sustain:if:able kiwi

Grow one week old

kicked off on Sunday evening. Excellent start, real buzz around the place, new faces, and faces we had not seen for a while.

It’s only week one, so it’s too early to evaluate. What we are trying to do is to offer a whole variety of angles on a topic. So for 3 weeks it is Grow through gardening and on the first week we played a scene from the movie Over the Hedge where the animals meet “the hedge”. We then offered a history of gardens in ancient times. We guessed who owned a number of Opawa gardens. We interviewed a flower grower. We explored why the Bible starts with a garden.

We then invite people to process together. The set up is in table groups. As someone said, you have created collectives, not rows. To get people talking we are trying 3 basic questions – as you listened who is God? who are humans? how then should we live? We hope these will provide an ongoing framework.

We encourage people to write up their exploration and they are then placed on the web. We hope this encourages people that their learning is being taken seriously and they can see what they, and other’s wrote, over the week. The first responses, are, IMHO, quite encouraging.

There are other bits built into Grow (gathering ritual, new approach to offering, response, take home projects), but I’ve explained enough for now. We are simply following our intuition – that people learn in different ways and asking the question – how can church can be a better learning/forming environment.

leadership-in-community

Question: How do I cultivate [a] conversation of imagination and hope rooted in the biblical narratives, without manipulating people into a pre-arranged plan? How do I invite people in when I have been thinking about this for several years and they may only be at the beginning?

Response: This is a recurring challenge for all leaders (whether missional or emerging). Our models of leadership are often take change, I know best. We’ve seen the way that experts take power away from communities. We don’t want that.

Yet equally, we are gifted. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” It is dishonest to us and to a process to deny our gifts and insights.

I wonder if a way forward is then to ask ourself: what were the key stories, insights and questions that shaped my journey? In other words, not what are my answers, but what were my questions.

And then use the questions with others. In other words, think about what shaped you, and then invite others to be shaped by those processes. Out of that shared learning comes leadership-in-community. This is a different type of leadership, that lies in contrast to the “what you need to do is ….” style of leadership.

As part of this type of leadership, it can be also helpful to reflect on how we all learn differently. You might be a book learner, while others might be more hands on. So this type of leadership-in-community involves thinking about the different ways people can gain insights. (For more on this, see my post about building onramps here). So in my missional leadership coaching clusters, I am exploring using doing, hearing, watching, thinking. Offering a whole different range of access points.

Christmas Journey of Peace

Latimer Square has a reputation as a more seedy part of Christchurch. It is a central city park that needs light and invites prayer that all of humankind will indeed find Christmas peace.

This Christmas, visitors to Latimer Square will encounter a 24 hour night light in the form of an outdoor Peace Labyrinth. The aim is to provide a still point in the midst of the busy Christmas season.

The Peace Labyrinth will consist of 700 straw hay bales, arranged in the pattern of a labyrinth, an ancient practice which invites one to find peace as they walk a guided journey, during which they encounter various stations focused on themes including peace at home, at work, in the environment and with God. A stable at the centre of the Labyrinth will proclaim the centrality that is found in the Light of the world.

The Peace Labyrinth is a continuation of the ministry of conceptual artists Pete and Joyce Majendie, in partnership with Opawa Baptist, Christchurch City Council and other local churches.

Their outdoor Christmas art installations have been the Majendie’s Christmas gift to the city of Christchurch for the last ten years. In the last three years they have moved location from Opawa Baptist into the central city, enabling them to reach far more people. Over 8,000 people visited their Christmas Journey, located in Christchurch Square, in 2005.

The Majendie’s ministry is based on using interactive art stations. Such forms of mission are essential in a culture in which so much contemporary communication is visual and participatory. A refugee station invites people to sit in a boat and consider what one thing they would take with them if they had to flee as a refugee to Egypt. A census station invites people to place a pin on a world map, indicating how far they had travelled to get to the Christmas journey. Rob Kilpatrick, then Director of tranzsend, upon seeing the world map in 2005, commented that the Christmas Journey was reaching more countries than the entire ministry of the tranzsend missionary society.

Thousands of “driftwood people” will be scattered around Christchurch shops and given to Christchurch schools. Made from driftwood, and fixed with two eyes, to look like people, they will come with a tag attached. “If you find me, please take me to the Peace Labyrinth.”

A website is being developed that will offer practical peace resources, including ways to bring peace into our relationships with family, work, creation and God. A promotional video, of the “driftwood people” moving from work and play toward Latimer Square, has been shot and finance is being sought to show this in local movie theatres.

In 2007, the Peace Labyrinth will be operating in Latimer Square from 7pm Friday 21st December continuously through to 9am Monday 24th December. All are welcome.

back into stoning the prophets

We are back into Stoning the prophets again. We took a week’s break last week, to give us all a breather, and today we’re at it again, hearing the prophet Nahum read aloud from start to end. (Ever heard the prophet Nahum read aloud in church? The Bible declares that all Scripture is inspired, but based on our usage, some Scripture is obviously more inspired than others!)

As part of each Stoning the prophets we invite everyone to pick up a stone from a pile in the centre and to reflect on what struck them. Participants are invited to name this and then throw their stone back on the pile. It is a very powerful moment as one by one rocks thud onto the pile.

Here are the verbal reflections on the prophet Micah:
– such a gloomy book
– such a poetic book
– the stone chosen was significant (white bit on top). Links with Lord of the Rings as a battle, like Micah battling wickedness, yet prophetic promise that God’s mountain will rise, like a white bit on top of a rock!
– Micah is seeing a whole picture – past, present and future of earth
– Doom and gloom, yet glimmers of light bursting forth.
– How can we today live Micah 6:8?
– stone is smoothed, shaped by life forces
– redemption in Micah occurs in dark places. What does it mean for us to seek redemption in dark places?
– redemption and grace casts sins into depths of sea

the work of God in place and space

in preparing to pray tomorrow, I started to reflect on how our church buildings have been used in the past week:

We take up our offering glad of good gifts,
glad of the actions of God through our work this week

And so O God of place and space,
in our giving, we are joining with your work in and about this church. Amen

If you found this prayer helpful, other prayers I have written for public worship are here

hello strange house

I sent Lynne out to a party last night and got to put the kids to bed. I realised this morning that it was the first time I had enjoyed an evening at home alone in 13 days straight. That was made up of Sunday evening services, 6 nights at wider Baptist family events, Parihaka evening, 2 church meetings, some one-on-one growth coaching and pre-marriage preparation. (And to claim this evening alone I still had to say no to 2 commitments.)

My current lifestyle makes me less than fully human. The introvert in me needs space alone. The rooted garden lover needs a home. The father of children needs the routine of bedtime baths.

Lynne and I were wondering yesterday about creating travel free months – blocking out months in the year when I simply refuse speaking invites as a way of preserving my humanity.

grow:ing

Lot of work on Grow (our new Sunday evening service) this week (For some history, see here). Here are two learnings:

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copyright request

It is really nice when people ask. Really nice. I wonder if it’s actually part of the way I operate, that verbal recognition is important to me. Anyhow, so there are 2 email’s overnight from the US, asking to use some of my stuff. The first is from an Episcopalian Canon Missioner requesting to use some of my powerpoint images in their work. And the second from a seminary requesting a blog post I wrote back in 2004 on Trinity and Mission for an online course: “Contemporary Culture in Missiological Perspective”. The blog post was from 2004 and was titled: trinity and mission.

Which made me click back to the post. It’s so 2004, but (IMHO) it is still a bit of honey. Here’s the conclusion: Thus talk about church and mission needs to be grounded in our understandings of God as Trinity. A “missional church” is not new, but a recovering of very ancient understandings, in which we live, we create, we emerge, as an outflow of the shared love of God. We seek to express fluid, whole-bodied, dynamic love. We honour the unity with other expressions of church, we applaud diversity, we celebrate uniquely grounded differences.

For full post go here. (Another “dusty” post includes Trinity as children’s talk using Rublev’s icon).

parihaka day

Today is November 5. Many Kiwi’s will be letting off gunpowder in celebration of Guy Fawkes Day.

The Taylor family will be remembering Parikaha Day, the deeds of November 5, 1881, when New Zealand soldiers invaded the village of Parihaka, in Taranaki, and were met by peaceful non-violent resistance. The village was destroyed, women raped and leaders imprisoned, in stark contrast to the ethos of Parihaka, which sought to live in harmony with land and humanity.

There’s an open invite for church folk to join us, bringing a dessert. (I preached on it a few Sunday’s ago, because it seemed to me that Parihaka was an exampe of the call of the prophet Micah to love mercy, seek justice and walk humbly before God). We will show an excerpt from the TV program The New Zealand Wars, read the history of Parihaka Day, light candles in memory of those who suffered and accept a feather of peace as a commitment to follow the One who said “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

I wonder what would happen in New Zealand if the entire Christian population boycotted Guy Fawkes Day and instead remembered Parihaka Day? Would that be a counter-cultural act that might stand against the whiff of Guy Fawkes gunpowder and elevate the importance of peaceful non-violence?

Updated:
Here is the relevant bit of the sermon I preached, download. And here is the worship aftermath, candles lit in memory of Parihaka.

digestion is dead

I killed our evening service tonight. It has been struggling all year, lacking focus, leadership and genuine engagement. Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies. So as the service ended I gave out handmade packets of seeds: titled “new beginnings”, with some information inserted. The soundtrack was “Seeds” from the new Salmonella Dub album with the lyric “Feel the season change.” Each handmade seed packet had a seed inside.

We had a group of teenagers being silly at the front. One of them, trying to be THE smartist, simply ate his seed. I hope his guts are OK tonite.

Next week we start Grow. Here is the blurb:
We learn in different ways. Some by watching, others by reading, more by hearing, less by writing. Grow aims to feed the whole person: mouths and minds, hands and hearts, eyes and ears.

7-8:10 pm, Sundays

So it’s a whole new season, with a whole new service to play with. Songs and sermon are gone. What will grow? What will be required to nurture the growth? Do I have the space to give this the time it needs and build the team it deserves? Watch this space.

atonement movie

Atonement = at-one-ment, the theological claim that in Christ, past and present and future are redeemed.

Atonement the movie is must see. Well acted, superb soundtrack, with wonderful moments of cimenatic beauty, and a intelligently complex plot. Theologically, the plot explores the complex realities of at-one-ment. Take the scene in which the adult Briony comforts the dying Frenchman. The red curtain against the white hospital ward is both artistic and theological profound.

Can you unravel the pain of the past?

Save this film for a Lenten movie series, alongside Lion, Witch, Wardrobe and Matrix. But you would want six movies for the six weeks of Lent. So what would be your other three movies?

david beckham and a faith amid celebrity culture

These are notes to guide a recent radio spot, reflecting on what it means to be Christian in today’s celebrity culture.

Good morning listeners. According to the radio yesterday, David Beckham was a sell-out.

David Beckham is that English soccer guy, now living in Hollywood. And his soccer team, LA Galaxy are going to play an Aussie soccer team, Sydney FC and then a few days later, a Kiwi team, the Phoenix.

Tickets for the Aussie soccer game had gone on sale this week and tickets were sold out. Within a week. Sold out. 83,000 people, selling out $100 a ticket, to see David Beckham.

Now these are not football fans. Nor are these homesick Englishman, desperate for a win after losing the rugby World Cup.

Most of these 83,000 people are paying 100 bucks to see “brand Beckham.” Not a footballer. But a celebrity. Famous for his fashion sense and hair style, famous for his marriage to pop star Posh Spice.

A friend of mine, Scottish Baptist pastor, John Drane, has recently written a book titled Celebrity Culture. How do Christians live in our celebrity world? What is a radio viewpoint when Beckham sells out?

My friend, John Drane, argues that our celebrity culture is actually a fantastic window for Christians and the gospel. But only if we’ll step outside our narrow Christian boxes. Why?

Well firstly, because celebrities, like David Beckham, remind us that in our world today, truth is now relational and personal. We buy tickets to Telstra stadium not because thousands of people are interested in the game of soccer, but because of the life and times of a person, brand Beckham.

Which is surely what Jesus was meaning when the said “I am the way, the truth and the life.” That we find truth through the life and times of a personal relationship with God.

So Christianity needs to move away from abstract waffly ideas about God, and get back to the truth of meeting a person, up-close and personal, called Jesus. And that we as Christians need to get better and more confident about being up-close and personal, talking about our relationship with a person called Jesus.

And secondly, and related, we Christians need to get more honest. It’s time for us stop trying to be holier than thou, goody 2 shoes.

Which is why I love the Bible. I do’’t find holier than thou, goody 2 shoes when I read Peter or the prophets or David. I find real people, struggling with doubt and fear and tough decisions and in livingn in messy human relationships.

Which is fascinating when we consider that at the heart of our celebrity culture, people are just like that. We love it when our celebrities become human, real people just like us. So we’re in this culture that allows celebrities to be honest.

Which we need to do as Christians. Because it’s for honest people, struggling but still seeking Jesus, upclose and personal, as the way, the truth and the life. That’s my viewpoint.

God the furniture restorer

Which for me becomes an image of what God’s like. God is in the recycling and restoration business. God never starts fresh, with a blank slate. Because people just aren’t like that. In reality, all people are damaged by years of sin and misery and self-harm. And God never says to human beings, “Stuff it. You’re useless. I’m going to destroy you and start again.”

Instead God recycles and restores. Walks the demolition yards of our city every day. Takes what looks less than perfect, like junk, from the demolition yard. Strips it back. Finds the grain. Works it creatively. God the restorer and recycler.

This was a bit from my Sunday sermon, on the prophet Micah. Those interested in these images of God might also want to engage with a reflection I did on God the hairdresser.

phd interview

“I was tired of reading abstract surveys of cultural change followed by a few generalised comments. I wanted to explore what was actually happening on the ground, with people…”

I was interviewed recently for emergingchurch.info about my PhD; titled “A Case Study Approach to Cityside Baptist Church as Christian Faith “making do” in a Postmodern World. You can read the whole interview here. (And I still have not got around to a 2nd print run, so if anyone wants to buy a copy of the PhD, leave a comment here.)

What is absolutely unbelievable is that they have written that I come from the USA, despite the fact that I talk in the interview about living in New Zealand. Oh well, just goes to show I guess that the emerging church really is born in the USA.