sustain:if:able kiwi

story weaving conference

I’m off on Monday morning (early), to be part of Story Weaving, an international conference on Colonial Contexts and Postcolonial Theology. It is being hosted by Whitley College, Melbourne. They are Baptist, so I’ll be able to breathe deep that Baptist air 🙂 Apparently the conference is over-subscribed, which is great. For me, being part of these types of conversations is an esssential partnership that needs to lie alongside fresh expressions, as a concrete expression of being a stranger, of surfing the edges and entering into the marginal spaces.

My paper, which I’m delivering on Monday afternoon, is titled:

This is my body? A post-colonial investigation of the elements used in indigenous Australian communion practices

The introduction is here. What is most fascinating is how the paper has evolved. As part of my research I got into conversation with Tim Matton-Johnsto, a Congress (indigenous) leader in Tasmania. Some email, some skype, some shuffling of drafts back and forth, some negotiation with his local elders and the result is that he will be sharing the paper with me, telling a story from his indigenous community of one of their communion practices.

There’s something very personally satisfying about a process which will mean I, as a recent migrant, am part of theologising alongside indigenous communities here in Australia, and am to co-share a paper in this type of way.

needed: 13 mission legends for mission trading cards

Who would be your top 13 mission legends?

One of my tasks in the next month is to write a distance topic – Equipping in Culturally Appropriate Mission – to help lay leaders of local churches engage in mission. It is my experience that one very helpful way to engage people in mission is to tell stories of people past. Something happens when the story is told of Brendan the Navigator, or of Alexandre de Rhodes pioneer leadership in Vietnam in the 1600s. It provides a glimpse of a way of life that values pioneering and risk and it seems to fire people’s imaginations.

So I thought it would be fun to make up some mission trading cards to give to each student. This would involve finding a helpful cartoonist to draw a picture on the front, provide some key data on the back, along with a further written resource. It would be tactile. It would be fun. Students could play with them. Or even compare cards with each other (give everyone 12, not 13), leading to them swapping them with each other if they want.

But first, I need to identify some “mission legends.” Who are they for you? Who are the people in history who challenge and inspire the way you do mission? In an ideal world I would like 13 legends, including 3 from Australia. They would also embrace the breadth of mission – including proclaiming, discipling, serving, enacting justice and social transformation.

(I did a similar thing last year, when I designed a distance topic on Jesus, and AKMA very kindly let me use his Theologian trading cards and the feedback has been very positive. In fact, it allowed one of the best moments of intuitive teaching I did in 2011, when, as a group of students articulated their “Jesus” questions, I was able to give each of them a different theologian trading card, saying “Oh, you should meet (x), they had a similar question to you and you might find them really helpful.”)

and now we’re back. So hi ho, hi ho

32 days after we left for home/New Zealand/holidays, we’re back, in Australia, at home, and starting to think about the year ahead.

It promises to be a MOST interesting year. First, we move into our very own Australian “project” – a house that needs a LOT of attention! More on this in the coming days! I promise.

Second, come 1st of July, I start as Principal of Uniting College. I’m feeling pretty daunted by the title and the expectation and am intrigued by how that role will unfold over the latter half of the year.

Third, due to starting as Principal, it was decided just before Christmas that it might be wise for me to take some study leave before I begin. (I was due for study leave first semester of 2013, ie 6 months after I would have begun as Principal). So from April to June 2012, I have three months to do some writing, followed by another three months December 2012 -March 2013.

A year of new house, new job and study leave. What impact will all this have on the old stress levels I wonder? Whatever might come, it certainly promises to be an event-filled year!

So, first things first, might as well head off to work tomorrow …

a prayer for the year coming

Lindisfarne Scriptorium produce A Call to Pray as a discipleship resource. It includes 13 cards, each with an artistic image, each with a prayer. They are wallet-sized, so over the summer holiday, they’ve been great to sit with at the beginning of each day. Or to place in your pocket as you go for a reflective walk.

Sunday I headed up a hill for a 2 hour walk, with the following prayer. As I walked and pondered, some questions began to emerge, which helped me as I began to pray for the year ahead.

Please God
grant us the grace
to change our hearts,
to open our minds

To ponder: What are the images of God in which you find grace?

Grant us the grace
to bless our small corner,
to encourage each other

To ponder: What is your “small corner”/refuge/sanctuary? What will bless it?

Grant us the grace
to pray for the world,
to care to much.

To ponder: How can you care too much for the world?

Grant us the grace, please Lord.

Prayer from Lindisfarne Scriptorium. Reflective questions by Steve and Kayli Taylor.

Further links:
– Photo essay of Lindisfarne here.
– Lindisfarne spiritual legacy here.
– Further discipleship resources here.

walking the art: Brick Bay Sculpture Trail

Over the weekend I loved walking the Brick Bay Sculpture Trail – 43 sculptures from some of New Zealand’s most well known sculpturers, located outdoors, among native bush and meandering lakes. The walk takes about an hour, and involves 2 km of walking. Trees and landscape is carefully used to ensure that the environment is the canvas and it allowed a wonderful mix of walking, contemplation and discovery, all in the outdoors, allowing the visits of native wood pigeons and tui. The trail is run by a Trust, with profit being made available to assist artists with costs (because large scale sculpture is expensive).

In 2009, I was part of an academic theology conference on land. Sitting on the grass, contemplating sculpture 31 – Graham Bennett’s Position fixing – I wondered what would have happened if the academic conference had occurred not an hour down the road in a sterile lecture room, but here, with regular walks through the trail.

In 2011, the conference became a book, The Gospel and the Land of Promise: Christian Approaches to the Land of the Bible. I have a chapter which I attempt a post-colonial reading of the Jacob narrative. I’m really pleased with it. But sitting beside sculpture 25 – Jim Wheeler’s Regeneration series – I wondered how much richer my chapter, and the entire book would have been if it had been theologians in dialogue with artists like Jim Wheeler and Graham Bennett.

Theology needs art. (But does art need theology?)

the summer project

It used to look like this …

now, after fun choosing the paint, then time spent engaging in the spiritual practice of undercoating, followed by three days of exhausting painting, this is the result …

one very satisfying summer project complete. Wish all my work was this instantly transforming, this instantly satisfying.

holiday reading part 2

And Still the Music Plays is an absorbing read. Written by a psychologist with a passion for those suffering from dementia, it is structured around 22 chapters, each a short story of a particular person and their experience of dementia. The narrative approach works really well, giving humanity and dignity to those who suffer and allowing an exploration of various issues in the care of those who suffer from dementia. It advocates a patient centred approach that is deeply critical of much modern rest home practice, by exploring how listening to the unique history of each person suffering from dementia can offer insight into care.

I have found a poem (What to remember when Waking) from Dave Whyte’s The House of Belonging a helpful tool for meditation, especially as I journeyed through the process of application for Principal at Uniting College. The House of Belonging includes this poem and others. Sadly, while some others were of interest, a number of the poems had the feel of being squeezed into an existing framework. The odd line was repeated, and a theme of becoming open to the now of our existence in order to be shaped by what we open ourselves too, kept reappearing. Which starts to feel a bit like someone putting forward a message rather than plumbing creativity. Still, and a nice way to sit for a few minutes and I will be returning to a number including Loaves and Fishes and Working Together.

holiday reading

In between choosing paint, preparing to paint and actually painting, there has been some (not much) time for reading.

Ford County: Stories by John Grisham is just delightful. It involves a number of short stories, linked by a theme of place (Ford Country), and by various legal comings and going. Delightfully structured, they are a reminder that Grisham is a bestseller because he is a superb user of the craft of plot and character. The final story is the best, a moving reflection on what it is like to be an AIDS victim.

I’ve also been watching episodes from Rev, a BBC comedy about a vicar running a modern inner-city church, which gained BAFTA comedy award in 2011.

It was a Christmas gift, but as I watched I began to wonder if it might be useful for the Church, Ministry, Sacraments blockcourse I am co-teaching in February.

U=undercoat. working for change as a new years resolution

I’m exhausted, tired and slightly sun burnt after a day spent scrapping paint off our old wooden holiday house. It’s essential, perhaps the most important part of a much needed outdoor paint job. While choosing paint colours is exciting, it’s the hard work of preparation that makes it possible, that ensures the change of colour is longer lasting.

Like change.

New Year’s Resolutions are easy. But it’s only made possible, sustainable, durable, by the hard work of scrapping, sanding and priming.

As I think about the leadership challenges I am about to face in this new season, it was good to spend the first day of this new year scrapping and undercoating. Work became prayer, the invitation to commit myself to the spiritual practice of undercoating, the hard work of preparation – listening well, respecting the past, investing in relationships, being attentive spiritually, over-communicating, making experiments risks, building the rhythms of grace.

(This is another entry in dictionary of everyday spirituality, under the heading U is for undercoating).

summer holidays = choosing paint colours

So the out of bounds bach (holiday home/shack) is getting a facelift, an exterior coat of paint. To be precise, an exterior coat of Rongotai, with the windows and barge boards being Reefton. Choosing colours is more fun than sanding and undercoating. Although both are more fun than ministry, because both are about instant change – you scrape, you choose – and change is immediately apparent.

What is also more interesting than sanding is the social media strategy adopted by Dulux New Zealand. Their paint range is named after New Zealand places, to which you are invited to upload your photos:

What’s your Dulux Colour of New Zealand? Where do your magical moments and fond memories come from?

To begin, simply find your special place on the map, then submit at least three photo. Simply click on the approximate area, and we’ll give you a selection of locations to choose from. You’ll also be able to browse other people’s uploads at the same time. Of course, not every location in New Zealand is in our current colour range. If you can’t find your favourite place, please let us know. We would love you to tell us what place in NZ is dear to you and what colour you think is best associated with that colour.

So that when you search under Rongotai, you get a great picture. Go look …

being consumed (at Christmas)

Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire is a great little book. At only 100 pages, there is both a depth of theological reflection, yet an incredibly practical edge. It is an attempt to “sketch out a view of everyday economic life with the use of Christian resources.” (viii)

“The Eucharist tells another story about hunger and consumption.” (94).

The argument is that the Eucharist provides an alternative imagination to globalisation. It’s not just theory, because the assertion that the “church is called to be a different kind of economic space and to foster such spaces in the world” (ix) is followed by some really concrete practices

• turn our homes into sites of creative production, not just consumption (such a practical alternative perhaps to Christmas)
• donate time to those in need
• deposit in community development banks
• buy locally
• Christian business practices and
• Fair Trade

I reckon it’s a sort of Catholic equivalent of Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling in the sense that both seem to provide an integrative center for mission. So in Being Consumed, that integrative centre is the eucharist, while in Culture Making it is the invitation to play in culture that allows a mission, whether it is a minister leading a change, a teenager engaging in social justice, a retired person crafting for charity or a Council worker enacting legislation for the sake of a cleaner city.

(For some of my commentary on this a great little video, see here).

Both seem to provide ways beyond the church-centric imagination that plagues so much of contemporary mission (including fresh expressions) thinking. What is more appealing about Being Consumed, in contrast to Culture Making, is that the eucharist is more more communal, much more social, than the tendency to individualism in culture makers.

Further links:
Consumerism at Christmas (part one)
Consumerism at Christmas (another here).

a week’s work: communion in a world of hunger

Most of this week has been a writing week, preparing to speak at a conference on Post-colonial theology and religion in Melbourne later in January. My paper is titled – This is my body? A post-colonial investigation of the elements used in indigenous Australian communion practices – and over the week I’ve put together 4,800 words, which is a pretty good effort.

For those interested, here’s my introduction: (more…)

Advent acts of healing and redemption

The Lake (Ellesmere) on which my most re-creative space is found, was a few years ago, declared pretty well dead, a victim of chemical pollution and lack of care.

After much negotiation, the local Maori tribe has been given a greater opportunity to care for the Lake. This morning, with the air dead calm, I walked out where the River (Selwyn) meets the Lake. What was a paddock is now planted in native bush. An attractive set of wooden steps welcomes. A number of new trails toward the lake are being developed. It might be a coincidence, but the bird life seems more abundant. Black swans patrolled the river and a range of shags and seagulls fought for fish.

It struck me as being a wonderful metaphor for the work of God in the world. I have been absent, in another country. And yet creation care continues, land is being offered some space to healing and the birds rejoice. In a few days we will celebrate the birth of the One who made healing and redemption, of human and creation, a possibility in which all are invited to participate.

Romans 8:21, 23 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God …Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

my most re-creative space?

This is one of my most re-creative spaces. I woke up this morning to this

and ate breakfast with the kids looking at this

It is what we call the “out of bounds bach.” The back story is that we used the author advance from my The Out of Bounds Church? book back in 2005 to invest in a place of retreat and memory creation. It’s about 40 minutes from Christchurch, so was a great place to find solitude while in ministry at Opawa Baptist.

If you ever think I’m burning out, or sense I’m losing my soul, ask me how long since I’ve been here? And how long till I plan to return?

Now we live in Australia, it’s a wonderful holiday spot, our sense of turangawaewae.

Literally tūranga (standing place), waewae (feet), it is often translated as ‘a place to stand’. Tūrangawaewae are places where we feel especially empowered and connected. They are our foundation, our place in the world, our home.

My task this week is to write from here. What joy.