sustain:if:able kiwi

alt.worship and mission

I don’t think you can separate worship and community and mission. Perhaps it’s because I’m a realist and when I see someone come to faith, I suspect that the two of us will want to worship together; ie worship and community and mission. Perhaps it’s because I’m a Baptist and when I think church I think gathered and community; ie worship and community and mission. Perhaps it’s because I believe in the Trinity, that God is found in relationships, that this Triune God so loved that world that God opened Godself to gather the world in relationship; ie worship and community and mission.

All of this by way of introduction to what I think is a great example of worship and community and mission. It comes via Jo Wall; who blogs here. They took their worship, their Easter art. They went to local shops in their community and asked them to host their art, and thus created a Easter Art Hunt that led back to the church, where they had turned the church into an Art Gallery for a week. It sounded a great example of worship and community and mission, so I interviewed Jo this week.

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on being emergent

Paul McMahon has an absolutely excellent post on being emergent. Paul comes from a political science background and sort of stumbled onto Opawa about a year now. (I might be wrong, but I don’t think Paul would have known what emerging was pre-Opawa so his is a fascinating take). He (and his wife Ann) have helped us pioneer one of our emerging congregations at Opawa called espresso. He recounts his own spiritual journey and concludes:

At its best the emergent church brings people into community and back to Scripture to read it in the context of the overarching Biblical story of God’s love for His Creation, to listen together and share their stories in pursuit of truth and the Spirit’s guidance in their lives. It is not an abandonment of absolute truth, but instead a rebalancing and embracing of the relational nature of truth. At its best the emergent church is the essence of the three golden rules of biblical interpretation: Context, context, context.

podcast: women, the emerging church and male cultures

Here is a podcast I did with Jenny McIntosh . In a first podcast Jenny describes the ministry of Spirited Exchanges as a ministry to those outside the church. Download file: ethos of Spirited Exchanges: 2 mins : 600K

In a second podcast Jenny and I talk about women and the emerging church. We identify three ways in which the emerging church can exclude women;
– in the way the Bible is used
– in not seeking representation in speaking and in leadership
– in continuing a “culture”, patterns of being and talking, that are male in nature.
Jenny and I then discuss one thing men could do and one thing women could do to increase the place of women in the emerging church. I’m biased but I think it’s one of the most helpful and challenging conversations I’ve had in a long time and I think anyone serious about the future of the emerging church needs to listen and ponder. Download file : women and the emerging church : 9 mins : 2.5 MB

passionate practices in Next Wave Magazine

The latest edition of Next Wave magazine includes an article based on a blog post I did back in February, on how we are applying passionate practices here at Opawa, on how we are trying to make the doing of our faith a community activity around which we shape our worship.

The Next Wave article is here.

mclaren weekend: updated

Things are falling into place nicely for Brian McLaren, this weekend (for more details, go here and it’s still not too late to register ).

– Registrations are update: finished with near 100, which means a good conversation. Update: with a real diversity of church backgrounds which will also greatly “salt” the conversation
– The coffee maker is booked.
– We are having a number of panelists who respond to Brian on the Saturday, as part of the discerning and contextualising process. The panelists have gelled into a really nice mix that includes young, women, lay, alongside the usual respected leader names.

Here is an outline of some of the workshops for the Sunday afternoon;

How much Spirit has the emerging church got? (Steve Graham): A look at the questions Pentecostal/Charismatic churches and the emerging church might have for each other over what it means to be people of the Spirit eg the place of congregational singing in worship, ecstatic gifts in services, divine creativity, seekers’ ‘initiation’ into the dynamics of the Spirit

The Art of Curating Worship (Mark Pierson): seeing worship as an art form to be curated rather than a list of boxes to be filled.

A café church spirituality (Lynne Taylor): two stories of emergence, of different groups engaging with our world in different ways… with common themes.

Update: Spirited Exchanges (Jenny McIntosh and Elizabeth Taylor): Spirited Exchanges is something for people who are struggling to find a “place” at church – who have been wounded or hurt by church or it’s leaders, who are asking questions but not necessarily finding answers. We want to create a regular place where people can come and air their doubts, share their story, and find acceptance, not judgement. This is a double workshop that includes exploration and then the running of an actual Spirited Exchanges. Ideally people would attend both.

Update: Emerging Workplace Spirituality (Alistair McKenzie): Emerging church can easily just focus on doing things differently when we gather together. If we continue to think that church is something we come to, then we will fail to realise our potential for being the church God sends out into the world to work in partnership there. What sort of spirituality will support the ministry of all God’s people the other six days?

Other workshops include public artistic mission and a book club discussion of McLaren’s “a generous orthodoxy” and Taylor’s “out of bounds church?” (authors not necessarily present).

emerging church in australia

There is a superb exploration of emerging church in Australia in the latest (Summer 2006) Zadok magazine.

Highlights for me where;

Stephen Said’s historical narrative around the emerging church in Australia;

Barb Daws, who discerns the links between emerging church values and new ways of education and learning;

Matthew Stone’s plea for a missiological understanding of New Age spiritual search to be entwined with expressions of emerging church;

Dan McCredden’s answering the question; “Can an existing denominational church be emerging?”

Anne Wilkinson-Hayes plea that ‘new missional churches’ seek a more authentic, gospel-centred approach to living our the faith in our society today. (For those interested, there’s an interview with Ann here (scroll down to bottom of page 2) as part of research for my out of bounds church? book) which also interleaves with the question of denominations and emerging church.)

Plus there’s a nice review of my book, both by Dan McCreeden and Darren Cronshaw, who has written an introductory reading guide to the emerging church phenomenon, covering 50 books, a number of internet links and blogs.

If Zadok is any guide, there is a rich breadth in the emerging church conversation in Australia. The edition would sit as a more popular companion to the International Journal For the Study of the Christian Church;

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emerging church postcard update

The emerging church postcard series is still open. So far I have had postcards from New Zealand, Australia, UK, Scandanavia, and enthusiastic conversation with Canada and South America. I will be blogging the postcards I have got from 1 January, and will run them until I run out (or the end of January), whichever is sooner. So if you’re non-US and emerging then read on …

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a southern response to a southern response

John Hammett, Professor of Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, has offered An ecclesiological assessment of the emerging church. I glanced through it (just wish Carson was as easy to glance through) and have made about 10 brief responses.

Update: I emailed John Hammett to inform him that I had made this response to his paper on my blog and I’ve just had a warm email response, full of the intention to continue dialogue and a desire to keep it cordial and gracious. Hoorah for nice Southern baptists!

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the chasm continues?

Just doing some surfing and noticed that EmergentUS have announced a deal with Abingdon to publish a Theology for the Emerging Church line. This follows a deal with Baker to publish a line of books for pastors and church leaders.

Thus the chasm of modernity continues. On my left, in the Abingdon corner, serious theology and theory. On my right, the Baker corner, practioners and church.

Ken Archer’s insightful review of Carson’s Becoming Conversant with Emergent (which I still have not got around to reading) makes the following comment:
In fact, most of those involved in the Emerging Church are pastors, not professors of philosophy or theology … A refined art of pastoral writing as I hope is being initiated by McLaren would then achieve its own legitimacy separate from theological writing, as a writing that is particularly attuned to the consequences of theological ideas.
It is a perceptive comment but it worries me. It makes it easier for the emerging church to thus dodge the theologically hard questions. “We are practioners, not theologians.”

A strange drift, given the fact that:
a) Contemporary practical theology suggests that the practices of the people of God are valid place for theological reflection. (see my PhD New Ways of Being Church and the occasional blogs of Tony Jones)
b) One of the chief urgings of much emerging thought is the priority of community as the place for theological reflection. (I’m thinking hear of Grenz and Franke’s Beyond Foundationalism)

Such approaches refuse to accept the chasm of theology and theory on one hand and ministry practise on the other. I worry that emerging book deals could continue to perpetuate the chasms of modernity.

communitas is only useful if you want to keep the emerging church adolescent

I made this blog comment on signposts. It’s noted here, sort of like a gravestone! Fire away:)

The notion of communitas as applied to church is a nonsense. It was first used by Turner to describe initiation rites in tribal cultures. Communitas is that in-between stage, between childhood and maturity. It is an artificially induced transitional stage. But you don’t live there. You can’t. That’s its whole point. It’s a transition stage.

I think applying communitas to the emerging church will only serve to keep us in our juvenile adolesence. Isn’t it time the emerging church got beyond it’s adolesence and got on with the task of mature Christian discipleship and living.

Update:

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stories of emergence

Updated:

Stories of emergence. The recent history of Opawa Baptist is one of the decline, transition and growth. Steve Taylor will reflect on the missional thinking that has underpinned the development of growth coaching, café church, 24/7 prayer roms and “Take a Kid to Faith services.”

I’m doing 2 workshops at Baptist Assembly next Saturday (12th November) in Hamilton. I’ve been asked to share something of the Opawa story, around the title stories of emergence. I am going to try to frame it up around the out of bounds church? book. Because I’ve been reflecting on the Opawa journey and I actually think those postcards from the book:
:midwiving
:creativity
:journey/spiritual tourism
:community
have actually been at play at Opawa. From church plant to 96 year old church, from cafe style to established auditorium, it’s been the same underlying missiology. So I’m going to try to link
:midwiving with the planting of the espresso congregation and Take a Kid to Faith services
:creativity with 24/7 prayer room
:journey/spiritual tourism with evangelism-as-process and growth coaching
:community with leadership.

More links and ideas to follow. Might actually be a good 10th postcard for a reprint of the out of bounds church? book. (Or at least a page on the out of bounds church? book blogsite🙂

tolerance, hospitality and the future of the church

A thought provoking series of posts over at heretics corner; here, here and here, on the extent of hospitality offered at the emergent table. (Link from maggi dawn). The posts are glad of the emergent conversation, but critical of how truly hospitable it really is. “Wearing a white wrist band is easy. Practicing radical inclusion of all the people of God in our communities is harder.”

I’m linking to the conversation, having just spent a week at the futurechurch conference and hoping to capture some thoughts swirling through my head. The conference was both an incredibly hospitable place – with voice given to women, gay, and lesbian – yet also at times quite an inhospitable place, in which I was stereotyped as “Baptist, male, clergy” rather than Steve Taylor, person.

1. All people, evangelical and liberal, can be intolerant.

2. I wonder if the emerging church and the progressive liberal church share a common dialogue around feelings of marginalisation from the church. The marginalisation might be for different reasons, but it has created some shared dialogue.

3. Marginalisation is not automatically missional. In fact marginalisation (and I am naming my experience of the post-evangelical discussion at this point) can be negative and cynical, which is not always healthy for those seeking a life-giving spirituality. I wonder if, and how, narratives of exclusion need to engage and draw energy from the Jesus story, to turn them from marginal to hospitably inclusive.

4. Such missional engagement is not easy for groups (whether post-evangelical or gay/lesbian) who start by feeling excluded from a conversation.

5. Perhaps paradoxically, it is the energy of this discomfort that helps hold me in such conversations. Debates around right and left, evangelical and liberal, don’t hold much energy for me. Nor do stereotypes. But open dialogue with discomforting people is hard, disconcerting, but something worth hanging out for.

journal articles on emerging church

Matthew Guest & Steve Taylor, The Post-Evangelical Emerging Church: Innovations in New Zealand and the UK. A journal article I have co-authored has just been accepted for the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church.

The entire edition (Volume 6, Number 3) is dedicated to the Emerging Church. That says something quite significant about the place of the emerging church in contemporary Christian thought. There are 9 articles under headings of Introductory overview, Contextual studies, Joining and Leaving and Theological reflection. The editorial by John Drane explores an underlying question about the nature of ‘emerging church’, namely ‘emerging from what?’ (eg from post-modern culture, or from the Christian tradition – or a mix of the two – highlighting issues of how the Gospel should be contextualized, Christian attitudes to cultural change, etc).

Due out December 2005. You can order it here (scroll down a bit).

Further:
A list of emerging church post-graduate research (masters and PhD) is here.

kickoff tomorrow

Tomorrow I lecture for two days at the (first ever BCNZ) emerging church block course. 26 students are enrolled, including 2 from Hamilton and 1 from Nelson. It will not be a content based course as much as an interactive mix of storytelling, video, group work, online experience, stations, food and tactile spiritual resources.

Hopefully amid that mix students will reflect on contemporary ways of being church. It is not just a “description” course but together we will be asking
What in the culture is producing the emerging church?
What Christian resources sustain and critique the emerging church?
What does this mean for our following of Jesus tomorrow?

It is always madly stressful working toward a speaking deadline. Even more so when it is 10 hours of lecturing in 2 days, and I also had to lecture today. I still have the visuals to set up and the videos to cue, but I am greatly relieved to hear the lecture notes currently being bound.