e~mergent kiwi

mission storytelling roadshow

Over the next few weeks I am part of a mission roadshow, Baptist initiated, called Sharpening the Middle. It is a follow up to the Sharpening the Edge conference last year (short youtube video clip of me in action here), telling the stories of grassroots missional experiments and classic church planting going on here in Aotearoa.

The roadshow consists of three regional workshop days, in Auckland (April 5), Wellington (April 10) and Christchurch (April 12).

Topics include:

* The challenge of Mission facing the church in NZ today - Murray Robertson
* Thinking Biblically about Mission and Church in NZ today – George Wieland
* Discerning the biblical frameworks – George Wieland, Steve Taylor
* Local church stories - including Opawa story.

This day is specifically aimed at our existing churches (defined as the 'middle'). For me this is quite meaningful, as it's nice to have emerging church conversation tucked up within Baptist mission and life.

storytelling the kingdom

This is a story I wrote yesterday. It's a missional reading of Matthew 13:44; The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a person found it, they hid it again, and then in their joy went and sold all they had and brought that field.
It's called the Brown paper bag.

This is a story about the kingdom of heaven.
What is it like?
How can you get it?
What's it worth?

This is also a story about a man.
A man went out walking.
Each morning.

He walked past a beach front property,
lake sparkling, sand beckoning.

He walked, on, tired, longing for a holiday.

He walked past a large house,
with a large back yard,
with children's voices,
running, playing, calling, laughing.

He walked on, lonely, longing for a family,
for people to laugh and cry with,

He walked over a field.
Rocky, barren and hard.
Having to clamber from hard boulder to hard boulder.
Falling, cutting his hand, grazing his shin.

Until something caught his eye.
Hidden between two rocks,
A brown paper bag.

Puzzled, the man bent down.

And opened the bag.

Peeked inside.

And his face changed.
His heart raced.

He knew.
He'd seen treasure.

The man ducked down and glanced around.

Good. No-one had seen him.
No bathers on the beach front property
No playing kids in the large backyard.

Again, the man looked inside the bag again.
Slowly he opened the bag.
Inside was creativity.
Inside was stories of God in all of life.

The stories whispered and called,

The man glanced around again.
Good. no-one had heard.
No bathers on the beach front property
No playing kids in the large backyard.

Carefully he closed the bag.
Reverently he folded the creases.

The stories of the Kingdom were treasure.

The man walked to the city gate.
Whistling. Singing. Trying to wipe the silly grin off his face.

He found the local land agent.

Yes, three properties were for sale.

Would you like a beach front property.
Lake views.
Sand on the front.
A jetty for your boat.
A holiday spot to die for.

The man felt tired. He'd love to relax. To rest. To be still.

He put his hand in his pocket and touched the brown paper bag.
His treasure.

Then withdrew his hand and shook his head.

Surprised, the local agent offered a second time.

Yes, we have properties for sale.
Would you like a large family home with a large backyard.
Places to play.
Family and friends to play with.
A home to build family memories.

The man felt lonely.
He'd love a home.
He'd love a family.

He put his hand in his pocket and touched the brown paper bag.
His treasure.

Then withdrew his hand and
slowly shook his head.

The agent sighed and tossed him the last property.
A field. Barren and rocky.

The man's heart leapt.
He nodded.

The treasure was his.

With joy he reached into his pocket.
With joy he drew out his treasure.

With laughter he shook open the treasure.
And there in the marketplace
the stories fell out of the brown paper bag.

stories of the Kingdom.
Stories of God in all,

treasure, not to be kept,
but to be shared with all.

May God help you find your stories, your treasure,
and empty them in the marketplaces of our world.

God revealed in community

a tangent touched off from here

Modernity sold us a pup. It sold us a belief you needed truth as all-encompassing and systematic. Modernity took truth and wrapped it in culture and then sold it to us as a cultural syncretistic product: truth as pure, abstract, timeless.

Yet, the God of the Bible was a God of community … moulding community in the desert, moulding community in the church … urging community through the broken body of Christ…..telling story after story, narrative after narrative of the actions of the communal God … refusing to sieve narrative into doctrinal purity, God took the risk of letting stories serve as the interpretive vessel for the body of God.

For where 2 or 3 are gathered in my name, there is Christ … he broke bread and gave it to them … then their eyes were opened and they recognized him ….

The God of all, revealed in community…

When moderns encounter postmoderns they sniff for a watering down of truth. What they fail to smell is the decaying odor, the rotting carcase, of their modern, all-encompassing, systematic cultural approach to truth. (Note what I said, the cultural approach is rotting, not the truth.)