sustain:if:able kiwi

christmas worship treats 2007

A range of things that seemed to click in worship this Christmas.

1 – Advent beads: each a different colour, each with the Advent word (hope, peace, joy, love) glued onto their base. Given out, one for each week of Advent, an object of beauty, a tactile reminder of the journey toward Christmas.

2 – Something Beautiful: a song from Sinead O’Connor Theology album, played at 11 pm communion. It has lyrics including;
U who give life through blood
Oh I wanna make something
So lovely for U, ‘Cos I promised that’s what I’d do for U
With the bible I stole
I know U forgave my soul
Because such was my need on a chronic Christmas eve. Sinead has such a beautiful and haunting voice, and the place was candlelit at 11:30 pm on Christmas Eve and we’re entering into communion as life through blood. You get the idea.

3 – Wheat prayers and communion: In Croatia they have a custom of planting wheat in small pots in early December. By Christmas Eve, the wheat has sprouted and the plants are tied with ribbon, and placed as a Christmas decoration. So just before communion, we had introduced the custom as a reminder, of life and growth, no matter how cold and dark and gloomy the winter.

We then prayed pastorally for young and old and placed the plants on the communion table. The wheat, bound with a red sash, sat amid bread and wine, a sign of the cycles of life and hope and potential. Which might help answer this question: as to why communion at the birth of Jesus. Because we are remembering the “One who gave life through blood.”

4 – Making animal noises: Yep. Animal noises.

We played “Day 2” from here.

Yep. Animal noises. Then we divided the church up into cows, sheep and roosters; then rewrote the first line of the second verse of Away in a manger;
The cattle are lowing
The sheep are bleating
The roosters are crowing
and invited people to express their inner animal!

Yep. Animal noises. It ensured a range of random animal noises through out the services. All good fun. All a reminder of the humanity and reality of the birth.

5 – Blue Christmas tree with blue boxes: About 15 people turned out for our Blue Christmas service. I had created a central focus by spraypainting a Christmas tree blue which we hung from the ceiling (it was more blue in reality than in this photo).

Below the Christmas tree was a manger, empty, and draped in blue cloth. Inside were blue boxes.

We prayed the Magnificant, God’s promise to all those who are blue. I had set up a range of stations offering various resources – music, images, Biblical meditations, candles, blue beads – that might prove helpful. People were invited to pick up an empty blue box, walk the stations and place whatever resources they might want in the box, which was theirs to take home.

worship participation on fathers day

As a way of gaining participation around Fathers Day, we have been inviting people to fill these postcards in – THE BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE Father’s Day First Class Seating, and send them to us. (Click to enlarge – 80K).

It’s a bit of thankful fun, with 2 fathers being given the best seats in the house: lazy boy armchairs, complete with free espresso and glass of bubbly and a Sunday paper. It’s also participation in worship, as we will be weaving the reasons on the response cards into our prayers and communion visuals. For me this is what liturgy as the work of the people is all about: it is not repeating words (whether sung or spoken) dictated from the front, but it is allowing people’s words and phrases to have voice in our worship.

what is worship when our psalms are living?

This needs some good kicking around. From here

Is our Jesus fully human as well as fully divine? Are we fully human with Jesus? She used an analogy for worship of going to have coffee with Jesus – “If you had coffee with Jesus do you think he would want you to be real with him? Or would he want you to sit across the table saying ‘Jesus you’re high and lifted up. I glorify you. I love you. You are great.'” Would Jesus take delight in having his ego stroked? Or would he prefer that we were real with him, sharing our joy and pain, troubles, fears and victories with him? Donna used the analogy of parents with their children. Taking your child for a fluffy, do you want your kid saying ‘I love you mummy and daddy. You’re so awesome. I love you so much.’ Or do you do you want to see your children loving the fluffly, enjoying life, talking with you about the great things of life, sharing their worries and concerns, even sharing when they’re angry at someone or even you their parent!’ She used the quote from Irenaeus – “The glory of God is humanity fully alive” What does it mean to be fully alive? And what are the implications for worship?

For me, one implication for worship was kicked around and grounded here at Opawa on Sunday evening. We were looking at God’s Big Story (6 part series) and so it was time to explore the Psalms. They can be grouped into 3; as happy, grumpy, surprising.

I had set out 3 stations, with different coloured cloths (yellow, black, unexpectedly patterned purple). Each station had different symbols (globe and Bible, salted water, happy face) and different Psalms as examples (Psalm 8 and 1, Psalm 13 and 137, Psalm 40 and 118).

I talked about how Psalms were living (used the Carpe Diem clip from Dead Poets Society – can we lean forward and hear the whisper of people/psalm writers long dead)?) and so they have shaped worship for over 3,000 years.

So, as part of shaping our living worship, we took some time to name things we were happy and grumpy about. Some people were willing to have them read aloud, so we mixed their experiences with a line take from a Michael W. Smith song. So here was our living Psalm, mixing our worship today with a psalm and with communion.

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the saints are coming

This, the U2/Green Day remake of The Skids The saints are coming would make a great call to worship for Sunday nite’s Kiwi Firecrackers All Saints service.

kiwi saints as kiwi firecrackers

Wednesday November 1 is All Saints Day. Sunday night (November 5) is fireworks night in New Zealand. So it seems appropriate to celebrate Kiwi saints as Kiwi fireworks at our 7 pm, Sunday evening Digestion church service.

Here are my 7 Kiwi saints:
Te Whiti: a leader in non-violent resistance against the coloniser (more) (blessed are the peacemakers)
Michael Jones: top sportsman who refused to play on a Sunday (more) (salt and light)
Tarore: her death brought peace to warring tribes (more) (blessed are the peacemakers)
JK Archer: pastor and politician (salt and light)
Archibald Baxter: persecuted as conscientious objector in World War 1 (more) (blessed are the persecuted)
Manihera of Taranaki: a missionary matyred for his faith (more) (blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness)
Fernando Pereira: killed by French terrorists on board the Rainbow Warrior (more) (blessed are those who mourn)

Any additions or subtractions you’d like to make?

worship resources for mothers day

On Sunday I posted a “Mothering Day” sermon; Proverbs 31, and my wonderings about whether the Bible was feminist or patriarchal in tone? The prayer prayed just after I preached is now up on the internet (here). I think it’s a SUPERB Mother’s day pastoral prayer.

As part of the service, I also prepared a responsive Bible reading, mixing together some Scriptures which portray God as like a mother. I have been intrigued for many years with Biblical images of God as like a mother – playful, breastfeeding, birthing. (It was a re-working (for worship) of some of the material from Postcard 3 of my out of bounds church? book).

Anyhow, for those interested in worship material that places a Biblical framework around feminine images of God, here is the reading I composed;

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wedding scripture

I have been asked to choose and read Scripture at a wedding today. What a privilge, to weave a Biblical narrative into a day of joy and celebration. Somewhere in the back of my mind was a thought that I had once read a Psalm that blessed a wedding. So I went digging and adapting and I’m struck again by the way that the Bible so accurately reads our lives.

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Lenten practices: using 40 as a worship resource

Here’s a Lenten DJed worship resource, that morphs into a spiritual takeway. It’s from my weekend, where I used it three times; as a call to worship at the start of Brian McLaren, as an introduction to communion on Sunday morning and to focus our evening service on passionate practices during Lent.

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Contemporary Waitangi Day worship

Today in New Zealand is Waitangi Day, which acknowledges the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between Maori and the Queen of England’s representatives in 1840.

So Sunday’s worship needed some connection between such themes and the gospel. For me I wanted to capture welcome, what it means to be inclusive and hospitable and how one might live justly as a guest in another land.

So as everyone arrived on Sunday they were given a photo of a person of different ethnic origin, currently living in New Zealand. (Images had been sourced in relation to here and printed black and white on 5 cm square paper.) After an opening song, we read together a montage of Scriptures (based on a selection I found in an old Baptist hymn book) which named the reconciling work of Jesus. I had hung a line of string across the front of the church. As a response to the welcoming and reconciling power of this gospel, people were invited to paper clip their photo onto the string. I played Welcome home DVD, from the Available Light album , by Dave Dobbyn, as people streamed forward. Quite simple, yet a really nice mix of participation, gospel and contemporary cultural connection.

Once we had finished, I prayed a brief prayer confessing our human ability to be selfish and hold onto gifts, praying that people coming to New Zealand would experience welcome and that our actions as a church would always demonstrate the hospitality of the gospels.

By chance, it was the first Sunday of the month, in which Opawa has historically celebrated communion and welcomed new members. It was visually powerful to celebrate communion and reconciliation in bread and cup against a backdrop of a “line” of photos. We were also welcoming a Korean family into church membership and that added a further layer of poignancy to themes of gospel welcome and hospitality.

Updated: For those who requested the Scriptures, here’s a the DJ-ed list (without references)

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the spiritual gift of scavenging

I grew up thinking that you had to have the spiritual gift of singing to lead worship. I have no idea where this came from. Certainly I can find no Biblical links between worship leading and needing to sing.

Today I saw the spiritual gift of scavenging in preparation for worship.

The biblical text is Joshua 3 and I want some rocks to make a praise altar for Sunday. The office staff checked out various theatre groups. A chance conversation and we discovered a theatre group throwing out 4 (polystrene) rocks 2 metre by 1 metre. Ideal for making an altar. We offered to take the rocks away for them.

Done. Ideal for Sunday worship. Free. Spiritual gift of scavenging at work in worship preparation. Now is that gift in the Bible anywhere?

origami worship

In John 20; post-Easter, Jesus, in the name of the Father, and for the sake of mission, breathes on the disciples to “Recieve the Spirit.” This links with Genesis 2:7, God breathes life into the human. Life, creativity, vitality, passion are breathed. The Resurrection hope is for Spirit infilled, enthused, creative, vital, life-giving, sent into our cities in the name of God.

On Sunday evening at Digestion, people were invited to reflect on these texts, by making origami balloons. Fold brightly coloured paper just right, and blow, and up pops a paper balloon. People were invited to place this onto a map of Christchurch, as their prayer for their lives to be creative, vital, Spirit-enthused in their homes and workplaces.

hearts

Sunday’s worship was focused around hearts: Click to view image

you got a red heart as you came in;
and we read Ephesians 1 to each other – how God see’s our heart

you were invited to lay your heart at the cross
as we sung O love that will not let me go

you were invited to pick up a heart as a prayer for growth through hospitality; after I preached on growth through hospitality; Jesus and food and the gospels, with Emmaus Road text – full sermon here). You aren’t sure which heart you’ll get, which of course is part of Jesus challenge to growth thru hospitality

choosing creativity

I co-authored, with emergent lynne, a piece on creativity and church; titled Choosing Creativity. It’s online here and captures some of my dreams for church as a place that enhances people made in the image of God.

I will give my copy of the entire magazine to the person who can work out which bits are written by emergent me and which bits are written by emergent lynne.

communion colour amid snow

It snowed Sunday afternoon. It was just magic driving to church in the evening, soft flakes drizzling across ghostly bleak trees.

It was communion, so I brought some daffodils. I grabbed some snow and placed these in plates on the communion table. Add some spring flowers and it became a neat image of new life out of the cold, compact places of our life.