sustain:if:able kiwi

storytelling as a pathway in discipleship

“I think, therefore I am” proudly proclaimed Rene Descartes. And so, in modernity, the individual mind was given priority.

The consequences for Christian discipleship were huge. Discipleship becomes book based and content focused. Information is passed from one mind to another. Christianity runs the danger of becoming rational individualised information.

I am tossing around the idea of trialling the use of storytelling in community as a pathway for discipleship. As Douglas Coupland writes in Generation X of the need to take time to tell stories and make our lives worthwhile tales in the process.

So here is the first draft of the storytelling approach to discipleship.

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alt.worship and the poor

Noted the following (10) comment about alt.worship on tallskinnykiwi.

Actually Andrew, I came to believe that Alt Worship (of which I am generally very appreciative) actually is quite exclusive of the poor and those lacking in aesthetic graces. At its worst its quite elitist even if it never intends to be.

I will leave the charge of “elitism” for possibly another blogpost, but in terms of the relationship between alt.worship and the poor:

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emerging church postcards : Aotearoa New Zealand 4

For the last 6 months Fuller St Café has gathered on the first Sunday evening each month. We have a Café set up, fresh espresso and a theme for the night. First 6 themes were Narnia movie, Cancer panel, U2, Local Jazz band Toot & Croon, Da Vinci code panel, Christmas party. It’s an experiment in planting an alternative congregation at Kaiapoi Baptist.

a helpful Scripture in the formation and life of your church community: Only Scripture I can think of at moment reflect more how I am feeling about the project now – Isaiah 42:9 “See I am doing a new thing, now it springs up, do you not perceive it?” Reflecting attempt to plant something new but not feeling understood. And Psalm 127:1 “Unless the Lord builds the house, it builders labour in vain” wondering if we’re on right track.

learning about spiritual formation: Not sure that the “community” has emerged yet and whether it’s just too attractional to work.

movie (or scene) might sum up your year: One movie that might describe the first 6 months is “50 first dates.” We are basically experimenting until we find a new, real and helpful way to explore faith and live life. Also I can relate to Pai in Whale Rider wrestling with leadership issues.

best mission moment in 06: Probably the cancer night where 70 people showed up. 20 of those were outside the existing KBC community and 4 in response to the ad we put in the local rag. We had a panel of brave cancer sufferers some who were in remission and others who were terminal. We asked them these questions: How did you hear the news about the cancer?; What was your reaction/ response?; The treatment – what was that like?; What support did you have from others, what was helpful/ unhelpful?; Where has God been in it all? We have just lost the second of the ladies who were terminal this week – please pray for her husband and sons (13 & 3yrs).

For more emerging church postcards 2006, go here.
For emerging church postcards 2005, go here.
For information on how your emerging church can send a postcard, go here.

three new film reviews

I keep forgetting to put these up – monthly film reviews I write for a Denominational magazine, who kindly allow me to place them on the web once they have gone to print. With apologies, here are my 3 most recent film reviews:

my October review, in which I explore the cinematic use of sound to carry redemption in Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada;

my November review, in which I ponder the place of God in an Inconvenient Truth;

my December review, in which I enter the animated world of Over the Hedge;

I am teaching Gospel in film (Reel Spirituality) at Christchurch Bible College of New Zealand again this year and have just been to see New Zealand film Out of the Blue. It made me realise once again how much theological work is being suggested by our contemporary film makers and how important it is for us as Christians to be part of the conversation. Bring on the Gospel in film (Reel Spirituality) classroom.

My other film reviews include;
The Da Vinci Code here. (I also have written on the Da Vinci Code here; here and here; Siones Wedding here; Praire Home Companion here; Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Mans Chest here; River Queen here; Brokeback Mountain here; Narnia here; Serenity here; The World’s Fastest Indian here; Sedition, a New Zealand film about the fate of conscientious objectors in World War 2, here; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, here

Further film resources:
Film as a point of gospel engagement (PDF).
Film and spirituality web resources.
Why gospel and film?

emerging church postcards 2006: Aotearoa New Zealand 3

a helpful Scripture in the formation and life of your church community: We’ve spent a bit of time playing around with Genesis 1:26-28 & 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. Looking at how we were created from the community of the Trinity, and how we should function together as a community. We found some pretty darn challenging stuff in there I tell ya…

learning about spiritual formation: We’ve been trying to break down that invisible wall between everyday life and our spiritual lives; sacred vs secular and all that. Hearing each other’s stories about where we find God throughout the week; in the music of Jeff Buckly or Trinity Roots, in traffic etiquette – How exactly WOULD Jesus drive a car? – and in text message blessings.

movie (or scene) might sum up your year: This might just be me, but Fight Club has some pretty clear resonances. A small group of people, brought together by word of mouth, meeting in strange places, but feeling strengthened in their everyday lives from the experience. Take out the explicit sex, violence, fascism and mental illness of the movie, and I think you can sum up The Kitchen quite nicely.

best mission moment in 06: We haven’t been going long enough to have any wild stories of mission prowess yet, but merely the bringing together of 20 people (most of whom were disconnected from a faith community) and starting something after so much talk is probably the grand champion of mission moments for us. More specific moments would include the Christmas food parcels we made for those in need – you try taking 8 men and 1 woman into Pak n Save without a shopping list or a clue and exiting with a coherent food parcel and tell me that isn’t God at work! Also, seeing people who were total opposites in every possible way meet each other, and a few months down the track are now genuinely praying, caring and talking God with each other.

To visit this community go here.
For more emerging church postcards 2006, go here.
For emerging church postcards 2005, go here.
For information on how your emerging church can send a postcard, go here.

when art comes to town: reflection on art as public mission

here are some reflections I wrote today on the recent Christmas Journey. Love some feedback on my last section “unresolved tensions” if anyone has the time.

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emerging church postcards 2006: Aotearoa New Zealand 2

a helpful Scripture in the formation and life of your church community: Luke 10:1-12 invites us to look for God among the tables and everyday lives of people. We go to people rather than invite them to come to us. Refresh started as a dream of providing spiritual resourcing in our local cafes. If lots of shops sell spiritual journals, then what does Christianity have to contribute to the disciplines of Spiritual Journalling?

Ideally this would be in a public space, and so Steve Taylor spent time building relationships with a local café owner. The initial plan was to offer a block course on Spiritual Journalling.

The first course attracted such interest that it has birthed the possibility in 2007 of this becoming regular, weekly, and church by offering once-a-month sharing of what people are learning and weekly teaching on spiritual practises.

learning about spiritual formation: That people are longing for spiritual resourcing and that providing time and space for people to work on their spirituality is gift. Further, that the more this space is located in the cafes where people spend their everyday lives, the more likely it is to connect with people on the fringes of the church.

movie (or scene) that sums up your year: Everyday People and that sense of God’s future being revealed among the lives and coffee cups of everday people.

best mission moment in 06: First, sitting with the café staff to negotiate the use of the café and suddenly realising that in the grace of God and the circumstances of life, I was actually becoming the café pastor. Luke 10 was real, and I was speaking the peace of God amid the really hard places of people’s lives. Secondly, having someone on the first night of the journaling course voice their disillusionment with prayer unanswered and realising that this was going to be a very honest space, and thus a much more exciting place to be than any pious religious setting.

For more emerging church postcards 2006, go here.
For emerging church postcards 2005, go here.
For information on how your emerging church can send a postcard, go here.

an english eye for a kiwi book

Paul Walker, who blogs at Out of the Cocoon, is blogging his way, chapter by chapter, through my Out of Bounds Book?. Pop on over and have a read.

He writes: I enjoyed the book when I first read about 12 months ago, and I’m enjoying the second read perhaps even more so.

On the book front, I’ve also had emails from Canada and Spain in the last few days, thanking me for the book. It is quite humbling to sense that the book is connecting in such diverse – England to Canada to Spain – Western contexts.

inspiration in 2006

5 most inspirational books of 2006

Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church – the theology helped us reshape our Digestion congregation, and allowed us to move to church as both resourcing, and learning from, the 24/7 doing of faith.

Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice – an real intellectual workout, but a must read for anyone who wants to think seriously about the processes of cultural change and the gospel.

Saint Johns Bible – this sits on my workplace coffee table as a reminder that the Bible is a coloured text, and deserves our visual excellence.

Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross – provided fresh insights for me on the place of story and storytelling in how we approach the communication of Scripture.

Kingdom ethics – invalable resource in mixing Biblical text and contemporary context as the Sermon on the Mount dominated the teaching in our Sunday morning congregation.

5 most inspirational films of 2006

Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada – for it’s exploration of the possibilities of justice and redemption in the gritty places of human relationships

Over the Hedge – a thought provoking commentary on consumption and the environment

U2 Vertigo DVD – stunning example of worship leading and became a regular used classroom resource on the place of DJing in communication.

Firefly series – became a weekly day-off highlight. I love the humour, the moral dilemmas, the interplay of the characters, while the place of Shepherd constantly raised questions of spirituality.

Crash – the power of grace amid the complexity of racism and human life in the urban context.

emerging church postcards: aotearoa new zealand

OK, here’s the first emerging church postcard 06. If you want to submit one details here.

This church has no name. It meets in Porirua (Wellington, New Zealand) on Monday nights for meals followed by adult times later in the evening.

a helpful Scripture in the formation and life of your church community: The Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount. Great stuff.

learning about spiritual formation: Thinking through the three aspects of believe, belong and behave and the dynamic they create in our corporate life. Thinking through the issues of spiritual formation for our children (age ranges 17 down to babies numbering round 30) and attempting to mentor each others kids finding significant others in our kids lives. Trying to find safe places which will also be able to challenge us in relation to the men and women respectively. Realising the importance of providing space for people to grow though stages of faith.

movie that might sum up your year: Worlds Fastest Indian – esp scenes traveling thought the States, stranger in a strange land, full of confidence and humour and not much else but kiwi ingenuity, having moments of near disaster and tragedy, coupled with much laughter and flying by the seat of our pants.

best mission moment in 06: Sponsoring and settling a Burmese family and all the subsequent followup and complications therein, incl encouraging us to work in with 1-2 other local (organized) churches. Also supporting a regular to go to Sri Lanka to help in rebuilding after tsunami.

the blog year gone

Most commented on posts in 2006
1. 7 things I learnt from Bono about worship leading
2. My God questions
3. Dub spirituality and worship
4. There is no such thing as emerging church
5. Flamed for Spirit as love

5 blog hopes for 2007.
1. To find a better way of balancing a gift economy with the pressures of life
2. To form a good robust panel discussion are each “my God question”
3. To have less spam
4. To have a great set of emerging church postcards and make them available as hard copy through lulu.
5. To develop an interactive on-line community around the missional reader project.

christmas worship 1

This worked well as Christmas worship. I hung 4 nappies across the front. My (sermon) reflected on Christmas in the 4 gospels:

: Luke’s Christmas is the stuff of childhood carols
: Mark’s Christmas has no Christmas and Jesus is an adult, announcing the Kingdom
: Matthew’s Christmas includes foreigners
: John’s Christmas is God giggling.

On each nappy was a different visual image, taken from a contemporisation of the Book of Kells. The images had been digitally scanned and, using inkjet printer transfer paper, ironed onto the nappy. So each nappy represented a different gospel.

So the Christmas response was the invitation for people to come and rip a piece off the nappy from the Christmas that most challenged them. So if you look closely, John’s gospel got a thrashing.

christmas worship 2

This is the Christmas worship moment I like best – mixing the stars. After each Christmas service, the pastoral team sprinkle little stars over everyone; with the blessing “May Jesus Christ, the true star of Christmas, shine on you today.” It is quite a special moment, individually “blessing” each person with sprinkled stars.

I love mixing the stars before worship; getting the blend of blues and reds and golds. I love that people find them for days afterward, in their sheets and pillows. That for me is what worship should be, sustaining us in our everyday lives.

i have never been in a church with so much life

This was a comment made to me at the door, after the service, this Sunday morning.

Signs of life could have included;
– the kids praying the pastoral prayer with me up the front of the church;
– reflection on our 4th Advent art piece. (We focus on an art piece each Sunday in Advent by giving them out as postcards at the beginning of Advent, by having an artist speak to each art piece Sunday by Sunday, accompanied by a piece of live music). The actual art piece was present in church this morning;
– celebration of an Opawa sermon being published;
– a story of God at work touching a person’s life in the Christmas Journey;
– commissioning 2 people on overseas mission: 1 short term to Cambodia, 1 for a year to Puerto Rico;
– the energy in the room; kids anticipating Christmas, a great musical mix of carols and contemporary chorus, lots of visitors …