sustain:if:able kiwi

sheep and worship

Sometimes worship experiences just click. I preached on kingdom KPI’s today, a process I have been spinning about over the last few days.

As people came in the door, they each got a plastic sheep, about 1 cm. (thanx to Renee for the spark of the idea). Small enough to lose.

I spoke about the lost sheep and at the end of the sermon I invited them to name their sheep …. I mean, to name a sheep. Full sermon here if you can be bothered (of if Kingdom KPI’s in postmodernity are bothering you)

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life transitions and resourcing spirituality

This week, Beth, part of the church, turns 5. Last week, Matt, part of the church youth group, got his driving license. A month ago, Helen and Ray, church stalwarts, went into a retirement home.

These are significant life transitions for each of them: new environments, new freedoms and responsibilities, times of change and letting go. The question is how the church honours these transitions. On Sunday I am planning to give Beth a sticker, for her to put on her lunch box. In the shape of a heart, it can remind her of God’s love and the love of the church community.

going to school
getting a driving license
retiring and retirement homes.

What other key life transitions should the church be honouring?

If we live in a spiritually alert world, then part of the mission of the church can be to resource the spirituality of these life transitions. What about “retirement packs,” filled with resources to engage the spirituality of those going into aged care?

And how? I know about 5 year olds. What should be done to spiritually resource first time drivers, or to let God be part of the saying goodbyes that are part of retiring?

the kpi cringe

KPI = business = modernity = vomit.

Yet cringing at the cringe, nose wrinkling in distaste, still begs the question …. what is important? When you pour your life into something, what makes it worthwhile?

If we go organic, and reject modern KPI, surely we are still faced with “what is important?” Bodies do grow. The doctor can, externally, check my internals … take my blood, pump my pressure, ask me to pee into a little yellow pottle. So organic images can still be bodily tied to external indicators.

Such indicators can be harder to assess, but surely they are still part of our discourse, modern or postmodern?

key performance indicators in postmodernity

There was a delightful piece in a local newspaper on Wednesday. The employment section was titled “working for the ultimate boss,” and explored ministry as a employment prospect! Tongue in cheek, it asked what where God’s Key performance indicators (KPI’s). Which got me thinking.

In modernity, I would suggest the KPI’s of the church were:
: church attendance
: offerings
: members.

In postmodernity and with a more renewed theological vision, what might the KPI’s be. I am proposing:
: influence in wider community, leading to transformation
: generosity in time, talents and money
: wholistic growth.

Am I missing any other KPI’s?

dislocation

I have slept in 5 different beds in the last 5 nights. I find this a profoundly disorientating experience.

Place is not just environment. Place is the familiarity of routine.

the wearing of underwear when preaching

Exegesis is like underpants. It makes the preacher feel secure and comfortable wearing them when up-front. Indeed, the more creative the sermon approaches, the more the need for the security of underwear. Further, approaches like storytelling or inductive work best over the top of underwear.

A few years ago, the fashionable preacher was advised not to show their underwear. It was considered distasteful and inappropriate.

However, in these changing times, I am now suggesting that a certain amount of underwear needs to be shown. Letting the audience know that Biblical text and culture is valued and explored adds a certain “holy~ness,” a certain sensual promise of more.

spiritual spaces

I sat at Te Papa on Saturday. I was surrounded by 5 metre high panels, including a beautiful en-glassed image of the Treaty of Waitangi.

It was a space both spacious and enclosed.
It was a space to think.
It was a spiritual space.