sustain:if:able kiwi

palm sunday worship as mission – with more time

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

I posted earlier this week some Palm Sunday resources, first some creative prayer stations and second some soundtrack ideas. They were in relation to the 20 minute chapel services we do as part of our prayer life at Uniting College.

If I had more time, both in preparation and in length of service, I would have added two further stations – indoor spirit signs and outdoor spirit signs.

Indoor spirit signs – this would involve some large street maps and some stickers, probably circles and in different colours. I would invite people to consider the city through Jesus eyes. I would invite folk to place the stickers on the map in places they consider spiritually significant. For examples, places that Jesus might weep over, temples that Jesus might want to overturn, annointing places where Jesus might unexpectedly be annointed with perfume. I would want to keep the maps and place them on the walls around the church/chapel, as places for ongoing reflection and prayer in the months ahead.

Outdoor spirit signs – this would involve giving people chalk (washes off in water) and invite them to walk their streets. As they walk, to draw signs of the pavement that might symbolise the entry of God into their neighbourhood. Perhaps tears, perhaps rainbows, perhaps broken perfume bottles. And perhaps to take pictures of these, to text back into the church, which could be added into a powerpoint.

If I had even more time, I would get people to make the symbols prior to walking, as stencils (see here and here.

The aim of both of these are an attempt to connect worship and mission, our neighbourhoods today with the activities of Jesus in Holy Week.

creative palm sunday worship stations

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

Chapel in Palm Sunday week – an invitation to enter a week of activity

Rad-Adalaide station
Take an Adelaide road map. Draw on the map the route of your most recent “entry into the city.” Draw your feelings as you drove/trained/bussed/biked? Mark with a cross where you thought you were most likely to find Jesus. Reflect on whether your expectations were met and if it matters?

iPOD station
So if Jesus were entering Jerusalem today, what songs would be on rotate on his ipod? List the top 5.

Make palm crosses
Instructions have been provided. As you fold pray for people you know, people who are being “creased” by life.

Colouring station
Colour in the icon. Simply enjoy it. As you do ask God to speak to you through the activity.

Walking on the pavement station
Take some time to wander outside. In this Palm Sunday week, please walk only on concrete footpaths. As you do, silently pray for people who have walked before, and who are walking behind you. What might it mean for you to encounter the Christ in them?

At 12.22, a bell will ring. We will gather, to share communion on the Tuesday/to share what we experienced on the Wednesday.

Sending prayer
Jesus, when you rode into Jerusalem
the people waved palms
with shouts of acclamation
Grant that when the shouting dies
we may still walk beside you even to a cross …

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.

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…)

writing on windows

Great chapel today, creatively led by Sarah Agnew and Michelle Cook. The adoration station invited us to write words of thanks. On the window!

Yep. Liquid chalk.

An idea that deserves a mention in the creationary: a space to be creative with the lectionary (in this case, visual images on themes of pilgrimage). For more resources go here.

Full service here.

daily prayer for waitangi day

Today I was leading our 20 minute daily prayer service here at Uniting College. Being Waitangi Day in New Zealand, a day to reflect upon the Treaty of Waitangi and it’s implications for today, I decided I would name some of my cultural heritage and make it a basis for our daily prayer. (Other worship resources I’ve shaped for Waitangi Day services are summarised here). So last night I DJed a few elements together – something tactile in the shape of a puzzle piece, some Scriptures, a prayer and an active intercessory response. For those interested, here tis (more…)

burning bush (Exodus 3 and 4), mission, call, creativity and Advent

I’ve been sitting for the last few months with the call of Moses in Exodus 3 and 4. A few months ago I heard it told well as a children’s story and really hit me. First, mission and the importance of beginning with our ears on. Second, call and what it means for me to respond to God’s call by simply giving my “staff” – my gifts, talents, experiences.

Over the weekend, as a way of trying to dwell further on the text, I googled burning bush icons. (I’m just about to finish an icon (another pioneer Jesus), so I’m beginning to feel my way toward my next icon project.) I could only find about four and one, was most intriguing. It is titled the Theotokos of the Unburnt Bush.

Mary is surrounded by the flames. She literally sits in the middle of the burning bush, while Jesus sits in the middle of Mary! I like how small Moses is, off and to the side, and the little angels up top, doing their spiritual play!

Textually, much of Jesus in the Gospels, especially in Matthew, is framed as the new Moses, leading a new Exodus. Thus visually, a burning bush icon that references Jesus is very Biblically astute.

What struck me was how visually it connects for me with that superb Advent icon, the Theotokos Orans icon.

Toward the end of last year, leading into Advent, I spent much time reflecting on the Orans icon and the implications for mission, church and pioneer leadership (here and here).

So there is something intuitive here for me, about the need to take of shoes for we stand on holy ground, about the mission of Moses as a forerunner of the mission of Jesus, about refinement, about possibilities.

Yes, I think I know what my next icon might be!

family faith: at Halloween/All Saints part 2

One of the members of team Taylor went “peace-treating” this Halloween. They were keen to join the fun. And be with friends. Others in the family were uneasy with the very concept of trick-or-treating – that sense of expecting a handout.

So a healthy discussion ended in “peace-treating.” They would knock on doors and speak peace to every home. (Yep echoes of Luke 10:1-10!) To practically embody peace, they took along a collection of peace quotes on paper, which they handed out. They are into peace in a big way, so this was a perfect fit with their personality. It meant that rather than get, they would give – verbal peace, the presence of peace, a peace quote.

So off they went and had a great time. It seemed a creative way of practising faith in our world today. It brought to mind some quotes by Miroslav Volf, which I used in the chapter on gospel/culture in my The Out of Bounds Church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change.

“’Gospel’ always involves a way of living in a social environment….”

“[T]here is no single proper way for Christians to relate to a given culture as a whole. Instead, there are numerous ways of accepting, rejecting, subverting or transforming various aspects of a culture….” Miroslav Volf, “Soft Difference. Theological Reflections on the Relation between Church and Culture in 1 Peter.” Ex Auditu 10 (1994), 15-30.

(This is another entry (P=peace-treating) in dictionary of everyday spirituality. For the complete index of all entries, go here).

family faith: at Halloween/All Saints Day part 1

Tuesday was All Saints Day and Team Taylor were gathering for family dinner. The youngest had set up a lovely environment, with a central Christ candle and unlit tea lights.

After eating, we considered Halloween, followed by All Saints Day, a time to remember those who had shaped us. Five categories were suggested (written on the paper in the front of the pic) – life teachers, risk-takers, brave one, joke and joy tellers, nurturers.

Names were mentioned and candles were lit.

There was a growing sense that we were not alone, but surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. Many at distance both in time and geography. But still a warm and glowing presence among us.

There was also a time to be thankful for those around the table, to remind ourselves that Team Taylor has been, and can be, saints to each other, a practical expression of Christ’s love.

Very simple, but quite quietly memorable.

(This is another entry (S=saints) in dictionary of everyday spirituality. For the complete index of all entries, go here).

airports and contemporary pilgrimage

At 7 am yesterday I needed to navigate from the Domestic terminal, to the International terminal at Auckland Airport. There are two options.

A bus.

Or a walk, of about 15 minutes.

Being a fine morning, and having been up since 4 am, I needed a stretch. On the spur of the moment, I decided not only to walk, but to walk holding a small carved wooden pilgrims cross I had brought near Durham Cathedral in September.

It transformed the walk. What was a stroll became a spiritual exercise.

As I walked, I found myself reminded of other times I had walked holding the cross, especially at Holy Island. (See my photo essay here). During that walk, I was overwhelmed with the realisation of how many others in history have walked the walk and what it means to consider the life journey as one surrounded by pilgrims.

This turned my walk between airport terminals into prayer – for those walking with me, for those I passed, for those who have walked before and will walk into the future.

A walk + small hand held wooden cross + memory = a moment of spiritual engagement.

pilgrimage. a lindisfarne photo essay

Holy Island, Lindisfarne, where I spent a few days as part of my recent 2 weeks Study Leave, is tidal. Twice a day, it is cut off from the mainland by tides. During low tide, one can cross by road. Or walk via the Pilgrims Crossing, a set of poles struck across the mudflats, rumoured to be the route by which pilgrims for hundreds of years crossed.

Which I walked in one evening, reflecting on my life’s journey. The light was helpful, so I shot some pictures as I walked, prayed, danced and thought ….

Pilgrims begin,
off the beaten track

Skin bared, for immersion

poles to guide, front and afar

till tide turns
then shelter box
for times of troubled

im-prints, for life

Pilgrims come. Must go
past journey ends
so real life,
resume.

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

worship when a changing world means a changing mission

Last night was the second week of the Adelaide mission shaped ministry course. With 2 new faces, there are now 47 registered. With the nerves of the first week gone, there is momentum in the air. My task is to lead worship and the hope is that all the worship is done in ways that are different, ways that offer possibilities.

The theme of week 2 is the mission of God. So I begin (the call to worship) with the teaser from the movie Up.

It seems to capture mission as risk, surprise, adventure. And so we say together, a missional paraphrase of Romans 8: This resurrection [mission] life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?”

The next task is the task of prayer. This is offered as an invitation to either ask/intercede or thank/praise. On every chair is a balloon. Half have words from our “changing world” homework, a word texted in by us, which I have written on the balloon. This becomes the task of intercession. As Jesus breathed on the disciples in the sending of the Spirit (John 20), so the invitation is to pray by breathing on our world, to blow up the balloon, praying for the mission of God in our changing world.

The rest of the balloons have words from the week 2 course notes – Scriptures that speak of mission, names of mission moments in history, words from the Anglican 5 marks of mission. This becomes an invitation to praise, to give thanks. As Jesus breathed on the disciples in the sending of the Spirit (John 20:21-23), so we are to breathe thanks, to blow up the balloon, thankful for the mission of God in which we participate.

And so the room begins to breathe. As we finish our prayers, we tie our balloons, our breathe prayers. And we repeat together, the missional paraphrase: This resurrection [mission] life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?”.

And we bat the balloons around the room, our joyful, playful, participation, our worship, when a changing world means a changing mission.

(Note, this might also work as a Creationary: a space to be creative with the lectionary if the Bible texts were John 20 or Romans 8). For more resources go here.

the outsider: creationary storytelling Matthew 13 parable of treasure

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

The man arrived by shiny 4 wheel drive. An outsider, branded by his clean lines and secretive ways. Disappearing at dawn. Returning at dusk. Avoiding campfire conversation.

A month later he gives in. Finds the local country pub and sadly shares his story.

“I’m from NASA. Your land, these outback ranges, is reputed to be the site of a unique mineral deposit, with rocks essential to our space programme. Which means I’ve had a top secret mission.”

Slowly he pulls a rock out of his pocket. “I’m looking for these. From dawn to dusk. Searching your outback.”

Wearily his head leans onto the bar counter. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

The bar owner peers hard. Bends down. Pulls a bucket out from under the counter and empties the contents over the bar. Identical stones run everywhere.

“Sometimes you simply need to ask, rather than look,” he grins.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.” (Matthew 13:44). (Based on a true story heard over coffee today.)

creationary: Mattthew 13 parable of mustard seed

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

For those working on the parable of the mustard seed for Sunday, there are some great pictures – “smallness of the tree” here; birds in a mustard tree here. Regarding permissions, the website does say (generously) that the “photos and text are in the public domain. No other author may copyright them”

For me, I’ll be using Matthew 13:52 – new and old – as the integrative theme.

I will be giving
- some of the people, as they come in, a google map of their local community
- the rest of the people, as they come in, a picture of the church

I’ll also as people come in, give them an envelope in which there is a mustard seed, some yeast, a pearl, and some treasure. I’ll also have a net hanging up the front of the church.

So I will offer some “Jewish context info” for each parable and then pause and ask folk, using verse 52 – what smells old, what smells new. So interaction together about the way the parable is actually working.

And then I’ll finish by asking those with a map of the community what the parables mean to the community, and those with a church picture, what the parables mean to folk in the church. This will allow some communal discussion of the application, plus is also consistent with the Matthew 13 text, in that two of the parables (mustard seed and yeast) are delivered to the wide crowd, while two (treasure and pearl) are given to the disciples.

I will probably conclude with the Paul Kelly song, from Big things little things grow.