e~mergent kiwi

how to look at a painting: book of the month

I am loving this book, How to look at a painting. New Zealand art curator, Justin Paton walks us through art over the ages. Each chapter pauses at an artpiece, inviting you to look at the luscious fruit of Italy's Caravaggio, the lonely landscapes of New Zealand's Rita Angus, the dazzling panoramas of America's Lari Pittman and the mysterious "tombstones" of Japanese artist On Kawara.

It is a gorgeously written book, a real page turner, (truly a rare phrase to use for a book on art), written with wit and style, making it a deserving winner of the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Award.

Justin makes art approachable, making me want to race into an art gallery. I also read this book as a worship practitioner. There is lots in here that sparks my creativity and makes me think about worship in new and fresh ways. I'm off to ponder worship as texture and worship as colour. But not until after I've visited my local art gallery.

kiwi sandwiched between richard hays and brian mclaren

My authors copy of Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross arrived today.

It is such an important book; offering 18 sermons on preaching the atonement today, putting contemporary preached wheels to the multiple images of the atonement in the Bible. I have already used 3 sermons from it as case studies in my Living the Text class at Fuller Theological Seminary. There are sermons from CS Lewis, Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) and me. A little Kiwi! Sandwiched between New Testament scholar Richard Hays and Brian McLaren.

My semon is titled "Participation and an Atomized World: A Reflection on Christ as Representative New Adam" and is part of a series of 10 sermons I preached around the communion table in 2004. The editor notes of my sermon; "Rather than discarding the biblical imagery and language, however, Taylor digs into the contemporary context and experience of New Zealanders ... to breathe new life and meaning into biblical images. Therefore Taylor not only stands on firm biblical ground ..[but] ... also in line with fine theological work done by one of the church's early theologians." (pages 103-4, 109.)

thread of grace: book of the month

Thread of grace is a superb novel. Set in Italy in WW2, and based on reality, it explores the hospitality extended by Italians to Jews fleeing the Nazi Holocaust. Russell moves effortlessly between Italian Catholics, Italian Jews and occupying Germans, to offer an absorbing and emotionally draining work of art.

Thread of Grace is the 3rd art of fiction from the imaginative pen of Mary Doria Russell. I first discovered The sparrow and then the sequel, Children of God. Both are works of sci-fi, that also explore themes of grace and redemption with the same absorbing emotional intensity.

Thread of Grace made me glad to be human. Russell is never a rose-tinted writer. She confronts the worst of humanity. Yet through characterisation, plot and tender attention to detail, she manages to weave a redemptive tapestry. For the spiritually alert, themes of hospitality toward the stranger, the extent of grace and the potential for human redemption, are worth discussing with friends long into the night.

For more of Steve's book of the month recommendations, go here.

Do Christians know how to be Spiritual?

Things I liked about John Drane's Do Christians Know How to be Spiritual?

1. John is such a down to earth and commonsense writer. Time and again this struck me.

4. The mapping of different types of contemporary spirituality on page 60 under 3 headings;
Lifestyle - Values, Community, Belonging, Morality
Discipline - Committment, Structure, Authority, Traditional faiths
Enthusiasm - Experimentation, Freedom, Experience, Mystery
and it left me wondering about where most of my spiritual exploration is (lifestyle I think); and where most church spiritual exploration is...

3. The diagram on page 85 exploring the interplay between undefined spiritual experience; gospel values and intentional Christian spirituality

4. Some great quotes

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, wth all you rmind, and with all your strength .. and Love your neighbour as you love yourself …can become an appropriate text not nly for mission among spiritual searchers but also for renewed forms of ministry within a post-modern church." pages 88-89.

"Jesus never called disciples to be perfect or infallible, but to be true to themselves and to the gospel, and in the process of doing so to invite others to join them in the struggle to be human, spiritual, and Christian that is part of one’s life journey. Evangelism is more about inviting others to join us on the journey, because we share the same questions, than it is about selling people the 'right' answers to life's problems," Page 143.

"Angry and fragmented people create an angry and fragmented world, while those who are whole spread peace and harmony," Pages 158.

"We have something to share with others not because we are different, but because we are no different, and we can become credible witnesses not as we condemn others and dismiss what we regard as their inadequate spiritualities, but as we constantly listen to the gospel and appropriate its challenge in our own lives." Pages 160-1.

that moment you dread: updated

Last week I got that email I was dreading. "I was wondering if you had any copies of your PhD left that you got made into a smaller book size? If so could I purchase one of you?"

When I completed my PhD in 2004, I wondered if people would want copies, yet knew that it was cheaper to do a bulk run. So I offered a Graduation special, hoping that if their was sufficient interest, to do a bulk run and thus cut costs. I also took a bit of a punt and did a few extras, suspecting that requests might trickle in over the years.

They did. I sold my last extra a week ago. And then, you guessed it, I got that dreaded email, requesting a copy. So I am going to repeat the offer and see if I get enough requests to make it worth generating another run.

Update: Here's one happy purchaser, who comments: "Go purchase its excellent and a valuable resource!"

Here's the PhD details:

A New Way of Being Church is a world first, an indepth academic exploration of how the emerging church responds to cultural change. It asks the question; how effective is the emerging church as a postmodern expression of faith? It takes one particular church, the innovative Cityside Baptist Church in New Zealand. It surveys 48 members and discusses three months of worship innovation. It deeply engages with themes of community, creativity and culture, in dialogue with the gospel and with postmodern thinkers. It draws on interviews and visits with 13 alt.worship communities in UK.

The thesis argues that in response to contemporary cultural change, people are, in the words of French philosopher Michel de Certeau, "making do," engaging in transformative processes to creatively subvert their surrounding context.

Three processes of "making do" were evident. Firstly, the use of a communitarian hermeneutic in which individual meaning was located within the narrative of the community. Secondly, the offering of imaginative space - both individual and communal - through practices of creative play, storytelling and creative pilgrimage. Thirdly, like a DJ, "tactics" of sampling from various cultural artefacts were used in order to renegotiate their relationship with gospel and culture.

Note: $NZ25 to cover printing costs plus P&P. (P&P approximately from NZ to USA or UK = $NZ20; From NZ to Australia = $NZ10, within NZ = $3.50). Credit card options for payment are available.

Note: This offer lasts until the 1 April 2006 and the thesis will be sent at the end of April or on receipt of payment, whichever is the latest.

Note: Usual copyright applies.

Note: This offer assumes that the purchaser recognises that a PhD is a PhD, written for a select intellectual audience. A PhD is a demanding read and it bears little resemblance to my book, the out of bounds church?

Drop me your details if interested.

Feel free to use the accompanying graphic to advertise this on your blog.
img alt="thesis with title.jpg" src="http://www.emergentkiwi.org.nz/archives/images/thesis with title.jpg" width="259" height="72" border="0" /

books resourcing my mission

On Tuesday with the Christchurch Presbyterians and on Thursday with the Dunedin Baptists I mentioned two books that have greatly resourced my mission and my thinking in the last six months.

A FIRST RESOURCE:
Richard Peace, conversion in the New Testament. This book looks at conversion in the New Testament. It helped me clarify how evangelism is both process and event. The highlight is a wonderful chapter on what evangelism-as-process might look like in a local church. This chapter resourced my thinking and preaching (here and here). This chapter then helped resource and spark an "evangelism-as-process" forum we had at Opawa in October. About twenty people at Opawa gathered to ask "what would evangelism-as-process look like at Opawa?" We prayed and discussed and dreamed. As a result, the previous Sunday at Opawa we launched five "birthing units." Five people from the October forum wanted to run with their "evangelism-as-process" dream. We introduced:
: intermediate community programme
: family film night helping families find God at the movies
: spiritual resourcing through journalling and naming ceremonies
: third-age programme, offering financial, health, relational and spiritual resources
: grief work among children.
These are ideas dreamed up among our faith community, resourced by my preaching and leadership, largely due to conversion in the New Testament.

A SECOND RESOURCE:
James Kemp, gospel according to Dr Seuss. This book explores gospel themes that emerge from the stories of Dr Suess. It provides creative sparks for the Take a Kid to Faith services at Opawa. Take a Kid services involve all-ages exploring faith together. This book, gospel according to Dr Seuss, gives me ideas that both engage kids and suggestion significant gospel themes.

Excuse me while I scream

I had to send the following email yesterday:

Hmmm. I think a major oops has happened here. I have nursed a guilty conscience all this year cos you sent me an email after [the conference] asking for something written and I didn't think I'd sent anything, hence my nursed guilt.

Now I understand. At the end of the conference I gave participants a copy of part of a chapter from my out of bounds church book. And it appears that you have typed in by hand, then edited that chapter (you will be the 3rd person to do it, since Zondervan did it twice also!) Big scream all around - either of laughter or pain, I am not sure.

The upshot ...

is that I am really committed to this book because it is vital that we in New Zealand continue to develop contextual written youth resources. Equally, my thinking has continued to develop since I wrote out of bounds church? book. I need to put on paper what is sort of like a 10th, and final, book chapter, which explores globalisation of culture issues, especially around justice responses. So watch this space...

it is a beautiful book

Early this year I was asked to write an article for a German artist, Sieger Koder. I said yes, intrigued, but a bit cynical about what would result.

I got the result over the weekend. It is a beautiful book. It is hardcover and A4 size. It is full colour on glossy pages. It features the gorgeous art of Sieger Koder. It is written in German, apart from one chapter, written in English. That chapter is mine. I am very proud to be part of such a beautiful book. I love the fact that in the grace of God I get to write words for an artist in a foreign country. It's a long way from a scrawny kid growing up in a jungle in Papua New Guinea.

For more on the book go here. For a summary of the article, go here.

in heaven

A while ago I was given a financial gift - a thankyou for an act, given as a prayer for my inner renewal. Some of it went on a Thomas Merton journal. And some of it nearly went on this; View image - I mean the beautiful images, the narratives of creativity.

But the price. I put it down.

This week I saw it at a local bookshop. It was a Monday. A day off, but my 3rd day off in the month of May that would be interrupted by work in the evening. The images, the narratives of creativity, a book that I could pour over, could be renewed by. And reduced in price.

It's mine now. I'm taking away tonight for a long weekend of holiday.

blogging the author

Being a writer who both blogs and publishes has lots of tensions.
: If I write stuff and it's months before it's published, has my thinking moved on?
: If I write stuff on my blog, will people rip it off before it is published?
: If I write stuff on my blog, will people read the book and think, "Oh, read that before"?
: If I write stuff on my blog, will people comment and nuance and enhance my thinking? This is great, but will they then sue the book/publisher/me for how their thoughts have shaped my thoughts.
Such are some of the tensions of being caught between two medium.

At the same time, I'm currently experiencing some real joy being between two mediums. I set up a separate out of bounds church book blog. It's a bit tricky because I can't totally separate the two. After all, the emergentkiwi is the author of The out of bounds church? book. But I didn't want this blog becoming choked by my book stuff, or seeming like an info-mercial. And I wanted a book blog rather than a book website, because a quick surf showed me book websites with forums that are broken, with information that is out of date and with very little author presence.

So I responded to a review yesterday and this comment appeared; PS- I love that I get to interact with the author of a book I've read! The ability to discuss it makes the book even more exciting. It's a thrill for them. And its also a thrill for me because it sharpens my writing and thinking, if there is a next time.

Now perhaps, this is just because I'm a "little" author and have only a "little" bit of feedback. (And yes, I still have not responded yet to all the emails and comments I have received.) Who knows. That's the future. For today, I'm enjoying the way that a book blog allows a book to become more of a conversation.

of fuller, theology and story

Note to self: Further to here
“Narrative theology” is not the same thing as “telling affecting stories.” The narrative dimension of theological truth may involve many different things, but it still involves questions of truth that engage more than simply the heart-rending experiences of the aggrieved. Whatever we say about theological truth, we need to connect those claims with the truth that the church has received over the centuries, with Scripture, in a way that constitutes a satisfactorily reasonable argument.

Link

untitled

I had a young guy poke his head in the door yesterday and tell me that he and his brother want to plant a church among the poor in the city and how helpful my out of bounds? book was. Such practical missionary exploration sort of makes the angst of writing all worthwhile really.

All of this to say, that I took the plunge today and submitted a 2nd book proposal to my wonderful (grease, grease:)) publishing company.

author purgatory

I visited Manna Book shop today, to work on details for a local, Christchurch book launch of my new book. On the way out the door, I was shown the specials table. "That's where the books that die end up." I move to my car contemplating author purgatory, the slow wait before that dreadful day when you see your book remaindered for $3.

postmodern lenten resources: It's pilgrimage with Jesus, Jim, but not as we know it

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of 40 days walking with Christ toward Easter. Lent often disappears behind a religious cloak. It needs to be re-habiliated into the culture.

I have started Faith Odyssesy: A Journey Through Lent, by Richard Burridge.

(The UK cover, above, looks heaps better than the US cover as shown on Amazon)

Burridge's book offers a daily reading through the eyes of Science Fiction and popular culture. "It's pilgrimage with Jesus, Jim, but not as we know it."

when a missionary DJ reads a DJ

wee beautiful pict might read my book. He writes: Steve's stuff is always accessable - well thought through, incarnation-friendly and dead readable, and then decides he might read the book!

Might! There's a story in their about him ... about a latte on an Edinburgh corner ... each chapter of the book starts with a postcard, of me meeting with an emerging church/alt.worship group somewhere in the world ... and as I do a global tour, I then reflect on the implications for God, church, life ...

when dreams may come…

I have just had a sermon I preached at Opawa Baptist a few weeks ago accepted for publication.

The book, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, sought to push forward some thinking on the atonement. It argued, very rightly, that Evangelicals have limited the atonement and thus made the significance cross smaller, more individual, less wholistic, than it really is. The book was academic and naturally raised the “so-what” and “how-to” question. This has lead to work on a follow-up volume, Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross, a practical how-to. By a series of coincidences I am now involved.

The move to Opawa Baptist/BNCZ had the potential to keep me so busy, that I would not get as much time to write. I have been warned already that it would “hamper my writing progress.”

So I am pinching myself, because something I have done at Opawa has in fact helped, not hampered, my writing progress. It is like God is grinning. As I trusted and got on with doing what I sensed was right in this season of my life, God has opened up doors and provided opportunities to not just pastor and train, but to write.

And what's more, to write in an integrated way, a way that is close to my heart, a way that bridges gap between theory and practice, thinking and the community of God.

And as a sideline, it is encouraging to know that my preaching at Opawa is at some sort of level that it gets included in a written publication.

book of the month: the book of tobias

The Book of Tobias, by Sylvie Germain, is a delightful read. The novel follows the life of a family through the European 20th century, dealing with death, migration and love. It does justice to the original Apocrypahal Book of Tobit, in which an angel assists a doomed woman and a beaten man to find love. This includes the delight of supernatural touching our world, and the struggles of being Jewish in an exilic context.

Sylvie is a superb writer, evocative and spacious, dripping with well-timed metaphor. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys good writing, to anyone who faces the task of contemporising ancient texts or to anyone who wants to reflect upon life, suffering, the divine and love.

book of the month: the heartbreaker

Confession. I love Susan Howatch. Her latest novel, The Heartbreaker, continues my affair of the heart. Sure it’s long. Sure it’s not a thriller. But I’d buy it because
1 - It’s fiction. And in the world of my imagination is where God most often sandbags me.
2 - It offers a superb contemporary contextualisation of Luke 15
3 - It offers some very interesting insights on sexuality, particularly the complexities around homosexuality. This book will satisfy neither liberal or fundamentalist, but it might make both more sensitive and less dogmatic.
4 - It offers a pastoral model of the “long haul”, in which God works deeply through sustained listening, committed Christian behaviours and the desire for sustained integrated lives.

If your world includes people or ministry, then reading Howatch will be time well spent.

Liquid church

Take liquid church by Pete Ward. Road test it by asking 30 students from a wide variety of backgrounds, spiritualities and ethnic backgrounds to write a critical review. Hone this reflection by asking them to debate the moot; Liquid Church will drown the Church. In the process the book has to preform a number of road tests.

(Note that these comments are my reflections on the class interaction and feedback and are in no way a comment on any individual student’s work.)

Naming Test: Many students felt the book named

their cultural reality, the liquid, networked, consuming world that they were part of. Students felt it often named their experiences of church as declining and solid. Now while not all students felt their experiences of solid church were a bad thing, they found the book named their world.

Multi-cultural Test: Students from a variety of cultures applauded the book. Maori resonated with the relational potential of liquid church. Island cultures resonated with solid church as their experience of spirituality.

Gospel Test: This caused considerable debate. Some students felt Liquid Church allowed a deeper and richer understanding of the gospel. They had not found Christ in solid church and felt liquid church liberated them to a relational following of Jesus. Other students were uneasy, concerned at the ethical and economic implications of shopping as an approach to spirituality.

Mission Test: Like it or hate it, the book pushed mission firmly into the agenda. It is easy for a class on church and society to spend a lot of time in church discussion. Taking Liquid Church and mixing it with a visit to Borders and videos like Whale Rider, Bend it like Beckham, Romeo and Juliet, ensured that society in general remained at the centre of class debate.

Sacramental Test: The book failed on this count. “Can I have 6 takeaway communions please,” was one parody of Liquid Church. Liquid Church has little reflection on the place of baptism, communion, etc in the book. However, the metaphor “in Christ” seems to me to offer tremendous potential for an exploration of “Liquid Sacraments,” and the dynamism of fluid encounter with Christ amid wine, water and wafer.

Having road tested Liquid Church among 30 people in New Zealand, I would recommend this book for any course which seeks to explore mission in Western society. However the book needs to be explored in a critical context, to allow for sharp interaction, rather than as a recommended and safe text.

Good news or bad news?

Has anyone read this book;

Jesus Entrepreneur, using ancient wisdom to launch and live your dreams.

The title puts me off. But the tag line makes me curious when it reads "ancient wisdom". And it sounds like it is a fresh perspective on a much trawled subject. (Jesus I mean, not entrepreneurs).

She's got another one called Jesus CEO. Again the title puts me off, but it too sounds like a fresh perspective.

Liquid Church

In liquid church, Pete Ward takes a deep swim in postmodern waters. While many are just trying to dog paddle, Ward explores ways for the church to incarnationally flourish in our contemporary culture....

At times the theologian in me wonders if Ward's theology is so liquid he ignores Divine person, and thus the importance of gathering. At times the practitioner in me wonders who will fund Pete's dreams. But the insights around spiritual desire and the creative and missional possibilities around shopping for meaning are worth the price alone. It is a provocative book in which the missionary heartbeat is undeniable. The book is well written. It is concise. It handles well. If you're serious about being church in the postmodern world, it is worth taking the plunge.