sustain:if:able kiwi

hi ho, hi ho

it’s on the plane I go
with a tired throat here and a drained body here
hi ho, hi ho

It’s been an excellent week’s Living the Text intensive and a great bunch of people to work with. The variety of people – lay, student, pastor – and of cultures and of generations has produced some fascinating learning. It has, I think, been the most experiential learning process I have been part of.

It sounds like Fuller are keen for this to be a regular occurence which I will take as a compliment.

But for today, I am really tired. Jet lag meant that I struggled to sleep at night and the mornings just got harder and harder. Nevertheless, I will take home some sweet dreams for my 13 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean. Peace to all.

Wednesday

Resources the Living the text in a postmodern context class asked for more information about:

The most recent version I have of the espresso house rules is here.

The Spirited exchanges website is here and Alan Jamieson, Churchless Faith is based on this research project.

You can find more about Godly play here. Please remember that what I did was highly adapted to our Fuller context and the course. Godly Play is a good introduction to godly play and books like How to lead Godly play lessons offer concrete steps for nervous first timers.

The Erwin McManus podcast (Corey notes the series on the controversial Jesus was really good; on the right side of the website). It was mentioned in the context of a potentially good example of Question and Answer in preaching.

Tuesday

Resources that the class asked for more information on included:

The U2 video clip we looked at in terms of DJing came from their Vertigo DVD

I referred to a book on passionate practices; it is Kenda Creasy Dean, Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church.

And to follow the thoughts and interactions of the Living the Text in a Postmodern Context credit students; go here. Each student is asked to write a 1000 word reflection on what the Biblical text means to them; and to offer 5 critical comments on each other’s work over the following 3 week period.

permanent mark on fuller

I left my mark at Fuller today; using a permant marker on a white board. Ryan Bell very nicely snapped a phone pic for my records.

Monday resources that the class asked for more information on included:

Gen X video This is who I am

If you want to download the flea circus; go here;

A really solid introduction to the imagination is Richard Kearney, The Wake of Imagination.

The artist I mentioned is named Sieger Koder. A place to buy his art would be here.

For the words I wrote to go with the 40 CD; go here; and here for the information I gave in class about how the resource came together.

Update: A resource mentioned toward the class: video from Highway productions and visual resources linked to the Lectionary here.

leonard cohen film review: i’m your man

In an effort to keep awake, I went movie hunting. I took a punt on Leonard Cohen: I’m your man and it was a great choice. The movie is a chronological journey through the life of a man I consider a lyrical genius. This is mixed with live concert songs from Came so Far for Beauty; artists like Nick Cave, Beth Orton and Rufus Wainwright singing Leonard Cohen’s songs. There is also lots of interviews with Leonard, plus comment from Bono and the Edge which adds depth to the songs.

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

I found lots to ponder in relation to creativity and spirituality and humanity. It was probably the jet lag but I find the movie quite moving. Now I am just hoping they release the sound track.

Trailer here

living the (fuller) text in a contemporary context

I fly back across the Pacific Ocean today for a week lecturing at Fuller Theological Seminary; teaching a course I’ve designed from scratch called Living the text in a postmodern context. I’ve taught it twice in New Zealand and am really looking forward to seeing how it plays in a different cultural context.

The course is being run as a 5 day paper for credit, a 2 day conference for pastors. It is also being videod for potential use as an on-line resource. I am lecturing 7 hours a day for 5 days, so appreciate any stray prayers for stamina, and that my nights of sleep here
will be deep and renewing. And that technology would go well (my bag is stuffed with videos and loops and CD’s, all essential to the experience of the course).

desperate for brian mclaren

Update: Found it, 90 minutes before my plane took off. Yeeha .

I am desperate. I have a CD digital recording of Brian McLaren preaching in Christchurch in which he practises communal lectio divina. In other words, he is working his was through a Bible passage (yes folks, Brian does use the Bible), inviting the congregation to imagine being in the text and to express how they feel.

I have lost the CD. And I use it in my teaching as a case study of community and imagination in Scripture. And I fly to the US tomorrow and I need the CD for a (Wednesday) class I am teaching at Fuller. Now you see why I am desperate.

a) Have I lent this CD recording to any of my students who read this blog? If so, you have 24 hours to escape from being forever in my bad books.
b) Or do any blog readers know if Brian has done this communal lectio divino approach in places other than Christchurch (surely he must) and it was recorded and you could help locate a digital copy for me to use Wednesday 19th July (US time). (You would be forever in my good books :))

consuming Christianity

Gospel in a post-Christian society is the next course I teach at Bible College of New Zealand; starting Wednesday 26 July, the course runs for 3hours over 14 weeks. Each year I adjust and tweak my courses and this year the emphasis will be on what the gospel might mean in our consumptive and consumeristic world.

I am using this book – A to Z of postmodern life – as a core text;
firstly, because as a sociologist the author allows us to explore postmodernity not only as a philosophical problem but as it occurs among people. Secondly, the author is non-Western and the book is a critical voice on the impact of postmodernity on global culture. And thirdly, because the book explores postmodern in everyday life: advertising to zapping, toys to shopping. And it is precisely in how we live and spend money that the gospel needs to engage us.

For those interested, a fuller bibliography is as follows:

(more…)

It’s so easy to get complacent, to waste great chunks of life just drifting along being resentful, tired, overworked, angry, or the wrong kind of lazy… Life needs to be savoured. You don’t get it twice. If time is to be wasted, it needs to be wasted properly. If there’s stuff to be angry about, do it thoroughly, then get it over with and move on. If you’re tired, get some decent rest, good food, rehydrate, and get in shape to live a bit more. Don’t waste it. Don’t waste it.

A needed reminder. Thanks Maggi.

there is no such thing as emerging church

Given that I don’t have a Mac, a goatee or sunglasses, I find this cartoon hilariously funny.

Link

It also names a personal wondering of mine over the last few weeks: is there is any such thing as emerging church?

I wrote this a few weeks ago: The emerging church seems (IMHO) to be a shared conversation among people, groups and churches, about life and faith in a changing contemporary context. But it is so easy to objectify the stories and to read the conversation as monolithic, as “this is the emerging church.” In doing so, the stories have been stripped of context. They are then in danger of commodification, as books, websites, podcasts etc. (A few sentences buried in a jet-lagged post about place and cross-cultural storytellinghere).

In other words; there is a conversation between various people about mission, faith, God, church in a postmodern context. This conversation has become commodified and homogenised into a universalist label “emerging church.”

The result
– the focus has become the conversation rather than the work of missional communities
– like any good conversation, it has no “leader.” Thus it has very few mechanism to respond to critics. (This infuriates critics even more.)
– words and labels can so easily be used to exclude and include
– we are in danger of homogenising voices and contexts and in so doing, obscure difference.

prayer of formation

Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Dirt to dirt and Mud to mud

Amen

Written for espresso church community last nite.

tears, judgement and global justice

The preaching text was Jeremiah 19. God is a judge and holds us accountable for injustice done to the poor. A tough, tough text to preach. I gave out clay at the start of the sermon and invited people to use the clay to express how they felt about the text. I think these are tears.

Update: more photos here.

painting a print

Keith sent me this:

his painting of my blog header picture. The blog header picture is of a sea shell lying on a New Zealand beach and came from the invitation to the baptism of a good and dear friend. Keith made the following interpretation “I sorta made it where the shell is on safe ground but things are tough on the horizon.”

living the text in a contemporary context

I’m teaching a 1 week intensive at Fuller Theological Seminary July 17-21. I hear there are about 45 people enrolled so far. Ryan Bolger and I had coffee last week, waiting for a plane at Boise Airport, Idaho. He was asking me about the course and what I’ll cover, so I thought I would drop a 90 sec podcast, if you want to listen.

Download file (450K)