sustain:if:able kiwi

indigenous communion words

This afternoon I’m off to a gathering with local Kaurna speakers (the local indigenous language). On the agenda is the possibility of translating some communion phrases into the Kaurna language. This would enable us at Uniting College, who meet on Kaurna land, to acknowledge traditional owners by using some of their language in our worship.

Words that are commonly said, like the Lords Prayer, or communion, are obvious starting points, because they are used repeatedly and thus enable not just a one off, but regular usage. For example

The peace of the Lord be always with you: And also with you
The Lord be with you: And also with you
Lift up your hearts:We lift them to the Lord
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God: It is right to give our thanks and praise

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. In the name of Christ, Amen.

In March, at our monthly leadership formation day for candidates, we explored cross cultural issues and I suggested the use of the Kaurna language at our chapel.

It turned out that what I thought was blindly obvious was quite new, and that communion words were not available. But there is a regular language gathering, and today I get to meet with them. I hope to check that they are happy for their language to be used in this way. I hope to locate some words. I hope to be able to make a recording, to help us Anglo’s get our tongues around these new words. And I hope that it might nourish and enrich our worship at Uniting College, honouring those who have been made so voiceless within Australian culture. (Which for me, is a crucial part of missiology in Australia)

Of course, liturgy is always much more than words. (I’ve been exploring this here). It is also patterns and gestures and relationship. But words are a start. And the simple question – can we use some words, is leading me into some new and interesting territory!

can we change their mind. Kiwi sceptics?

For fun after a hard week. Four Aussies – Bali Girl, the hipster, the Europhile, Aussie Aussie – get taken to New Zealand.

creationary: Keith Haring’s Life of Christ and John 3:16

I’ve been sitting with Keith Haring’s Life of Christ all week, alongside the lectionary text for Sunday (John 3:16), reflecting on the questions that arise for me.

I’ve used it for chapel on Tuesday, as a call to worship (As we look at the figures, what posture best describes how we’re feeling? ). And on chapel on Wednesday as an aid to prayer (What prayer would I make in response to the “Life of Christ”? Who do I want to place in the painting, in the arms of the “Life of Christ”?)

Updated with photo: The Haring image projected. People were invited to prayer using written words rather than verbal words, by writing on post-it notes and sticking them to the screen on which was projected the Haring image. It was lovely to see people walking into the projection, finding themselves caught within the life of Christ.

And I might well conclude the two services I’m preaching at on Sunday with “What posture does the “Life of Christ” calling from me?”, along with the following video:

A creationary: a space to be creative with the lectionary. For more resources go here.

Jesus deck in chapel worship

I used the Jesus Deck in worship at College Chapel today. As it always does, for some people, the card they chose speaks to them quite profoundly and the ensuring conversations are rich, full of God entwining with a person’s story.

For those who not aware of the Jesus Deck, it is a set of cards originally designed as a Christian education tool in the 1970’s. The designs are quite dated, which in themselves becomes part of their charm. In recent years, some Christians realised that for many people outside the church the reading of tarot cards has enormous interest. The Jesus Deck offers a point of connection, an opportunity to dialogue, a starting point around the Biblical story for conversation and exploration. (For more on the use of the Jesus deck, go here or here, or buy the book Beyond Prediction: The Tarot and Your Spirituality.)

The Jesus Deck is quite hard to get (I got mine a few years ago via the internet) and a group are trying to organise a reprint. If you’d like to be part of that, contact them on jesusdeckinfo at gmail dot com.

Anyhow, back to chapel. As the lectionary text for this Sunday was John 3:16, I was looking for a way to engage people with the whole of the Jesus story. The Jesus deck, with its rich range of examples, was perfect. As people entered, I invited them to take a card, which they sat with as the worship began. During the worship, I invited them to reflect on the card. As we came to communion, I invited them to lay their card on the communion table. Thus as we “remembered” the life of Jesus around bread and wine, we also had this visual reminder, these cards scattered on the communion table.

And, as we finished, some folk naturally just stayed standing around the communion table, sharing their card and how it connected with their life story.

For another example of using the Jesus Deck in worship, see here.

Lent: it demands much more than a topcoat

What, after all, is the painter? And what is the plasterer? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each their task. One hammers, another plasters, yet another sands, while yet another undercoats. Until finally one paints. So neither the one who sands nor the one who paints is anything. They have one purpose, for only God makes it grow. For we are all God’s co-workers. The Renovators translation of 1 Corinthians 3:5-9.

Yesterday the family room got it’s topcoat. It was a wonderful moment, to sit with a glass of wine, surrounded by a few tired painters, and admire the spotless ceiling and “crushed marble” walls. In a few hours, we gained a room.

But it had taken weeks. The ceiling needed to be lined. The walls needed to be gibbed and mountains of plaster applied to hide the inevitable irregularities created by extending an older house. It all needed sanding, hours and hours of creating of white, fine dust. Which had to be swept off the floors repeatedly. Followed by undercoats, then ceiling top coats, before finally the application of the top coat colour. What took hours was based on weeks of work.

Sitting looking at the walls, nursing a satisfied glow, I must confess to a moment of anger.

It’s Lent. We live in an instant society and in this instant society, it’s easy to get seduced by an instant spirituality, the offer of a quick and shiny topcoat.

The danger is that we are just applying a quick top coat to the rot in our lives, in our relationships, in our society. We live in a deeply troubled world, one that demands we look deeply, reflect slowly and take considered action.

Lent is the invitation to so much more than a topcoat.

Hugo: A Film Review by S and K Taylor

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Here is the review for February 2012, on the movie Hugo. I wrote this with one of the kids – it seems appropriate for a children’s movie, provides variety for the audience and is a very good growth opportunity for a child.

“Time is of the essence.”

The movie begins with time, with the orphaned Hugo, tending the many clocks of a Paris railway station. Forced to age through trauma and tragedy, abandoned by his drunken uncle, Hugo lives with two precious things. One, a broken automaton, the other a notebook in which Hugo’s clock maker father has described his dreams for the automaton’s repair.

Hugo is aided by Isabelle, also orphaned, who lives with her godparents, one of whom (Papa Georges) works at Hugo’s station. Together they will unravel the past, discuss the present and change the future. She introduces Hugo to books, while he, despite her misgivings – “This might be an adventure, and I’ve never had one before, outside of books” – introduces her to movies.

Ironically the movie “Hugo” is based on a book, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick. The book is beautiful, the story told mainly through black and white pictures. Similarly the movie adaptation favours sounds and images, with any dialogue sparing.

The cinematography is stunning. Highlights are the lights of Paris that blend into a machine-like beauty, the steam that illuminates the twists and turns of the train station, the candles that shine on Hugo’s clocks and cogs and the snow that gently falls as Hugo follows Papa Georges home one evening, desperately seeking the precious notebook.

The result is, as film should be, a celebration of the potential of images to generate mystery and create imagination, all without losing a strong story line.

The acting is strong and consistently believable. Hugo (Asa Butterfield), Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) and the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) are highlights. The work of Cohen is a pleasing surprise, given he is better known for his comic impersonations in the form of Ali G and Borat.

Much of the movie draws on historical references. Papa Georges is Georges Melies, a figure famous in French history as an innovative film maker. The train crash scene is a reference to 1895, when a faulty brake resulted in a train crashing out of Hugo’s station and into the street.

A central theme is “time.” Hugo tends time in the form of the clocks at the railway station. Hugo’s father, when alive, fixed time, while Papa Georges lives to hide from his past-time. Formerly a film-maker, shattered dreams have left him a man in need of redemption. As his wife tells him: “Georges, you’ve tried to forget the past for so long. Maybe it’s time you tried to remember.”

“Hugo” might be told through a child’s eyes, but the philosophy and theology questions it raises are adult in depth. Are humans simply cogs in the machine of time? Can a past be redeemed? Can humans, like Hugo, fix what is broken, both people and things?

Thus the film becomes a two way mirror. In “Hugo,” amid the ticking of time, with the machine-like quality that is modern life, through the brokenness of human dreams, we see ourselves. We are human, needing to hear an invitation: “Come and dream with me.”

Steve lives with his daughter, Kayli, in Adelaide, Australia. Both miss New Zealand. Both enjoy writing, watching and reviewing movies.

house blog

We’ve set up a family blog, to chart the progress of our “project” – the house needing major renovations that we’ve recently brought. The blog is called “taylorskainga” – which is a Maori word for home, address, residence, village, habitation, habitat.

The blog will chart progress, with before and after shots. (Mostly before at this stage, cos while we’ve been working pretty hard, at times it feels like we’ve only just begun!). It’s hopefully an encouragement as we wade through the work.

Today was top coats on the ceiling of the family room, with the hope that by the end of the weekend, we can then move lots of the furniture currently stored in the garage into the house.

inking the stations of the cross

This takes the Stations of the Cross to a whole new level:

A pastor of a Montrose-area church recently challenged members of his congregation to live out their faith in an atypical way by getting tattoos that represent different Stations of the Cross, images of Christ’s journey from condemnation to resurrection. (Full story here)

Tattoing the stations of the cross on one’s person! (Lots of pictures here)

The church’s artist-in-residence, Scott Erickson, designed 10 distinct Stations of the Cross tattoos and as part of Lent, the church were challenged to chose one of the tattoos (all the designs are here). “The tendency we have as Christians is to skip past Jesus’ suffering. Not only do tattoos come with a bit of suffering, they are also an art form that has not fully been embraced.” (here) More than 50 folk decided to participate.

Here’s a radio station interview with the Pastor, Chris Seay.

my book in Korean

A parcel arrived yesterday, with three copies of this …

Steve Taylor's Out of Bounds Church? translated into Korean

A very weird feeling indeed. Big ups to the publishers (Zondervan), who worked all the channels on this one. I knew nothing about it until it arrived.

City soul as invitations to community

This is fabulous. A project in Sheffield UK, which invites folk to participate in mapping the spirit of their city. An empty warehouse, a collective of artists and the invitation for April, May and June,

For these three months we will be using a large open plan space to build a model of Sheffield. Anybody can come to make a building to include in the city – not only artists but also passers by, community groups, schools and businesses are all welcome to come and create.

Choose a building or a part of the city that holds significance for you, that is part of your story, and make it in as simple or elaborate way that you like (we have plenty of art materials to use) then put it in place along with everyone else’s creation. In this way the piece of art will grow and evolve with our different stories just as the city itself has. The model city will develop in unpredictable ways as we interact with each other and offer our unique contributions and we will record that exciting process on our website.

I love the mix of creativity, open-endedness, participation and invitation to consider spirit. One of my hopes as the incoming Principal at Uniting College is to create art projects over a semester, a different theme and a different medium each semester, which can create engagement, remind us that we are humans as well as heads, and be a way of building community.

This type of thing sparks creativity around these processes.

Update: Olive Fleming Drane commented, asking for more ideas regarding campus community formation. Well, there is another in Ethnography As A Pastoral Practice: An Introduction which describes a Diversity quilt project. A table was set up and individuals invited to design a square with their name. Creative resources were supplied. Some students were doing a Art Practicuum and their “assignment” (working with an artist) was to assemble the quilt and hang it publicly. It seems participatory, communal, creative and above all, do-able ie it is not an idea but a description of an actual project at Wesley Theological Seminary, US.

Any other ideas that people have experienced?

feeling the cross in Lent

Creationary: a space to be creative with the lectionary (in this case, visual images on themes of pilgrimage). For more resources go here.

Yesterday I ended chapel by inviting us to feel the cross. The lectionary text for this week is John 2, where Jesus calls the temple. We’d been using El Greco’s painting as a visual aid, to help us engage the story.

When I curate worship, I like to provide something tactile, something to touch, something that engages more of our senses than just ears to listen and mouths to sing.

Last year, while on study leave in the UK, I brought a small carved wooden pilgrims cross. So I suggested that as a benediction, we pass the cross around. As each of us hold it, we might remind ourselves of the invitation to carry the cross into our day, our week and through Lent. It was quite lovely, watching folk pass it from hand to hand, the different ways folk held it, the sense of us together becoming a cross-carrying community.

And of course, there was another whole layer provided by the lectionary text. We are not meant, like Jesus in John 2, to carry a whip. Rather we are called to carry peace, the way of non-violence, as we confront structures.

For those interested, this is the entire service (needed to be 20 mins), that included the lectionary Psalm and gospel, interaction in praise and around Scripture, some art, intercession for justice-makers, communion. And feeling the cross by way of benediction! (more…)

crossing cultures for leadership formation

Great day at Uniting College yesterday, with our candidates exploring crossing cultures, through the eyes of indigenous peoples of Australia.

A highlight was chapel, in which we sung in a number of languages, heard the Lords Prayer in local Kaura language, and affirmed God in many cultures.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH (from Uniting Church National Worship Working Group, in consultation with local church indigenous people)
We say God created the universe,
and the world we live in,
and every living thing on this earth.

We believe the Creation shows us the power and presence of God,
and makes us want to praise and give thanks to God,
and take good care of the earth God has made.

We are full of joy that across the world
different peoples have their own culture and language,
and that in God we are all united together as one.

We say God is Spirit, breath of life,
who is always working to bring people to life in God.

We believe the Spirit has been alive and active in every race and culture,
getting hearts and minds ready for good news:
the good news of God’s love and grace that Jesus Christ revealed.

We are full of joy that from the beginning the Spirit was alive and active,
revealing God through the law, custom, and ceremony
of the First Peoples of this ancient land.

We say Jesus is Saviour and Lord,
and that he began the church,
and prayed that the church might be together as one.

We believe that in the risen Jesus we are all brothers and sisters in the one great family of God, and that God calls us to live in faith, hope, and love
for the sake of the Kingdom of God here on earth.

We are full of joy that we can learn, grow and serve together as a pilgrim people in the name of Christ.

It was very, very rich, almost emotional to sit in that space and hear the indigenous languages of this country honoured.

Then in the afternoon students headed to the Living Kaurna Cultural Centre, to enjoy the beauty and hear the stories.

Pray God it’s not an event, but part of a process in which crossing cultures and respect for local contexts becomes imprinted in our DNA; as a College, as students, as humans.

if you meet monthly, what do I do with the rest of my month?

Christendom is built on a weekly gathering model.

It’s not, of course, the only way. Monasteries meet daily, while the Old Testament festival pattern suggests 3 times a year. (Deuteronomy 16:15-16 “For seven days celebrate … Three times a year you must appear”)

So on Sunday we visited a monthly all-age evening church service. And really, really enjoyed it – the friendly welcome, the diversity of cultures and ages, the oh so natural laughter and engagement. But, like many all-age events, and like much of the early alt.worship movement, they meet monthly.

So what do we do with the rest of the month?

• Try another one of the services. But that is unlikely to appeal, given that we came to the monthly one because of the values (all-age, over food, local community)?
• Enjoy the weekends ie only do gathered church once a month?
• Form ourselves into a local community action group and do something missional in the in-between weeks?

I’d especially like to hear from folk who themselves have tried monthly patterns, as to what they would reply, and how they sort to build values of community and formation around a monthly gathered pattern? I’m also interested in class, because I suspect that the more educated you are, the easier is a self-sustaining spirituality, but that pattern might not prove pastorally rich enough when you are working with marginalised folk.

why church?

Was great to listen to John Swinton, Professor of Practical Theology from Aberdeen University, speak at the Uniting Church of South Australia Synod today. Back in 2003, I wrote a journal article on his research method, along with John Drane’s: “Doing practical research downunder: a methodological reflection on recent trends in Aberdonian practical theology,” Contact 142, 1 (2003): 2-21. (I never realised it actually got published until 2007, when I met a Anglican ordinand from the UK, who helped me track down an actual copy.)

Then in September last year, I connected with John again, at the Ecclesiology and Ethnography conference in Durham.

Today John spoke on health, healing and community and it was wonderful. Here’s one (of many memorable) quote:

The task of the church is not world transformation but signalling kingdom through small gestures. John Swinton

As in this, colour and creativity in concrete places?