sustain:if:able kiwi

celebrating the city

(Art by Olivia Chamberlain, used with permission)

I spoke at Celebrating the City last night. It’s an excellent initiative by Oxford Terrace Baptist, here in central city Christchurch. Four Wednesday evening lectures (February (4, 11, 18, 25) with four different speakers exploring city themes. An excellent initiative for an central city church to be taking and I really like the fact that speakers will include our local Mayor (February 11), and the sense that this is not just a church conversation.

My task was to kick off the series reflecting on the Bible and the city. The argument I made was that most of our images surrounding spirituality and prayer are rural. I took a visual flip through Christian posters and the front covers of books on prayer and how often God is imaging to us in the outdoors and the isolated and the “natural” landscapes. I suggested this makes it hard to celebrate the city, because we have lost our capacity to find God in people and in complexity and in human creation and offered some suggestions for ways forward.

Preparing was an interesting personal journey for me. I used to teach a course on Urban mission, back in 2001 and 2. So it was bit of a historical foray digging up old notes. I found things like 3.5 in disks. And colour overhead transparencies! Remember those? I remembering feeling so pleased, back in 2002, scanning images on the computer, then getting colour onto acetate transparencies.

Just seven years later, and for this lecture I was downloading and embedding video clips, with sound, all inserted into my keynote presentation. Technology is moving so fast and is just one more complexity of living today.

I was also interested in how my own thinking had progressed over the years. Recent sermons on Deuteronomy and Ruth and the minor prophets were inserted in the theme of the city in the Bible. Video clips I am currently using in my missional church speaking seem to flow really well. In other words, I had this sense of remaining true to what I used to teach, yet still growing, refreshing, deepening.

I thought it was good night. Attendance seemed to exceed expectations. A good mix of people and I heard some great stories afterward. I even got to meet one of my silent blog readers, on holiday from Rotorua (!). “We came from Rotorua to hear you” and laughter all around 🙂 So today is a shout out to my silent blog readers. Thanks for being around, even if I don’t know you :).

U2 academic conference: New York and me

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

My paper proposal – Sampling and reframing: the evolving live concert performances of “Bullet the blue sky” – for the U2 Academic conference has been accepted. My plan is to use work by Walter Brueggemann and the metaphor of DJing (as developed in my Out of Bounds Church? book). With near 100 applications, I wasn’t holding my breath, but New York, May 13-15, 2009, here I come.

It was a cold and wet December day
When we touched the ground at JFK
New York, like a Christmas tree
Tonight this city belongs to me Lyrics from Angel of Harlem, by U2

PS. Given the state of the New Zealand dollar, international airline tickets are a bit steep, so if there was anyone in New York or nearby, or on a stopover like Los Angeles, Chicago or San Francisco, wanting to pay for some (international!) input either side of May 13-15 on topics like: emerging church beyond US, missional church in established church settings, the Bible in contemporary cultures, creativity in mission and worship, theologies of popular culture. I could also do a paper preview! and explore the implications of U2 for mission and worship!

I can wear a variety of hats – academic PhD, or writer, or senior pastor, or emerging church planter – whatever – then drop me a line steve at emergentkiwi dot co dot nz.

where I work …

Laidlaw College promotional video (where I spend 2 days/week when I’m not on sabbatical!). Gotta love that line: Lecturers are extremely intelligent, with sharp minds and soft hearts (not that Michelle has been in any of my classes!)

Creating a Culture of Adaptive, Innovative Missional Engagement in local congregations

Here is what I am doing with the Churches of Christ (South Australia) next week.

My brief is to help their ministers and key congregational leaders understand how they can liberate the missional imagination of their congregations and then to harness that in applied mission initiatives. Their five year goal as a denomination is to: Create a Culture of Adaptive, Innovative Missional Engagement in local congregations, “and anything you can offer which would add value to this would be appreciated.”

Here is where I am heading:

Session 1: Biblical frameworks for mission today. Placing Luke 10:1-12 in the life of a local congregation.

Session 2: Leading in mission. Placing Saint Brendan in the middle of contemporary leadership styles. Implications for local church and local mission.

Session 3: Ministry as listening and naming the Kingdom. Our world today, adaptive vs technical change. More of the Opawa Baptist story including multi-congregational approach and using Bible in community.

Evening Session (open to all): Leading through change. Some personal reflections on the challenges and opportunity of leading an established church through significant periods of change.

Wednesday, September 23, all day and evening, Happy Valley Church of Christ. Note that the evening is a stand alone session open to anyone.

community demographics roadshow

The better half of the emergentkiwi partnership kicked off the community demographics roadshow in Christchurch today. A pleasing turnout of church leaders and it was great to see groups of people huddled together engaging around the needs of their neighbourhoods.

“What a gift” commented a church leader afterward.

AngelWings Research (that’s the business that Lynne and I run) and the Baptist National Resource Centre, in association with the Vision Network of NZ, are taking a punt and offering these Community Demographics Seminar. In the space of three hours you get
– a presentation on the composition of your city
– a detailed profile on your local community
– tools to help you get the most out of that profile
– time to work through your community profile, using those tools, with others from your church and with input from the researcher
– good time to network with like minded leaders
– ending with (creative) prayer for your city.

With Christchurch done, next up is ….
AUCKLAND: Thursday 26 June, Carey Baptist College, 473 Great South Road, Penrose, Auckland, 9:30-12:30 pm, and then

WELLINGTON: Wednesday 2 July, Miramar Baptist Church, 33 Park Road, Miramar, Wellington, 1:30-4:30 pm

Who is it for?
– Church leaders keen to better understand their local contexts
– Churches that are wondering what ministries they could effectively and usefully run into their local communities
– Anyone who wants further fuel for prayer for or engagement into their local communities.

Cost: $150 for demography profile (if not already purchased).
$20 for first person from church, $10 subsequent people from church, max $60 per church (up to 10 people). (No charge for Baptist Churches…)

vantage point student

from my leadership class today, a student cell phone pic.

the picture says a lot: in the foreground inductive learning with the class invited to use a type of lego to “build” their church. a way of allowing them to name their leadership values. leading into an excellent discussion around leadership and leader as builder in 1 Corinthians 3:10-17. in the background lecturer, white board marker in hand, waiting to capture student feedback. in so doing I am questioning, making links to pre-set class reading and earthing through practices and storytelling.

emerging, Kiwi and anglican

Today was a day in preparation for my time with the Anglican priests-to-be at St Johns Theological College, Auckland on February 26 and 27. As part of their Anglican Studies Programme they are looking at Anglican Ministry: Contemporary Models and Challenges. They have chosen to focus on the emerging church and to invite a Baptist to help them. Very gracious.

The learning outcomes include:
• Describe the mission context of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, and some of the challenges this raises for the Anglican Church.
• Describe and evaluate the emerging church as one model of ministry developed to respond.

I thought these 2 videos will be particularly appropriate: Rowan Williams on what Anglicans think of emerging church and how he would evaluate the emerging church.

Over the two days I will be addressing the following:
Tuesday 9.30 – 12.30
Lecture 1 – New soil = new plants = new church shapes
Lecture 2 – What is the new “soil” that is “postmodern cultures”?
Lecture 3 – A missiology for a postmodern soil

Tuesday 1.30 – 4.00
Lecture 4 – Identifying with the life of Jesus
Lecture 5 – Transforming secular space
Lecture 6 – Living as a community

Wednesday 9.30-11.00
Lecture 7 – The mixed economy that is emerging churches
Lecture 8 – Discussion and evaluation of the emerging church

And for those interested, here is my list of key Kiwi emerging church writings.

(more…)

onramps and fastlanes

Missional and emerging church is so much more than candles and coffee. It’s a conversation about participating in God’s Kingdom come on earth today. Our world is changing and in this changing world it is tempting to seek certainty in our historic understandings and in our charismatic leaders.

Luke 10 offers us a different type of seeking. It reminds us that God is active in our world, in the tables and cafes of our culture. It tells the story of a sending God who invites us to seek God’s future in the ordinary and everyday. It is an affirmation that 70 no-name disciples were trusted with God’s missionary purposes. It is an anticipation that as we accept the hospitality of the stranger, God’s healing and redemptive purposes can be discerned.

Since much of this is counter-intuitive and requires new patterns and practice, we need onramps, ways for people to enter into the conversation. We’ve got a few onramps for white boy ministers with their tech toys. We’ve got a few onramps in the forms of books and academic courses. But the onramps are few and the harvest is plentiful and more construction is needed.

Alongside onramps we continue to need fastlanes; places where those already in the conversation, those immersed in the mess of table fellowship, can talk and gripe and dream and plan. Last week’s Masters class teaching in Auckland was for me, a fastlane, in which taking the time to do a case study of an emerging church then allowed us to talk much about mission, theology and discipleship.

learning

Tuesday was one of my best teaching days ever. I define best because I got an intuitive sense, based on the class engagement and questions, that lots of learning was happening about mission in Western culture. And since discipleship is about learning, and mission in Western culture is my passion, when things go well, I like to ask why. What processes help people learn?

1. It was our second week together. So relationships had been built and that sense of trust is essential.
2. The students came to the class having completed a 3,000 word case study. So they had an existing body of knowledge. More importantly I think, this knowledge was grounded knowledge. They had been asked to study an existing emerging church and it’s worshipping life. So these students have been thinking life and reality and not abstract theories.
3. A regular part of class had been dwelling in the Word, in Luke 10:1-12. As a class, we have read and re-read this text and in doing so, have been deeply challenged by Scripture.
4. Since our first week of class was in April, to allow integration and reinforcement, I started the class by asking the students to work on 4 questions that might help integrate lecture material with the case study work.
What were some of the practices shaping this emerging church?
What were the sources generating imagination at this emerging church?
What gospel/culture questions arose for you as you read about this emerging church?
What struck you as you “read theology” from a living community in contrast to reading theology from a book?
5. As the students gave feedback, I went into “devils advocate” mode. I forced them to consider Luke 10 and the case study. I pushed them to consider what this meant for their real and living communities of faith.

In so doing, in the conversation between Biblical text and case study, a whole lot of learning was triggered about worship and discipleship and conversion today. (Rather than providing answers to these questions, I have spent the last few days providing resources for the students to continue their journey: opening Biblical text, reading other mission case studies, bringing in dialogue partners to keep teasing out questions.)

So how did learning happen? Out of relationships, around case studies, in conversation with Scripture, aided by good questions. I checked this with the class before I posted it here and they nodded their heads.

Now can I take this to our teaching and discipling in churches? How like Sunday, how much of our discipling material, has this pattern: of relationships, case studies, Scripture and good questions?

blessed are the peacemakers

Howard Zehr, speaking in Christchurch on restorative justice 10 – 11.30 a.m., Thursday 13 September, Wheki 302, 3rd floor, University of Canterbury’s Dovedale Avenue site.

Howard is the Co-Director of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, Virginia, and is the author of many books including Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice and The Little Book of Restorative Justice.

key missional phrases emerging from waikato diocese

I’m back from Waikato Diocese. (This is my 3rd Anglican clergy conference I’ve spoken at in the last few months (leaving Dunedin in November and Wellington in April next year)). There were about 130 leaders, apparently their best attendance for a long time. I’m very tired: two 90 minute sessions on the Tuesday, followed by four 90 minute sessions on the Wednesday …. slot in the after speaking people interaction, along with getting the powerpoints and video files ready for the next session … has left me quite fried.

There were a number of really nicely phrased understandings of mission, that emerged from the first session’s interaction with Luke 10:1-12: Firstly, get into their culture and secondly, centred on everyday.

Thirdly, in response to my asking where church was in Luke 10, came the phrase meeting where people are at. I turned this into a question back: Where do people meet in your diocese? and very quickly, from around the room came the answers: malls, cafes, schools, workplaces, RSA, bus stops, internet, stock sales, hospitals. A very grounded understanding of the missional movement of going, rather than expecting a coming to a building.

On the Wednesday two potential research projects began to bounce around the room. Firstly, the need for a gathering for storytelling and brainstorming around emerging and rural ministry, which I think needs to include developing a website of ideas and resources.

Secondly, a “green zone” gathering, a NZ wide Anglican gathering of pioneering leaders, to tell their stories, listened to by a few Bishops and key leaders, around two questions – how to sustain existing pioneering leaders and how to train pioneering leaders.

I am not sure what my place in these projects needs to be, but I wonder if they are some next steps in the mission journey.

In the meantime, both Auckland and Waikato Dioceses have expressed interest in my Missional Church Leadership year long coaching program. This will involve me flying to Auckland and Waikato monthly (starting late September 07 and ending August 08) to work with a group of people who want to take missional leadership learning further, integrated with on-line learning and coaching around developing mission projects in one’s local context. There are some spaces available, and I’d quite like some non-Anglicans in the mix, so let me know if you’d like to join. Here are some more details: Download file.

a take away ending

We sat in an open circle on the floor. In the centre I had placed a stack of takeaway coffee cup lids. People were invited, one at a time, to take a lid and name to the group one thing they would take away from the week long intensive – it might be something sweet, something raw, something stirred, something to chew on.

For me it would be the gift of a unique group who had worked hard, listened well and thought deeply, and the gift of a question.

And then I blessed them;
To take their take aways, their stories of nurture and growth and change,
their treasure, for which they, and Jesus, have paid a great price.
And now to go in the name and the power of the Giver of our stories
Go into Gods world. Go in peace.

And so ended the Fuller Living the text in a postmodern text class of 2007 (apart from assignments and marking :)). Rich memories for me to take away as I board the plane for the third, and final, leg of my journey, to Portland and a gathering of the Allelon Mission in Western Culture Project.

I am down to present on Sunday for about 20 minutes and on Monday for about 35 minutes, followed by Q & A. I am deeply tired and quite homesick.

new experiences

I spent 2 hours today being videod. Professional video, with lights and microphones and cutaways and me driving my car into the church car park and walking in the door, me on wide angle shot and me on closeup. Heaps of fun.

It’s not a normal Sunday afternoon activity, but arising because I am trialling a new course this year on Missional Church Leadership. I have designed it thinking about pastors in ministry, wanting to help them grapple with missional church skills and capacities, within their context.

The course has attracted the interest of a number of denominational groupings. So today was about, with the help of a video expert, shooting a 6 minute introduction to the course, wanting to explain the course simply and clearly. Allowing me to explain the course in a DVD format so that those interested can use it to explain the course to their leadership groups, or their bishops, or their oversight groups. I define words like church and leadership in the context of missional and talk about the structural shape of the course, and tell a few stories of missional at Opawa.

It is now on the editing floor and I hope to be able to display the finished product a months end.

july comings and goings

Here are my travel plans for July.

MONDAY July 2 Taylor family fly to Auckland.

TUESDAY – THURSDAY July 3-5 Speaker at Auckland Anglican Clergy Conference. Theme – Learning to create a community of faith in a culture of change

Session 1, Tuesday 9:45-11am Mission with a Kiwi accent: introducing a range of metaphors and visual images by which to interpret cultural change and new forms of church.

Session 2, Tuesday 11:30-12:30 pm Learning from an ancient text: engaging with Luke 10:1-12 and exploring its challenges for mission today.

TUESDAY evening Anyone welcome to join the Taylor family at Cock and Bull, Ellerslie

Session 3, Wednesday 9:45-11 am Creating a community with a missional imagination: telling some stories of Kiwi mission today, grounding the work of Tuesday and serving as a learning exercise, inviting reflection on skills and capacities required of missional leaders today.

Session 4, 11:30-12:30 pm Creating a community of faith around spiritual practices: an exploration of what it might mean to create communities of spiritual formation, using images of apprentice, origami maker and tourist. It will offer 19 practical examples of contemporary practices of community formation.

Session 5, Thursday 9:45-11 am Leader as change agent: exploring a range of skills and capacities required in the processes of change, drawing on Steve’s experiences as a change agent pastor in a 96 year old Baptist Church.

FRIDAY JULY 6 Taylor girls fly to Sydney for fun weekend, Taylor guy (me) fly to Los Angeles.

An LA WEEKEND to recover from jetlag, so I’m open to any offers of human conversation.

MONDAY July 9- FRIDAY July 13 Living the text in a postmodern context block course at Fuller. Recent email from Fuller: Steve, I just looked up your enrollment. We have 21 MA students to date. That’s an amazing enrollment these days! So that’s sweet. I really enjoyed teaching this block course last year and with one year’s experience of navigating the Fuller-burbs under my belt, I’m really looking forward to it.

SATURDAY July 14- WEDNESDAY July 19. Allelon Mission to Western Culture Project. I have to provide a brief paper. I’m also looking forward to hearing a fellow Kiwi accent.