sustain:if:able kiwi

encouraging better practice in teaching

practising teachers should be encouraged to use reflective journal writing as part of their daily professional teaching experience. Nooreiny Maarof, “Telling his or her story through reflective journals,” International Education Journal, 2007, 8(1), 205-220.

My brother from New Zealand is staying for the weekend. A trained high school teacher, with a deep passion for education, and a particular focus on outdoor education and life skills, I always enjoy hearing what he’s thinking and wrestling with.

Today, we discussed the place of student feedback. As we were sharing notes, he commented on a new initiative among high school teachers in New Zealand. Teachers are being expected to keep a journal, in which they reflect on their daily teaching.

It struck me as a brilliant initiative and I began to think about it in terms of tertiary education, and in particular for us teaching staff at Uniting College.

I have often reflected how you need no qualifications to be a tertiary educator, other than expertise in a particular field. Which potentially makes for some very, very bad teaching. Sure, in a tertiary institution, we receive feedback from students, in the form of class evaluations. But this is often highly individual, a teacher receives it, but it is up to them if they do anything with this information.

Last month at Uniting College, we added a quality management step, in that we are requiring teachers to, upon receipt of feedback, complete a one page form reflecting on what they did well and what they might like to change.

But that occurs at the end of a course. What if it was supplemented by the use of a journal, in which teachers reflected on what they hope to achieve in each class, what actually happened, and what they are learning about the art of teaching? For us at Uniting College, it could also include linking to our particular focus on forming leaders. How did what we do – in class and informally – help us in the task of leadership formation? How did it build on what students already bring to the class? What “sacred moments” were we part of creating?

This could then be shared with a peer on a regular basis, throughout a semester, for discussion and mutual support. It would not be tied to performance, but simply a way to encourage reflection on practice and with a peer.

Advantages could include a constant reminder of why we exist, reflection on our practice, peer support in our task, and learning from the best practice of each other.

Thoughts? And what other ideas have you come across for encouraging better teaching practice at tertiary/Seminary level?

resourcing resurrection

What a great line – “you didn’t see that coming, did you?” Superb capturing of the surprise for the Gospel witnesses.

The full text, all 605 words is here, along with link to a discussion guide.

My resurrection spiritual practices this year include shuffling the Jesus Deck from Mark to John (it has just been re-printed, available from “resources at chelmsford dot anglican dot org”), planting my front yard full of native plants and sinking my teeth into some Australian missiology – Cross Is Not Enough: Living as Witnesses to the Resurrection

“Why did Jesus die?” the child asked

“Why did Jesus die?” she whispered beside me. Three years old, pretty in pink, shoes not yet touching the floor, her mother gently sushed her.  This, after all, was church. Where visitors want to be seen, not heard.

But it’s the question that needs answering each and every Easter.

“Could we think of the cross?” I thought. “It has a flat piece, a horizontal piece, that points to people. Jesus died because the people around him killed him. He said and did things they didn’t like. He said things about God they didn’t agree with. They couldn’t stop him, so they decided to kill him.

Jesus also died, not only because people did something. But also because some people did nothing. Stood silent. Kept their mouths shout.

But the people around Jesus, that is only one part of why Jesus died. The cross not only has a flat piece, a horizontal piece. It also has an up and down piece, a vertical piece. That points to God.

Jesus died as an expression of love, God’s love. There are many ways to respond to evil people and evil plans. We can fight them, run from them, avoid them.

Jesus took a different approach. He decided to love them. It was like he became a sponge that soaks up all the spilt milk.

In the up and down part of the cross, God sucking up all the evil and pain in the world. Think of all the bad things people have done. And not done.

Not just the people around Jesus. All people. Through history. Even you and I. So much of it.

No wonder he died, one person trying to love all the evil out of life. That’s why Jesus died.”

Seven Sites, Seven Words: indigenous Tennebrae Easter service

We had the privilege yesterday evening of being part of Seven Sites, Seven Words, an indigenous Tenebrae Easter Service.

The service was located at Pilgrim Uniting and involved a journey outside, around the central city. Scripture passages that tell of events leading to the death of Christ were laid alongside readings of parallel stories of white engagement with Australia’s Aboriginal people, of betrayal, denial and death. Symbolic gestures – the coins of betrayal, the whip, moments of white denial – found fresh meaning.

The service has been developed by Geoff Boyce, adapting from Norm Habel’s ‘Healing Rites at Seven Sites.’ It was a wonderful reframing of the tradition of Tenebrae (Latin for ‘shadows’ or ‘darkness’), capturing the darkness of the events leading to Easter Friday and the pain of colonisation.

The sites were skillfully chosen, ensuring that Easter is not hidden in a church, but public for bystanders to see – as it was in the original. Theologically, the process of identifying Christ with indigenous suffering is an appropriately disturbing, destabilising act. The movement and the invitation to participation added to the personal engagement.

Seven Sites, Seven Words is an event that needs to be experienced by all Anglo-Australians.

we’re “calling”

Uniting College seeks a Director of Missiology (0.5) and a Post-graduate Studies Coordinator (0.5). Both positions are crucial for developing effective leaders for a healthy missional church. The Director will lead, teach (undergraduate and VET) and coordinate pioneer leader cohort. The Post-graduate Coordinator will organise, teach and supervise (postgraduate level). Joint applications are encouraged. Enquires to Craig Bailey – craig dot bailey at flinders dot edu dot au. Applications close 11 May, 2012.

More specifically …

Director of Missiology (0.5 FTE)
Uniting College is seeking a leader and lecturer to develop missiology within the life of the Uniting Church in South Australia and the College. This position will suit a person keen to play a role in developing leaders who are passionate, Christ-centred, highly skilled, and mission oriented practitioners.

Tasks will include:
1. Developing the missiology stream at under-graduate and VET level
2. Lecturing (areas may include systematic theology, mission history, missiology)
3. Co-ordinating the B.Min practice stream including the Pioneer leader cohort
4. Participating in the life of the College

Post-graduate Studies Co-ordinator (0.5 FTE)
Uniting College is seeking a lecturer to strengthen our growing and dynamic post-graduate Master and Doctor of Ministry studies programme.

Tasks will include:
1. Teaching at postgraduate level in areas of specialisation (areas may include practical theology, ministry practice, Christian education or leadership)
2. Tutoring in research skills
3. Supervising post-graduate students
4. Developing administrative structure and research capacity
5. Co-ordinating the Journal of Ministry Practice

Joint applications for this position and the Post-graduate Studies’ Coordinator position are welcomed. Applications close 11 May 2012, with expected commencement at the beginning of Semester 2, 2012.

Easter scattered: a resource

Folk looking for Easter resources on this blog (there are quite a few of you, judging by the current search queries folk are using to get here) might find this helpful …

It is a holiday pack, in which we offered an Easter service that folk could do as groups/families if they went away for the weekend. It emerged out the tension between church gathered and scattered (for more on some theological framing of this see here and here).

How to put energy into Easter, without sending the “come-to-us” signal? The result was designing a service that could be done both gathered and scattered. This took quite a bit of creative thinking, but once done it allowed us to say: if you’re going away for the weekend, grab an Easter holiday pack. If you’re staying around for the weekend, join the services. The Sunday after Easter becomes a bit of a show and tell, as whether we were staying or going, we can reflect with each other on what Easter meant. For more go here. For the actual “scattered” service (more…)

feel the seasons change

Today marks a personal and vocational transition for me. From 1 April to 1 July I’m on study leave, three months break from teaching to read and write.

As Faculty at Uniting College, we gain 6 months study leave after every three years of service. I was due to take this in Semester 1, 2013. However, with my appointment as Principal, which begins 1 July, it would have meant that 6 months after I became Principal, I would have been absent for 6 months. Which is not ideal. So the suggestion was made that, for the sake of leadership at the College, that this be split into two 3 month blocks, with one taken before I start.

So of the next three months, I am based on Adelaide, head down, writing. My major project is a book on emerging church sustainability. This builds on my PhD research, which explored in (great) detail an emerging church in Auckland, New Zealand. Last year, I returned to the same church to repeat the research. This provides what I think is a world-first, an close up inspection of an emerging church over a 10 year period. My hope is to turn this data into a book, tentatively titled “Emerging ten years on”, yielding important insights around leadership, continuity and sustainability.

I also have a number of smaller projects I want to play with – turning my recent mission conference presentations into written pieces available as internet accessible downloads, either as “singles” or as an “album” – tentatively titled “Feelings of Jesus and the mission of God.” I also want to paint an icon, as a way of reflecting on the change of role I am undergoing.

Then in December-March 2012 (3 months plus 3-4 weeks for holidays), I hope to go to the UK. I’d like to base myself (and family) within a UK College training missional leaders. (I’m having a conversation or two about this, but nothing definite has emerged yet).

I’m happy to speak to groups about the data emerging from “Emerging ten years on.” I also want to extend the research – specifically by re-interviewing the 10-15 UK emerging church communities I interviewed back in 2001.

So this morning, rather than head to the office, I’m at home. I’ve turned off my google calendar. What has been so jam packed for the last few months, is now basically empty. I’ve loved being able to say no to basically every speaking invite for the next 3 months.

Although I can’t quite start writing yet! There are still a few things in the “in” tray – some assignments, some Masters processes that need to be enacted.

holy week at the movies

Last year, in the week leading up to Easter, each day I posted a movie a day that I consider speaks directly to the challenges, unsettling questions and faith demands of Jesus’ journey toward the cross. It is one way to respond to the importance of popular culture in faith expression –

The fact that popular media culture is an imaginative palette for faith … the church has to take that imaginative palette seriously… if part of the pastoral task of the church is to communicate God’s mercy and God’s freedom in a way that people understand then you have to use the language that they’re using, you have to use the metaphors and forms of experience that are already familiar to them. Tom Beaudoin

This year, I’ll summarise it here as a resource:

• On Monday, The Insatiable Moon (2010), while reading Mark 11:15-16.
• On Tuesday, Serenity (2000), while reading Mark 14:3.
• On Wednesday, Gran Torino (2008), while reading John 12:23-14.
• On Thursday, Dark Knight (2008), while reading Mark 14:10.
• On Friday, Never let me go (2011), while reading Mark 15:33.
• On Sunday, Never let me go (again) and Invictus, while reading Mark 16:6-7.

palm sunday worship as mission – with more time

Creationary: a space to be creative with the lectionary (in this case, visual images on themes of pilgrimage). For more resources go here.

I posted earlier this week some Palm Sunday resources, first some creative prayer stations and second some soundtrack ideas. They were in relation to the 20 minute chapel services we do as part of our prayer life at Uniting College.

If I had more time, both in preparation and in length of service, I would have added two further stations – indoor spirit signs and outdoor spirit signs.

Indoor spirit signs – this would involve some large street maps and some stickers, probably circles and in different colours. I would invite people to consider the city through Jesus eyes. I would invite folk to place the stickers on the map in places they consider spiritually significant. For examples, places that Jesus might weep over, temples that Jesus might want to overturn, annointing places where Jesus might unexpectedly be annointed with perfume. I would want to keep the maps and place them on the walls around the church/chapel, as places for ongoing reflection and prayer in the months ahead.

Outdoor spirit signs – this would involve giving people chalk (washes off in water) and invite them to walk their streets. As they walk, to draw signs on the pavement that might symbolise the entry of God into their neighbourhood. Perhaps tears, perhaps rainbows, perhaps broken perfume bottles. And perhaps to take pictures of these, to text back into the church, which could be added into a powerpoint.

If I had even more time, I would get people to make the symbols prior to walking, as stencils (see here and here).

The aim of both of these are an attempt to connect worship and mission, our neighbourhoods today with the activities of Jesus in Holy Week.

finding voice, losing mine!

Today I spoke to Catholic Education, to about 120 staff, gathered for a day of annual retreat, providing the keynote input over about 90 minutes. In discussion with the organisers, I spoke on the theme of “Finding Voice, telling stories.” It was a slight adaptation of a presentation I gave back in September last year, to the Australian Religious Press Association, which seemed to go well, both then, and again today.

I began by using a film, The King’s Speech,

because I have a voice

to open up the topic of how we find voice, individually and as communities. Then under 3 headings I explored

• a theology of finding voice – Moses, Elijah, the short ending of Mark (16:8), then drawing on The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound and Sense Making Faith Body Spirit Journey

• finding voice today – some contemporary cultural analysis, including the way that Douglas Coupland, in 1991, in Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, focuses on telling stories as a way of finding voice, and then returns to that theme some 19 years later, in Generation A: A Novel.

• three stories of finding voice that inspire me, to conclude (specifically the Parihaka story, Brooke Fraser and Paul Kelly).

As I spoke, I pondered the irony – that as I spoke on finding voice, I was losing mine. You see, today was my last public speaking engagement for the next 3 months. From 1 April to 1 July, I am on sabbatical and I’ve been able to politely say “no” and “sorry”, to a whole range of speaking, preaching and teaching, clearing space in order to focus on some writing. (More on the shape of that next week, when I actually start).

Which seemed to me, as I spoke, to be such an important irony to live within, the need to pause one’s mouth in order to think, process, reflect, read, re-stock. To find voice, but in a different way – with written, not spoken words!

the J(esus)POD on Palm Sunday

So if Jesus were entering Jerusalem today, what songs would be on rotate on his ipod? (4 other Palm Sunday prayer stations are here). 

Here are the contributions so far from the twitter-verse and facebook-verse.

• U2 – City of blinding lights, Yahweh, New York, Angel of Harlem, Elevation
• Jefferson Starship – We Built This City
• Diana Ross and the Supremes – Stop in the name of love
• Lou Reed – Walk on the wild side
• Elvis Costello – What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, & Understanding
• Laura Marling – All My Rage
• Arcade Fire – Abrahams Daughter
• Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
• Ben Harper – Pictures of Jesus

creative palm sunday worship stations

Creationary: a space to be creative with the lectionary (in this case, visual images on themes of pilgrimage). For more resources go here.

Chapel in Palm Sunday week – an invitation to enter a week of activity

(Update: This resource was further developed here – the J(Pod) shuffle on Palm Sunday – and here – Palm Sunday as mission.)

Rad-Adalaide station
Take an Adelaide road map. Draw on the map the route of your most recent “entry into the city.” Draw your feelings as you drove/trained/bussed/biked? Mark with a cross where you thought you were most likely to find Jesus. Reflect on whether your expectations were met and if it matters?

iPOD station
So if Jesus were entering Jerusalem today, what songs would be on rotate on his ipod? List the top 5.

Make palm crosses
Instructions have been provided. As you fold pray for people you know, people who are being “creased” by life.

Colouring station
Colour in the icon. Simply enjoy it. As you do ask God to speak to you through the activity.

Walking on the pavement station
Take some time to wander outside. In this Palm Sunday week, please walk only on concrete footpaths. As you do, silently pray for people who have walked before, and who are walking behind you. What might it mean for you to encounter the Christ in them?

At 12.22, a bell will ring. We will gather, to share communion on the Tuesday/to share what we experienced on the Wednesday.

Sending prayer
Jesus, when you rode into Jerusalem
the people waved palms
with shouts of acclamation
Grant that when the shouting dies
we may still walk beside you even to a cross …

the spirituality of justice: Loyal to the Sky

One of the great things about Kindle is the chance to read in new areas. This has emerged for me primarily because of the resourcing this website, which lists free and vastly reduced books. I’ve found myself looking books on trends in beer, production of comics and the history of salt. If they were paperback, I probably wouldn’t touch them, but being electronic, they seem worth a browse. And some of them get read and as a result, my world becomes larger.

One I’ve just finished is Loyal to the Sky: Notes from an Activist. (Sorry, the free deal on Amazon is long gone). Marisa Handler, born in South Africa, has a passion for justice, which has become her life’s work. From protesting against the war in Iraq, to free lance journalism that exposes multi-national companies in South America, to street theatre against covert US military involvement in Central America, this is a fascinating insight into a person and a spirituality (sadly) rarely seen in church.

What makes it appealing is the autiobiographical window into the growth of a protestor. This is not a book filled with anger, but a search for a better world, through the evolution of a passionate, caring person.

Here are some of the quotes that struck me:

The impact of protest

For a single day, our action carved out a space for justice—a space to remind people, in the midst of their busy lives, that there is a larger canvas. That the Palestinians are suffering. That our tax dollars are fueling an occupation. And people on the streets listen. Bystanders take our flyers. Supporters honk their horns as they pass. Journalists record our words. Priests and officials come to speak. The police try to negotiate. We make the evening news. I spend the day high on adrenaline

About a new way of leading

For larger actions, affinity groups gather in clusters. Decisions regarding specific actions or campaigns are made via consensus process at spokescouncil meetings, which are attended by representatives from affinity groups. While consensus process can be thorny and at times protracted, what consistently amazes me is how well it works. A proposal is offered, clarifying questions are asked, discussion is held, concerns are raised, amendments are made, concerns are resolved. Each person’s needs and qualms are heard and incorporated into a process that arrives at decisions and moves forward.

About a new type of leader

Soft-spoken and temperate, David exercises the sort of understated leadership that consistently provides wise guidance and strategic acuity to a movement that is relentlessly nonhierarchical and anti-authoritarian.

About the fact that new forms of church need not be large

In the global justice movement, the affinity group is the basic unit of direct-action organizing. Groups are composed of five to twenty members; the prevailing idea is smallness and, by extension, trust

About the busyness of life in Western culture

I think of my life back home: constantly rushing to meetings and appointments, constantly feeling pulled between activism and music and social obligations and every other essential thing on my endless list. I have to pencil in “nothing” when I want an evening off. Every activist I know is similarly overburdened and stressed, staggering around like Atlas beneath a world only we can save. It can’t be helping our work.

About the ethics of change

Is it possible to effect change without dehumanizing others? Without someone to hate? Can we connect with each other as we have this week—can we build a movement—without a common enemy?

How much of my activism has simply been a vehicle to justify my own anger and hatred?

The mission framework I make is this: that often new forms of church emerge around gathering and worship. But these are not the only forms of spirituality. There is also an activist spirituality and one of the fertile areas for fresh expressions to explore is new forms of church that cohere around mission, around combined Kingdom projects.

the task of forming leaders for mission

Here’s some current thinking. I reckon the forming of leaders involves three things and one direction.

The three things are

• skills – this involves the learning to do things – to preach, to influence, to care, to exegete culture
• vocation – this often involves increased knowledge, about our tradition as church, about the big tradition of the church in history, the shape of ministry
• personhood – this involves self-awareness and spirituality – who we are in the process of living and learning

The one direction is that of mission, that in our post-Christendom context, we need skills and vocation and personhood pointed toward a life lived for the world.

Now here’s my current theory, that in forming leaders, we all start in one of these places. Some of us start with skills (for example supervised field education or immersion experiences or homilectics or worship curating). Some of us start with vocation (for example the way many folk teach theology or Christian history). Some of us start with personhood (for example CPE or pastoral care or personality testing).

This leaves a place that forms leaders with four key questions

• Is the balance right? Some colleges are dominated by vocation type learning. Others are keen to teach skills. If all three are needed, then we need a curriculum that pulls all three into the mix.
• Is each starting point handing the person on – is skills pointing to vocation and personhood, while is vocation pointing to skills etc? Too often colleges default to a dualism of either practice or theory, when the challenge is to model integration, a spiralling between all three, in an ever deepening circle? Where we start is often shaped by personality and by our learning styles – we learn in particular ways, so we assume that others learn our way. Are we able to get beyond the way we learn?
• Timing? When in the formation of each unique individual, do they need to be in which sector? Which skills do they need at the beginning and which at the end? Which building blocks of knowledge are needed when and where? When is the best place to invite self-reflection?
• Is the direction clear? Is all our skills and vocation and personhood being shaped by a life lived for the world?

Thoughts? Have I named the task of forming leaders accurately?