sustain:if:able kiwi

more on DJing gospel and culture

Last week I blogged some images, built around the image of DJ, that I think provide a more helpful way to understand how the emerging church responds to culture. The usual stereotype offered by critics of the emerging church is the assumption that because we pay attention to a postmodern culture, we are therefore assimilating into this culture. Instead I think that when you examine emerging practices, you see complex pattern; moments of juxtaposition, subversion and amplification;

Anyhow, my post has attracted some good blog engagement. It’s inspired some worship in Germany;

: the practices, a DJ showed people how to mix
: the actual mixing of poetic sounds
: with Matthew 5:21ff and Jesus imagined as a DJ, living out a mix of “God-beat and culture, helping people to listen to the God-beat inside their mixes”
: participants invited to nail a record onto a woodpanel as “a prayer that asked God to free us from our mix and make us able to listen to his beat.”

It sounds a great DJ mix of practice, scripture, community and prayer.

And Bob Carlton has a fantastic post about morality and leadership as applied to the DJ. He explores whether a DJ exists for self-interest or generosity, in light of internet radio and proconsumer technologies. I would argue the latter and that is why I argue in my out of bounds church? book that a DJ can only exist in community and why the DJ image (postcard 8 of the book) needs to be read alongside the spiritual tourism image (postcard 5 in the book), in which the church community and it’s DJ mix is urged to exist for the outsider. Bob has also got a QT file of God DJing. It’s great (although I wonder if God ends up portrayed as remote and arbitrary (and male?)).

Further DJing resources:
: last weeks post is here.
: for a QT e-video of me being interviewed about DJing in relation to globalisation and culture, download here (11 MB)
: for more on DJing, including where I explore how this is happening in 1 Peter, and engage with the work of Miroslav Volf, read out of bounds church? book):
: also check out the outofbounds blog.

Last week I blogged some images, built around the image of DJ, that I think provide a more helpful way to understand how the emerging church responds to culture. The usual stereotype offered by critics of the emerging church is the assumption that because we pay attention to a postmodern culture, we are therefore assimilating into this culture. Instead I think that when you examine emerging practices, you see complex pattern; moments of juxtaposition, subversion and amplification;

Anyhow, my post has attracted some good blog engagement. It’s inspired some worship in Germany;

: the practices, a DJ showed people how to mix
: the actual mixing of poetic sounds
: with Matthew 5:21ff and Jesus imagined as a DJ, living out a mix of “God-beat and culture, helping people to listen to the God-beat inside their mixes”
: participants invited to nail a record onto a woodpanel as “a prayer that asked God to free us from our mix and make us able to listen to his beat.”
It sounds a great DJ mix of practice, scripture, community and prayer.

And Bob Carlton has a fantastic post about morality and leadership as applied to the DJ. He explores whether a DJ exists for self-interest or generosity, in light of internet radio and proconsumer technologies. I would argue the latter and that is why I argue in my out of bounds church? book that a DJ can only exist in community and why the DJ image (postcard 8 of the book) needs to be read alongside the spiritual tourism image (postcard 5 in the book), in which the church community and it’s DJ mix is urged to exist for the outsider. Bob has also got a QT file of God DJing. It’s great (although I wonder if God ends up portrayed as remote and arbitrary (and male?)).

Further DJing resources:
: last weeks post is here.
: for a QT e-video of me being interviewed about DJing in relation to globalisation and culture, download here (11 MB)
: for more on DJing, including where I explore how this is happening in 1 Peter, and engage with the work of Miroslav Volf, read out of bounds church? book):

Post repeated in my book blog.