sustain:if:able kiwi

spreading the word: making as a way of being in the world in the Ordinary Knitters research project

It’s a big week of interviews this week in the Ordinaryknitters research project. I’m loving chatting with knitters – this week in England, New Zealand and Australia – about remembrance poppies and climate scarves and knitting in public places.

We’re “spreading the word” commented someone this morning. What a lovely phrase and we then enjoyed thinking about how things that are made can spread “words”. And what “words” are these made things spreading. It’s all so fascinating to reflect on how making is a way of being in the world.

There is show and tell, of garments and pictures of knitted things in public places. There are stories, of how making enhances well being, builds community and creates connections.

In a few weeks I hope to shift from interviews and begin analysing for shared themes across the nearly 40 people I have interviewed to date. I’m looking for ways to analyse interview transcripts for emotion, in order to try and capture the joy and passion of those I interview.

Church as sail blown by the wind

Last weekend I spent several hours sitting with Te Rā, the last known Māori customary sail. Te Rā, housed for over 200 years at the British Musuem, is part of the “Navigating Home” exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery. I spent so long with Te Rā that an Art Gallery staff person came across to ask what I did for a day job.

Over the week, I found myself returning to the sail and making connections with Christian identity and being church. So on Sunday, I did a switch of the lectionary readings and preached about Te Rā, introducing the sail and making 3 connections to John 3:8.

• Made to move – while many images of the church are static (temple, church buildings), a sail is made to move. Being on the move connects with Jesus invitation to follow (Matthew 4:19), to be blown by the wind of the Spirit (John 3:8) and cross to the other side (Mark 4:35)
• Practically beautiful/beautifully practical – we tend to think of art as hanging beautifully in galleries. Yet Te Rā has practical purpose, yet offers aesthetic delight. Those born of the wind in John 3:8 are called to follow Jesus as the way, the truth and the life in John 14:6. The call to follow Jesus is not about being hung in art gallery for display, but for life Monday to Friday portraying the beauty of God’s Kingdom here on earth
• One knot among many – the focus of John 3:8 is everyone born from above. Similarly, Te Rā is a collective of knots, each unique and each part of something bigger. The church together is invited to catch the wind of God’s Spirit

To end the sermon, I gave out sails cut from paper in a similar shape to Te Rā. People were invited to draw or use stickers to depict something unique about this local church as God’s sail. And a skewer to hold their sail aloft. The sails could be taken home or placed in the offering.  By way of example, a sail I drew and took home, plus an unused one.

Key resources for this sermon were not just the Bible commentaries. For general information about Māori craft and weaving, I turned to Crafting Aotearoa: A Cultural History of Making in New Zealandand the Wider Moana Oceania and Te Puna Wairoa: The Distinguished Weavers of Te Kāhui Whiritoi.

To understand Te Rā and think about Māori Christian connections with weaving, I drew on Te Rā: The Māori Sail by Ariana Tikao and Mat Tait (2023) and Ka Tuituia Tātoa e Te Aho Tapu/The Sacred Thread that Weaves us Together by Council for Anglican Women’s Studie (2018).

As people shared about their sails, the connections made with the identity of the church were deep, rich and meaningful.

relevant to researching mission and innovation: 9th academic review of First Expressions

I’ve just come across another academic review of my First Expressions: innovation and the mission of God. This is in the Journal of European Baptist Studies 22: 2 (2022), 176-177 (click on the PDF and scroll down to the 2nd page). The review is by Revd Dr Peter Stevenson, who is a Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College and was formerly Principal of Cardiff Baptist College.

The review has many affirmations for First Expressions.

– while my book is focused on new expressions of church in the United Kingdom, the reflections on practice have a much wider relevance
– along with other reviews, there is appreciative comment on the vulnerability by which I write on mission and innovation
– my book serves as a “research methodology … [and] clearly demonstrates how a range of research methods can be profitably employed in the service of mission”
– my work is a “healthy example of how to do practical theology. For anyone interested in mission, practical theology, and empirical research, First Expressions contains plenty of interest”
– “Taylor’s insights will hopefully stimulate others to explore initiatives in their own contexts, ‘looking to see what patterns of God might be visible’ there”

Thanks Revd Dr Peter Stevenson, for the review, for the affirmation of the value to practical theology methodology and the relevance to researching mission and innovation.

This is the 9th substantive review of First Expressions: innovation and the mission of God. For each review, I am very grateful. The other reviews (that I’m aware of) are summarised by me –

• here in Journal of Contemporary Ministry
• here in International Bulletin of Mission Research
• here in Theology;
• here in Church Times;
• here in Ecclesial Futures;
• here in Practical Theology;
• here in Ecclesiology;
• here in Scottish Episcopal Institute Journal.

Keeping faith in divine service at AngelWings Ltd

I recently reviewed Keeping Faith: How Organisations can stay true to the way of Jesus by Stephen Judd, John Swinton and Kara Martin for the Australian Journal of Mission Studies. Wonderful was the response from a grateful editor and the 840-word review will be published in December 2023. (This was a first output from our “rummaging in the research stash” season I chatted about last week).

The phrase “keeping faith” is a fascinating way to understand the research work we do at AngelWings Ltd. Organisations want to keep faith with funders, so they contract us to evaluate change projects and innovations in mission and ministry. Organisations want to keep faith with their founding vision, so we work with them to review programmes and gain stakeholder feedback on future plans.

Every organisation has a unique charism. Marist priest, Gerald Arbuckle in Refounding the Church: Dissent for Leadership talks about the need of every organisation to go back to their roots. While Christian organisations have a shared story in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, every organisation lives that story in unique ways. I connect Arbuckle’s refounding with the gifts and graces of the Spirit. As Romans 12:3-7 reminds us, there is one body and many members, one Spirit giving different gifts. So every organisation needs to work to continually refound itself in relation to their unique gifts.

We at AngelWings Ltd provide outside eyes and grassroots feedback to help organisations in refounding. Sometimes we interview and conduct focus groups and through listening at grassroots, next steps are discerned. Other times we survey or provide demographic data, collating experiences across multiple stakeholders. Or we read recent cutting edge literature and bring each organisation’s particularity into conversation with current best practice.

In every case, we are listening, seeking to understand the unique gifts by which the organisation might “keep faith.” Every project is unique, as we bring a range of research methods to offer bespoke solutions. If your organisations needs some refounding, then do be in touch for a pro-bono conversation, to see if we at AngelWings Ltd might be to service (kiwidrsteve @ gmail dot com).

rummaging in the research stash

Stash – defined as a store or supply of something, typically one that is kept hidden or secret.

Photo by Chris Hardy on Unsplash

I’m currently enjoying rummaging through my research stash. I’ve had a deadline pressured 14 months, delivering 6 different substantial research projects to various groups in Australia, New Zealand and Scotland. It’s meant days, weeks and months of deadlines, in which a whole range of personal and pro-bono research projects have been paused. It’s also meant the bulk of my research, reading and thinking has been less than visible, as I have served the specific internal needs of these organisations.

I currently have a bit more space and with that space I am enjoying rummaging back through my research stash. There are copious computer files. There are books in piles on the floor. There are audio interviews on the Iphone and Zoom storage. There are scribbled ideas in my personal life journal.

As I rummage, I have identified three types of outputs

• Short pieces, like book reviews of missiology books I’ve read, along with blog-like pieces
• Journal articles, that develop the insights gained from the research, while working within the confidentiality frameworks agreed with those among whom I have researched
• Book project, a longer piece of work, gathering up my interest in craftivism over the last 5 years, conducting more interviews as part of the Ordinary Knitters research project and seeing if there is a potential book project on the craft of mission among what is now a substantial file of work

AngelWings Ltd exists to resource the church and so rummaging through the stash is part of exploring what has been tucked away out of of sight, and what might be made appropriately visible.

It’s also been a lot of fun. Like on Tuesday, opening an evernote file of notes on a book, and realising the 1400 words of notes could, with a few hours work, become a book review for an Australian missiology journal. Which was sent this morning. A book review of Keeping Faith: How Christian organisations can stay true to the way of Jesus – submitted to Australian Journal of Mission Studies.

Now what’s next in the research stash?

Retrieving practical theology from the archives paper proposal

Glad to submit a conference paper proposal for Association of Practical Theology in Oceania (APTO). It’s in Dunedin in 2023 so nice and close to home! The conference theme – migration – gives me the opportunity to offer some research emerging from my Race, justice and mission project, thanks to my upcoming University of Glasgow Library Research Fellowship.

Retrieving practical theology from the archives: a reassessment of race and justice in Oceania migration

In the academic study of lived experience, practical theology often draws on empirical research. However, practical theology’s engagement with lived experience, as presented in archival material, is less common. The Glasgow University Library and University Archives hold a unique repository of pamphlets, sermons, reports and minutes. The archives include accounts of how Scottish missionaries experienced “blackbirding,” a coercive approach to migrant labour in Oceanic history. How might these historical accounts of lived experience help us analyse race and justice in the practices of mission?

This paper considers three methodological approaches by which practical theology might research migration histories in Oceania. First, McDougall (2016) used oral histories retrieved through ethnography to outline a distinctive cosmopolitan openness that shaped migration amongst the Melanesian peoples of the Solomon Islands. Second, Modjeska (2014) used embodied imaginaries and drew the work of historians and anthropologists into a “fictive” narrative that asserted indigenous Melanesian agency. Third, Halapua (2001) wove documentary analysis, interviews and action research in seeking to sing God’s song of solidarity with marginalised Melanesians in Fiji.

These three Oceanic methodologies provide ways first to approach archival history as lived experience and second to reflect on race and justice in the practices of Christian mission.

write-streams for AngelWings Ltd

On the AngelWings Ltd work desk sits my current writing map. I have 2 empirical research projects that are due to industry stakeholders in the next 2 weeks. They involve a lot of data – together amounting to 76 interviews and focus groups, along with 120 survey responses. All collected over the last 11 weeks.

One of the projects has the joy of working with a team, so the writing and editing are shared. But others in the team have other workstreams. So a daily writing map is needed to apportion time and keep projects moving.

Around the writing map are my ending symbols. In ending every research project, I find a symbol expressing the project’s uniqueness. They watch me as I work. “You’ve done this before – juggled, drafted, edited.” They give me confidence.

And hope.

Because soon, there will be time to choose another ending symbol. Or, in this case, two!

Listening matters

Listening matters.

I’m now well into two AngelWings Ltd research projects for organisations in Australia. 45 interviews and focus groups for one. 24 interviews and focus groups for the other.

This is hours and hours of information. Each interview is distinct, packed with quotes and unique insights. I use a range of processes to ensure I listen carefully to every conversation’s unique and rich nature.

1 – A consent form, sent prior to clarify expectations as we start.
2 – An interview schedule to keep track of time and help with consistency.
3 – A research journal to record notes.
4 – A highlighter for key moments and insights as I listen.
5 – A short research memo was written to myself as I finish each interview to record my impressions and observations.
6 – A listening back to the recording and writing of a summary.
7 – The sending of a summary to each participant, so they know what I’m hearing and can give further feedback if they need to.

These seven listening processes all help when I come to write a report. Each conversation is honoured. Participants know what has been heard. My developing thoughts, feelings and intuitions are data to enrich the discernment.

AngelWings Review of Missional Needs and Opportunities for Synod South Australia

A piece of research I’m part of doing with AngelWings Ltd has been written up in New Times, the online magazine of the Uniting Church Synod of South Australia (New Times – April/May 2023).

The Murray River mouth is one of the more dramatic places in South Australia to consider transitions. Upstream floods create new channels, while drought increases pressure on fish and migratory wading birds flying in from Alaska. Those living near the river mouth and close to the Coorong know things constantly change.

To receive weekly updates, please connect to the online website located at here.

It’s so good to be reconnecting with a part of the church I served between 2010 and 2015 and to be offering a diverse range of research strategies to offer missional clarity.

Art at creation’s extinction

The Art of Creation looks so interesting – interdisciplinary and what a fantastic location in which to think theologically.

So in response to the call for papers, I have really enjoyed proposing a paper. I love how working visually opens such different ways of thinking and being. My proposed paper is titled Art at creation’s extinction: Ecological theologies in Ruysch’s Flowers in a Vase and Regan O’Callaghan’s St Paul and the Huia.

My proposed paper will work with Ruysch’s Flowers in a Vase, an artwork at the National Gallery in London and in dialogue with Regan O’Callaghan’s St Paul and the Huia at the Gallery’s neighbour, St Paul’s Cathedral.

The rich uniqueness of Scent in Lent 2023

Scent in Lent 2023 was a first, as strangers gathered online to smell the pages of Scripture. Like wine tasting, inhaling a deep, long breath of Scripture created new connections, revealed hidden flavours and brought the Bible alive.

Some of the aromas, like tears, shed outside the grave of Lazarus, are subtle. Other odours are strong, like the pungent smell of leather making or the heady scent of perfume wiped into dirty feet. Whether subtle or strong, these aromas invite us on spiritual journeys.

Held over six weeks in March 2023, Scent in Lent offered an online experience of spiritual practice. Hosted by Steve Taylor, Director AngelWings Ltd, each gathering invited the smelling of Scripture, sharing experiences and joining in participatory prayer.

Scent in Lent 2023 created new connections. Participants began as strangers, registering from 6 different towns and cities. Even though participants never physically met, memories of childhood smell quickly created connections and built community.

Hidden flavours emerged as participants explored the sense of smell in further individual activity. Each online session ended with practical suggestions for the following week. Some participants asked family members to brainstorm “smelly” Bible passages and, amid the laughter, experienced deeper spiritual connections across generations. Other participants smelt their streets or a nearby drain after rain. Together each realised how a small act like picking up rubbish could change the aroma of their community.

Scent in Lent 2023 made Scripture come alive. The pages of Scripture are packed with pungent aromas, and participants loved the idea of “sense-gesis.” Exegesis is defined as the interpretation of a text. Attention to the senses, particularly smell, provokes different questions in interpreting familiar texts.

Each week a Bible passage was read three times. In between each reading, participants breathed the passage deeply, then shared the aromas of Christian witness they sensed in the pages of Scripture. As participants grew in confidence with sense-egesis, they began to identify similar scents in other Scripture passages. “The insights were extraordinary,” observed Steve Taylor. “For one participant, the smell of river water, as Paul preached in Philippi, connected with crossing the Jordan. People were excited to read the Bible more closely.”

It is tempting to stereotype online learning as “dis-embodied.” Yet sharing sensory experiences demonstrated the rich potential of online spiritual practice, and the practical explorations grounded the online gatherings in local and community care.

The feedback from Scent in Lent 2023 participants was overwhelmingly positive. “A refreshingly different and convenient spiritual pathway to investigate,” wrote one. Another appreciated how “Scent in Lent helped the narrative of scripture come alive for me again.” A third observed that Scent in Lent 2023 was “a course that lingers in the spiritual air of your life far longer than you might expect!

These comments have encouraged the planning for next year. Scent in Lent 2024 will offer the same course at different times to connect with people from multiple time zones. If you want to learn more, contact Steve Taylor, AngelWings Ltd.

an AngelWings Ltd research s/ending: kawakawa chyrsalis and kāhui whetū in 2023

How do you mark an ending?

A few weeks ago, a long and demanding research project came to a s/ending. I hit “send” on a 54,000-word research report, along with four executive summaries, each six pages long. Like any s/ending, the lead up to the deadline involved stress, the juggle of depth and readability, edits and visual appeal.

Once sent, another set of stresses emerge. How will the funders respond? The time between sending the report and gaining feedback can be lengthy. Funders need time to read and process. Can I move on, or will more work be needed?

In all this waiting, the sending is still an ending and the s/ending needs celebrating.

What was sent a few weeks ago was a unique project. First, at 26 months it was longer than usual. The report drew on hundreds of interviews and interactions, and over 250 pages of written notes.

Second, it was a research collaboration, working with someone who brought unique and different skills. So this research project meant forming a team, learning to work across cultures, appreciating each other’s strengths, navigating each other’s weaknesses and respecting each other’s realities. With research spread over 26 months during a global pandemic, the realities included lockdowns, catching of Covid during fieldwork, work and family changes. Lots to navigate! So with the sending came an ending, of a productive collaboration.

So as part of s/ending, last week over coffee, we exchanged gifts as we prepared to meet the funders. Here are both gifts, sitting on top of the four research journals full of notes and findings from the 26 months of research.

My colleague found a beautiful pottery bowl. She was drawn to the stars (kāhui whetū). The research project had been shaped by an indigenous whakataukī (proverb) about the nature of voyaging. As part of our research, we had identified stars (kāhui whetū) that we suggested could guide the funders into the future. The pottery bowl, with stars, named this unique strand of the project.

I offered a pair of hand-crafted chrysalises of the kawakawa loop moth (Cleora scriptaria). The kawakawa plant is endemic to Aotearoa, the chrysalis is sign of potential. The research project had invited us to pay attention to land and place, to value indigenous learning in new ways. The six recommendations might offer potential new ways of living for this funders.

These objects now sit on my desk, along with other objects from other AngelWings Ltd research projects. Each object reminds me of work done. Each suggests a different dimension of the craft of researching. In this case, the value of working with indigenous ways of knowing. Each invites me to keep praying for the project, in this case, for those seeking to bring change in theological education and ministry training.

What about you? How do you mark an ending?

body work, body listening

How do you listen to your body and its movements?

A day off today provided some time to process the week gone. A key task over this week was speaking for 90 minutes to a 53,000-word report I have written. The report drew together 26 months of research into the next 20 years of the organisation.

So there was a fair bit riding on the work – for myself, for my colleague in research and for the organisation.

Which meant lots of emotions and stress – before, during and after the presentation. Including some fairly vivid nightmares of missing data across a cultural interaction.

So the climb through my local piece of bush today was a chance to pay attention to my body. During the 60-minute walk-up, three questions emerged, each from different moments during the walk.

• Where were the resting places in the 26 months gone?
• Where were the moments of unexpected delight?
• Where were the feelings of relief?

After a sit with some chocolate at the top of the stairs, the walk down was a time to reflect on the questions and enjoy pondering the Spirit’s movements.

Finally, toward the bottom, a small mountain stream provided an experience of hands immersed in water and a gentle letting go of the week gone.

How do you listen to your body and its movements?

settler colonial theologies conference abstract

Conference abstract submitted today – “Do this in memory of me.” The role of church buildings in constructing settler colonial theologies in Aotearoa New Zealand. (Dr Steve Taylor, Independent scholar, AngelWings Ltd).

Christianity recognises itself as a religion of memory. In Eucharist, amid betrayal and before violence, Jesus calls his disciples to remember rightly.

What it means for Christianity in Aotearoa to rightly remember is challenged by “Recessional” (2010), a public artwork on display at Te Papa. Artist Murray Hewitt presents visual imagery of 61 publicly accessible historical battle sites in Aotearoa. These sites require right remembering on both sides of the Tasman, given the earliest dated memorial plaque in Anzac Park, Canberra, marks a military campaign fought in 1860-1 by the Royal Australian Navy Campaign in Aotearoa New Zealand, in which some 4% of the Māori population died (O’Malley 2016). A feature of Hewitt’s “Recessional” is the number of church buildings located close to battle sites. How do these religious communities rightly remember nearby histories of violence?

Enns and Myers (2021:10) call for settler “response-ability.” Writing as white Americans, they urge settlers to undertake identity work to understand how settler colonialism structures the relationships they inhabit. Savides (2022) argues that decolonisation offers settlers theological resources to remember rightly. Writing as a white South African, he uses themes of the cross and vulnerability in Reformed theology to demonstrate how decoloniality provides frameworks to analyse Christian entanglement in systems of Empire.

In Aotearoa, Pākehā have a distinct identity as settler. Reflection on this identity requires recognising privilege, lamenting marginalisation and learning to be better partners. This paper uses as case studies the church buildings present in Hewitt’s “Recessional.” It draws on archival records and anniversary liturgies to consider how churches do and do not pay attention to the battle sites nearby. In so doing, this paper contextualises Christian practices of anamnesis. It examines how the churches that Pākehā built are theologically forming settler identities. Trajectories for a theological ethic of settler “response-ability” are suggested.

Enns, Elaine and Ched Myers. Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization. Cascade Books: Eugene, Oregon, 2021.

Murray Hewitt, Recessional (2010). Accessed 29 March 2023.

Savides, Steven. Unsettling the Settler Colonial Imagination: Decoloniality as a Theological Hermeneutic in South Africa. PhD thesis, University of Notre Dame, 2022.

O’Malley, Vincent, The Great War for New Zealand Waikato 1800-2000, Bridget Williams: Wellington, 2016.