sustain:if:able kiwi

mono-cultural philistine

I feel such a mono-cultural philistine. I need permission to use a contemporary art image in my book. The email trail lead to Germany.

So I ring Germany.

“Do you speak English”, I have to ask.

Click. New voice.

“Do you speak English”, I have to ask again.

Click. New voice.

I mean, how would I feel if someone rang me in New Zealand, asking me if I spoke their language. I was so embarrassing.

missional impotence

postmodern culture=postmodern cultures. John Drane notes
: desperate poor
: hedonists
: traditionalists
: spiritual searchers
: corporate achievers
: secularists
: apathetic
So perhaps Hillsong exists as a form of contextualisation among corporate achievers?

To do so would be to affirm it, while at the same time encouraging mission innovation among the plurality of cultures. It is just so frustrating when its apparent numerical success is used to discourage other mission innovation.

In the movie Super Size Me, excessive consumption leads to a loss of sex drive and muscular vigor for the filmaker, Martin Spurlock. It seems that same thing is happenning with ecclesiological and denominational ponderings; that the drive to up-size in fact leads to a slackening in reproductive vigor.

emerging church = hillsong?

The leader of our Baptist family of churches here in New Zealand has just returned from the UK. He writes in our Denominational magazine of a weekend in London, and of going to Hillsong where he believed he “caught a glimpse of the future church.” He was very impressed by six services with people “queuing up for a hundred metres down the road waiting to get in.”

He then writes:
“There are lots of pundits and theoreticians on the emerging church, but when you count the fruit of their strategies you could be forgiven for wondering if they’re as onto it as they claim to be. Is it true that most supposed experts on the emerging generation come from small niche-market churches with remarkably few transformed lives? Is it not also true that the largest Gen X church in the United States is Saddleback … I got the unmistakable impression that Hillsong in London was actually attracting lots of young adults -maybe they have something to teach us about how we might do it here.”

So this is the Denominational climate of vigorous missional critique and affirmation within which I work. As I ponder a response, I’d be interested in any more grounded UK comments on Hillsong London and what it might teach us about the future of the church?

missional discipleship as Growth Coaching and spiritual stepping stones

Ann Wilkinson-Hayes emailed a few weeks ago:
Got to do a lecture next week on missional discipleship. Something about missional church requiring a different way of learning faith. Any thoughts/resources?

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preaching the lamb of God

Jesus the lamb of God:

are there any contemporary metaphors that might illuminate this blood-stained, distinctly rural image in today’s urban context?

how to communicate such an image, especially today, 1 October, World Vegetarian
Day!?

HOW WIERD IS THAT

if you type in “out of bounds church” on amazon.com – you get my book, and a chance to pre-order! that is so totally wierd … and totally like, vulnerable and scarey.

for more info on the book…

first draft emerging church 101

First draft :: weekend block course :: Bible College of New Zealand :: 3rd term of 2005.
This course is designed to introduce people to ministry in a postmodern context. It will use selected examples of contemporary Christian exploration; specifically the emerging church as a loose, umbrella term for a range of new forms of church and ways of being Christian; including worship innovation, cyber church and new forms of community. Such real life experimentation will be critically examined in light of the Christian tradition. This weaving together of life with a thinking faith will enhance a student’s ability to follow Jesus today.

Course text :: Taylor’s The out-of-bounds church? learning to create communities of faith in a culture of change.

I am in Wellington for the day, meeting with a few people about a possible New Zealand wide emerging church conference mid-May 2005. It looks a great day for flying.

enscribing ecclesiological identity in the unique crevasses of our sociological context

church is never ahistorical. to etch “be the church” as one’s ecclesiological slogan is to potentially deny the incarnation, a Jewish Christ walking among a Jewish people, cracking Jewish jokes and building a Jewish community.

For to “be the church” is to be embodied among particular people in the unique crevasses where God has placed us. Those unique crevasses might be called by sociological names: Jewish, early, African, Roman, Celtic, Gen X, postmodern, even emergent. Such names, such attention to the unique crevasses of one’s existence, need not be read as a defining label, but as an expression of Incarnation, a respecting of the unique contours of enscribed identity.

spring clean action

last days then left behind

Last day to pick up a limited edition A5 size copy of my PhD, A New Way of Being Church .. if not, then be left behind … A New Way of Being Church is a world first, an indepth academic exploration of how the emerging church responds to cultural change, asking the question; how effective is the emerging church as a postmodern expression of faith?

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movement in mission

Tomorrow represents my first mission initiative at Opawa. Tomorrow for Opawa is spring clean day.

I have invited the church to gather at either 9 am or 1 pm … and to work together in groups, either spring cleaning around the church, or spring cleaning into the community … picking up rubbish, mending broken fences.

About a week ago we letterboxed, letting people know we were coming.

On Sunday is spring clean Sunday, exploring the spirituality of de-cluttering our lives, wiping our interior surfaces, being wholebodied.

It is this mix of community, servanthood and spirituality, that I hope will become a hallmark of Opawa in mission.

I’m nervous … will people come … are we organised enough … are we disorganised enough …

meeting mels Jesus at the movies

Research just out shows that Mel Gibson’s The Passion had no lasting impact on faith. Given the inadequacy of its theology, all I can say is thank God.

Only 16% of viewers said it had affected their religious beliefs, while 9% prayed more and 8% attended church more. Interesting that half of movie goers in the US were Christians (53%). That means that a good number of Christians could watch Jesus being beaten and flogged, yet remain unmoved in faith and practice.

As for its evanglistic potential, the research found the apparent absence of a direct evangelistic impact by the movie. Despite marketing campaigns labeling the movie the “greatest evangelistic tool” of our era, less than one-tenth of one percent of those who saw the film stated that they made a profession of faith or accepted Jesus Christ as their savior in reaction to the film’s content. Let me repeat that – one-tenth of one percent!

Does this mean movies missionary potential is limited? Well, the research found that while 41% of adults had seen a movie in the last 2 years that caused them to think more seriously about faith, they were more likely to be active religiously before hand.

This would suggest that movies are not a postmodern magic bullet.

colin mcahon

Did anyone video the TV programme on Colin McCahon, New Zealand’s most famous painter, on Saturday? I missed it and am keen to watch it.

(For a online interactive presentation on McCahon, go here. For an online Colin McCahon: I am study guide go here.)