sustain:if:able kiwi

euro-bound

Tomorrow, 26th December, we Eurostar across the Channel. Time for our Euro experience. Tee hee.

It’s been a busy first two weeks of sabbatical. I’ve had two cracks at writing a publisher proposal. One got the thumbs down, “needs more effort” from a helpful colleague. The second, shaped by the helpful conversation emerging from the first, got a much more encouraging response. So with a greater sense of clarity, of both the big picture and some stepping stones, I’ve now started to work on a couple of sample chapters. It’s been a profitable beginning to the sabbatical.

A surprise is to realise how quickly and completely I’ve forgotten about the Principal pressures. Being sucked into a book proposal in my largest study ever in another country, in another hemisphere, has been a very good way to find some space, mental and spiritual.

But now it’s time to pause, to holiday. Not this year in a Southern Hemisphere of beaches, baches, barbeques and books. Rather a Northern Hemisphere of art galleries, museums and cathedrals.Three weeks to absorb, across Belgium, Germany and France. Looking forward to stepping away, not just from being Principal, but from being sabbatical writer.

the nativity as a theology for the differently abled: film review of Intouchables

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for December.

The Intouchables – A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

“That’s what I want. No pity” Philippe from his wheel chair

It is Christmas. In the next weeks many of us will find ourselves contemplating an image of the Nativity, the crib surrounded by adoring angels, bewildered shepherds and a prayerful Mary.

(from Metropolitan Museum , usage based on their fair use policy and from www.metmuseum.org.)

The Adoration of the Christ Child by Jan Joest (1515) is one such depiction. While not sited on contemporary Christmas cards, it has caught the eye of scientists, who have identified one angel and one shepherd as displaying the typical features of Down syndrome.

It raises an important theological question. When the Word became flesh, one with all humanity, how might this be good news for the differently abled? What does disability mean to a Christian understanding of being human?

French movie “The Intouchables,” written and directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, provides a delightfully comic, yet theologically thoughtful response.

Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is a tetraplegic, sentenced to life in a wheel chair as a result of a hang glider accident. Needing care, he hires Driss (Omar Sy), a Senegalese migrant, from a long list of applicants. They share little in common, separated by age, ethnicity, upbringing and social context.

Yet together this unlikely pairing help each become more fully human. Their journey is a delight. Those around me in the packed cinema found a shared laughter, an enjoyment with, never at, the differently abled.

The film was voted the cultural event of 2011 in France, enjoying number one at the box office for ten consecutive weeks, becoming the highest-grossing movie in a language other than English. It is easy to see why. The dialogue is deft. The acting is superb.

Some critics suggest easy stereotypes in the contrast between rich white man and poor black man. Yet “The Intouchables” uncovers the brokenness in both their worlds. For one, the relational sterility of wealth, for the other, the drug addicted violence of high-rise migrant housing.

Both Philippe and Driss must eventually find healing for disabilities not just physical, but relational.

Suggesting easy stereotypes also overlooks reality. “The Intouchables” is based on truth, the relationship of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and Algerian Abdel Sellou, spread over ten years. Their story is told in A Second Wind and they remain friends. Together their relationship offers a depth of insight into the task of being human.

“Pity is the last thing you need. Pity is hopeless. Pity is what someone gives you because he is afraid to take care of you. I didn’t need that. But compassion I don’t need also. It comes from Latin and means ‘suffering with’. I don’t want you to be suffering with me. I need consolation, which in Latin means keeping me as a whole person, respecting me as I am.” (Philippe in Daily Telegraph, 5/9/2012)

Christians can get good at pity. At Christmas we can face many calls for compassion. Might it be that Christ, surrounded by disabled angels and shepherds, calls us to neither pity nor compassion? Rather he invites consolation, the God who in Christ so loved the intouchables, all “the least of these.”

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Principal, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

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Walking on country: Uniting College Candidates Indigenous Immersion

News via email overnight of funding approved for Walking on Country, an indigenous immersion experience, which we want to have as a compulsory part of our training for candidates for ministry at Uniting College. It’s a project that I’ve been quietly working away on for well over a year – first in going ourselves as a family, then in seeking partnership with Uniting Church Congress, then in approaching a potential funding partner, then in finding a person to provide leadership, including to write up the bid ….

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
• That a three day/three night educational and spiritual experience of Indigenous culture, history, politics and contemporary lifestyle be incorporated into the training and education of Uniting Church (of South Australia) candidates for Ministry.
• That this occur in different locations each year, based with an Indigenous community.
• That over a three year cycle, with up to 10 candidates attending each year, this program will be attended by the entire Ministry candidate cohort.
• That the program consist of Preparatory reading, an Immersion experience, and a post-trip forum.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES:
1. For participants to become informed and educated about life in particular Indigenous communities
2. For participants to explore ‘decolonisation’ of their colonised thinking and relationships,
3. For participants to develop conceptual, emotional and spiritual foundations for covenanting and friendships with Indigenous communities and the UAICC
4. For participants to commit to a journey of reconciliation with Indigenous Australians, and to the vision for Covenanting in the Uniting Church.

Three days is nothing.

Although it might be better than nothing.

And it fits with a number of other intentional processes we’re working on – looking not for a one-off tokenist experience, but consciousness raising on multiple fronts.

Because missional leaders need to experience boundary crossing – in their guts and bodies and in their contexts – as well as their heads.

My largest study ever

Ripon College is the centering, homing location for our sabbatical. It emerged from a chance email, three Kiwis missiologists connecting. Cathy Ross emailed me congratulating us on our appointing at Uniting College of our new Director of Missiologist, Rosemary Dewerse. Cathy offered us hospitality if I ever came to the UK, which I said I actually was planning to do in a few months. And so we are now here at Ripon College, training place for Anglican Ordinands.

The library is located within the building and I’ve found a quiet little spot. I’ve not worked in a dedicated theological library for a long time and its just magic, surrounded by all the books you are likely to need. It’s like my office, only with more books and no work to distract or desk to tidy. It’s safer than a public library, meaning you can leave your computer to go for lunch or a 15 minute walk-and-break. It’s richer, being able to go to “practical theology” and browse all the relevant shelf, looking for chapters on how the Bible is being used, or going to “ecclesiology” and finding an new resource.

This first week of sabbatical I’ve started with a blank page and written around 4,000 words of a book précis. What do I want to say, how to begin, how to end and the stepping stones to get there? I hope to have a publisher proposal and sample chapter by Christmas.

the sabbatical begins

And so it begins …

• For sabbatical – Adelaide, Hong Kong, London, Oxford (Ripon College) – from Sunday 9 December
• For holiday – London, Bruges, Amsterdam, Cologne, Mainz, Freiburg, Paris, Oxford – from 26 December until 15 January
• For research (to be organised) – Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, York, London – from 25 January until 15 February
• For visits (to be organised) – Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow – from 16 January until 23 January

I’ve thought about not blogging until I get the book (Sustainability and Fresh Expressions) written. As a discipline. But Lynne joked that would be like cutting of an arm. That I blog to get my thoughts organised. So who knows ….

these walls will talk

One of the advantages of living in a house renovation is some space to play. Over the last few months, in order to try to gain even a tiny bit of work/life balance, I’ve been knocking off work early every Monday, to spend time with one of the family.

Together we’ve been working on a few projects. This is one of them –

– chalk paint as a background, words painted using my icon paints, etched via cut lettering from a local craft shop.

The plan is to use chalk, to write on the walls the things we’re glad of, and what we’re hoping for. It’s part of what we need to do as a family, to keep a focus on gratitude and hope.

Then, when the renovation project eventually gets to this room, we’ll simply paint over the top of “gratitude” and “hope”, leaving our family prayers permanently part of the house walls. It will probably need one more coat than normal. But hey – at least these walls will talk.

creating the church of tomorrow

Twice in the last few weeks, a prayer by Oscar Romero has come my way. Romero was a Catholic Archbishop in El Salvador, assassinated on 1980, while celebrating Mass in a small chapel in a cancer hospital where he lived.

God of hope,
Help us to step back and take the long view.
Remind us that what we do in our lifetime
is only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is your work..
Nothing we do is complete, which is only a way of saying that your realm always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No one program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals includes everything.
Help us remember what we really are about:
we plant seeds that will one day grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need future development.
We provide yeast that produces
far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything.
Knowing this frees us, for it enables us to do something.
It may seem incomplete, but it is really a beginning,
a step along the way.
Our efforts provide an opportunity
for your grace to enter and do the rest.
You are the master builder, and we work with you.
We may never see the end results that are known to you.
Even so, we are prophets of a future
that holds your promise.
Amen.

Given the way the prayer has found me, it seemed appropriate that it become the devotional for our team retreat on Thursday. I provided two ways to respond. One was to pray by planting a seed of petition. The other was to pray by watering as thanks. Outside (because dirt and water don’t go with carpet), I had placed a seed tray and a pot of colour from home.

Inside, we said the prayer together, a different person taking a phrase each. We then sat with the prayer in silence for 5 minutes. I then invited folk to move outside. And to either plant a seed “we plant seeds that will one day grow” or to water the pot “We water seeds already planted.” We then concluded by again saying the prayer together, again a different person taking a phrase each.

The focus of the retreat day was strategic planning and it was just lovely to begin the day watering and planting, reminding each other that- “We cannot do everything. Knowing this frees us, for it enables us to do something.” (To end the day, we shared communion and had a party. But that’s another post).

choose you this day whom you will serve

I led a combined gathering of Board and College team on Tuesday. It’s been an excellent year and it seemed appropriate to gather and celebrate and be in relationship.

We also had some need to talk further about our focus as a College. So before we ate together, we had some work.

In preparation, I invited the following exercise. I noted that College has many potential people to serve/stakeholders. I listed some of them

• Candidates (POD – Phase 3)
• Ministers – continuing education (Phase 4)
• lay leaders (Lay preachers, MoP)
• chaplains
• lay ministry teams
• lay people
• agencies
• university (postgraduate students, research)
• others

I then asked the question – All organisations have limited resource. So, as we think about each stakeholder, what % of energy should college give to each?  Being a percentage, it needed to sum to 100.

What would you answer? How do you think a College should allocate resource?

the advent of fresh expressions – the wilderness (part 2)

The Gospel of Luke begins with barrenness and soon shifts to wilderness. John the Baptist, camel haired and with locust wings in mouth, will emerge from the desert. The theme will continue with Jesus, who in preparation for ministry, will walk into the wilderness. In doing so, there are echoes with Israel, who found God in the desert, who were birthed as a community, their identity and practices shaped by wilderness. It will resonate with the words of the prophet Isaiah, who dreamed of rough places smooth.

So what is the place of wilderness in advent? What resources will sustain the encountering of God in the rough and tough? What does desert do to the demands for vitality and the dreams for health and growth?

Desert God
This Advent
May we be find fresh treasure in wilderness
Shade in the deep valley
Clarity from the rocky outcrop

the advent of fresh expressions – the bare barrenness of tradition (part 1)

The Gospel of Luke begins with barrenness. An older couple. Faithful yet childless. It is like so much of the Church in the West today, older, faithful. Yet so often barren, with no living memory of church birth, no experience of participating in the life flow that is new communities.

The result is a wondering about one’s future, a quiet misgiving about the family line, the next generation of young people.

It is in this barrenness we glimpse the Spirit’s work. A promise of a fresh expression.

Luke 1:15-17 “He’ll drink neither wine nor beer. He’ll be filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment he leaves his mother’s womb. He will turn many sons and daughters of Israel back to their God. He will herald God’s arrival in the style and strength of Elijah, soften the hearts of parents to children.”

Interesting that last phrase. The hearts of parents need softening. So often this is the way with fresh expressions. Parents simply don’t understand. Congregations need convincing. Of course the present will shape our future. Church is reduced to historic ways, discipleship to a rigid patterning.

Hearts being softened, of course, is essential to the advent of this fresh expression. In the following verses, the child is born. Elizabeth wants to name him John. But tradition speaks. Luke 1:61-62 “But,” they said, “no one in your family is named that.”

With this fresh expressions, times they are a changing.

This Advent, O Lord, soften the hearts of parents toward the next generation

the potential and place of corporate discernment

Something anew was born yesterday. The timing seemed almost inspired, given this is Advent.

At Uniting College, one of the mechanisms by which candidates participate in their growth as ministry people is Formation Panels.

A person applies for selection as a Minister of the Word or Deacon. If accepted, they are placed in a formation panel. A Formation Panel consists of 3-5 experienced ministry practioners and an Academic Adviser from College. They meet three times a year. This group listen to a new candidate. Together they design a process that mixes formal study, formation and ministry skills and length of process. A candidate and the panel journey together, usually for six years, through the more intense training phase (2) and for the first (phase 3) three years in ministry. Listening, sifting, naming, checking.

Yesterday, was Formation Panel day and all over College among the 40 plus people in phase 2 and 3, all sorts of conversations were happening. Direction for next year was being clarified. Progress in the deep work that is individual growth was being monitored and discerned. Frank conversations about suitability for ministry were being had. Wisdom about how a new minister in placement might handle a difficult situation were being gleaned.

And in one life, a change of direction was being born. Something a candidate had written in preparation, was being linked with some knowledge of their life skills. A question was asked.

And a light bulb went off. The person visibly lifted. A whole new door in ministry was becoming clear.

And so the panel went back to work. A new course plan will need designing – a different mix of formal study, formation and ministry skills. Because of corporate discernment. The willingness to listen long enough and hard enough, to wait (this Advent), for the work of Spirit anew.

Comprehending mission – history today

Chapter one is here. Chapter two surveys recent trends in missiology with a particular focus on the Bible and mission. Chapter three looked at mission history, the evolution through time, the shifting resources that shaped how the church understood itself.

So what of today? “Scholarly interest in mission history is remarkably strong today.” (62) The shift began in the 1980s with the realisation that mission history reveals remarkable data about boundary crossing.

Increasingly, studies point to the way missionaries sought to subvert imperialism, hand in hand with the remarkable role of indigenous people in cross-cultural encounter.

“Mission history can be controversial, especially when ideological or theological convictions are put into play. Apologetics on behalf of Christian mission, as a rule, cannot be substituted for serious historiography. Strident secularism, likewise, can impede understanding by deciding for others what religious beliefs and behaviours necessarily signify.” (66)

Another focus has been women in mission. First, their stories have been told. Second the place of mission in enabled women to offer their gifts has been uncovered. Third, the role of women in developing global movements of solidarity and partnership.

A new resource for mission has emerged – photography. The digitizing of photographs offers a rich resource for reflection, for example the Internet mission photography archive website. The Dictionary of African Christian biography offers a multi-lingual online archive. These are rich new resources that ensure mission history remains full of possibility.

Stanley Skreslet’s Comprehending Mission: The Questions, Methods, Themes, Problems, and Prospects of Missiology.

survey help please

If you are in Australia and have not attended Uniting College then read on ….

Uniting College for Leadership and Theology is currently conducting research with a range of people through a third party consultancy group, Capacity Builders. Uniting College is eager to hear honest feedback from people both inside and outside the College as we develop a strategic plan and explore how we can communicate more effectively with potential students, current students, graduates and church leaders.

If you live in Australia and if you have not studied at Uniting College, we would greatly appreciate you taking 15 minutes now to complete this anonymous online survey. No attempt will be made to identify you if you want to remain anonymous. If you do provide your contact details at the end of the survey, then we can contact you because there are 2 chances to win two movie tickets.

The Survey will be open until Wednesday 28th of November

Yoder (not Yoda) on church and society

John Howard Yoder popped up in a conversation this week. Yoder is an Anabaptist, so I always find myself doing a double take when he pops up in a Uniting Church context (which this conversation most definitely was). My surprise was quickly accompanied by the warm glow that happens as one finds one’s roots affirmed.

John Howard Yoder popped up again yesterday, in a footnote in John Swinton’s, Dementia: Living in the Memories of God

The distinction between church and the world is not a distinction between nature and grace. It is, instead, a distinction that denotes the basic personal postures of men [sic], some of whom confess and some of whom do not confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The distinction between church and the world is not something that God has imposed upon the world by prior metaphysical definition, nor is it only something which timid or pharisaical Christians have built up around themselves. It is all of that in creation that has taken the freedom not yet to believe.” (Yoder, The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism 116)

What is intriguing is the way that differences between gospel and culture, church and society, are located not in God, but in humans. People have choice.

What is also intriguing is how this allows creative conversations between church and society. Mutually learning is possible, discoveries of God in creation possible both inside and outside the church.

What is even more intriguing is how subversive this is of some expressions of Anabaptism, which very much focus on withdrawal from the world.