sustain:if:able kiwi

We lift up our livers to the Lord: the richness of culture crossing

“There’s a PhD in this moment.”

On Monday I found myself crossing cultures. The occasion was a visit to a gathering of local Kaurna speakers at the University of Adelaide. The reason was that I was wanting to explore, in our College worship, the use of language indigenous to the First Peoples of the Adelaide plains, as a way of honouring those on whose land the College meets. (I’ve described how this came about here). There is also the national tri-ennial Uniting Church Assembly happening in Adelaide mid-year, so what might it look like to use indigenous language as part of that event?

So I trotted along, with some key phrases from one of the most common Uniting in Worship communion service. Phrases like –

The peace of the Lord be always with you: And also with you
The Lord be with you: And also with you
Lift up your hearts:We lift them to the Lord
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God: It is right to give our thanks and praise

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.

And here was some of the the discussion.

The Lord. Well there is no word for Lord in the Kaurna language. The concept is foreign. Kaurna has a word like Ihowa. But that is a transliteration of what the early missionaries said. So it’s still, really an Anglo-Australian word. We also have a word for captain. But that was often used to related to the person who sailed the boats. (Do you want the word of the person who brought the colonisers to our shores to be linked with God?)

Kaurna does have a word of respect for an elder brother. And I know from my reading in global theology that Jesus as the elder brother is used in African theology. It is a lovely image, full of relationships and of Jesus humanity. But I’m also thinking about the Arian controversy – calling Jesus “Son” suggesting he is a lower state of being than God, and thus misrepresenting the Christian understanding of Trinity.

The Lord be with you: And also with you. Is it plural or singular? In English the word captures both. But not in Kaurna. Further complication is that it depends who says it in English. If the presider says it to all, then it is plural. But if the congregation then greet each other with the same phrase, it is singular, isn’t it!

It was at this point that one of those present got up and started taking pictures. “This moment needs to be recorded” he said after. “This is historic. There’s a PhD in this!”

Lift up your hearts. Well, in Kaurna culture, the centre of the person is their liver, not the heart. So, can we say “Lift up your livers.”

Let us give thanks. Well, thanks is not a concept in Kaurna culture. Why should you thank someone for something that just is? If you believe God is Creator, then of course the Creator will be giving life. So why do you need to say thanks for what, is, just, well, is?

And as we got up to leave, the best question of all. “You are aware that our language is 40,000 years old, while your understanding of Christianity is based on a person who lived 2,000 years ago. So how will you, in your communion respect this? Which of course links with the Uniting Church Preamble (“The First Peoples had already encountered the Creator God before the arrival of the colonisers; the Spirit was already in the land revealing God to the people through law, custom and ceremony. Paragraph 3).

I left with my head reeling and the adrenaline flowing. In the space of 60 minutes I’ve been internally sifting ways of knowing and being human, how to understand Trinity and theologies of revelation. Simply because I asked some questions across cultures, found myself in spaces not my own. “There’s a PhD in this moment.”

There certainly is.

appreciative inquiry and mission through Jess’s eyes

I’m speaking on appreciative inquiry and mission with folk in a Catholic leadership formation programme today. In preparation I’ve been re-reading Mark Lau Branson’s wonderful Memories, Hopes, and Conversations: Appreciative Inquiry and Congregational Change.

And loving this video, young Jessica affirming all that is good about life.

I’ll use this to seque into the theological foundations for appreciative inquiry, in Luke 10:1-12 and in the Pauline letters. But for now, I’m thankful for my dad, my house, my pyjamas …. Yep, you get it, go Jess … 🙂

The Gospel: Luke 10: Where is Appreciative Inquiry in this Biblical text?
1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two[a] others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.
5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 If the head of the house loves peace, your peace will rest on that house; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for workers deserve their wages.

Note:

• Peace is shaped by Old Testament concept of “Shalom” – love of God, love of neighbour, love of alien, love of earth. Go looking to bless, looking to affirm
• Disciples look for response. They don’t force ourselves. But where there is “life”, we stay.
• Assumes “common ground,” that we are not the only people who desire the wellbeing of our communities.

Letters of Paul: 1 Corinthians: Where is Appreciative Inquiry in this Biblical text?
4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— 6 God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Note:

• Paul writes to a church in conflict. Yet he starts with thanks.
• It is important to note that each letter of Paul’s has a unique, specifically, different “thanks.” In other words, the thanks (the AI) is specific.
• As it is specific it can thus only connect as it truely names.
• Key “problems” in the church (for example spiritual gifts, eschatology) at Corinth are engaged in the “thanks.” Hence its not Pollyanna!

use of social media ministry learnings from Kony12

The last few weeks in class (Reading Cultures/Sociology for Ministry) has been focused on contemporary global cultures. Last week, a student asked about the Kony viral video campaign. It seemed a case study worth processing as a class, as it was so current, and yet raised so many questions about the use of social media to bring about change.

So the class were invited to view the video for “homework.” Upon return today, I invited them to choose a place on a continuum, from “it was not right” to “great use of social media.” This produced a great discussion with those on opposite ends of the spectrum making some really insightful observations.

To help ground the discussion, I reminded the class that our aim is to help churches think about being part of effective change. And at some point, a church might want to get involved in social media. So, what might we learn from the Kony campaign.

Here is the list we created: things to consider if you’re thinking about using social media.

1. It can be highly, highly impacting
2. It can have real potential for educating, especially for a generation that doesn’t watch the television news
3. Social media can emerge from anyone, especially from people with the right creative and media savvy skills
4. Think about how you communicate. Media can be manipulative and abusive. Will you focus on head or heart? Will you try and be simple, or seek to nuance complexity?
5. Consider the ethics of who you use, who you film and how you film them
6. Reflect on whether your “author” and your “author’s life” is important to your story
7. Social media can only be a starter. It needs to be supported by more information and next steps
8. What you do can form a precedent
9. Learn from other campaigns
10. Be prepared for backlash
11. You can’t control other users, and they can spin your campaign

What do you think? What else would you want to add?

indigenous communion words

This afternoon I’m off to a gathering with local Kaurna speakers (the local indigenous language). On the agenda is the possibility of translating some communion phrases into the Kaurna language. This would enable us at Uniting College, who meet on Kaurna land, to acknowledge traditional owners by using some of their language in our worship.

Words that are commonly said, like the Lords Prayer, or communion, are obvious starting points, because they are used repeatedly and thus enable not just a one off, but regular usage. For example

The peace of the Lord be always with you: And also with you
The Lord be with you: And also with you
Lift up your hearts:We lift them to the Lord
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God: It is right to give our thanks and praise

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. In the name of Christ, Amen.

In March, at our monthly leadership formation day for candidates, we explored cross cultural issues and I suggested the use of the Kaurna language at our chapel.

It turned out that what I thought was blindly obvious was quite new, and that communion words were not available. But there is a regular language gathering, and today I get to meet with them. I hope to check that they are happy for their language to be used in this way. I hope to locate some words. I hope to be able to make a recording, to help us Anglo’s get our tongues around these new words. And I hope that it might nourish and enrich our worship at Uniting College, honouring those who have been made so voiceless within Australian culture. (Which for me, is a crucial part of missiology in Australia)

Of course, liturgy is always much more than words. (I’ve been exploring this here). It is also patterns and gestures and relationship. But words are a start. And the simple question – can we use some words, is leading me into some new and interesting territory!

can we change their mind. Kiwi sceptics?

For fun after a hard week. Four Aussies – Bali Girl, the hipster, the Europhile, Aussie Aussie – get taken to New Zealand.

creationary: Keith Haring’s Life of Christ and John 3:16

I’ve been sitting with Keith Haring’s Life of Christ all week, alongside the lectionary text for Sunday (John 3:16), reflecting on the questions that arise for me.

I’ve used it for chapel on Tuesday, as a call to worship (As we look at the figures, what posture best describes how we’re feeling? ). And on chapel on Wednesday as an aid to prayer (What prayer would I make in response to the “Life of Christ”? Who do I want to place in the painting, in the arms of the “Life of Christ”?)

Updated with photo: The Haring image projected. People were invited to prayer using written words rather than verbal words, by writing on post-it notes and sticking them to the screen on which was projected the Haring image. It was lovely to see people walking into the projection, finding themselves caught within the life of Christ.

And I might well conclude the two services I’m preaching at on Sunday with “What posture does the “Life of Christ” calling from me?”, along with the following video:

A creationary: a space to be creative with the lectionary. For more resources go here.

Jesus deck in chapel worship

I used the Jesus Deck in worship at College Chapel today. As it always does, for some people, the card they chose speaks to them quite profoundly and the ensuring conversations are rich, full of God entwining with a person’s story.

For those who not aware of the Jesus Deck, it is a set of cards originally designed as a Christian education tool in the 1970’s. The designs are quite dated, which in themselves becomes part of their charm. In recent years, some Christians realised that for many people outside the church the reading of tarot cards has enormous interest. The Jesus Deck offers a point of connection, an opportunity to dialogue, a starting point around the Biblical story for conversation and exploration. (For more on the use of the Jesus deck, go here or here, or buy the book Beyond Prediction: The Tarot and Your Spirituality.)

The Jesus Deck is quite hard to get (I got mine a few years ago via the internet) and a group are trying to organise a reprint. If you’d like to be part of that, contact them on jesusdeckinfo at gmail dot com.

Anyhow, back to chapel. As the lectionary text for this Sunday was John 3:16, I was looking for a way to engage people with the whole of the Jesus story. The Jesus deck, with its rich range of examples, was perfect. As people entered, I invited them to take a card, which they sat with as the worship began. During the worship, I invited them to reflect on the card. As we came to communion, I invited them to lay their card on the communion table. Thus as we “remembered” the life of Jesus around bread and wine, we also had this visual reminder, these cards scattered on the communion table.

And, as we finished, some folk naturally just stayed standing around the communion table, sharing their card and how it connected with their life story.

For another example of using the Jesus Deck in worship, see here.

Lent: it demands much more than a topcoat

What, after all, is the painter? And what is the plasterer? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each their task. One hammers, another plasters, yet another sands, while yet another undercoats. Until finally one paints. So neither the one who sands nor the one who paints is anything. They have one purpose, for only God makes it grow. For we are all God’s co-workers. The Renovators translation of 1 Corinthians 3:5-9.

Yesterday the family room got it’s topcoat. It was a wonderful moment, to sit with a glass of wine, surrounded by a few tired painters, and admire the spotless ceiling and “crushed marble” walls. In a few hours, we gained a room.

But it had taken weeks. The ceiling needed to be lined. The walls needed to be gibbed and mountains of plaster applied to hide the inevitable irregularities created by extending an older house. It all needed sanding, hours and hours of creating of white, fine dust. Which had to be swept off the floors repeatedly. Followed by undercoats, then ceiling top coats, before finally the application of the top coat colour. What took hours was based on weeks of work.

Sitting looking at the walls, nursing a satisfied glow, I must confess to a moment of anger.

It’s Lent. We live in an instant society and in this instant society, it’s easy to get seduced by an instant spirituality, the offer of a quick and shiny topcoat.

The danger is that we are just applying a quick top coat to the rot in our lives, in our relationships, in our society. We live in a deeply troubled world, one that demands we look deeply, reflect slowly and take considered action.

Lent is the invitation to so much more than a topcoat.

Hugo: A Film Review by S and K Taylor

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Here is the review for February 2012, on the movie Hugo. I wrote this with one of the kids – it seems appropriate for a children’s movie, provides variety for the audience and is a very good growth opportunity for a child.

“Time is of the essence.”

The movie begins with time, with the orphaned Hugo, tending the many clocks of a Paris railway station. Forced to age through trauma and tragedy, abandoned by his drunken uncle, Hugo lives with two precious things. One, a broken automaton, the other a notebook in which Hugo’s clock maker father has described his dreams for the automaton’s repair.

Hugo is aided by Isabelle, also orphaned, who lives with her godparents, one of whom (Papa Georges) works at Hugo’s station. Together they will unravel the past, discuss the present and change the future. She introduces Hugo to books, while he, despite her misgivings – “This might be an adventure, and I’ve never had one before, outside of books” – introduces her to movies.

Ironically the movie “Hugo” is based on a book, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick. The book is beautiful, the story told mainly through black and white pictures. Similarly the movie adaptation favours sounds and images, with any dialogue sparing.

The cinematography is stunning. Highlights are the lights of Paris that blend into a machine-like beauty, the steam that illuminates the twists and turns of the train station, the candles that shine on Hugo’s clocks and cogs and the snow that gently falls as Hugo follows Papa Georges home one evening, desperately seeking the precious notebook.

The result is, as film should be, a celebration of the potential of images to generate mystery and create imagination, all without losing a strong story line.

The acting is strong and consistently believable. Hugo (Asa Butterfield), Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) and the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) are highlights. The work of Cohen is a pleasing surprise, given he is better known for his comic impersonations in the form of Ali G and Borat.

Much of the movie draws on historical references. Papa Georges is Georges Melies, a figure famous in French history as an innovative film maker. The train crash scene is a reference to 1895, when a faulty brake resulted in a train crashing out of Hugo’s station and into the street.

A central theme is “time.” Hugo tends time in the form of the clocks at the railway station. Hugo’s father, when alive, fixed time, while Papa Georges lives to hide from his past-time. Formerly a film-maker, shattered dreams have left him a man in need of redemption. As his wife tells him: “Georges, you’ve tried to forget the past for so long. Maybe it’s time you tried to remember.”

“Hugo” might be told through a child’s eyes, but the philosophy and theology questions it raises are adult in depth. Are humans simply cogs in the machine of time? Can a past be redeemed? Can humans, like Hugo, fix what is broken, both people and things?

Thus the film becomes a two way mirror. In “Hugo,” amid the ticking of time, with the machine-like quality that is modern life, through the brokenness of human dreams, we see ourselves. We are human, needing to hear an invitation: “Come and dream with me.”

Steve lives with his daughter, Kayli, in Adelaide, Australia. Both miss New Zealand. Both enjoy writing, watching and reviewing movies.

house blog

We’ve set up a family blog, to chart the progress of our “project” – the house needing major renovations that we’ve recently brought. The blog is called “taylorskainga” – which is a Maori word for home, address, residence, village, habitation, habitat.

The blog will chart progress, with before and after shots. (Mostly before at this stage, cos while we’ve been working pretty hard, at times it feels like we’ve only just begun!). It’s hopefully an encouragement as we wade through the work.

Today was top coats on the ceiling of the family room, with the hope that by the end of the weekend, we can then move lots of the furniture currently stored in the garage into the house.

inking the stations of the cross

This takes the Stations of the Cross to a whole new level:

A pastor of a Montrose-area church recently challenged members of his congregation to live out their faith in an atypical way by getting tattoos that represent different Stations of the Cross, images of Christ’s journey from condemnation to resurrection. (Full story here)

Tattoing the stations of the cross on one’s person! (Lots of pictures here)

The church’s artist-in-residence, Scott Erickson, designed 10 distinct Stations of the Cross tattoos and as part of Lent, the church were challenged to chose one of the tattoos (all the designs are here). “The tendency we have as Christians is to skip past Jesus’ suffering. Not only do tattoos come with a bit of suffering, they are also an art form that has not fully been embraced.” (here) More than 50 folk decided to participate.

Here’s a radio station interview with the Pastor, Chris Seay.

my book in Korean

A parcel arrived yesterday, with three copies of this …

Steve Taylor's Out of Bounds Church? translated into Korean

A very weird feeling indeed. Big ups to the publishers (Zondervan), who worked all the channels on this one. I knew nothing about it until it arrived.

City soul as invitations to community

This is fabulous. A project in Sheffield UK, which invites folk to participate in mapping the spirit of their city. An empty warehouse, a collective of artists and the invitation for April, May and June,

For these three months we will be using a large open plan space to build a model of Sheffield. Anybody can come to make a building to include in the city – not only artists but also passers by, community groups, schools and businesses are all welcome to come and create.

Choose a building or a part of the city that holds significance for you, that is part of your story, and make it in as simple or elaborate way that you like (we have plenty of art materials to use) then put it in place along with everyone else’s creation. In this way the piece of art will grow and evolve with our different stories just as the city itself has. The model city will develop in unpredictable ways as we interact with each other and offer our unique contributions and we will record that exciting process on our website.

I love the mix of creativity, open-endedness, participation and invitation to consider spirit. One of my hopes as the incoming Principal at Uniting College is to create art projects over a semester, a different theme and a different medium each semester, which can create engagement, remind us that we are humans as well as heads, and be a way of building community.

This type of thing sparks creativity around these processes.

Update: Olive Fleming Drane commented, asking for more ideas regarding campus community formation. Well, there is another in Ethnography As A Pastoral Practice: An Introduction which describes a Diversity quilt project. A table was set up and individuals invited to design a square with their name. Creative resources were supplied. Some students were doing a Art Practicuum and their “assignment” (working with an artist) was to assemble the quilt and hang it publicly. It seems participatory, communal, creative and above all, do-able ie it is not an idea but a description of an actual project at Wesley Theological Seminary, US.

Any other ideas that people have experienced?

feeling the cross in Lent

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

Yesterday I ended chapel by inviting us to feel the cross. The lectionary text for this week is John 2, where Jesus calls the temple. We’d been using El Greco’s painting as a visual aid, to help us engage the story.

When I curate worship, I like to provide something tactile, something to touch, something that engages more of our senses than just ears to listen and mouths to sing.

Last year, while on study leave in the UK, I brought a small carved wooden pilgrims cross. So I suggested that as a benediction, we pass the cross around. As each of us hold it, we might remind ourselves of the invitation to carry the cross into our day, our week and through Lent. It was quite lovely, watching folk pass it from hand to hand, the different ways folk held it, the sense of us together becoming a cross-carrying community.

And of course, there was another whole layer provided by the lectionary text. We are not meant, like Jesus in John 2, to carry a whip. Rather we are called to carry peace, the way of non-violence, as we confront structures.

For those interested, this is the entire service (needed to be 20 mins), that included the lectionary Psalm and gospel, interaction in praise and around Scripture, some art, intercession for justice-makers, communion. And feeling the cross by way of benediction! (more…)