sustain:if:able kiwi

linked

one of my posts (an idea of an alternative way of being church) made it onto the Presbyterian Church of Aoteroa New Zealand newsletter here.

welcome to any presbyterian sojourners who might have clicked my way.

power of poetry

this has been a hard easter for me at a personal level. i am too busy. my book is in the last month of its life with me, and every spare minute is spent editing. it is my first easter in a new church and i am still finding my feet. a number of staff developments in the church have left me overloaded. on top of that, Christchurch experienced a cold snap and my Auckland blood froze.

this easter the psalms have been my lifeline. i have struggled to read the narratives of Jesus. i have been sustained by the simple elegance of poetry and metaphor.

thank God for different parts of the Bible.

Ice God

hard edges
cross cut deep
wounds bled of life

cold isolation
a frozen man en-tomb

Working the art

I did two art installations (of 16) in the 2004 Contemporary Passion of the Christ art exhibition at church. The aim is not high quality art, but interactivity – an engaging Easter experience.

One of the art installations I did was the “last bbq”, complete with tomato sauce, buttered bread and barbeque. People are invited to sit down at a picnic table and write on a plastic plate “what are the last words you would say to this dying man”. Then they stuff their plate in the rubbish, before moving on through the rest of the art installation.

Today I was cleaning the plastic plates (dry-erase markers), in order to recycle them. It was a rare privilege to read what people have written and to sense that people are “working the art,” penning prayer on plastic plates and in so doing, accessing the living God of Easter.

(I will tell you about the other installation later).

Palm sand-day

When you have 7 tonnes of sand in your church, it probably means you have the largest indoor ecclesial church sand-pit in the world. Perfect for Palm sand-day!

The kids stayed in for the entire service. During the sermon they were invited to build a sand castle of the “entry to Jerusalem.”

It was very cool to preach in the middle of 7 tonnes of sand and a 30 metre wide sand-pit with groups of kids all around me building sand castles.

Question to kid: Can I borrow your palm frond?

Answer from kid: That’s not a palm frond, that’s the TV aerials around Jerusalem!

church and the dub

I am a dub survivor
ready to ez on by

cos its been a long, long time
since the dance hall boy
loved your ways.

Went to Salmonella Dub on Friday. I’d forgotten I had a body that is God-made to move. I’d forgotten what it feels like to feel bass through my feet and chest. I’d forgotten the magical integration of a tight set, great lights, dub beats, and video.

Someone once described Graceway as like a Salmonella Dub set:
a mix of brass, beats, electronica, with Tiki tane conducting them like wild prophet, inviting us to join for the ride. And what a ride it is; sound, light, visual, dance, sweat dripping from every pore in my body. It finishes all too soon. But what a great gig, no great experience. I am reminded of how I enjoy our attempts at graceway to incorporate the elements of this experience into our worship; sound, light, visual, movement…connecting all the senses to God, who calls us to worship him with all our heart/soul/mind/strength. I go of to the next gig, thinking about just which salmonella dub track i will use on sunday…

shattered

shattered … he posted the last chapter of his book to the helpful global friends who give feedback.

45,000 words
8 chapters
…. done ….

he broke open a beer, knowing that if he died tonite, he would leave a complete manuscript.

after a good nights sleep, he will return to the beginning. he will take to each chapter with a sharp red pen and the written comments of those helpful global friends.

a deconstruction of Incarnation

Incarnation is the new buzz word. (Alongside missional). Words are power, so in the spirit of deconstruction;
we are Incarnational because Jesus was Incarnational? Right.

Of course …
So Incarnational mission is retreating from people …
as Jesus did lots when he sought the quiet to pray?
So Incarnational mission is a geographic immobility and a snobbish attitude to other cultures …
as Jesus did when he focused on Israel and only very reluctantly blessed the Syro-phonecian woman?
So Incarnational mission is refusing to share the Messianic secret …
as Jesus instructed people he healed to do?

No, of course not. So what is Incarnational?

(more…)

kiwis lead the way again: News flash from joe ker

1 April saw the birth here in new zealand of extreme.emerging church…

it offers fools for christ a unique experience and will make all baptists and other followers of full emmersion exstatic.

stripping, art and space

My latest radio rant ..
I want to soapbox about stripping the church.

Now before you reach for the radio dial, let me reassure you, I am not talking about a nude streak down the aisle.

At Easter, some churches strip …

(more…)

salmonella dub~masters

off to see the dubmasters tonite. yeeha.

it is thursday.
i am missing auckland friends.

do you want many or few?

I am in the final stages of preparing my book manuscript for emergentYS. Provisional title – e~mergent postcards: a postmodern missiology. It is a followup to my PhD research on the emerging church. It is a to book, not a from book, an attempt to name some new mission contours, to link Scripture with emergent practices.

One of the things I dream of doing with the book is give some sense of writing in community. I want to ask a range of people to provide “comments” – short paragraphs alongside my thoughts – to disagree, to provide an example, to add a prayer or a ritual- and thus broaden perspectives. Just like a blog.

I am wanting to include voices like a new Christian, women church planters, wiser older heads, alongside the usual names that one needs to lift one’s book from obscurity to whatever.

The publisher and I are talking about having
a) 2 “commenters” that run through the entire book plus 4-6 other regular cycling commenters ie 6-8 commenters in total
b) 2 “commenters” that run through the entire book plus new and different voices in every chapter ie 20 commenters in total.

Would you rather have a few repeated voices for the sake of continuity, or more voices at the risk of not knowing who they are?

questions that need answering

1. why would lawrence lessing release his book for free on the www?

2. why would lawrence lessing’s publishers release his book on the www?

3. who feeds lawrence lessing’s children?