sustain:if:able kiwi

code-sharing emerging church

Today was the first day of a 2 day block course I teach at BCNZ introducing the emerging church. It involved 3 groups: BCNZ students; Praxis (community youth orientated training programme) and 4 visiting Americans interested in the emerging church as it applies to their Church of the Brethren Denomination.

Each of these 3 groups wanted to have time with me and so I suggested we all meet together, rather than me repeat myself 3 times. It certainly made for a much richer classroom interaction.

It was great to see a visiting American returning from having lunch with some of the BCNZ students, proudly showing off his L&P (iconic Kiwi) drink bottle.

(The course finishes at 12:30 tomorrow and I have to be at the International Airport at 1:30 pm to catch my flight to Melbourne.)

dumb tech question

I am off to Aussie tomorrow, to speak at various things in Melbourne and Adelaide. I have a video clip that I really want to play at each of these gatherings (it sort of stirs up my Aussie mates you know). It is on Youtube and I can not presume that all the 12 places I am speaking have wireless. Is there a way for me to download unto my laptop a Youtube video?

Update: Hey thanks heaps everyone. All sorted. For those who are interested, this is the video that I, as a Kiwi, am keen to use in Aussie :). It’s called – Someone always wants to steal your stuff.

leadership in zones of change

I spoke for about 2 hours recently to a group of ministers. My topic was “Mission with a Kiwi accent” and I explored a number of mission stories as they have emerged for us at Opawa, mixed in with some reflection on Scripture and change dynamics and cultural engagement. It seemed to go well, with a good deal of energy in the room and some good interest in some of their churches entering into the Missional Leadership Coaching course I run.

Toward the end I showed them this diagram; view image – 96K from Al Roxburgh and Fred Romanuck.

The diagram describes the life of an organism from one of rapid development (green zone), to organisational efficiency (blue zone), to death. This is a healthy and natural life cycle and can be applied to church life.

Each zone requires a different type of leadership to move to the next stage of the life cycle and it normalises and legitimises all stages of life. On the spur of the moment, without really thinking, I asked the group of gathered clergy to self-identify. How many were in a green zone church? And a show of hands. A blue zone? And another shows of hands. Red zone? And a further show of hands.

It was an interesting exercise to do, and a way of gaining insight into a group of churches. And then on the way home for me to reflect on the different leadership and change challenges generated, say, if the grouping was mainly green, or mainly blue, or mainly red.

new zealand music month

Today is 1 May, the launch of New Zealand music month. Some of the church staff came dressed appropriately.

A quick poll of “favourite New Zealand musician” at the staff morning tea revealed, in no particular order the following:
: Tim Finn
: Shihad
: Salmonella Dub
: Martin Setchell (Christchurch Town Hall organist)
: Roy Phillips (formerly of the Shadows)
: Brooke Fraser

So; who’s your favourite New Zealand musician/band?

Anzac Day worship

At the door, everyone got given (the free gift) of a red poppy. I talked in the sermon about Anzac Day and how it leads me to Jesus;
from dark to dawn
voluntary sacrifice (John 15:13)
that forms a new community (1 Peter 2:9, 10)
practising forgiveness and grace (Ephesians 2:13-14)
and in our dying, resurrection life is born (Galatians 2:20)

By way of response, people were invited to say thanks by pinning their poppy on a rough wooden cross wrapped by barbed wire. It was quite something watching people crowd forward and seeing the love.

how to look at a painting: book of the month

I am loving this book, How to look at a painting. New Zealand art curator, Justin Paton walks us through art over the ages. Each chapter pauses at an artpiece, inviting you to look at the luscious fruit of Italy’s Caravaggio, the lonely landscapes of New Zealand’s Rita Angus, the dazzling panoramas of America’s Lari Pittman and the mysterious “tombstones” of Japanese artist On Kawara.

It is a gorgeously written book, a real page turner, (truly a rare phrase to use for a book on art), written with wit and style, making it a deserving winner of the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Award.

Justin makes art approachable, making me want to race into an art gallery. I also read this book as a worship practitioner. There is lots in here that sparks my creativity and makes me think about worship in new and fresh ways. I’m off to ponder worship as texture and worship as colour. But not until after I’ve visited my local art gallery.

so why can’t those notices be worship huh?

I wrote the following email to some our ministry team on Tuesday. The background is that Sunday morning’s service was needing to include a baby dedication, a report back on a short term mission trip, a (ideally monthly) local mission focus, and a (ideally monthly) prayer for workers in their workplace – alongside the notices and offering. So we were trying to integrate all these together. I went home, thinking about worship, and wrote the following:

hi team,

any thoughts?

anzac day dawn parade

Christchurch Square. The place is packed. I have to park 4 blocks away, on the far side of Barbadoes Street. It is standing room only all around the Square, all at 6:30 am on a public holiday.

The PA system is not working and for a 30 minute service, we will basically hear nothing. Still the thousands in the crowd will stand motionless. There is no texting, no talking, no hilarity. Fathers hold babies. Children stand. Teens cuddle.

The service has good ritual moments – the trumpet, the gun volleys, the silence, the band playing, the wide variety of participation by bands and wreath laying groups.

There are 5 songs, with brass band accompaniement. But no one sings. Is this because we have no words? Or know no words? Or need no words?

Once finished, the crowd pour onto the centotaph. Young and old lay poppies, their poppies. I will go for breakfast and return through the square and past the centotaph 2 hours later. Still young and old are gathered, looking at the wreaths.

And they say there’s no such thing as Kiwi spirituality; when thousands of people gather at dawn, when they stand motionless for 30 minutes, when they remain for hours to personally adorn a memorial?

so tell me how singing worship works

Dear worshipper, you who stand beside me, arms thrust into the air,

Please help me. I am lost.

You see, I love live music. But I don’t get singing. I listen to lots of music, most of the time I work. But very rarely do I stop my work and do nothing but sing.

I love Salmonella Dab. I love U2. When I go to their concerts, I do sing. But that is a by-product of entering into an experience. And they are good. And no matter how good they are, I could not imagine singing their songs, the same songs, week after week.

So I stand beside you, quite mystified. I feel strange, doing corporate, sung worship in church. Why do church’s sing?

For a long time I have stood beside you. For a long time now I have been feeling less than Christian. For a long time now I have looked around large groups of people singing and thinking “If I love Jesus, and they love Jesus, why am I bored. Why do I feel manipulated when lots of people sing the same thing?”

So dear “into-singing-worshipper”, I need some help. Can you explain to me: Why does sung worship work for you? How does it connect you with God? What do you do when the lyrics don’t match your experience? Why the pressure for the songs to be always new and up-date? How does excellence and musical quality work for you?

When people make put down comments about Baptist churches “your worship songs are old-fashioned”; “your music is not as good as it could be”; “you don’t know many new songs”, “you lack the freedom of the Spirit (to all sing the same hip, new song?) — what are people really saying?

I’m not complaining. I simply want to understand. Help me please,

prayer for change agent pastors

Lord, we pray for Steve,
He has a large and difficult task,
we called him to make change in this church.
Yet when he opens the windows,
it is easy to complain about the draft/draught (word choice is yours),
We pray for him today,

This was a prayer prayed at our staff gathering today. If you would like to pray, for either Steve, or for a change agent pastor you know, add your initials in the comments.

Update: a sharp-eyed blog reader has pointed out the play of word around “draft” and “draught”. Since this was a prayer prayed verbally, I am not sure whether the person praying was meaning “draft” or “draught.” Isn’t the English language fascinating? Isn’t communication fascinating? Isn’t the way we got our Bible (oral words becoming written words which were for so many centuries read as oral words in church) fascinating?

earth day: where are the christians?

A reporter from Challenge Weekly rang yesterday. He wanted to do a story on us at Opawa Baptist, because he had noted that Opawa Baptist was the only church in New Zealand he had come across doing anything for Earth Day.

Since Earth Day, April 22, falls on a Sunday this year, all of our church newsletter’s will include a Sustainability insert. I am preaching on “what does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with the environment” at the 10:30 am service, part 3 of a 4 part series on “Yeah? Jesus alive. Right!” that explores what the resurrection means for our everyday lives. From 3 pm we are showing the Inconvenient Truth, and a scientist and Christian film reviewer will respond. I am then preaching on “On earth as in heaven: is the Kingdom of God good news for our environment?” on Sunday at 7pm, starting with this great video clip from the Simpson.

After the phone call, I was not sure whether to feel a lone leader, or a lone fruit loop. I had thought that people who worship God the Creator, and who meet on Sunday when it is Earth Day, would have quite a bit to say about the environment, particularly given all the current societal concern around global warming. Yet it seems that I think alone. Am I missing something?

emerging church CD-Rom teaching resource

Recently, I have been working on this …

.. an emerging church teaching resource.

It’s a CD ROM that includes 5 video clips, each about 5 minutes long, plus my emerging church research database. I use each of the video clips (stories of various emerging church leaders talking about their communities) for my 2 day intensive course on the emerging church. The emerging church research database is a list of about 80 web articles and blog posts that I have found helpful in describing the emerging church.

So, the plan is that each participant will get the CD ROM about 10 days before a course. The CD cover includes various emerging church pics, plus a list of questions. This will help the participant interact with the video material pre-class. It means that when we come to class, students will already have done some processing and be better able to engage the material.

If they want to do further research, they just use the database, which is hyperlinked, to take them to various articles. A lot of the best emerging church stuff is on-line, so this sort of guide should be really helpful for students.

There is also something in this about the medium being the message. To teach the emerging church by doing a monologue from the front so goes against the ethos of participation and cultural connectivity. Wheras I hope that to have a CD which invites you to participate more meaningfully in community, and which also acts as a jumping off point for further research, sends another message all together.

I am teaching the emerging church course in early May in Christchurch, then mid-May in Adelaide, then again in early July in Auckland, so am looking forward to beta-testing it with participants.

the spirituality of preaching

On writing:
“I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. The thing you had to force yourself to do–the actual act of writing–turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed to tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.”

“But I also tell them that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. And sometimes when they are writing well, they feel that they are living up to something. It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside them, and they just want to help them get out.” From Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1994). (Hat tip Simon Holt).

This is so true. It’s the same with preaching. I type most of the stuff I say aloud word for word. It’s a discipline that has enabled the preparation to become a craft, an act of spiritual practice. I read and ponder. I drink coffee with people and listen. I come to Friday and I stare at a blank screen and I have no idea what I will say. I start writing. I am often amazed at what I articulate. At times I hate being a pastor and Christian leader, hate the pressures and the expectations, hate the exposure that comes from being articulate. Yet I would be a lesser person if I did not speak and write, because my inner world would be less clear, my spirituality more muddied. So do I pastor because I am selfish? Or do I pastor because the church really is gift and in my task of becoming more fully human I need it’s redemption?

Opawa Baptist Youth Group 2007 easter camp banner