (more…)

transformation and the atonement

“A butterfly is not a caterpillar with wings on.” So commented the worship leader today after I had preached on Romans 12:1-2. The Greek root word, for the English “be transformed” in Romans 12:2 is “metamorphosis”. So I concluded my sermon with a video clip of a metamorphosis, a monarch butterfly hatching. No music, just some space to reflect and wonder.

And then up popped our worship leader with his insight: “A butterfly is not a caterpillar with wings on.” He continued, “While that was my early impression of Christianity, I was wrong.”

It was a comment which I have continued to ponder in terms of the impact of the atonement, of how we speak of the death of Jesus and it’s effect on our images of Christianity.

The substitutionary doctrine of the atonement has been the dominant way (recently) that Christians have explained Jesus. I often hear Christianity offered as the blood of Jesus washing my sins away. This means that being a Christian means being washed by saying sorry for sin. This is then followed by a set of behaviours needing to be adopted – not smoking or swearing, instead coming to church and sharing our faith. It doesn’t take much for that to be heard as a caterpillar, washed a bit, and some pretty behaviour wings attached.

In working with the text in Romans over last few weeks, I have been struck not by the blood language, but by the “in Christ” language. In Romans 6 we are “alive to God in Jesus Christ.” In Romans 8 the “Spirit lives in you.” This is not an external washing, but an inward transformation. This is not a new set of behaviours, but a new heart. Through entry into faith and through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, we are metamorphosised.

“In reality, a caterpillar actually has to return to their cellular level in order to remerge as something new” concluded our worship leader. That’s metamorphosis. That’s being “in Christ.” That’s a much more profound way of imaging Christ than a washing of hands before dinner.

I know it’s not either/or. But since one (the blood) has been dominant, surely it’s now worth seeking a more enriched diet, one that so beautifully explains the metamorphosis of Romans 12:2?

groove armada new album free download

Groove Armada‘s new EP is out. What’s more, until March, it’s a free download from bliveshare.com, a new experiment in digital sharing. For Andy Cato, “Sharing music has always gone on. It’s giving music away that’s the problem. We wanted to come up with a 21st century version of what we used to do with cassette tapes. When you give music away for free it’s disposable. When you share it, it’s done with love.”

Here’s the “sharing” deal – click below and you also get to download the EP. What’s more – the more that click through from this blog, the more of the EP tracks I get to download. I share the linking luv with you, I get some luv shared back.

Waitangi Day 2009: updated as synchroblog shapes up

(part of Waitangi Day 2009 synchroblog: synchrobloggers include …. Paul Fromont : Steve Taylor : Lynne Taylor : Mark Nichols : Stu McGregor …. (if you have blogged on being Kiwi, being Christian as part of Waitangi Day 2009, let me know and we can share the linking luv.)

I grew up in Papua New Guinea. It was by and large a great childhood, filled with mostly great memories. And a few not so good, including once being stoned. I and some expatriate friends were walking home one day, a walk of about 45 minutes in length, along a dirt road, with grass banks on either side. As we started, we noticed some local Papua New Guinean’s following us, walking above us on the grass banks. They started yelling, and gesturing. It didn’t feel very pleasant and we started to walk faster. So did they. Suddenly a stone started whistling through the air. And we ran. Chased down the road, a group of kids, chased by another group of kids, throwing stones.

Childplay? I suspect it actually was more like an early experience of bad race relations, and that I was a victim of “white man go home.” Which was hard to take as a kid, with very little choice about the actions of their parents.

One of the things I admire about Barak Obama is his appeal to a “better history.” Rather than focus on what divides, there is this ability to speak to hope, to the future, and to the best in us as humans. I wonder what Obama-speak means for New Zealand on Waitangi Day. I wonder what it means to speak to hope and future and the best of Maori and Pakeha.

One of the spiritual disciplines I have found useful in the last few years is appreciative inquiry. It involves asking people and groups to describe when they were at their best. Often out of those stories, come the values that take people into a new future. I think Paul the Apostle does this in the Bible, starting each of his letters with very specific thanks for the unique community he is writing to. The themes he introduces in the thanksgiving then shape the rest of the letter, and his ethical call to live differently. Practically for me, this has meant looking for the best in people and giving very specific thanks for that. I’ve seen it change people and situations.

I think that’s what Obama has done in USA. He’s practised a form of appreciate inquiry, sought to speak to the best of a nation’s past, and in doing so, uncover values which take a nation forward. This has the danger of white-washing the past, but the appeal of allowing shared values to inform the call to live differently.

Sometimes discussion between Maori and Pakeha takes me back to my childhood experience in Papua New Guinea. I hear yelling and sense the whistle of stones and groups retreated in monocultural huddles, to nurse their wounds among their own crowd. It might be that I simply need to get over my childhood. Or is that we need another approach, that of Obama and appreciative inquiry.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been part of conversations in which words like “coloniser” have been used. It felt like I was back with someone throwing stones, being blamed for the actions of my forbears. Equally when I hear Pakeha talk about the “Treaty industry” I again have this sense of stones being thrown.

So, in 2009, I want to say thanks: specifically,
– for the Maori language week and the beauty of Te Reo on our national news
– for the Waitangi Tribunal and their search for clear, open, informed truth
– for the Anglican three tikanga system which gives voice and diversity
– for the 2008 albums by Tiki Tane and Paddy Free which place Maori chants on our radio waves

and in doing so, I am hoping to live into a “better history” in which the stones that are the blame game are put down and an ever growing honesty and diversity shape the New Zealand story. I’d like this for my church and my family and the way I interact in public and in the internet.

cartoon yourself

very cool site

would you trust this man with your church?

or your student’s theological education?

celebrating the city

(Art by Olivia Chamberlain, used with permission)

I spoke at Celebrating the City last night. It’s an excellent initiative by Oxford Terrace Baptist, here in central city Christchurch. Four Wednesday evening lectures (February (4, 11, 18, 25) with four different speakers exploring city themes. An excellent initiative for an central city church to be taking and I really like the fact that speakers will include our local Mayor (February 11), and the sense that this is not just a church conversation.

My task was to kick off the series reflecting on the Bible and the city. The argument I made was that most of our images surrounding spirituality and prayer are rural. I took a visual flip through Christian posters and the front covers of books on prayer and how often God is imaging to us in the outdoors and the isolated and the “natural” landscapes. I suggested this makes it hard to celebrate the city, because we have lost our capacity to find God in people and in complexity and in human creation and offered some suggestions for ways forward.

Preparing was an interesting personal journey for me. I used to teach a course on Urban mission, back in 2001 and 2. So it was bit of a historical foray digging up old notes. I found things like 3.5 in disks. And colour overhead transparencies! Remember those? I remembering feeling so pleased, back in 2002, scanning images on the computer, then getting colour onto acetate transparencies.

Just seven years later, and for this lecture I was downloading and embedding video clips, with sound, all inserted into my keynote presentation. Technology is moving so fast and is just one more complexity of living today.

I was also interested in how my own thinking had progressed over the years. Recent sermons on Deuteronomy and Ruth and the minor prophets were inserted in the theme of the city in the Bible. Video clips I am currently using in my missional church speaking seem to flow really well. In other words, I had this sense of remaining true to what I used to teach, yet still growing, refreshing, deepening.

I thought it was good night. Attendance seemed to exceed expectations. A good mix of people and I heard some great stories afterward. I even got to meet one of my silent blog readers, on holiday from Rotorua (!). “We came from Rotorua to hear you” and laughter all around 🙂 So today is a shout out to my silent blog readers. Thanks for being around, even if I don’t know you :).

back. i hope

I’m back. The last 3 weeks I’ve been on holiday, and this week I drag my feet back through the doors marked “work.” It has been a great holiday: a week in Marlborough sounds, kayaking, eating well, visiting wineries and the fabulous Kaikoura Coast on the way there and back.

Followed by 4 days in the New Zealand high country; driving the historic Molesworth Station and taking the girls tramping, their first ever mountain hut experience.

Back to Christchurch to enjoy great live Kiwi music at Sounday, then to our family bach. It was a great holiday – active and heaps of memories together.

Last year was a very unsettled year – sabbatical which was fun and productive – wrote near 70,000 words, spoke in a range of places, completed 1 book chapter, 2 successful conference application – but took a lot of time to get into and out of. Then there was the redundancy/reapplication process at Laidlaw, coupled with three staff moving on from Opawa. All in all, a year I am glad to close the door on.

I come back with dreams of a more sustainable lifestyle etc. Then I look at my calendar and I realise that I’m fooling myself. As long as I continue to be tri-vocational – juggling pastoring and lecturing and speaking, as long as I continue to refuse to accept that church is for maintaining the status quo Sunday by Sunday, as long as I continue to dream and think, then my life will be busy.

And I think I’m OK with that.

questions I’m searching for answers too

0. Spiritual formation in our world today
– How do themes of “journey and discovery” fit with the realities of life today?
– How do we foster life processes when church is shaped around a regular gathering? And when people are at such a range of stages and places, from no-faith to set-in-faith?

1. Emerging church and indigenous non-Western voices

– How do groups find enough space to find their own unique voice again?
– Can a culture find their own voice in isolation, or must their be wider conversation to find full identity?
– How to have mutual conversations when the history has been of powerlessness?
– What habits might I bring to the table that might in fact simply continue oppression (and is the very fact I am engaging with the issue actually in fact a continuation of marginalisation)?
– And finally, why, if this is about full-participation, are there only men on this video?

2. Time and focus
– How do I find time to attend to my own passions and life gifts, when there are so many worthy causes to engage with in our world today? (more…)

waitangi day 2009 synchroblog

Anyone interested in joining in a Waitangi Day Synchroblog?

Over the last few years, I have taken Waitangi Day as an opportunity on my blog to reflect on various dimensions of being Kiwi and being Christianity (2006, 2007 and 2008 ). I’ve found it a worthwhile exercise and thought it would be fun to create a Waitangi Day Synchroblog (an invite for any and all to blog on a shared theme).

So this is an invite to any and all Kiwis to join me: and reflect together on February 6, 2009, on what it means to be Kiwi and be Christian. Any angle, any perspective, any media welcome.

If you want in, just say so and leave your URL. I will then produce a list of all participants so everyone can link to everyone else on Waitangi Day. (Feel free to pass this on to others in your networks you know who may be interested. OE Kiwis welcome too.)

credible witness book review, michael leunig and australia synchroblog

It’s a day late, but this is my contribution to the Australia Day synchroblog. I realise I’m not a fair dinkum Aussie, but 10 weeks in Adelaide last year are my claim to participation! Plus the fact I’m really appreciating Credible Witness by Australian Darren Cronshaw (published by Urban Neighbours of Hope in 2006).

It’s an excellent missional resource. It takes Australian context seriously. It asks what the Spirit might have already been doing in that place. In the case of Credible Witness, it trawls Australian history and the place of chaplaincy, of shepherds, of advocates for the marginalised, of servants and of generous hosts. What I love is how it refuses to stay with history, but suggests contemporary expressions of these images. One example is the suggestion that cartoonist Michael Leunig is in fact a contemporary spiritual guide and thus a model for what it might mean to be missional in Australia today.

Here’s my favourite Leunig prayer and it’s my prayer for myself and for Australia on Australia Day 2009.
God help us to change. To change ourselves and to change the world. To know the need of it. To deal with the pain of it. To feel the joy of it. To undertake the journey without understanding the destination. The art of gentle revolution. Amen. (Michael Leunig, When I Talk to You: A Cartoonist Talks to God, Harper Collins).

Credible Witness is a great example of what missional means: taking seriously the already work of God in the world and asking what it might mean for everyday and ordinary people to participate in that work. Well done Darren.

Other synchrobloggers are: Ben Wheatley on Australia; Les Chatwin on Some People are Never Happy; Fernando Gros on Australian Days; Brunette Koala on Spirituality in Australia; Matt Stone on Spirit of Australia; Heather on Together.