sustain:if:able kiwi

Church as sail blown by the wind

Last weekend I spent several hours sitting with Te Rā, the last known Māori customary sail. Te Rā, housed for over 200 years at the British Musuem, is part of the “Navigating Home” exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery. I spent so long with Te Rā that an Art Gallery staff person came across to ask what I did for a day job.

Over the week, I found myself returning to the sail and making connections with Christian identity and being church. So on Sunday, I did a switch of the lectionary readings and preached about Te Rā, introducing the sail and making 3 connections to John 3:8.

• Made to move – while many images of the church are static (temple, church buildings), a sail is made to move. Being on the move connects with Jesus invitation to follow (Matthew 4:19), to be blown by the wind of the Spirit (John 3:8) and cross to the other side (Mark 4:35)
• Practically beautiful/beautifully practical – we tend to think of art as hanging beautifully in galleries. Yet Te Rā has practical purpose, yet offers aesthetic delight. Those born of the wind in John 3:8 are called to follow Jesus as the way, the truth and the life in John 14:6. The call to follow Jesus is not about being hung in art gallery for display, but for life Monday to Friday portraying the beauty of God’s Kingdom here on earth
• One knot among many – the focus of John 3:8 is everyone born from above. Similarly, Te Rā is a collective of knots, each unique and each part of something bigger. The church together is invited to catch the wind of God’s Spirit

To end the sermon, I gave out sails cut from paper in a similar shape to Te Rā. People were invited to draw or use stickers to depict something unique about this local church as God’s sail. And a skewer to hold their sail aloft. The sails could be taken home or placed in the offering.  By way of example, a sail I drew and took home, plus an unused one.

Key resources for this sermon were not just the Bible commentaries. For general information about Māori craft and weaving, I turned to Crafting Aotearoa: A Cultural History of Making in New Zealandand the Wider Moana Oceania and Te Puna Wairoa: The Distinguished Weavers of Te Kāhui Whiritoi.

To understand Te Rā and think about Māori Christian connections with weaving, I drew on Te Rā: The Māori Sail by Ariana Tikao and Mat Tait (2023) and Ka Tuituia Tātoa e Te Aho Tapu/The Sacred Thread that Weaves us Together by Council for Anglican Women’s Studie (2018).

As people shared about their sails, the connections made with the identity of the church were deep, rich and meaningful.

relevant to researching mission and innovation: 9th academic review of First Expressions

I’ve just come across another academic review of my First Expressions: innovation and the mission of God. This is in the Journal of European Baptist Studies 22: 2 (2022), 176-177 (click on the PDF and scroll down to the 2nd page). The review is by Revd Dr Peter Stevenson, who is a Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College and was formerly Principal of Cardiff Baptist College.

The review has many affirmations for First Expressions.

– while my book is focused on new expressions of church in the United Kingdom, the reflections on practice have a much wider relevance
– along with other reviews, there is appreciative comment on the vulnerability by which I write on mission and innovation
– my book serves as a “research methodology … [and] clearly demonstrates how a range of research methods can be profitably employed in the service of mission”
– my work is a “healthy example of how to do practical theology. For anyone interested in mission, practical theology, and empirical research, First Expressions contains plenty of interest”
– “Taylor’s insights will hopefully stimulate others to explore initiatives in their own contexts, ‘looking to see what patterns of God might be visible’ there”

Thanks Revd Dr Peter Stevenson, for the review, for the affirmation of the value to practical theology methodology and the relevance to researching mission and innovation.

This is the 9th substantive review of First Expressions: innovation and the mission of God. For each review, I am very grateful. The other reviews (that I’m aware of) are summarised by me –

• here in Journal of Contemporary Ministry
• here in International Bulletin of Mission Research
• here in Theology;
• here in Church Times;
• here in Ecclesial Futures;
• here in Practical Theology;
• here in Ecclesiology;
• here in Scottish Episcopal Institute Journal.

Keeping faith in divine service at AngelWings Ltd

I recently reviewed Keeping Faith: How Organisations can stay true to the way of Jesus by Stephen Judd, John Swinton and Kara Martin for the Australian Journal of Mission Studies. Wonderful was the response from a grateful editor and the 840-word review will be published in December 2023. (This was a first output from our “rummaging in the research stash” season I chatted about last week).

The phrase “keeping faith” is a fascinating way to understand the research work we do at AngelWings Ltd. Organisations want to keep faith with funders, so they contract us to evaluate change projects and innovations in mission and ministry. Organisations want to keep faith with their founding vision, so we work with them to review programmes and gain stakeholder feedback on future plans.

Every organisation has a unique charism. Marist priest, Gerald Arbuckle in Refounding the Church: Dissent for Leadership talks about the need of every organisation to go back to their roots. While Christian organisations have a shared story in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, every organisation lives that story in unique ways. I connect Arbuckle’s refounding with the gifts and graces of the Spirit. As Romans 12:3-7 reminds us, there is one body and many members, one Spirit giving different gifts. So every organisation needs to work to continually refound itself in relation to their unique gifts.

We at AngelWings Ltd provide outside eyes and grassroots feedback to help organisations in refounding. Sometimes we interview and conduct focus groups and through listening at grassroots, next steps are discerned. Other times we survey or provide demographic data, collating experiences across multiple stakeholders. Or we read recent cutting edge literature and bring each organisation’s particularity into conversation with current best practice.

In every case, we are listening, seeking to understand the unique gifts by which the organisation might “keep faith.” Every project is unique, as we bring a range of research methods to offer bespoke solutions. If your organisations needs some refounding, then do be in touch for a pro-bono conversation, to see if we at AngelWings Ltd might be to service (kiwidrsteve @ gmail dot com).