sustain:if:able kiwi

being earthed, as a spiritual practice of being permanent

Today I planted a chilli plant at our new house/project. It suddenly felt quite profound and I realised, as I pushed the soil down deep, that it was the first time I’ve handled Adelaide dirt in a gardening sort of way.

From the first week that team Taylor, arrived in Adelaide, I’ve been gardening. It began with finding some plastic pots on the side of road. We then brought soil and started growing lettuces.

Since then, the plastic pot garden has grown. I’ve now got around a metre square of large pots, and have enjoyed lettuce, tomato, silver beet, onion, pepper, carrot, peas plus a range of herbs like parsley, basil, chives, oregano, sage.

But a plastic pot has, well, plastic, between it and earth. More, you can move a plastic pot. Somehow, it feels less permanent, less earthed.

Today, as I worked the soil, I realised that I won’t be taking this chilli with me. It’s here to stay. It’s part of a spirituality of being permanent. I’m not sure what this means, but it was interesting, and deeply spiritual, to work the Adelaide soil today.

data, data everywhere: an emerging picture of an emerging church 10 years on

Babies become toddlers, toddlers head off to school, children become teenagers, teenagers become young adults, who ponder the dilemna of getting a hair cut and a real job.

Ten years ago I did some research on a toddler. More specifically, a group of people, Cityside Baptist Church. With a great tagline – Cityside: thinking allowed; thinking aloud allowed – they were exploring the shape of faith in contemporary culture. They graciously let me join their worship, then survey and interview them (individually and communally.) The research ended up being a major part of my PhD and sparked some ideas which became a book (Out of Bounds Church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change).

Ten years later you begin to wonder what happened to that toddler. Has time been kind? How has it survived being a teenager?

Again, graciously, they let me return. Again, to join their worship, then survey and interview them (individually and communally). (I think it’s a world first, a (longitudinal) study of an emerging church over time.)

Today I’ve been wading through some of the data. This includes 47 completed survey forms, with 22 questions, that explore the shape of their spirituality. The same questions as I asked 10 years, ago, so this allows some fascinating comparisons, to a time before 9/11 and iPhone’s and fears of global warming. There’s so much information, so much really interesting things to probe and ponder.

Ten years ago, this piece of the data alone became two chapters of 20,000 plus words. So after one day of analysis there are no clear trends.

But an intuitive sense – that this community has changed. And that part of the change is a faith that is more integrated, with a greater depth, that is more willing to express Christian faith in word and deed.

Which is a pretty encouraging thing to say about anyone, whether toddler or teen.

faith making sense?

Senses play
Bodies create
Humans diversify

see
hear
smell
taste
touch

Christianity. Is yours
making
good sense?

spirituality of spring as a season of random magpie attacks

Parker Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, educator, and activist, called spring the season of surprise. Reflecting on his life journey, including seasons of depression and failure, he recognised his need to be both grateful for the dormancy of winter, and open to the surprise of spring.  So today I invited the students into the following:

Go for a walk.
Reflect on the outdoors.
Walk a bit slower.
Enjoy the outdoors.
Reflect on the questions:
In this period – whether spring or study or candidacy – in what ways is God surprising you?
What words (or colours) would describe your response to that surprise?
Return, to share and pray for each in our formational journey.

I met a magpie. Black and officious and strutting. I hate magpies. Especially in spring, when they get aggressive and dive bomb-ey.

Focus Steve. What is surprising you.

Oh. I grin wryily. This is. And what words (or colours) would describe my response. The orange of fear and the mud of anxiety.

Which, when I gain some distance, is actually a bit, well, over the top.

So this is becoming quite fruitful. I begin to wonder what in my life is “magpie” like? What causes emotions that are like a bit, well, over the top? I mean, a magpie attack has never hurt me. Surprised me, sure. But never hurt me. And they only swoop one season in four.

So this is now a question worth pondering. What in my life is “magpie” like? What is causing emotions that are a little bit, well, over the top? And suddenly I’m facing an invitation to take a longer view of my life. To put spring magpies in yearly perspective.

The spirituality of spring.

cities as contested spaces and some church possibilities

Outstanding presentation by Jason Ting, from Planning SA, this morning at the Church in the City 2010 conference. Under the theme “Cities as contested spaces” he made the following points.

1 – Our cities are growing – A world milestone a few years ago, with more than 50% of world’s population in urban settlement

2 – Our cities are aging – 75% of elderly live in cities and this needs to be placed alongside a rising age dependency ratio (the number of people retired compared to the number of people working)

3 – Our cities are diversifying – (even) Adelaide is diversifying. In Australia, 85% of immigrants choose to live in cities.

4 – Our cities are becoming more expensive

5 – Our cities are sprawling – Australian cities are 3 to 4 times the size of comparable population sized cities in Holland

6- We fragment our space – He apologised for 20th century urban planning frameworks, which had separated residential from industrial from economic. This was driven by the human love affair with the car.

7 – We sanitize our space – The irony that especially the middle-class like to keep spaces clean. However graffiti and grunge for some, including youth, means edgy and exciting

8 – We commodify our space – Public spaces are often paid spaces. For example shopping centres which do not encourage seating in order to move on “non-paying” customers.

He then argued for three innovations:

• Spatial innovation – What spatial entrepreneurship could church contribute to? Possibilities include places to sit, to cycle, to walk, spaces that are not commodified.

• Social innovation – Possibilites mentioned included urban community farm, deck chairs in parks, pedestrian friendly footpaths (outdoor table tennis tables that I saw near Liverpool Station, London)

• Spiritual innovation – how can churches encourage diversity in this area?

What is worship? the theology of Francis Webb

And for me always the grave great peace is stronger
In flaring colours, and a laugh, and a careless singer

Two lines from “Cap and Bells” by Australian poet, Francis Webb.

I have been amid much talk of worship and church in the last two days. Talk of liturgy and order, of emotion and diverse giftedness. Sitting in the bath this morning, reading a new found friend, Francis Webb, those two lines quoted above stood out – the gift of colour, the sharing of humanity and celebration of risk.

For me that’s what worship is, a space to encourage humanity. In so doing, it makes Incarnational, possible, what 2nd century theologian Irenaues wrote:

The glory of God is man fully alive

That’s what Webb is articulating, the peace that comes amid colour, laughter, creativity. I want to find those people, those spaces, be part of forming those sorts of Christian communities here in Adelaide

turning points: key moments in Christian history

• Benedict and Monasteries, Sunday 10:30 am, October 25

• Luther and Reformation, Sunday 10:30 am, November 1

• John Smith and Baptists, Sunday 10:30 am, November 8, complete with Anabaptist communion

• Wesley and faith for all of life, Sunday 10:30 am, November 15

(All at Opawa Baptist, cnr Hastings St East and Wilsons Road). The intention is that Opawa catches a bigger picture of God in history. For a church in transition, knowing our back story helps shape our future. The hope is that I can be clear enough and sharp enough to relate history to life today.

Each Sunday will feature a song, a “saint”, some history and some contemporary application. This Sunday, Benedict and Monasteries, will include
- the facebook monks quiz
- honouring of three monks – Anthony, Benedict and Clare
- an analysis of the impact of the monastic movement on Christianity.
- finally, I want to reflect on what we can learn from the monastic movement for Christian life today. This will include how we imagine church, how we live our lives 24/7 and the shape of our Christian growth.

(The title of the series is borrowed from Mark Noll’s fabulous Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity.) Other books I’ve been reading have included:
- Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way Of Love
- The Rule of Benedict for Beginners: Spirituality for Daily Life
- A Public Faith: From Constantine to the Medieval World, AD 312-600
- Emerging Downunder
- New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today’s Church
- St Benedict for Today.

All in all, it’s been a rich week of sermon reflection.

finding God with flax as Easter spirituality

For the last 10 years, the Easter Journey, has been a feature of ministry at Opawa. However, for the last year or so, there has been a growing feeling that it is time for something new to emerge. Opawa is changing and so are Pete and Joyce. While the Journey has been a tremendous blessing, we have to be sensitive to the moving, changing winds of the Spirit. Too often, good things for a season become institutions the church feels compelled to keep propping up. Letting things go is an essential Christian discipline.

To help us let go, and to start the process of dreaming again, we are starting with an Easter Saturday day of paper making. April 11, 9:45 am for coffee. Bring lunch to share. Together we will turn flax into paper, both for individual journals and for use in the church at Pentecost.

Why paper making? Well this is what I said on radio recently. (more…)

colour my world: seeds and sustainability

I used to wander the vegetable aisle at my supermarket and feel, well, bored. The gently misted vegetables looked appealing, but the selection seemed so same, same. There was little seasonal variation, the beans were constantly green, the vegetables were similar. There never seemed anything new, different, mysterious. At the risk of being theologically irreverent, was this the best that God could do?

It seemed such a churlish reaction (especially for a vegetarian), so I walked on feeling both guilty and bored.

Over the last few months, we’ve been enjoying the fruits our spring garden extension (5 new raised bed gardens). Last night’s meal included peas, beans, courgette, parsley, cherry tomatoes, boysenberries, raspberries. The pumpkins, potatoes, tomatoes, corn and peppers are due for harvest any day, and with winter coming, I needed some seeds. Last night I went surfing and stumbled upon Kings Seeds. (Postage is $4, order more than $40 and you get 2 seed packets free.)

Today I’m neither guilty or bored, simply excited and angry, because the supermarket has been ripping me off!! Last night I found out that beans don’t only come in green. They also come in red and white. Imagine what Borlotto Fire Tongue beans, or Cannellino beans will look like in a salad. Think of a winter brightened by green cauliflower and purple cabbage (Palm Tree di Toscana). What about the bell pepper mix, in seven different colours. There are so many different types of vegetables to colour our world. Yah!, The palate of my sustainable spirituality horizons have just been enriched.

Tangential thought: It might just be me, but gardening seems to be back in. Lots of people around Opawa are talking about their new gardens, lots of magazine and media coverage. Makes me wonder if its time to bring back the old-fashioned harvest festival? A few years ago, a harvest festival seemed to have little connectivity in an urban environment. But I wonder if times, they are a changing, and if so, what a 21st century harvest festival would look like. I’d certainly me keen to offer God a salad that included Borlotto Fire Tongue beans, Cannellino beans and seven different colours of peppers!

sustainable spirituality: beyond missional

“You have a hard act to sell” he said. I looked puzzled, so he explained. Your essential message is “You don’t need to be here. That’s the opposite of most churches, which involves getting more involved with their vision.”

I could interpret this conversation, held in a sunny spot a few days ago, in missional terms. I could take it as a compliment, an acute and accurate summary of my preaching and my commitment to Kingdom trumping church, to sending over coming, to life in the world over life indoors.

But what might this thinking look like in sustainable spirituality terms? You see, a person might not need to be here at church. They could be missional in their workplace or home.

But.

But, in order for that to happen, they will need sustaining, when their energy leaks, when the season is winter, not summer.

What’s more, they will need connecting. What are the already networks, existing and present that they could plug into, serve with and among.

What’s more, they will need community, like minded people to share stories among, theologise with. Such community could be in the missional network. It could equally be a smaller grouping of likeminded people, a collective committed to the shared missional context. It could equally be the multi-form already existing gathered community, the “here”, the ordinary Sunday service, in which liturgy and preaching are formed and pre-formed, by questions of God’s mission.

At times, they will need resourcing. This could be as simple as a shared library. Or by dipping into a specific course, weekend or block.

And along the way, there are people who have no idea, yet, of what it means to partner with God in God’s world, to live missionally “there.” They’re broken – by debt, by marriage, by mental health. They are scarred – by unforgiveness and sickness and addiction. They need a gathering point, and a wide range of relationships to provide nurture and healing.

In other words …
Sustainable spirituality says “you don’t need to be here”, but some of us will be here, to connect and resources and sustain. Sustainable spirituality will celebrate church as ordinary, singing as everyday and faith as regular. It knows that these situations are findable, and can be hospitable, and become agents of healing. Sustainable spirituality will work hard at creating constant and multiple pathways by which the “out there” is connected and resourced.

sustainable spirituality

While in Australia, we enjoyed a trip up the Coorong. It’s a vast mix of saltwater, lagoon and freshwater, a beautiful and peaceful place where the Murray River meets the ocean. It’s also a scar on Australia, as the entire place is basically dying. Irrigation demands upstream combined with human manipulation and drought mean that Australia’s largest river lacks the fresh water strength to flow out to sea. Mile after mile of the mouth is basically salinising. Birds are leaving and fish are dying and dredges are working non-stop to stop the river mouth silting up.

As part of the day long tour, we walked over some sand dunes. 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. If the church is declining in the West, then could at some point, the way we do church actually be killing the fresh waters of faith? If Australians can live out of sync with their environment and in so doing, begin to kill the Murray, then are there ways that Christians and churches are living that are actually killing faith?

I thought of middle-class families, rushing kids from one learning opportunity to the next, too busy rushing to spend time enjoying.

I thought of churches who live in older buildings, when so much energy simply has to go into window repair and the manse roof, rather than into nourishing faith and vision.

I thought of denominations I have consulted with, and the way that their understandings of full-time ministry warp and shift their vision of what it means to be missional.

I thought of smaller missional communities, often younger people, keen, radical. They don’t need a building nor a full-time minister. Yet without these structures, and in times of flux and change, they can lack wise, older heads to lead and guide. How are such communities networked and resourced?

Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals: environmental stewardship, farm profitability, and prosperous farming communities. What might be the shape of sustainable spirituality? Here’s a list of starters.

1. It would honour the faith of ancestors, glad that historical resources have proven lifegiving in the past.

2. It would be sensitive to contemporary culture, acknowledging that this is our environment and needs to be read respectfully and lived in sustainably.

3. It would make formation and discipleship of the next generation a priority.

4. It would network widely and broadly, aware that only in collective knowledge can one small part make sense of a wider whole.

What else? Does the analogy work? What might a sustainable spirituality collective look like?

I’m actually wondering about making this a major blog theme over the next while. I’m even wondering about blog rename – sustainable Kiwi, in order to capture some of the nuances of the above, which “alternative” and “emergent” and “missional” seem to have failed to mobilise around.

Updated: some challenging links – Earth abbey; sustainable spirituality wiki.