sustain:if:able kiwi

Faith as snorkelling

I went snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef this week. (As you do when you live in Australia!) It struck me that snorkelling does have some interesting connections to faith.

It takes a degree of trust, that a thin tube will provide oxygen, that a rogue wave won’t drown you. Related, it assumes immersion, that the only way to snorkel is to snorkel. You can theorise all you want, but at some point you have to immerse yourself in trust. Same with faith, it is a whole bodied immersion in trust.

It can make all sorts of logical sense. The guidebook explains, the guides have gone before, it is reasonable to rely on air through a tube. But despite Scripture, tradition, reason, experience is essential.

That trust is a process. Their is the first brief head plunge with your whole world consumed by survival. Am I breathing? After a while you realise you have energy to look, see, explore. Same with faith, a process by which more and more is opened up.

The result is this realisation you live at the same time in two worlds. Head up, in the pitch and roll and slap of ocean waves. Or immersed in the quiet underwater of a world of exquisite beauty and wonder.

Snorkelling and faith.

Mission and leadership intensives

Two intensives begin at Uniting College tomorrow. Both provide a glimpse of our direction and focus.

On the Gold Coast, Craig Bailey, at the invitation of New Life Uniting, begins an intensive on leadership. It includes local folk from the church plus a number of folk from Adelaide, flying up to enjoy the input, and a warmer climate. So there will be real richness across Synods and States. In addition, this is one of four topics we are teaching this year in local churches, as part of our desire to build partnerships and connect with more folk and engage locally.

In Adelaide, Rosary Dewerse begins an intensive on mission, worship and leadership across cultures. This is her area of passion and chimes beautifully with the release of her book, Breaking Calabashes, which is an accessible introduction to the skills and practises essential to encounter across cultures. It is her PhD, made practical. It is such a crucial area for mission in Australia and its great to see both the book and the course.

Mission and leadership, partnering with local churches and across cultures. A snapshot of the College indeed.

Chaplaincy everywhere

I like the sound of Chaplaincy Everywhere. It is mentioned on a recent post on Sanctus 1, a fresh expression in the UK, in which they are placing chaplains in shopping centres.

So this is more than historic notions of chaplains as at hospital or prison. We need ways to empower people to see themselves as chaplains in their streets, communities and workplaces. It is what we worked toward at Opawa Baptist at one point, calling them community chaplains, and we appointed three into the local community.

I suspect it requires another understanding of ecclesiology, in which the local church commissions and nurtures, rather than the wider (synod).

One of our DMin students at Uniting College is exploring a theology of street chaplaincy, based on his experiences over years as a Main Street chaplain. Plus there is the fabulous chapter in Darren Cronshaws book on ministry models in Australia, including Michael Leunig as a chaplain to the culture.

All by way of saying, I wonder what a Chaplaincy Everywhere course at Uniting College would look like?

transition zones

I spent part of yesterday walking the Auckland Art Gallery. After an academic conference, art is exactly what I need.

I spend quite a bit of time contemplating Ralph Hotere’s Godwit/Kuaka. It was commissioned in 1977 for the Auckland airport. At over 20 metres, it is a stunning piece of work. The godwit is known for its migration patterns, flying thousands of miles, to land, exhausted, in New Zealand.

Contemplating the art gave me time to reflect on my flight patterns. First, just about to fly to Cairns for 10 days holiday with the rest of Team Taylor. Yeehaa. So a transition zone personally and as a family.

Second, having just finished being part of a conference, hosted at Laidlaw College, where I used to teach, catching up with old friends, so talking about journeys, hearing about journeys. And then spending the Tuesday and Wednesday with great friends from our Graceway-Auckland-church planting days.

Third, it was just over a year ago that I began as Principal at Uniting College. I drove to work with heart pounding, and settled into a whole new role. A year on, there is much to reflect upon, regarding the changes this role is making in me and requiring of me.

Here is the poem that sits beside the Hotere art work.

Death/exhaustion rises up
It is the rope, koakoa (the cry of the bird)
Binding you to here to me
The cry/chattering of the flock

Come closer together
From inside its throat – a marauding party
A godwit
A godwit that hovers

One bird
Has settled on the sand bank
It has settled over there
It has settled over there
They have settled there

There is such fascinating interplay in this poem between distance and closeness, between here and there. It is exhausting. Yet in the exhaustion, companions are found, the here and there is blurred. Such a deep sense of community and discovery is evoked. I left the gallery glad of godwits, of art, of journeys, of migrants, of settlers, of friends, both here and there, of communities old and new, new and old.

born to sing: finding joy in U2’s pilgrimage

The Jesus Deck card for me today, drawn randomly from the deck, is 9, Luke. The text is “My soul magnifies the Lord.” The main character is Mary.

She is barefoot. She stands on a road, that loops, turns and seems ready to carry her forward. Her hands clutch her purple clothes close. She seems paused, ready to walk, ready to adventure.

It is a call to pilgrimage. It is pilgrimage, suffused with joy, for she us clothed so beautifully. From her head bursts stars, from her mouth bursts words that magnify. It is a wholebodied venture – feet to walk, mouth to sing, soul to respond.

It reminds me of the words from U2’s Magnificent – “I was born to sing for you” – The Falke Radio mix, from Artificial Horizon is the best, a dance mix that captures so much of the joy in the song. It’s aided by the rhythm of the beat, the regularity and pace of breathing.

I struggle with much religious music. But U2’s “I was born to sing for you” invites me to walk with Mary, to go on the journey of pilgrimage.

With joy.

Where are the theologians?

This is the one of the three stories I used to begin my conference paper at the ANZATS Christians in Communities conference.

I am here among these working-class people in this post-industrial landscape because I want to hear their stories. I take their voices seriously. This is what research in religion means, I fume, to attend to the experiences and beliefs of people in the midst of their lives, to encounter religion in its place in actual men and women’s lived experience, in the places they live and work. Where are the theologians from the seminaries on the South Side, I want to know, with all their talk of postmodernism and narrativity? When will the study of religion in the United States take an emperical and so more realistic and human direction? Robert Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them

It is used in Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography and so enabled me to engage this new series -Studies in Ecclesiology and Ethnography – from Eerdmans. The story also asks some important questions about theology. Who does it? Where should it be done? How should it be done? Who should it be for? Those questions essentially shaped the rest of the paper.  I began with three examples of ecclesiology and ethnography, including one from my fresh expressions ten years research. I offered a “down under” critique, drawing on the post-colonial work of indigenous researcher, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, to argue that research should be for the community, not the researcher of the academy. 

Finally, I explored how ecclesiology and ethnography could be theology, rather than simply social sciences with a theological cherry thrown on top at the end. This was, I felt, the most creative section of the paper.  I returned to my initial three examples, and argued that in them was a triptych of places in which theological reflection was found – in the researcher, in the community and in the subsequent reflection. By way of example, I then pointed to two places in the second Eerdmans volume, Explorations in Ecclesiology and Ethnography which I consider intriguing illustrations, of the unintended yet potential trajectories made possible through ecclesiology and ethnography. Thus each example returned us to my initial question – Where are the theologians? Because if they are, like Robert Orsi insists, with the congregations in mission, it sets off a rich train of questions about the nature and practice of writing, teaching and formation.

Working on this paper has been about stepping back from my actual ethnographic research into fresh expressions, in order to think more carefully about the very discipline I’m part of.

5 cities in 4 climes

It was a bit of a major headturner trying to pack last night – packing for the frost of Christchurch, followed by the showers of Auckland, then the tropics of Cairns; thinking about what to wear to visit my parents, speak at a conference, lounge on a beach, attend national Uniting Church meetings.

Here’s the upcoming schedule.

• Friday 28 June – fly today from Adelaide to Christchurch. While in Sydney, I catch up with my supervisor, who will put me through me leadership paces and find some area we agree I need to grow in
• Saturday 29 June – morning with my parents in Christchurch, catching up after being away for too long!
• Sunday 30 June – presenting an academic paper – Ecclesiology and ethnography downunder – at ANZATS (Australia New Zealand Association of Theological Studies), being held this year at Laidlaw College, Auckland
• Wednesday 3 July – with the conference over, and after a Tuesday catching up with good friends, flying to Cairns for a week of family holiday
• Wednesday 10 July – fly to Brisbane, first do the theme parks on Gold Coast, then to enjoy more family time, including with extended family, on the Sunshine Coast
• Sunday 15 July – fly to Sydney, first for a one day consultation on the impact of multi-cultural identities on leadership formation, followed by annual national Ministry Education Meetings
• Wednesday 18 July – return to Adelaide

All in all, a major exercise in moving between various contexts. It also means I’m not at all sure how much blogging there will be in the next few weeks.

Living libraries: Embodiment and transformation in the context of e-learning (Conference paper abstract)

A few hours in the air between Adelaide and Sydney gave me time to put together a potential paper for the Learning and Teaching Theology Conference: The Way Ahead. It is being held in Sydney, September 27th- 28th, 2013. It looks a really worthwhile attempt to keep theological colleges thinking about theological education. Since I’ve been involved in a review of distance education here at Uniting College, which has caused me to think theologically about distance education, I scratched together the following abstract.

Living libraries: Embodiment and transformation in the context of e-learning

This paper, in considering the way ahead for Australian theological education, will apply the theological motif of transformation to the task of e-learning, using the notion of “living libraries” as a conceptual bridging strategy.

Recent research by the Transforming Theology project cited the Adelaide College of Divinity (ACD) Bachelor of Ministry as an example of good practice in curriculum design for transformative learning. “The innovative Bachelor of Ministry of Adelaide College of Divinity quite intentionally included a number of such independent and supervised Guided Studies in the final year … In these units an attempt is made to model the process of transformative integration.”

This paper will use a practical theology methodology. It will begin with a case study from recent ACD activity, the participation through video conferencing of a New Zealand church leader in a supervised Guided study “Church Re-think” class.

This moment will be brought into conversation with “living libraries,” an approach to learning that began in Denmark in 2000. Rather than produce a written resource, a youth movement provided people to libraries who had experienced violence. Rather than borrow a book, the community could book a person, and through conversation explore the perspective of another. An independent audit has recorded benefits including new learning and improved levels of community cohesion and engagement.

Returning to the case study, the potential of “living libraries” for new learning in theological education will be analysed under headings of context, lecturer and learner.

This will allow a three fold argument. First, that “living libraries” provide a fruitful way to understand selected pedagogical factors in transformation. Second that “living libraries” provide a way to foreground theologies of embodiment. Third that “living libraries” provide a way bring an explicit theology to bear in regard to pedagogy and digital technologies.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor
Principal, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology

Colour my faith

Olive Fleming Drane posted a delightful picture, of the new floor in Glasgow’s new Paperchase.

It’s a delightful reminder of the power and place of colour. And the implications for our engagement with Christian faith.

Like “colour divina.” Imagine hearing the same Bible text, read slowly, read repeatedly. And each time, standing in a different colour. Where is purple in the text? Where is the colour red? Where do we see green?

Imagine different stations, placed on different coloured mats. Confession on red, benediction on green, hearing the Scriptures in purple.

At Opawa, for a period of time, part of the call to worship included the invitation:

Words of introduction: We all come from different weeks; good and bad, busy and slow, major and minor. What colour would describe your emotions and experiences this week?

Action: In baskets at various places around the auditorium are a wide range of colours. Each colour square has a “hot dot” fixed to the back. As we gather as a community in worship this morning I invite you
a) choose a colour square that says something about your week.
b) peel the backing paper of the “hot dot” on the back and place your colour on the cross.
You can do this at any time before the service.

Prayer: We will start our service with the following prayer

Leader: Arriving, we bring our current reality.
All: The good and the bad. The busy and the slow. The major and the minor.

Leader: We dare to believe that God is among us.
All: Among us as one who listens, holds, loves, heals, guides.

Leader: We dare to believe that we are safe here.
All: Safe among friends journeying together. Journeying to a deeper knowledge of, love for and service with God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(full post here)

For more on the place of colour in Christian faith, see

• Colouring the stations of the cross here
• Colouring formation here
• for a fantastic resource, in the form of a children’s book, see here.

the thinner the skin of leadership? U2, Kite, Jesus and change

’cause hardness, it sets in
You need some protection
The thinner the skin
– U2, Kite

I’ve been reflecting a lot on leadership recently. There are public dimensions to being in a role like Principal. Lots of people provide opinions on how things could be, on how the job should be done. If change happens, then there are all sorts of unintended consequences. Human responses to change are natural, important, and need to be heard. As U2 say, “the thinner the skin,” the more these opinions are taken on board.

I’ve observed a number of responses, a number of ways that “protection” is sought.

One is to hide, to avoid the intensity of relationships by being less available. This can be physically, by finding other places to be. This can be internally, by withdrawing within oneself.

Another is cynicism, to find oneself more and more often with arms folded, seeing the negative side of everything.

I’m sure there are other ways that people find protection.

One of the things I admire about Jesus is how he lived with a “thinner skin.” Even in the events of Holy Week, we find him caring, listening, leading. Through all this he seemed to remain open. There is no resorting to cyncism, no hiding from the challenges he faces.

So to use the lines from U2, did he find a “healthy” hardness, appropriate modes of protection, life-giving ways to enact his gifts and charisms? Or is that any “hardness”, any “protection” is in fact not in the way of Jesus? Was he in the end, so “thin-skinned” that it led to death? And is that in fact God’s way of bringing life? Can Kingdom change only occur when the seed dies?

Only questions, in what is, a fairly “thin-skinned” blogpost :)!

pastoral studies suite: did “we” do this?

One of my learnings at the moment, is how to shift from I to we. In other words, how innovation and change can emerge from groups, rather than individuals – on how to create communities that can look at each other and go “we did this.”

Here’s a marker to reflect on:

It is a hospital bed that sits in the middle of what is becoming a pastoral training suite. With the advent of the new Diploma of Ministry in Chaplaincy (for more see here and here), here at Uniting College, along with other pastoral teaching and training courses, we thought it appropriate to establish a room suitably equipped for pastoral training purposes. The room is in the process of being equipped with various furnishings and healthcare equipment to create a variety of pastoral contexts relevant to contemporary chaplaincy and other pastoral ministries. The contexts being developed include a hospital bedroom, an aged care living room, a disability ramp and wheelchair, and a schoolroom setting and possibly a prison visiting room. These contexts will enable students to envision the lived pastoral context with significant clarity. Students will, for example, be filmed practising and reviewing their pastoral craft in one of the created contexts. In an small room next door we are creating a discrete worship space to symbolise the sense in which the chaplain / pastoral practitioner takes their liturgical and sacramental resources with them into their pastoral context.

So how did this happen?

This innovation began with our Old Testament lecturer, who having recently spoken to Chaplains in South Australia, wondered if we as a College could better resource then. This question was explored in a small group within our team, workshopping creative ways to respond to our funding challenges. (Sometimes challenges can generate creativity.) From that group emerged a creative solution – a Diploma of Ministry in (chaplaincy/leadership) that already existed within our course structures.

As I heard the group share the idea, I wondered if this innovation could be strengthened by resourcing. I took a funding proposal to our Board, as an entrepreneurial experiment. They agreed and a person, was appointed to be a chaplaincy Co–ordinator.

When the idea of the new Diploma of Ministry was promoted at Synod, a former lecturer of the college mentioned to me their dream of a “pastoral suite.”

I mentioned the dream to the new Chaplaincy co-ordinator and suggested he connect with our Campus manager about the logistics. She found a space and put a funding bid to the campus resources board for painting. I also suggested the new Chaplaincy co-ordinator seek to connect by asking agencies for furniture, as a way of decreasing our costs, but more importantly promoting our initiative and building connections. He did. As a result, we’ve been given hospital bed, wheelchair, walker. We are aiming for a public launch in a few months, in which we can invite these agencies to see the result!

In sum, within the space of some eight months, we have a pastoral suite, a new staff person, a clarified Diploma, a more diverse student body, increased connections with agencies, a marketing niche and a branding message that says we innovate not just for leaders in large churches, but also for chaplains in agencies.

Looking back, there are things I might have done differently. But it stands as an intriguing leadership marker. “We did this” – an OT lecturer, a small group, a new Chaplaincy co-ordinator, a “dreamer” lecturer, a Principal as connector, a Campus Manager. Very different gifts mixes and roles, each essential, to innovation.

PS This was a story I shared at the Innovation that Engages Upgrade, as a way of introducing the National Church Life Survey Lead with your strengths insights.

wood remembers

I’m sure there are connections between this –

Many violinists and violinmakers insist that violins grow into their beautiful throaty sounds, and that a violin played exquisitely for a long time eventually contains the exquisite sounds within itself … In down-to-earth terms: Certain vibrations made over and over for years, along with all the normal processes of aging, could make microscopic changes in the wood; we perceive those cellular changes as enriched tone. In poetic terms: The wood remembers. Thus, part of a master violinist’s duties is to educate a violin for future generations. (Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, 204)

– and the task of discipling and forming leaders.

Isn’t mentoring “part of a master [mentors] duties is to educate a [?] for future generations”? Can’t teaching theology be “part of a master [theologians] duties is to educate a [?] for future generations?

a theology of sighing

On Thursday, as a staff team, we gathered for our weekly prayer. I was intrigued by the opening verse of the Psalm for the day:

Give ear to my words, O LORD; give heed to my sighing. Psalm 5:1

Perhaps because I’ve become aware, suddenly, in the last week, that one of the children in Team Taylor sighs exactly like one of their parents. It’s uncanny. Perhaps, because I’ve found myself sighing quite a few times in the last week. Perhaps because, at the start of winter, in the last week of a semester, I’ve heard a number of the team, well, sigh.

So, we paused at “sighing.”

And we asked each other – what are you currently sighing over? Together we heard a wide range of life events. There was some good sighing. And some sad sighing. And some worried sighing. With a candle lit to remind us of God’s presence, it was a rich time. As part of the time, one of our team offered a reflection from their ministry practice.

“Sometimes when I sit with people and hear their story, the only response seems to be sighing. To sit in the silence and sigh. It’s the most appropriate, Christ-like, pastoral response.”

A theology of sighing. People sigh. In Psalm 5, God is asked to hear those sighs. In Mark 7, Jesus looks to heaven and sighs deeply. Only in the gospel of Mark is it mentioned that Jesus sighed. More remarkably, Mark uses two different forms of the verb in
this passage. It is an act of deep empathy and prayer. Being in ministry is thus to sigh with the sighing. Pastoral prayer is sighing.

So I’m off for the weekend. To sigh – to God, through Jesus.

missional readings of Scripture: widow of Zarephath

The missional conversation expects us to read the Bible with missional eyes. That means we pay attention to the edges. We read texts asking – who are the marginal people, what are the marginal places? That then allows us to focus on encounters – the interactions between edges and centres, outsiders and insiders, powerless and powerful.

Take for example, 1 Kings 17, the story of the encounter of the widow of Zarephath with Elijah.

There is a geographic edge. As a consequence of the drought, Elijah heads to Sidon: 1 Kings 17:7-8: “Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the LORD came to [Elijah]: 9 “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there.”

Sidon is a town mentioned in the previous chapter: 1 Kings 16:30: “Ahab …. married Jezebel daughter of [the] king of [Sidonians] and began to serve Baal and worship him.” So Elijah, God’s agent, heads to Sidon. To the place where Jezebel, the Kings wife was born, to the place where Baal worship is strong and thriving. This is a fascinating response to encountering a diverse belief system. You go to it.

Second, the people on the edge. Elijah finds a woman gathering sticks. To quote from a Bible commentary: There were many widows in [Elijah’s] Isreal and the surrounding areas because of war and famine. Traditional family and village systems of support for widows had broken down since the king … had started buying up the land and corrupting village leaders. Prices for oil were high because they were chief export crops. This widow could not afford them anymore.

They talk in the news media about needing to find the human interest story. Well here in 1 Kings is the human interest story. YHWH, the God of the Old Testament, has a human interest in widows.

Third, the interaction. Having gone to the edge, in place and person, we can now consider this story from the viewpoint of the widow. From this perspective, she is a most extraordinary example of hospitality and faith. She offers her last to a stranger. She says yes to a prophet, no matter how illogical. This is discovered in the “Baal” worshipping town. A redeeming God will always be found in the places the centre considers unlikely!

Finally, this text offers an insight regarding community empowerment. I am fascinated by the way that Elijah doesn’t give her a handout. Instead he empowers her. Invites her to simply give what she’s got. One book noted that “The key [to 1 Kings 17] is that [Elijah] does not do the miracle for [the widow] [Instead he] enables her to do it for herself.” Here’s a way to work with the poor, in ways that do not leave them victims, but invited to use what they have got – the twigs they can collect, their flour and oil.

This is a missional reading. The people of God are encouraged to journey to the places complicit with economic oppression. In this places, they are to concentrate of human interest. They are invited to look for God’s prior activity in those places, to seek those who already have the capacity for extraordinary faith.