sustain:if:able kiwi

(updated) quite the media man: an ABC day

Updated: for those interested I said no to ABC radio. And yes to ABC TV in my capacity as Flinders University lecturer. The result is here, with my 20 secs worth from 4:05-4:24. (Mostly shots of my office and books)

As I got off the plane from Melbourne yesterday, my phone rang. It was ABC TV, the 7:30 report wanting an interview, a wider perspective on a local and topical church issue.

After discussion with my various “bosses” my answer was yes and so today the cameras arrived and set up in my office. Lighting check. Sound check. A range of questions. A bit of coaching (weave the question into the answer). Some background type shots of me answering email.

And they were gone and who knows what might be sliced and diced for the viewing public (on Friday).

Three hours later, another phone call. ABC radio, wanting me to be part of panel (Sunday evening) discussing another topical issue.  Still tossing this one around, as it’s a even “hotter” than the first.

And at some point there is my day job (marking!!)

Melbourne on mission

Monday afternoon I headed for Melbourne. I was keynote speaker at the Uniting Church Presbytery of Yarra annual ministers retreat, invited to speak for three sessions on mission.

• Mission today – a crash course on recent trends (culture, Spirit, Jesus, church) in non-Western mission and some implications
• Mission as fresh expressions – missio Dei, Luke 10:1-12 and how they might shape fresh expressions
• Leadership and mission – Mary and Elizabeth and how they might shape our imagination as leaders today

The first session was totally new, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, to try and summarise trends in mission. So it was a fair bit of work, but a good excuse and it certainly helped in setting a mission framework for our discussions. (Although like all first times, the session lacked a bit of colour.)

The group were a good bunch – quiet, thoughtful, intelligent, diverse. In addition, the numbers and setting and sense of history with each other ensured some really excellent discussion. (And quite some interest in some of our mission training options.)

It proved a memorable trip. It started with the suggestion that I pick up a rental car, which made sense logically. But it did require driving in rush hour through a strange city and then 90 minutes drive into the country, to a fairly isolated retreat centre. It got dark, the night stormy and wet, blown branches strewn all over the roads, which got narrower and narrower. And the evening news that the ash cloud from the volcano in Chile had returned. And so my flight back was cancelled.

The result was an overnight delay and a missed Faculty meeting.

But some good time in casual conversation, which is always so valuable in helping me get my head in Australia.

study leave in UK?

I am wondering about taking 2 weeks of study leave in the UK, September 19-30.

I am due to give a conference paper (Emerging church 10 years on? a longitudinal study) at an Ecclesiology and Ethnography conference at Durham September 20-22. I am then due to input to Masters and D.Missiology students at Cliff College on Sept 27-28. So I’m looking for somewhere quiet to study (and walk) in the Northish of England in between.

I have a few thoughts (connect with Church Army Sheffield Centre or Lindisfarne), but thought I’d ask if there are any UK readers who might have suggestions.

Thoughts?

ophans hit by another Christchurch shake

With a long weekend here in South Australia, team Taylor hit the Barossa. Today found us wine tasting at Langmeil. Which included meeting the Orphan Bank Shiraz, which has an amazing story. Over 100 year old vines were due to be demolished for a sub-division. Enter Langmeil wines, who embarked on a project to save each one – each dug up and moved.

I used to be involved in transplanting young apricot trees. So I have some idea of what’s involved – the slow cutting of roots through the autumn and winter, the uprooting with as much soil as possible, the careful transporting, the hope that all the work yields new buds in spring.

It was a wonderful story. Yet like any metaphor, it has it’s downside. As we tasted, yet another series of earthquakes were hitting Christhchurch. No lives lost, but more damage, more buildings collapsing, more trauma, more schools closing. The photo here is of shops directly across from where we used to live.

As I drove home, I reflected on the metaphor of transplanting. Once planted, an essential step is the compacting of soil, pressing dirt down hard. The aim is to minimise root movement, aware that any shaking in the new soil makes it harder for roots to regrow and for transplanting to occur. For us, team Taylor, it feels like every quake gives not just Christchurch, but us a shake as well. It takes our hearts back to our city, opens us up to grieving friends and family. It makes our transplant so much harder.

I realise it feels indulgent to complain, when we at least on this side of the Tasman we are safe and dry. Indulgent or not, it still doesn’t change the fact that transplanting is hard work, and harder when the earth keeps shaking.

Please pray for Christchurch tonight.

Can there be good without God?

Tomorrow I am at Flinders University, in a team of Christians debating a team from the atheist Foundation. The topic – Can there be good without God? The other team are flying in from interstate (is this Atheist foundation taking prosletyzing seriously), and the largest lecture theatre on campus has been booked. I’m still not quite sure how I got involved, and I have grave misgivings about the forum of a debate to do much more than allow sloganeering.

But for the sake of taking a risk, tonight I will probably be up late reading (Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace, Rodney Stark, Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies) and thinking.

And who knows what tomorrow will bring?

some new church tensions I can’t resolve

1. If team Taylor are part of starting something fresh expression wise in the Southern suburbs, then it would be great to have a few local folk to be part of it (especially given we’re still pretty disconnected migrants). But folk we talk with who want something new could also be used quite profitably to prop up some existing struggling causes. Shouldn’t we just do that? (Or might some new models actually provide some new options that become helpful for existing causes?)

2. Personally, I have a demanding day job. So do lots of other folk. So the idea of “spare-time” church makes sense of current realities. But would “spare-time church” be lifegiving? Or would it simply end up a bunch of tired folk gathered tiredly? (But doesn’t that sound like a good few established churches anyhow)?

3. Given that I am quite well-known in terms of Fresh Expressions, how to start something that has lots of permission to experiment, risk and fail?

a magic mission morning

I was up early, leaving home at 7:20 am on a Saturday morning, to drive to Murray Bridge. I was giving the opening plenary (60 minute) address for the Lutheran District of South Australia and the Northern Territories, followed by a 60 minute elective.

The first talk sought to place fresh expressions with the frame of global mission and contemporary theology. The second talk (with over 100 folk turning up) focused on leadership in mission today, along with information about Fresh expressions and mission and ministry training being offered here in South Australia today – the mission-shaped ministry pilot being offered later this year, the new pioneer stream in the Bachelor of Ministry, the new Missional masters.

It was a simply beautiful drive. Salmonella Dub (Longtime) on the stereo.

Don’t you fall from grace
be cool with your space
check your place
in the race

Mist in the hollows of the Adelaide Hills. Sun stroking the tree tops. A chance to be with part of God’s wider church, to talk mission, to simply participate in the ongoing mission of God.

It was the second time this week that I have addressed a mainline denomination about fresh expressions, mission and leadership. It follows the spending of Thursday and Friday with 16 folk from 4 denominations and 4 states, all key folk in their denominations, all highly skilled ministry practioners, together plotting mission training. An enormous privilege to be among such insight, experience and passion.

It sort of feels like God is up to something, in Australia and across a number of denominations and church systems.

please say a prayer for me now

If you’re the praying kind, I have a big week, with a number of events that will generate some adrenaline and stress in me and could be quite significant for mission in South/Australia.

On Tuesday I am speaking all day to the Anglican Clergy Conference of South Australia. My three topics are

• Defining fresh expressions
• Leading and fresh expressions
• Diversity and fresh expressions

On Thursday and Friday I am hosting a gathering to workshop the national missionshaped ministry course. There are folk coming from Tasmania, Sydney, Canberra.

On Saturday I speak at the Lutheran Synod of South Australia. This includes a keynote on titled Mission Shaped Ministry – Equipping for the Future and an elective, on Fresh Expressions of Church

On Sunday I preach at the combined Uniting churches of Flerieu Peninsula celebration, to preach and talk about the new directions in mission and leadership being undertaken by Uniting College.

(Then next Monday I fly to Perth for 3 days. In between I have two three hour Masters classes. It all feels exciting and daunting and I’ll certainly be glad of a break at the end.)

meeting a tallskinnykiwi: that charism that is Andrew Jones

It was 1999 and I was invited to participate in a US conference on new forms of church. I arrived and experienced a moment of profound disorientation. Despite the billing – new forms of church – the band were playing songs. They were then followed by the preacher. Who talked for well over 45 mins.

I left the first session in disbelief, trying to get my head around how songs + long preaching = new forms of church.

In the backrow was a stranger, who leaned across, introduced himself as a Kiwi and offered to take me for coffee. With gentle humour and some well told stories he fleshed out for me some of the history and background to what I was experiencing.

That moment for me sort of captures the ministry of one Andrew Jones Aka Tallskinnykiwi. A person with a profound sensitivity for those on the fringes. Combined with an ability to build bridges and promote understanding.

It’s a privilege to have him with us today in Adelaide. We’re working him hard

• a media interview
• discussion with faculty about training pioneers
• coffee shop gathering to encourage those pioneering
• a more public session on using social media in ministry
• another more public session on the justice of social media

and hoping that through Andrew we might see some fringes blessed and some bridges built.

a pioneer icon

Back last century, I attended a spiritual retreat in the the form of a weekend icon painting workshop. It was a fantastic experience, a mix of spirituality, creativity and theology that resonated deeply with me. Spirituality, because icon painting is an act of prayer, of becoming centred on God. Creativity, not in the sense of making from nothing, but in the mix of colour and hands on endeavour. Theology in that icons are God-talk, a careful and detailed attempt to articulate the human understanding of God. (I hope to blog a bit more about this over the next few days.)

One of my hopes in coming to Australia was that with the “ditchchange” (pun on “seachange“) there might be space to pick up icon painting again. Well, it took over 15 months, but an icon was completed last night. It’s one of the simplest icons, called “Christ the saviour.” Being a sort of first, for me it’s become a “pioneer icon.”

I looked around for icon painters in Adelaide, but found little. So in the end I brought a book and simply had a crack (something in there about pioneering I suspect!)

taking work home: a basket of books

It turned out to be both a stimulating, yet slightly sad weekend. I was due to preach at a local church on Sunday evening. The working week – Monday to Friday – were pretty demanding, and I got very little preparation done.

So by Friday afternoon I had a choice. I could pull an old one out of the hat. After 15 years I do have a few sermons hanging around on the hard drive!

But. But.

I find it really hard to do something I’ve done before. First, because I’m by nature creative. What has been done is now a moment in history. I change. The world changes. Second, the longer I hang in Uniting Church circles, the more I realise just how diverse this church is. As a communicator, you search for connection points. And what connects in one context – young adults in urban Adelaide, won’t connect with families in a seaside suburb and won’t connect with a gathering of leaders from the more justice orientated wing of the church. (My last 3 speaking things).

Plus I had a few thoughts rattling around in my head. And a hunch – that my “few thoughts” might actually serve at least four purposes – the Sunday sermon, a keynote address in May, a theology conference paper I’m kicking around for August. Plus I reckon the “few thoughts” are actually pushing mission and ministry in some pretty unique areas, this is a potential book.

And it would be helpful to start the process by test driving the thoughts with and among the people of God. This is my theology of ministry – that our thinking emerges from among God’s people cf cooked up solo in an academic office.

Hence the photo – the basket of books – mostly commentaries to be precise, plus a few books on the psychology of the New Testament. Which led to a weekend reading and reflecting. Which I enjoy – creating something connective that relates to the mission of God is a life-giving. But also demanding. And not much fun for the rest of the Taylor family.

Now in saying this, I realise that at this moment I am just like many (all?) lay folk in the church. They too work during the week, often in demanding jobs. And so their involvement upfront on Sunday is fitted around evenings and weekends and involves a cost to their leisure and their families time.

I don’t know how to process all these tensions. I’m simply marking it here as a note to self. And as a reminder that I find myself back to work on a Monday feeling like I need a weekend! (But also with confirmation that “my few thoughts” do actually connect in public and seem to offer a fresh and challenging way of connecting with God’s mission.)

Womadelaide: reviewing a slice of heaven

On Sunday my youngest and I experienced Womad. In so doing, I encountered a part of Australia I’ve not yet seen – an Australia deeply respectful of indigenous voices, curious about migrant cultures, eager to experience the unfamiliar and celebrate diversity.

“I thought I’d died and gone to music heaven.” That was Tim Finn’s comment on Womad and at times it did feel like heaven – a world set apart, that for a period of time emitted ways of being human that were deeply spiritual, deeply appealing – generations together, loads of kids, enjoying engaging with adults; participative creativity, the sheer enjoyment of humans being at play.

In my Missional church leadership teaching, I suggest that one of the ways to listen to the world around us is through observation of festivals. Large scale events can tell us something about the wider narratives of our culture.

The narratives of Womad include an affirmations of being human, celebration of creativity and culture, respect for diversity and care for earth. To quote another Kiwi musician, “a slice of heaven.”

Highlights

• Yabu band, indigenous voices singing of the importance of heritage, history and relationships.
• Lying on the Botanic Garden grass, gazing at tall trees, head to head with my youngest, listening to Archie Roach.  “The trees are smiling,” the youngest announced.
• Les Gumes, installation storytelling. Random groups stepping into a world made alternative by the skillful change of space and the power of storytelling. Hard to explain, wonderful to experience.
• Leigh Warren and dancers, an hour of contemporary dance, supported by live guitar, voice and didgeridoo.
• Afrocelt Soundsystem. Over 15 years ago I stumbled upon their music in the leftover bin of a music shop. (Remember those – that historic artifact called music shops!) I loved the drum and bass loops, overlaid with Irish pipes and African beats. Seeing them live was simply superb.

So what did the youngest Taylor think at the end? Next year, she announced, we are all going. And for all four days!

earthquake damage in the church I used to pastor

Cracks in the main walls, cracks in the road, sand everywhere inside the church and out!

a dark night settles over my home town

My home town of Christchurch was hit by a major earthquake today. At least 65 114 145 people are dead. The number is expected to rise, with more than 100 people still trapped in buildings as night falls. The quake struck at lunchtime, with the central city packed with lunchers, workers and shoppers. Numbers of buildings, weakened by the major earthquake last year, have collapsed (here’s a picture of what remains of the central Baptist church).

The damage this time is much more severe that the September 2010 earthquake. As darkness settles, over half the city remains without power. More than a 1000 people are estimated to be homeless.

It’s been an awful day for us here in Australia, watching the news, trying to contact family, hoping that silence was nothing more sinister than a sign of lost power.

But at least we eventually heard the news that those we know and love are safe. Shattered, scared, but safe. For some in Christchurch, no matter how many times the phone rings, it will remain answered.