sustain:if:able kiwi

Vanier Space commisssioning – just a twinkle one year ago

I’m so looking forward to this.

A year ago, chaplaincy was only a twinkle in a few eyes at Uniting College for Leadership and Theology.

Now there’s a Diploma of Ministry with a specialisation in chaplaincy, there are students, there is a new course offering – Theology and Practice of Chaplaincy, it’s available in distance and will be taught as an intensive in November 2014, there is talk of a Masters cohort, there is a hardworking Chaplaincy Co-ordinator – Trevor Whitney.

And there is a dedicated Pastoral Vanier space. It is being commissioned today, Thursday 31 October, 6.15-7pm (below library). It is during the tea break at Presbytery Synod. (The “we” story of how it happened I’ve chatted about before).

Update – Photo of launch, with 50 guests watching 2 students using a hospital bed in the classroom to demonstrate what they’ve learnt about chaplaincy care.

During the launch, the dream was shared by the person who first dreamed it, some 10 years ago. A student spoke of their growth. An interactive prayer of commissioning was prayed. And the room was named – Vanier Space – after a contemporary pastoral theologian who’s integration of practice and theory in radically fresh forms of Christian life inspires us.
The room was named

It’s amazing what can happen in the space of one year.

a feel good moment: preaching a missional Jesus today

I walked into a cafe this evening to find a good friend reading this …

“I’ve got a book chapter in that,” I commented, pointing to Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross: Contemporary Images of the Atonement, edited by Mark Baker.

“I know,” he said in a surprised tone of voice.

“How did it happen? How did you get to be in a book with the likes Brian McLaren and CS Lewis?” he said, his voice still surprised.

How indeed!

When I began at Opawa Baptist, I wanted to help the church gain a deeper and richer understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Every communion Sunday during my first year of ministry, I took a different Biblical image of the cross – family, reconciliation, leader, martyr, new Adam. I preached on the image, and then wrote a communion prayer that connected the image with the thanksgiving prayer for bread and wine. It was a fantastic experience, to work Biblically and liturgically with the church around our shared understandings of communion.

I was also during that time lecturing at Laidlaw College and one day got chatting to a visiting scholar about the sermons I was preaching. He mentioned that he had a colleague, Mark Baker, who was putting together a book of sermons on preaching the cross. It was a followup to Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts, by Joel Green and Mark Baker. People had said great theory, but where’s the practice.

How do you communicate a rich and deep atonement?

And so the authors’, Mark Baker in particular, were looking for sermons on the cross. The connection was made, my sermon was sent.

Some two years later, the book was produced, and I found my sermon – on 2 Corinthians 5:15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again being published, alongside a whole range of other sermons, including ones by CS Lewis, Brian McLaren, Rowan Williams and Frederica Matthewes-Green.

In my sermon I focus on Christ as the New Adam. I use contemporary cultural images from Whale Rider, from treaty signings, from famous individuals on banknotes, to explore how one person might indeed become representative for the many. It’s a book chapter, and a sermon, and a series, I’m still really pleased with.

One of the things I’m looking forward to in 2014 is returning to these questions – I’m doing a second semester course on the Missional Jesus, then repeating it as an intensive at New Life Uniting, Gold Coast, in November 2014. I’m looking forward to returning to my work on the atonement and to trying to explore Jesus with a very specific missional focus – Christ today.

Spiritual Complaint: the theology and practice of lament

A new book just out – Spiritual Complaint, edited by Miriam J. Bier and Tim Bulkeley, in which I’ve got a chapter.

The book begins in human experience, the recognition that personal and communal tragedies provoke intense emotion. It recognises that in Scripture such emotions were given expression in complaints or laments. Bringing together biblical scholars, liturgists and practical theologians, this book begins to provide a bridge between these worlds in order to enrich our ability to respond appropriately to personal and communal tragedy and to understand these responses.

The writing of the book was a move toward genuine collaboration. Papers were presented in a context designed to encourage fertilisation and thus final drafts were encouraged to engage with the other contributors. It was an attempt at bridge building. Further, many of the writers had connections to the Christchurch earthquakes and thus the book becomes grounded in that reality, including liturgies of lament written for Christchurch (167-169).

There are 15 chapters – 8 explore Biblical texts, 2 explore worship practices and 5 explore lament in contemporary cultures – Maori lament, lament poetry of Burmese Karen refugees, lament in digital cultures, lament in pilgrimage through Israel, lament in rock concerts. The last chapter is mine, co-authored with my Old Testament colleague, Liz Boase, in which we explore the live performances of U2 after the Pike River Mining disaster and Paul Kelly after the Black Saturday Bushfire tragedy. We use the Old Testament genre of lament to analyse these performances and argue that culturally lament still happens, just outside the church. Here’s our conclusion (227):

A consideration of both the history of the performers – U2’s past use of songs as memorial or lament works, and Kelly’s frequent use of biblical allusions within his music – alongside the production commentary of the U2 concert, suggests that there was some intentionality in the creation of these lament contexts. In both cases, the lyrical wording and allusions introduced a markedly “Christian” expression of eschatological hope which potentially provided the language through which new beginnings might be made. These public laments may not resemble the typical biblical lament forms, but they do form a vehicle for the communal expression of suffering and grief.

I think it’s an excellent resource, an example of inter-disciplinary research that connects with everyday reality. What it needs is a number of companion volumes, in which the liturgies are tested, pastorally, and in which further voices are added to this particular human experience project.

The e-learning version of a Jesus call story (Luke 5:1-11)

Some recent writing I’m still quite pleased with …

I want to begin by contemporising Luke 5:1-11. While somewhat playful, I intend to make a more serious point as my argument unfolds.

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret the people were crowding around him … checking their facebook status and live tweeting updates as they were … listening to the Word of God.

[Jesus] got into one of the boats … Then he sat down and taught the people … by handing the disciples a Kindle, on which had been loaded core theology texts, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and latest translations of the First Testament ….

Then Jesus said to Simon, Come follow me and … so he gave the disciples their moodle login and automated password. Upon login, they clicked on My courses and discovered they had been enrolled in a core topic – Discipleship. It came complete with course outlines for the next three years and powerpoints of the Sermon on the Mount. Assessment involved the completion of weekly forums, involving contemporary doing theology case studies. One involved a written response to a question asked by a rich young ruler, another an exercise in going ahead of Jesus looking for a donkey.

Plus, a bonus, a set of MP3’s. Titled Parables, they allowed students to be updated on Jesus latest adventures in storytelling.

Jesus had toyed with the idea of offering a MOOCS – Massive Open Online Course. Instead of a focus on the disciples, he had toyed with marketing his Discipleship course to the crowds, aiming for open access and large-scale interactive participation.

Sadly his treasurer had resisted, pointing out that it was better to give to poor than to fund the video lecture style pedagogy and a graphic novel, which, it was argued, would increase student retention of texts from the Apocraphya.

This was an introduction to my paper – Embodiment and Transformation in the context of e-learning – at the recent Teaching and Learning: Theology: The Way Ahead conference in Sydney. While at first glance my e-learning version of a Lukan “call story” might suggest the importance of face to face modes of discipleship, my intention was subversive. By placing the Incarnation as central, it applied me to argue that transforming theology can involve e-learning and online technologies. In other words, an attempt to be theological about transforming theology.

A Clear Call mission and evangelism conference + intensive

Next year, Uniting College are delighted to be partnering with the National Assembly Mission and Evangelism working group – in a conference and intensive on mission and evangelism.

A Clear Call is a national conference engaging in how we share our faith contextually where we each live, love and have our being. It is for everyone who would like to share their faith and would benefit from conversation, information and practical examples. It is for all people: lay people, ordained, teams, young adults, all cultures and the full spectrum of theology of the Uniting Church. It will be be fun, deep, thoughtful, energetic, thought provoking and practical. It will approach faith-sharing from every angle. Speakers, program, registration is here.

The conference is followed by a week long intensive, Evangelism, Conversion and Mission of God. This course is designed to assist participants in forming and developing churches and faith communities in the task of evangelism. Participants will examine the nature of Australian society and its implications for evangelism and the growth of the Church. They will explore understandings of the value of evangelism as integral to the mission and ministry of the church. They will develop skills and practices in implementing local church evangelism. They will explore some of the important issues around evangelism, conversion and the mission of God, including pluralism and postmodernity. Content could include theologies of evangelism and conversion, the Australian context in history, contemporary challenges, models and practices of evangelistic churches, evangelism and special events and resources for evangelism today.

Taught by Olive Fleming Drane and John Drane for Uniting College of Leadership and Theology, they will use creative and inductive approaches, including storytelling, to help participants process and ground learnings for their own mission and ministry.

Course Costs: credit $1600 for Bachelor of Ministry; audit $275 (tbc); $1450 for Master or Doctor of Ministry

Course time/venue: 9-5 pm with an hour for lunch. Possibility of offering two evening rather afternoon sessions as opportunities for wider public engagement.

For more info, talk to Uniting College or register through Adelaide College of Divinity.

I’ll say goodbye

An ecumenical worship service occurs every term on the campus at Adelaide College of Divinity. This term was the last service for the Catholic Theological College, who are being closed down at the end of 2013. (The Uniting College will remain, and as our recent press release notes, will actively continue to give visible expression to an education in ecumenism.) So there was a particular poignancy about the service today.

I was involved in the planning, along with the Principal of Catholic Theological College. A creative spark for us came from Joyce Rupp’s, Praying Our Goodbyes. It’s such a practical book, which offers multiple ways to process grief and say goodbye.

So as part of the service we asked a number of  folk to reflect on two questions

• What blessing do you most want to carry with you as you move on?

• What blessings are you most in need of?

Here’s what I said, with about 10 minutes prep time in between morning appointments, …

I came to this campus 3 and a half years ago. One of the selling points, one of the reasons I moved my family to another country, was the opportunity to teach and work ecumenically.

I’m a Baptist boy, so having Catholics above me, and Anglicans to my right, and Uniting colleagues to surround, would I thought be a very rich and a very growing experience.

So that’s the blessing I most want to carry with me as I move – ecumenical richness.

That moment when I give my Intro the Theology class a set reading. And then casually mention, oh the author of that reading is Denis Edwards. He’s a colleague on campus.

That moment when I pull Derrida’s Bible: (Reading a Page of Scripture with a Little Help from Derrida), brought on special on a trip to the United States, of my book shelf and realise I share the lunch room with the author.

That moment when I speak at the ACD art exhibition, when I worship in a chapel surrounded by art – Anglican, Catholic, Uniting –

The spirituality and art series run by Jo Laffin here on the weekends in my first year.

That’s the blessing, I’ll carry forward, the ecumenical richness. It’s one of the reasons I came, moved country.

What blessings are you most in need of as you continue your journey?

It’s expressed most eloquently in Te Putahi Matauranga Whakapono Katorika, the history of the Catholic Institute of Theology. As a way of helping me process what feels like the great ecumenical divorce that we’re growing through, I brought this book earlier this year. It describes a very similar journey, the NZ experience of the Catholic Institute of Theology, established some 23 years ago, emerging from the enthusiasm of Vatican 2, to embrace the world. Which closed in 2012, due to a range of reasons, including the actions and inactions of Catholic church hierarchies.

On page 114 there is like a short obituary notice – “What had started as a brave and visionary enterprise was hampered by a pre-occupation with the church’s own denominational interests which ran counter to the ecumenical spirit.”

That’s the blessing I’m most in need of. We live in times when it’s so easy to be pre-occupied with the church’s own denominational interests – Baptist and Uniting. Dare I even say Catholic. What I’m most in need of is a brave and visionary Spirit, of a God so much bigger than my own expression of church. That’s the blessing, that’s the God, I most need.

big year out: a unique young adult discipleship experience

Big Year Out is a unique 1-year discipleship program for young adults, either alongside other study or as a gap year experience. It involves interactive study, community sharing and unique missional experiences. In 2014, it is likely to include partnerships with groups in two other states of Australia, making it a genuinely national growth opportunity. For the full brochure, check out the Uniting College website, under the heading Programs.

Plus at Uniting College, we’re looking for a Big Year Out Co-ordinator – 2 days a week. You’ll be passionate about helping young people explore the fullness of the Christian faith, vocation and identity in contemporary life. You’ll find yourself part of a team committed to developing life-long disciples and effective leaders for a healthy missional church.

stoned: memories of mission and ministry

I took this picture of a memorial stone that sits on Hutt Street, a stone in the middle of a park, surrounded by fast moving cars in a busy part of central city Adelaide.

It struck me at the time as a fascinating way to reflect on time and progress. Times have certainly changed since that first mass ever in Adelaide was celebrated. The reality of that moment was fleeting – the celebration of Mass was primarily for those present at that time, at that place, to nurture their faith and discipleship.

And that celebration of Mass has certainly spread since 1840. Now all over Adelaide today, Sunday by Sunday, Christ is proclaimed and embodied.

In the Incarnation, the physicality of God made flesh, Christians are offered two types of embodiment. One, physically, in place. Another, in human lives and actions. Both are invitations to memory.

The picture thus sets up a fascinating contrast between memory embodied in lives and practices, and memory embodied in physical objects. The physicality of memory – whether a stone or a building – becomes contrasted with the ongoing reality of God in our world and our response, of nurturing faith and discipleship.

We’re all being called to trust in that God and to believe that the impulse – to teach, to nurture – will continue no matter what physical context.

research as gospel potential

“Critical qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the gendered observer in the world. It consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible. These practices are forms of critical pedagogy. They transform the world.” (Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies, 5)

Wow. Research that transforms. Now that’s a process, an activity, a culture worth being part of. That’s the goal of our Master and Doctor of Ministry at Uniting College, especially our Missional Masters cohort. Transform the world – beginning with participants and their communities.

Returning to the reading, it cites the work of Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, who provides examples of this type of research that transforms. She lists 25 indigenous research projects. These create, name, democratize, reclaim, protect, remember, restore, and celebrate. In research, these stories are told. They are not utopian for they “map concrete performances that lead to positive social transformations. They embody ways of resisting the process of colonization.” (Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies, 12)

I was thinking about this yesterday as the urban mission vision of Jeremiah was being discussed. Seek the welfare of the city. Marry. Plant gardens. These were the invitation to create, name, restore, celebrate, the power of a minority group, in a dominant culture, to survive. This is what the church is today, a minority group that is invited into a creative, en-culturated relationship with Western consumer culture. Essential to this will be a set of practices.

Let me be practical. On Sunday I was part of making a solar oven. That’s a urban mission vision of an alternative practice of life. To use the oven is a sustainable way to care for the environment. It will mean a different pace of life, as cooking takes longer, so needs to start earlier, and with eating times dictated by the sun. It’s an alternative way of living, in the midst of Western consumerism.

And then comes the research, which will uncover these practices. For example the work of a student I was reading last week, on mainstreet theology. Or the student studying how local church op shops can be missional. Or the student researching how church communities in mining communities read the Zaccheus story.

“Accordingly, the purpose of research is not the production of knowledge per se. Rather, the purposes are pedagogical, political, moral, and ethical, involving the enhancement of moral agency, the production of moral discernment, a commitment to praxis, justice, an ethic of resistance, and a performative pedagogy that resists oppression.” (Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies, 14)

sustainable Sundays

Today we built a solar oven. A few hours at a local community centre, with some cardboard, aluminium foil and glue.

It’s meant to be able to cook pretty much anything, simply using the heat of the sun – casseroles, corn on the cob, potatoes, cup cakes, bread, eggs. It takes a few hours to cook. Which was part of the pleasure and promise, the hint of a different pace of life, a more sustainable Sunday.

It was too wet outside to try but here’s a video of how it’s meant to work. (Although being a vegetarian I’ll be trying something different)

a happening place, a bouncing and imaginative place

Alongside yesterday’s press release, here is another interesting perspective on life at Uniting College, placed online recently by one of my teaching colleagues, Rosemary Dewerse.

Try hanging out at my workplace sometime! It’s a happening place. Lots of people imagining all kinds of things. My students are part of that. Have just marked an assignment where a student was asked to dream of a church that is committed to being intercultural. Damien Tann 🙂 wrote his as a series of emails to an about-to-arrive pastor. I laughed and was impressed by turns. (And it is WEIRD to read oneself being quoted – will take a while to get used to that!) I’ve been warned by another student in that class that she is writing a children’s book…Another student wrote for a unit called ‘Mission Then Mission Now’ a narrative weaving with its strands being an analysis of the early Celtic Christian church, the Uniting Church in Australia today, and a middle strand of the commonalities. Peter Sorensen did an impressive job of comparing and contrasting the big challenges and bold responses of each to their contexts. And you had to read the woven text…Last semester Maxine Moore did an exegesis of her neighbourhood for the unit ‘Reading Cultures’, ready to respond missionally to it by QUILTING it! Very cool. Meanwhile Phil Smith produced a radio documentary of his local patch, pulling out metaphors for analysis that were offered by the local grocer and teenagers. 🙂 And Matthew Barker did a short film. (He’s told me he’s writing a play for his next one – as did Damien for his last!) I’ve already mentioned a postgrad student of mine, Maree Aldridge who is an artist extraordinaire. Actually, I have another artist student working on a piece for his upcoming assignment…I love it when students don’t just stick to the essay option (not that that is a bad one!)

That constant thread of creativity, of honouring the life experiences and gifts that students bring with them into the learning experience. This is not a tabla rusa model of education, in which people are treated as blank slates on which new content will be dumped. Rather there is integration, in which new learnings are being woven back into lives and contexts. In other words, the pre-existing “quilter” is evolving, new quilts are made possible, out of blend of what was, what is and dream of what might be.

For the full post, including a reflection on a “bouncing” and “imaginative” Principal, go here. Rosemary’s blog, with her involvement around Australia and New Zealand, is itself a rich window into a happening, bouncing, imaginative life.

College Introduces New Staff and Modern Topics with 2014 Timetable Release

Adelaide College of Divinity (ACD) has revised and released its brand new 2014 timetable, introducing a range of updated topics with a modern emphasis on learning beyond the class room. The College plans to introduce a full complement of lecturers from seven different denominations to its academic staff and will place emphasis on community and on-line learning with the introduction of a Blended Educational Design Co-ordinator.

ACD was founded in 1979 with the vision of forming students for a world of genuine religious diversity. The desire was to provide an experience of the reality of John 17, Jesus’ vision of a unified Christian body. The diversity of study options within the new 2014 ACD timetable continues to express a strong and continued passion for learning, encompassing diversity, unity and respect.

“We live in a world that desperately needs different religious groups to work cooperatively” says ACD Executive Officer, Janet Buchan. “The new ACD timetable reflects the involvement of lecturers from a variety of denominations – each secure in their heritage, respectful of difference and committed to providing the best theological education, encouraging students to excel in their learning.”

Next year’s ACD lecturers come from at least seven different denominations including Anglican, Baptist, Churches of Christ, Catholic, Salvation Army and Lutheran. This collaboration of denominations fits well alongside the Uniting Church denomination, itself an ecumenical movement formed from Congregationalist, Methodist and Presbyterian denominations in the 1970s.

A focus on ecumenism is present in many areas of the College, including the chapel and the Adelaide Theological Library, which continues to host treasures from a wide range of Christian traditions.

The new timetable has an additional emphasis on learning beyond the four walls of a classroom with three topics being taught as ‘study tours’ throughout the course of the year – an indigenous immersion experience, a missions immersion experience and a trip to the places where Paul walked and worked.

Blended learning will also be introduced in 2014. “Community and inter-connection are very important for learning – both for onsite and distance education students,” comments Uniting College Principal, Steve Taylor. “Technology today allows us to connect students with lecturers and with each other, no matter where people are situated. We are delighted to be employing a Blended Educational Design Officer in 2014. This will allow the College to offer an even more connected learning experience for students, no matter where they live and work around Australia.”

Press release 11 October 2013. For the 2014 timetable go here, or contact the ACD Office, 08 8416 8464.

doing theology: teaching by induction and the flipped classroom

This semester I am experimenting with teaching theology by doing theology rather than by lecturing theology. Class readings and notes are placed online and students are invited to access their content in their own time. Class time is then spent interacting, engaging, doing. (I’ve described how I introduced this to the class here).

Each week I try to offer different ways to engage. Sometimes it is simply discuss the readings in groups, other days I offer some artistic and creative engagement, other days I use the Socratic method and pick on students whom I ask to explain to the class what they’ve read. This week the topic was Jesus. I decided to structure it as a set of challenges, different tasks, with students choosing what they did; how many they did; how long for; whether they did them alone or together.

Here are the challenges –

a) Tradition challenge – Read through some readings of early theological writings (8 readings selected from Alister McGrath, The Christian Theology Reader). They are actual words from theologians wrestling with Who is Jesus? . Make your own written dot point notes of any connections you make between these readings and the class lecture notes (ie page 3 of your notes).

b) History challenge – Consider Jesus morph.

Connect the dates of the Jesus morph with the timeline from an earlier class reading, Ellen Charry, Inquiring After God: Classic and Contemporary Readings). What do you already know about any of these dates, that might help you understand the Jesus Morph? Make dot point notes on the provided timeline.

c) Method challenge – Take the class reading. (Clive Pearson and Jione Havea, Faith in a Hyphen: Cross-Cultural Theologies Down Under). Choose one of the three Christologies (one Samoan, two Korean). Read it, looking for examples of the use of Scripture, tradition, experience, reason. List your examples on the whiteboard.

d) Context challenge – Take a walk outside. Reflect on what, in Australian contexts today, might help you, and your friends, make connections with Jesus the Christ.

e) Moodle challenge – If you have internet access (through your 3G cell phone or ipad), then log onto the class moodle site and complete the exercises there in relation to this lecture.

f) Help desk challenge – Chat with Steve about any questions you have from notes, readings or life.

At around 3:15 pm, we will all gather for any reflection and general learning.

If I had more time (ie next time I teach it), I would try and add in some immediate feedback. I would offer some multi-choice options in relation to the history challenge, I would ask them to see me for a model answer to the method challenge. Nevertheless it was a good start and I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the degree of engagement and energy and the connections being made in our interaction.

I’ve also discovered that this approach, which I had intuitively decided to try, actually has a technical name -“flipped classroom” – and is at the forefront of contemporary learning innovation. I simply thought it was an idea that made sense of basic adult education principles.

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

resourcing mission as fresh expressions

Here is a list of some of the resources I used at Offspring, the inaugural New Zealand Presbyterian gathering around new missional ventures. The gathering over the weekend included four stories, of new missional ventures by New Zealand Presbyterian churches. I was asked to resource the conversation. I chose to do this by telling stories of mission in other times and places, and inviting participants into processes by which they could make links between what was happening in these local mission stories and ways mission has occurred in other times and places. I told stories from the UK (my recent research into fresh expressions 10 years on) and then from global mission history.

My hunch was that stories are a great way of making missiology accessible. And by offering missiology as story it might dignify and frame the local stories being told.  But in case folk think storytelling is not “theological” or “well-researched,” here are some of the behind the scenes resources I drew on.

• The definition of mission

the effort to effect passage across the boundary between faith in Christ and absence

was from the introduction in Stanley Skreslet, Comprehending Mission: The Questions, Methods, Themes, Problems, and prospects of Missiology

• The two Biblical images of mission – the Kees de Koort depiction of the Acts 8 narrative and the Gladzor Gospel depiction of John 4 narrative – were from Stanley H. Skreslet, Picturing Christian Witness: New Testament Images of Disciples in Mission. Another excellent way to access the Gladzor Gospels is The Armenian Gospels of Gladzor: The Life of Christ Illuminated.

• The Tarore story as an expression of missio Dei in New Zealand mission was from Rosemary Dewerse, Nga Kai-rui i te Rongopai: Seven Early Maori Christians, published by Te Hui Amorangi Ki Te Manawa O Te Wheke, Rotorua, 2013.

• The work on the Parihaka story as a fresh expression of community in NZ history is shaped by Te Miringa Hohaia, Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance.

• One way to explore Brendan the Navigator is in David Adams, A Desert in the Ocean: The Spiritual Journey According to St. Brendan the Navigator. The original account of the voyage of Brendan is here.

• One way to explore the place of the ancient and historic in fresh expressions is the Sanctus: fresh expressions of church in the sacramental tradition DVD (from here).

I’m hoping to find some time to write up my reflections on the mission themes I saw emerging in these four stories of innovation in mission and New Zealand and the parallels I saw them and between Luke 10:1-12.  But first, the day job!