sustain:if:able kiwi

exclusive brethren

Update: For a political comment on the Election Pamphlet funding by Exclusive Brethren business leaders, go here.

Following the TV3 programme onThursday evening regarding the Exclusive Brethren, I’ve had a number of internet visitors to this post. I was stunned recently to discover that the Exclusive Brethren have a website. I was amazing at the irony of a group that professed to ignore technology seeming to have produced an information website about themselves.

Other web resources on the Exclusive Brethren include the following; an evaluation (and warning) of their cult status here (scroll down to “E”). There’s an overview of the group on the BBC website. There’s a Listener review of the just released; Behind Closed Doors: A startling story of Exclusive Brethren life by Ngaire Thomas. And New Zealand sociologist, Alan Jamieson provides another review of the same book here.

As we talk, let’s remember that this is not only about religion, it’s also about people. I talked to someone this morning, who recounted the pain of her being excluded from the Brethren, barred from her mother’s funeral, and the damage it did to her faith and that of her husband. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata — it is people, it is people, it is people.

i kid you not

The exclusive brethren have their own website. It looks like a serious attempt to correct public misconceptions. They tell us that …

Virtually all marriages among the Brethren endure for a lifetime.
Over 95% of all Brethren Families own their own homes.
There is practically no unemployment among the Brethren.

I was using them in my being Kiwi, being Christian class as an example of extreme cultural withdrawal. But then to discover they have a website!

Wonder who built it? Wonder if they use technorati to keep track of referrals? Wonder if they’ll drop by to say hi?

Update: For a political comment on the Election Pamphlet funding by Exclusive Brethren business leaders, go here.

Biblical leadership

Further to my post on APEPT, let me quote Clarke…

“church life in each of these communities [eg, Corinth, Romans, Phillipi, Thessalonians, Galatians, Philemon] varied considerably. As social groups, these churches did not fit neatly into a uniform, theological schema of Paul. It is also clear that each of these social groups was also part of the broader society in which the early Christians lived. They were, accordingly, influenced by the patterns of leadership which prevailed around them.” Clarke, Serving the community of God, p. 207.

“Although the early Christians had a range of models of leadership or community organization available for them either to adopt or adapt, it becomes plain that Paul associates himself with none of these. Instead, his perception of the nature of leadership within the Christian church derives from his understanding of the unique nature of the Christian church, and the basis on which that community is founded.” Clarke, Serving the community of God, p. 209.

My point is simply this ; APEPT is one of many New Testament ways of leading. And so I ponder; Why are we taking Ephesians on leadership and not say Thessalonians on leadership … lead a quiet life … work with your hands or Phillipians on leadership … live as citizens? Perhaps we are reading the Biblical text rather than letting the Biblical text fully read our leadering?

mission and church DNA

An invitation to a conversation about mission and church…

Part 1 – Wed July 13th 6-9pm for church leaders and pastors
Part 2 – Thurs July 14th 9-11am for pastors

Venue: Opawa Baptist Church, Christchurch. RSVP in comments below. For more detail download file

evangelism by encouragement

I’ve been appreciating Barnabas as a interesting model of mission over the last week; he’s known as an encourager; he’s also a ministry resourcer (linking a young leader, Paul with a changing church) and around Barnabbas’s ministry comes a clearer identity (“called Christians”).

And through this “many turned to the Lord.” Now, to be honest, evangelists I meet leave me feeling condemned and beaten up, guilty within their black and white words and worlds. Yet here is Barnabas, a fascinating model of evangelism by encouragement and ministry resourcing and clarifying identity.

So we took time as a staff team over coffee this week to name what was encouraging us about the church in general, and about each other specifically. And having, like Barnabbas, been encouraging, we relaxed to let God take care of the growth of the church.

the wanton pleasure of idle wondering

I fly to Auckland for the day tomorrow (Saturday), catching a 6:30 am flight, returning at 8:30 pm. I am part of the Virtual Theology Colloquium 2005;

Purpose: to gather a group of Trans-Tasman scholars to explore and discuss themes related to doing theology in the context of an electronic world: the implications for these disciplines of the cultural and epistemological changes being brought by electronic media (hypertext, digital technologies, electronic publishing, mobile telephony and the internet) and their cultural formations and applications.

I have titled my paper – P2P theology: the potential of everyday practices, as enscribed in virtual internet communities

I am presenting some research analysing attempts at community on the internet, specifically open source theology, blogs and grid blogs, assessing their potential in enabling a P2P theology. In so doing I am arguing that theology today is best viewed not in terms of historical beliefs, but in everyday practices.

Part of this week has been in preparation, and it has reminded me again of how much I enjoy research. So much of my life has an essential praxis; a preparing to preach or teach or write or speak at a seminar. While invariably much of my research does end up as praxis, there is something profoundly re-creative – excessive, wanton even – about taking time to follow the research muse and chase down questions for the sheer sake of idle wondering.

John made jams and loved his family. The cell phone rang this morning at 6 am and I learnt that John had lost the 4th and final round of his battle with leukemia.

Sitting by a death bed this Christmas has added many layers to my Christmas reflection – Emmanuel, God with us, in both pain and party – God, taking the degenerative frailty of human flesh.

If you have time, please say a prayer for John’s family.

place, spirituality and mission

Dis-place-ment and participation in the Other as Trinitarian mission: A contemporary Pakeha theological reflection on the foreshore and seabed issue

Just sent an article, 6,000 words, to a journal, hoping for publication. The title sounds a bit of a mouthful, but a part of my gift-mix is the ability to think. For me its part of loving God with all of my mind, as well as creativity and work-ethic.

I spoke on this issue – the foreshore as an indigenous theological response at Kingdom Builders in Auckland in September. I got such a good response, I shaped it up for a journal. It’s been killing me for the last week. Big thanks to greenflame and beyond flatland, who chimed in with some excellent comments, and kelli, for an edit.

(And before you ask, no it isn’t a web journal, so no it won’t be up on the www. So go on. Start a revolution. Get luddite. Buy a paper journal!)

Christian moralising

I’m stuck and I need some help. Last night I spoke to about 30 young people aged 8-18, most non-Christians. It was a “God-spot” at the local youth drop-in. I had 5 minutes. It went well, but I came away feeling stuck within my own communication.

Since I was asked to do a God-spot, I used that as my jumping off point. I asked where the God-spot was. Well, apparently a God-spot was not the paint spot on the floor, but me talking about God.

I told them about the ancient Celts who used to create “God-spots” for their protection. I laid out a circle of white stones on the floor

(more…)

trinity and mission

A while ago maggi posted on the Trinity and worship. All the recent talk about missional Church reminds me that the Trinity and worship risks remains self-indulgent without the Trinity and mission.

At the heart of the Trinity is three persons – Father, Son and Spirit – in the giving of love. Love is shared between persons, in an unlimited, ever-spiraling flow of love. The church fathers used to call this perichoresis – the divine dance of love. It is a beautiful metaphor; fluid, whole-bodied, dynamic.

What makes this missional is that this dynamic, fluid, flowing love is shared with the world, in creation, in Christ, and in the activity of the Spirit. This flow of love refuses to remain self-centred.

When God breathes breath into humanity, created in the image of God, we see the relational love of the Trinity shared. Love is never self-indulgent. In Christ, the relational love of the Trinity is shared. The sharing is so radical, so complete, so life-giving, that one person of the Trinity will die for the Other. The affirmation that the Spirit is in our world reminds us that love is always calling us, always inviting us out of our circles, out of our understandings of community, out of our walls and set practices. In this sense the Trinity is missional,

Further, the Trinity offers us unity and diversity, one love shared between three distinct persons. This also guides our mission. The missional church will be an expression of the shared love of God. Equally the missional church will be locally distinctive, a unique, grounded expression of the God-head.

Thus talk about church and mission needs to be grounded in our understandings of God as Trinity. A “missional church” is not new, but a recovering of very ancient understandings, in which we live, we create, we emerge, as an outflow of the shared love of God. We seek to express fluid, whole-boided, dynamic love. We honour the unity with other expressions of church, we applaud diversity, we celebrate uniquely grounded differences.

walking through a minefield

U2 have released the title for their new album; How to dismantle an atomic bomb.

On the other hand, Christian weaver of metaphor, Len Sweet, is speaking of time bomb scriptures: God has some time-bomb scriptures that go off at certain times. Romans and Pauline literature, for example, exploded during the Reformation and its effect was felt for hundreds of years. From here

Don’t we have enough violence in our world today, without co-opting the said words of wisdom and words of Jesus? If the words of the prophet expect us to dismantle swords, does that mean we should dismantle and defuse Scriptural incendiary devices? Does not the raw terror of our times require us to seek different images?

I’m in the U2 corner on this one.

pondering terror

if there was no media, would there be events like Beslan?

does terrorism not rely on the spreading of a message of terror. if there was no media, no CNN, then is terror not decreased as an instrument of effectiveness?

to do something, go here.

stories, stories and their educative value

I love stories. But 3 times in the last week I have wondered; do they help or hinder?

I am in class and someone asks me for an example. I am writing a book and I am told to provide more stories to demonstrate some ideas. So, I start to talk, to write, about a story from my experience.

And I pause…
does the use of story make me into an expert?
does the use of story make me seem more together than I am?
does the use of a story reduce people’s own ability to be creative?

I want to open up horizons, free people to be who God wants them to be. What is the place of personal story in teaching?

a burger at my theological table

I am teaching a course this semester called Gospel in a post-christian society. I really enjoy it, sitting with a group of people, looking at contemporary Western culture as a mission field.

I have taught this course 3 times now, and in 3 different ways.

1 – History of ideas: a look over time, a survey with nods to Descartes, Humes, Pascal, Wittengstein, etc.

2 – Philosophy: a look at key thinkers, usually postmodern thinkers, Derrida, Nancy, etc.

3 – Socio-cultural: a look at McDonalds and e-culture and movies.

So yesterday I brought a hamburger into class and we began to explore our culture. In a world in which processes of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control are driving forces, what does this mean for the way we are human and the way we do church? All of a sudden, the nature of gospel becomes a whole bigger. All of a sudden, mission is more than saving souls, but becomes a deep analysis of what it might mean to be counter-cultural.

As I said, I love the course and the stimulation.