sustain:if:able kiwi

theres something about Mary

It suddenly struck me this week that Mary might have a whole lot to say about pre-marital sexual ethics and about being a teenager today.

So here are the notes from Sunday nite.

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made it

Listener – this week – Repackaging Christmas – I got the first quote, the last quote and a good chunk in the middle. Follow on from the phone interview a few weeks ago.

Yeeha!

(Sorry, not up on the web)

a christmas journey

Eight shipping containers, around a common, paved courtyard. Like a Christmas gift, waiting to be opened. Each shipping container explores a different part of the Christmas journey – interactive, tactile worship. It’s like moving in and out of 8 different worlds.

Open 7-11 pm; every day this (Christmas) week. Last year about 1000 people came through a similar exhibition. (Done with straw hay bales as a labyrinth)

Liquid thinking: Many congregations, one mission

How to be church in a diverse city? How to resource congregations for change? How to be one body, sharing Christ’s love into our communities?

A one day seminar exploring mission in our contemporary world.

Saturday 22nd January 9:30-4:30 pm

with: Phil and Dan McCredden, ministers with Church of Christ, Northern Melbourne.

Sessions will include:

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blue christmas

Christmas, for some people, is a blue time. It’s not joy and presents, but a time when they remember absent loved ones, face dysfunctional families or financial hardship. So last nite, I ran a Blue Christmas service.

As part of it, I invited people to tie a knot (using blue twisty tie) onto a white sheet, suspended in the middle of the room. This served to allow us to remember what makes us/our friends “blue.”

I then projected the art image below onto the cloth and onto our “blues. (My sister-in-law sent me the link last week).

Painted in 1515, its titled the Adoration of the Christ Child. The painter is unknown. Look closely at the faces of the angel beside Mary and the shepherd standing. Psychiatrists have diagnosed them both as having Downs Syndrome.

Angels and shepherds, as Downs syndrome, adoring Christ. This raised some fascinating reflections.
1. Is the stigma of Downs Syndrome a recent societal phenomenon, and were such people an accepted part of the artists world of 1515?

2. Can we accept Downs Syndrome as part of the birth of Christ? Can we accept the love and worship that such people offer? What does it mean for our church communities to be places that include such people?

3. What does this art piece do to our notions of a Blue Christmas?

For a high res version from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, go here.

For more information on the medical background go here.

an eco-theological hermeneutic
– thanks Mike

essential missiology

I’m busy marking student assignments. This is a complex task, that reflects both on me and my abilities as a lecturer, and students, and there abilities as students.

The Gospel and post-Christian assignments have, to date, been underpinned by missiology. Not reaction, not relevance , not cool but the awareness of mission, of being a language learner.

It’s a joy to read, because they have potentially grasped their lecturer’s passion – the gospel in post-Christian culture, the emerging church, as missionary engagement with the world that God loves.

two kayaks

As a family we have just brought 2 kayaks ready for summer holidays. This is good. When I get very busy, I tend to zone out of my family. I am physically present but mentally absent.

My advent task has been to seek to be present mentally, to listen at meal times, to stay focused on family, to craft time to do Christmas things together.

This is good. But expensive. Two kayaks!!

advent spirituality: prepare ye the way

Advent is a time to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord in our lives. The questions below (which I picked up from somewhere in my travels but can’t remember where and would be glad to track down the source) can help our inward preparation. They can be used during Advent, or perhaps over the holidays, as we start to focus on another year.

Am I content with who I am becoming?
Do my family and friends recognize the authenticity of my Christian spirituality?
Am I generous?
Do I have a quiet centre to my life?
Have I defined my unique ministry?
Is my prayer life improving?
Have I maintained a genuine awe of God?
Is my lifestyle distinctive?
Is my “spiritual feeding” the right diet for me?
Is obedience in small matters built into my reflexes?
Is there enough celebration in my life?

Yours in Advent preparation

horoscopes and Christianity

so if the “wise” in Matthew 2 were star followers, and most likely Magi (magicians), does that not mean that horoscope reading and UFO spotting and magic is potentially a spiritual search?

and how can we keep the Christ at the centre, while encouraging such spiritual search that could lead people to the Christ?

and is this Christmas text therefore actually hugely subversively missional?

or am I making too many logical jumps?

the white stones of spiritual protection

The ancient Celtic Christians used to place stones in a circle, to claim the protection of God. And for me personally, to step inside a circle of white stones is an immensely powerful experience. I have no idea why, but lay them in a circle, step inside them, and I feel the embrace of God.

I use white stones, because it links me with Revelation 2:17, where those who overcome are given a white stone. White speaks of purity and so to stand in the stones is, for me, to make a commitment to live ethically before Christ.

So I today, in the midst of a pastoral encounter, I laid out the white stones and stepped inside. Feeling weird, but experiencing yet again the physical presence of God.

blockages

We awoke this morning to find our toilet blocked. With the personal plumbing of 2 adults and 2 children at morning bursting point, we called the plumber. You probably don’t want the details, so let me just say
Praise God for plumbers.

sand and containers

New Zealand Listener, a national magazine, just rang, wanting to interview me about church and culture today. So we talked about Jesus having a step-dad, the foreshore and seabed issue, 20 tonnes of sand inside the church and 9 shipping containers, parked outside the church, as part of the Christmas Journey at Opawa Baptist Church.

And I tried to emphasise that the Christmas story demands we set outside our nice safe walls. The stable after all, was a long way from safety.

emerging and Advent

I’ve been using the same Advent benediction for each week of Advent so far. I have been loving the line;
Awaken within us the richness of our origins and the depths of our past
that we may be a people old in experience and young in hope.

I love that mix of old/wise/experience/rooted in tradition and new/vibrant/young/hopeful. That’s why I’m part of the emerging church and that’s why it’s my home. Because ideally, at it’s best, it is taking the best of the past – Scripture, church traditions etc – into a newly postmodern future. That’s why it’s emerging, not from something or against something, but in this changing world we’re DJing a new mix, that because of the Spirit and the humility of its practioners and theo-blogians, resonates with the depths of the past.

So this Advent, rather than attack the emerging and critically nibble at our edges, why not pray for the emerging church; to become a people old in experience and young in hope.