sustain:if:able kiwi

a significant national encouragement

I spend Friday in Sydney, at the inaugural Learning and Teaching Theology: The Way Ahead conference. Hosted by Sydney College of Divinity, it is a follow up to the recently completed Transforming Theology project, which tested the claims of Australian theological colleges that they provided a transformative learning experience.

It attracted about 80 people, from theological colleges all around Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia. It was great to be at a conference discussing not what we teach, but how we teach, and thus to find common ground across disciplines.  I was there to give a paper – Embodiment and transformation in the context of e-learning. I had also been invited to be on a plenary panel of four, on the place of integration in theological education. I was also to be, quite unexpectedly, encouraged.

The opening address was by Dr Les Ball. His book Transforming Theology (Mosaic Resources, 2012) documents the recent research into the Australian theology sector. His conclusion is that the claims, by theological colleges, of offering transformation in education, were much ahead of the reality, based on student experience and analysis of curriculum. Despite all the social changes of the last 35 years, theological colleges remain remarkably uniform and remarkably unchanged.

During question time, he was asked if he had come across any signs of hope. He gave two examples. A new topic introduced at ACU called Community Engagement, in which all students have to participate in a community project.

And us! From Adelaide! The new Bmin at ACD taught by Uniting College. In Ball’s book, Transforming Theology, we get three mentions

• Our philosophy of practical ministry preparation and engagement. “The teaching faculty have been strategically appointed to promote such a commitment.” (page 104)
• The use of personal preliminary interviews. “This is not a case of granting credit for prior learning and thus shortening the course, but rather it is a matter of course planning to connect with actual experience, either past or projected.” (I wonder if he’s talking about our candidate Formation panel processes and our Bmin practice stream), (page 110)
• the way we have altered radically our disciplines to reflect our developmental educational philosophy, in contrast to traditional departments of OT, NT, Theology, Church history … “a complete rethinking of the nature, the structure and the progression of content, skills, and formative elements, to facilitate a development in students.” (page 146-7)

It was a very encouraging moment, to hear our degree being affirmed, publicly, in front of 80 people from theological colleges around Australia. At the same time, it gave pause for ongoing reflection on where we, as Faculty, put our energies and focus.

Bachelor of Ministry – Promotional Video from Craig Mitchell on Vimeo.

Christianity and the University experience

Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith, by Matthew Guest, Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Rob Warner, is a just released, and totally fascinating, insight into the student experience of university. It looks at the context of the university as a site for religious expression.

It is based on a three year project. It attempts a snapshot of Christian students studying, and asks about their beliefs and practices. It also looks at how they interact with their environment. The research involved over 4,500 students, spread across 13 universities. It was then followed up by more indepth interviews, totalling 100, so that individuals tell stories in their own words. These include students, church leaders, chaplains and university managers.

“The lived reality of contemporary Christianity … is under-researched and commonly misunderstood.” (9)

The result is fascinating. The university is not a context that undermines faith. Rather it presents challenges, that are also opportunities. As often as not, these empower, rather than disillusion students. “The majority of students view university as having had a benign influence on their religious identity.” (8)

More to follow in coming days … In the meantime, what was your University experience like? Did it undermine your faith? Or did it empower it?

spiritualities of magic: theological film review of Now You See Me

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 85 plus films later, here is the review for September, of Now you see me and the place of magic in culture today.

Now you see
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

Recent years have given us a thrilling world of wands, spells and castles. Think Harry Potter (and here), Snow White and the Huntsman, Alice in Wonderland and The Hobbit. All movies recently reviewed in Touchstone, all sprinkling our imagination with fairy dust. Movies seem ideally able to usher in the worlds of once upon a time make believe.

A friend recently told of encountering a six year old, who confided a belief in make believe. Followed by the shocking statement. Adults kill fairies.

The six year old had realised, painfully, that grown up logic would inevitably challenge the childlike world of once upon a time. Adult rationality was hard to work breaking the wands of childhood.

Which is certainly true of a second strand in the magic movie genre. A number of recent movies have sought to expose the magic of the magician. Sherlock Holmes uncovers the dark arts of Moriarty. The Illusionist showcases a magician using his craft to secure love above his station. Prestige pits magician against magician. Each focuses not only on magic, but on the magician, on this worldly pursuits in which logic and rationality triumph over make believe. For truth is surely explainable.

Which brings us to Now You See It. Directed by Louis Leterrier, like many a magic show, the plot relies on multiple suspensions of belief. Partial redemption comes through the lights of Hollywood, an A-list cast that includes Jesse Eisenberg as J Daniel Atlas, Woody Harrelson as Merritt McKinney, Morgan Freeman as Thaddeus Bradley and Michael Caine Arthur Tressler.

Now You See It straddles both magic and magician. We meet the fabled “Eye”, a mysterious collective of elite power, into which four struggling magicians, including J Daniel Atlas and Merritt McKinney, are mysteriously gathered. As the fame of the four grows, they begin to shower their audiences with money.

First, bank notes, robbed from a French Bank. Second, audience bank accounts, magically enhanced by routing dollars from a spendthrift insurance company. Third, the fortune of an investment company.

First, bank notes rain down, robbed from a French Bank. Second, audience bank accounts are magically enhanced by routing dollars from a spendthrift insurance company. Third, the fortune of an investment company, disappears as if by magic, from a guarded vault.

Is their magic real? Or is it simply a modern rehash of an ancient two card trick hiding a “truth is harsher than magic” world of crime?

It remains a challenge to the religious among us. How might one maintain a faith in angels and demons, miracles and resurrection, in a world with no Santa, wizard or wand?

For many, the six year old included, Christianity stands as yet another brand of fairy killer. We have found ourselves trading in a faith so rational that imagination has lost its magic and saints their sparkle.

The Christian tradition is no stranger to magic and magicians. In Acts 8, Philip performs miracles, which attract the attention of a local magician. Much like The Illusionist or Prestige, the complex motives by which power is sought and brought are sifted, if not spent.

Philip will have none of it. He walks a complex line, convinced that miracles are neither make believe nor for sale.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Principal at the Uniting College for Leadership and Theology, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

Offspring – new missional ventures in New Zealand

Just off the phone from the conference organisers of Offspring. It is a New Zealand Presbyterian initiative, a weekend (Friday 4 – Sunday 6 October 2013) resourcing those in new missional ventures. It will involve sharing stories, learn, reflect, worship, pray together, good food and good company. They had hoped for 40, and are delighted with around 75, most of whom are either trying something, or dreaming. The aim is to share passion, ideas and imagination for the Church and build leadership.

My role is to animate the weekend with some input among four stories of new ventures in New Zealand, workshops, interaction and worship. My input might include (subject to change as the weekend proceeds)

Sustainability in fresh expressions – I will offer my UK research, on sustainability in new forms of church in the UK, and the ways in which the church inherited (Fresh Expressions) has partnered with new ventures on the edge.

Fresh expressions in New Zealand history – I will share some stories from New Zealand mission history. Likely stories include the missio Dei of Tarore, the radical healing stories around the Kaiapoia Pa, the use of Scripture at Parihaka, the urban mission movements around James K Baxter. Then we might use some Australian indigenous storytelling techniques to explore what these stories might teach us for today.

What I’m hearing – an interactive session in which I reflect on the theological, ecclesiological and missional learnings in the four new missional venture stories being told at the weekend.

Where we’re going – a final session in which I’m likely to weave Brendan the Navigator, Luke 10 and the soundbites from the weekend together.

It will be great to be on home soil, albiet only for a weekend, resourcing God’s mission.

book launch prayer

This is the prayer I wrote for the launch of Rosemary Dewerse’s book, Breaking Calabashes, Becoming an intercultural community.

Go, little, lucid, book
filled with dreams
and wherever you go
may you birth more dreams

God
You who break calabashes in the person of Jesus
Be with your author,
your publisher
your readers
and all those who are touched by your intercultural vision of community
In the name of the intercultural Christ, through the Breath of the inter-cultural Spirit, Amen.

promoting practical and scholarly excellence: kicking 3 quick goals

At Uniting College, one of our 5 strategic signposts is promoting practical and scholarly excellence. We’re seeking a spiral of heart, head and hand.

So tomorrow we celebrate a book launch. Our missiologist, Dr Rosemary Dewerse launches Breaking Calabashes, Becoming an intercultural community. It takes her PhD, so it’s scholarly. In 140 pages, it applies it to local Christian living. So it’s practical – readable, woven with stories, poetry, questions and pictures. It’s a compelling mix of Biblical reflection, theological depth and compassionate vision. If you’re in Adelaide, join the party at 4:45 pm tomorrow, 34 Lipsett Tce.

Last week was the news that Dr Liz Boase earned a Gold Award at the Australian Religious Press Association for Best Theological Article for her writing in New Times. Mixing personal story with her PhD work on lament, here’s the commendation. “A thoughtful and reflective piece, well researched on the psalms and prayer. A much needed call to recover the literature and practice of lament in communal worship and private devotions … Its clarity and simplicity makes this article immediately accessible to a broader audience.” Scholarship, made practical. (To read the article – Learning in Lament – go here and scroll down to October 2012).

Today, I heard that my paper at the U2: TRANS conference has been accepted for publication, in a book in which academics will produce something readable by the non-expert, though college-educated, reader. Again, scholarship – analysis of performance gestures and lyrical adaptations – made practical.

Practical and scholarly excellence. Not either/or but both/and. Three quick goals from our Faculty team at Uniting College.

praying our goodbyes: a book soaked in memories

Some books are soaked in memories. I pulled Joyce Rupp’s Praying Our Goodbyes off the book shelf yesterday. It offers a range of ways to grieve. This includes a selection of rituals for different situations that life deals us – terminating a relationship, feeling betrayed, farewell, living with constant pain. And for each, some Scripture, some prayer, some action.

The book has been so well used that as I opened it the pages fell out. I held them, remembering the times I’d used it – our struggles with infertility, twice in 9 months being turned down for a job I thought would be ideal, the pastoral transition away from a loved church family, some difficult work situations. And how different those situations seem now, 5 and 10 years later. Felt the pain, still. Yet realised, almost laughed in delight, at the different trajectories now in play.

And reflecting on the truthfulness of these words from Joyce

for the Christian, hello always follows goodbye in some form if we allow it. There is, or can be, new life, although it will be different from the life we knew before. The resurrection of Jesus and the promises of God are too strong to have it any other way. (Joyce Rupp Praying Our Goodbyes, 15)

transmission of faith: by colour, via culture, in Christ

My copy of The Armenian Gospels of Gladzor: The Life of Christ Illuminated arrived today. 60 colour plates, presented by the J Paul Getty Musuem to celebrate the Christian church in Armenia, featuring the Gladzor Gospels, illuminations produced by Armenian monks in around 1300.

Gorgeous in colour they describe a faith that crosses culture – from Jerusalam to the sands of Armenia, that takes root in indigenous cultures, in this case Armenian, that is fabulous in colour, calling forth a visual awareness of Christ. This is how I understand fresh expressions – faith transmitted by creativity, via culture, in Christ.

“The Gladzor manuscript is a most eloquent and very self-consciously formulated Armenian life of Christ.” p. 31

There is a strong emphasis on Christ the healer. One-sixth of the illuminations of the Gladzor Gospels focus on healing stories. This is compared for example with Giotto, who has only one panel in 38 dedicated to Christ the healer, or many other artists who focus on Christ in infancy or passion.

“This Christ is a very personal, caring savior: he is directly involved with other people, sensitive to their problems, and in touch with their even on a physical level.” p. 32

More on Christ tomorrow, as we explore the interplay between human and divine.

Dad’s death and Christian approaches to suffering

Thursday was my first time back leading the Uniting College team meeting since Dad’s funeral. I decided to share some of what I’ve been thinking and feeling and reading since his death. This had a number of potential dangers. First, the risk of being simply self-therapy. Second, that others in the team have also recently suffered loss, so an uncertainty how my story might connect with their story. At the same time, this is the team that have supported me in prayer and love (cards and calls and care, including gathering to lit a candle as prayer on the day I flew to New Zealand) and a team what is seeking to grow deeper with each other in all of life.

I began by sharing a number of photos that might help capture for the team some of my experience of the funeral. It is wierd when you bury your Dad in a different country, and so I live between two worlds, one of which does not know my dad, nor was able to be with me as the funeral happened.

First, my mums fingers around dad’s ring has he died. That sense of faithful love over so many years.

Second, building our own coffin for Dad, some building, some drilling, some decorating.

Third, the invitation at the funeral to sign the coffin, allowing individual engagement with the reality of Dad’s death.

And then some theological reflection. A few words from a poem, on the importance of pain in the forming of faith

“We must feel
The pulse in the wound
To believe.” Denise Levertov, On belief in the Physical Resurrection of Jesus.

And some words from Justin of Norwich, in which pain and suffering are asked for, as a way of loving God. It is a spirituality so counter to so much of contemporary Western culture, in which we are so keen to live young endlessly.

“And it suddenly occurred to me that I should entreat our Lord graciously to give me the second wound [ ], so that he would fill my whole body with remembrance of the feeling of his blessed Passion, as I had prayed before; for I wanted his pains to be my pains, with compassion, and then longing for God … I want to suffer with him, while living in my mortal body, as God would give me grace.” (Julian of Norwich, RDL, 3)

It led to a rich discussion, a story about the richness for a community when suffering was faced, tears for those we love who continue to suffer, a reminder of the positive impact of suffering on our character formation.

(Both readings from the chapter on Julian Norwich in Disability in the Christian Tradition: A Reader)

Dad’s death as a wheel-chair shaped hole

(A warning to regular readers, since this is my blog, I’m going to continue to process some of my Dad’s recent death on the blog. I guess it runs the risk of being too personal, but as a practical theologian, I’m committed to taking that risk, and finding my life a sifting ground for reflection on the fingerprints of God.)

I’m continuing to reflect on the physicality of Dad’s absence. His death leaves a very interestingly shaped hole, one that is wheel-chair shaped. 

Dad had multiple sclerosis and thus spent his last ten years wheelchair bound. This reality, the shape of his disability, had a physical impact upon our family life.  The reality of that wheelchair meant a physical altering of how our family gathered and related.

The lack of mobility mean that Dad was a physical central point which we moved toward, around which we as a family gathered, around which our social life defined itself.  It is strange, bewildering, to realise we’ve lost a wheel-chair shaped central point.

There are of course, other spatial ways for groups to gather. The Christian tradition often uses notions of pilgrimage, of always moving together toward a distant horizon.Walking a beach offers tidal images, the slow back and forth rhythm of waves. Maori culture gives us the image of Koru, of growth unfolding outwards from a centre. All of these offer quite different ways to visualize gathering. Each result in quite different patterns of living.

Thus the death of Dad is not only of a person, but of a pattern of gathering as a family.

What was intriguing about us as a family making Dad’s coffin was that it was actually giving us a different pattern of gathering – the garage rather than the lounge, working side by side rather than talking face to face, small groups playing different roles at different times.

Being a missiologist, I can’t help linking this with the church in mission. Much of church life in Western Christianity has  a central gathering pattern – we go to church rather than move on pilgrimage or unfold outward as church in the world. So my grief is perhaps at some level what the church in the West is living with on a daily basis.

And what might it mean for the church to embrace different patterns of gathering – around projects, in shared tasks, seeking participation and new charisms.

Spatially, Dad’s hole is not just central, it is also wheelchair shaped. His disability is central to his parting. To help me process this, I’m back reading Disability in the Christian Tradition: A Reader by Brian Brock and John Swinton.

It looks at how various thinkers through Christian history have responded to disability. I suspect that somewhere in there will be important insights for me, about how God’s redemption embraces the physicality of the human body, about how the disability of Jesus (beaten beyond recognition, wounded side, nail-scarred hands) are part of God’s gracious pattern in the world.

telling a story one year on

Today I’m planting seeds. First, early morning, in my garden, Van Gogh sunflowers, Wild Sweetie micro tomatoes, heirloom carrots and provencal salad mix. Second, later today, I’m hosting a one year on anniversary.

This is the invite I sent out (planted?) a few weeks ago …

Greetings,

A year ago, you gave us at Uniting College a gift.

You participated with us in a Capacity Builders process, giving your input, ideas and perspectives, as we at Uniting College worked toward a four year Strategic Planning process.

One year on, we want to report back.

On Tuesday, September 10, between 4:15-5:15 pm, in Uniting College Common Space, 34 Lipsett Tce, we want to thank and update you,

to share with you,

• the result – including the new tag line, sharpened mission statement, signposts, and 2014 objectives
• the home truths – some feedback we found hard to hear, but essential as we looked into the feedback mirror
• the road not travelled – some moments of learning, about ourselves and our mission, emerging from our 2013 objectives
• the road travelled – some highlights of God’s goodness in the last 12 months

There will be wine, cheese, stories and information, so for catering purposes, can you please RSVP to eloise dot scherer at flinders dot edu dot au.

It was in September a year ago that we as a theological College began a strategic planning process. While the idea of strategic planning in a theological college has a number of potential pitfalls, for us its been a breath of fresh air, providing clarity and allowing a depth of listening and community and team.

Today we’ll share some of that, and some of the stories of fresh life (planted seeds) that have sprouted among us.

Update: Feedback was very positive. We began with wine and cheese, which gave a relaxed, after work type of feel.

I then talked about the results, the feedback and the process. At various times I offered ways to engage. One idea that went really well, was giving out 5 hot dots to each person and asking them to vote on what they thought our 2014 goals should be. The goals had been placed up around the walls. I ran through them and then (3 days after the election here in Australia) people got to to vote (again), wandered around with the dots, choosing. It has been great for us as a team to have this outside input into what we as a team had initially thought was important.

Finally I finished with four highlights of the 2013 gone

• our first ever candidate indigenous immersion experience (see here and here)
• a just announced Gold award for “Best Theological Article” from the Australasian Religious Press Association for one of our lecturers
• our growth in the use of online learning, in both our under-graduate and post-graduate courses
• regional delivery, allowing us to engage many more lay people in our BMin

All in all, One Year On worked really well – an informal way for us to enjoy ourselves, while maintaining connections, giving and receiving feedback and telling stories

pioneers in contexts organisational and cultural

There are three key contributors to entrepreneurial success. They are personality, the culture of the country they live in and the support available to them. (From here)

Worth pondering. It suggests that pioneering talk needs to occur in context – to consider the culture and the organisation.

Regarding personality, the article notes that there is no such thing as an “entrepreneurial personality.” Indeed, there are great variances in psychological makeup of entrepreneurs. This is good news and certainly important given the common stereotypes that hang around the word leader and innovator.

However, pioneers do tend to have some shared characteristics

• an enjoyment of achievement
• take personal responsibility
• exist with higher levels of tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty
• look for risks
• see failure as an opportunity for learning

Regarding culture, this is really interesting. I find it intriguing the rise in recent literature in business circles around social entrepreneurship and the rise of the word pioneer in church circles. Our Western culture prizes novelty and so the word pioneer finds coherence. However, down-under cultures add complexity to the word pioneer. In New Zealand, we quickly stomp on tall poppies. In Australia, pioneers died in the desert. They also tended to be male, playing into an outdoor, rather than domestic spirituality. (I’ve written more about this here). So downunder, these layers make pioneering a more complex cultural image to play with.

Regarding support, well for those of us in the Uniting Church who talk about innovation, have a read of this

My vocation carries a cost with it, a cost I am – to a certain extent – willing to pay. But paying that price may cost me more than I can afford … I am left wondering, then, what choices I now have available to me. Can I learn new ways to live within my limited resources that are life-giving and sustainable? Must I choose an occupation that takes me away from a calling that has this year been so profoundly affirmed, in order to extend my financial resources and remove the strain? Are there avenues for support I have not yet explored?

And will my community, the church, be brave and explore these questions with me? For the reality I face, of a limited income and / or multiple occupations, will face more and more ordained and lay ministers called to serve a church with fewer and fewer full time placements available. (From here)

Sarah refuses to accept that creativity and innovation are individual. Rightly (IMHO) and especially for a Uniting church that claims to be inter-connectional, she asks about the place of the organisation in supporting and sustaining innovation.

I sat with someone recently who noted that their church was looking for a 2nd minster who could pioneer something new that in time will pay for their salary. I quietly pointed out that I long for day when that the sustainability of salary applied to the first minister as equally as the incoming pioneering minister.

In sum, only part of pioneering is about the pioneer. They always need to be seen in context – both their cultural and organisational

being church in mission on election day

A few weeks ago, a local Australian pastor asked my advice. He’d heard a rumour that I might be creative and outward looking. So, he asked, “how can we as a church maximise the fact our buildings will be used on election day as a polling booth?”

“Give the money away,” I replied, knowing that many Australian churches offer a barbeque to folk lining up to vote and that many charge a gold coin for the sausage and sauce.

In fact I said, warming to my new role of creative mission advisor, “Why not choose 3 local charities. And have your own vote. Invite everyone to whom you sell a sausage to choose what charity they most want to support locally. That’s a very different way of being church. Participating in mission by serving the community.”

He looked slightly crestfallen, so I asked how much they earned last election. Around $700 he said.

“That’s around $200 a year. If you keep the money, you simply reinforce the message that all the church cares about is itself, it’s own concerns and agendas. If you give it away, you’re inviting your local community to participate with you in mission.

“That’s a very different economic policy,” I concluded.

I’m looking forward to meeting post-election and seeing how the vote for mission might have played out in that local church

Eulogy for John Cuthbert Taylor

My task, my privilege, on behalf of the family is to reflect on John Cuthbert Taylor – as husband, dad, father-in-law, granddad.

For the three Taylor sons, our childhood is defined by Dad and our Dad is defined by PNG.

Holidays using coconut palm leaves as a toboggan to fly into Lake Murray,
the family fondue and games nights – playing Careers,
the three hour church services in Gogodala,
the standards of behaviour expected at the three hour church services from the three sons of the foreign missionary.

All of us as sons were raised in PNG and it’s only in hindsight that one can begin to appreciate the way it shaped us. The values it instilled across cultures. And the costs, for Dad and for us.

For the grandchildren, Grandad meant Wethers Original lollies from his special tin. His smile of welcome. His genuine interest in their lives. And wheel chair rides.

For Mum, Cuth Taylor meant 53 years of companionship. A shared sense of call. Mutual support. In health, and more recently, in sickness

I still remember the phone call from Dad with the news that he’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I remember him struggling emotionally to share the news of this disease that was attacking his nervous system. For which there is no known cure. (As yet)

Dad was in his late 50s when he was diagnosed. It would’ve been easy to respond with anger, self-absorbed bitterness. Instead I watched as Dad used those years to grow. To find new ways to contribute – through prayer, in care. I’ve watched him go through the Opawa Baptist church phone directory, person by person. Realising that he was keeping better track of newcomers than most people in the church.

Not that dad was perfect. He could withdraw from conflict. He could hide his emotions. He could work too hard. Not that anyone’s perfect.

Last year for Fathers Day I gave dad a memory book. A series of questions – favourite childhood holiday, his first job – that might help capture his memories before they became lost in the confusion that is Alzheimers.

One question asks – What are the proudest moments of your life. Dad wrote of his first century in cricket. Getting married – to you Mum. Birth of his sons – Chris, Dave and even me. And how he coped with MS.

At first glance it’s an unusual thing to be proud of. But this is what he wrote:

“God’s goodness to me and my growth in Him since my MS was diagnosed. I used to .. ask God why he allowed old people to get sick. But I now know the answer – are we still prepared to trust God even when we are sick. Yes I am!!”

John Cuthbert Taylor – husband, dad, father-in-law, granddad. Remembered by us, admired by us, loved by us – for his character.