sustain:if:able kiwi

kiwi mission diet

tallskinnykiwi is on a fatkins diet.

downunder, this Sunday, as part of a 3 week mission focus, I am suggesting a kiwi~mission~diet. I rang the local budgetting agency and they reckon it costs $60 per person per week to eat.

The menu below costs $28 per person per week. Follow the menu for one week. Do the maths. The difference between $60-$28 is $32. Give that $32 to a third world mission cause.

Go on – join me for 1 week and lets see how much money we can raise on this blog for the poor. If you want to join me, drop me a line.

I will post the shopping list and menus tomorrow. (Resources are from tranzsend.) Go on – 1 week. 250 people read this blog each day. Multiply by $32, would equal $8000.

(more…)

God touches earth

today is trinity sunday:
divine dance,
circling love,
mysterious infinity enfolds creation.

A ritual for trinity sunday. Go to the beach. Find a stick. Worship by drawing Trinity patterns in the sand.

home: a sort of homecoming

O Lord, you have always been our home: Psalm 90:1

curled in armchair. fire warm. red wine uncorked. coffe to plunge. St Germain on rotate.

Singing of grace

I went for a 45 minute walk through a forest with my 4 year old yesterday. We walked along, hand in hand, with an occasional picky back ride.

Dad: Kayli, can you hear the birds?

Kayli: They are singing a song.

Dad: What song are they singing?

Kayli: Amazing grace.

re:tro

yesterday the current school principal of my high school phoned. it is a Christian school. would I speak to their senior management staff retreat for 30 minutes … my experience of school and what I would say to them now

long pause on the phone from me.

you see, my high school days were a bit fraught. i was not the school pin-up boy by any stretch of the imagination.

i had to be honest. “you need to know that I did not have a happy time at school. you need to know that I have fairly strong opinions and that these are not always considered mainstream Christian. I love the Bible, but not everyone who loves the Bible thinks the same as me …”

no pause on the phone, they know, they still want me to speak ….

my high school past is something that I have not thought about in a long time …

what do you say to a Christian high school leadership team, educating in a postmodern world …

I taught Ben the NZ idol

Congratulations to Ben Lummis the NZ idol. (For more on this news, go here.)

I taught Ben at Excel School of Performing Arts. Not in anything NZ idol-useful, not in singing or dancing. Only in New and Old Testament. So if you want any gossip on Ben and Ruth, or Ben and Luke … drop me a line!

autumnal spirituality

autumn spirituality

fall : drop : let go : release : abandon : farewell : blow :

seasons

autumn in the southern hemisphere
the leaves are starting to fall

it is amazing that something that is dying
can be so intensely full of colour.

power of poetry

this has been a hard easter for me at a personal level. i am too busy. my book is in the last month of its life with me, and every spare minute is spent editing. it is my first easter in a new church and i am still finding my feet. a number of staff developments in the church have left me overloaded. on top of that, Christchurch experienced a cold snap and my Auckland blood froze.

this easter the psalms have been my lifeline. i have struggled to read the narratives of Jesus. i have been sustained by the simple elegance of poetry and metaphor.

thank God for different parts of the Bible.

Ice God

hard edges
cross cut deep
wounds bled of life

cold isolation
a frozen man en-tomb

church and the dub

I am a dub survivor
ready to ez on by

cos its been a long, long time
since the dance hall boy
loved your ways.

Went to Salmonella Dub on Friday. I’d forgotten I had a body that is God-made to move. I’d forgotten what it feels like to feel bass through my feet and chest. I’d forgotten the magical integration of a tight set, great lights, dub beats, and video.

Someone once described Graceway as like a Salmonella Dub set:
a mix of brass, beats, electronica, with Tiki tane conducting them like wild prophet, inviting us to join for the ride. And what a ride it is; sound, light, visual, dance, sweat dripping from every pore in my body. It finishes all too soon. But what a great gig, no great experience. I am reminded of how I enjoy our attempts at graceway to incorporate the elements of this experience into our worship; sound, light, visual, movement…connecting all the senses to God, who calls us to worship him with all our heart/soul/mind/strength. I go of to the next gig, thinking about just which salmonella dub track i will use on sunday…

shattered

shattered … he posted the last chapter of his book to the helpful global friends who give feedback.

45,000 words
8 chapters
…. done ….

he broke open a beer, knowing that if he died tonite, he would leave a complete manuscript.

after a good nights sleep, he will return to the beginning. he will take to each chapter with a sharp red pen and the written comments of those helpful global friends.

it is thursday.
i am missing auckland friends.