sustain:if:able kiwi

a moment to savour

This has been a really intense semester for me; kicking off 2 new courses, a trip to Australia in the middle, working with 2 denominations in New Zealand around missional church issues.

I always knew it was going to be busy. My last class has just finished and I’ve survived and I face a much easier second semester, which I hope will include some time to write including:
– a paper on missional church-missional agencies
– a co-authored paper on female Christ figures in contemporary film
– a paper using mission history to evaluate the emerging church movement
– a paper on reading local narratives.

But for today, it’s a moment to savour …

missional church learning is on the road

One of my key tasks this year is teaching a new course, Missional Church Leadership.

Define missional church Steve? Missional church is about the future of God among the people of God.

So what Steve? Well, since course design should follow course theology, that means you can never teach missional church as a theory or set of ideas. Rather, you must allow learners to pay attention to the work of God among the people of God.

Practically this has included quite a number of innovations. One of my hopes was that we would be able to push the learning envelope by moving out of the classroom and going to a students’ context, to hear them, in context, talk about their context. Well, today is the first attempt.

I have just written the following for the lecture notes:
Welcome to Phil’s space. Being here reminds us that
1. Missional church is about real, living communities, and being present in their narratives NOT classroom learning of intellectual ideas.

2. Spaces shape learning. Be alert to how our interaction and your learning changes in new places. In Luke 10, Jesus sends us to other people’s spaces. A key skill of missional leaders will be the ability to create learning communities in other people’s spaces.

As part of the class Phil will talk about his local context. The class will be asked to reflect back to him the narratives they are hearing. We will then dwell in Scripture together. And so together I hope we will be increasing our skills around the cultivation of a missional imagination among real, living contexts.

so how did it go in Australia?

I always struggle to answer such a question, when asked how a speaking assignment goes. I’d much rather have a listeners perspective than a speakers perspective. So it was nice to stumble across this writeup of my May trip to Adelaide.

“Steve invited us to consider the leadership practices displayed in the sending out of the seventy-two in Luke 10. He told stories of fostering new faith communities on the fringe of his older, conservative congregation. We heard about leaders who listen to their people and build on their hopes and dreams – a bottom up, not top down approach, involving active listening [and] communal discernment. We were invited to question whether our models of leadership are formed by culture or the gospel. And we saw and heard the images and sounds of multi-sensory, participatory, creative worship.

We appreciated hearing from someone with a ‘southern hemisphere accent’ and someone who could ‘practice what they teach’. Steve managed to open up people’s preconceptions of mission and church by not fitting many of our categories for such things. His Opawa journey connected very well with what many folk here are facing. Through his stories, metaphors, insights and analysis he communicated with us at a range of levels. Leaders from across the synod have commented on how they have been encourage and challenged. We acknowledge Steve’s generosity of spirit and great leadership over the week.”

In, other words, from a listeners perspective, it went well. I do enjoy jumping out of people’s mission boxes. I do enjoy using a range of media and mediums to communicate. I do think it’s way past time we in Australasia told our own mission stories rather than looking northward. I continue to be grateful for the way the story of what God is doing at Opawa encourages and challenges.

youth ministry in the pacific rim

Great post from Mark Ostriecher on the Asian future of youth ministry.

I appreciate the humility of his opening: let’s face it: the united states hasn’t been leading most international youth trends for many years

Question 1: If US is not at the leading edge, then why is NZ youth ministry still so shaped by American models?

Question 2: What could it mean for New Zealand youth ministry to engage with Asian youth trends?

missional church and missional agencies part 2

Hi. I’m on the run, needing to be in the lecture room in a few hours, all made worse by my flight from Rotorua to Christchurch being cancelled. I hope to post some further reflections, but in the meantime, the following worked really well.

As part of my presentation I wanted to engage with Scripture. So my partner made up 4 postcards with the words: “I am learning that mission is ….”. The first postcard had to be written at Luke 10:4; the second postcard at Luke 10:7; the third at Acts 10:23; the fourth at Acts 10:47. I got people in groups around each postcard. (The postcards are here)

It seemed to work really well in terms of helping people enter the text and think about mission. Which of course sets up The Question: so where is the mission agency in Luke 10 and Acts 10?

And at that point, there was a quiet silence in the room, because the answer is …

missional church and missional agencies

Further to my post last week, today I am off to Rotorua to talk to about 100 gathered Kiwi mission agencies about how they might relate to missional church.

I have arranged my thoughts as such:
1. Define missional church
2.Define missional agency
3. Biblical understanding of missional church
4. A possible future
– Agency as myspace
– Agency as abbott
– Agency as global worship resourcer

I have really appreciated the comments and discussion by people on the blog and just wish I had more time, as I don’t feel I’ve read enough to do the invitation and topic justice. If you are really keen, here are my slides: download file (650K)

a workers communion

As we move to communion, you will notice that it is being served on 3 working communion tables: a kitchen sink, a work bench and an office desk.

And so this table is not a Baptist table.
It’s a workers table. It’s for anyone who wants to remember.

So come Holy Spirit,
Help us remember that God is a worker,
Help us remember that Jesus was a carpenter,
Help us remember that when the bread was broken,
When Jesus said “This is my body, Take, eat, do this in memory of me, This cup means a new covenant in my blood, whenever you drink it, all of you”

Help us to remember that this meal of memory, this first communion, did not happen on a special table with a white lacey tablecloth.

But it happened on a kitchen table in an everyday house,

So come let’s eat and drink, in memory of God the worker, at work in our lives, and at our everyday worktables.

trinity sunday worship

Christians worship God as Trinity. It’s not an easy concept to ground. This has been made in preparation for our Sunday worship:

3 different Trinity art images;
accompanied by a brief explanation;
and a black band running continuously around the bottom.

Printed on a sheet of A4, on Sunday we will give them out and invite people to reflect on which one of the three images most connects them with the Trinity.

This will take some time, so we will add in some layers; including the images in colour rotating on PPT and music in the background (an upbeat version of Holy, Holy, Holy from Eucharist CD). Plus we will hand around biscuits – a cracker, a piece of cheese and a gerkin. (Idea sourced from our good friends, Tony and Jan). So if people have trouble getting your head around the Trinity, or interpreting the art images, well they can always just taste the trio, for 3 distinct, but together as one, is better than three alone.

Finally, the A4 sheet has a little tab at the end. So it can serve as a takehome – sellotaped together and can sit on a mantelpiece or desk top for the next few weeks, helping people continue to reflect on the Trinity.

Fuller, july 07, living the text in a contemporary context

Just a heads up for those interested, that I’m down to teach a week long intensive at Fuller Theological Seminary July 9-13. The course, titled Living the Text in a Postmodern context, emerges out of my personal wrestling with how to use the Bible, week by week, with real groups of people, given that people are made with 5 senses, and that our world has gone much more visual and interactive.

In more formal words: This course will explore the communication of the Biblical text in a contemporary world, with particular missiological reference to the use of the Bible in the postmodern, emerging church. It will apply theological insights around text, community and culture, to the task of maintaining and communicating the integrity of the Biblical text with reference to postmodernity. As a result of the course, students will be better equipped to read and communicate the Biblical text in a postmodern context.

I taught the course at Fuller a year ago and had a great time with a great class. So my expectations are high and I am looking forward to being back at Fuller. The course is being code-shared between the School of Intercultural Studies and the D.Min program, so it can be done either as part of the Masters, or for the D.Min. (I have also been asked me to develop it for their Masters in Global leadership, which goes on-line to 50 countries, but that discussion is still on-going).

Anyhow, more details of the course outline are here. And last year Ryan Bolger was asking me about the course and what I’ll cover, so I did a 90 second podcast, if you want to listen here (450K). Or check out here for some of their learning from their class blogs if you want.

kiwi Christians watching Kiwi film

I teach a course called Gospel and Film. One of the learning outcomes is for students to identify ways in which film may be utilized as a point of engagement for the gospel within contemporary society.

I have suggested to the class that we build a class wiki together. In other words, let’s look at a New Zealand film from a theological perspective and place our work on-line. This will occur over the weekend of August 3, and in preparation I’ve just built the wiki here. It took about 10 minutes using a site called www.wetpaint.com.

There are 8 members in the class and I will pair them, with each pair doing 2 New Zealand films each. Now we as a class are are open to suggestions. So, what are your top 3 New Zealand films that you would want considered from a theological perspective (asking questions like: In this film where are we? Who are we? What is wrong? Is there a remedy? What time is it?).

Leave your suggestions in the comments …

is there a mission agency for the missional church?

Every 3 years in New Zealand, all the mission agencies get together. They call it Missions Interlink and it is happening June 5-8. The theme is “Remodelling Mission” and I’ve been asked to speak for 2 hours on the topic: “A Missional Church.” “Specifically we need to see the biblical basis of the local church being the main instrument in mission and where appropriate delegating responsibility to agencies to work with their people in fulfilling the churches vision.”

I said thanks but that the dates clashed with some existing teaching commitments. They moved the timetable to accommodate me.

I said thanks but I was in a really busy patch and would be unable to do any fresh work on the topic. They said come anyway.

I said thanks but told them that missional church actually offers a profound realignment for mission agencies. Missional church says that mission is not an extra, for over there; but that mission is the whole church. And that will set up an entirely different (and potentially quite uncomfortable) conversation for mission agencies. They said yes, that’s why they want me to come.

Sigh.

My worst case scenario is that I am going to be fed to some lions. My best case is that I could actually say something prophetically helpful. Anyhow, as I’m short of time, are any of my readers interested in doing some research and thinking for and with me? Here are some of my questions:
– what does the reality of a rock star like Bono advocating for justice and commercial movements like Red mean for mission agencies in our world today?
– what does missional church mean for traditional notions of parachurch mission agencies?
– does Luke 10:1-12 speak to the cross-cultural challenges of our globalised world today?
– can a locally missional church function into a cross-cultural context, or does the mission agency have some role (whether old or new) in that?

Prayer for creative workers

As a church, we try to pray monthly for some dimension of people’s work lives. This week we decided to pray for creative workers. We rang and interviewed about 10 people around Opawa, asking them questions like: how do you find satisfaction in your creative work; do you see this as being a dimension of your Christian life. If yes, how?; what could we pray for people who have a creative outlet like yourself. We then asked them to bring something of their “creative work” to display as part of the service.

For Sunday, I then wrote the following prayer:

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come holy spirit

renew your church, for the sake of the world.

Our Pentecost 07 festival, the third Festival we’ve done at Opawa, is over (info on our Norwest festival 05 is here, and Spirit of Life festival 06 is here). In 2007 our focusing text was Ephesians 4:23-4: Let the Spirit change your way of thinking and make you into a new person. You were created to be like God, and so you must please him and be truly holy.

and over the Festival weekend,
we laughed: at Mr Bean and with a Trivia night

we thought: hard, as I did some teaching around “Who God is at Pentecost?” and “Who humans are at Pentecost?” Teaching notes are here (120K) and here (120K) if you want.

we integrated: applying teaching through videomaking, creating doves, making and painting model airplanes the colours of the Spirit, crafting music to reflect Jesus ascending and the Spirit descending.

we appreciated God’s good gifts: in musical performance with Shooting Stars, Sunburn, Amy Hay.

So why would a local church throw a Pentecost festival?

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coffee and a community grounded around Scripture

When I arrived at Opawa, morning tea during the week was 3 staff gathered inside an inner office. It felt huddled and insular.

– 24 months ago we painted the foyer in warm colours and brought 7 sofas.
– 20 months ago we brought a coffee machine.
– 15 months ago I invited the staff to gather, using lectio divino, around the lectionary readings. No need for preparation. Instead we simply read the Scriptures and listen to it and each other.

Today 11 people sat in the foyer drinking coffee at morning tea. P + B were dropping by to test the coffee machine. R + J were being thanked for their voluntary IT role with us. J works for a local community trust and drops in for morning tea. L staggered in, having walked a long way to bring his money for our annual Pentecost festival. 5 paid staff are regular. The sun streamed in. The coffee was good, the conversation was warm. The lectionary reading (Ezekiel 37) prompted good discussion and excellent insights about life, hope, church, Christian living.

It felt open, real and Scripture focused. I like what Opawa is becoming. I like the sense of hospitality. I like the way that coffee and couches draw us together as a community. I like the way that Scripture is a seamless part of our life.