sustain:if:able kiwi

camp bible

So it’s church camp this weekend. I am really looking forward to being able to simply hang with people, to talk and walk and laugh.

As part of camp, we’ve been wrestling with how we engage the Bible. We’ve got ages 0 to 80. We’ve got people from across our congregations.

So we’ve hatched a plan. On the Sunday morning, before morning tea, we will offer 4 different options. People can choose how they engage the Bible; whether by Bible Study, by Dwelling in the Word, by Godly play, or by interactive adventure. Over to them. Different options, but every option will be engaging the same Bible text (Philemon).

Morning tea will gather us and then, around the communion table, we will read the Bible text we have all engaged with, and then invite an open mic time, with people sharing what God might be saying to Opawa.

It will be fascinating to see how it goes and whether the offer of diversity around the Bible enhances unity.

(And, don’t tell anyone, but it is also an experiment for me in whether this could actually be a regular part of our life. I.e. on a Sunday morning could we gather for shared worship – then offer diverse options (say sermon, kids time, discussion, service in our community) – then return for communion together. And whether the offer of diversity might enhance our unity.

team changes

Our (paid) team at Opawa is changing. Amy Hay, who was employed 2 days a week in areas of youth and worship is stepping down in order to concentrate on her studies. And Craig Fairhall and Paul McMahon are joining us 2 days a week each in areas of mission and discipling (a search that began in October last year). So change and uncertainty. Excitement and sadness. All mixed together for us at Opawa.

It continues our commitment to team ministry by part-timers rather than sole charge leaders-do-it-all. It continues our missional journey, focusing us on mission and discipleship. At some point I might blog about the selection process, which was the most rigorous and innovative selection process I have been through. We worked with a Human Resource consultant, who gave a lot of sharpness and skill. It was a new experience for me and for those in the process, but was well worth it.

It was also a deeply God process. At one point we as a Calling group were a bit stuck. A radical suggestion was made and the selection panel went away to pray about it. The Scripture the next day, from the church Lectionary Reading, was 1 Kings 19. Elijah is called, unexpectedly, to anoint new leaders. It was the Scripture that I had used to shape the first year of my ministry at Opawa. I read it, amazed at how the Lectionary reading could so clearly read our life.

We will welcome Craig and Paul as a church family on Wednesday, March 12 and farewell Amy on April 5. For more on Craig and Paul,

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lent cross [digital] 2008

People’s “digital” responses (in contrast to physical responses), in relation to the Lenten 2008 journey, are starting to roll in. In time I will get them up as rolling slideshow on flickr, but for now…. (and scroll down) enjoy the diversity ….

lent cross 2008

One of our artists, Pete Majendie, has made this cross for our 2008 Lenten Journey. It is in the shape of a door, which fits with our theme for the year; Building the Kingdom, not with a church building focus, but into our homes and workplaces. (So the cross is part of an ordinary domestic door, which will be opened for Easter Sunday).

The cross is designed to be a physical collecting point as part of our Lenten Journey. The actual journey through Lent consists of Si Smith’s 40 images and they are sent out among our community either physically (post) or digitally (email or cellphone). Then there are 6 set projects, (for more info on these go here), which allow people different ways to process the 40 days of Lent, at any level of creativity. Each project is designed to be displayed, again either physically (placed or pinned on the Lent cross) or digitally (through a website). More projects will be added each week, creating a growing momentum, and offering future participation for people next year (about 25 of our Opawa folk have asked for the resources).

The underlying idea was a desire to create a journey that could be done individually yet in community. So much of church stuff is based on come to us. What about go? So it was a great thrill on Sunday to place, on the Lent cross, photos sent to us from UK, Germany and another town in New Zealand and to have a sense that there is a global community walking Lent with us.

spirit2go, into the wilderness, Lent 2008

Working toward Lent this year, I have also been seeking a way for people to do spirituality without any physical link to church, while retaining some sense of shared life. How could people do a shared task, but in their own timestyles, yet be encouraged by each other? In the old days it was meet physically, same time, same place. But is that the only way?

The upshoot, the first crack, is a website (www.spirit2go.blogspot.com).

So for Lent 2008, people can download si smith’s 40 day resource, with poetry (for a small fee). Which is great and is supplied via Proost and certainly doesn’t need me to build a website for that. But it is individualised and for me, I need people with me on the journey. Perhaps I’m oldfashioned, but I get encouraged by other’s creativity.

So … I then designed 6 assignments that link with the 40 days (for example build sand castle, visit a wilderness area – etc, more info on website). Lent covers 40 days plus Sunday’s. So that gives some lay days. And why not use that to process the 40 days in different ways? Why not have shared projects that people can do in their own time that help them process, projects that access different ways to connect with God, projects that compliment 40’s themes.

And all projects with the invitation: take pictures, sound recordings, blog journals, and email your work to the spirit2go website. So that we are encouraged by what others do. So there is a sense of shared journey.

If it works, i will want to add more projects around themes; a set around Kiwi spirituality and another set around meals in Luke and slow eating and food.

At Opawa we are also offering a physical option – paper based with a physical cross in the foyer. So people can mix and match their own combo of digital and physical. Introduction to whole concept tonight (Thursday), 7:30 pm in church foyer.

UPDATED: OK, 20 people from Opawa have signed up. Some have gone digital, some physical. And emails from 3 people in the UK, keen to join us. And a lovely note from the poet, “This internet thing is great ain’t it? Best wishes for your endeavour, it is very encouraging for me to see a bit of creativity grow legs and find uses all over the place.”

a very GOOD day

“How was your day,” someone asked? “Very good. Very good,” was my reply.

Details are still confidential, so I will have to be somewhat vague for at least another 10 days. Midway through last year I began a process of change. I knew it would be destabilising and unsettling. I knew that I could not guarantee good outcomes. I knew it would have been so much easier for all concerned if I did nothing.

But I could not shake this sense of some new horizons. And the status quo did not line up with the horizons. To do nothing would have been easy, but unsatisfactory. So the journey began. A complicated, messy, unsettling journey.

Along the way were some unexpected detours. Processes are good, yet intuition needs to be valued. God spoke. The use of outside expertise allowed the intuition to be tested, clarified, searched. Today I watched the intuition pay off. I watched the new horizons become clearer and a team of people begin to gel.

Lessons learnt (again, apologies for needing to be vague):
– trust your intuition.
– check your intuition by using experts.
– trust the process. God can work through clear process.
– trust the process. If the process is clear and consultative and well-thought through, God can work.
– trust the process.

A very GOOD day. I hope that despite the vagueness, this post is still useful for some. I guess I am saying that leadership is messy (especially when the outcomes are not clear and will not be clear for months), that intuition needs to be valued and that you need to trust the process.

the offering

I was on holiday on Sunday and decided to pop along to Opawa. It was a wierd thing, turning up 1 minute early to the church you pastor, sneaking into the back row, simply to worship.

A neat thing happened during the offering. The money was collected, and then it was stated that one of our families was leaving to go and be a youth pastor at another church in another city. So the family were invited to come to the front because they were our offering.

It seemed so appropriate. This family have been one of our plus 5 interns. As an intern, we have supported them financially through there training, in there case probably some where near 14,000 dollars. We have also provided supervision by our staff for them, and offered yearly reviews of their ministry and progress, as a way of trying to partner in their growth and development. We have invested in them, and now they are leaving. We are the poorer and the church has just “made a loss.”

But the Kingdom will be blessed and so they are just as much an offering as every coin and automatic payment was that morning. Go well Warwick and Rebecca and Alyssa and Georgia Rose.

planting community contact

So I am walking home last week. It’s about 6:30 pm, a clear, pleasant summer evening. I see a woman struggling to offload an item from a trailer. Offering a hand, we carry the item into her garage.

Her: Thankyou so much for your help.

Me: No worries. We moved house last week ourselves, so I know what’s its like moving stuff.

Her: Did you move somewhere close?

Me: Across the river. About 10 minutes walk. (She’s looking confused as to why I am walking this way if I live 10 minutes walk away so I explain). I’m the pastor of Opawa Baptist, so I this is my first go at walking home from work to my new house.

Her: Opawa Baptist. Are you the church that gave out plants recently.

Me: Yes. [Context for blog readers. When I arrived at Opawa 4 years ago, I suggested an annual Spring Clean as a way of our church community engaging with our local community. One day when we as a church offer a variety of ways to serve – around our church buildings, clearing rubbish from our streets, cleaning up local homes. Over 4 years the idea has morphed and grown, including gaining local government funding to offer a community barbeque lunch, and this year, seedling vegetable plants given out to homes in the community].

Her: That was so kind. I gave mine to a friend who was just moving into a new house. It was so appreciated.

I wander off, sort of gob smacked, pondering the fact that the church I pastor is now known in the neighbourhood as the “church that gives out vegetable plants.” What sort of God are we portraying? What are we needing to learn as seek to partner this God at work in our community?

updated (with a womens voice): moving four advent candles

I have just reworked our use of the Advent candles, to try and capture the movement and journey that is inherent in the Old Testament narratives. As a church, we have just finished a series on the Minor prophets, so it also serves to tie that into our Christmas preparation. And to involve the children.

I quite like it, and the way it connects narrative, Bible, movement and symbol. You?

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the Christmas journey Peace labyrinth begins at latimer square

I’m just back from the Christmas Journey Peace Labyrinth. It is fantastically beautiful at night, light by neon LED’s, the lampost over the central stable, clouds of smoke drifting through the night air. About 250 people have walked through in first 3 hours.

700 hay bales arrived at about 5 am this morning and a team of about 30 people have worked through the day, setting up a guided pathway using hay bales stacked one, two, or three high; with spaces for a range of stations, offering moments of peace around themes like peace at home, peace at work, peace in community, peace with the earth. There is a livewebcam you can access here, which is linked to the peace with myself station.

It’s just so accessible and so large, right bang smack in the middle of our city. It’s exactly where Jesus should be at Christmas, as party people wander past and the mentally ill mumble by. I’m so proud to be part of a church which has this type of capacity, imagination, courage and missional heart.

It is open 24/7 from tonight, Friday through until Monday 24th December morning at 8 am. Yep, 24 hours, so there are people from Opawa who have volunteered for shifts at 1-4 am; 4-7 am etc. Amazing. (For the promotional video, go here).

having a blue christmas?

Amid the joy of Christmas can be pain and sadness, as we remember absent family, difficult circumstances, or the death of loved ones. You are welcome to attend our Blue Christmas service, Wednesday, 19th December, 7:30 pm, Opawa Baptist Church foyer, cnr Hastings and Wilsons.

The service will take time to remember those we love. It will use recorded music and prayers, silence and symbols, to affirm that Emmanuel God-with-us cares and loves us in our “blue” times.

full stop on stoning the prophets

For the last 12 weeks we’ve been Stoning the Prophets. While we have preached the prophets in the morning, we have also offered a time to gather every week at 5:30 pm to hear the prophet read aloud, from Hosea to Malachi. Once the reading is complete, we have played a music track, giving space to reflect. Then we’ve picked up a stone and invited people to reflect on what struck us as we heard the prophet read. We have concluded with the Lords Prayer.

Never more than 20 people, never less than 10. A group of regulars, mixed in with different people.

Today, after stoning the prophet Malachi, I invited reflection on what struck us, not only about Malachi, but about the entire 12 prophets. Here are the comments:

– God really, really cares. God would do anything to help them Israel come back.
– I struggle when someone else reads. I don’t hear very well. So I read the prophet as we go else I lose the thread. God spoke to me through each book. That’s amazing to me, that God speaks through the Bible every time.
– the minor prophets are so God-centric, so about what God will do.
– simplicity of what God is asking -justice and rightliving. It is simple yet seems so very difficult to live.
– I have so appreciated the patterns and rhythms of each book and over the 12 minor prophets. And the visual pictures – of flying scrolls and plumblines – such good use of words.
– Never know what God’s going to throw at you and this is seen in the minor prophets. God deals with each prophet in such different ways. We need to be real and trust God when stuff is thrown at us.
– the hardness of faith, of these 400 years of time, of the prophet’s message.
– in hard times, the promises of God were always present. God’s covenant is so present in these books.
– it was easier to listen as the weeks have gone on. It’s been a discipline. It has made me go back and follow up on each book and that’s been good.
– it’s been very bold. I’ve never heard of a church attempt to do this. To hear the Word has been good.
– So many phrases we sing in church come from the minor prophets. It’s not just the Psalms that shape the worship life of the church.

So, would I do it again? Absolutely. It got us talking together about God and life. It gave a new appreciation of the Bible as literature. It affirmed the need for awareness of historical context. It allowed all voices to speak, from 10 year olds, to new Christians, to seasoned saints. We so easily approach the Bible through the sermon, in which one voice interprets a text and so it becomes very worthwhile to engage the Bible by hearing and sharing in community. And that stretched us and asked new questions of how we as a church engage Scripture.

It is hard to sustain every week. So we will probably be back after Easter, linked with a series I want to run titled Pictures of Biblical witness, exploring not a Bible book, but a theme developed through Scripture.

Thanks to everyone who came, to the readers and to Pete and Joyce for the gift of the space.

For more on Stoning the prophets: hearing Nahum, a description of the space, the initial concept and the advertising.

grow in Christmas cheer

(spot the cute little angel)

Grow in Christmas cheer kicked off on Sunday night at 7pm and was EXCELLENT. A highlight for me was seeing community youth gathered around one of our retired folk, making Christmas cards, and just watching generations learning together.

Grow honours the fact that people learn in different ways by feeding mouths and minds, hands and hearts, eyes and ears (publicity blurb), by offering a whole range of ways to learn, finishing by gathering in table groups around 3 questions: who is God; who are humans; how then we should act.

Practically, Grow in Christmas cheer offered video clip from Polar Express, a history of Santa, tips if you’re shopping for justice this Christmas, a demonstration of how to make your own creative Christmas card, top 10 quiz guessing lyrics lines from Christmas carols, Biblical wisdom from the life of Anna in Luke 2.

Here is what the table groups learnt. Grow in Christmas cheer (Week 2) happens again this Sunday evening.

Peace labyrinth at latimer square

Some of our church folk have made (IMHO) this excellent little video to advertise the Christmas Peace labyrinth we’re doing this year. You can view it, either a large (15 meg) or small (4.5 meg) file from here. Feel free to download it, especially if you are a church in Canterbury area.

The video is based on driftwood sticks: “little people” with “eyes”. We’re making thousands of them, to use as part of the promotion and as part of the installation. The last two Thursday evening’s in our church foyer has been a great old time as all ages, from 2 to 80, have been at work/play, putting eyes on driftwood and attaching a tag, with the words “Take me to the Peace Labyrinth in Latimer Square.” So we’re going to be leaving them around the city (sort of like the Book crossing idea, that I have blogged about before).

People walk with their stick person through the labyrinth and are invited to leave it at the stable at the centre. Again, these are available to any in Canterbury area who want them for promotion.