sustain:if:able kiwi

a spring spirituality

Last September (Southern hemisphere spring), I gave out sunflowers, and invited people at Opawa to plant them as a sign of spring hope. Opawa has had many years of winters, and I suggested the seeds could embody our prayers for hope.

Last nite, a church family popped around with this photo. The sunflower stands over 3.6 metres tall.

Wanted

– a VJ
– an environmental artist
for Sunday evenings in Christchurch.

touchstone and emerging

Just had a very pleasant lunch with the New Zealand Methodist denominational magazine, talking emerging church. They are doing a major feature. The conversation ranged over midwives, soteriological entrepreneurs, institutions and motivations.

author purgatory

I visited Manna Book shop today, to work on details for a local, Christchurch book launch of my new book. On the way out the door, I was shown the specials table. “That’s where the books that die end up.” I move to my car contemplating author purgatory, the slow wait before that dreadful day when you see your book remaindered for $3.

out of sync

Warning: real honest blog post: Most of us have deeper needs that shape our movement in, and into, ministry. It can be the need to help or the need to explain. Such needs are neutral, but remain open to a warping into good or evil. So the need to help can lead to burnout, while the need to explain can lead to poor listening.

My need is to prove myself, to take up every challenge thrown at me. It was a huge insight to discover this in seminary. And as a flow on, to realise that every challenge sent my way need not be responded to. In response to my need, I have often returned to Luke 1 and 2, the sheer unexpected gift of God’s encounter, which stands against my need to respond, to justify, to explain. (Those who know me well, will want to comment that I am still in process on this issue).

But it means that when someone from outside my headspace asks me to prove myself, or my ministry, they are syncing with some pretty big personal and formational needs and desires. My reluctance to provide measures of fruit for the emerging church could be construed as avoidance. For me, it is about an awareness of what drives me, and a desire to be increasingly thoughtful about what issues I need to prove.

This does not mean I will remain silent, but it is an honest reflection on who I am at this moment in my life.

on the plane again?

It looks like I will be back in Los Angeles, April 27-29, for a leadership consultation in relation to the emerging church. I am sick of travelling, but this looks worth easing my butt back into an airline seat again.

Displacement

We have our annual church meeting this week. I’ve been here a year now and so the AGM is undergoing a radical re-shape. It’s trying to be more like a family time – with food, with comedy and live music, with sharing of what’s going on and talking about the future. There will still be motions and agendas, but the dominant image will, hopefully, be framed around the metaphor of family gathering. We have written to any and all our non-members to tell them about the changes and invite them along.

In preparation, I have been out and about shooting video. I made a list of all those new around Opawa since the last AGM and have been videoing them saying who they are and what they appreciate about Opawa.

Anyhow, I added up the list, and blow me down, there are nearly 60 new people. It’s been quite a year.

But then my thoughts jump. I wonder how it is for the long-timers. When 60 new people arrive, how do they feel? What are the pastoral issues associated with this sort of change? After all, the dominant metaphor is family.

reading for all its worth

We have started reading Walter Wangerin’s The Book of God, as part of worship at Digestion, our interactive Sunday evening service.

The nominated reader comes and sits on our “Hot text seat” – a gorgous red chair, and away we go, listening to the narrative of God in history. When we feel done, we put it aside for next Sunday. It’s a bit like a bed-time story.

In evangelical churches, the Bible is usually reduced to a tiny bit that someone explains. My hope is that reading the Book of God promotes the story, unexplained, uncommented on, reminding us of the big sweep of God through history.

the wanton pleasure of idle wondering

I fly to Auckland for the day tomorrow (Saturday), catching a 6:30 am flight, returning at 8:30 pm. I am part of the Virtual Theology Colloquium 2005;

Purpose: to gather a group of Trans-Tasman scholars to explore and discuss themes related to doing theology in the context of an electronic world: the implications for these disciplines of the cultural and epistemological changes being brought by electronic media (hypertext, digital technologies, electronic publishing, mobile telephony and the internet) and their cultural formations and applications.

I have titled my paper – P2P theology: the potential of everyday practices, as enscribed in virtual internet communities

I am presenting some research analysing attempts at community on the internet, specifically open source theology, blogs and grid blogs, assessing their potential in enabling a P2P theology. In so doing I am arguing that theology today is best viewed not in terms of historical beliefs, but in everyday practices.

Part of this week has been in preparation, and it has reminded me again of how much I enjoy research. So much of my life has an essential praxis; a preparing to preach or teach or write or speak at a seminar. While invariably much of my research does end up as praxis, there is something profoundly re-creative – excessive, wanton even – about taking time to follow the research muse and chase down questions for the sheer sake of idle wondering.

growth questions

We are ringing people around church at the moment, asking them;

In what ways do you see people your age grow/develop/change for the better?

Are their any other ways people your age can grow/develop/change for the better?

Age range?

G X E = spiritual growth

While debate still rages over the extent to which we as humans are shaped by our gene pool (G) and/or our environment (E); many people now suggest we are a mix of both.

So apply this with regard to spiritual growth;
G = (a mix of our “made in the image of God” + “being transformed into the image of Christ through the power of the Spirit.”)

E = (our communities; disciplines; growth coaching; practices; spaces).

Churches can’t do much about G; but they can do a lot about E. How to maximise our churches and relationships as E-growth-zones?

teaching this semester

postmodern lenten resources: It’s pilgrimage with Jesus, Jim, but not as we know it

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of 40 days walking with Christ toward Easter. Lent often disappears behind a religious cloak. It needs to be re-habiliated into the culture.

I have started Faith Odyssesy: A Journey Through Lent, by Richard Burridge.

(The UK cover, above, looks heaps better than the US cover as shown on Amazon)

Burridge’s book offers a daily reading through the eyes of Science Fiction and popular culture. “It’s pilgrimage with Jesus, Jim, but not as we know it.”

a wierd joy

Just got my first email from someone;
who I have never met,
who has brought my book,
who found it helpful,
and who was asking me mission questions – how to connect with their poorer, multi-ethnic community.

It is such a joy for me to know that the result of reading my book was thinking about mission and finding God in spaces new and other. Yeeha!