sustain:if:able kiwi

What is missiology?

I wrote this at the start of 2010, as the inaugural Director of Missiology, being asked to develop a new missiology stream at Uniting College, which included history and theology, but expected it to be taught out of a Missio Dei perspective. I came across it again this morning and wanted to note it here as placeholder.

“a time when missiology (reflection) is as important as mission (action)” – Ross Langmead

Missiology IS NOT Colonialisation-ology, although it has been and can still can be. Nor is it Growing churches-ology, although it has been and can still can be.

Missiology IS participation in God’s purposes in the world, with particular attention to the voice of the other.

It asks questions about God and humans: including “what is God up to in the world?” and “what does it mean for humans to participate in that activity?” It is aware that these questions have been asked before and in other cultures, and so looks to church history and theology for challenge and inspiration.

Missiology skills
1. Be able to articulate mission then, mission now, both in Australia and across history
2. Ability to read contemporary contexts, both local and in general popular culture
3. Experience cross-cultural
4. Be able to work with the theological tradition in light of contemporary questions
5. Demonstrate ability to connect Uniting Church practices with contemporary spiritual searchers
6. Be able to cultivate leadership – whether a mission hub, forming a new expression, community development, salt and light in workplace

Campfire 2012

I’ve spent the weekend in Western Australia, speaking at an event called CampFIRE. It’s been great fun, joining with around 150 folk to explore mission as the people of God.

It is located at Yearlering, which is about 3 hours drive out of Perth. So it’s rural, with all the beauty that involves.

It’s a unique approach to a camp in that it’s self-catering. You rock up with your tent or caravan – with the constant encouragement to hospitality, to share meals, pool with other families.

The campsite is located beside Lake Yearlering, which provides a gorgeous backdrop for connecting with people and engaging with God.

A standout was the number of children and teenagers, a sign that this part of the Uniting church is in great health, with a bright future being passed onto another generation.

My sessions all seemed to go well, with some great questions asked and what folk experienced as a blend of challenge and hope.

Theology and Practice of Chaplaincy: new taught topic

On Thursday the Ministries Studies Committee for the Bachelor of Ministry approved a new topic

Theology and Practice of Chaplaincy

It’s part of a larger focus that has been emerging, around training in chaplaincy, which is such a crucial ministry in contemporary mission. So part of my work over the last months has been identifying a potential lecturer and then working with various folk on the Uniting College team on the necessary paperwork.

Here is some of the description –

This unit will introduce students to practices, images and theological themes in a practical theology of chaplaincy. This will include developing skills and habits in areas of pastoral care, mission, leadership and worship from the perspective of actual human experience. This unit will consider a range of questions including

Lectures, tutorials and case studies will explore issues in the Christian life from the perspective of the socially marginalised. This will include a survey of the historical tradition.

We’re hoping to see this new topic being offered in Semester 2, 2013, alongside the first run of a topic specifically for school chaplaincy. Plus there might be a sort of “masterclass” in chaplaincy, a cohort who focus on the place of lament in the ministry and mission of chaplaincy.

All quite exciting IMHO

heirloom carrots and a missional mode

Browsing a local market on Saturday, we found a bunch of carrots. Not just your standard orange, but at least 3 other, different, types

• purple (dark)
• yellow
• purple

Gorgeous. I walked home wondering if in this photo lies some key elements for a 21st century missional way of being church. Diversity not uniformity, multi-layered not mono-cultural.

This is the world of Heirloom carrots, available from places like Diggers

An exclusive Digger’s mix exploding with colours from red to white and purple to yellow. Succulent and sweet, these carrots hold their colour when cooked, adding an exciting dimension to meals and salads.

I’ve blogged before about the missional lessons at Diggers – the multiple ways they allow a connection with their community

• A space:
• A cafe:
• A demonstration garden:
• Seeds.
• Workshops.
• Festivals.
• A committed core.

It’s such a practical list of possibilities, an illustration of the diverse ways that a church can create multiple access points and encourage many and varied ways to participate. Of course, the same applies to theological colleges. How can Uniting College encourage such multiple engagements?

If the mono-vision of churches is the worship service, I’d suggest the mono-vision for colleges is topics and courses. So what might be the “demonstrations”; “festivals”; “spaces” offered by theological educators?

Refresh-ing in the mid-North

It’s been a fabulously refreshing weekend in the mid-North of rural South Australia. We drove up on the Friday night and stayed in a cabin at the Laura Camping Ground.

There were around 45 folk from all over the mid-North, from Hawker to Kadina, that gathered at Jamestown on the Saturday. The theme was “Getting on with mission” and I did about 3 hours input in the morning. We explored

• Biblical images of mission
• what is church?
• engaging our communities

This is some of our work from Saturday. Folk had been invited to use a pipe cleaner to make a symbol of their community. This moved into a time of intercession and then were laid on the communion table, as part of a response. (I shared my dog scoffed the communion story and then mission implications, which went down a treat!)

Today we wandered back slowly. A visit to the Stone Hut – a bakery in the middle of nowhere (an image of mission if I ever saw one), then a walk through one of nature’s cathedral’s – Bunderleer Forest.

It was just gorgeous with the sun on our backs and birdsong tweeting their praise to the Creator.

This was followed by a visit to another spiritual place, Annies Lane in Watervale, before arriving home in time to try and do some of the gardening left undone what with having been away for the last 2 weekends.

This weekend ends my commitment to Refresh. As Principal I’ve met a whole range of rural folk, spread over a vast range of South Australia, from Robe, to Eyre Peninsula to Jamestown. It’s been great to be presenting in relation to College’s passion and concern for mission. It’s been a very, very helpful orientation to some of the training needs and complexities of the Synod.

conversion and the Uniting Church Preamble

It was great to drop into one of our integrative classes today for a lecture on the Missiology of Conversion.

We have introduced two compulsory Integrative topics in our new Bachelor of Ministry. Rather than assume that by some sort of informal osmosis, students somehow miraculously become able to weave together theory and practice, Bible and ministry, leadership and theology, we’ve decided that we actually need to both model and expect integration.

So the two compulsory Integrative topics explores six models of theological reflection (from Theological Reflection: Methods).

To ground the models, each year a different theme is chosen. The four teaching streams at Uniting College – Bible, missiology, leadership, discipleship – speak to that theme, while the students workshop a case study from their ministry context, using one of the six suggested theological models.

The theme this year is conversion. So on behalf of the missiology stream I introduced a number of contemporary missiologies of conversion.

First, the Uniting Church Revised Preamble to the Constitution. I suggested the Preamble provided a fascinating approach to conversion – God is already present, faith must be embodied in just deeds, conversion invites all parties are in an ever-deepening Gospel process.

Second, we sat with an essay by Wilbert Shenk in Landmark Essays in Mission and World Christianity which outlines trends in mission in the non-Western world. What do we need to hear, to absorb, from all parts of the globe, not just the Western part, as we begin to think about conversion? What are the best practice insights regarding church, Spirit, Jesus, gospel and culture that need to be shaping us?

Third, a childrens story by Joy Cowley (Tarore and Her Book), which documents how indigenous people in New Zealand were the primary agents in the spread of the Gospel. Again, the story provides a fascinating approach to conversion – God is already present, faith must be embodied in just deeds, conversion invites all parties are in an ever-deepening Gospel process.

Fourth, we conversed

• What insights from the Preamble might guide conversion?
• What does “already encountered” (Para 3) mean for conversion?
• What practices would enable conversion to have a trajectory toward “same love and grace fully and finally revealed in Jesus Christ” (Para 3)?
• What does “integrity of the Gospel proclaimed” (Para 6) for the mission of the church, past and present?

It was a rich and energising discussion – of mission, of Uniting Church theology, of history.

Uniting College mission future

One of my tasks as Principal is to write for various Synod publications. Here is what got compiled last week for the quarterly Treasurers newsletter.

A few weeks a young couple came to see me, armed with questions about ministry in the Uniting Church. With their permission, this is some of their story.

She was born in rural Australia and moved to Adelaide to study. In 2008, as part of her degree, she did a placement in Port Augusta. She felt a stirring, a sense that she might return one day. She returned to Adelaide to continue her study. She met and married a trained youth worker.

In the Uniting Church they heard about the ministry of Deacon. Hence their visit to see me. They want to be in Port Augusta for the next 15 years, to embrace a ministry of Incarnational community development. How can their sense of call be realised in the ministries of the Uniting Church?

The Uniting Church’s understanding of ministry is that we are all called to ministry. The Basis of Union says “The Uniting Church affirms …. one Spirit has endowed the members of his church with a diversity of gifts, and that there is no gift without its corresponding service: all ministries have a part in the ministry of Christ.”

The Uniting College is about developing effective leaders of healthy, missional churches who are passionate, Christ-centred, highly skilled, mission oriented practitioners. That is you and that is me and that is our friends in Port Augusta seeking to discern their gifts and calling with the Uniting Church.

the joys and tensions of a “church serving College”?

It is interesting to reflect on the activities of our College faculty over the last week or so.

One is speaking over the weekend to youth throughout the State about mission. Another is speaking to a chaplains retreat about the place of lament in mission and ministry. Another chaired a gathering of lay folk interested in history, church and influence. Another led a 2 day annual leadership retreat for ministers of another denomination. Another is Interstate, speaking at a young adults camp. You get a glimpse of a College faculty deeply engaged in the life and ministry of the church. Which is very life-giving.

The tension that results is around the multiple masters that a College serves. There is only so much a group of people can do. This post is another way for me to reflect on a recurring issue Can one College serve two masters: academy or church?

taking the sense making faith challenge

I was most pleased with how the Magarey lectures whole Bible, whole people, whole mission series of retreat reflections ended. I concluded by pointed out how the whole time had been a risk. They had trusted me and they I had trusted them. Together we had trusted God and it had been rich.

So why not continue this pattern of risk together? In preparation I had identified 5 “sense” projects (gathered from Sense Making Faith Body Spirit Journey). I had typed them up, photocopied them and cut them into separate cards. I walked around the room, inviting folk to take one.

Here was the risk. That rather than me give them some options that they might or might not to when they got back home, that they would commit to do whatever sense project was on the card they chose.

And the next time they gather, to be accountable by telling the stories of what happened.

And then I played the scene from Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, when Lucy steps through the wardrobe into another world. It’s a wonderful 2 minutes of taking a risk, to discover a whole new world. A wonderful invitation, a great ending.

Here were the 5 sense challenges. Dare you to take close your eyes, place your finger on the screen and just do whatever one your finger is closest to ….. (more…)

the road trip makes sense

My first Principal “road trip” has come to an end. 11 lectures/talks in 6 days with 16 hours driving. This is part of what I did with the Churches of Christ ministers over the last few days. Around the theme of whole Bible, whole people, whole mission we explored the place of senses in the Christian journey.

If we as leaders are give the gift of senses, and people in the Bible had the gift of senses, and people in our communities have senses, then how can these common touching points be lifegiving for our mission and our ministry.

Hence the picture – a table with things to see, canned food to be used in intercession, a Saint John’s Bible: Gospels and Acts to appreciate, colour chips to explore our feelings, a scroll to remind us of the senses in the original, Biblical world.

It felt risky, leading a group of strangers into new terrain. But the feedback – from a person a Christian less than a year, to highly educated leaders, to retired ministers – was overwhelmingly positive. By locating the senses, a very wide range of engagement became possible – personal, how we read the Bible, justice, living well, being church, mission and ministry.

whole Bible, whole people, whole mission – Magarey lectures 2012

I’m privileged over the next few days to be working with the Churches of Christ. I’ve been asked to deliver the Magarey lectures, which means two days of input. In discussion with the organisors last year, we’ve agreed on the theme of:

whole Bible, whole people, whole mission

Over the weekend, I asked my traveling companion what were the 3 best things the College could do for the church in South Australia. The reply was immediate

• form missional agents
• lead us to engage Scriptures as experiential and alive
• provide fresh understandings of being church

They then cheated and slipped in two more

• be of the Synod not apart from the Synod
• encourage a vital, living, church-facing faith among the College team

It provided a frame in helping me understand what I’ll be doing over these days with the Churches of Christ – engaging the Scriptures as experiential and alive. I will begin with some stories of my mission experience and then one by one, explore our God-given senses – introducing them to this resource.

DAY 1 21st August

1030-1145 Session 1 – whole Bible, whole people
1330-1500 Session 2 – Journey into seeing
1530-1700 Session 3 – Journey into hearing
1930-2100 Session 4 – Journey into smell

DAY 2 22nd August

0900-1015 Session 5 – Journey into touch
1045-1200 Session 6 – Journey into taste
1400-1500 Session 7 – Journey into whole mission

Eyre update and the gift of wide open spaces

I’m just back from a great weekend in the Eyre Peninsula – 6 hour drive up on Friday, talking about mission on the Saturday, 6 hour return drive today. The reason was an invite to work with the Rural Resourcing team for the Uniting Church, addressing the theme “Getting on with Mission,” and leading in communion.  Here is some of our work together

As part of my teaching I’d asked folk to make a symbol of their communities, which I then collected. During the concluding worship, these symbols were re-distributed, held and in small groups folk prayed for each other’s mission across the Peninsula. A wonderful expression of inter-connection.

These were placed on the communion table. The lectionary text was John 6, so I had taken up a bread maker, which meant hot bread for communion. The smell a wonderful image of mission.

There were 41 folk from all 16 churches from across the Eyre Peninsula and lots of very positive feedback. Being told I’m “practical” and “commonsense” is very gratifying feedback from country folk from another country!

While I’ll probably be tired by weeks end, I return very aware that these things are just what I need as part of my Principal rhythm. The wide open spaces of rural Australia were a tonic after a busy week of meetings. What is more important is how these events get me out among the churches and engaging with lay people. They earth me among the struggles (to survive)

and the joys (finding a church in the middle of nowhere in which 60 folk gather each Sunday)

finding my Baptist story in the Uniting story

The front of my Masters thesis has the following inscription:

The Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from [God’s] holy Word.

It was 1996 and I was training to be a Baptist minister in New Zealand. Exploring mission (in this case analysing contextual images of the atonement as part of post-graduate research) it was liberating to discover these words in an old Baptist hymn book and their origin in a sermon, preached by an early Pilgrim father, John Robinson, in July 1620.

Growing in my Baptist identity, I felt a connection. This was a history I found inspiring. Here were people who prized religious freedom and radical discipleship, who had a way of seeing God that looked forward, that expected growth and innovation.

Imagine my surprise last week, some 16 years later, in another country, in another denomination, to hear these very same words quoted. Not only quoted, but then to be invited to sing the very hymn, from which the words come (We limit on the truth of God).

No, not in a Baptist church, but in a recent worship service here at Uniting College. The service, part of our monthly Leadership Formation Day, was shaped by an invitation for us in the Uniting Church to remember the Great Ejection, a moment in history this month some 350 years ago, when non-conformists where forced out the Church of England.

During the service, four candles were lit.

As each was lit, a part of this story was named, various leaders celebrated, the importance of religious freedom and radical discipleship named. It was explained to us that the Uniting Church was formed from three denominations. Now, in the three years that I’ve been around the Uniting Church, I’ve heard a lot about the Methodist and the Presbyterian roots. But there is a third partner, the Congregationalist church. And here in chapel, this previously silent member of the family, the Congregatationalist part, was being given voice.

“the Congregational mind: in taste, catholic; in feeling, evangelical; in expression, scholarly; in doctrine, orthodox.’” (Bernard Lord Manning)

I sat open mouthed, amazed, that what was a very important part of my Baptist story, was also part of the Uniting Church story, also named, repeated, honoured. My (Baptist) long lost traveling companions are also Uniting Church long lost traveling companions. We share similar forebears.

(For those who think that what happened 350 years ago is dry and dusty, it’s worth noting that earlier this year, a Service of Reconciliation was held at Westminster Abbey. Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, preached at the service, in which the Anglican church sought forgiveness for the Great Ejection. Here is some of what Rowan preached –

‘Until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.’ [Ephesians 4.13]

Our Christian faith is something constantly growing, constantly moving towards greater maturity, a greater approximation toward the stature of Christ. And as we grow we need for our maturing, challenges that push us away from infantile faith.)

how do you how grow emotions of Jesus? a question of Principal (4)

This continues my “As an incoming Principal, I have plenty of questions” series – questions that I ponder as I begin a new role as Principal at Uniting College. (First question, with some responses is here, here and here).

Here is the fourth question I’m asking

How do you grow compassion (and other emotions like joy, anger, sorrow and love for people)?

In Matthew 9:36, Jesus had compassion. The result is commission to mission, prayer that workers will be sent into the harvest. Doesn’t that become a way of understanding a College? That it engages compassion (and other emotions), as part of the educative and transformative act?

According to Matthew Elliott

“The theologies of the New Testament, as we have seen, do not do a good job in incorporating emotion into their framework. As it is in secular ethics, in New Testament ethics and theology emotion is often belittled, trivialized or ignored.” (Faithful Feelings: Rethinking Emotion in the New Testament 256).

So that is a direct challenge to any College (course, sermon, preacher) – the claim that the ways it has taught (“theologies of the ….”) have not engaged the whole person.

According to adolescent psychologists, Haviland-Jones, Gebelt and Stapley

“We usually think of learning how not to be emotional rather than whether or not emotions are being refined and transformed to mature forms.”

So emotions can be, should be, part of the educative process. You should be able to point to intentional ways that emotions are being transformed, just the way you can point to growth in theology of mission or skills in preaching.

Reading the Gospels over the last few years, I’ve been struck by the feelings of Jesus, wondering what I might learn from God who experienced sorrow, crying, radical love, anger, compassion. And now, the question of Principal emerges – how do you grow compassion (and other emotions like joy, anger, sorrow and love for people)?

As I read the Biblical narrative of Matthew 9:35-38, I am intrigued by how the feelings of Jesus shaped his development of leaders. And what that might mean for Principal, staff and students, curriculum and common rooms, chapels and classes.

For more on some of my earlier reflections on feelings of Jesus

• in reading Scripture go here and here

• and mission here

• some leadership reflection here