sustain:if:able kiwi

marking

All my various teaching commitments have caught up on me. I currently am marking
: 10 essays about missional church leadership (done)
: 16 masters essays on critical missional issues in relation to emerging church (half done)
: 40 masters pieces of work on living the Biblical text in a postmodern context (half done)
: 60 pieces of work on being kiwi, being christian.

That’s 126 pieces of work. When you consider that the masters related work comes in the 3000 word range, that’s a lot of marking.

Each piece of work represents blood and sweat. There is nothing worse than getting an assignment back with a simple mark scrawled on it. So my personal commitment is to write 5-10 comments, engaging with the blood and sweat. That’s currently a lot of comments.

Best thing about marking is realising that students are making connections and joining dots. Second best thing is when I learn something. Worst thing is a student who has put the work in, but hasn’t answered the question (haven’t come across this in relation to the above – yet!).

other priorities

I realise that debate on this blog has been hissing and fizzing away. Nevertheless, I have deemed other priorities far more important: 17 years of marriage needed to be celebrated in style with 3 day break in beautiful Queenstown.

a lemon a day keeps the teacher at bay

I walked out of class today to find a bag of lemons in my pigeon hole, a gift from a caring student, who had noted a lecturer with a head cold (and sore ears). A student who could have gained top marks if only it was a pastoral care class!

waikato anglicans

I am back on the airplane again, flying up to be with the Anglicans in Waikato. I have been asked to speak around themes of leadership and mission, titled Learning to create a community of faith in a culture of change. Here is my schedule;

Tuesday 14th

1:30pm: Workshop, Leader as Change Agent

It is very ecumenical and hospitable of the Anglicans to invite a Baptist. I had a great time with the Anglicans in Auckland in July, and May in Christchurch. I always gain a lot from these types of encounters, so am looking forward to it. Plus I get to re-connect with the most historic of the Prodigal Kiwi’s.

However, amid all this excitement is the realisation that this will be my 5th major speaking engagement in the last 6 weeks. That’s a fairly heavy schedule when I also have two day jobs as pastor and as lecturer, along with a family life to nurture.

a day that turned pear shaped

I have been away from Sunday, part of leading and speaking at a conference in Auckland, storytelling around new mission expressions. About 70 people gathering around 8 mission stories. Lots of learning, lots of relationship building between different parts of God’s body.

Around that gathering I have also been hosting Al Roxburgh and the first conversations around the Allelon Mission in Western Culture project as it might apply to New Zealand. So last night included a meal, with various church leaders here in New Zealand, informally, as we wondered aloud (and got an overwhelming affirmation), with regard to New Zealand.

Today I was due to fly back to Christchurch for the first lecture of a new class for the Semester, Being Kiwi, Being Christian. At the hotel, I opened my laptop bag this morning to begin my lecture preparation and realised that in the rush of my speaking yesterday, I had left behind my powercord for my laptop.

Sinking feeling … quick cancelling of taxi … rushing back to conference venue … searching … finding … great sigh of relief … off to airport.

Only to find my flight delayed… great sinking feeling, as I realise I am going to be missing my first class … Lynne said she could collect my bags, so I run off the plane … rush from the airport by taxi (never again, it was RIDICULOUSLY expensive) … frantically print off my notes … charging into the classroom.

Thankfully the 35 students were very gracious about the class starting late and it was a good start.

I am now due in town, to do a recording for a community radio station, talking about life and faith in Aotearoa New Zealand. Very much looking forward to collapsing at home and being able to simply laugh about being on the other side of a pear-shaped day.

the bishop and the baptist

This is Steve Taylor last week trying to convince Graham Cray to read the book he’s holding. It’s mine (Out of Bounds Church?) and it’s free and I’ve even signed it and I’m still trying to convince him! 🙂

No seriously, this is the closest I’ve ever been to a bishop and Graham Cray is one cool dude. I asked him what he did to relax and he told me he listened to rock music on his iPOD. He’s sharp. He’s key in Fresh Expressions in the UK. He listens well. He’s a great gift to the church.

of airports and airplanes

It is always hit and miss how much work I get done on planes, but the last 24 hours of journey home have been unusually productive.

Between Portland and San Francisco I completed a film review (of Shrek 3), which I needed to have done as part of my monthly writing contract with Touchstone magazine.

At San Francisco I drafted two proposals which an interested publisher had requested. One was around turning my year long missional church coaching package into a written resource. (Watch this space).

The other was some thoughts around how to get some of my creative and communal worship ideas shaped up in ways that might be more available and accessible. A sort of “missional lectionary” with themes, thought pieces, prayers, poems, takehome resources. (Again, watch this space).

Between Auckland and Christchurch I drafted another film review (of Once, showing Auckland on Friday 27th), which I can perhaps tuck away for next month.

Then it was into the arms of my family. Yah!

you’ll never walk alone

Today I return home. I travel from a northern hemisphere to a southern hemisphere, from summer to winter. To Christchurch. A city I left 18 days ago. To home and family and church.

I travel, but not alone. I travel with the prodigal kiwi. I travel with rich memories from the last few weeks with Anglicans and a class at Fuller Seminary and international partnerships around the Allelon Mission in Western Culture project. I travel with awareness of many saints who have travelled before with missional intentionality. I travel in the name of the sending One, conforted that he sends me and he is intending to come after me.

Luke 10:1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.

arrived safely

My wheels touched down in the good old US of A a few hours ago. It is very strange how sitting in a seat for 12 hours can leave one feeling so knackered. I have brought groceries, gone for a run, cooked myself a meal and caught a movie (Waitress – recommended). All those good “keep on moving, keep on moving” things that help one earth and body clocks readjust.

Go vicars

My time with the Auckland Anglicans finished today. It was excellent and I hope to post some resources for them in the next day or so.

The day finished with workgroups discussing questions like what is the difference between a “come to us” church and a “go them church”? The workgroups reported back and then I was asked for the last words. This is what I said:

– We shouldn’t be afraid of statistics, because they keep us honest.
– In a Go church, the vicar gives the benediction not from the front, but from the door, then leads the congregation out into mission.
-Imagine what a different diocese Auckland would be if every parish set a goal of planting just one “fresh expression of church” over the next 10 years.

the words of ministry

words
w
o
r
d
s
that slither under fences
tiptoe down side alleys

words
w
o
r
d
s
verbal
causing faces to flower
angling, unexpected into new insight
and
conversation
faith and
filled

words
written, font 12 point Helvetica

found,
spotted, picked up
caressed in joyful surprise

to draw words,
of hopeful connection

words
written, font 12 point Helvetica
found
to draw words
of anger, derision, accusation: liberal, gospel betrayer

words, words, words,
white deafens for marginal spaces
enlarged

words, words, words
black defines for fear of freedom
type cast
in typewritten type

words
lock them up
pin them down
defend them in diatribe
dance around a pinhole

or

scatter as stars
cross blog
up paper
down radio wave

for white, never black

words of prophecy

I very rarely tell someone “God says.” Too much abuse has followed those two simple words. But a misused history should not mean we throw out the baby with the bathwater.

To work against abuse, I always remind people that what I am about to say is what I am hearing, but I have been known to hear wrong. Anyhow, twice in the last month I have suggested “God says..” What I have found humourous is that both have been in relation to motor cars.

God says “You are a V8. You have a lot of get up and go. When a V8 runs rough, you don’t park it up in the garage. You might be running rough, but it’s not the time to park up.”

God says “In the past, you have lived your Christian faith in 3rd and 4th gear. In the last few years you have put your foot on the clutch. Be encouraged, that means you’re still moving. But it’s now time to find the right gear for the slope ahead and to take your feet off the clutch.”

a spirituality of time wasting

time slides
through the fingers
of my morning

grains of minutes
poured into my latte bowl

an hour of time
wasted
thanks be to God

a moment to savour

This has been a really intense semester for me; kicking off 2 new courses, a trip to Australia in the middle, working with 2 denominations in New Zealand around missional church issues.

I always knew it was going to be busy. My last class has just finished and I’ve survived and I face a much easier second semester, which I hope will include some time to write including:
– a paper on missional church-missional agencies
– a co-authored paper on female Christ figures in contemporary film
– a paper using mission history to evaluate the emerging church movement
– a paper on reading local narratives.

But for today, it’s a moment to savour …