sustain:if:able kiwi

Sustainability in mission

Sustainability in mission is not about preservation, whether of mission, pioneer or denomination.

This is certainly so if you consider the use of the word “sustainability” in other disciplines. In Ken Greenberg’s Walking Home: The Life and Lessons of a City Builder he defines the term in relation to development. The term was popularised in 1983, by a United Nations body concerned about the environment. The commission asked all nations to establish sustainable development approaches. The invitation was “to take a completely new view of damaging practices we have developed.” What is needed is a “fresh vocabulary that is about synthesis and overlap. And conservation – using less in the first place, not consumption and planned obsolence.”

So when one begins to consider sustainability and fresh expressions, the focus must be on damaging practices. And the lens must fall on the entire system: denominations, training colleges, leadership both denominational, local and lay, church gatherings and the people of God in mission. The aim must be a fresh vocabulary and the seeking of synthesis.

This was brought home to me the first time I visited the mouth of the Murray River (see here and here, with some practical followup here and here):

Suddenly our guide bent down and started digging. In a few minutes, he offered us fresh water. In the middle of these desolate sand dunes, there was water. A bit further on, he showed us the piles of cockles, and the eating place of the Ngarrindjeri people, who have been the traditional custodians of these sand dunes for over 6,000 years.

I stood there astounded. Put me in that place, amid those barren sand dunes and I would die. Yet other humans have learnt to live within this environment.

I pondered the implications for spirituality.

It led to the change in my blog – to sustain-if-able – and to this study, of new forms of church ten years on.

mission as the great learning experience of Western Christianity

Following on from my mission as a “converting” ordinance, here is related wisdom from one of the finest missiologists the world has seen, Andrew Walls. Saying the same thing, as mission as a “converting” ordinance, just applied to the whole of Christianity!

The missionary movement was the great learning experience of Western Christianity. By its very nature it brought the Christian faith, when it had become thoroughly accommodated to the life and thought of the West and the conceptual categories of western Europe, into massive interaction with totally different styles of life and thought. (Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission and Appropriation of Faith, 238)

This is what is happening (or needs to happen) with Fresh and emerging expressions of church. It is bringing of missionary learnings, that are distant, over their, far away, into our suburbs, networks and homes.

a turning point in indigenous relationship

Earlier this year I was privileged to ask a question.

It began a conversation.

It led to a process.

Which I ended up in a room, watching indigenous people work on a translation of some communion words into their local language.

I described the encounter from my perspective prior, and after, here – We lift up our livers, the richness of culture crossing.

On Monday, I got the chance to read another perspective. Another person in the room has written up the encounter as a journal article and sent me the draft for comment. It is still in process, but it was fascinating to read the encounter from another perspective. Two quotes are worth documenting.

First the significance. This apparently, “it signifies a turning point in the relationship between at least a small group of Australian mainstream Christians and the local Aboriginal community. Almost 175 years after the first encounters of the local Aborigines with the missionaries, whitefella Christians had come to Aboriginal Kaurna people to ask for spiritual guidance, by translating a Christian liturgy into the Kaurna language that carries a completely different perception of life, world and faith.” That’s humbling. But also deeply disappointing, that it took 175 years.

Second, the challenge. “It will be interesting to see if, and to what extent, the students and lecturers at the Uniting Church College will engage in such an inter-religious dialogue.”

Since then, we’ve had 2 sessions of input from local indigenous folk into one of our classes. Since then, we’ve done work to make indigenous exposure a compulsory part of our Candidate formation and the first experience will be offered February 2013. Since then, we’ve continued an English as a second language pilot, exploring how to train across cultures. Since then, we’ve continued to build networks and relationships. Since then, we’ve put in a funding bid, seeking a partnership that might allow us to capture indigenous stories from key elders.

But we’ve only just begun …

Comprehending mission – the Bible (Chapter 2)

Chapter one is here. Chapter two surveys recent trends in missiology with a particular focus on the Bible and mission. It argues for three fundamentally different trends –

• faith sharing in the Bible
• Biblical norms for mission
• the Bible in mission outreach

With regard to faith sharing in the Bible, a key text is Eckhard Schnabel, Early Christian Mission who in two volumes focuses on Christianity in the first century and the reasons for expansion. A fundamental concern is to establish the reliability of the New Testament as a source of data for the mission of the church today. A number of methods are used in this regard. One is words, for example the recurring verbs (proclaiming, sending, gathering, making disciples, baptising, working). Second is narrative, exploring how plot and character are constructed. Third, social science approaches, in which the origins of Christianity are mapped against economic, ecological, political and cultural environments.

With regard to Biblical norms for mission, the search is for enduring principles. A variety of approaches are being used. Skreslet explores how missio Dei, so popular a term, is actually being used in different ways, with different understandings of mission, from the World Council of Churches through to liberation theologies pleading for shalom.

With regard to the Bible in mission outreach, Skreslet focuses on translation. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been translated into 360 languages, at least one book of the Bible exists in over 2,450 languages. This gives rises to the mission theology of translatability – that in “God’s linguistic economy, all the world’s vernaculars were equally gifted with a capacity to receive the gospel.” (37) The result is empowerment. Local cultures feel affirmed. Local languages are more likely to be preserved.

Stanley Skreslet’s Comprehending Mission: The Questions, Methods, Themes, Problems, and Prospects of Missiology.

Comprehending mission

What is mission? “the effort to effect passage over the boundary between faith in Jesus Christ and its absence.” (Jonathon Bonk, Preface to Stanley Skreslet’s Comprehending Mission: The Questions, Methods, Themes, Problems, and Prospects of Missiology, ix)

Stanley Skreslet’s Comprehending Mission: The Questions, Methods, Themes, Problems, and Prospects of Missiology is a wonderful gift.

Skreslet provides an overview of recent trends in missiology. Books like these are gold. They allow a person and an institution to locate their questions, their research, their reading. In my case, as I research popular culture, how can it find a place in missiology? As I teach mission shaped ministry, how might the mission at work be located within global mission trends?

Chapter one. Who Studies Christian Mission, and Why?
The chapter begins with a resurrection story. It notes how in the 1960s and 1970s, missiology was in decline. “At many institutions, chairs of mission studies were reoriented and then connected to more politically correct areas of the curriculum, such as ecumenical theology, comparative religion, third world theology, intercultural theology, or world Christianity.” I can see many of those pressures still at play in the Uniting Church in which I currently work.

This decline was prompted by the evaluation of the colonial era. The decline also coincided with a growth in secularity in the West.

However despite unease in the West, Christian mission has grown, often generated by churches outside the West. “The astonishing and quite unexpected vitality that now marks Christian mission worldwide invites scholarly attention.” (2) There has been an explosion, especially since the 1990s, in mission studies, in new journals and new lecturing positions (including here at Uniting College).

Skreslet suggests two current approaches to reflecting on mission are at work.

First, curricular. Introductions in mission have developed in connection with particular training courses. Examples cited include Perspectives in World Christianity, Following Christ in mission and Missionaries of Christ.

Second, theological reflection. “[M]issiology is taken to be a shorthand term for theology of mission, theology of the apostolate, or sometimes the theory of mission.” (4) Examples cited include Transforming Mission, Missiology: An Ecumenical Introduction, Contemporary Missiology: An Introduction, Concepts of Mission: The Evolution of Contemporary Missiology and (especially for Australian’s), Introduction to Missiology.

Skreslet is “not convinced that theology of mission [this second approach] is the best avenue by which to approach the field of missiology.” (9) He is concerned that it privileges certain data. “For modern theologians operating in the West, scripture, tradition and Christian expereince are the sine qua non of their craft … Issues of culture and the existence of other religious traditions may enter into these discussions, but they typically do in in the guise of environmental factors.” (9-10)

In other words, the abstract is more important than the particular. And theologians are more important conversation partners than historians, sociologists and anthropologists. “What we have today, by and large, are many introductions to mission theology but very few treatments of missiology as a whole.” (11)

Skreslet is encouraged by current patterns in dissertation research, younger scholars are pushing the boundaries of missiology ever wider. Every kind of scholarly enquiry can be, and is being, explored.

Having surveyed the field, Skreslet then defines missiology as “the systematic study of all aspects of mission.” (12) It is an intersection point of many disciplines, including secular. He argues for a “community of practice,” a set of “particular scholarly habits.” (13)

First, interest in crossing boundaries and how contact with cultures might transform senders and receivers.

Second, reality of faith and non-faith. It expects a critical empathy with what is being studied.

Third, an integrative impulse. “Christian mission is a social phenomenon that encompasses an unlimited number of local contexts, each of which may be affected by global trends. Every layer of culture – from the material to the conceptual – may be engaged when faith is shared across national, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries.” (14)

discernment in mission

It was great to be part of the Cato lecture last night and hear Kirsteen Kim, Professor of Theology and World Christianity, reflect on mission today. Her talk moved from Edinburgh in 1910 to Edinburgh in 2010, noting changes in cultures, mission theology and spirituality. She was clear, with great visuals and a dry wit. We are very much looking forward to having her with us next week at Uniting College, teaching an intensive on Spirit and mission.

Among many good quotes was the way she opened up discernment in mission.

In every context there are things to embrace and things to resist. K Kim

This for me is well illustrated in Luke 10:1-12, in the delightful tension between “eat what is set before you,” and “shake the dust.”

(Art from Mark Hewitt who “images” the lectionary each week here.)

In Luke 10, mission includes both embrace and resistance. New Testament scholar, George Shillington interprets the act of “shaking of dust” as a practice of giving freedom to the other, being willing to let them choose, rather than insisting on your way, your perspective, your insight. It’s the curse of Christendom, whether through the gun, guilt or gold. But it’s not the way of Jesus. Shillington concludes that “the idea of imposing a Christian culture on a receiving culture is foreign to this [Luke 10:1-12].” (An Introduction to the Study of Luke-Acts, 90)

In this we are not alone, for we have the wisdom of the church in history and today and the gift of discernment from God’s Spirit.

For more:
– Shaking the dust Aussie style go here
– Pluralism and Luke 10.

art as public mission

The South Australian Art Gallery has gone public, in a fascinating way. They have taken 13 paintings out of the Gallery and hung them, in public, in locations around Adelaide

Art Gallery director Nick Mitzevich says once the artworks are found, people might photograph, add to or take possession of them. “The surprise [of] where people have found the work is really part of the project,” he said. “Putting the works within the public domain allows everyone to be a part of it, so the work isn’t the artwork itself, it’s the whole project and how it might play out. (More here)

I love the risk involved (what if the art got wet, stolen, disfigured?), the creation of curiousity in public spaces.

I immediately wondered what “art” the church might want to place in public? What 13 “acts of service” could be “hung” to be discovered? More liturgically, what about doing this around a church festival, say Holy week, invite artists to make a station and rather than invite folk to your church to watch it, simply hung them in public? More worship orientated, why not a church service, where your theme was “hung” around the building and children (big and little) had to play hide and seek to find the various parts?

It reminded me of bookcrossing, plus the work of Ric Stott in Sheffield, in placing clay figures outdoors during Lent. It’s all art as public mission, a way to invite curiousity, to find our story beyond church walls.

is religion better or worse for society?

A range of opinions regarding the public social good of religious institutions exist.

• an “ivory tower” perception, in which religious organisations are judged to have no earthly focus, and thus little practical public good

• a “culture destroyer” view, in which religious organisations are considered to be of toxic value to tolerance and goodwill of society

• a “public good” generator, in which religious organisations are investigated as potential contributors to public social capital.

The rationale for this “public good generator” position is that religious organisations currently exist as a significant contributor in the not-for-profit arena. Some research has indicated that church adherents are more likely to serve as volunteers. For example, church attenders are more likely to be volunteers in local community groups (43%) than the wider Australian population (32%). Across all denominations, volunteering within the congregation has a strong positive relationship with volunteering in the community. Rather than being only church-focused, church volunteers are outward-looking and active in their community. (Source: NCLS Research/University of Western Sydney joint study on volunteering (2001))

However, existing religious organisations face significant challenges, in regard to adaptation to new technologies, how to participate in a pluralistic and multi-faith society and strategies in the face of declining membership and a shrinking resource base. These factors suggests that social innovation for religious organisations will be an imperative, in order to sustain their existing contributions to public social capital. In a changing world, how might historic values of compassion, respect and justice (Uniting Communities Vision, http://www.unitingcommunities.org/?q=About-Us) continue to be enacted?

This study will seek to provide research data that might guide religious institutions in addressing such questions today.

This is something I wrote for a University/Partner organisations funding bid I’ve been putting together over the last week. (One page of an 17 page).

sacraments, mission and a really open table

When nothing is holy, everything is holy.

This is what struck me reading this wonderful, thoughtful post by Sally Coleman.

I am suggesting that there are occassions [sic] and contexts where we are able to share the story of God in the world, from creation to re-creation, the incarnation, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, and we need to give people the opportunity to respond…

Imagine setting out to tell the story of God at a town festival, a music festival or something of that kind, tell the story in an imaginative and creative way, and people gather to listen. How then do we invite them to respond? They could come forward and recieve a tract, and prayer, and maybe those things are good, or we could break bread together…

She deploys Scripture

• the feeding of the 5000 (She’s right – the exact same verbs – took, gave thanks, broke) used by Jesus as at the Last supper.
• she also reflects on Pentecost (but does overlook the fact that there is no sacraments used at that point. Further than those who heard were devout Jews and thus came from around the Mediterranean with a huge amount of worldview already formed).
• and on the woman at the Well (although again overlooks the fact that there are no sacraments at that point eitther).

She uses missiology

• bounded sets and centred sets, the work of Paul Hiebert, to explore what a centred set understanding of sacraments would look like (there’s a few post-graduate theses in that question)

She reflects on tradition

• the very words and patterns used at communion (She’s right – the words are often so deeply theological that they do require knowledge of the story to unpick the invitation)
• but she might also want to turn to the pattern of the early church, who delayed communion, placed it on Easter Sunday, after a year long process of formation and understanding.

She uses reason

• the way that sacraments are “a tangible, physical way for people to meet with and respond to what the Spirit” and extends this forward into initial encounters with the Spirit.

To conclude:

So what am I saying about the sacraments? I believe that they open a door of powerful encounter with God, and that they can be used missionally, indeed that they are in some way;  for if it is the Holy Spirit who brings them to life

It’s a wonderful, thoughtful, probing post. It needs a response, not from the church, but from the culture. Sometimes, might those outside the church want to ponder precious things, to save the moment until their understanding might enable a richer feast. But it’s exactly the type of questions needing asking in our post-Christian context.

Thanks Sally. Just the type of resource to use in my next Church, Ministry, Sacraments class!

Updated: And Sally has blogged a 2nd time, with some more reflection.

stations of the rainforest as spirituality for tree huggers

Really interesting video, linking environmental themes with Stations of the Cross. The 14 Stations of the cross are woven around the death of rainforest. Interesting that they have included a 15th Station (yes Clifford and Johnson, indeed the Cross is not enough!) which looks out how we can live sustainably, environmentally, in lifegiving ways.

It comes from the Columban Missionaries of Britian, and has an accompanying written resource. (I’d place this alongside my experience of 7 words, 7 sites: an indigenous Tenebrae Service from earlier this year.)

Of course, it’s a video. Which leaves me pondering what an embodied Stations of the Forest would look like – actual nature based walks around Adelaide.

It also links for me with some of what I was exploring last year – outdoor stations as fresh expressions and how God’s second book, the book of creation, might be a regular part of Christian expression. Especially in climates as conducive to being outdoors as Australian ones. Especially if followed by hospitality and community afterward.

the stories we tell, the implications for change

I’m currently reading Gerald Arbuckle’s, Culture, Inculturation, and Theologians: A Postmodern Critique, 2010. It is an accessible overview of culture and the implications for mission. His argument is that issues around gospel and culture is the drama of our day. And being an anthropologist by training (as well as a Catholic priest), he is concerned about how poorly the church understands culture and is aware of the massive shift in contemporary analysis of culture.

Which makes us naive at best, dangerous and destructive at worst.

Anyhow, Chapter 5 Culture as Narratives Negotiating Identities (63-80) is really insightful. Arbuckle begins by arguing that while myths help a culture clarify a past, stories clarify the present. He then suggests seven types of narratives often present in cultures.

• composure – stories that, for the sake of peace, overlook painful parts of a past
• romanticism – stories that not only overlook a painful past, but do so in ways that re in fact inventions
• nationalism – stories that manipulate history in order to impose a current purpose
• minorities – stories in which identity is founded by placing oneself as on the edge, as marginal
• refounding – stories in which the past is told in a way that brings founding energy into one’s future
• marketplace – stories in which new insights are added to a past, often for the commercial advantage of a certain group
• grieving – stories in which loss in acknowledged

While Arbuckle is not explicit, my sense is that in terms of the church and change, he would encourage stories of refounding and stories of grieving, but is uneasy about the others.

As I read, I began to think of what stories the church is currently telling about itself.

• an email overnight from a colleague, expressing concern that his church was overlooking a painful present, in a sort of “it will be all right” type of process
• books that argue if we just return to the New Testament church, we will be alright, a romanticism that ignores the conflict in Corinth, the ethnic tensions in Acts 6 or the lack of response in Athens
• the placing of American flags in a church as a sign of nationalism
• a realisation within myself that I have placed myself (downunder Kiwi), and the emerging church, as a minority, in order to gain traction
• the commercialism of Christian music as a story of marketplace

And I think of the work of Andrew Dutney, who in the Uniting Church has offered a story of refounding, explored the Basis of Union as a mission document, around which much energy and potential for renewal has occurred.

urban theologies with visual power

Two wonderful contemporary urban theologies emerging from UK cities at the moment. I love the way in both these projects urban space is being mapped, the way the visual sparks possibilities, the fusion of prayer with concrete realities.

Lou Davis
pioneering in Edinburgh
mission crafter
lino cuts, sound track: City of Stone
for prayer

Ric Stott
minister to Sheffield
mission as artist
curating Soul of Sheffield

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.

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!