sustain:if:able kiwi

what are Calvinists doing with Jesus?

Is the Incarnation of Jesus about God or about humanity?

I was reading some blogs last nite extolling Calvinism and how it encouraged a God-cented theology rather than a human-centred theology. Which sounds sweet. But as one of my Calvinist friends tells me (Don the Carson): damn all false antithesis to hell. So I began to wonder if God-centered theology and human-centred theology might actually be an antithesis.

I woke up this morning thinking about Jesus, who is the revelation of God. Yet this Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. If you make him out as God-centred, you run the risk of downplaying his fully humanity, for he is the new Adam. Equally, if you make him out as human-centred, you run the risk of downplaying his full divinity, for he is Lord.

So is it that in Jesus are integrated all the riches of the universe, including both a God-centred and a human-centred theology?

Just wondering. I really should go and have some breakfast.

learning

Tuesday was one of my best teaching days ever. I define best because I got an intuitive sense, based on the class engagement and questions, that lots of learning was happening about mission in Western culture. And since discipleship is about learning, and mission in Western culture is my passion, when things go well, I like to ask why. What processes help people learn?

1. It was our second week together. So relationships had been built and that sense of trust is essential.
2. The students came to the class having completed a 3,000 word case study. So they had an existing body of knowledge. More importantly I think, this knowledge was grounded knowledge. They had been asked to study an existing emerging church and it’s worshipping life. So these students have been thinking life and reality and not abstract theories.
3. A regular part of class had been dwelling in the Word, in Luke 10:1-12. As a class, we have read and re-read this text and in doing so, have been deeply challenged by Scripture.
4. Since our first week of class was in April, to allow integration and reinforcement, I started the class by asking the students to work on 4 questions that might help integrate lecture material with the case study work.
What were some of the practices shaping this emerging church?
What were the sources generating imagination at this emerging church?
What gospel/culture questions arose for you as you read about this emerging church?
What struck you as you “read theology” from a living community in contrast to reading theology from a book?
5. As the students gave feedback, I went into “devils advocate” mode. I forced them to consider Luke 10 and the case study. I pushed them to consider what this meant for their real and living communities of faith.

In so doing, in the conversation between Biblical text and case study, a whole lot of learning was triggered about worship and discipleship and conversion today. (Rather than providing answers to these questions, I have spent the last few days providing resources for the students to continue their journey: opening Biblical text, reading other mission case studies, bringing in dialogue partners to keep teasing out questions.)

So how did learning happen? Out of relationships, around case studies, in conversation with Scripture, aided by good questions. I checked this with the class before I posted it here and they nodded their heads.

Now can I take this to our teaching and discipling in churches? How like Sunday, how much of our discipling material, has this pattern: of relationships, case studies, Scripture and good questions?

bounce back sp*m

I’m currently being killed by bounce back sp*m: the kind where someone has copied my email address into their spam and so when it hits a dead email address, bounces back to me as a delivery failure. I got over 600 of these while I was out for a 3 hour dinner date last nite. I am told by my ISP provider that there is nothing they can do. I am seriously considering changing my email address. Any other options out there?

Can you talk in nice voices please?

How many of us have said this to our kids? If we ask it of our kids, can we ask it of each other as we talk about the emerging church?

I am in Auckland teaching a masters course on the emerging church. Titled Critical missional issues it uses the emerging church as a case study to reflect on mission in Western Culture. I taught the first week in April. It is my argument that there is no such thing as the emerging church, only emerging churches and an emerging conversation. So to study the emerging church, you have to put aside McLaren and actually study the practices of living communities – what they are doing.

So we spent our first week in April exploring how to read a living theology, the Word enfleshed in a body of Christ. And the students went away to put this into practice, to study the worship and ethos of an emerging church.

This second week we are due to spend discerning the missional lessons that can be learnt from the emerging church. What might the emerging church learn from Scripture, from how Jesus treated those outside the church (the wise men, the Samaritan woman, Canaanite woman), or how the early church engaged with culture (the Ethiopian Enuch, the preaching of Paul in Lystra and Derbe)? What might the emerging church learn from reading mission history.

And we also as a class need to listen to contemporary critical voices. But how could we go about talking in nice voices please. How could we listen fairly to a critic like Don Carson?

And so a few weeks ago I was given a gift. A Christchurch pastor came to me. He has a PhD in Biblical studies, is a pastor, has been reading Carson,whom he respects. And now he has some questions about the emerging church. And could we talk. Can you see why this is a gift! Not hissing over the internet, but face to face. Nice voices.

And I asked him if we could video the conversation. Could I show it in my Masters class this week? It would be so easy for me in my small classroom to conduct a monologue, to summarise a critic like Carson and then trash a critic like Carson.

But a conversation. That would be different. Allowing diverse voices into the classroom. Face to face. And allowing the critic, in this case Carson, to have the right of reply and even the last word. 55 minutes later we have a video, and what I hope will be a great gift to the class.

But whatever the case, I am trying to learn to talk in nice voices. Anyone out there want to join me? What could happen if we all try to use nice voices (as we talk to each other about faith and ministry today)?

Update: This post wasn’t a video distribution plug, but a reflection on how I am processing what it means for me to engage in constructive talking, how we might build bridges and treat those who have different ideas that we do. I’m trying a more conversational approach. What are you trying?

a redwall feast

It’s school holidays here, so the Taylor family has been grabbing some precious days out at our family bach/holiday house. Last nite we had our first ever family Redwall feast.

As a way of sharing time with one of my children, earlier this year I started reading aloud to her from a book in the Brian Jacques Redwall series. It’s been a chapter a time, most likely on my Mond-day off, snuggling together to read and imagine. We were due to finish it while on holiday, so to honour this milestone, I suggested that together the two of us make a Redwall feast.

A quick search of the internet last week found a website dedicated to Redwall food recipes. Our family holiday house is quite primitive, so after careful selection, we settled on a few recipes and ordered in supplies! Special table mats were constructed and together the family enjoyed skilly and duff, meadow cream and October ale (you gotta read the books to appreciate the menu!). A good nite together and hopefully some good family memories to tuck away.

And it made me marvel again at the gift of the internet: a fanzine website that can faciliate a sharing across countries. Now back to the holiday.

an emerging Bible according to Peter, Paul and John MacArthur

I came across John MacArthur waxing erudite about the emerging church on youtube here

Hermeneutics … to interpret .. It’s really not that hard. It’s not brain surgery … We are talking simply about how we discern what it means by what it says.

Which I couldn’t help contrasting with the apostle Peter: Paul’s letters contain some things that are hard to understand. 2 Peter 3:16

Or am I simply misusing proof texts and quoting people out of context?

creation and re:creation

What is the difference between creation and re:creation?

Is it that God starts with creation. Human sin meant that God could have decided to start again (creation again). But instead, through Jesus, God enters into re:creation. This is not a starting over, but a continuity between the old and the new.

stoning the prophets: kickoff

Stoning the prophets kicked off today. And an excellent kickoff it was. The space was wrapped in black cloth. River stones were piled in the middle along with a big black bible. Grass tussocks and box lighting added to the environment.

A brief welcome and a warning, that this could well be hard work. We so very rarely engage with the prophets in church, let alone large chunks of Scripture, let alone large chunks read aloud.

With that warning, we listened to the prophet Hosea. From chapter 1 to chapter 14. It took nearly 50 minutes, simply listening to the power of a long gone poetic voice.

Then the invite to pick up a stone from the pile in the middle and to share what struck us. People shared and then tossed their stone back onto the pile. There is something very primal about the sound of stone striking stone. There is something rich and powerful about being among a community taking the word of God seriously, as a community and not from a preaching expert.

Stoning the prophets continues for the next 11 weeks, from 5:30 pm, upstairs, in the Friendship Centre. It is designed to partner a 12 week preaching series on the minor prophets happening in our morning congregation. And it makes me wonder why we don’t do this every week, simply gathering to listen to large chunks of Scripture being read in community.

missional church coaching on the road

About a year ago I started working on a dream, a way to explore missional church leadership with existing pastors in context. Rather than expect leaders to come to my training institution, what would going to them look like?

I designed a course that mixed coaching, on-line learning and action projects and started field testing it with a group of 14 pastors, students and church planters here in Christchurch in February. So far I am delighted with the growth that is happening in lives, and in ministries, as we read, think, talk and listen together.

My input in the last few months into Anglican Clergy Conferences has resulted in an invitation to take the course on the road and to work with groups of church leaders as follows:

Waikato: 13 oct, 26 oct, 25 nov, 19 jan, 8 mar, 3 may, 7 jun, 5 jul, 2 aug.

Auckland: 7 dec 07, 18 jan 08, 7 mar 08, 4 apr 08, 2 may 08, 6 jun 08, 4 jul 08, 1 aug 08, 5 dec 08.

Canterbury (still taking shape): 8 dec 07 (2 hour introduction in town), 26 jan, 1 mar, 19 apr, 10 may, 31 may, 28 jun, 9 aug, 6 dec.

(There is still space for about 3 more people in Waikato and 6 more people in Auckland. Canterbury is still very fluid).

For more information on the course download file. I have also put together a 6 minute video presentation introducing the course, which I’m happy to send to interested parties. Let me know.

tasting the Kingdom again

Here is another taste of the Kingdom. Last year, we spent a church meeting gathering around Scripture. Instead of me as pastor coming up with vision, I read a Scripture, offered some exegetical background, and invited each person to consider how Opawa could practise this Scripture in 2007. We then entered into community discernment and 7 ideas were generated. (For more detail, go here.)

One was that of workplace blessings from Opawa to people who work locally as a “thanks” for the work they do. Over 2007, this has slowly gained legs. A month ago books were given to a local kindergarten. (In return, they made us a card and then a group of them rolled up and joined us for our monthly family night. Quite cool really). This month, a cake baked for our local school, with a card from us, the church, to them. They have just been through a Department of Education review, so the cake was perfect timing.

In Luke 10, the disciples of Jesus are sent to speak peace among the towns and villages. I wonder if giving books and making cakes is a 21st century way of speaking peace into the communities around our church.

Photo from (here, as part of the picturing of 30 days in September series).

tasting the Kingdom

Church on Sunday, (that is Digestion, our evening church service) happened around a meal. People bring food and we sat at one long table, complete with tablecloth and candles and sparking grapejuice. We do this about once every 3 months.

Just as we started, there was a furtive movement in the foyer. I went out, and a man was huddled in a corner, and wanting a food parcel. “Sure”, I said, “at the end of the service. But why not wash your hands and come and join us. We’re eating here tonight and there’s even roast chicken.”

He sat among us, enjoying his share of first, seconds and thirds. He laughed with us, and listened as we broke bread and shared. He left with a full belly and a food parcel.

The regulars were curious. I told them he might just be an angel. I think we were more blessed than he. He got to eat food in human company. We got to taste the reality of the radical hospitality offered at the wedding banquet of the Kingdom.

Go here for another example of tasting the Kingdom.

stoning the prophets

A chance to listen
to the minor prophets, as they are read aloud

A chance to learn
from the minor prophets, through reflective space.

…dramatic reading aloud from the minor prophets
…candle light among river stones
(You are welcome to dress as a prophet)

Twelve Sundays, 5.30-6:45 pm
From 23 September – 16 December (with a break on November 4)
Opawa Baptist Church Friendship Centre (A frame building opposite the church)

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marking

All my various teaching commitments have caught up on me. I currently am marking
: 10 essays about missional church leadership (done)
: 16 masters essays on critical missional issues in relation to emerging church (half done)
: 40 masters pieces of work on living the Biblical text in a postmodern context (half done)
: 60 pieces of work on being kiwi, being christian.

That’s 126 pieces of work. When you consider that the masters related work comes in the 3000 word range, that’s a lot of marking.

Each piece of work represents blood and sweat. There is nothing worse than getting an assignment back with a simple mark scrawled on it. So my personal commitment is to write 5-10 comments, engaging with the blood and sweat. That’s currently a lot of comments.

Best thing about marking is realising that students are making connections and joining dots. Second best thing is when I learn something. Worst thing is a student who has put the work in, but hasn’t answered the question (haven’t come across this in relation to the above – yet!).

God the hairdresser

I wrote the following for my fortnightly radio slot. Those who have seen me in the flesh recently might appreciate that this post has multiple layers.

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