sustain:if:able kiwi

hunting hindu idols

Update I have closed comments due to sp*m problems.

How many emerging church gatherings have you attended?
Of those gatherings, how many times have you seen a hindu idol present?
Of those gatherings, how many times have you seen the Bible used?
Of those gatherings, how many times has Jesus been mentioned?

I need to know, because I nearly lost it in front of strangers yesterday. I have been attending the Vision New Zealand Congress, probably New Zealand’s broadest gathering of church leaders. In preparation, I had been asked to write a 5,000 word chapter (A Kiwi emerging church. Yeah right?) for the congress book, tracing the development of emerging church in Aotearoa New Zealand. And I am down to do a 75 minute workshop on the emerging church.

All is trucking along in the workshop reasonably smoothly until the word “absolute truth” is mentioned. And at this point, dialogue between myself and the audience goes up a notch. And one punter tells me that if you deny absolute truth, you end up worshipping Hindi idols. I am sure he said other things and I am in danger of misrepresenting the dialogue, but at this point I had lost it. I was absolutely gob smacked.

Stunned. Trying to work out the logic. Mentally flicking through my powerpoint images and presentation, hunting for hindu idols.

Hence this internet survey. I need to know from all of my readers:
1. How many emerging church gatherings have you attended?
2. Of those gatherings, how many times have you seen a hindu idol present?
3. Of those gatherings, how many times have you seen the Bible used?
4. Of those gatherings, how many times has Jesus been mentioned?

(I would also love to know where in the Bible “absolute truth” is mentioned, but that’s another whole arena.)

I am serious folks. I need to know …. has the questioning of the modernist understanding of truth as “absolute” led to hindu idols in emerging church worship?

phd interview

“I was tired of reading abstract surveys of cultural change followed by a few generalised comments. I wanted to explore what was actually happening on the ground, with people…”

I was interviewed recently for emergingchurch.info about my PhD; titled “A Case Study Approach to Cityside Baptist Church as Christian Faith “making do” in a Postmodern World. You can read the whole interview here. (And I still have not got around to a 2nd print run, so if anyone wants to buy a copy of the PhD, leave a comment here.)

What is absolutely unbelievable is that they have written that I come from the USA, despite the fact that I talk in the interview about living in New Zealand. Oh well, just goes to show I guess that the emerging church really is born in the USA.

communitas and mission revisited: updated

Way back in the day (well, November 2005), I posted, questioning the application of communitas to mission.

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.

I was deliberately being a bit provocative, but wanting to raise some questions about what seemed to me to be a pretty shallow reading of the literature. What followed in the comments was a good conversation between Ben Edson and myself, which I appreciated and which forced me to keep thinking.

So I’m fascinated to see Ben post on the subject again recently:

As the years progress I’m getting less convinced of the missiological significance of communitas, i think that is maybe as ineffective as short term mission, and that the focus should be more on aggregation than communitas. For the whole post go here

Ben notes how communitas can be dualised and glamorised and in reality is an abnormal occurrence that only has value as it is integrated back into everyday rhythms. Which sounds to me like my original plea for discipleship and mature living.

I think there are also deeper issues at work here; including does God through evolution or revolution and the need to value a spirituality of the ordinary and everyday.

Updated:
Just dug out some reading notes from my PhD (yes, yet another example of my legendary filing system!) In Turner, “The Centre out There: Pilgrim’s Goal.” History of Religions 12 (1973): 191-230, the notion of communitas and liminality are applied to contemporary pilgrimage. Turner argues that in our “age of aquarius” pilgrimage is booming. He analyses it as separation; into a margin, liminal, space in which “communitas” in exhibited. Upon return re-aggregation occurs.

In M.J. Sallnow, “Communitas Reconsidered: The Sociology of Andean Pilgrimage.” Man 16 (1981): 163-182, Turner’s notion of pilgrimage as an example of “communitas” is critiqued. Participation in pilgrimage is a short term and loosely structured grouping. Clear distinctions between groups remain and the intensity of communitas was never visible. “From a sociological viewpoint, then, group pilgrimage in the Andes is a complex mosaic of egalitarianism, nepotism and factionalism, of brotherhood, competition and conflict … Indeed, it would be more appropriate in such circumstances to see community, not communitas, as the hallmark of pilgrimage.” (176, 177).

Further reading:
For more of my writing on communitas, liminality and the emerging church, excerpts from my PhD are here.

kiwi emerging church

I’m flying up to Auckland (80 minute flight) and back tomorrow, to speak on Kiwi emerging church at St John’s the residential Theological College of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia

When I was training for ministry, I did some papers on Christology and Galatians in the Greek and Theological method and Mission history in New Zealand at St Johns. Never, ever, in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine I would be back guest lecturing. I’m a Baptist, for goodness sake. And yet in the strange twists and turns of life and denominational streams, I am invited to speak on the emerging church in New Zealand as part of a class on evangelism and mission.

I’m taking one of my Christchurch students with me, Spanky Moore, who is planting the Kitchen. It is an Anglican expression of emerging church, so I suspect his emerging Anglican story should fit quite subversively into my audience of Anglican ordinands.

Can you talk in nice voices please?

How many of us have said this to our kids? If we ask it of our kids, can we ask it of each other as we talk about the emerging church?

I am in Auckland teaching a masters course on the emerging church. Titled Critical missional issues it uses the emerging church as a case study to reflect on mission in Western Culture. I taught the first week in April. It is my argument that there is no such thing as the emerging church, only emerging churches and an emerging conversation. So to study the emerging church, you have to put aside McLaren and actually study the practices of living communities – what they are doing.

So we spent our first week in April exploring how to read a living theology, the Word enfleshed in a body of Christ. And the students went away to put this into practice, to study the worship and ethos of an emerging church.

This second week we are due to spend discerning the missional lessons that can be learnt from the emerging church. What might the emerging church learn from Scripture, from how Jesus treated those outside the church (the wise men, the Samaritan woman, Canaanite woman), or how the early church engaged with culture (the Ethiopian Enuch, the preaching of Paul in Lystra and Derbe)? What might the emerging church learn from reading mission history.

And we also as a class need to listen to contemporary critical voices. But how could we go about talking in nice voices please. How could we listen fairly to a critic like Don Carson?

And so a few weeks ago I was given a gift. A Christchurch pastor came to me. He has a PhD in Biblical studies, is a pastor, has been reading Carson,whom he respects. And now he has some questions about the emerging church. And could we talk. Can you see why this is a gift! Not hissing over the internet, but face to face. Nice voices.

And I asked him if we could video the conversation. Could I show it in my Masters class this week? It would be so easy for me in my small classroom to conduct a monologue, to summarise a critic like Carson and then trash a critic like Carson.

But a conversation. That would be different. Allowing diverse voices into the classroom. Face to face. And allowing the critic, in this case Carson, to have the right of reply and even the last word. 55 minutes later we have a video, and what I hope will be a great gift to the class.

But whatever the case, I am trying to learn to talk in nice voices. Anyone out there want to join me? What could happen if we all try to use nice voices (as we talk to each other about faith and ministry today)?

Update: This post wasn’t a video distribution plug, but a reflection on how I am processing what it means for me to engage in constructive talking, how we might build bridges and treat those who have different ideas that we do. I’m trying a more conversational approach. What are you trying?

an emerging Bible according to Peter, Paul and John MacArthur

I came across John MacArthur waxing erudite about the emerging church on youtube here

Hermeneutics … to interpret .. It’s really not that hard. It’s not brain surgery … We are talking simply about how we discern what it means by what it says.

Which I couldn’t help contrasting with the apostle Peter: Paul’s letters contain some things that are hard to understand. 2 Peter 3:16

Or am I simply misusing proof texts and quoting people out of context?

the emerging church is liberal

It’s news to me, but that’s the word according to The emerging Christian Way

(I hate books with the word “The” in them. They just sound so arrogant. The simple use of the word “A” would leave room for other voices).

Anyhow, chapter one paints church history as belonging to two camps: an earlier Christian way and an emerging Christian way. The author, Marcus Borg, places himself in the later, and he also includes Brian McLaren in his camp. “Emerging” in this definition refers to time, as it comes after “earlier”. There is no mention of postmodernism or cultural change, which is a unique departure from much emerging church literature. There is also no mention of communities of practice, which so often characterise other emerging church books. Instead we have a focus on theology.

It’s a good discipline to read people who might see things differently, so I hope to review some of the other chapters in the weeks ahead.

emerging church course in a local church

A friend rang, wondering how he, a rural worker, could engage with my emerging church course that I teach here at BCNZ. I put some information about the course and how it might work in a local church, together for him. Then I thought it might interest some other blog readers, so here it is.

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emerging church CD-Rom teaching resource

Recently, I have been working on this …

.. an emerging church teaching resource.

It’s a CD ROM that includes 5 video clips, each about 5 minutes long, plus my emerging church research database. I use each of the video clips (stories of various emerging church leaders talking about their communities) for my 2 day intensive course on the emerging church. The emerging church research database is a list of about 80 web articles and blog posts that I have found helpful in describing the emerging church.

So, the plan is that each participant will get the CD ROM about 10 days before a course. The CD cover includes various emerging church pics, plus a list of questions. This will help the participant interact with the video material pre-class. It means that when we come to class, students will already have done some processing and be better able to engage the material.

If they want to do further research, they just use the database, which is hyperlinked, to take them to various articles. A lot of the best emerging church stuff is on-line, so this sort of guide should be really helpful for students.

There is also something in this about the medium being the message. To teach the emerging church by doing a monologue from the front so goes against the ethos of participation and cultural connectivity. Wheras I hope that to have a CD which invites you to participate more meaningfully in community, and which also acts as a jumping off point for further research, sends another message all together.

I am teaching the emerging church course in early May in Christchurch, then mid-May in Adelaide, then again in early July in Auckland, so am looking forward to beta-testing it with participants.

critical missional issues in the emerging church

I am flying up to Auckland tomorrow to lecture a Masters intensive course titled Critical Missional issues: Emerging church. I am doing 3 days this week, and 4 days in October. (More info about the course is here.)

In the course I will be asking students to read the emerging church by analysing the everyday practices of local emerging church communities, rather than relying on the books and the blogs. I am then flagging what I think are some critical missional issues facing the emerging church.

Now, if you were teaching this course, what issues would you raise? What do you think are the critical missional issues facing the emerging church? (So as not to spoil your fun, I’ll wait until later in the week before telling you what I raised.)

an American manifesto

Just browsing my way through my nice, new, shiny, hardbacked copy of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope.

It includes the following quote from Brian McLaren: “So I am hereby giving notice that I’m not interested in arguing with anyone about modernity and postmodernity, but I would very much like to engage in honest conversation about colonialism and postcolonialism.” (143).

Well said Brian. One of 25 chapters, written by 25 different authors. Oh. All American. Yahoo. 25 American voices starting an “honest conversation about colonialism and postcolonialism.”

Update: I have just realised the Easter irony. I write this on Easter Monday, the day after the Easter story was first encountered, and first told, by a Middle Eastern peasant woman. How truly post-colonial.

emerging, missiology and the mainline

Can emerging be anglican|lutheran|mainline? Yes, according to Ian Mobsby, who is self-publishing his Masters research under the title: Emerging & Fresh Expressions of Church. This does not wave around abstract theories on the emerging church. Instead it draws on narrative data, the real live stories of Sanctus 1, Moot, B1 and the Church of the Apostles. Not content with sociology, it then trawls the deep waters of theology and ecclesiology. It uses a reframed understanding of Trinitarian theology and arguing that the emerging church is using a synthetic model of contextual theology, seeking to reframe what it means to be Christian in post-modern post-secular contexts. The book concludes that the Emerging Church is reframing a new approach to ecclesiology and missiology.

Buy it here. All sales are ploughed back into the Moot community.

the place of emerging church in theology, critique and seminary

I am in Auckland for the next 24 hours, delivering a paper at a Bible College of New Zealand Curricular Conference. I have been asked to speak to the topic: how to express emerging church in a seminary curriculum.

In my paper I attempt the following:
a) to define the emerging church. I use Luke 10:1-12 to highlight themes of missiology and contextualisation.
b) to outline a model which integrates context, Biblical text and community mission action.
c) to apply this to three papers I teach – Emerging Church; Missional Church Leadership and Gospel in a post-Christian Society – explaining how and why I teach and reflect the way I do.

The paper, if you are interested, is here (208KB). It might be of interest to anyone wanting to critically engage with the emerging church and to those teaching in seminaries.

imagination, leadership and humming Mary’s song in the emerging church

Update: I have added below a somewhat excellent conversational email response to this post from Alan Roxburgh – reflecting further on imagination, leadership, emerging church and Mary’s song

“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.” (Ward, Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice, 2005, 146.

This captures so much of the pain around the emerging church movement. The emerging church movement is gift as it embraces the work of generating new imaginative acts of church and worship. This is what drew me to the alternative worship movement back in 1995. I saw a picture of Visions in York in worship, projecting multiple slide images on church walls. Their imagination allowed my eyes to catch a glimpse of what it might mean to worship God body, mind and soul. Time and again I have seen in the emerging church glimpses of new ways of being church, renewed missional practices, Incarnational worship.

At the same time, I have seen emerging church groups remain profoundly distrustful of institution forming. Leadership and structures are often a dirty word. Listen closely and you hear stories of abuse. Yet Ward reminds us that our imaginative task is always two-fold. We need the breathe of new life and generative power for institutional life.

Equally, I have seen the emerging photocopied. The challenge is not to reproduce Visions worship on your wall. Instead it is to worship God body, mind and soul, Incarnationally in your context.

Creativity is never formless and void. It always looks for the containers of time and space that will mark day from night, form from void. Such institutions are never timeless, but rather contextual markers that best fit the new imaginations. Such is the hard work of the church emerging. It is easier to despise the church of your fathers and mothers than to hoe the hard yards that are the forming of contextual containers for a new day.

I have been working on Mary’s song in Luke 1 this week. At base it is a song. It is a creative response to the generative and birthing work of God. As the Spirit of God hovers over the waters in Genesis 1, so the Spirit of God hovers over Mary’s womb. The Christmas story in Luke offers 3 other new imaginations, the songs of Zechariah and Simeon and the angels, that hum into life around the birth of Jesus. Mary walks in a long line of Biblical woman, like Miriam and Deborah and Hannah, who sing in creative response to the work of God. Mary’s song invites us to respond to the generative work of the spirit with new imaginary significations.

Mary’s song offers a theological imagination. Mary seems little interested in singing in a song in response to sociological observations of church practice and church decline. Instead her song emerges from her personal narrative of excluded woman and young teenage. So must all our songs, for God dwells among the stories of the poor and dispossessed. But Mary’s song refuses to remain stuck in her moment. Instead it becomes a form, a contextual hum, that will shape a movement toward God for the poor and marginalised. Such is the task of mission today. To sing Mary’s song for our day, bounded by our context, listening to the stories of God in life, in response to the hovering work of the Spirit. May the power of God’s Spirit be twofold this Advent, to breathe new imagination and generate institutional life, for the sake of the poor we pray, Amen.

Update: A somewhat excellent conversational email response to this post from Alan Roxburgh – reflecting further on imagination, leadership, emerging church and Mary’s song

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