April 30, 2006
emerging AD:missions 2
a series of posts called emerging AD:missions; reflecting on the emerging church in light of mission thinking.
DIVINE TRUTH THROUGH PHILOSOPHY: Clement of Alexandria, Readings in World Mission, page 5-7.
While Jesus was a wandering rural peasant, it did not take long for Christianity to become an urban faith.
Alexandria was a city of 1 million people noted for it's intellectual life. The very presence of the writings of Clement remind me that an emerging church can Incarnate faith in philosophers cafes of our urban centres. How?
Clement experiences the philosophy that is his contemporary cultural world as gift. Contemporary culture is "preparation paving the way for him who is perfected in Christ."
How willing is the emerging church to watch film, listen to pop culture, dialogue with postmodern philosophers, and so (like Clement) find a seedbed for Christianity to grow? What are the skills, environments and narratives needed for this initial contemporary cultural dialogue to be perfected in Christ, in whom is hidden all the treasures and wisdom.
For an introduction to emerging AD:missions, go here.
For all the posts in this series go here.
April 29, 2006
emerging AD:missions introduction
I am beginning a series of posts called emerging AD:missions; reflecting on the emerging church in light of mission thinking. I will be using the book, Readings in World Mission, by Norman Thomas (sadly out of print). It is a companion to David Bosch's Transforming Mission
I have been stimulated to do this by Don Carson. In his book Becoming conversant with the emerging church (ie some books of Steve Chalke and Brian McLaren)
For the archive of all the posts; go here.
emerging AD:missions 1
a series of posts called emerging AD:missions; reflecting on the emerging church in light of mission thinking.
EXEMPLARY CHRISTIANS: Letter to Diogentes, Readings in World Mission, page 5.
So, how did early Christianity, birthed into a pluralistic and multi-cultural world, become in the space of several centuries the dominant world religion? The answer, for Diogentes, is a lifestyle of influence. "They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life." Reading Diogentes, I am struck by the fact that residents are not alien.
A marginalised faith can never retreat. Rather, mission is influence through lifestyle. This early emerging church was in-culture. Emerging churches are encouraged to be in-culture.
For an introduction to emerging AD:missions, go here.
For all the posts in this series go here.
spirited exchanges starts in Christchurch
Jenny MacIntosh stayed with us last night, here to help birth a Spirited Exchanges (an umbrella name for groups, seminars and resources for people who have left church or are struggling with their faith) here in Christchurch.
"Spirited" : something lively, energetic, and robust; with the reality of the Holy Spirit as an integral part of faith-development and the faith-journey.
"Exchanges" : the "exchanging" of ideas and experiences, learning from each other, honouring the importance of that mutuality and sharing.
A good start was made in the foyer of Opawa Baptist last night and there was enough energy and interest to commence monthly, 1st Monday in the month (except for Queens Birthday weekend). Good stuff.
Further resources:
Spirited exchanges website here.
Interview with Jenny about Spirited Exchanges here.
Podcast interview with Jenny in which she describes ministry to those outside the church. Download file: ethos of Spirited Exchanges: 2 mins : 600K.
planting churches for the 3rd age
I am in a number of conversations among people at Opawa about planting a fifth congregation; a third-age congregation, church for wise older people. Under our multi-congregation model; church is about growing in community; growing in spirituality; growing in mission.
This invites the question; "what would church look like for you and your friends who don't know Jesus" to grow in community; spirituality; mission.
I have dreamed of church for the 3rd age since I arrived at Opawa. People are living longer and most Western countries have an increasingly older demographic. I have been among some fruitful conversations among Opawa people in recent weeks. Some books I have found helpful in my thinking include Older people and the church
April 26, 2006
airborne
Today I am in Auckland at the Bible College of New Zealand academic staff retreat. I am talking about how I teach, including the use of blogs to enhance learning in my leadership class. Thursday I drive to Tauranga to give input into a Mission Health discussion for the Baptist denomination (repeat of this). I am meant to sound intelligent about missional church and multi-congregations. Back Friday.
April 25, 2006
is there no escape?
I have a little bach/cabin/holiday house that the Taylor family use to escape, revive, reflect and build family memories. It's about 40 minutes drive from the city, isolated and peaceful and a life-saver.
We've owned it for just over a year. We go to hide and crash. We know none of our neighbours. But it seems they know us. At 6 pm last night there was a knock on the door. A stranger. "I am looking for the pastor. Can he come and pray for my sick wife."
Part of me is wonders how on earth this isolated community has worked me out; part of me is honoured to be asked; part of me fears that I have just lost my precious hideaway.
passionate practice of pilgrimage
Here are some pictures from Sunday night.
We have spent 5 weeks in our 2nd cycle of passionate practices – pilgrimage - walking toward, and then walking away from, Easter. We had preached around texts following Jesus to and from Easter. Practically, the passionate practice has been to
a) Walk and pray a pilgrim prayer
b) Attend Easter Camp
c) Cyber pilgrimage using online labyrinth.
We kicked off, five weeks ago, by inviting people to step into sand, as a way of commiting themselves to walking in pilgrimage with Jesus. Easy enough to then make plaster moulds of their feet, and to lay these feet out every week. On Sunday we talked about the resurrection and how it brings colour and life. We invited people to colour their feet and re-lay them, as a celebration of Resurrection life in our walking with Jesus.
For the start of passionate practice of pilgrimage see here.
For an overview of passionate practices and spiritual formation see here.
For books resources: Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church
April 23, 2006
alt.worship and mission
I don't think you can separate worship and community and mission. Perhaps it's because I'm a realist and when I see someone come to faith, I suspect that the two of us will want to worship together; ie worship and community and mission. Perhaps it's because I'm a Baptist and when I think church I think gathered and community; ie worship and community and mission. Perhaps it's because I believe in the Trinity, that God is found in relationships, that this Triune God so loved that world that God opened Godself to gather the world in relationship; ie worship and community and mission.
All of this by way of introduction to what I think is a great example of worship and community and mission. It comes via Jo Wall; who blogs here. They took their worship, their Easter art. They went to local shops in their community and asked them to host their art, and thus created a Easter Art Hunt that led back to the church, where they had turned the church into an Art Gallery for a week. It sounded a great example of worship and community and mission, so I interviewed Jo this week.
Jo, it sounds great. Tell me more. Each Art spot had an art piece connected to the theme of Easter and what it means to Kiwis. So in the local travel shop (Holiday Shoppe) we had a kiwi beach scene. In the library (where we have our annual Christmas memorial tree) we had a scrapbook grief meditation. In local supermarket (New World) we had "Easter in Godzone" which was a painting taken from the Baptist Maori ministries kowhaiwhai. The other spots had Easter "cross" type art pieces in different mediums and Fragments of Grace had a small statue of Mary in mid flight in front of a series of paintings of the empty tomb.
At the Gallery (back at church) we had a large Narnia display complete with 20 live trees and a wardrobe to go through. Together with more art works including an Easter DIY scene "Dad I have finished the work you gave me to do."
So tell us about the Easter Art Hunt part of the project. Well, it included a booklet of activities for kids. Find the card with Easter bunny on it for preschoolers. For older children there was a trail of activities based around John 3:16 including drawing around their hand and drawing their faces on posters. If they wanted to come on to the Gallery there was an easter egg waiting. We invited the children from local schools to provide some of the art work by running a colouring competition.
Now on your blog, you mentioned how the out of bounds church book helped shape what you did? I'm curious as to how? I like the metaphor of spiritual tourists (from Postcard 5 in the out of bounds church book) and wanted to apply that to everyday life in the community of Kaiapoi. Trusting that God has people in our community on a journey we hoped to put things in their everyday path that they would stumble upon and ponder what Easter is all about. The Gallery (back at the church) was open all week and follows the idea of a "navigable space" (discussed again in Postcard 5 of the book). There were interactive exhibits including a place to wash your hands and to scrub dirt from the world. There were songs to listen to on a listening tree and background music that wasn’t churchy. I think it was in your book (again Postcard 5) that I read about a church that rented a shop and had an image of Jesus and a place to wash your hands.
When we started planning our Easter project we looked for a shop to rent to set up a small gallery. We were'’t able to rent any of the empty shops in Kaiapoi so the plan evolved into using a small space in various shops. We hoped this in fact increased the "stumble upon" factor. The gallery was an attempt at a cross between a peg community and an Easter festival.
What other influences shaped it? The planning started Easter 2005 when I walked into our church and saw one of our Easter art pieces. I wanted to drag it out into the streets so we could share it with the community. Each Easter for the last few year the people at KBC have contributed Easter themed art to our Easter celebrations. Josephine Mallinson who had made the piece I saw in 2005 this year did the Easter DIY piece, which provoked much discussion. I have greatly appreciated Opawa’s Easter Journey over the last few years too and wanted to do something that reflected the interactivity of that and similar events. Spreydon’s Christmas grotto was also an influence with the progression from Santa to Christ’s birth as a journey for people.
In reflection, what pleased you about the Easter Egg Hunt? The willingness of the shops to be involved was great. Some we had relationship with and others we just approached. No one said no and we didn't have enough art pieces for all the shops we could have used. The effect for the shops was good too as Kaiapoi’s layout makes lack of foot traffic an issue and there were reports of new customers. A blessing both ways.
I was very encouraged by the team that gathered to put together the project. Lots of our church community was involved and many people took up their part and exceeded my dreams with their results.
We told the Easter story and our stories well and for an inaugural project we were thrilled with how it looked. We don't know what seeds were planted but we could see growth in some visitors to the gallery.
More about Jo's community here.
More photos of the Easter Art Hunt here.
Out of bounds book here
Out of bounds book blog here;
More on spiritual tourism here.
April 21, 2006
alt.worship and australian fiction
Just finished The Submerged Cathedral
Part of the book is set in a monastery and portrays the naive sterility and rigid patterns that are monastic life. The monastery fails, a European transplant that finds no root in Australian soil.
The monastery is brought by a woman seeking love and redemption. She builds a garden, creatively using Australian plants to transform the hollowed hull of the monastery. It's ceaseless and heart-breakingly hard work. But in the process of contextualisation, of clearing Australian clay, she finds love, meaning and redemption.
It was for me a reminder that contextualisation is at the heart of missiology. Our talk of missional church is not the transplanting of alien forms but the slow crafting of unique life among the existing contours. And for the Antipodes, it must be earthy, creative and indigenous.
This for me is what attracted me to alt.worship. It is contextualisation. It is faith, creatively expressed in the linga franca of video loops. It is the finding of a submerged cathedral in pop culture. I know it has it's critics among the emerging missional church. It's a criticism I struggle to understand, because surely taking missiology seriously demands the slow crafting and indigenous life i.e. contextualisation.
April 19, 2006
river queen
Here's my latest film review: of River Queen ... The film follows Sarah's search for her child, a search set against the backdrop of the viscous fighting between Maori and Pakeha that is part of the history of the Whanganui River. for full review
I do these for a Denominational magazine, who allow me to place them on the web once the monthly magazine has been published.
My other film reviews include;
Brokeback Mountain here;
Narnia here;
Serenity here;
The World's Fastest Indian here;
Sedition, a New Zealand film about the fate of conscientious objectors in World War 2, here;
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, here
Next month I review Crash.
Further film resources:
Film as a point of gospel engagement (PDF).
Film and spirituality web resources.
Why gospel and film?
April 18, 2006
reality of resurrection
I've never noticed this before, but 1 Corinthians 15 is followed by 1 Corinthians 16. Brilliant observation aye!
A deep discussion about the resurrection body of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15), is followed by a church taking up an offering for the hungry in Jerusalem (1 Corinthians 16).
So is this what the resurrection body of Jesus looks like? A group of everyday people sharing their resources with the poor? So practical. So Incarnationally real. Show me your faith [in the resurrection] and I will show you deeds.
April 16, 2006
Easter Sunday is never tidy
Easter Sunday sermon. My third Easter and with a bit of trust built, time to take seriously the Resurrection.
If you're looking for a tidy faith, well wrapped and beautifully packaged, you've come to the wrong place.
If you want a faith all neat and beautiful, You won't find it in the Resurrection Garden...
In the Bible we find 4 gospel stories about the Resurrected Jesus. None of them are tidy.
The gospel of Mark starts with 3 women arriving into the Resurrection Garden. The gospel of Mark has one young man dressed in a white robe, sitting inside the empty tomb. And the three women are told that Jesus has risen. He's not in the Resurrection Garden. Instead he's gone ahead into Galilee. 200 kilometres away. There, in Galilee, you’ll find him. That's the gospel of Mark
In the gospel of Matthew starts not three women, but with two. In the gospel of Matthew the one young man becomes an angel, appearance like lightning and clothes as white as snow. And in Matthew they actually do find Jesus in Galilee. And in Galilee Jesus leaves them and ascends into heaven. That's the gospel of Matthew
In the gospel of Luke starts with at least three women. In Luke you've got two angels, not one. In Luke you've got mention of the first man, Peter, running to the empty tomb. In Luke there's no Galilee.
Instead in Luke all the Resurrection stories happen around Jerusalem.
Jesus meeting the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, a village 7 miles from Jerusalem,
Jesus meeting all the disciples late at night back in Jerusalem
Jesus leaving, ascending, not in Galilee, but in Bethany, another village just outside Jerusalem.
That's the gospel of Luke.
In the gospel of John starts with one woman. In John the one man, Peter, has become two men, Peter and the Beloved disciple. In John you've got two angels, In John you've got, for the first time, the appearance of Jesus in the Resurrection garden, appearing to that one woman. And then later in John, Jesus appears in Galilee.
4 Bible stories about the Resurrected Jesus. And if we're true to Scripture, none of them are neat and tidy.
Would you like your resurrection with
1 women or more,
with one angel or two,
with or without men
in Galilee or in Jerusalem
Which gets you thinking doesn't it? Why so untidy?
Most scholars estimate these 4 gospel stories are written 60 to 90 years after the death of Jesus.
Which gives Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, between 60 and 90 years to tidy things up, to offer us a nice, well wrapped, beautifully packaged, resurrection faith.
Which would also mean, that if you were making up a story,
if you've really got no body, then you’ve got 60 to 90 years to at least get your women and angels and men and places sorted out, all nice and smooth and tight.
Which could suggest, that a smooth story, all well-oiled and seamless, could actually be massaged and manufactured.
Do I believe the Bible? Totally.
Do I believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus? Absolutely.
Which leaves me, if honest, with an untidy set of gospel stories and an untidy sounding Resurrection.
What about the main characters, the first women and men into the Easter Garden.
What is there experience of the Resurrected Jesus? Do they find the Garden tidy or untidy?
The first woman start early. The fruit trees in spring blossom. Temperature probably a pleasant 12 degrees. Dew probably heavy, spiderwebs glistening in early morning sun, all normal for an Israeli spring.
The first women are carrying spices. Which means they’re looking for a dead man.
All cultures bury people. Good Jews like to honour a buried body by using fragrant spices.
The first women are carrying spices. And on a Sunday.
Again, they're good Jews.
Wanting to anoint a body but also wanting to respect Saturday, their Sabbath, their Holy Day.
And so as good Jews,
after Friday, the first day,
and Saturday, Sabbath, the second day,
now on the third day, Sunday,
they arrive, good Jews, carrying spices.
Before he died, Jesus had mentioned resurrection. Mark 9:9; Jesus [told his disciples] not to say a word about what they had seen, until the Son of Man had been raised from death.
And listen to the next verse; Verse 10. The disciples "wondered what he meant by the words "raised from death.""
Good Jews of Jesus day had no category for Resurrection. Good Jewish disciples would wonder what Jesus meant when he talks about being raised from the dead.
The first woman, good Jews, with spices, with no category for Resurrection, come looking for a dead man. Only to find an empty tomb.
Which leaves them, as it says in Mark 16:8, leaving the Resurrection Garden "trembling and bewildered."
No nice and tidy faith, for the first women.
Same with the first man into the Resurrection Garden. Peter, in Luke 24:12, enters the garden, finds the tomb, sees "the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened."
Peter. A good Jew. With no category for the Resurrection.
It struck me this week that the 4 gospel Resurrection stories are totally lacking in any Old Testament Jewish quotations. And that's in absolute contrast to the 4 gospel stories of Jesus crucifixion. They're packed full of Old Testament Jewish quotations.
Full of Old Testament Scripture: Empty of Old Testament Scripture.
Resurrection is totally new territory for a good Jew. And Peter leaves wondering to himself what had happened.
If you're looking for a tidy faith, well wrapped and beautifully packaged, you've come to the wrong place.
You won't find it in the 4 gospel Resurrection stories. You won't find in among the first women or the first man looking for Jesus in the Resurrection Garden. All you've got is wondering and bewilderment.
Which got me thinking. Was faith around Jesus ever neat and tidy?
Didn't Jesus always bewilder people?
On the Monday before Easter Jesus smashes up a temple. Left a religious place totally untidy.
On Tuesday he'd curses a fig tree. Leaves an untidy dead tree in a beautiful Israeli spring garden.
On the Wednesday Jesus let a woman waste perfume all over his feet. Made quite a scene in a public place.
All his life Jesus seems to do the unexpected.
All his life he seems to leave people bewildered and wondering.
All his life he kept turning categories totally on their head.
So an untidy Resurrection Garden filled with bewildered people whose life has been turned totally on their heads, makes sense when you think about the whole of Jesus life.
Which makes me wonder, when I meet people who reckon they've got Christianity all sorted, all nice and tidy, well wrapped and beautifully packaged,
makes we wonder if they’ve really met Jesus, this untidy disturber of people's lives.
This is my 13th Easter as a Pastor, and the 12th year I've preached Resurrection at Easter. I'm stuck in a moment. And can I be honest and say that every Easter, the Resurrection, feels less and less tidy.
That the more I study the Bible, the more I'm reminded that God is God.
And that by my human definitions, faith is untidy.
And can I also honestly say, that the more untidy my faith gets, the more real it seems.
That when I look at those first women and men,
I see ordinary people. Workers. Practical types. Seeking a real faith that worked in their real lives.
They wanted peace with God.
They wanted deliverance from their self-centredness, so they could live at peace with people and place.
They knew that nice, tidy, religious rules didn't work.
They knew that self-help couldn't save them.
They knew they needed a fresh life-force that could change them inside.
And in the Garden they found that the more untidy their faith, the more real it seemed. They found that new life wasn’t the same old as life re-created. New life has to be untidy. Else it's not new life.
The Resurrection is an untidy garden. Because new life wasn't the same old as life.
An untidy Garden, gives me peace when my faith has doubts and the ways of God leave me bewildered and wondering. New life isn't the same old life re-created. It's new life.
An untidy Garden gives me hope when I'm among people whose lives are unraveling and in great pain. You can't open a birthday present without pulling off the wrapping paper and making a mess. New life isn't the same as old life re-created. It's new life.
It gives me hope when I'm in a church that's changing and growing. You can't move house without packing and unpacking and making mess. New life isn't the same as old life re-created. It's new life.
An Easter Garden, gives me courage in the face of death. The Easter Garden is a triumph of life and love over death and pain. New life isn't the same as old life re-created. It's new life.
Pray: Loving God in an untidy garden, give us the courage to recognise your story in our untidy, unfinished, incomplete lives,
Give us the courage to offer your story in an untidy, unfinished, incomplete world, through Resurrection love. Amen.
April 13, 2006
thursday friends
Each day of this Easter week, at the start of the Easter Journey, we have run simple church services; fifteen minutes to pray, read Scripture and offer some sort of symbolic engagement with what Jesus is doing each day of this Easter week. We roster them out among the staff team. The aims are to:
- help us as a church community live inside the Scriptural journey to Easter
- utilise the great environments that are a gift of the Easter Journey
- provide a bit of a buzz as the Easter Journey kicked off each evening.
The downsides are that these are the most random services I have ever done. Church every day is totally new terrain for Baptists. You have no idea who will turn up, nor whether you will have 1 or 20.
Tonight (Thursday) was a classic. As I prepared and thought about what Jesus did on the Thursday, a number of themes presented themselves
: the place of Judas, apt given the hype around the Gospel of Judas
: foot-washing and servanthood
: communion
: the human struggle to answer the call to prayer
In the end I went with a theme of friendship. It is my eldest daughter’s birthday today and at 8 am the phone rang, one of her friends, wishing her happy birthday. It’s really sweet to see your daughter being loved by her friends.
So I decided to tell this story of friendship and then invite people to thank God for their friends. Then use that “emotional exegesis” to help us enter into a 5 voice reading that re-told portions of Thursday night. And thus to consider how the friends of Jesus treated him.
At 7:02 pm it is start time and I look with stunned mullet amazement around those gathered. First time I’ve seen children at these. Oh my goodness. Thirteen children and five adults. Yep. Child/adult ratio WAY out of wack. One family is new and probably totally unchurched.
Friendship suddenly makes this a very appropriate service for 13 children and 5 adults. We sing happy birthday to my oldest. We go round the room and all name our friends. We listen to adults and kids read the Scriptures. We ask God to help us be good friends to Jesus.
Thirteen kids then race into the Easter Journey and I collapse exhausted, thankful that in the mercy of God I did not go with an adult intellectual discourse on Judas, a solemn foot washing or an exhortation to stay up late to pray with Jesus!
church time and pastor time
So when do you prepare for Easter Sunday?
I have found it increasingly helpful for my personal spirituality to enter into the church year. The rhythms of Lent, Easter, Pentecost have nourished my soul and provided contours for my experience of God.
So in an ideal world, you walk with your church community through the events of Easter Week. You have to sit with the enormity of loss on Easter Friday if you want to catch the surprise of Easter Sunday. If you even let a peek of Easter Sunday light under your door, you are destroying the enormity of loss and pain that is the gospel of Friday.
The church community must walk through Friday to get to Sunday. So when then does the pastor and worship leader prepare? Do I trust for a fruitful Saturday and the rapid birth of all I need? Or do I start preparing for Sunday before Friday, and thus mess with personal walk through Easter?
April 12, 2006
easter friday does not need grotesque
Planning Easter Friday is a service I find really hard work. Here is some of the thoughts that rush through my head;
- too many words kill the feelings, yet Friday can raise a whole lot of questions that can require explanation.
- you need to let the story speak, yet the Biblical story is sparse on detail. If you push to hard to try and re-create the original, you can end up with Jesus-as-grotesque that is just your embellishment, your interpretation.
- most of the Good Friday lectionary readings buy heavily into only one atonement image - suffering Christ. Do you push this one atonement image, or offer others?
- the text needs to be handled aware of the dangers of anti-Semitism.
Here's what I've come to for 2006, with some brief explanation in italics. If you're planning to attend, then be warned, that if you click the link and read on, it might be a spoiler ....
Easter Friday: 9:00; 10:30; same service repeated (The Easter Journey is open 20 minutes after the 10:30 service.)
Environment: Church foyer, hung with black cloth. Pavers on floor. Wooden cross laid on floor. One projector screen. One candle.
Trying to set a simple reflective context. The space is different than our normal space, to emphasis the importance. The cross is the focus.
People need 1 nail, 1 white rose petal and a service sheet.
Music: The passion, Mary goes to jesus.
Participation is essential to help people enter the story and respond as whole-bodied people. It also builds curiousity.
Words of welcome: Today is Easter Friday.
This is the day when life is raw and pain is real
It is a day of numbed emotions.
The day of blunt nails, And splintered wood
Of bruised flesh, And red blood
The day to cry; because a friend is dead
The day to hope; because the worst that humans do can never kill love.
I'm trying to make this emotionally real, yet within the context of love, not voyeurism and fascination with blood and guts.
Song: Were you there (first 3 verses)
A way to gather and a way to respond and a simple song can give voice to feelings.
Visual reading: GoodFriday from here.
Great visual. It also sets the story within a political framework. It offers some sort of scene set and some answer to the why did this happen.
Reading: Isaiah 53: 2-8, 12; Hebrews 4:14-16
Reflection: What does it mean for us to go to Jesus today? Music: the passion; mary goes to jesus.
Some word-less processing space. Someone is dying here and people need to process this.
Prayer: Saviour of the world. Taken from Stages on the way
This prayer leads into confession. I like to provide a way for people to express their feelings of sin and remorse. It also means I am subverting any anti-Semitic undertones, because the Easter message is that all of humanity is looking bad.
Confession: people have been seated in three different sections. Each section is invited, one at a time, to bring a nail and drop it beside the cross. After each section we will all say together; Father forgive for we know not what we do.
I like to use the actual words of Jesus. Keeps it within the Biblical story. I also like the way that this allows people to pray for other people. It affirms that we gather not as individuals, but that we worship aware of each other's bodies and the body of Christ.
Words of freedom: Believe the Good News: In the name of Jesus Christ you are forgiven. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Mention sin and you have to offer forgiveness. We are bearers of good news of grace and freedom, not judgement and guilt. If people leave feeling guilty, it is not a gospel liturgy.
Reading: It was on Friday. Taken from Stages on the way
This reading again focuses on the crowd as all of humanity.
Visual reading: "Special Cases" video by Massive Attack (Download from here).
Superb video. I will play it without sound. It will set up the response and will, I hope, reinforce themes of emotionally real, yet within the context of love, not voyeurism and fascination with blood and guts.
Response: The wrapping of the cross:
If you would like to, you may express your love for Jesus
by placing a petal around the cross (which now symbolises Jesus’ body).
Allows whole-bodied response and worship aware of our bodies and the body of Christ.
During the Easter Journey, at Station 9, people were instructed:
Think about someone you know who is having a hard time.
Take a stone and write their name on it.
Leave the stone in a pack.
We will add these backpacks (people’s worship) to the cross.
I am really pleased with this, as it links worship of our Easter Journey with this gathered act of worship, to intwine both. I also like the way that something of us will be carried out with Jesus. Again, we are being intwined with the story.
The cross will then be wrapped in sackcloth, and taken away.
Music: The passion, The crucifixion
The cross, with nails, petals and backpacks filled with stones, is wrapped in brown scrim and is taken outside. A hole is left. This is a visually very powerful moment when the enormity of loss is realised. Yet it is done through symbol and movement and not by watching a human being beaten to pulp. In that sense I think it's more faithful to a text that is sparse in graphic detail.
Prayer:
Giver of life we wait with you.
to bear your hope in earth’s darkest places.
Where love is denied: let love break through
Where justice is destroyed: let righteousness rule
Where hope is crucified: let faith persist
Where truth is denied: let the struggle continue
The Lord’s Prayer: We will say this all together, again underlining our corporate gathering.
Video: Redemption song. Created by Mark Berry .
Offers redemption and thus some 'why'.
The service will end in silence. Stay as long as you want. Leave when you want. As you leave, please be respectful of those who remain.
Often people don't know what to do at the end, so it offers some guidance.
Easter Friday is part (a) of a two part story.
Join us on on Easter Sunday at 10:30 am.
April 11, 2006
bi-vocational realities
Si Johnson writes: I would also want to suggest that it might be right for that person to opt out after 5 years and live ‘a life more ordinary’ so that a.n.other might step into that place for a season ... I think our new terrain for mission requires a serious look at the training grounds for leaders, the growing of new streamlined infrastructures for supporting less full-time leaders which in turn must be coupled with a pro-active move towards ‘bi-vocational leadership’ for more people. Link
Reading this, I suddenly realised that I have been bi-vocational for all of my (11) years of church ministry life.
Year 1-3: Planting Graceway 2.5 days/week while studying at Seminary.
Year 4-5: Pastoring Graceway 3 days/week and househusband to our first born daughter, Shannon.
Year 6-8: Pastoring Graceway 3 days/week and doing my PhD.
Year 9: Co-pastoring Graceway 1 day/week and completing my PhD.
Year 10-today: Pastoring Opawa 3 days/week and lecturing 2 days/week.
Some observations 11 years down the track:
I am richer for the experience. The reality though is that I have a unique skill set and I am not sure I want to make my skill set the norm for everyone.
My community is richer for the experience. Six months after I arrived at Opawa, one of the church leaders said, "Steve, you're like us. You work outside the church too." At that retreat we adopted a core value: a workplace reality and a worship that engages with life 24/7: And we decided we would seek part-time staff as the church grew. Now we have 7. The reality is that it is really hard for me to now effectively build relationship and I don't feel I'm doing all that well being team with 7 people, let alone 10 ministry leaders.
I am richer because I feel less owned. Church is not my life. I have to walk away, to close the laptop and move to another employer. It has made it easier to build a team and has freed me from a number of traditional church minister expectations. But the reality is that serving two masters is hard, hard work. I rarely do less than a 50 hour week.
The worst time is when both demand a bit extra. Like last week. It requires a pretty flexible family. I know that most workplaces demand more than 50 hours. But I worry that all I am doing is modelling the "hey, I'm important because I'm busy" culture rather than a Kingdom culture.
easter journey
Opawa Baptist is amazing. As preparation for our Easter Journey they gut and redecorate the entire church. The worship space has become a garden, complete with lawn, fog, lighting, two pools, 1000 colour pannets, trees and shrubs. The Easter narrative is told through art. It's beautiful and haunting and communal and stunning.
I'll try and post some pictures during the week. Some observations:
- for people who, by trade are landscape gardeners or builders, setting the Journey up is worship.
- inviting people to tell a story through art invites the immediate question; "what is the story?" This is serious spiritual formation.
- so much church worship is wordbased. The Easter Journey invites the eyes to worship God.
Open 7-11 every evening this Easter week; plus 1-11 pm Easter Friday and Easter Saturday. Every evening we are holding short services, 7-7:20 pm. For more resources go here
April 10, 2006
on being emergent
Paul McMahon has an absolutely excellent post on being emergent. Paul comes from a political science background and sort of stumbled onto Opawa about a year now. (I might be wrong, but I don't think Paul would have known what emerging was pre-Opawa so his is a fascinating take). He (and his wife Ann) have helped us pioneer one of our emerging congregations at Opawa called espresso. He recounts his own spiritual journey and concludes:
At its best the emergent church brings people into community and back to Scripture to read it in the context of the overarching Biblical story of God’s love for His Creation, to listen together and share their stories in pursuit of truth and the Spirit’s guidance in their lives. It is not an abandonment of absolute truth, but instead a rebalancing and embracing of the relational nature of truth. At its best the emergent church is the essence of the three golden rules of biblical interpretation: Context, context, context.
April 08, 2006
wedding scripture
I have been asked to choose and read Scripture at a wedding today. What a privilge, to weave a Biblical narrative into a day of joy and celebration. Somewhere in the back of my mind was a thought that I had once read a Psalm that blessed a wedding. So I went digging and adapting and I'm struck again by the way that the Bible so accurately reads our lives.
We gather today and we’re probably thinking;
Wow, doesn’t the bride look beautiful
And perhaps with a touch of surprise; Gee, doesn’t the groom scrub up well.
The Bible captures our feelings. In Psalm 45, it brings the beauty of the bride, and the handsomeness of the groom, and our hopes for a great marriage, all into the presence of God.
Listen with me to Psalm 45, slightly adapted. Titled in my Bible, a wedding song.
1My heart bursts its banks, spilling beauty and goodness.
I pour it out in a poem,
To the groom
2"You're the handsomest of men;
every word from your lips is sheer grace,
and God has blessed you, blessed you so much.
Accept praise! Accept due honor!
4Ride on the side of truth! Ride for the righteous!
6"Make your throne God's throne, ever, always;
May you love the right and hate the wrong.
And that is why God, your very own God,
poured fragrant oil on your head,
Marking you out as a leader.
To the bride;
10"Now listen, bride, don't miss a word:
forget your country, put your home behind you.
11Be here--the king is wild for you.
And some good news for bride and groom;
12Wedding gifts pour in from afar;
rich guests shower you with presents."
13(Your wedding dress is dazzling, lined with gold by the weavers;
You are led to the king,
15A procession of joy and laughter!
a grand entrance to the church building!)
And then the hopes of all of us who gather here today;
17May God make you and your marriage famous for generations; the talk of the town, for a long, long time."
April 07, 2006
community discernment
One of the challenges at Opawa (Sunday morning) is how to allow community discernment to play a part in our life. It has historically been a "preach" and go home church, which offers a fairly individualistic approach to the Bible. Further, our size works against us. There were over 200 people at our blended Sunday morning service last Sunday. So the church has basically doubled in size in the last 2 years. Unless we ask them to go away, we have to think carefully about the different dynamics this presents for a conversation.
We've made a number of shifts to date;
1) introducing communal interactive involvement in response to preaching (heaps of examples under this heading)
2) sharing a combined lectionary reading among pastoral staff and inviting the church to join us (for more go here);
3) a home group that uses my sermon as their basis for discussion;
But it's just a start. Later this year I'm going to try another approach; in which we gather not for a church "business" meeting, but for a church "Scripture" meeting. We would hear a sermon. Then we will use a process to enable application to be discerned as a community. What emerges will then be integrated into our focus and vision for the year ahead. Here's some more detail of what I presented to our ministry leaders today
April 06, 2006
podcasting Steve
The Red Herring interviewed me last month. It proved to be a fascinating conversation that is now up as a podcast; in two parts, complete with mixed in background music.
Part One: Steve outlines the links between the United Kingdom and New Zealand. He points to the role played by alternative worship communities in initiating emerging churches. We talk about globalization theory, particularly the idea of "glocal," suggested by Roland Robertson. Steve reveals the role of women played in emerging churches in New Zealand.
Part Two: Steve's one blog contains "postcards" from emerging churches around the world, including the Philippines and Japan. During Brian McLaren's recent visit to Christchurch, Steve interviewed Grace McLaren about her take on the emerging church in New Zealand. Steve reviews three movies in relation to the emerging church, and summarizes his blog about 1 Peter as a feminist tractate.
If you're bored, and want to listen, go here.
April 05, 2006
how to win friends and influence people
I love my American friends; so instant, so action orientated. So one of my American friends emailed yesterday. They need to tele-conference with me. A group is meeting and they love a missional project I had suggested to them. Could they talk futher?
Sure I said.
But they could only talk at 6 am my time.
I groan. That's when I'm asleep. Surely it can wait.
Not it can't.
So I set up alarm and I'm up this morning.
The call comes. And then they let it slip. Oh, we had trouble ringing you. The first time was the wrong number.
How to win friends and influence people:) At least I was up. But imagine being woken by a toll call at 6 am in the morning only to find it was the wrong number! :)
more on DJing gospel and culture
Last week I blogged some images, built around the image of DJ, that I think provide a more helpful way to understand how the emerging church responds to culture. The usual stereotype offered by critics of the emerging church is the assumption that because we pay attention to a postmodern culture, we are therefore assimilating into this culture. Instead I think that when you examine emerging practices, you see complex pattern; moments of juxtaposition, subversion and amplification;
Anyhow, my post has attracted some good blog engagement. It's inspired some worship in Germany;
: the practices, a DJ showed people how to mix
: the actual mixing of poetic sounds
: with Matthew 5:21ff and Jesus imagined as a DJ, living out a mix of "God-beat and culture, helping people to listen to the God-beat inside their mixes"
: participants invited to nail a record onto a woodpanel as "a prayer that asked God to free us from our mix and make us able to listen to his beat."
It sounds a great DJ mix of practice, scripture, community and prayer.
And Bob Carlton has a fantastic post about morality and leadership as applied to the DJ. He explores whether a DJ exists for self-interest or generosity, in light of internet radio and proconsumer technologies. I would argue the latter and that is why I argue in my out of bounds church? book that a DJ can only exist in community and why the DJ image (postcard 8 of the book) needs to be read alongside the spiritual tourism image (postcard 5 in the book), in which the church community and it's DJ mix is urged to exist for the outsider. Bob has also got a QT file of God DJing. It's great (although I wonder if God ends up portrayed as remote and arbitrary (and male?)).
Further DJing resources:
: last weeks post is here.
: for a QT e-video of me being interviewed about DJing in relation to globalisation and culture, download here (11 MB)
: for more on DJing, including where I explore how this is happening in 1 Peter, and engage with the work of Miroslav Volf, read out of bounds church? book
: also check out the outofbounds blog.
Last week I blogged some images, built around the image of DJ, that I think provide a more helpful way to understand how the emerging church responds to culture. The usual stereotype offered by critics of the emerging church is the assumption that because we pay attention to a postmodern culture, we are therefore assimilating into this culture. Instead I think that when you examine emerging practices, you see complex pattern; moments of juxtaposition, subversion and amplification;
Anyhow, my post has attracted some good blog engagement. It's inspired some worship in Germany;
: the practices, a DJ showed people how to mix
: the actual mixing of poetic sounds
: with Matthew 5:21ff and Jesus imagined as a DJ, living out a mix of "God-beat and culture, helping people to listen to the God-beat inside their mixes"
: participants invited to nail a record onto a woodpanel as "a prayer that asked God to free us from our mix and make us able to listen to his beat."
It sounds a great DJ mix of practice, scripture, community and prayer.
And Bob Carlton has a fantastic post about morality and leadership as applied to the DJ. He explores whether a DJ exists for self-interest or generosity, in light of internet radio and proconsumer technologies. I would argue the latter and that is why I argue in my out of bounds church? book that a DJ can only exist in community and why the DJ image (postcard 8 of the book) needs to be read alongside the spiritual tourism image (postcard 5 in the book), in which the church community and it's DJ mix is urged to exist for the outsider. Bob has also got a QT file of God DJing. It's great (although I wonder if God ends up portrayed as remote and arbitrary (and male?)).
Further DJing resources:
: last weeks post is here.
: for a QT e-video of me being interviewed about DJing in relation to globalisation and culture, download here (11 MB)
: for more on DJing, including where I explore how this is happening in 1 Peter, and engage with the work of Miroslav Volf, read out of bounds church? book
Post repeated in my book blog.
April 02, 2006
kiwi in US
Booked for some June and July US trips last week. All groups are keen for the word to be spread about these gigs, so please spread the web-word if you can. Here are the details;
June 19-22; Ministry in the Postmodern. Tutoring at the Allelon Summer School. Details here (and note; they are using my book
June 25-29. International Think Tank on Mission to Western Culture. First step in a 10 year project seeking to re-focus the missiology of Leslie Newbigin, with a particular emphasis on congregational practices. Details of the project here. This mix of missiologists and congregational practioners is really exciting, as is the intentionality and long term commitment.
July 17-21. MP541 Living the Text in a Postmodern Context.
Lecturing a one week intensive at Fuller Theological Seminary (not 2 weeks as I first indicated here). This is the course description I have put together (download file).
