sustain:if:able kiwi

bread making in theological Colleges? a question (3) of Principal

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 and here).

Here is the third question I’m asking

What might bread making add to formation? What might happen if folk – staff and students together – gathered to knead and pray “Give us this day our daily bread” on a regular basis? How might it shape how Church, Ministry, Sacraments is taught, how New Testament is studied, how ethics is considered? How practical is such an idea?

All responses welcome. Because

yep

you got it ….

Sometimes a question, followed by a response helps one listen. Sometimes a question, followed by a response confirms an intuition. Sometimes a question, followed by a response simply reveals what the next question should be.

end of week one: a full team

One of the key challenges over the last few months has been re-building the team at Uniting College. We’ve had three appointments to make:

• in April needing to replace a Ministry Practice Coordinator (the previous person felt God calling them to plant a multi-cultural church);
• in June needing to replace a Director of Missiology (the previous person felt God calling them to become Principal) – announcement here
• now needing to find a 0.5 Principal’s PA (the previous person felt God calling them to serve the next President of the Uniting Church in Australia).

This week, the last of the appointments was clarified. On Tuesday we offered the role of Principal’s PA to Eloise Scherer.  Eloise and I worked together last year on the first Adelaide msm course. She is a key leader in the South Australian Youth Camp Out (SAYCO) team and has a deep faith and passion for justice and God’s kingdom.  Work wise, she is currently Regional Coordinator (Rural SA Business) for a bank, with key roles including Executive Assistant and administrator to a staff of 20, organising regular conferences and providing training materials. I’m really looking forward to working with someone I’ve worked with before, and to what she will bring in terms of Christian passion and administrative and organisational skills among us.

So that’s a full team! Very exciting. Very satisfying. We are now:

Craig Bailey, Director of Leadership
Dr Vicky Balabanski, Co-Director of Biblical Studies (New Testament)
Dr Liz Boase, Co-Director of Biblical Studies (Old Testament)
Dr Rosemary Dewerse, Director of Missiology, Post-graduate Co-ordinator
Linda Driver, Administrative Officer
Rev Jo Fulton, Distance Education Coordinator
Rev Sean Gilbert, Ministry Practice Coordinator (0.7)
Dr Peter Gunn, Manager, Educational Resources and Administration
Rev Tim Hein, Director of Christian Education and Discipleship (0.5)
Annette Latham, Administrative Officer (0.5)
Craig Mitchell, Director of Christian Education and Discipleship (on secondment to the Assembly)
Rev Beatrice Panne, Lecturer in Pastoral Care (0.5)
Eloise Scherer, Principal’s PA
Nichola Shaw, Administrative Officer
Rev Dr Steve Taylor, Principal

first team meeting

This week has been a endless string of firsts as Principal – first Leadership Formation day, first job contracts to sign, first email as Principal. Yesterday was the first leading of the team meeting, which happens weekly.

I was awake at 5.20 am, unable to sleep, which I suspect is some evidence of the stress being generated, my body needing to process the move from team player to team leader, my awareness of the giftedness embedded in the team and the skills that will be required to lead that giftedness with clarity and grace.

Some of my emotion and anxiety took me back to my first team day at Opawa, back in 2004.

It was my 1st day at my new church (Opawa) today. I asked the 4 other paid staff to gather.

I gave them all an egg – fragile, yet hopeful. I talked about the church as the bride of Christ … beautiful … hopeful … yet fragile and nervous.

I said that I felt a bit nervous and fragile in this new role. I said I thought people at Opawa were probably a bit nervous and fragile about having a new young minister on board. I said I wondered if the staff were a bit nervous and fragile, wondering how they would fit with this new young minister.

And so we prayed for each other, that in our fragility new life would emerge. (Here)

For the record, yesterday I asked each of us to bring a symbol of our work. We began, first, by reflecting on some thoughts from one of our colleagues from a chapel time earlier in the week, about the Kingdom vision which we all share. It was nice to begin with an insight from within the team.

We then read together the gospel reading for the week. Ironically (!!) it was Mark 6:1-13. Ironically, because it has echoes of one of my favourite missional texts, Luke 10:1-12. We shared what struck us, which included the need to let go and travel light, the invitation to recognise what was new, the sense of God calling us on a journey, the realisation that won’t be easy and that should not surprise us. Lots of richness and the realisation again of the uncanny way that Scripture reads us, rather than we read it.

We then shared our workplace symbol, something about ourselves and how our work life is an expression of the Kingdom vision with which we began together. Our practicality, our reality, in the midst of vision.

A good time, a rich time, a privileged time. Which leaves me hoping I’ll sleep better next Thursday.

Church out of clergy: Report to Synod says “It’s crunch time …”

The Journey, the Queensland Uniting Church Newspaper, in October 2002, led on the front page with the following headline

“Church: just out of clergy: Report to Synod says “It’s crunch time …”

The Future of Ministry Task Group brought what was described as a “shock finding” that between 60-80% of ministers would retire in the next 15 years.

“It’s crunch time for the church, said Rob Adsett, who chaired the Task Group. “We need to start recruiting young men and women to the ministry and provide flexible and alternative pathways for training them.”

That was some 10 years ago. Last year I walked into the foyer at Uniting College. Four candidates were sitting there. One was training with a focus on overseas mission. Another was Sudanese, with a heart for mission and people. Another was training as a deacon, with a desire to plant a fresh expression. Yet another was also training as a deacon, with a heart for workplace and everyday spirituality.

Each had a shared God, to serve Christ. Each sensed that would be expressed in unique ways.

Each was waiting to be part of a Formation Panel, a group of 4-6 from within the church who would talk with them about their call, help them design a unique pathway.

Flexible. Yes.

Alternative. Definitely.

The four would be followed by 21 others during the day. Currently the College is training more candidates than there are placements. It is tempting to “cap” numbers but instead we are trusting that God is up to something, that the mission of God might just be running ahead of what the church currently requires.

It’s exciting, scarey and risky. It seems a long way from the crisis of 10 years ago.

(Hattip Andrew Dutney for pointing out the article)

Posted by steve at 07:03 PM

Prometheus: a theological film review

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Here is my most recent, a reflection on creation, Prometheus and original sin.

Prometheus
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor
Director Ridley Scott returns to familiar territory, tracing his “Alien” exploration back to the beginning. While cinematic references to other Alien movies are cleverly interwoven, “Prometheus” still works as stand-alone sci-fi horror. The lighting is superb, the soundtrack appropriately haunting, a visual palette of blacks and white providing a rich array of foreboding textures. The acting of Noomi Rapace is a standout, showing that her central role as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo was no fluke. The result is a movie for the strong in mind and stomach (obscure “Alien” reference intended).

On a remote mountain, an alien life-form releases DNA into the waters of life. In caves on the Isle of Skye, archaeologists find symbols of alien life-forms coming from distant stars. On the space vessel Prometheus, the crew emerge from hibernation to face an alien planet and their own conflicted agendas.

The narratives are woven together, as tension builds. Rocks ooze a sticky liquid. Water unexpectedly surges. A storm front approaches. Alien life breaks forth from within and without, inflicting a bewildering array of horror on all those sailing the good ship Prometheus.

The movie cracks open an endless series of moral dilemmas. Should science propel the quest for new life on new planets, when science generates weapons of mass destruction? Should business pay for the quest, when economic gain risks reducing people to dollars and cents? Can faith exist amid the rationality of the scientific quest? Should one die to preserve the many?

At one level the Christian narrative is obvious. As the movie concludes, we see Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) reclaiming a cross missing from around her neck, while affirming her belief in faith.

In a beautiful cinematic sequence, David (Michael Fassbender) will dance, almost worshipfully, among projected planets, an affirmation of creation’s beauty and mystery.

Yet throughout the movie, at a molecular level, DNA is portrayed as vulnerable to distortion, destruction and death. Thus the movie becomes a way to conceive the Christian doctrine of original sin. Well-known early church theologian, Augustine of Hippo, suggested that from birth, humans are infested with sin’s destruction. Creation might be created good, but in human time, has become deeply infested with an inbuilt bias toward depravity.

In hindsight, we are now aware that Augustine was working with a mis-translation, a corruption of the Latin text, interpreting “in him all sinned,” as a reference to Adam. More recent translations from the original Greek now suggest a very different reading (for example, the NIV, “ because all sinned”).

Yet the question remains. Are all babies born singing God’s good name? Or is all creation infested by destruction, needing a cross? In the “Prometheus” movie, the destructiveness of DNA is placed alongside a belief in the power of a cross and the need for faith. “If they made us, can they save us?” This concluding question propels Elizabeth Shaw into what will undoubtedly be yet another Alien movie.

“Prometheus” is a beautifully shot, albeit sometimes bewildering cinematic journey into questions foundational to philosophy and faith.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Director of Missiology, Uniting College, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

a question (2) of Principal

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 is the second question I’m asking

How much, and what type of time, should a Principal give to students? Teach a class? Supervise a thesis? An initial connection and then as a student requests? Informal chats in a break between classes? Have them over for meals?

All responses welcome. Because

yep

you got it ….

Sometimes a question, followed by a response helps one listen. Sometimes a question, followed by a response confirms an intuition. Sometimes a question, followed by a response simply reveals what the next question should be.

theology of divine supermodel by Gregory of Nyssa

IVP have released a new series, called Classics in Spiritual Formation. They are designed as introductions, for first time readers of the Church in history. They take the original languages (Greek and Latin) and seek to connect them with contemporary life. Last night I found myself reading Gregory of Nyssa: Sermons on the Beatitudes.

Yet God made us “in the image of God.” So indirectly we, who are created in the likeness of true blessedness, experience blessedness. Let me give you an example of what I’m trying to say. Take, for instance, the physical beauty of a supermodel captured on the cover of a women’s magazine. The real beauty is the supermodel herself. Yet, secondarily, we can attribute that same beauty to the photographic image. Likewise human beings are images of the transcendent blessedness, and similarily as copies we may be said to possess the same beauty when we display the features of blessedness. (24-25)

This is a fascinating bit of writing, for it images God in feminine terms – as a supermodel. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing recently about gender and faith development (here, here, here, here and my summary here). So it’s fascinating to find this, God as a supermodel.

The sermon is by Gregory of Nyssa, a 4th century bishop and theologian. He is highly regarded in the church for insights into the theological debates about Jesus Christ, one of the great defenders of trinitarian Christianity.

So were their supermodels and photographic images in Gregory’s day? No, which suggests the image of is introduced in the paraphrase by Michael Glerup, his desire to connect with contemporary life. So I need to whip off and check the original, as to how Gregory of Nyssa was imaging the divine.

But whether Gregory of Nyssa or Michael Glerup, what do you think of the image? What are the implications for gender and faith development if God is a supermodel and followers are copies of photographic images?

a day of regrets: C’est la vie

My sabbatical ended today.

I packed up my research, books and keyboard. I put away my highlighters, filed my reading notes and returned my office chair to Uniting College. I cleaned the whiteboard, wiping off my big picture progress, the word count on the five chapters I’ve been working on.

I’ve done lots.
– around 45,000 words of the book project – sustainability and the emerging church
– two research funding bids, one of 5,500 words, another of 1,500 words
– a short article on “Deacons, pioneering and the mission of God”
– a quick trip to Sydney to look at a way of training leaders
– coffee with a range of stimulating folk

But I end with regret.

Regret because I’ve loved the space, the more relaxed pace, the chance to say no to a whole range of speaking things, to have weekends off.

Regret because returning to work and a number of corridor conversations and emails was a reminder of some of the complexities and difficulties that lie in wait.

Regret because I reckon I’m about 3 weeks away from finishing the book project. And while the sabbatical was meant to be 3 months, there’s been over 3 weeks of work that has dragged me back. Work I was prepared to do, work that, now done, will make the next 6 months so much easier.

But if I’d said no, would the book be finished?

C’est la vie. Such is life. A day to wipe the whiteboard clean and prepare for the next stage in the journey of life.

a question (1) of Principal

As an incoming Principal, I have plenty of questions.

Sometimes a question helps one listen. Sometimes a question reveals most about the questioner, which in search of transparency, is no bad thing. Sometimes a question confirms an intuition. Sometimes a question simply reveals what the next question should be.

I’ve started a list of these questions. Here is the one I’m currently asking

– What is the most important thing a Principal needs to be for the sake of their denominational system?

All responses welcome. Because

yep

you got it ….

Sometimes a response helps one listen. Sometimes a response reveals most about the answerer, which in search of transparency, is no bad thing. Sometimes a response confirms an intuition. Sometimes a response simply reveals what the next question should be.

leadership formation as DIY knitting socks

Peregrinate. A verb, meaning to travel. As a verb, the word can be used either as transitive or intransitive. (To be used in the intransitive, requires a direct object.)

Peregrinate is a distinctive pattern in Celtic spirituality, in which individuals could undertake “peregrinatio pro Christo,” – leaving home, all that was familiar, out of love for a direct object – pro Christo – Jesus.

While some peregrini sought personal spiritual fulfillment, many were about mission. These include Brendan, Patrick, Columba and Columbanus, who during their peregrini spoke peace and saw new forms of church formed in new areas.

It is also a DIY brand of sock.

You buy not the sock, but the pattern. Hence DIY – using wool, following a pattern, but emerging out of your own craft.

Is that what theological colleges are about? They are about a journey. They link with historic patterns of Christian spirituality. They encourage travel, both in lifelong spiritual growth, and in lifelong exploration of mission. They offer not a ready made model, a “this-is-the-way-walk-you-in-it,” but rather a DIY experience, some patterns, some wool, lots of guidance and encouragement, both from those expert in knitting and those learning to knit, a community shaped by peregrinatio pro Christo,” out of love for a direct object – Jesus.

new Director of Missiology and Post-graduate Co-ordinator

Here is the latest Mission Matters newsletter from the Missiology stream at Uniting College. Highlights include some resources, upcoming courses and some ways the Missiology stream is serving the church. But the main feature is the announcement of the next Director of Missiology at Uniting College, along with an extended interview with her.

Rosemary Dewerse has a call to form leaders, with a particular passion for developing leaders who will be attentive to context.

She has a PhD in leadership formation with a focus on intercultural (across cultures and generations) ministry. She has 12 years teaching experience, in three different cultures (Maori, Central Asian, New Zealand). She defines herself as ecumenical, expressed an empathy with, and appreciation of, the Basis of Union, and made an unreserved commitment to the training of Uniting church ministers.

The Joint Nominating Committee were blown away by the calibre of people who applied and are very excited about the gifts and charisms Rosemary will bring among the College and church in South Australia.

nature’s baptism

Overnight it had rained. Truth be told, overweek it has rained here in Adelaide, making the ground sodden and the trees laden with rain.

As I left the house, I noticed a flash of red and green. Our front yard is currently host to a pair of parrots, outrageous in their bright red crest, raucous in their squawks of delight as they place chase with each other from tree to tree.

As they landed, their weight caused branches, laden with rain, to shake vigorously. Water cascaded, sheets of white, unleashed from a branch of green, by these playful red crested visitors. A full immersion indeed.

In the Scriptures, so often birds are linked with the Spirit’s visit. Have I just participated in nature’s baptism – appreciated again her noise, colour and water? Heard afresh “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased”? Been invited anew to creation’s plays?

big day, big night

“Take care and tread gently and carefully” – words this week from my supervisor.

Today – tonight actually – I’m commissioned as Principal of Uniting College, at the opening gathering of the Presbytery and Synod of South Australia. I start officially on 1 July and tonight marks the time when the church sets me aside for this role. I will be asked to reaffirm my faith in Jesus and to commit myself anew to the mission of the church. In turn, the church will be asked to commit itself to prayerful support. It feels significant personally.

Today is also the 35th anniversary of the formation of the Uniting Church. A coincidence I’m sure! But it does provide a way to reflect on a question I’m often asked – how I, as a Baptist from New Zealand, end up leading a Uniting Church College.

It’s a great question, one that was explored fairly thoroughly in my interview processes, both in first coming to the College as Director of Missiology in 2010, and then as Principal.

In the interviews, from my perspective, I reflected on the man from Macedonia, in Acts 16:9, who invites Paul to come on over, to work amongst them in mission. It was my sense that God might be calling me also to “come on over the ditch”, to work in mission. For Paul and for the Macedonians, this was going to mean a journey of working out how to do that in a way that might honour the past, yet fully serve the present, as part of embracing God’s good future. So also for me, it felt like a call to serve, for a period of time to journey among a different culture and group.

From the Uniting church end, I wonder if their perspective might best be captured in the video below, produced to celebrate today, June 22nd, the 35th anniversary of the Uniting church

For Alistair McRae – “Lets demonstrate in the life of the church what God intends for the whole world.” For Ken Sumner – “I think that’s the mission of the church, to bring about reconciliation.”

What a wonderful ethos to celebrate.

So I can’t speak for the Uniting Church, but perhaps tonight, in some small way in my commissioning, there is again that affirmation of hospitality and inclusiveness, these Uniting values of reconciliation in mission, so central to the formation of the Uniting Church and it’s ongoing vision and values.

gender and new forms of church

The last few days of sabbatical I’ve been finalising a complete draft of a chapter on gender and the emerging church. It now stands at 12,400 words and some 115 footnotes. It is the result of 47 survey forms of emerging church participants, in which comparisons have then been made regarding male and female perceptions. That data has been brought into conversation with three books that focus on women and faith development. Which has raised the question of how women around Jesus were fed, fostered and freed in mission. Here are two concluding excepts.

One way to read Luke 8:1-3 is to suggest that in this text, men are constructed as public speakers, while women are constructed as carers and homemakers. Such a reading would reinforce, to use the quote by John Drane, “bastions of male leadership.” (Mission-shaped Questions: Defining Issues for Today’s Church). As a consequence, emerging churches will be led by men, within which women will find a place of service domestically.

However Bauckham (Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels) argues that such a reading is simply incorrect. “It is therefore quite mistaken to suppose that the women are here assigned, within the community of Jesus’ disciples, the kind of gender-specific roles that women played in the ordinary family situation.” “Schottroff (Lydia’s Impatient Sisters: A Feminist Social History of Early Christianity) exposes the patriarchal bias of the scholarly tradition that gives the words διηκονουν∀ and διηκονειν different meanings in texts about women and texts about men: leadership functions when men are in question, cooking and serving at table when women (and slaves) are concerned.” Rather than prescribing gender roles, Bauckham argues that in Luke 8:1-3, the women are being portrayed as offering a way of following in relation to possessions. “Thus the true male counterpart to the women’s “service,” as described in Luke 8:3, is not preaching or leadership but the abandonment of home and family … Both the men and the women among Jesus’ disciples behave in a significantly countercultural way with regard to material resources.” Thus around Jesus, both genders are called to a journey of radical discipleship, of counter-cultural behaviour in regard to material cultures.

Which has then led to this conclusion.

Fifth, in the story of Jesus, we find a gendered community in which males and females are invited into a whole bodied following, a radical community of equals, in which mission as justice-making, apostolic witness and community building occur in ways that are never gender exclusive. Gender matters, as both men and women are fed, fostered and freed into mission. This becomes a strong challenge to any community positioning itself as a bastion of “male leadership” , as actually being a betrayal of the community of practice established by Jesus.

It’s been a lot of work, but a very rich experience to write and reflect. I will now have a quiet coffee in celebration, before turning to another chapter, on sustainability among new forms of church.

Oh, the three books on gender and faith development were

• Carol Hess, Caretakers of Our Common House: Women’s Development in Communities of Faith
• Nichola Slee, Women’s Faith Development: Patterns and Processes
• Stephen Burns and Nichola Slee (eds), Presiding Like a Woman – Feminist Gestures for Christian Assemblies