sustain:if:able kiwi

being practically useful to a church in mission

On Wednesday I was part of a group in which it was stated a number of times that some of my input had been practical, useful, to a church in mission. The reference was to a session I did in September 2010, to a group of church leaders, titled Inspiration outside our walls: Being church in the city. In the talk I explored three church:city questions and then offered ten practical mission possibilities to city churches. I mention in simply because if one person found it useful back then, others might find it useful now – (here).

a playful and public faith? a favourite urban mission resource

This is one of my favourite resources for mission, particularly in urban contexts.

I love the way it started with just a few folk, with a passion. And yet the way it grew. Simply by the use of social media and capturing the imagination of other groups. Not to reproduce, but to be individually them.

I love the way it spotlights an issue, without being illegal, aggressive or obnoxious. I love the words “playful” and “public.”

Why can’t more urban churches do this? Esp in warmer, outdoor Aussie climates? Plant an easter garden outside, serve coffee and give out easter eggs after Resurrection Sunday. Blow bubbles and create homemade wind chimes at Pentecost. Share a banquet table for an occasional community.

Simply take your belief and passion outdoors in ways that are “playful” and “public.”

local church in mission. starts practically here

These represent the next step in a local church practical mission project I’m involved in – postcards – given out to the church this Sunday. The front, including google map of the community,

And on the back, four questions to consider, with plenty of blank space to write responses

Back in January I conducted a seminar, in which I suggested that in our contemporary world, a theology of mission must begin with two ears. To make that practical, I suggested a range of exercises

• Listening project one – some growth questions to ask selected individuals
• Listening project two – observation walks around the community
• Listening project three – visual observation of the community, involving creating photo exhibits
• Listening project four – some Appreciative inquiry questions

(for more see here).

The church decided to make this part of their Lenten process. People were encouraged to choose one exercise and, with joy, seek to put it into practice leading up to Easter. During Lent, when the church gathered, stories were told, including a number of folk putting their listening project 3, the visual observation, up on the screen during worship courtesy of PPT. Very cool.

So with Easter approaching, it’s time for the next step. The postcards are intended to help with the bottom nature of this project. This is not about a select group or the leaders, but the whole church who’ve been invited into mission with their ears. Now it’s the whole church, any and all, given a postcard and invited to record what happened.

These will be collated up and hopefully, at Pentecost, the results will be shared. And the question asked: given what we, all, have heard, how then might we need to act?

In working on this over the week, I realised that this is yet another example of church resourcing both scattered and gathered.

I’ve blogged about this a number of times over the last month, the need for church practically in how it shapes it life to be affirming God at work when the church gathers and God at work when the church scatters

• a general introduction here
• a specific pattern here
• a worship treat here

This is a 4th example, in which the postcards affirm the church as both scattered, any and all engaged in practical listening, and gathered, being collected, collated, gathered as next steps in mission.

can mission be embedded into the worship DNA? a worship treat

Scattered and gathered, outward and inward, sending and receiving, mission and worship – I have been pondering the relationships for the last few weeks.

• I had a general introduction – can mission be embedded into the worship DNA – here.
• I had a followup – a possible worship pattern – here.

Today in chapel we trialled a very practical beginning. We began outdoors (scattered). We invited people to use their outside environment as the starting point for reflection. For 10 minutes, to wander. And in particular to consider

• bitumen – what has been hard?
• sky – where have we found joy?
• windows – who, what, have we walked past?
• grass – what of God’s breath in creation have we missed?

We gave out a card as an aid (very simple, used an apple Pages business template and just rolled text and picture in).

And then we gathered to continue in worship – to hear Scripture, to have communion, to pray for God’s world, before being benedicted back into the places of bitumen, sky, windows and grass.

I loved seeing people wander, reflecting on God in our scatteredness and then having that woven into our gathering. So there you are, some thinking about mission and worship, a possible worship pattern and now here, a practical worship treat that might encourage and inspire you to do better.

Do let me know how you improve it 🙂

mission in digital frontiers: a learning day with Andrew Jones

delighted to announce this –

mission in digital frontiers: a learning day with Andrew Jones

Thursday 28 April 1:30pm – 3:00pm Pioneering lessons

Pioneering is hard work and Andrew Jones has been doing it, and seeing it, for over 20 years. This session offers some wisdom on sustainability, dealing with difficulty and building creative partnerships.  It is by invite only, by simply asking for the pioneer password. The aim is to encourage folk with a pioneering heart and is jointly hosted by Mission Resourcing Network and Uniting College.

3:45 – 5:15 pm Social media as fresh expression of mission

The digital world is a fast moving frontier. This session with explore the potential of blogs, Facebook, Twitter for congregations and communities in mission. The content will cover getting started, strategies for effective network and the shape of mission theology for a digital world. The aim of this session is to both upskill and encourage local churches to think about their use of the internet.

7-8:30 pm Social media and justice-making in God’s mission

This session will explore the relationship between social media and justice-making. Can the use of social media be an outworking of “Your Kingdom Come”? If so, how? The session will share stories from around the globe mixed with theological reflection. The aim is to explore the potential and pitfalls that face those surfing the digital frontier.

Andrew Jones aka Tall skinny Kiwi travels the world with his family in a 4×4 truck. They seek to see the world that God loves, to eat unusual food {but not too unusual} and to help change the world by telling stories, throwing parties, making friends and giving gifts. Andrew is interested in spirituality and religion as it collides with new media and the emerging culture.

Details: April 28 2011
Venue: Uniting College
Cost: $20 per session or $30 for two.

Here’s a publicity brochure, which doubles as a registration from – low res here, high res here – feel free to post in your church, email it onto your friends.

mission made practical

This is a practical mission story. As a Taylor family, we were all pretty upset about the Feb 22 Christchurch earthquake.

In our feelings of sadness, one of the family had an idea. What about having a casuals day at school? What about asking if the whole school could swap uniforms for casual clothes, complete with a gold coin donation to help with earthquake relief in Christchurch?

A feeling. That needed a bit of courage. First an email to the school leadership – explaining the idea and making the request.

Then more courage. Because of the request – would you explain your idea to the class and seek to win their support?

And then the response, permission for the school to have a casuals day. With money raised going to Christchurch. And all the kids forming a sign on the playing fields – CHRISTCHURCH.

Which happened last week.

A feeling of sadness. Made practical with courage. A child providing caring and practical leadership in mission.

For more in mission made practical in a quakezone, go here.

Give us this day our daily bread: a just theology of food? part 2

Last week I began to sketch a just theology of food. I offered a short quiz:

1. True or false: Wealthy suburbs are more likely to have fast-food outlets than poor ones.
2. True or false: Healthy food is more expensive than fast food.
3. True or false: 77% of Australians eat together as a family five times a week
4. True or false: In Australia, more women are head chefs that men
5. True or false: On a daily basis, women spend more than twice as long as men on food preparation and clean up.
6. True or false: The biggest global killer is a disease called New World syndrome

(Answers, for those interested are at the bottom of this post).

My contention is this – that when Christians pray Give us this day our daily bread, we must pay attention to think about who cooks, who cleans, who eats what, and with who.

In the class I offered two resources. First, a story from Rebecca Huntley’s (Eating Between the Lines, of a community centre in Melbourne, which holds lunches that aim to bring postwar migrants together with newly arrived refugees. They share food, swap recipes and pass on tips about where to find spices. They also share stories, experiences of the joy and dislocation of migration. So simple – eating together.

The second is the book by John Koenig, Soul Banquets: How Meals Become Mission in the Local Congregation I keep mentioning this book, simply because people whom I mention it to keep coming back telling me how helpful it has been in their growth in mission. Koenig argues that

“we have seriously undervalued our church meals, both ritual and informal, as opportunities for mission … to realize this potential, we, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, must have our eyes opened by the transforming presence of Christ at our tables.”

He provides a checklist on what it means for meals to become mission:

• This is serving graciously with human contact. Koenig cites the example of one the busiest church food kitchen in New York, in which each volunteer is expected to find ways to encourage eye contact and genuine conversation.
• This is setting tables, serving food, eating in patterns and places that speak of God’s abundance and creativity.
• This is encouraging role reversals by finding ways for all, helper and hungry, to contribute through a diversity of gifts.
• This is committing to a long-term, intentional project, a willingness to eat together a lot, because in that eating good things will happen.

Give us this day our daily bread is an invitation for all those who pray that prayer to consider what and how they eat. And it opens to door to a whole new way of being in mission – around tables, among strangers, with justice, generosity and humanity. Such is a just theology of food in the Kingdom of God.

(more…)

can mission be embedded into the worship DNA? a 2nd proposal

This is a further post on the topic: can mission be embedded into the worship DNA? a proposal.

In an ideal world, worship moves as a spiral between gathered and scattered, scattered and gathered.

I imagine two circles. Some worship I experience is simply gathered – you go round and round in a circle with no evidence that life outside Sunday, outside the church building exists. Some worship I experience as simply scattered – the call to live in the world, as individual salt and light, with no connection to the people of God gathered. What I suggest is that the two circles – gathered and scattered – overlap, with a continuous flow.

Whether you start with gathered, and then are sent into the world to be the hands and feet of Jesus, or whether you find yourself the hands and feet of Jesus and return to share those stories with the community of God, the hope is a rhythm in which the people of God gather to scatter, scatter to gather.

In my first proposal I sketched a way that over time, over a month, a community might structure itself to embody this flow between gathered and scattered.

In this second proposal, I suggest a way this could happen weekly. This is based on deciding that the places we are salt and light are the primary places in which we are Christian. In other words, to be Christian is to be scattered.

Then, when we gather, we want the stories of us being in scattered in mission, of us being the hands and feet of Jesus, to shape our gathered worship.

The suggestion is that we use the standard pattern of worship

• Call to worship
• Thanksgiving
• Confession
• Word – hearing
• Word – engaging
• Communion
• Prayers for the world
• Benediction

and invite the focus to be on the community sharing stories that are arising from our scatteredness. In other words – what have we seen that makes us thankful? what have we experienced that sends us to confession? what in our scattered context makes the Word alive among us? what from the newspapers is causing us to pray?

When people gather, worship moves through this regular pattern. People simply share the stories. This could be impromptu, or it could be decided prior, or it could be a mix of both. Some sort of shared words could be used to nest individual stories in the work of the worshipping community. For example, after each thanks story is shared, then everyone together says – Thanks be to God. Or words from the Lectionary Psalm are read together after stories for confession have been shared.

It will probably mean less of a need for a worship leader as song leader (although songs could still be sung) and more of a need for worship leader as curator – a person to welcome, enact the call to worship, offer the benedict, who make sure enviroment works, and to link, where necessary between the segments. (Mark Pierson’s The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader has more on worship leader as curator.)

This second proposal is using the established gathered worship liturgy of the church, but is making the focus of gathered worship the stories from the scattered lives-in-mission. It is refusing to let worship be about gathering, nor letting scattering have no communal resourcing. Rather it is “lightening” existing gathered worship by orientating it around the stories of the people of God in life.

can mission be embedded into the worship DNA? a proposal

Updated: For a second proposal, see can mission be embedded into the worship DNA? a 2nd proposal.

Updated: to be clear, I’d not for a moment suggesting this for a whole existing congregation. Best way to kill an idea is to expect everyone to agree! With this, I’m wanting to suggest an experiment, to invite a number of folk to try for a set period of time and then to sit back and reflect on the implications.

Here is the logic of some current thinking.

1. Faith is caught, not taught. Thus the Christianity we are offering is focused on worship, not on mission. The energy for being Christian today (what folk see, what people are paid for) is concentrated on the invitation to gather and to worship, not to scatter in God’s sending name.

2. This makes mission the extra, the stuff we do after the benediction and outside the worship service.

3. Mission is a multi-faceted way of being God’s hand and feet in the world. It includes the individual relationships we have with those beyond the community of faith. It also must include corporate acts in which the people of God together are the body of Christ.

4. We live in a time poor society. This means that some prioritisation must happen. Current Western church attendance patterns include more and more folk attending fortnightly. In other words, weekly is hard enough, let alone saying to folk – to be part of us weekly involves both gathered worship and mission.

5. Churches when they gather do some mission. This involves pray for others. It also involves giving financially. However if we are honest, most of this giving is funneled into more worship, not into mission.

6. Further, it takes levels of skills I rarely see to integrate mission into all of gathered worship – thanks, hearing the Word, confession, communion. The Uniting church worship recommends the worship includes a Word of Mission, but one is more likely to see a Kiwi than find this wonderful treasure.

So how can we embed mission into the DNA of the worshipping life of the church? Since this blog has many purposes, one of which includes trying out ideas, flying kites, here’s a suggestion, that we offer the following pattern for church.

Week one – gather together to give thanks, name sin, engage the Jesus story, hold the world before God ie gathered worship.

Week two – scatter – each is encouraged in this week to simply connect with friends and family who are not yet Christian, to pursue individual redemptive relationships.

Week three – gather – a simple gathered worship service focused around communion, storytelling of the Jesus story and prayer for relationships.

Week four – gather but only in order to do a combined mission project. People come together to plant trees, feed the homeless, advocate for justice, plan community events.

In this pattern, all the important facets of gathered worship are present, albiet monthly, rather than weekly. What is changed is that mission – both individual and corporate – is now embedded into the rhythm of the gathered communion.

I would have resisted such a pattern 10 years ago, when I use to argue vehemently for regular weekly patterns. My thinking 10 years ago was that those on the fringe, or visitors, might not be able to connect with this changing pattern. And so they might turn up to find the church “in mission”, which would be cool, but also pretty inhospitable. But 10 years ago was before we had cell phones, websites, social media. These now allow a whole range of ways for people to keep connected with the life of a community.

So what do you think? Would such a project allow the life of a church to be more aligned around the important impulses of worship and mission, gathering and sending? What might be lost?

mission begins with two ears

Written for a local church newsletter, and for a new distance course I’m writing for Semester 2 – Equipping in Christian mission.

“Sorry, I wasn’t listening.” Sadly, it’s a comment that I hear a bit too much from my family at the moment! Yet we all know what happens when we take time to listen.

In December I met with the leaders of a local church to talk about mission. They felt stuck, trapped, ineffective, out of touch.

Mention the word mission and images come to mind: perhaps sending people overseas or trying to recruit people to attend church. I suggested to this leadership team that in the 21st century, mission starts in neither of these ways. Instead, it starts by listening.

Why listen? First, it is common courtesy which people appreciate. It shows they are valued, important, recognised as unique. Second, our world is changing. So listening helps us keep up with that change. Third, we have preconceptions. So listening ensures we start with the needs of others rather than our prejudices.

How to listen? I wanted to be practical, so I suggested a number of different ways this church could listen – take photos, conduct neighbourhood walks, practise appreciative inquiry, interview people. Different strokes for different folks. These were introduced at a seminar in January.

What happens when we listen? Two stories might help. The first is from New Zealand. The church I used to pastor walked the streets of our community at Pentecost. Our task was to listen to the history of the community. One year, as we listened, someone mentioned that a community group needed funding for a new heater (this was Christchurch in winter after all!). We prayed. The next week we heard our prayer had been answered. Listening helped us know what to pray. And it strengthened our relationship with our neighbours.

The second is a story from Australia (told in “God Next Door”). Jane moved to Melbourne with two kids. She was struck by how empty her suburb felt during the week and the lack of interaction outside the school gate. Rather than complain, she placed a note in her local school newsletter, inviting other parents to meet at the playground on a Wednesday on the way home from school. Within a month, 20 or 30 parents were attending. For Jane, “There’s this whole new level of interaction in the neighbourhood that just wasn’t there before.” A new initiative in the community, that began with listening.

There is a lot more to mission that listening. But it’s an important, and respectful, place to start.

missional church. what are you reading?

I’m in the process of putting together some books for a course on mission and leadership for a group of ministers. They are in context, they have some exposure to the missional conversation, they live in Australia and they are keen to actually put some legs on their passion. Here are the six books I’ve selected. A mix of voices was important, as was the sense of being both theological and yet grounded in existing congregational ministry.

What do you think? What have I missed?

Christopher Wright, The Mission of God’s People, Zondervan, 2010.

Helen Lee, The Missional Mom: Living with Purpose at Home & in the World, Moody Press: Chicago, 2011.

Alan Roxburgh, Missional: Joining God in the Neighborhood, Baker Books, 2011.

John Koenig, Soul Banquets: How Meals Become Mission in the Local Congregation, Morehouse, 2007.

Paul Kelly, How to make gravy, Hamish Hamilton, 2010.

Ann Morisy, Journeying Out: A New Approach to Christian Mission, Continuum, 2004.

listening at your local in Lent: step one in a fresh expression?

Updated: Feedback

“The good thing about this is that it’s a process. We’ve been offered in the past so many programmes, which people tend to resist.”

“The best thing about what you did is the homework. So many seminars just give information. You gave us something to do.”

On Sunday I am offering a Lenten mission challenge to a local Uniting Church. I am preaching and then offering an hour long mission seminar. The Lenten focus I am suggesting is not a study or some readings. Nor is it a chance to give some money. Nor even to engage some internal spiritual practices. Rather the focus is on some practical tasks in order to listen outside the church walls and into their community …

Task: Take a project. Decide on a time frame. Do it either individually or as a group. If as a group, why not meet fortnightly for coffee to encourage, pray for each other.

• Listening project one – some growth questions to ask selected individuals
• Listening project two – observation walks around the community
• Listening project three – visual observation of the community, involving creating photo exhibits
• Listening project four – some Appreciative inquiry questions

I am hoping it is practical and fun and people want to have a go. Why not enjoy a few summer walks around your community.

I am hoping that this becomes a first step in a process, that what they hear clarifies their next steps in mission; that out of listening comes some acts of intentional service, that such acts are designed not as programs but to grow relationships, that those relationships become conduit for gospel stories to be told, that those gospel stories invite an exploration of Jesus, first individually and then in community. (ie a fresh expression).

But those words – fresh expression – are often a step to far.  So first, hey, why not listen in your local ….

spacing and placing transformation

Earlier this week I was asked to explain my job title “Director of Missiology, Post-graduate co-ordinator.” While I have a job description, for me the “big picture” is that my task is to

add strength to change process that Uniting College is going through, in particular to show that leadership can be theological and missiology can be transformative in the life of a local church.

In that vein, here are some links that I have been pondering.

• the place of context in leadership. A gracious, gracious post by David Fitch, in which he argues that churches that rely on preaching, in particular a “fingerhead” type preach, are in fact a last gasp of Christendom. Such a form of ministry/leadership have a place, but have little chance of connecting with a post-Christian culture and thus of offering clues as to future leadership imaginations. (Full post here).

• a local church running their own spirituality fair. Deceptively simple – three hours on a Saturday offering to interpret dreams, conduct spiritual massage. Apparently there were people queuing on a winters night. (Here).

• a (UK) website charting spaces for temporary and pop-up projects – empty shops, church halls, fields, shopping precincts and old offices. A great way to think about running a mission experiment and an intriguing reminder of mission possibilities for temporary cultural engagement. (Here)

hospitality as mission: an intriguing take on church’s response to Constantine

An intriguing thought occurred as I read And You Welcomed Me: A Sourcebook on Hospitality in Early Christianity. It is an fascinating book, as it collects early Christian writings on hospitality. Diaries, letters, instructions, sermons, travelogues, community records, all grouped together. I love that mix of ancient paper, of historic wisdom, helpfully tied together with concise summaries.

Chapter seven is titled “Building a place of hospitality: Forms of institutionalization” and the book argues:

“As Christianity became more structured in the fourth century we see the rise of Christian institutions under the authority of the stage.” 215

It looks as roles – the development of bishops responsible for administering hospitality and buildings – lodging places for pilgrims, hospices; hospitals; almhousese “whose missions focused on hospitality, emerge as dominant forces by the early fifth century.” (215).

It was that sentence that made me sit upright. Earlier, the book had argued that Christian life must be rooted in otherness and that hospitality was a key way to understand one’s own marginal position. In other words, as you practise hospitality you are being formed spiritually in what it means to care not for yourself but for others, on what it means to be vulnerable.

So here’s the intriguing thought. When Constantine comes along, the church is welcomed into the centre of the empire. What if the church was aware of the danger – of power, of self-interest, of losing vulnerability? What if they responded by creating structures – places of hospitality and leaders in hospitality – in order to keep vulnerability, marginality at the core of their DNA? (How well they succeeded is another question)

It reminds me of the quote by Graham Ward in Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice

There is then a twofold work for those projects involved in developing transformative practices of hope: the work of generating new imaginary significations and the work of forming institutions that mark such significations, (146)

This is what excites me about cultural change. There is the tasks of dreaming, and then of generating, and finally of forming institutions that mark the changes. These were hospitals in the 4th century. And job descriptions for leaders that include mission (as I blogged about here).

And in the twenty-first century? For me, they include the Fresh expressions movement, or the new Missional Masters degree here at Uniting College, or the change of structures so that Uniting College has a missiology stream.