Monday, October 02, 2023

Keeping faith in divine service at AngelWings Ltd

holding Keeping Faith book 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).

Posted by steve at 01:39 PM

Thursday, September 28, 2023

rummaging in the research stash

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

brightly coloured objects

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?

Posted by steve at 09:38 AM

Monday, July 24, 2023

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.

Posted by steve at 09:21 AM

Sunday, July 02, 2023

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.

research tools like highlighter, pen, journal

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.

Posted by steve at 04:25 PM

Friday, June 09, 2023

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.

Aware of constant change, the Mission and Leadership Development Board has commissioned a Missional Review of Needs and Opportunities. The review seeks to clarify missional priorities, develop creative options and to identify threats, and is being undertaken by AngelWings Ltd, a New Zealand organisation. The three researchers – Steve Taylor, Lynne Taylor and Kayli Taylor – bring different professional skills to the mix.

They also share experience having lived in Adelaide and been among the Uniting Church in South Australia between 2010 and 2015. One special family memory was watching Narrandjerri elder Uncle Tom Trevorrow dig into the sand at the Murray Mouth. The water Uncle Tom offered was fresh, not salted. It was a powerful experience of how water exists in surprising places.

Those serving in Christian ministry today face shifting pressures and new opportunities in offering Christ’s Living Waters (John 4). The global pandemic has opened new channels for connection yet generated increased pressures on local communities seeking to nurture faith and express God’s love.

Over thirteen weeks between May and July, the review will seek to understand these needs and opportunities. There will be many different ways to engage:

  • Lunchtime conversations during the Synod meeting, 22nd-24th June
  • Listening through focus groups with Presbyteries and Synod
  • 1:1 conversations with existing Mission Resourcing staff
  • Investigating new approaches to mission resourcing beyond South Australia
  • A Synod-wide online survey of missional needs
  • An online survey of how Ministers stay up-to-date in mission thinking
  • A snapshot of resourcing being currently promoted in local congregations.

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.

Posted by steve at 10:46 PM

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

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.

Posted by steve at 09:21 AM

Wednesday, May 03, 2023

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?

Posted by steve at 06:18 PM

Saturday, April 22, 2023

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?

Posted by steve at 04:13 PM

Thursday, April 06, 2023

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.

Posted by steve at 02:34 PM

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

thrilled with Ethnography as Pastoral Practice 2nd edition

I’m delighted to have a piece of writing published in revised edition of Ethnography As A Pastoral Practice by Mary Moschella, who is Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling, at Yale Divinity School.

“When Christmas angels tweet: Making matters and practical theology in researching mission online,” Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice. An Introduction, 2nd edn. by Mary Clark Moschella, SCM/Pilgrim Press, 291-305.

Delighted first to be published. It is an appendix in which I describe how I go about conducting empirical research, in this case into digital expressions of craftivism in general, and knitted Christmas angels in particular.

Delighted second, because it gives another lens on my research on craftivism.

“When ‘#xmasangels’ tweet: a Reception Study of Craftivism as Christian Witness,” Ecclesial Practices 7 (2), 2020, 143-62, (co-authored with Shannon Taylor). Doi.org/10.1163/22144471-BJA10016

The editor of the academic journal Ecclesial Practices called the article “rich”, demonstrating new “opportunities,” “skilful and sensitive application of ethnological tools” in “powerfully informing ecclesial research.”

Delighted third at the circumstances. Professor Mary Moschella sat in on a conference paper delivered at the 2019 Ecclesiology and Ethnography conference. She emailed after, asking if I could write for a revised edition of Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice, as she was looking for contemporary examples of high-quality, contemporary empirical research and would I write, not so much on the data as on the research journey.

Delighted fourth because I have used the first edition in my classes, teaching on mission, church, leadership and change. A short blog review from 2012 that I wrote is here. It’s a fantastic book. So to be published in a revised edition of a book I consider fantastic is pretty special.

Posted by steve at 08:10 PM

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Race, justice and mission – my 2023 University of Glasgow Library Research Fellowship

I’m delighted to have been awarded a 2023 University of Glasgow Library Research Fellowship. This provides access for a month to what is a unique archive collection of mission archives. It also provides some funds to aid with travel and accommodation, which I hope to do around September 2023.

My research project is titled Race, justice and mission and here is some of what I wrote in my application:

Understanding the past demands a contemporary reappraisal of race and justice in the expansion of empires. The history of slavery invites educational institutions to assess their complicity in education, empire and exploitation. Slavery generally tends to be framed in relation to the transatlantic slave trade. However, a unique history of coerced Pacific labour is called “blackbirding.” Pacific peoples were extracted from island communities to build sugar plantations in Australia and Fiji. Recently, scholars have called for a reappraisal of “blackbirding,” the need for new Pacific genealogies and a critical reassessment of the “racial imaginaries” at work in the empire’s expansion.

My research project aims to illuminate the Glaswegian contribution to the modern Protestant missionary enterprise. The archives at the University of Glasgow Library offer a significant resource. Several Special Collections contain pamphlets and sermons that illuminate historic attitudes to other cultures, as students from the University were encouraged into mission activity by Christian student bodies meeting in and around the campus. The University Library Missions Book collection includes descriptions by missionaries who sailed from the ports of Glasgow and wrote of their encounters with “blackbirders” in operation. 

This unique archival material will be located in relation to the growing body of contemporary scholarship attuned to histories of slavery and the economic and educational complicities of British imperialism. My research project aligns with the University of Glasgow’s Historical Slavery Initiative, which seeks to respond to the University’s complicated entanglement with Scottish imperial expansion.

I am thrilled to have been awarded this Research Fellowship, grateful for the opportunity to access what is a unique collection and thankful for the help from Rev Dr Doug Gay in alerting me to the archive.  I look forward to strengthening academic relationships with various colleagues and friends and am excited by the important work already being done at the University through the Historical Slavery Initiative. This research allows me to return to my roots as Melanesian born and reflect on the Pacific’s particular histories of slavery.

Posted by steve at 08:17 PM

Wednesday, February 08, 2023

Theological Education as “Being With” the Future Church – some AngelWings Ltd applied research

I’m delighted to have an Applied Research Abstract on Theological Education published in Review of Religious Research. Steve Taylor, “Theological Education as “Being With” the Future Church: Applied Research Among Local Leaders in an Australian Baptist Denomination,” Review of Religious Research, DOI: 10.1007/s13644-021-00480-z.

Here is part of the conclusion:

“A changing world presents significant opportunities for theological colleges and seminaries to re-invent themselves. Providers of theological formation have a significant role in resourcing the future church, particularly as they attend to collaborative and relational partnerships … [including] a renewed focus on local contextual theologies, empirical research, and grassroots partnerships. Such participation requires accompanying the local church, not as a problem to be fixed or a base for recruitment, but in a shared human quest to learn in change.”

The Applied Research Abstract draws on research I did in 2021 for Whitley College (working with René Erwich and Darrell Jackson) and the Baptist Union of Victoria, listening to some 47 stakeholders. The complete report belongs to Whitley College Board.

However, the Review of Religious Research is a journal that uniquely facilitates the sharing and comparing of applied studies between denominational and academic researchers. They offer four types of articles – Original Research Articles, Research Notes, Review Articles, and Applied Research Abstracts. The Applied Research Abstract is a type of article that summarises (without any references) an applied research study. So, in dialogue with Whitley, some of the research can now be shared more widely.

The article is online and paywalled, but if folk want a pre-publication copy, just DM me.

Posted by steve at 08:37 AM

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Coding as pattern making

Coding. Definition – assigning a code for the purpose of identifying.

coding

One of the research projects I’m involved in explores faith formation in church schools. I have several rich 7,000-word interviews with school chaplains. To identify learnings, I am coding. Often I code with highlighters.

This time I am coding with Word document highlighters. On the right, the Word highlighter printed out to increase my efficiency. In the centre my codes by colour and in writing. On the left and on screen one of the 7,000-word transcripts (partially obscured to preserve confidentiality) and with various colours visible as I use the Word highlighter to mark bits of the interview. Plus the Word comment function for me to write notes. Cut and pasted these notes are becoming draft results and discussion – identifying the patterns of faith formation present in the lived ministries of school chaplains, as shared through interviews as they reflect on their practice.

Slow work. Rich and listening work. Fascinating patterns emerging.

Posted by steve at 08:10 PM

Saturday, November 05, 2022

innovation capture – a 2022 AngelWings Ltd international collaboration

A new AngelWings Ltd research project, and so a new journal – green, A4, lined. This research project, which I’m calling “Innovation capture,” is for the Diocese of Brisbane (Anglican) and with Complexability Australia. It’s a mini project, initially likely to be between 2 and 6 days. As with much of my work, it will be done remotely, from Ōtepoti (Dunedin).

The task of “Innovation capture” is to collect grassroots innovation case studies. This involves interviewing local parishes who participated through 2021 in a Diocese initiated Adapting Ministry in Complex times course. My task is to listen to their stories of action and change and then write up stories as learning case studies, with links to course content. The aim is to encourage and teach through storytelling.

It’s a project I committed to back in February 2022 but have been unable to get to, due to a range of other research contracts. So it was a relief to finally open a new journal and begin – conducting a 90-minute conversation and then drafting up a 1,000-word case study. This included discussion questions, along with links from the local story to various themes in the course content.

This is the fourth AngelWings Ltd small research project for 2022, alongside an evaluation of a student ministry in New Zealand, an evaluation of a community chaplaincy for a group in Australia and an educative course design weaving emergence and complexity theory with theology.

Posted by steve at 01:07 PM