sustain:if:able kiwi

September UK trip planning

Here are my current details for my UK September 2011 trip. The trip is a mix of research presentation plus some relaxation and exploration. So, if there are people that would like to connect with me, show me their city, go hiking in the Lakes, all over conversation about mission, pioneering and leadership formation, then do drop me a line.

Leaving Adelaide Thursday 15 September, arriving Manchester Friday 16 September. Returning evening, September 28, from Manchester.

Weekend free. Explore Manchester? Or hike into Lakes District?

September 20-22. Ecclesiology and Ethnography network, St Johns College, Durham, UK. Present research. “Finding fresh expression ten years on? Initial findings from a longitudinal study of emerging churches in New Zealand.”

Weekend free. Explore Lindisfarne and Northumbria coast?

September 27, Cliff College, Master of mission input day

• Session 1 and 2. Emerging church in history – stories from a global mission tour. Galilee to Azherbijan to Vietnam to Aotearoa New Zealand.

September 28, Cliff College, Doctor of Missiology research day

• Session 1 – Bible, culture and history – “Bible, Ploughs and damper: responding to a de/colonizing God”
• Session 2 – Ecclesiology as ethnography – “Finding fresh expression ten years on?”
• Session 3 – Liturgical rupture – “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table”
• Session 4 – Pop culture – U2’s “Bullet the Blue Sky” as an Evolving Performance

On the 27th I plan to offer some global mission history, using storytelling to explore how the church has emerged in history, followed by discussion of implications for church, Spirit, Jesus, gospel/culture.

On the 28th I will offer some of my recent research. I will be drawing on Rowan Williams definition of Christian mission as “finding out where the Holy Spirit is at work and joining it.” I will do this by offering a range of ways that research as listening can actually happen – in history, in church practices, in contemporary culture.