e~mergent kiwi

work intern - welcome Nigel

Nigel, Jo, Archie and Jacob arrived from the UK today. They are with us at Opawa for 3 weeks. This is our 2nd go as a church at hosting overseas interns. Last year we had Shannon McMillan, who worked as an "art" intern. Nigel is a "work" intern, and will be helping us explore workplace spirituality across our congregations. He's also fascinated by Opawa as a story of emerging within an established context.

Overseas interns is a tricky balance - so much culture crossing and the need to find ways for all parties to bless and be a blessing. Each year I hope we get better at hosting overseas interns; we now have more staff, better structures and a dedicated intern study space.

I guess I am saying with this post: overseas interns welcome; if you live outside New Zealand (or Christchurch) and want to learn and be a part of the Opawa story, feel free to get in contact.

blogs and books

i think books are different from blogs. it might just be me though. i have been blogging for a few years now. one of my categories was about church transition - doing emerging church stuff in an established setting. i was stunned to discover earlier this year that there are over 200,000 words in that blog category on my blog.

is there a place in our world for multiple approaches to communication?

A comment I made on Mark Berry's blog.

blokes and church

I sent out this letter today. It will be fascinating to see what might emerge. (Note to self: if this works once, then it could easily be reproduced with other "invite" groups).

Over the last while, 7 of you have independently spoken to me about men and ministry at Opawa. I hear from all of you a concern to do something. I also hear from all of you a lack of clarity about the what and how and when and who. Which I think is a good thing, because it gives us some space to nut out together God's unique dream at Opawa.

I am asking you to engage with me and some others for 4 weeks around the following topics:

Blokes + their sheds - who we are + the toys we enjoy
Blokes + their Bibles - ways we do + don't connect spiritually
Blokes + their mates - ways we do + don't connect relationally
Blokes at Opawa - so what for men + ministry at Opawa
Rest assured it won't just be talking. Nor will there be any books to read. Instead, you will be asked to bring something and/or do something each week.

If you are up for it, and the time suits, get in touch ASAP and I will tell you what to bring for our first gathering.

Missional texts

I am working on a project: a missional reader - a set of texts – Biblical, liturgical, blog and book - that might nourish the journey of a missional learner. I am wondering about the potential of a shared set of texts, shared among missional learners in different contexts, offering a sense of communal learning on the missional journey.

Such a reader would best emerge from texts already used in community, grounded already in the local and particular. So I am currently field-testing some Biblical texts with a class. Every week for 14 weeks we are committing ourselves to dwelling in a different Biblical text (Yes, I know that the emerging church is rumoured to not take the Bible seriously:)). We will be reading the text and letting the text read us; listening to the text and listening to the text through each other. Here are some of my more poetic reflections on text 1: Genesis 28:10-19.

10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran.

on the run
posting distance
post-family; post-fight,
post-modern Jacob, we set-out, post-faith of fathers

11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.

exile and refuge
alone and alienated,
resting hard-headed angst

12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

no matter how strange the rocky dis-placement
no matter how new the contours of escarpment and scape

your will be done
stairway to heaven
on earth as in heaven
divine echoes

13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.

Oh strange text
Oh contested Holy Land
Oh holy power

Do you demand such practices of power?
Did you give to oppress and colonise?
Did you dream the displaced would displace?

Is there another way,
a new kind of stairway to heaven,
Neither descending give or ascending take

14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

Oh God, really?
bless with bomb on Hizbollah, flesh torn off offspring,
abundant rain of rockets for rubble and dust

15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

Oh God, really?
Is this your kingdom come
Thine be the power and the glory
On earth as in heaven?

16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." 17 He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

Misseo dei
God’s gate
post-
swings open in strange land

18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.

Was barren space
Now peopled place

Urban altar etched as
missional marker

Journey
posts-
our pilgrim on

heart in my mouth

I need a book reference for a lecture I am about to do in 2 hours. I used the book in my PhD, so I go looking for my PHD on my laptop. No sign of my PhD in the usual folder. How strange.

Puzzled, I hit "search."

Stranger still. According to "search" my PhD is in my computers "Recycle bin."

I open the "Recycle bin." I find over 500 of my files, waiting to be deleted. I have no idea why.

Could I have ever been that jet-lagged in the last 10 days? Could someone have fiddled with my computer (it was left accessible in a classroom a number of times recently)? Can a virus do this?

(And yes, I did backup all my files recently).

hi ho, hi ho

it's on the plane I go
with a tired throat here and a drained body here
hi ho, hi ho

It's been an excellent week's Living the Text intensive and a great bunch of people to work with. The variety of people - lay, student, pastor - and of cultures and of generations has produced some fascinating learning. It has, I think, been the most experiential learning process I have been part of.

It sounds like Fuller are keen for this to be a regular occurence which I will take as a compliment.

But for today, I am really tired. Jet lag meant that I struggled to sleep at night and the mornings just got harder and harder. Nevertheless, I will take home some sweet dreams for my 13 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean. Peace to all.

Wednesday

Resources the Living the text in a postmodern context class asked for more information about:

The most recent version I have of the espresso house rules is here.

The Spirited exchanges website is here and Alan Jamieson, Churchless Faith is based on this research project.

You can find more about Godly play here. Please remember that what I did was highly adapted to our Fuller context and the course. Godly Play is a good introduction to godly play and books like How to lead Godly play lessons offer concrete steps for nervous first timers.

The Erwin McManus podcast (Corey notes the series on the controversial Jesus was really good; on the right side of the website). It was mentioned in the context of a potentially good example of Question and Answer in preaching.

Tuesday

Resources that the class asked for more information on included:

The U2 video clip we looked at in terms of DJing came from their Vertigo DVD

I referred to a book on passionate practices; it is Kenda Creasy Dean, Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church.

And to follow the thoughts and interactions of the Living the Text in a Postmodern Context credit students; go here. Each student is asked to write a 1000 word reflection on what the Biblical text means to them; and to offer 5 critical comments on each other's work over the following 3 week period.

permanent mark on fuller

I left my mark at Fuller today; using a permant marker on a white board. Ryan Bell very nicely snapped a phone pic for my records.

Monday resources that the class asked for more information on included:

Gen X video This is who I am

If you want to download the flea circus; go here;

A really solid introduction to the imagination is Richard Kearney, The Wake of Imagination.

The artist I mentioned is named Sieger Koder. A place to buy his art would be here.

For the words I wrote to go with the 40 CD; go here; and here for the information I gave in class about how the resource came together.

Update: A resource mentioned toward the class: video from Highway productions and visual resources linked to the Lectionary here.

leonard cohen film review: i'm your man

In an effort to keep awake, I went movie hunting. I took a punt on Leonard Cohen: I'm your man and it was a great choice. The movie is a chronological journey through the life of a man I consider a lyrical genius. This is mixed with live concert songs from Came so Far for Beauty; artists like Nick Cave, Beth Orton and Rufus Wainwright singing Leonard Cohen's songs. There is also lots of interviews with Leonard, plus comment from Bono and the Edge which adds depth to the songs.

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

I found lots to ponder in relation to creativity and spirituality and humanity. It was probably the jet lag but I find the movie quite moving. Now I am just hoping they release the sound track.

Trailer here

living the (fuller) text in a contemporary context

I fly back across the Pacific Ocean today for a week lecturing at Fuller Theological Seminary; teaching a course I've designed from scratch called Living the text in a postmodern context. I've taught it twice in New Zealand and am really looking forward to seeing how it plays in a different cultural context.

The course is being run as a 5 day paper for credit, a 2 day conference for pastors. It is also being videod for potential use as an on-line resource. I am lecturing 7 hours a day for 5 days, so appreciate any stray prayers for stamina, and that my nights of sleep here
will be deep and renewing. And that technology would go well (my bag is stuffed with videos and loops and CD's, all essential to the experience of the course).

desperate for brian mclaren

Update: Found it, 90 minutes before my plane took off. Yeeha .

I am desperate. I have a CD digital recording of Brian McLaren preaching in Christchurch in which he practises communal lectio divina. In other words, he is working his was through a Bible passage (yes folks, Brian does use the Bible), inviting the congregation to imagine being in the text and to express how they feel.

I have lost the CD. And I use it in my teaching as a case study of community and imagination in Scripture. And I fly to the US tomorrow and I need the CD for a (Wednesday) class I am teaching at Fuller. Now you see why I am desperate.

a) Have I lent this CD recording to any of my students who read this blog? If so, you have 24 hours to escape from being forever in my bad books.
b) Or do any blog readers know if Brian has done this communal lectio divino approach in places other than Christchurch (surely he must) and it was recorded and you could help locate a digital copy for me to use Wednesday 19th July (US time). (You would be forever in my good books :))

consuming Christianity

Gospel in a post-Christian society is the next course I teach at Bible College of New Zealand; starting Wednesday 26 July, the course runs for 3hours over 14 weeks. Each year I adjust and tweak my courses and this year the emphasis will be on what the gospel might mean in our consumptive and consumeristic world.

I am using this book - A to Z of postmodern life - as a core text;
firstly, because as a sociologist the author allows us to explore postmodernity not only as a philosophical problem but as it occurs among people. Secondly, the author is non-Western and the book is a critical voice on the impact of postmodernity on global culture. And thirdly, because the book explores postmodern in everyday life: advertising to zapping, toys to shopping. And it is precisely in how we live and spend money that the gospel needs to engage us.

For those interested, a fuller bibliography is as follows:

Tom Beaudoin. Consuming faith: Integrating Who We Are with What We Buy, Sheed & Ward: US, 2004.

John Drane. McDonaldisation of the Church: Spirituality, Creativity, and the Future of the Church. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000.

John Drane. Do Christians know how to be spiritual??: The Rise of New Spirituality and the Mission of the Church, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2005.

Gordon Lynch. After religion: 'Generation X' and the Search for Meaning. London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 2002.

Brian McLaren. A new kind of Christian, Jossey-Bass, 2001.

Brian McLaren. Generous Orthodoxy, Zondervan, 2004.

Brian McLaren. Secret Message of Jesus, 2006,

Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh. Truth is stranger than it used to be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age. London: SPCK, 1995.

Vincent Miller. Consuming religion: Christian Faith And Practice in a Consumer Culture, Continuum, 2005.

Ziauddin Sardar. A to Z of postmodern life: Essays on Global Culture in the Noughties, Vision: London, 2002.

Ziauddin Sardar, Postmodernism and the other: The New Imperialism of Western Culture. London; Sterling, Victoria: Pluto Press, 1998.

Steve Taylor, out of bounds church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change, Zondervan: US, 2004.

Andrew Walker, Telling the story: Gospel, Mission and Culture Gospel & Culture. London: SPCK, 1996.

It's so easy to get complacent, to waste great chunks of life just drifting along being resentful, tired, overworked, angry, or the wrong kind of lazy... Life needs to be savoured. You don't get it twice. If time is to be wasted, it needs to be wasted properly. If there's stuff to be angry about, do it thoroughly, then get it over with and move on. If you're tired, get some decent rest, good food, rehydrate, and get in shape to live a bit more. Don't waste it. Don't waste it.

A needed reminder. Thanks Maggi.

there is no such thing as emerging church

Given that I don't have a Mac, a goatee or sunglasses, I find this cartoon hilariously funny.

Link

It also names a personal wondering of mine over the last few weeks: is there is any such thing as emerging church?

I wrote this a few weeks ago: The emerging church seems (IMHO) to be a shared conversation among people, groups and churches, about life and faith in a changing contemporary context. But it is so easy to objectify the stories and to read the conversation as monolithic, as "this is the emerging church." In doing so, the stories have been stripped of context. They are then in danger of commodification, as books, websites, podcasts etc. (A few sentences buried in a jet-lagged post about place and cross-cultural storytellinghere).

In other words; there is a conversation between various people about mission, faith, God, church in a postmodern context. This conversation has become commodified and homogenised into a universalist label "emerging church."

The result
- the focus has become the conversation rather than the work of missional communities
- like any good conversation, it has no "leader." Thus it has very few mechanism to respond to critics. (This infuriates critics even more.)
- words and labels can so easily be used to exclude and include
- we are in danger of homogenising voices and contexts and in so doing, obscure difference.

prayer of formation

Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Dirt to dirt and Mud to mud

Amen

Written for espresso church community last nite.

tears, judgement and global justice

The preaching text was Jeremiah 19. God is a judge and holds us accountable for injustice done to the poor. A tough, tough text to preach. I gave out clay at the start of the sermon and invited people to use the clay to express how they felt about the text. I think these are tears.

Update: more photos here.

painting a print

Keith sent me this:

his painting of my blog header picture. The blog header picture is of a sea shell lying on a New Zealand beach and came from the invitation to the baptism of a good and dear friend. Keith made the following interpretation "I sorta made it where the shell is on safe ground but things are tough on the horizon."

living the text in a contemporary context

I'm teaching a 1 week intensive at Fuller Theological Seminary July 17-21. I hear there are about 45 people enrolled so far. Ryan Bolger and I had coffee last week, waiting for a plane at Boise Airport, Idaho. He was asking me about the course and what I'll cover, so I thought I would drop a 90 sec podcast, if you want to listen.

Download file (450K)

emerging AD:missions 7

a series of posts called emerging AD:missions; reflecting on the emerging church in light of mission thinking.

MISSION IN THE BALKANS: Readings in World Mission, page 12-14.

The context is the 8th century, the place is the Balkans and the people group are Muslim. St Cyril learns Slavic, turns this oral language into a written language and then translates the Bible.

Missionary issue one: The Church in Rome responds by accusing Cyril of selling out to the culture. Oh how familiar. Some 1200 years later, the context is global and the people group are postmodern, and the emerging church in a missionary mode is often accused of selling out to the culture.

Cyril responds to his critics by quoting from Psalm 150:6; "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord" and by celebrating that "the sun of justice [has] diffused the holy Christian faith throughout the earth." Amen. The emerging church continues in the contextual missionary spirit of Cyril. May we have the grace to respond Biblically and prophetically to our critics. May we continue to be part of the diffusion of Christian faith throughout our globe.

Missionary issue two: Slavic Muslims want to follow the Christ. Cyril offers 1 day of catechical instruction, immediate baptism, followed by thorough education. Cyril recognises that Christian faith requires formation. Which leaves me wondering where formation occurs in the emerging church. We are often criticised for being soft on doctrine. How true is this criticism? In what ways are we paying close attention to the forming of disciples?

I am futher intrigued by Cyril's decision to baptise early and form later. This is in striking contrast to authors like Stuart Murray in Post-Christendom and Robert Webber in Ancient-Future Faith who call for extended catechesis before baptism in our contemporary world. So, does the order of baptism and formation matter in any way?

........

This post ends the first section of readings; titled Early and Eastern Church. I have initiated a dialogue between mission history and the emerging church. Topics covered include culture | context | rhythm | focus | worship and formation | heresy. For an more detailed introduction to emerging AD:missions, go here. For all the posts in this series go here.

wasted by a jet plane

Travel effects me in three ways-
: disrupted sleep, which leaves me feeling quite spaced for day 1 and 2.
: disrupted body clock, which leaves me feeling quite drained for day 3 and 4
: disrupted rhythm, which leaves me struggling to get back into the groove of place and people. This is often worst in day 5 and 6. It is not helped by the piles of marking that sit on my desk at BCNZ (Update: 20 exam scripts + 20 reading reports + 6 personal preaching reflections + odds and ends).

flightless kiwi: yeah right

For those who doubt that a Kiwi can fly; this is the lesson ...

and this is the real deal ...