Beyond Flatland

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2008-08-19T13:58:00.003+12:00

Having sat lightly on this blog stuff over the years and not letting it rule me, I have decided not to stop, but to move across to Wordpress. In recent times I have heard a good deal on it and like the way I can potentially add pages etc. So have shifted this blog over and will go from there. I also have some study leave coming up and it will allow for some processing on different page.
So Beyond Flatland is now here.

The Caim - a story

2008-08-13T21:13:00.004+12:00

The Caim is a midweek reflective service. We follow simple liturgies and read one of the daily readings, we pray together. This year we have met around the Communion Table each Week.

In the prayer time thanksgiving was offereed for the dustmen. A story explained this. One of our folks had a pile of logs arrived and the rain was starting. Going as fast as he could ti get it in under cover a dustman tunred up on his way past. these guys are super fit and run behin the truck tossing recycling etc into the truck. Anyway, the guy stops and offers a helping hand. Then another arrives and the two stash away the wood in no time. Meanwhile our friend is left giving thanks for the help. They ran on their way wishing him a good day! A wonderful simple, thankful story. I thought it worth sharing. Sometimes God surprises us and provides in our need. Incidentally, that was something of the gist of the text we read.

Emerging within the Church of Scotland

2008-05-16T11:01:00.002+12:00

Having been part of the New Church Development ministry at a stage of reform within the Church of Scotland when Church Without Walls was also happening it is encouraging to see that there is a sense at least of continuing reform even within this area of the life of the Church,. Indeed, it seems that some of those early lessons, while they may not continue to see new congregations of that sort created, there are out of the 'old' some shoots appearing and taking up call to mission in Scotland. But I am especially encouraged at the full report to Assembly regarding planting/emergening matters. see Report(here) 2.2 Building for the Future is especially encouraging reading. I may reflect on portions in the next few days rather than here for now.

Suffice to note that the General Assembly 2008 meeting this week is deciding to 'financially' get behind the emerging mission shoots:

General Assembly 2008:
Ministries Council to unveil new £1.5 million fund At this year's General
Assembly (15 – 21 May), the Ministries Council will outline their plans
to devote £1.5 million - over five years - to a new Emerging Ministries Fund. This fund, which is available from 2009, would be made available to Presbyteries and charges through a grant making process specifically for new models of ministry and the establishing of new approaches to church. (Section 9.3.3.1.3, Ministries report) As such, the Emerging Ministries Fund will be supporting projects that engage with people in new ways where they are. In many cases this may mean less of a dependence on buildings and getting people to come in.
The Assembly will hear that the Emerging Ministries Fund will support
work in three areas (Section 3, Ministries supplementary):
Missional: work
that focuses on new church growth alongside or beyond the existing
congregation;
Ecclesial: work which is about establishing church from the ground up and exploring what that means for the given demographic and cultural context;
Experimental: work that looks at experimenting with new approaches to ministry. The hope would be to spread the funding across a range of approaches to maximise the learning experience for the Church at large. The processing of applications and general management of the fund will be carried out by the Council's Emerging Ministries Task Group,
who are dedicated to working with the other Funds of
the Church to ensure that applications are dealt with by the appropriate body.Emerging Ministries Fund grants would be made at a maximum level of £30K per annum for a three year period. In addition, Presbyteries and congregations will be expected to demonstrate that they have explored potential sources of matched funding - either private or public sector, or from ecumenical partners - although
there is recognition that such assistance cannot always be secured.
Ministries Council staff will be able to offer advice and support to applicant organisations at all stages of the process. It is anticipated that this substantial investment in local church work will have a
significant impact in the initial 5-year period of the fund, and beyond.

"As slow as possible" ?

2008-05-15T19:42:00.006+12:00

Yesterday I caught this pieceon Concert Fm (New Zealand). it caught my attention and so I had to stay seated in the car having parked and I was fascinated. A man called Ryan Knighton was being interviewed.(listen here)

He speaks of John Cage, whom I recollected having read about in Jeremy Begbie's book Theology, Music and Time (Cambridge University press, 2000). Cage shows an unease with control and sought to allow sounds to be themselves. One comment upon Cage notes how he only sees sound as a fragment in the time continuum.

Anyway, it gets quite technical, but Knighton explains it reasonably well. You can visit the John Cage Project and read more and explore.

"The slowest and longest piece of music in the world
John-Cage-Organ-Project in Halberstadt, Germany

Since September 5, 2000, which is the 88th birthday of the avantgarde composer and artist John Cage, the slowest and longest concert that the world has ever heard has been playing: ORGAN2/ASLSP As Slow aS Possible that means this piece of music, for the organ, will be performed for 639 years in the church of St. Burchardi in Halberstadt."

Part of it theologically is the way ijn which this note sounds and hanges over the years according to the score. In particular it is Who changes the note? Who will come along, get involved? Assumptions of song they never strated . Message of hope, but first note is a rest. Story beyond the scale of our own span, a bigger idea of the future. As radio raises these questions, I thought of the way Sabbath rest as the initial movement out of Creation and then I consider the ways in which we are part of a bigger, hopeful story that God has for us in the now and eschatologically.

Further it is always sounding, even if are not present in that monastery in Halberstadt. You can listen! Fascinating that it plays on even if no-one is actually present sounding out. Anyway, maybe this is dull for you and I apologise, but it intrigued me and stopped me enough to pause and listen and ponder about what it may teach uis about faith.

Silence

2008-04-09T15:52:00.004+12:00

General reading on Prayer has led me to Merton's 'Contemplative Prayer' .

Some quotes and...

"In the way of prayer, as described by the early monastic writers, meditatio must be seen in its close relation to psalmodia, lectio, oratio and contemplatio. It is part of a continuous whole... not so much a way to find God but as a way of resting in him whom we have found, who loves us, who is near to us, who comes to us to draw us to himself." (p29)

In particularly I also noted the ways in which the Psalms are, in Calvin's words an 'Anatomy of the soul' in prayer. Merton reminds us that meditation is above all meditatio scriturarum. The words of the Bible made their own, memorising, repeating them. Additionally, a life of prayer, praying always, are united to the entire days activities in an organic whole and further has a corporate context. Undertaking this daily is a part of the daily dying and rising, mortificatio and vivificatio of the Christian's life in Christ.

The "healing and creative work of [the monk], accomplished in silence, in nakedness of spirit, in emptiness, in humility. It is participation in the saving death and resurrection of Christ. therefore, every Christian may, if they so desires, enter into communion with this silence of the praying and meditating Church, which is the church of the Desert."

Of course there is a challenge to such rhythms of silence, indeed the world's anti-silence. I am reminded in anotehr way of Arvo Pärt (Composer) whose music emerged anew after some self-imposed silence, re-emerging with his music radically transformed. The technique he invented, or discovered, he calls "tintinnabuli" (from the Latin, little bells), which he describes "I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. I work with very few elements —with one voice, two voices. I build with primitive materials —with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells and that is why I call it tintinnabulation." The first public appearance of this was in the short piano piece, Für Alina. I recommend it.

I am no musician and have little understanding of the technicalities, but this music is audibly a means to appreciate the balances and interplays between a sound note and silence, yet it is silence that is somehow of the essence to allow the note to be heard. A prayerful life in the every day no less is built from 'primitive materials' - our lives and person - and the rhytms of our life are as much determined by the 'communion' with silences. Daily broken, daily reshaped.

In the midst of confusion there is great need to place ourselves -restful in God in silence, and meditate daily upon Scritpure and especially the psalms. Here is Merton's famous prayer:

My Lord God I have no idea where I am going. I do not
see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I
really understand myself. And the fact that I think I am following Your will
does not mean I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please
you Does in fact please you. And I hope I have the desire in all that I am
doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know
that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing
about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in
the shadow of death. I will not fear for you are ever with me and you will never
leave me to face my troubles alone. (Thomas Merton)

Easter Sunday- Dance of the Merrymakers

2008-03-26T11:44:00.003+13:00

Dance of the Merrymakers

A day of surprises. We had someone sit up front in white simply sitting in front of everyone. The music from Runrig - Solus na madain (The Morning Light) played with loop video. Then opening responses based around our own arrival in worship at an empty tomb.

Readings were Jeremiah 31 v1-6 and Matthew 28 v1-10

We began by considering the deathliness of Friday and Saturday, indeed, much of life is coloured and shaped by still. We thought of the deathly places and ways of the world we live in and that shape us still. We dared to note and confront death today as a reminder that resurrection flies in the face of death, it is the death of death. SO we read from 1 Corinthians 15, Romans 8, passages/texts that reshape us for life now and eternity. A resurrection people, hopeful, promised as Jeremiah's exile people so much more - we were encouraged to join the dance of the merrymakers(Jeremiah) on this Easter day!

We sang Lord of the Dance, while the image by Elizabeth Rollins-Scott, provided a beautiful reflection for us too. As we sang though one of our senoir folks - a dancer all her life - came into the aisle and began a very beautiful dance offering in worship, in one verse she took a little girl and they danced to the front and returned to seats. It was a natural response on this day and something that ebvefryone will remember the day for this year. Unplanned, rehearsed and simply wonderful to see. It was no look at me, it was all I'd spoken about dramatised before our eyes.

Blessing
Go forth in the dance of the merrymakers
Resume your singing,
On your feet go,
Join the dance of the Father, Son and Spirit.

God's Friday

2008-03-21T19:42:00.004+13:00

Drinking the Cup

A CUP OF SALVATION

Drinking the cup of salvation means emptying the cup of sorrow and joy so that God can fill it with pure life.
(Henri Nouwen, Who can drink this cup?p97)

Reading of the day – Matthew 27 v45-61

We spent some time exploring the image Spencer potrays and began to wonder how we might have the Cross portrayed here on Highgate. The Crucifixion by Stanley Spencer we set alongside the reading for today confronting us with the reality of this painfully disturbing scene. We came to the Table, sharing in the Cup of Salvation.
We closed with these words of assurance:

Romans 8. 31 What then are we to say about these things?
If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own
Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.
35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we
are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we
are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Table - Thursday

2008-03-21T13:30:00.007+13:00

Lifting the cup

fOR A GREAT SHORT VIDEO LOOP VISIT http://www.sgmlifewords.com/easter/video.php
(daY 5)

Lifting the cup is an invitation to affirm and celebrate life together. As
we lift up the cup of life and look each other in the eye, we say: “Let us not
be anxious or afraid. Let’s hold our cup together and greet each other. Let us
not hesitate to acknowledge the reality of our lives and encourage each other to
be grateful for the gifts we have received.”…to Life”
(Henri Nouwen, Can you drink the cup? p 61-2)

Reading of the day - 1 Corinthians 10:15-17

Tonight we came to Lift the cup. Paul in writing to the Corinthian church speaks of the dnagers of compromise with 'idols' and more His response though is somewhat surprising. HE bases it upon the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In the few verses there is much emphasis upon 'TAKING PART, Koininos - partnership, partakers together in Christ and consequently one another.

The Cup of Blessing then is more than a mere memorial, it is an active, ever present now activity in the life we have in Christ, through the Spirit. We also read Luke 22 and the 'institution, the inaugurating of the Supper' All aroudn that ATble were themes of alienation, abandonment and betrayal, yet there is also community, love and trusting relationships within the body of Christ. Jesus offers a cup to be passed among them as a symbolic reminder of their unity. (We passed a cup around as we heard more among those gathered in worship at this point). This invitation to dif=vide the common cup among them, to ift and share in it together must have been powerful as each would already have their own cup in front of them. THEN, he bvreaks bread and then they share the cup of blessing. The referneces time and again to fellowshiup, community as well as the pre-figuring of the final banquet. William Willimon says of the meal" A ritual for meeting in which an individual who feels isolated and unaccepted may discover the possibility for community and incorporation."Fred Buechner also says that it' involves our need not just for food but for each otehr' in the midst of our own emptiness, alienation, forsakenness, weariness, betrayal and death we come to this Table as here, despite such rokenness and pain - holding cups of suffering, sorrow, we find Christ accept us, we find in one another acceptance and fellowship, partnership, we partake together.. We also discover at this table that we are never abandoned.

We came to the Table.

PSALM 63

O God you are my God alone,
whom eagerly I seek,
though longing fills my soul with thirst
and leaves my body weak.

Just like a dry and barren land
awaits a freshening shower,
I long within your house to see
your glory and your power.

Your faithful love surpasses life,
evoking all my praise,
through every day
to bless your name,
my hands in praise I’ll raise.

My deepest needs you satisfy
as with a sumptuous feast.
So, on my lips and in my heart,
your praise has never ceased.

Throughout the night,
I lie in bed,
and call you Lord to mind,
In darkest hours I meditate,
how God my strength is kind.

Beneath the shadow of your wing,
I live and feel secure;
and daily, as I follow close,
your right hand keeps me sure.

The Table - Wednesday

2008-03-21T13:08:00.006+13:00

Holding the Cup

In the midst of anguished prayer asking his father to take this cup of sorrow
away, there is one moment of consolation. Only the Evangelist Luke mentions it.
He says: “Then an angel appeared to him, coming from heaven to give him
strength.” (Luke 22 v43)
(Henri Nouwen, Can you drink the cup? p 43)

Reading of the day - John 18: 1-11

Tradere or paradidomai means to hand over. Continuing to holfd the cup we meet a

Jesus who through prayer says yes to his Abba. In John 17 we have more of this prayer.

JOHN 17 1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up
to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that
the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all
people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And
this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work
that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence
with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

the insight we get is the 'relationship' that existed between Father and Son before creation. Rublev's image Icon comes to mind yet again. Luke reminds us of how the Father sends a messenger to minister and 'strengthen' Jesus in the time of trial, as in the desert. he is now, as John portrays him holding the cup of suffering out of the union with the father, rooted around the Trinitarian table we might say. It is this that now sees him handed over also in the other direction, at the disposal of those who will now deal with him.

The cup we hold as disciples means learning to live and risk the very presence of Jesus, that as disciples our lives are immersed and embedded in the very life of the Jesus Christ, the Son in and through the Spirit and in this way Jesus offers prayers and perfects our prayers to the Father. This equally makes us vulnerable to the world. he prays:

20 "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who
will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you,
Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,
so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you
have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,
23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that
the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have
loved me.

Grace be with you.
Thanks be to God.

Go in peace this night.
We go in the name of Christ.
Amen.

The Table - Tuesday

2008-03-19T13:33:00.004+13:00

Holding the Cup

Holding the cup of life means looking critically at what we
are living. This requires great courage, because when we start looking, we might
be terrified by what we see. Questions may arise that we don’ know how to
answer. Doubts may come up about things we thought we were sure about. Fear may emerge from unexpected places… holding the cup of life is a hard
discipline.

(Henri Nouwen, Can you drink the cup? p 30)

Reading of the day - Mark 14 v32-42 Gethsemane

People arrived and held a small communion cup filled with water. It was to be held as we read and dwelt around the text tonight.

Abandonment and forsakenness surround this event in the Garden. A no less troubling scene for us confronted with sleepy disciples. We also see Jesus lonely and his agony begin. Attending to his words it is intense. "If it is your will, take this cup from me...' he has hold of this cup, at present it is filling up and is a crucible of sin, suffering, agony, pain, sorrow, forsakeness, abandonment and death. It is bitter to taste and hard to hold, yet it is as if his grip cannot let go, even if he wants to. It is a crushing scene and the fiery cup remains in his hand. 'Yet not my will but your will.' No mere resignation, but as God in flesh he gives himself to his Father so utterly.

Deep within us,we too know of Gethsemane. We too pray holding the cup of sorrow/suffering. We know life's sorrow, pain, anguish and as we seek to cope with such sense of abandonment, darkness and uncertainty that surrounds us at times, we pray "Why?" or 'If it is your will take this cup from me'

As we wait tonight, not fallingh asleep but attentive to the cup of water/tears symbolic of the sorrowful, sufferings of others, the world and personally, we meditate upon the wrestling at this point with the cup firmly in hand.

After the silence, people came forward pouring out prayerfully the cup of sorrows as they came to receive at the Table the bread and wine.

A Prayer:

The grace of Christ attend you,

the love of God surround you,

the Holy Spirit keep you now and for evermore.

Go in PEace.

Thanks be to God. Amen

The Table- Monday

2008-03-19T13:29:00.005+13:00

Who can drink this cup?

Can you drink the cup?
Can we hold the cup of life in our
hands? Can we lift it up for others to see, and can we drink it to the full?
Drinking the cup is much more than gulping down whatever happens to be in there,
just as breaking the bread is much more than tearing a loaf apart. Drinking this
cup involves holding, lifting and drinking. It is the full celebration of being
human.

(Henri Nouwen, Can you drink the cup? p 24)

Reading of the day - Matthew 20 v20-23 Who is the greatest?

The question from James and John's mother is for Jesus to declare them in key positions in the Kingdom. Imagining the scene, there are the boys with mum before Jesus. She askes the question, but JEsus response is to turn look at the boys and ask them a rather uncomfortable question that we sat with and meditated upon as disciples today: "Are you able to drink the cup from which I am about to drink?"

Allowing the question to ring in our ears a Table we hear that in all our own clamour for recognition for status, there is no need to jockey for Kingdom position or even to Lord it over one another, but we have every reason to serve one another. Jesus points them and us to practices that are more radical than those we are conditioned to, that make it possible to live in and from God's presence, a sharing in the very life of Father, Son and Spirit. Holding the cup is to accept a radical new way and life, to say 'We are able!' - willing and able to render Christ in our daily living. This uncomfortable question demands not just verbal, notional ascent, but action.

We sat with our hands cupped sitting holding a cup with the question that askes of us all about our own discipleship.

A Prayer:

God bless and keep us, God's face shine upon us and be gracious to us,

and grant us peace and light this night as we go to rest. Amen.

Towards Holy Week

2008-03-12T11:49:00.003+13:00

Our years practice of Hospitality will see us have opportunity throughout Holy Week to gather at the Table. The basis of this theme comes from Henri Nouwen's little book entitled "Who can drink this cup?" which someone gave me last year.

We will invite people to hold the cup, lift the cup and drink the cup. But more on the week as we go through it.

I had some fun finding some lovely little cups to add to the table, such as the one shown here. In fact the potter who made this has also found a use for 'didymo'(water snot) and had fired some potter which had a wonderful colour and glaze. She was delighted that her cups would be used at Communion.

Lent reflections

2008-03-11T16:32:00.005+13:00

Among many things I decided after holiday to hit Lent without this blog. This year as a church we are focussed upon the practice of Hospitality. Interestingly, encouraging people through varipous texts and learning about this biblically, sitting at Table each month and at Caim each week now, it is something that spills into other areas, such as prayer. It has been amazing sitting aorund the Table and waiting in prayer for others, unhurried.

Amidst demands, I needed space to 'learn to pray' and reset some patterns. Lent has been filled with many lessons as I have pursued the psalms in prayer.

We started the Caim and have added the celebration of the Lord's Supper at each service. We also have started using set liturgy according to the season, providing some framework and prayers to learn as well as leaving enough space for listening and creativity of the Spirit. I can't speak for others but in the midst of some demanding ministry this has been pivotal and centring.

Added to this I have undertaken through Lent to reread the psalms encouraged with a little book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer entitled:"Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible" a simple yet useful little book. (More later) Among the many things taking place on Sunday mornings, we have introduced each first Sunday on the month 'The Prayer Cafe' - a space before a Communion Service at which anyone can gather to use the prayer diary we hold up weekly in worship. There is also provison for children in a neighbouring room in which they are gathered to write prayers which we will take into worship later.

A friend has also started a Retreat centre near my first Parish in the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Peter is a great guy and if you are interested beyond Iona, then make a quiet space in your journey to Sacred Space at Linne Bheag.

Christmas Day

2007-12-26T15:44:00.001+13:00

People say that there won't be many about Christmas Day

The night before with our B@tCH congregation the hall was full and a great atmosphere. Today we followed on.

- New Zealand on holiday. But we were jammed (nearly) as good as any other Sunday!

Had a BBQ out up front and we took the service selected off the BBQ at random(people took the tongs and came and took something off. Worked really well. In fact - a young mother ended up reading Luke 2:1-15 Near the close she was a little in tears overcome with reading how Mary pondered these things in her heart deeply. Her child only 3 weeks old and all that the birth meant and the child was to the her and the family. She shared why and it has spoken deeply to many in thier own reflections - indeed, a number who were only there that day! What a God given blessing her tears and story were amidst the celebrations of Jesus birth. It said it all.

Shalom

Advent Shed

2007-12-08T16:19:00.000+13:00

I recently came across the art of Nicholas Mynheer, whose work is iconographic in what strikes me as having a simplicity, yet is very evocative and inviting. Consequently, in preparations for something else and beginning to refelct on this artists amazing work I have tried my own version on our Advent Shed. (See below and slideshow opposite) This is - 'Micah and the Bethlehem event- after Mynheer.'

The figure calling into the darkness is Micah, the prophet, sounding a wake-up call to the people to the God who is 'Second -to- None.' He points to a scene with Mary and Joesph in Beth-lehem overlooked by an angelic figure. The side you can't see has 3 red gift boxes and the words from Micah 6 v8 'Do Justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.'

Through Advent we will be exploring the prophetic message - 'WHO IS AS GOD?" - and the incarnation as a word for us today! The Shed is a simple presence to the traffic that flows steadily past - postcards have also been run and sent out and available.

Restful Restlessness

2007-11-24T11:26:00.000+13:00

A long break away from this blog, but there are priorities in ministry from the pastoral to the directional aspects of the ministry and mission we are in. The past few months have invovled a restful restlessness, and my seeking to balance things.

Lots of actual encouragements along the way and thankful to be sharing so much with the ministry team and the leaders here. They've done heaps and we have kept our mission moving ahead. Indeed, there is a liberty among people that is starting to come andf the creativity of the Spirit through this. We experienced a turning point this year back in May and we've agreed to fcus upon 'practices' rather than burnout on huge goals. Been doing much reflecting and planning for Advent (more later), for CAim congregation, for setting up a retreat at Roslyn for a pilot of people to reflect and learn something of church plant. So already looking forward to these and other things on the cards.

Finally, art.... I had 3 great weeks refreshing holiday space too in Sept/October. I managed to finish some paintings and work on others. A sample are on the slideshow now on my blog.

Power of Art - Picasso

2007-07-10T14:28:00.000+12:00

It strikes me that in the likes of Picasso through the development of his own art, we come through so muych 'disorientation' and wrestling in life, such as we find written and expressed in the psalms. I was intrigued by the ways in which he almost shunned anything political and yet in time came to gather up so much of his own 'nightmare scenes' with that of the world stage of the time. The way he expressed this was shown in several ways, but Schama uses Guernica, after the little town bombed and devastated. The painting below is the result. (from his surrealist period)

Schama states,

"This is the reason why the painting has such an impact. Instead of a laboured literal commentary on German warplanes, Basque civilians and incendiary bombs, Picasso connects with our worst nightmares. He's saying here's where the world's horror comes from; the dark pit of our psyche."

This picture remains a powerful political artwork against such attrocities, it is a visual 'lament' really that lingers and echoes on into our day.

Reflecting on Picasso's image alongside Lamentations 3 speaks powerfully...

I'm the man who has seen trouble, trouble coming from the lash of God's anger. 2 He took me by the hand and walked me into pitch-black darkness. 3 Yes, he's given me the back of his hand over and over and over again. 4 He turned me into a scarecrow of skin and bones, then broke the bones. 5 He hemmed me in, ganged up on me, poured on the trouble and hard times. 6 He locked me up in deep darkness, like a corpse nailed inside a coffin. 7 He shuts me in so I'll never get out, manacles my hands, shackles my feet. 8 Even when I cry out and plead for help, he locks up my prayers and throws away the key. 9 He sets up blockades with quarried limestone. He's got me cornered. 10 He's a prowling bear tracking me down, a lion in hiding ready to pounce. 11 He knocked me from the path and ripped me to pieces. When he finished, there was nothing left of me. 12 He took out his bow and arrows and used me for target practice. 13 He shot me in the stomach with arrows from his quiver. 14 Everyone took me for a joke, made me the butt of their mocking ballads. 15 He forced rotten, stinking food down my throat, bloated me with vile drinks. 16 He ground my face into the gravel. He pounded me into the mud. 17 I gave up on life altogether. I've forgotten what the good life is like. 18 I said to myself, "This is it. I'm finished. God is a lost cause." It's a Good Thing to Hope for Help from God 19 I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed. 20 I remember it all - oh, how well I remember - the feeling of hitting the bottom.
21 But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: 22 God's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. 23 They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! 24 I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left. 25 God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. 26 It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. 27 It's a good thing when you're young to stick it out through the hard times. 28 When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. 29 Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. 30 Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face. The "worst" is never the worst. 31 Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. 32 If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. 33 He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way: 34 Stomping down hard on luckless prisoners, 35 Refusing justice to victims in the court of High God, 36 Tampering with evidence - the Master does not approve of such things. God Speaks Both Good Things and Hard Things into Being

Power of Art - Van Gogh

2007-06-21T17:01:00.000+12:00

Week 3- and it was Van Gogh. The story of his life is powerful and tragic. Indeed, his own life a wrestling of faith, evangleism and the descent into the raw fabric of life among those 'outcast' and in the gutter. He may have been no preacher, but through the torment of the life communicated in his art there is meaning conveyed. I am no art critic, but I stand amazed and in awe at the shift from the darkness of the potato eaters to the transformed and brilliantly colourful world of his later works.

See here the Wheatfield with Crows(1890)

Schama says, "His art would reclaim what had once belonged to religion - consolation for our mortality through the relish of the gift of life. It wasn't the art crowd he was after; he wanted was to open the eyes and the hearts of everyone who saw his paintings. I feel he got what he wanted. So what are we looking at with this painting? There’s suffocation, but elation too. The crows might be coming at us, but equally they might be flying away, demons gone as we immerse ourselves in the power of nature. It's a massive wall of writhing brilliant paint, in which the colour itself seems to tremble and pulse and sway."

What intrigues me is wha must have been going on in his head. The tensions of the grind and brokenness of his life and that of others he had immersed himself in and yet this wonderful artistic genius that had him paint a painting a day at one stage, the rapid energy that poured out of him and generated such artworks and yet drained him of his very life too.

Recently we reflected upon Psalm 8 at the Caim readings. As I look at van Gogh's art here it comes to mind:

PSALM 8
1 God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name. 2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs That drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.
3 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings. 4 Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way? 5 Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden's dawn light. 6 You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge, 7 Made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild, 8 Birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps. 9 God, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.

Power of Art - Rembrandt

2007-06-15T21:03:00.000+12:00

Week 2 of Simon Scama's Power of art explored Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 - 1669)

A man of humble birth who came to know the good life basically. Sounds like he and his rich wife could 'shop to you drop'. Amazing portraits and yet after the death of hsi wife his paitings begin to change from the very finished dutch style to a rougher 'incompleteness' is suggested, but et how powerful. He also seems to have been an artist who knew what the people wanted and could provide it in his art. The painting Schama focussed upon was one destoned for the City Chambers of Amsterdam

Schama says,

"Claudius Civilis is a painting drunk on its own wildness. It is a painting that would not just be the ruin of Rembrandt's comeback, but also the ruin of his greatest vision. Or so I think, for I can't be sure. None of us can, because we don't know what the big picture looked like. What we're looking at here is a fragment, a fifth of the original size, the bit rescued from Rembrandt's knife. This may just be the most heartbreaking fragment in the entire history of painting. The painting was commissioned as a stirring depiction of the legendary story of how the Dutch nation came to be born. What they got was Rembrandt's version of history: ugliness, deformity, barbarism; a bunch of cackling louts, onion chewers and bloody-minded rebels. The paint slashed and stabbed, caked on like the make up of warriors. Despite making him bankrupt he's saying: these are your flesh and blood, rough and honest, your barbarian ancestry. They made you Dutch."

A brave thing really - yet how powerful this art was and is.

The Return of the Prodigal is of course a favourite, made more so by Henri Nouwen's book on the painting.

"Often I have asked friends to give me their first impression of Rembrandt's Prodigal Son. Inevitably, they point to the wise old man who forgives his son: the benevolent patriarch.
"The longer I look at 'the patriarch', the clearer it becomes to me that Rembrandt has done something quite different from letting God pose as the wise old head of a family. It all began with the hands. The two are quite different. The father's left hand touching the son's shoulder is strong and muscular. The fingers are spread out and cover a large part of the prodigal son's shoulder and back. I can see a certain pressure, especially in the thumb. That hand seems not only to touch, but, with its strength, also to hold. Even though there is a gentleness in the way the father's left hand touches his son, it is not without a firm grip." (excerpt)

However, from the programme I was introduced briefly to his painting of Simeon. Here is the old man almost overwhelmed and his hands holding Jesus yet almost prayerful at the same time. A reverence.

Power of Art- Caravaggio

2007-06-15T20:04:00.000+12:00

Here in NZ a new series by Simon Schama on the 'Power of Art' is now running Sunday nights.

I want to use tis for my own reflection as one who enjoys art.

Week one was on Caravaggio (1571-1610)
Schama is a narrator to the life and paintings of Caravaggio that invites you into the paintings of a man who was deeply disturbed and troubled in himself. In many ways painting became a means of confession and a reckoning. Schama gives focus to his painting of David with the head of Goliath. Notably, Goliath is painted in the image of Caravaggio.

Schama says,

"In this painting of the victory of virtue over evil it's supposed to be David who is the centre of attention, but have you ever seen a less jubilant victory?
On his sword is inscribed "Humilitus Occideit Superbium", that is, humility conquers pride. This is the battle that has been fought out inside Caravaggio's head between the two sides of the painter that are portrayed here.

For me the power of Caravaggio's art is the power of truth, not least about ourselves. If we are ever to hope for redemption we have to begin with the recognition that in all of us the Goliath competes with the David."

Schama also points out the ways in which Caravaggio paints the fleshly humanity he knows, the earthy-ness of humanity he portrays in so many religious artwork he paints.

For me I have always appreciated his Supper at Emmaus. But there are 2 versions: on in London (1601) the other in Milan (1606).

In the first (London) the image is full of rich, victorious splendour. The light throughout the paiting, the shadows created help our eyes 'read' the painting. Jesus is portrayed without a beard which is quite unusual. His hand gesture appears soft and gentlein blessing. Indeed it almost reaches out to us.There is also a full table of food before them . The intensity of the emotions of Christ's disciples is conveyed by their gestures and expression at this moment in time (of recognition) when Jesus is blessing their meal. We are made to feel a participant in the event from the perspective we are permitted at the table. The painting in so inviting us asks us to consider what the resurrection of Christ means for us.

Some 5 years later though and the image has changed. Is there a shift in Caravaggio’s understanding of the resurrection of Jesus? The arrangement of the figures tells the story. No more the victorious Christ, nor the energy of the disciples recognition of who this 'stranger' is. In contrast, the arrangement of the figures in the Milan Emmaus makes us aware that people need time to recognise the reality of Jesus at this table and so the resurrection. The light here is more subtle and subdued, indeed here is an older, bearded Jesus blessing the meal and a different pace of recognition conveyed. Here the disciples hand rests near Jesus' hand, no large gestures. I sense here a quiter and gentler invitation to come share at this table at a meal that is far simpler too.

Globe lessons

2007-06-06T18:00:00.000+12:00

I managed into a public lecture today given by Patrick Spottiswoode (director of Globe Education). His topic was concerned with Shakespeare's Globe and how the space/ shape influences performance and the actor -audience relationship. I confess I haven't seen it, but it is a space that has intrigued me for a number of years since church planting and being concerned about space and worship and congregational matters.

The theatre we were in was typically for a large lecture. He described it as a 'confrontational space in which we awaited knowledge to be imparted and given to us. It is a typical space and familiar in most buildings, but he turned it on its head and spoke of how the theatre Shakespeare knew at the Globe was more a place for seminar, where ideas were thrown out for the audience to consider. The round-ish (20 sided building) offered more of a 'hug' and an intimacy in ;'gathering round'.. as he said 'we do not gather square!' Here then you see the audience and talk to them as part of the drama on stage. It also has significant open air light. Today he somewhat lamented the modern theatre and its turning off lights. He caricatured this to going to be as a child and turning the lights out to go to sleep, or to quietening a parrot that is noisey, you cover it with a blanket. In a fashion this is what we have done to audiences. At the Globe, actors and audience share the same light, there is an interface that allows for opportunities of 'improvised' engagement in ways that bring the text to life. Indeed, he spoke of the energy that occurs between the two and how thre actors in turn are energised as the audience is engaged in the drama. It is a two-way interaction.He further shared how we often speak of 'going to SEE' a movie, a play eyc. In Shakespeare's Globe you paid to see, but most of all the HEARING places as the language and metre of the drama play around with the words/sounds.

He also made comment on the historical context. Theatre and actors were of low social status on the margins of society. They were margineli those small extra notes in the margins of some books which added some commentarytot the central text. However, he suggested that rather than such a simple reading it was more that the city was worried about the theatre as graffitti. Theatre was no wholly respectable and its commentary was forced to the marghins/suburbs among the brothels.

This is a brief summary of what was a very entertaining and engaging lecture. It was in itself 'rough theatre' and he is a very gifted communicator. Plenty food for thought.

Pentecost - No ordinary Time

2007-05-28T08:42:00.000+12:00

Pentecost by Solomon Raj, India.

It was a very windy day here in Dunedin. Boy was it blowing - perfect for Pentecost Sunday!

The scene was set well before anyone turned up. Papers flew around and people arrived windswept.

We had large kites from each corner and a calling of one another to worship as we gathered and brought them to the front. We had a bunch of colourful balloons in each was a slip of paper which would tell us what we would do next in the service - a sense of unknown, of anticipation. The wind rattled the roof.

I got people who wished to come pop a balloon. It was great fun and soon people got into it and I didn't have to even ask. We had a dramatic reading of Acts story, prayers, songs... everyone had a kite in their seat .

In immersing ourselves in the text of Acts 2 we really thought aorund Peter's sermon and his picking up of Joel 2. All sounds so strange,

Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men
shall see visions. 29 Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I
will pour out my spirit. 30 I will show portents in the heavens and on the
earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to
darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord
comes. 32 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved;
for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord
has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

JOEL 2

We considered the strangeness and how on that day people attempted to explain away the event of the Spirit. How do we explain so much away?

In the face of this and a world of fears, anxieties and greeds what are we called to be as God's people? We are to fly some kites - prophesy, dreams and visions - testify to the strrange workings of God in the world and life. A people of freedoms, liberated by the Spirit, Loving practices which drive out fears, hopefilled in pointing people to a new reality at work in the midst of everything they see as so settled and explainable, how does or life as individuals and communally give witness to all this?

We are going to fly some kites in our day and our place!

Come Holy Spirit, Come!

Holy Week

2007-04-06T13:42:00.000+12:00

This week we have used this as our main image for our House of Sorrows. You can see some of the things we did in worship there in the link.

Pete Wheeler, A Dunedin artist gave us some of his artwork based on Unotuchables in India. We had a wonderful balance of Gospel, Lamentations readings and following the thread of sorrow through these to prayerfully pray for the cities we know, the troubles places and peoples of the world.

We await Sunday with a whole new outlook of anticipation.

Rejection

2007-03-31T19:20:00.000+12:00

As we enter Holy Week we come to a climatic point in Jesus journey - entry into the city of Jerusalem.

I have often wondered about several aspects of this event and never truly made sense of them. Jesus has been readying himself for this day and the events that follow: Luke 9 v51-56 tells us he set his face for Jerusalem and preparations were to be made for his arrival. They refused him in the Samaritan village and the disciples ask if he wants fore to come upon the village.

So he comes to Jerusalem and awaits the 'celebrity' status welcome from the city. It is Jesus signaling that he is royalty - well documented throughout Luke's account. The preparations and the procession on the colt, set apart, the cloaks thrown down and absence of city officials and priests etc reveal the hardened spiritual condition of the city. This insult and rejection for the visitation - 'blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!' as God's agent makes for even greater impact. As a result, Jesus pronounces judgement and weeps that they did not recognise the divine visitation in him.

I wonder how my city, your city, town, village may or may not receive Christ still? In what ways are there still insults, rejections to the extent that the very stones are cryng out instead, in place of those of us who should watch and pray? How has the church lost sight of the Kingly visit?

Yield - Psalm 32

2007-03-24T10:39:00.000+12:00

Last Sunday we explored Psalm 32. We began by considering whatthings we woiuld placve in our pursuit of happiness sack? On the surface it is easy to look ‘perfect’ and ‘happy’, but the Psalm today and Scripture at large remind us that what often fills our happiness sack are some things that deep down become such cravings that in actual fact they drive us, they cut us off from life. Lamentations 1 speaks of how God was 'woven my sins into a rope and harnessed me to captivities yoke' . We cling to our sack and forget God.
In Psalm 32 we are given an inside glimpse to someone’s inner life, to the bits that make them tick as person, v3-7 allow us to look inside the psalmists life – and there we discover a life that has been full of denials as to the real ‘life condition’, listen again, ‘when I kept it all bottled up inside, my bones turned to powder, my words groans all day long, the pressure never let up, all the juices of my life dried up.’
The word the Bible applies to such a life alienated form the source of Life who is God is SIN. He informs us then of the traumatic experience of unconfessed sin, due to stubborn silence, there were torments, like Lady Macbeth he suffered the guilt and agonies. Our culture has lost an awareness of sin and guilt. Our use of the word and the ways we label things ‘sinful’ have changed considerably.
The Bible is clear though in recognizing that human existence knows the experience of being cut off from life. For a long time, this experience of alienation from the source of life is summed up as sin. According to 1 John 1 v8 to claim that we have no sin is a great self-deception. So we look beneath the surface of his life and we see somewhat mirrored , if we are honest, we all fall far short. The point however is that the psalmist places this in the context of a God who is moved beyond such silence as the denial of sin in me. The psalm begins with acknowledging the ‘happiness’ the integrity, the honesty of those who make confession, they are the ones who are recipient of God’s benevolent action of forgiveness. – ‘Whose rebellion has been borne (by God)’ and ‘whose sin has been covered up (by God)’. Genuine ‘happiness’ is something God gives with God’s initiative, nothing earned, worked for but GRACE. The words used - ‘To carry’, ‘to cover’, ‘to impute’ emphasise the extent of God’s forgiveness; additionally, to avoid reducing human ‘sin or wrongdoing to cliché, 3 words for wrongdoing and deeds are used: each an aspect of sin; pasa = political term means to rebel; hatta = to miss the target; cawon = crooked act, also entails a persons conscience and so a sense of ‘guilt’.
But v5 is the turning point, the repentant turning in confession to the Lord. Indeed, it repeats the 3 common words from v1,2 for sin. And so the ‘pressure’ is lifted, guilt dissolved, sin disappeared. We suffer a demise of confession in our reformed tradition today, we have culturally assimilated and dismissed notions of sin. In liturgy perhaps especially, indeed the protestant form of confession is GOSSIP whereby we confess and point out our neighbours sin instead of our own. However you want to label it, if we stick with the biblical word sin for whatever the crime or pathology in todays terms. Robert Jenson refers to confession of sin being as necessary as taking out the rubbish/garbage.
‘Sin is like garbage. You don’t want to let it build up. Confessing sin is like taking out the garbage. You want to do that regularly because taking out the garbage is an extremely healthy thing to do.’ The psalmist urges and invites people to ‘yield’ repent, turn around to God, confession of sin, the practice of penitence before it is too late. The climax in v7 concludes that we can find shelter in the Lord. “You are my hiding place’, a place of refuge in the distress and threat of life and encircles him with shouts of deliverance at the celebration, all in sharp contrast to the immobilizing distress of v3,4. Finally, v8,9 provide further instruction. The image exhorts the psalmist and others not to be like the horse or stubborn mule that needs a bridle because they lack understanding’. Those who do not and persist in alienation will always find trouble and discontentment, in contrast to those who trust will be sheltered, covered, live under God’s hesed, covenant loyalty. Psalm 32 functions as a psalm that directs us in a new direction in/to life when we yield, confess our sin and trust in (see v1,2) He concludes with a resounding call to praise and celebrate God with honest, open hearts. We concluded with a time of COnfession inviting people to symbolically wash their hands in a bowl beneath the cross as a Taize Chant was played. It was confession as a people of God and as individuals.

Lenten Project

2007-02-17T15:36:00.000+13:00

We aim to use Lamentations as the basis for creating a -
"House of Sorrows" at our Roslyn Church as we journey through Lent we are looking to use this website to make some posts, but also have some interactive response that allows us to create this House of Sorrows for this season. We want people to feed in prayers, stories that show us something of the 'lament' in our present world. Ideally, we'd like to hear from places where the voice heard is more first hand.We would also like it if you could post to us a small piece of cloth/rag that we may set your poem/story beside and place in the House of Sorrows which we hope will become an installation that can give voice to lament and be a place for offering prayers of Hope. ( we can give you the address)

for more go to our Lament Blog:http://lament.highgatemission.info/index.html

Christmas Day

2006-12-29T20:18:00.000+13:00

Christmas Day came with 'Surprises' out of boxes all wrapped up. Children had great fun and adults as we ripped them open and we sang or prayed or read the story. It gathered up all our advent journey as you can see here.

Amazingly, though I didn't realise it at the time, the sun was shining right on the manger!

So we got excited at the surprises we opened, the surprises of the story... shepherds turned up... and Mary pondered these things in her heart. So we took some time to ponder too.

A church full and a wonderful part of our day!

As it is in Heaven

2006-12-23T15:02:00.000+13:00

For some time now we have wanted to catch this movie. Finally managed it last night. Our little local cinema The Metro is great for good qusality little films. I rarely see Hollywood these days.

The story is simple. It doesn't have glamourous cast, nor glitz, no complex twists and turns. Rather it has evertything of the everyday, the complexities are in the individuals and their daily lives. It shows the scenic remoteness of the village in Norrland, northern Sweden. You can check out a synopisis elsewhere, but the main character is complex and 'strange' really, but his is a search like all the others amidst a social-cultural context where each is bound up and gagged in a range of ways. Also the past that binds them too. You can at times feel the intensity of it. perhaps that's because it is all too real. The closedness of the small village, the church, the choir. The minister is an interesting and inwardly eaten up guy just like the rest and tortured by his understanding of faith. There are some good lines too as liberation comes for each one of them, though not without pain.

Daniel (Michael Nyqvist), a successful and talented conductor, who returns the rural village he grew up in, to recover from a heart attack. No one recognizes him because he had changed his name many years ago. Soon, he is approached to lead the local church choir. As he confronts his own past demons, love comes in the form of one of the choir members, Lena (Frida Hallgren), who helps him to find who he really is. His return though sees him alone in the midst of winter in the village. As he encounters people, he is asked to come lead the choir. He refuses, but is often heard say 'I am here to listen'. I think there is something profound in those words when we go anywahere new and meet new people.

It is its simple story about the beauty of life that makes this film a gem. The music isn't bad either and the scenery all come together and engage your emotions.

I can only agree further with the following comments:

Another thing the audience may have problems with is the simple
characterizations in the film. Everyone has a straightforward role – the
teacher, the artist, the priest, the abuser, the abused, the messiah, the bully;
everything appears so clear-cut and one-dimensional. But, there is so much
honesty in them that their petty differences seem to be a stark reflection of
our own lives.
To top it all off, the film features some truly moving scenes
which will leave you mesmerized with the beauty of music and on a deeper level,
life. Other than the obligatory final inspiring scene, another gorgeous sequence
to look out for is when the abused wife, Gabriella (Helen Sjöholm), sings a song
specially written for her. One of Sweden’s biggest musical stars on stage,
Sjöholm’s voice will enchant the cynic in you.
Sure, there are no loud
explosions and no fancy computer generated effects to draw in the average
movie-goer. But do yourself a favour, watch this film, experience the beauty of
life, and you will take home a piece of heaven with you.

Planting and tending lessons

2006-12-22T18:47:00.000+13:00

At our mid-week Caim this Spring (NZ time) we set about a garden ministry. Each Saturday morning we took on a garden and dug veggie plots, went back and planted seeds or seedlings, or simple weeding and tidy up.

Closer to home, I decided this year to plant some veggies too. It started something looking like this -

sugar snap peas, sweet corn(!), lettuce, Rocket, beetroot, broccoli, red onions, carrots, parsnip, and butternut squash.
a venerable harvest to share around with friends and neighbours.

In a time of huge ministry change for us all at Highgate, but also myself, the little garden plot has served to remind me of Peterson's 'Under the Unpredictable plant' where he uses a gardening image for ministry.

I confess it has helped me through the past months and weeks since Martin just left a few weeks ago. tending these plants, just enough shelter too as it has even hailed recently, delicately taking out the weeds and watering as required... all the gentle reverence for pastoral care.

So here is a recent update on my patch. See how they grow. It was hard holding back at that crucial stage of simply placing the seeds in the soil. Waiting and waiting and waiting.

With some thinning out some should grow even more, but I hope to harvest some lettuce and rocket for making a fresh salad with plenty taste. Yum!

Reading the Everyday

2006-10-05T10:19:00.000+13:00

Having been reading and thinking and attempting, as last post, to find ways to get us to consider our 'embeddeness' in our locations in mission, I'm grateful to Paul Fromont for this via Maggi Dawn. Its an article in Thirdway Magazine from John Davies. (Though its much more too from his blog here.)

This familiar place?

2006-09-18T09:10:00.000+12:00

I came across a way of reading the local context which I adapted for our Annual Meeting purposes.

It is both a visual on the streets around us, buildings, as well as simnply noting which sde of the street people mainly walk on and why? to use of parks and are the seats comfortable, etc, etc. and there's a challenege to name the people who work in the cafes and shops along Highgate. A small challenge really.

Actually what I would love to do, and may yet again, is to get people to walk Highgate with an eye and sense of people movements and much more. It moves us beyond just looking to sensing. I liked that. Then we would display findings and discuss it in considering how we are embedded in this context and what locally could be improved in our environment, etc.

This is the bear bones of a method derived from the RSVP Cycles (Halpern and Halpern) Sadly, I cannot get my hands on a copy of this and so gleaned from the beb, but if anyone, knows anyone I could borrow from then it would be great to read that book.

Interestingly, people using our facilitires and in the congregation have had curious interest too in the display in the main foyer area. Pre-school Music parents/grandparents and others. Mmmm!

I had loads of photos and comments and some fun bits for kids to find MArtin and/or me lying on benches hidden around the display. Also some fun photos from our youth along the way too. Also tried to note some changes to properties and in shop use etc. Lots of options to it really.

Moving through the silence

2006-09-15T10:48:00.000+12:00

And so the blossom has started to burst in Dunedin! Took this today of the tree beside our house.

There is a great deal of change on Highgate just now and we're all in a spin as Martin is heading to Christchurch to a church there.

We have some big questions ahead in the next few months, but we need some thoughtful talk and dare I say it - silence - that helps us. I am reminded of this from Paul Fromont 'Benedict on Silence' which I have been pondering recently. (or from Anthony Hanson here)Given below.

"Silence is a cornerstone of Benedictine life and spiritual development, but the goal of monastic silence is not nontalking. The goal of monastic silence, and monastic speech, is respect for others, a sense of place, a spirit of peace. The rule does not call for absolute silence; it calls for thoughtful talk.... Silence for its own selfish, insulating sake, silence that is passive-aggressive, silence that is insensitive to the present needs of the other is not Benedictine silence.
Benedictine spirituality forms us to listen always for the voice of God. When my own noise is what drowns that word out, the spiritual life becomes a sham. Benedictine spirituality forms us to know our place in the world. When we refuse to give place to others, when we consume all the space of our worlds with our own sounds and our own truths and our own wisdom and our own ideas, there is no room for anyone else's ideas. When a person debates contentiously with anyone, let alone with the teachers and guides of their life, the ego becomes a majority of one and there is no one left from whom to learn. But Benedictine spirituality is a builder of human community. When talk is unrestrained, when gossip becomes the food of the soul, then destruction of others can't be far behind. When talk is loud and boisterous, when we make light of everything, when nothing is spared the raillery of a joke, the seriousness of all of life is at stake and our spirits wither from a lack of beauty and substance. Make no doubt about it, the ability to listen to another, to sit silently in the presence of God, to give sober heed, and to ponder is the nucleus of Benedictine spirituality. It may, in fact, be what is most missing in a century saturated with information but short on Gospel reflection. The Word we seek is speaking in the silence within us. Blocking it out with the static of nonsense day in and day out, relinquishing the spirit of silence, numbs the Benedictine heart in a noise-polluted world."

Joan Chittister, O.S.B., from her book (a translation/paraphrase of the Rule of St. Benedict, with her commentary) The Rule of Benedict: Insight for the Ages.

Readings 3

2006-08-18T13:39:00.000+12:00

Spirituality in the City
Andrew walker (Editor) (SPCK 2005)

In this as so many areas, the education of the spirit is inseparably bound to highly practical challenges. If - as St Frances de Sales is supposed to have said - spiritual direction begins when people are helped to walk more slowly, talk more slowly and eat more slowly, then the life of the spirit in the city will entail asking about the size of rooms in public buildings, the flow of traffic on the streets, the levels of atmospheric pollution, the maintenance of parks, galleries and libraries, the space available for children in public - and countless other matters where decisions are regularly taken as though none of these could possibly be an issue. (Rowan Williams in Spirituality in the city, p24)

In recent times studies on space and place have seen an integration of the discussion of cities which usually focuses on planning, architecture, and economics, to incorporate the need to address the philosophical, theological, and spiritual aspects of cities. Albeit that this set of essays reflects much upon cities in Britain, this is still a very interesting little volume to read and reflect upon the every expanding city-scapes in New Zealand and the implications for faith. This book was specially commissioned by the London Centre for Spirituality and invites nine writers to help engage us with the nature of ‘spirituality’ and the urban environment of the city.
Each essay provides a different facet to spirituality in the city and offer more than a ‘sentimental’ celebration of the city. Rather, these essays are a serious attempt to understand ‘urban spirituality’ and a politic, if you like, of the built environment where insights of the work of God are discerned or made visible. So Mark Oakley writes of ‘Reclaiming Faith’ exploring the ‘intimations of the sacred –rumours of God’ (7,8) that shape faith in the city. Hence, each notes in their own way the ways in which ‘Urban life,… is at once dangerous and creative…’(R. Williams,17).
I especially appreciated essays from:
Rowan Williams, ‘Urbanisation, the Christian Church and the human Project’. Williams seeks to offer a ‘rough sketch’ of the themes and concerns that might inform an ‘urban spirituality’ with the role of the church needing some careful thought. Reflect upon the challenges he notes the use and organization of time, the question of ‘character’, life lived under the ‘sign of anonymous exchange’.
He tells us that:
We need to rescue spirituality from some of the ways in which it has been domesticated,. …. It becomes only a code for techniques of making people feel a bit better about themselves… where the Spirit makes people ‘uncomfortable about themselves and their environment, critical and creative, open to things being different. (24)
Williams wants a Church to know it has something distinct from the surrounding culture and yet has something distinct to offer society that is more humanizing.

Philip Sheldrake, ‘Cities and Human Community’; considering a theology of place, in particular aiming to hold together urbs (the physical place, buildings, etc) and civitas (people and their life together). HE offers a ‘perspective’ that considers the crisis of place engaging with writers such as Augustine, Sennet, and Augé. In regard to De Certeau he takes up the practice of the city and ‘resistance’ to systems that leave no room for otherness. In conclusion he notes some spiritual issues especially the city as a place of reconciliation.

Bernadette Flanagan, ‘Urban Spirituality, One size does not fit all’, provides an excellent overview of six models of contextual spirituality, based upon Stephen Bevans snapshots of the ways Christians go about exploring the presence of God in different contexts they find themselves in. Flanagan provides helpful insights to each model with examples. This is a very concise, yet provocative essay with wide theological and social awareness beyond ‘new ways of being church’.

Andrew Davey, ‘The Spirituality of everyday life’. HE asks what is so different about prayer/spirituality in the city? How does the urban context affect the way we pray; and vice versa? What strategies and practices might we adopt?
Davey notes ways in which our ‘Location is vital. The places where we live, work, worship and encounter others are an essential part of the formation of our spirituality and theology.’(106)While the context(s) may not be very conducive to spirituality he does admit that ‘Cities are places of possibility and encounter’ (108) in which congregations can create spaces.

Andrew Walker, ‘Urban Possibilities for daydreaming’. Seeks to take the prayer of Examen and explore the dynamics of this as a suitable and apt form of prayer to the demands and pressures of urban life. This essay is well worth consideration as it is easily applicable to adapt to any urban context and its challenge for reading the cityscape environment, but in relationship to God.
There are some repeated themes throughout and some essays will strike you more than others. While each writer is aware of the dangerous, more negative side of the city, on the whole each is hopeful of the city. I wonder about the marginal voices and what they might say about spirituality in the city and whether they might take us to other depths not greatly expressed in this work. Furthermore, this volume may have benefited from an attempt to draw out the common themes, and identify the agenda more clearly as a way to indicate ways forward. However, this is a worthy collection.

Readings 2

2006-08-16T16:20:00.000+12:00

Church After Christendom

Stuart Murray (Paternoster 2004)

In this book Murray continues his helpful analysis of post-Christendom churches. Part 1 explores issues of ‘Shape’ taking Acts 11 v1-18 as a paradigm to consider the shifts from Christendom to Post-Christendom. The key question is How might the church emerge or evolve? Murray teases out the issues of belonging, believing and behaving after Christendom and the complexities of this. I especially found helpful the clarity of his analysis and critique of the notions of centred, bounded and fuzzy set models of how we understand church. In particular, he considers the degrees of alienation and the language we make use of here, e.g. Semi-churched, de-churched etc. Rightly, I think, perhaps because I personally have issues about such language, he states,

‘This language is problematic, not least in its omission of any reference to other faith communities and its Christendom-orientated assumption that ‘churched’ is the cultural norm, rather than a counter-cultural experience. And it categorises attitudes towards church rather than Christian faith.’(25/6)

There is a chapter that critiques matters of leavers and joiners, which picks up on the works of James Fowler, Alan Jamieson and others. Murray then explores matters of church emerging or evolving. In some ways this is irresolvable at present, but I did like the probing, questing and the search for wisdom that we might learn from both inherited and emergent church.

Part 2 takes Ephesians 4 as biblical paradigm and Murray wants to ask the question What kind of church can survive and flourish in post-Christendom? The chapters that follow explore mission, community and worship. Within each, Murray takes terms and phrases that have become common use language in today’s church scene eg. Maintenance to mission, institution to movements, etc.. Across these chapters he considers evangelism, church discipline, leadership, rhythms and resources. He concludes,

Post-Christendom is a new environment…Ephesians 4 envisages a church united in hope(v4) confident in its destiny (v13) and getting on with the simple day-to-day business of speaking the truth in love (v15) and doing works of service (v12). If the church does survive the demise of Christendom, it will surely be a church sustained by simplicity and hope. (231 italics mine)

I say yes to that. I reckon that this second book (to what is now a series) is an invaluable that should help us frame our questions better in the new environment we find ourselves in. I appreciated the deep challenge, yet the refreshing ways that Murray provides open, honest analysis and critique. I found I couldn’t put this book down. It is a book I will probably need to keep returning to.

Readings 1

2006-08-16T15:56:00.000+12:00

Been a while, but among other things I have been looking and planning ahead to Advent out in the community and whatb this might be for us.(More on that later. I also undertook some reading of new books this past month. So I will offer some review/reflections.

Post-Christendom Church and Mission in a strange new world.
Stuart Murray (Paternoster 2004)

In this book Stuart Murray seeks to move the discussion out of post-modernity/ism and to explore the other term that has become part of our vocabulary in recent times ‘Post- Christendom’. Murray offers an interesting perspective and seeks to make a case for ways the Church should respond to its changing status in society. He highlights key moments that were significant cultural and theological shifts that impacted the church’s mission for centuries. There is actually a necessary, though lengthy, historical introduction which helps set the context for his discussion. In the whistle-stop historical tour we move from the coming and expansion of Christendom where Augustine is figured as the significant figure in the Christendom shift, to the disintegration of Christendom, where Murray is particularly looking at the Reformation. In his reading of the reformers he states that ‘they introduced important changes but did not challenge the Christendom mindset’. Hence, as Murray points out; oaths, infant baptism, tithing, just war, use of Scripture to support the dominant culture, Old Testament taking precedence over the New, the marginalizing of Jesus, a ‘clergy caste’ who ‘performed services’ and an increased ‘dominance of monologue preaching’ and the operating with a ‘hermeneutic of order’ rather than justice, concern with church discipline, all reflect how the Reformers ‘hoped to transform society from the centre, but challenged none of the essential components of Christendom.’
It is perhaps at this juncture Murray’s Anabaptist perspective radically prods at those of us who are of a reformed tradition or background. Nonetheless, the book highlights how inaction, denial or hope in out-moded revivals are simply no longer options and calls for the church to accept that radical change is needed in all areas of mission and ministry. Indeed, it shows how a new mindset is required for actually 'being' church.
The legacy of Christendom in the vestiges and mindset that persist – ecclesial and social, Murray outlines some responses that we need to move beyond – denying, defending, dismissing, dissociating, demonizing, disavowing, disentangling, deconstructing, disembarking.
For all Christians concerned with the present and very real issues, Post-Christendom is an informative, hopeful and important account. However, its historical introduction, whilst necessary for setting the book in context, is overly critical and lengthy, and the book as a whole does perhaps betray a particular historical reading. Nevertheless, this does not undo the worthiness of this book.
The final chapter as he acknowledges, is not so much about resource answers, as matters of keeping on questioning. In conclusion, it rests upon a fresh encounter with Jesus at the margins of church and society, ‘since that is where Jesus is so often found’.
The helpful thing as you read through this book is that Murray persists with rigorous questioning that I think is vital to connect our inherited past (Christendom) with the present we encounter. This book challenged me and the questions raised should continue to engage us in our own context here in New Zealand, where perhaps some of these questions are more pointedly being faced. The post-Christendom of New Zealand is an interesting anomaly that has some huge deep running tensions within and among the churches. Also, post-christendom here has much to recover from, in a way, due to a very colonial christendom and how things have developed historically. This is too simplistic and otehrs will know much better, but...we need to do a similar reading for here(Unless osmeone can guide me to a source I am not aware of ).

His Mission

2006-06-27T17:33:00.000+12:00

Still thinking about our perspectives on mission - here's Newbigin on the topic of "The Logic of Mission" which he rightly says aboiut the mission of the Church can only rightly be understood in terms of a Trinitarian model.

His mission. It is of the greatest importance to recognize that it remains his mission. One of the dangers of emphasizing the concept of mission as mandate given to the Church is that it tempts us to do what we are always tempted to do, namely to see the work of mission as a good work and to seek to justify ourselves by our works. On this view it is we who must save the unbelievers from perishing. The emphasis of the New Testament, it seems to me, is otherwise...

The church is not so much the agent of the mission as the locus of the mission.
(pp117,119, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Lesslie Newbigin)

Fake or what?

2006-06-10T09:59:00.000+12:00

IS mission our absolute priority? are we to wrestle with relevance, ruthlessly striving for competence and credibility in the marketplace?

I find myself more and more frustrated that the passion for mission is driving us further and further away from Christ.

Is it just me or is worship not our priority absolute ? Is 'relevance' or 'credibility' the issue, how about being plausible and real ? i'm not sure about ruthless(?) buit our striving shouldn't it be after the things of Christ and obedience to participation in the life of God, Fatehr, son and Holy Spirit, out of which flows and moves the very Christ-like life we are called to ?

Then I come upon this from a series by BBC called the Monastery. ( more at Paul Fromont)

"I’ve been to a few churches around town and they just annoy
the **** out of me because they’re so fake, and the people look so lost, and the
people on the stage just look so plastic and so charming and so seductive, and I
just think ‘I don’t believe in these people’. These people are not an expression
of faith. So, I’d much rather just slip into a church and sit there for 10
minutes and have a bit of quiet time, or pray at home. I don’t feel that you
necessarily have to turn up at a certain place at a certain time dressed in a
certain way to express your faith and live out your faith. I think there’s other
ways of doing it." (Tony Burke).

Paul then says:

Why do we, as churches, settle for so
little when we have so much, when we are who we are in Christ, because of
God’s wonderful grace and love?
I have been reflecting on Paul’s letter to the Roman church(s) over
the last few days. It’s glorious and the call of the church to be the faithful
people of God, new humanity in Christ, is simply breathtaking. Against that
backdrop it’s a sad indictment when words like “fake,” “plastic,” “lost,” and
more besides, can be attributed to the body of Christ.

Given our recent Pentecost journeying and reflections (previous posts) I wholeheartedly agree! Somehow I think we are kidding ourselves, we need to get under the surface issues and wrestle with the harder issues beneath. Maybe though, that is too much for us to face as we already know its easier to point the finger at society and critique the church and challenge and barrate about mission relevance, when the very heart and core of our faith is what needs addressing; dare I suggest that in this way we will stop simulating church and exercise the faith the Gospels call us to live.(see Pentecost 7).

Love shaped living

2006-06-05T12:43:00.000+12:00

Reading this morning Psalm 119 v41-48

41 Let your love, God, shape my
life with salvation, exactly as you promised; 42 Then I'll be able
to stand up to mockery because I trusted your Word.
43 Don't ever deprive me of truth, not ever - your commandments are what I depend on. 44 Oh, I'll guard with my life what you've revealed to me, guard it now,
guard it ever;
45 And I'll stride freely through wide open spaces as I look for your truth and your wisdom; 46 Then I'll tell the world what I find, speak out boldly in public, unembarrassed. 47 I cherish your commandments - oh, how I love them! - 48 relishing every fragment of your counsel. 49 Remember what
you said to me, your servant - I hang on to these words for dear life!

These words echo over yesterdays word for Pentecost. They concern how our life is shaped according to God's love and truth. I like how such wisdom shaped life then is placed in the 'open spaces' and the telling in public. Such boldness and confidence.

I came across Gracian. Some things never change. I found these words on the Art of Living well which is what i believe we are called to. The temptation after Pentecost is perhaps be encouraged that the Spirit is at work still in Christ's Church and so we set about getting busy in order to prosper and grow the church. I think not.

Baltasar Gracian was a Spanish Jesuit. (1601-1658) a philosopher and writer, scholar and satirist, he frequently expressed himself in epigrams. A Jesuit priest he was counselor to kings. He made a careful study of the powerful and elite. His work spoke wisdom, like Solomon's, into the then chaos of the world and perhaps they still have relevance. Needless to say his writings were later confiscated and banned by the Church.

THE ART OF LIVING WELL

The art of living well. Of living abundantly! Two are done quickly with life,
the fool, and the dissolute. The one because he does not know how to preserve
it, and the other because he does not know its value. As virtue is its own
reward; so is vice its own punishment: for he who lives too fast is quickly
through, and in a double sense: while he who rests in virture, never dies. For
the life of the spirit becomes the life of the body, and the life lived well
gathers unto itself not only fullness of days, but even length.
Gracian’s Manual, § 90 (see here)

Pentecost... What is going on here?

2006-06-04T16:20:00.000+12:00

Today was the culmination of Waiting on Pentecost for us. At our Roslyn worship hub we had a beautifully covered table with swaiths of colourful cloths. The whole service was put in a series of envelopes and people simply had to select this and we did whatever it said. It was a wonderful time as people selected and came in excitement to see what would be done next. We had people play music and read and pray. We had a new song from Brazil with a great rhythm! Participation at all levels and what was happening next hightened our sense of Pentecost. Colourful streamers and pingpong balls with attached streamers to throw at the very end of the praise songs and praise shout!

I preached from under a colourful umbrella a reminder of the puring out of the spirit and life now lived as Christians and as a Church under the umbrella of the Spirit. However, it doesn't work inside where we are safe warm, etc. it is about being sent out! Should have had an umbrella for everyone to go with, especially since it was pretty wet out today.

We had our gathering lunch to follow. Conversation covered several things, but most of all we were concerned with ways in which we as a church lived and moved and witnessed in the public spaces of the communities we are part of. All part of our overcoming of how we perceive gospel and culture's interaction. Only as we live as if it were threat do we build barriers and walls. Yet our sentness as a church means travelling light under the umbrella of the Spirit over us and in us. This will be an ongoing thing for us to now build upon. What IS going on here?
Paul Fromont I see has written this (below) and it struck me as relevant to us here.

I found myself asking, time and time again: “what is gospel,
what is good news in these contexts?” “What would it look, feel, sound, taste,
and smell like to embody gospel in these contexts?” And, “where was the Spirit
at work; where are there hints of gospel?”
The other big questions to reflect on is: “what is it that alienates, isolates, and victimises us in relation to each other; what is the place of the “powers” in this process?” And, “Who is my neighbour, and how do I love my neighbour as myself?”
Henri Nouwen writes:
“…Beneath all the great accomplishments of our time there is
a deep current of despair. While efficiency and control are the great
aspirations of our society, the loneliness, isolation, lack of friendship and
intimacy, broken relationships, boredom, feelings of emptiness and depression,
and a deep sense of uselessness fills the hearts of millions of people in our
success-orientated world… And the cry that [so often] arises from [the
hollow and empty places of our lives] is clearly: ‘Is there anybody who loves
me? Is there anybody who really cares?...Is there anybody who wants to be with
me when I am not in control, when I feel like crying? Is there anybody who can
hold me and give me a sense of belonging?’ From In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership (pp. 33-34)

Waiting on Pentecost...10

2006-06-03T12:38:00.000+12:00

Day 10. Ephesians 2 v19-22

'Embrace is grace.' (M. Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, p147)

Insider-outsider language prevails so much in many spheres. Within the church such language is surely inadequate it leads to terms such as OUT-reach being used without much thought for the image this conveys. Yet read passages such as this Ephesians text and there is an intensity about the ways in whch the cross breaks barriers and joins us together and gets us to embrace; outsiders are no ooinger outsiders and in a sense insiders no longer insiders.

Organisational theory uses the term autopoiesis to convey an understanding that the environment is to be seen as a part of the system because it is an essential part of the interactions. That is, easch element simultaneously combines the maintenance of itself with that of the others.
Its a bit like seeing a tree in an orchard and recognising that the weather, the soil and the wider orchard all play a part in its growth. They are part of the system to be considered. The tree adjusts and grows accordingly. hence the inner rings will be larger or smaller for instance due to the season it has had.

To begin thinking in such a way forces us to address barriers and a radical change to our thinking and behaviour. What if we were to allow Christ to shape our identity as God's people not determined by social, cultural divisions, but to be a glimpse of and experience of embrace.
What are we so afraid of in the world, societies and cultures we are part of in the environment?

Waiting on Pentecost...9

2006-06-02T16:09:00.000+12:00

Day 9. romans 15 v1-13

When you see a job needing done what do you do?

What does servanthood mean for us in truly practical terms?

Paul challenges us today not simply to do what is 'convenient for us.', it isn't about our status and little power plays. Move beyond such things We are rather called upon to look after the good of all those aorund us, asking ourselves " How can I help?'

Seems to me that is the nub and rubbing question we need to keep asking ourselves daily.
In the midst of a society where people tends to express and act according to what is good for me and stuff you sort of ways, I wonder what we might begin to look like and witness to. As Paul also says here "Just think of all the scriptures that will come true in what we do!'
Such service is like the overflowing and brimming over of the hope of Christ within us.

So when we see a need, will we lend a hand? looking after the good of those around us.

Waiting on Pentecost...8

2006-06-02T13:03:00.000+12:00

Day 8. Matthew 9.35 - 10.15

Become what you believe was our heading for the day.This, I confess, is a key text that has shaped my missionary calling and one to which I constantly return. It concerns sending out.... no big fund raising..."you don't need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, all you need to keep you going is three meals a day. Travel light.'

These are words that run deep for me, but the more I consider the church in mission, I long for us to travel light, to realise that beyond all else, it is people who are the equipment.

Last night the girls and I went to hear Julian Lloyd-Webber play cello at the Town Hall as part of his NZ concerts with the NZSO. We had great seats and it was a wonderful experience. As I listened, but also as I observed him play, he had no music score, but cliche as it is, he was so much at one with the instrument and lost in that musical zone with the whole orchestra as it played. It was his attention to the instrument, equipment- the little glances up at the conductor, over and around the orchestra as they played together. There appeared such a simplicity, though it was far from it. And of course the years of practice and just sheer giftedness made it an amazing experience to hear him play live. I believe that there was an attentiveness among other things here that teach us something of our part in the church as equipment, each with our particular gifts as part of the whole body and making our unique contribution.

Still travelling light....

Waiting on Pentecost ...7

2006-06-01T16:48:00.000+12:00

Day 7. Romans 12

Tonight at Caim we had a Pentecost gathering. We heard the text and people were invited in quiet time to come write up what God may be saying to us on a board(they could write a word, phrase or draw)

Romans 12 seemed to gather some things up: a firm reminder of God in Jesus as central and our all in all, that changed from inside out as we embrace what God has done for us, we are the body and we should just get on with what we are made to be, rather than seek to be something else we are not. There were some quite profound
We concluded with an act of placing ourselves before God. If they wished to come forward and kneel. A prayer was said over each and others could join in laying on hands.

‘As you place yourself before God now,
God to enfold you,
Christ to touch you,
the Spirit to surround you this night and always. Amen.’

There was a waiting around last night that was unrushed.
some comments:
‘Changed from the inside out’;
‘do not be afraid’ ;
‘let go… God will catch you’
‘forgive’
‘see things from another point of view’
‘Bless your enemies and then the sandpaper helping to make things smoother’
‘Lover to the poor, lover to the lost,
Lover to the down hearted
Do these things by the strength, direction, love and ability of your Father.’

Waiting on Pentecost...6

2006-05-31T09:17:00.000+12:00

Day 6. 1 Corinthians 12 v1-13

Some stuff we need to know basically. 'Concerning spiritual gifts...' They needed some help to understand the 'body' of Christ and how it worked.

Body building was the image that came to mind on reading this text. But actually, that soesn't completely help, because I recall visiting a gym years back and all you saw were those huge mirrors and people looking at themselves as they flexed their muscles on the weights.
Rather, I think Paul may prefer some exercise that isn't so self-centred. I also think that the nature and purpose of spiritual gifts for the building up of the body is intended in such a way that there are deeper matters such as respecting each other simply because we are 'members of the same body', not because of our particular gifts. Sometimes we are in danger of cur=bing otrhers gifts because we have such a body-building image that is so focussed upon the 'ME' alone sort of stuff, whereas my gifts are only any use when placed alongside others as a whole. When the body of the church exercises in this way the body is built up and made more and more complete as there is space and room and need for other parts still to be added.

1 Corinthians 12:
Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:
wise counsel
clear understanding
simple trust
healing the sick
miraculous acts
proclamation
distinguishing between spirits
tongues
interpretation of tongues.
All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.
12-13You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you're still one body. It's exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.

Waiting on Pentecost...5

2006-05-30T14:05:00.000+12:00

Day 5. 1 Corinthians 3.

You are God's HOUSE

Just because you're in the kitchen and I'm in the hall doesn't mean we are not at the same party.

(from Small ritual)

Quality foundations are important. But these are the sort of things that take time and involve patience and a standing back at times, as much as participating in just the right ways too. Paul in this text uses a couple of images one being farming and the other building. are we content in our role in the house on the farm? What if I do all the land tilling and another sowing and then someone else comes along and waters it and gets all the benefits and glory of the growth and fruit? Similarly, digging foundations, hard labour... someone else builds on it. In my own expereince I recall several of us in church plants being asked a question to take away and ponder - what oif you were to be called away tomorrow to another place; could you leave? Initially there were plenty reasons for saying No way! so much to do... but then a dawning. I learnt to be content in what I was called to do and do that well, to my utmost... walk away then ? Well yes and content while hpeful that the sower and waterer would do their part well too.

Some other thoughts though reminded me of Small Ritual where there's some interesting stuff that will stimulate in this way more. check it out. The Nolli Plan for one.

Waiting on Pentecost...4

2006-05-29T10:18:00.000+12:00

Day 5. 1 corinthians 12:1-13

Today Sunday we met for a gathering time. Over some lunch we chatted informally about the texts we had read and reflected upon so far. Nothing clever, but actually some rich depth of insights were shared. But what was also striking was the chance for people to grow closer and get to know one another better. It was encouraging to hear this expressed too.
I was especially struck by 2 stories. One of a hippie group of young people who came along to a church folks had previously been part of. Half naked they came week after week. Nop one in the church saiud anything nor reacted in shock, until one day the same folks all arrived wearing ties etc. they had been testing the church out and in time many came to key leadership positions and more. They played a part in the building up of that body in all its varied diverse parts. wonderful! What a challenge? I wonder how we would measure up?
I also was struck by another sharing of how they see thoose Christians who have impressed them, they admire and who have had some imprint on thier faith, would be those who have a gentle wisdom and manner. Added to this another spoke in terms of people who made or had 'room' in their lives for others out of the roominess they themselves know abiding in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They were speaking in ways of what it is then to live the life and learn widom from God.
So we broke bread and shared such things, we heard personal stories too and there was an encouraging of each other that was so simple. We then prayed for Highgate Mission and wider.
next Gathering time will be at Wednesday nights Caim.

Waiting on pentecost 3...

2006-05-29T09:45:00.000+12:00

Day 3. 1 Corinthians 2

Once on the ‘firm spiritual ground’ (seems to relate to our earlier reading reflections too) Paul speaks of wisdom

but it's not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that
will be out-of-date in a year or so. God's wisdom is something mysterious that
goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don't find it lying around on
the surface. It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God
determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived
on the scene. The experts of our day haven't a clue about what this eternal plan
is. If they had, they wouldn't have killed the Master of the God-designed life
on a cross. (The Message)

Strikes me that we, and as the Church, are all too often in the last decade or so turned on by the sort of wisdom that is fashionable, popularist, trendy and high priced. Such simulated faith though is all surface while he points and directs us to a Godly wisdom that is none of these, it is ‘Old’ and ‘goes deep into the interior of his purposes’. Now that is really something! Taught us in a personal way through Jesus Christ. Seems to me that we need to spend more time in such relationship and lessons than in seeking to be too clever or smart in our own terms with ‘fancy mental and emotional footwork’. In step with the Spirit we learn so much deeper things – this is wisdom –ears to hear and eyes to see and a knowing therefore what to do. The mind of Christ in us!

The way to this is by learning to indwell scripture, taking time daily to place ourselves there and wait so that in turn we live it out. Our wisdom will excite us, but...how far will it get us. Recently I have been reading Hans Urs von Balthasar and related books. Balthasar notes that often a Christian's whole life can be seen as living out just one verse of scripture. This can be vital to our calling/vocation as we revisit the text again and again and keep finding new dimensions to it. In this way we inhabit the text and it us.

What texts have shaped or are shaping you ? (providing that firm spiritual ground for missionary calling.)

You might like to visit Steve Taylor (Wednesday 25th May) who is asking -

What are the Scriptures that have shaped your emerging mission? What are the texts that have "read" you and formed who you are becoming in this postmodern culture ?

Waiting on Pentecost... 2

2006-05-27T10:47:00.000+12:00

From yesterday… ANSWER- The man had hiccups. The barman recognised this from his speech and drew the gun in order to give him a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups - so the man no longer needed the water.

This puzzle has claims to be the best of the genre. It is simple in its statement, absolutely baffling and yet with a completely satisfying solution. Most people struggle very hard to solve this one yet they like the answer when they hear it or have the satisfaction of figuring it out.
It is a simple puzzle to state but a difficult one to solve. It is a perfect example of a seemingly irrational and incongruous situation having a simple and complete explanation. [from -mycoted]

I think so many things can be this way in life- left staring up at the sky too often and consumed about the wrong things, asking the wrong questions. Take yourself to the space/place of waiting and receive in order to share the good news to the ends of the earth. The answer again is so simple!

Day 2. Galatians 5:13-26

The film “Shall we dance” with Richard Gere and J-Lo sees a middle aged man drawn to a dance class with others as beginners. Dancing with the Stars too has highlighted a renewed dance craze. It isn’t easy to begin to learn the steps, to be ‘led’ in time to the rhythm of the music. There seems to much to co-ordinate with your body. In the film J-Lo takes Gere and shows something of the freedoms within the constraints of the steps and the music to give expression to that freedom and the deeper ‘passion’ evoked in the rhythms/beats. Gradually he and the other ‘2-left footers’ truly learn to dance. It becomes something from deep in their soul.
Strikes me that to be free as a Christian, to be empowered in life in the Spirit to live and walk and keep in step with the Spirit, then there are some ‘dance’ lessons I need to learn the steps to begin with (The Greek for 'walk' used here concerns ‘keeping in line, in tune, in step with), but then it goes deeper, there is a fruitfulness – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. All of these are of the essence of the Christ-like life in us and expression of faith in every Christian.
“If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit”

Waiting on Pentecost...1

2006-05-26T08:37:00.000+12:00

We provide a simple daily text and Psalm for those who wish across Highgate. Last month our breakfast congregation (B@tch) held a day of prayer. I thought that this time we'd raise our prayer focus by waiting on Pentecost as a combination of daily reading and contemplation and Sunday lunches and Caim time Wednesdays.

Day 1. Acts 1:6-11 - the pattern is wait - receive - share.

one of the questions we asked how this pattern might change our life pattern, our church ? Probably like most I had a busy day. It is not easy to have such a pattern in your life in the face of all that is thrown at you, bombardments and all. It is especially hard for churches to exhibit this in the experience of decline and its atached crises. In this Acts instance a question is asked, but Jesus reply says 'it is not for you to know..." In other words some things are just not in our control and we needen't get worried or try and manage/control them. Rather, Jesus speaks of giving the Spirit; it is wisdom therefore to have a relationship, for this relationship will take us beyond ourselves and further than we could manage.

Left staring at the sky, fixated... their first task now was to wait. Many assume waiting means doing nothing and empty headed, no brain or energy life. that is not so. Waiting is a discipline that sets us in the right place in relation to God that we might receive and so go and share. Simply put. At Caim this week we read Colossians 2:20-3:5 (and went back to Col.1 as well) I think Paul gives expression to where we should be placed in relationship to Christ (see below)

Came across this as a teaser - have a think and I'll post again the answer, so that you get the lesson too.

A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says 'Thank you' and walks out.

:: ::

We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
18-20He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
21-23You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don't walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.(Message Trans)
20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this
world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules:
21"Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? ... 1Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (NIV)

Stretching the envelope... out of our comfort zone

2006-05-15T09:44:00.000+12:00

Brett led us today. Mother’s Day he told us about Mrs Wesley and her 19 children whom she would seek to devote and hour each in a week. It was said of her that if when had her work apron over her head while sitting on the chair she was not to be disturbed.
Acts 8 was the text today (esp. v26-40). The early church lived in the tension of still following some Judaic practices and still living very much in that space. Yet its encounters with gentiles and other strata of society with the Gospel took it out of its comfort zone and placed them in places that they might not otherwise certainly have been in. The envelope was stretched for them; don’t just stop at the Samaritans(half casts with their own temple, but go to the ends of the earth, at the time Ethiopia (Kush the upper Nile areas), and so an out right alien. Furthermore, a eunuch, some one distasteful and representative of a group. For Philip like others this was all less than comfortable and not something they might previously have considered.
He told us also of John Wesley, reading some of his journal on being called to street preaching, taking him well beyond his comfort zone, and stretching the envelope in amazing ways that the gospel reached the poor and raised people who would follow.
We heard too though of how Wesley was never happy nor content on street preaching, but he did it all the same.

Brett repeated often the phrases that still ring for us of ways in which God’s Spirit today may be stretching our envelope and moving us out of our comfort zone(s). Perhaps there are things, people, places we are being called to beyond our comfort zone, that stretch the envelope and yet have significant and unknowable results well beyond us.
I think there is something of this for the church today, it certainly sounds a chord with us on Highgate where the envelope has and is stretched. There is something of such tension that I think is necessarily a sign of the missionary congregation.

So where are we placed?
Take your body and place yourself on the street, take yourself among others in pubs, clubs, hospital, shelters, jails.... go beyond the safety of 'church' . We live and move daily in the public sphere. Our spiritual ;ife is as much shaped by where we place our bodies: "present your bodioes as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

Hans Frei , a theologian wrote
“… the embodiment of the Easter story’s pattern in our lives means… a new way of governing our bodies. That is how we are in touch with the story.”
(The Identity of Christ p171)

Public mission through public art

2006-05-09T19:39:00.000+12:00

Art reveal and discloses new insights and experences, opens up the world we live in. Theology and the arts have an ongoing relationship which offers churches a new creative edge for sharing the Gospel, especially through installations. So... I think the public space for this is worth engaging, hence worth trecking along to Opawa and getting some insights.

Opawa Baptist Church, Peter and Joyce Majendie are presenting a one day seminar entitled, "From Inspiration to Installation: Public mission through public art."

Peter and Joyce will share their knowledge gleaned from years of practical experience, including;
1. moving from ideas to creativity to implementation
2. art, creativity and mission
3. using public spaces
4. mobilising volunteers
5. working with media groups
This seminar is part of a Pentecost weekend experience that will include art, creativity and spirituality seminars, cafe and live music.

For more go to Steve Taylor

The Message in a public sphere

2006-05-04T19:47:00.000+12:00

The church was in darkness. Only candle light on a central table at front. In the background Arvo Part’s Speigel im Spiegel quietly, gently playing over and over and on right through the whole worship time at the Caim. Our text - Acts 8 v1-8
It caused us to consider persecution for faith beyond us as well as the message in the public sphere. In the face of persecution in Jerusalem they scattered and became missionaries. Philip’s mission taking the Gospel to Samaria and ‘joy’ coming to the city in the face of oppression was the other part of this.. The challenge to us was, as Brueggemann puts it

“The gospel is too readily heard and taken for granted as though it contained no
unsettling news and no unwelcome threat. What began as news in the gospel is
easily assumed, slotted, and conveniently dismissed.” (Finally Comes the
Poet: Daring speech for proclamation, 1989).

So taking it on from there I have been pushed to consider further ways in which we dress up the good news in ways that actually cover it up. Do we actually love the trappings more than the gospel itself? Do we believe any more that the gospel is plausible? Where is the daring speech in the face of whatever it is that hounds us today as the church? What is our reticence with all of this?

I’m not saying we need to go to the public square and shout at people, but how do we share the message in ways that ‘joy may come to the city we are in as response to the gospel proclamation?

I also had a piece to write recently on 'Creating a culture attractive to non-church people.' Needless to say I didn’t like that whole phrase in many respects so opted rather to turn it into cultivating the congregation as a hermeneutic of the gospel. My point being that we should be in the patient and humble, but no less demanding work of ‘cultivating’ and seeking a depth of plausibility in faith rather than mere relevance which seems to me to be breeding more and more simulated experiences of gospel and is façade at its cheapest and weakest. Jason Clark has some interesting things on this that has stimulated response too. worth a look at especially his recent on cultural neutering: which echos my own thinking somewhat and I look forward to what he will go on and say.

Yet in trying to avoid the neutering process we can actually perpetuate it. We
may create a new emerging church subculture that is as culturally neutering for
modern church people and postmodern people outside the church. Relevance is
important, but in many cases it is can be largely superficial and focused on
re-branding and marketing, however unintentional. Without an examination of the
things we believe, and our message, the church becomes obsessed with the
acceptable and trendy, and can become more self-focused and irrelevant.(Jason Clark)

We offered prayers first picking up a nail(s) and placing them on the table a symbol of our prayers for oppressed, those who suffer injustice etc. and then there were some scattered small coloured squares all over the floor. People also were invited to come pick up as many as they wished of whatever colour and before they left to place these on the table as a symbol of our prayers for the church in the world in all its colourful parts. These interactive prayers for others coming from our text caused a waiting around the table (yet again).

When I looked more closely too it was the small expressions of these prayers left symbolically that struck me - ways in which clusters of coulour squares were set out, ways the nails were made into sign of a cross or left side by side; all placed upon a cloth we'd used and written names on and had stains of red juice on...
and so we went out into the night and I look at Pentecost and consider more and more how we might make some public display on that day at least. Any ideas? Our theme that day will be

"What is going on here?"

(ps. got fed up of blue blogspace so decided a change was needed. I think its brighter and clearer!)

Towards Easter…

2006-04-14T13:25:00.000+12:00

I took Lenten time to focus on some different things away from blogging particularly. And now Holy Week has summed up so much for myself, but also for us as God’s journeying people. I held up various images for us to reflect over and pray this past week as individuals and as a church (even on behalf of the Church). We started with a Coracle as symbol of our risking and journeying with God in mission today, through this week and beyond.

Monday An act of Love
Reading for the day John 12:1-8

We came to a table where Jesus was to be thanked over a meal with friends who had been overwhelmed by Lazarus resurrected from the dead. Awesome! We reflected on the responses at the table to this, to Jesus especially on Mary’s audacious, precious act of love towards Jesus in contrast to Judas’ politically correct piety. (so to speak). Sometimes in church we come up with such replies to acts of passionate loving in response to Jesus. And so we miss the blessing.
Invitation was made to take some oil and sign the Cross on our hand.

Tuesday At Home.
Reading for the day Mark 11 v15-19:

A sudden jolt with Jesus in the Temple.
Does it surprise us? Does it shock us?
It asks questions about ‘home’ for us.

We contrasted something of all the Temple stood for and became, we refelcted upon the desire of God to’dwell’ with his people Tabernacle - people in exile, on the move, tent (somewhat borrowed from Maggi Dawn in recent blog) A turangawaewae… a ”Bield"( is an old Scottish word rich in meaning.)
It may describe a physical place of shelter and refuge, a pleasant environment of protection and rest.
It can also express such activities as: 'to nurture' and 'succour','to embolden' and 'encourage'.Each of these meanings suggests a facet of life at ’home’ in God’s place, a place of intimate prayerful worship.

We sang: Psalm 91
Whoever lives beside the Lord
Sheltering in your mighty shade;
Shall say ‘My God in you I trust,
my safety, my defender.‘

From unseen danger and disease,
God will keep you safe and sure.
Beneath these wings
a place you’ll find
a refuge from all danger.

You will not dread what darkness brings,
hidden danger, deadly plague.
Nor will you fear in daylight hours
the evil that surrounds you.

A thousand may die at your side.
Thousands more fall close at hand.
But with his truth for Strength and shield,
no threat will ever touch you.

God says ‘I’ll save from every harm,
those who know and love my name.
In trouble I will honour them
and show them my salvation.’

Wednesday They looked at one another
Reading for the day John 13 v21-32

Reactions to Jesus’ love vary; pushed away, rejected,
not understood or accepted or entered into.
Some strange things said at table about ‘betrayal’ and the disciples look around at one another in uncertainty, wondering and
increasingly insecure. We considered the looking around that night, the emotions that would have charged the air at that Table
Amidst the looks around at one another,
There is another look too— from Jesus. We looked into this icon The Peacemaker; the face required time of us, indeed the look stopped us in our tracks and caused us to consider the looks of Jesus as he washed their feet, as they ate, later even as Peter denied Jesus and looked. These are knowing eyes that look deep into us rebuking, yet without malice; piercing so as to forgive. This face looks at us fully from the human pain and frailty, brokenness, shattered hopes, yet it is the face of God to us also and so it lifts us into peace.

The Peacemaker, Andrei Rublev.

Thursday Together at the Table.
Reading for the day John 17

We gather at the Table remembering Jesus invitation to share in this bread and cup. We come to be bound together in unity in Christ and to witness to the hope set before us in anticipation that Christ shall come again and the banquet will be fully spread and shared.

Reflections on our relationship with God that should affect our relationship with one another in the church – oneness. We took time at the Table tonight, not a fast-food meal or rushed, but time together. We heard words from Athenagoras of Constantinople ‘

I have waged war against myself for many years. It was terrible. But now I am
disarmed. I am no longer frightened of anything because love banishes fear. I am
disarmed of the need to be right and to justify myself by disqualifying others.
I am no longer on the defensive, holding onto my riches. I just want to welcome
and to share. I don’t hold on to my ideas and projects. If someone shows me
something better – no, I shouldn’t say better but good – I accept them without
any regrets. I no longer seek to compare. What is good, true, and real is always
for me the best.
That is why I have no fear. When we are disarmed and
dispossessed of self, if we open our hearts to the God-Man who makes all things
new, then He takes away past hurts and reveals a new world where everything is
possible.’

And so we came as One to the table laying aside and entering into healing, restoration, reconciliation. But we also were aware of the words of John Chrysostom who spoke of 2 altars, that in the Church and that in the public space (the one we can ignore – the poor, the suffering, those in need, the homeless and all in distress).
He said ‘

Do you wish to honour the body of the Saviour? Do not despise it when it is
naked. Do not honour it in the church with silk vestments while outside it is
naked and numb with cold. He who said, “This is my body”, and made it so by his
word, is the same who said, “You saw me hungry and you gave me no food. As you
did it not to the least of these, you did not do it to me.” Honour him then by
sharing your property with the poor, for what God needs is not the Golden
chalice, but golden souls.’

At this Table we are brought into unity with Christ as we partake, but in doing so we are also brought into union with each other in the community of faith and beyond.
And so…. The people came and sat around the table on benches, on the steps, dipping the bread and sharing with friend, family. Together we sat at table and joined the feast. THEN… into this came someone unexpected angry… the guide leader, irrate at waiting to get their car stuck in the car park. Someone headed to deal with that and returned and so some went to move cars… it was a curious thing and a reminder to us too perhaps that the world awaits… but we sang ‘Night has fallen’, shared a blessing and people just sat around and began to move and greet one another and gradually we all drifted to our homes.

Good Friday Invitation to keep company in His sufferings
Reading for the day JOHN 18 v1-19

Arrest, peter’s denial Jesus ‘I AM he’ contrast with Peter’s (ours) ‘I am not…’ and so we come to the Cross.

The awesome silence of this image to reflect upon; the whole world seeming to have come to a standstill, yet the Cross now becomes its turning point. Here we see a restrained expression of grief, Mary stands in dignified lament; her hand to her lip as she stands, but the spiritual strain and anguish of the event is accented in her fragile figure. Opposite is John, the beloved disciple’. He too mourns, clasping a tearful face, more overt sadness, and highlights the human trauma of this event. Although separate , each is united in sorrow under the figure of Jesus himself who is curved and stretched in the cross, his arm span thinning to extremity, head slumped onto his shoulder eyes closed.. He is about spent. Above him reads ‘The King Jesus Christ. The Crucifixion” His figure and Mary give us a sense of suspended time, as there is sparse detail in the rest of the frame. The pain here stretches out through every generation and creation John 12.32 “And when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Golgotha outside the city wall Place of the skull. The cross is central and fills the frame reaching from heaven to depths of the earth. Gold symbolises the divine light – Athanasius taught that on the Cross Christ literally ‘cleared the air between God and human kind.” The footstool on the cross is slightly tipped towards us as onlookers, it offers us space for us to sand along with Mary and John. Christ is lifted up to draw us to himself, we are invited to keep company in the place of his sufferings. To be a disciple is to stand with Mary and John where Jesus pours out his life for the world. (Isaiah 53:12. Romans 8:38,39 – “nothing shall separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ.”

No blessing today, only now a waiting at the Cross for a while to ponder these things and then scatter… a reading of Psalm 22 and then we rush out away, off into the day awaiting the resurrection day. As we did so all were invited to take a purple ribbon and put it on the postbox or front door handle as witness to this day and the hope that we have on this Friday in our waiting -

“nothing shall separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ.”

Menuha - Rest

2006-02-04T13:05:00.000+13:00

Menuha is the Hebrew word for rest. Having just enjoyed 3 weeks rest it is a little daunting to consider what now needs to be done having had our team ministry set out the directions for each of our ministries in relation to the mission direction of the Highgate. In truth I am excited, but am reminded that Menuha rhythms are fundamental to the 'rule', the 'disciplnes' I have set out for my ministry role. So it is good to have rested well, but timely to find that this Sunday we're in Mark 1 v29-39.

33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34 And he cured
many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would
not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. 35 In the morning,
while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him.
37 When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you."
38 He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may
proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." 39 And
he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and
casting out demons.

Amidst the demands of DOING JEsus gets up early and goes to a wild, quiet, solitary place and prays. Amidst pressures to perform, the demands to DO, produce and accumulate, he cannot be found for a while. They scream at him where have you been, a sense of people need you, and perhaps more we can see the mission taking off, stuff happening and 'business growing'! Yet Jesus rhythm is that the work is only a consequence of the rest/menuha. Therein lies the worth and security we need for the tasks ahead as individuals and as a church.

It bothers me, even frightens me at times, that that the church is 'restless' faced with the demands it faces. In particular in mission. Mention the word and instantly it's all about DOING, when the priority is rest - wholesome and prayer-filled, that leads to prayerful action.

So we shall hear the story, wrestle with it together and come 'beside the still waters (waters of menuhot)

'O, LOrd, you have made us, and our spirits are restless until we rest in you.' St Augustine

Then its up and out and into the streets!
Good to be back.

A Question...

2006-01-06T17:02:00.000+13:00

We started the year with Meeting Jesus in John's Gospel.

"What are you looking for?"

These are Jesus first words to John the Baptiser's disciples in John's Gospel. "Where do you stay, bide, dwell?" they ask. "Come and see" a gentle invitation. They spend the day with him. Then Andrew then grabs Simon and gets him along to the Messiah. And Jesus 'Looked at Simon and gives him a new name Peter (Rock).

A beautifully succinct little story, jam packed with lots to ponder: especially Jesus opening one - WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? It is somewhat haunting to consider - what would I say in return to that one?

We asked it of ourselves as individuals, but also as a congregation - what is Highgate Mission looking for?
Its a question that acts like our vision - live worshipfully, help others and have the habits of faith. These too just jkeep challenging us every time we visit them and they are so interconnected. This is a significant year for us - what are we looking for? Hope it is more walking with Christ than dinosaurs! Learning more about what it means to keep living on the Edge we are placed at! Being hopeful and expectant about what is ahead!

On such notes here are some xtras-

Extra:

Steve Taylor has started posting some Postcards from the Edge. Worthy to keep looking in on I'd say. Good to catch more glimpses of what is going on beyond us.

A Conference in NZ-
Brian McLaren will be in Christchurch at Opawa in March. Steve bringing it all together.

For those back in Scotland/UK I see that there is this conference.

Institute for Theology, Imagination and the ArtsResearch Colloquium, Spring 2006

'Patterns of promise: art, imagination and Christian hope'
27th-29th March 2006St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews, Scotland UK

Hope is an inherently imaginative human disposition.
While securely rooted in something revealed, Christian hope nonetheless also engages our imagination.
In hope, faith reconfigures the shape of what is familiar in order to ‘pattern’ the contours of God’s promised future. In the process, the present is continuously re-shaped by ventures of ‘hopeful’ and expectant living.
In art, this same ‘poetic’ interplay between past, present and future takes particular concrete forms, furnishing vital resources for sustaining an ‘ecology of hope’.
This colloquium will explore our imaginative engagements with the shape of things to come. In particular, we will attend to the contribution that literature, music and painting can make, as they trace ‘patterns of promise’ and so generate hopeful living.

Home musings

2005-12-24T16:10:00.000+13:00

Today visited the Farmer's Market in Dunedin. Great atmosphere and meeting folks we know too. Then to New World Supermarket and some odd ends...(a not so nice experience of trolly bashing and car park space stealing by folks)... such a contrast. Then stopped at a fav. coffee shop and sipped, met some more friends. We then called Scotland and spoke with close friends Marjory and Stuart Watson, then listened to Marjory Watson on BBC Radio 2 - Pause for thought.(via Internet). And oh yes started making my gingerbread cut-out houses - samples ready. Lovely aroma! Mmmmm! Packaged and ready now.

And so some tastes of new home (Dunedin) and old home (Scotland) mingled for us today.

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel. Luke 2

Present- ation

2005-12-23T14:21:00.000+13:00

I haven’t blogged on much this past month as we have been on an advent journey with the Icon in the last post.

I’ve been trying to go through this advent time in a different way: given that Christmas here is very different for us. It has been interesting observing the adds, the streets, the shops and the same 'frenzy' that people share in the N. Hemisphere. Heard one today from TV about not taking the 'magic of Christmas' away from the children after all its all about them. Let's not be spoilers like some.' I took this as a remark aimed somewhere! I'm equally fed up of the Church though beating a drum that it has done for years now about the material, the secular... also the image we seem to present to others of this being 'your busy time'!!! In fact it isn't any busier, I don't think I have given that impression either! In fact, I have had all services outlined ahead, I've spent much more time with others. Maybe we just need to get over it all and get back to what the Gospels present us with -

JOHN 1 v14 The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

in order that we can make presentation of that Gospel in our life and words. Another image that we have had Sundays is the Bellini ‘Presentation of Christ’. We will tie this in more this weekend with presents and what God presents to us.
Christmas Eve Martin is doing something with snapshots and Christmas Day we will unwrap a package that we had everyone pass around without opening a few weeks ago. It has built some curiosity and there are a variety of guesses! This Sunday the mystery will be revealed. But we shall end our Advent Journey with a manger in a room and either sometime today or tomorrow I’m going to bake dozens of ginger bread houses (flat) to give to people as they go. Came across them as a traditional ‘lebkuchenhausen’ (German) or 'fairings' in England and hit on the idea for Christmas Day. (photo to follow) A simple reminder and maybe more....

Advent - Into the Unknown

2005-11-28T19:35:00.000+13:00

Yesterday we marked the start of our advent journey by providing some postcards based on an icon of the Nativity (Novgorod 15th C). A card with this on it and a card with readings, what to reflect on and action point/thought for the next four weeks. We’ll also use it Christmas Day to gather up the whole story.

And are encouraging people to taken them and use at home with family or to share with friends and give away, maybe even leave in coffee shop.
During the week I had scavenged an old wardrobe thanks to a Pre-school music mum. Perfect!

So we started by thinking about stepping into the unknown. We had several examples of what that meant to/for people. In particular we used the wardrobe placed at the front of the church. It created a bit of curiosity and I invited some, if they wanted, to step through into the unknown.
I then invited us to use a collective response as we began advent and the journey into the unknown.

In the main we were thinking about Mary: what did it mean for her to step into the unknown; ‘How can this be’ words that echo also at the Resurrection. Blessed by God – nothing earned, but Mary pregnant with the hope and Promise of Israel and so a ‘servant’ who took God at his word and acted with trust, involved in the central, pivotal event that disrupted all certainties and orders and the coming of a new Kingdom in our midst. Isaiah 64 too helped us with the cry and longing for God to ‘tear open the heavens and come down!’ In such terms Jesus came, so, are we ready for that for which we long for?
We read this refelction:

Birth
To wait,
To endure
To be vulnerable
To accept
To be of good courage
To go on
Day after day after day;
To be heavy with hope
To carry the weight of the future
To anticipate with joy
To withdraw with fear
Until the pain overcomes’
The waters break
And the light of the world
Is crowned.
Then the travail is over,
joy has overcome.

Lord of heaven and earth,
Crowned with blood at your birth,
Delivered with pain,
Bring new hope to birth
In your waiting world,
Bring fresh joy
To those who weep.
Be present
In all our dyings and birthings.

by Kate McIlhagga

In closing I invited people to walk through the wardrobe and as they did so consider their response to these things and consider their servanthood and Kingdom calling today – O Lord tear open the heavens and come down!’ Maranatha!

Help us live the life

2005-11-12T13:04:00.000+13:00

At a recent Caim, we started the day singing:

In the morning when I rise,
In the morning when I rise,
In the morning when I rise,
Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus.

And when I am alone,…

And when I come to die,…

On the centre table was a dish of oil. We read:
Isaiah 61 v1-4; 10-11

1 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the
Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to
bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to
the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of
vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to provide for those who
mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness
instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will
be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
4 They shall build up the ancient
ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined
cities, the devastations of many generations
10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall
exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has
covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a
garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the earth
brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the
nations.

We reflected upon how Isaiah 61 was rooted in Lev 25 Jubilee, and how in Luke 4 Jesus himself reads this significant text - cancelled debts of JUBILEE. We reflected upon God who delivers = a God who can disrupt social bondage and exploitation, overthrow ruthless orderings of public life and authorise new circumstances of dancing freedom, dignity, and justice. We thought of the refusal to accept oppressive circumstances.

We were then invited to meditate on this text considering the
In the meantime… Afterwards… aspects of Isaiah here.
We then prayed for others and the world.
And…
Eternal God,
we confess that we do not expect and long for
the transforming power of your love
to work miracles in these hard hearts of ours.
Yet we secretly long for a rescue, an escape, a miracle,
to relieve us of the responsibilities and the challenges you set before us.
Healing Spirit, renew our confidence in your power
and in the power of love to change our lives,
and give us courage to be the fully responsible persons
Christ calls us to be. Amen.
We finally came to the oil. Oil that can be messy if it spills, it soaks in, etc.Such is the way of God’s anointing… soaking our lives.Jesus said “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
We then had invitation to take the next couple of minutes asking God’s blessing on the work ahead of us that we know of today and even the unknown. Then, I said, “As we continue our business today, let’s do so remembering God’s call to us… Before you get up to speak, dip your fingers in the oil. Pray that God’s Spirit may touch our conversation so that we become a prophetic community, speaking good news and transformation to the church and the world.

Many are the words we speak,
Many are the songs we sing
Many kinds of offering
But now to live the life
Help us live the Life.
Matt Redman

What was significant was the ways in which that day and days had a real sense of ‘anointing’ service in intimate pastoral moments such as with someone who is presently dying of cancer and sharing their faith in the midst of that. Its humbling.

1a.Practicing Church - Improvisationally

2005-10-19T12:13:00.000+13:00

Sorry-
Been away from my blog for a while as I got this bug that has been going around and had a couple of weeks holiday too.

Anyway, last Sunday afternoon, we, as Highgate, shared with other Pressie churches in our Hill regional grouping in a servant ministry among the tertiary students at the University here.
It was called the Cookie Run 2005. We had lots of cookies - home-made- we had a system of packers do their stuff brilliantly and we had one of the University Chaplains, some students from the Welfare Office and Student.Soul. These along with 5 churches had some 200-250 packages go out randomly across 'flat land' among the scarfies. It was a smooth op., but the greatest treat was to see the surprise at free homemade cookies being given. I know the chaplain has had some calls of thanks and had a chance to follow a pastoral contact. Our intention was to begin to overcome the 'problem of the students' image tha comes at times. We wanted simply to show grace and allow those ministering on campus to make the relational contacts, as much as us from the wider church here saying we care too.

I loved the sense of edge it has brought to those who participated, especially in the delivery. Maybe we can build on this next time. I hope we can. For me it meant giving people in our congregations a taste of the improvisational dimension needed in and for mission today.

You can also see pictures on http://www.ousa.org.nz of the Welfare guys who helped us and Greg the Chaplain.

1. Practicing Church

2005-09-10T09:57:00.000+12:00

Been reading recently some essays in The community of the Word.Ed.s Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier (IVP 2005) This book grew out of a conference at Wheaton 2004 exploring the title.

I'd like to highlight selected chapters I enjoyed and engaged me:(I'll do this over the next wee while)

PART ONE:
Chpt 3 Practicing Church: Evangelical ecclesiologies at the end of modernity.
Jonathan R. Wilson.

This essay takes 4 popular authors and explores their implicit and explicit ecclesiologies: Francis Schaeffer' Chuck' Colson, Rick Warren and Brian McLaren. The reason for this is that Wilson, thanks to an article by Jackson Carroll reveals that clergy reading has no 'theologian ' ie after the likes of Bloesch, Grenz, Barth, Motlmann, Pannenberg, Torrance, Lindbeck etc among their favourites in reading, 'no theology is among thier most recently read books, and no theological journal is among their frequent reading.' (p63). [What is more disconcerting in this is that other essays also point to a lack of ecclesiological understanding and thinking as a whole in students].
Wilson speaks of Improvisational or Instrumental? he wants to add to missional ecclesiology an improvisational dimension - so that there is maintained a commitment to mission and a faithful flexibility to our commission. this enables us to adapt to each context 'under the guidance of the Spirit'. Schaeffer and Colson's ecclesiologies are of this ilk. However, instrumental ecclesiology is the opposite of improvisation - resistant or clinging to past forms or disconnects church from its life source. For Wilson, Warren's ecclsiology is instrumental. (Wilson states that it is actually difficult to discern any ecclesiology that guides his book, discerned only perhaps in the 'silences' Cautiously he notes: absence of critical examination of culture - assumed unproblematic, though does argue for cultural sensitivity; look in vain for anything of treaditional oneness, holiness, ctholicity of Church; leaves untouched the individualism of N. American culture - it IS about you and your fulfilment.

Mclaren, he regards as closer to Colson and Scheaffer, sensitive to the cultural context and the world as 'opposition' to Church and Gospel. HE does note a 'fear of irrelevance' in McLaren in his ecclesiology which is seen as a work in progress, 'still developing'... 'emerging'

Much of this Jazz metaphor is more fully developed by others these days and little new may seem to have been said in this chapter, but what was helpful was something I feel strongly about - that 'one, holy, catholic and apostolic' as characteristics, rightly understood, relate the church properly to its mission in the world and enable improvisation. For Wilson this sets the direction for ecclesiology into the future. The essay may have been more helpful, with more space to develop what is his conclusion and engage more fully with how Wilson intends the metaphor of Jazz improvisation at a level of thinking about the church beyond that of Warren and others. Something I do think needs consideration within such a framework, otherwise we dangerously cut loose from some 'core' tradition that addresses every age and we perpetuate an unthinking, uncritical ecclesiology and then we are in a dissonant mess!

Indeed, improvisation as a metaphor has for some time now been engaged with in organisational science and teased out. Perhaps that is what he needed to open up more fully in a critical way.

The Church rests on the grace of God, the judging, atoning, regenerating
grace of God which is holy love in the form it must take within human sin.
Wherever that is heartily confessed and goes on to rule we have the true
Church. P.T Forsyth

Abstract Expressionism - The Caim and beyond....

2005-09-04T17:21:00.000+12:00

Abstract expressionism is art in which artists typically applied paint rapidly, and with force in an effort to show feelings and emotions. Their work is characterised by a strong dependence on what appears to be accident and chance, but which is actually highly planned. However, usually there is little or no effort to represent as the spontaneity of the artist's approach to their work is said to draw from and release the creativity from within,. Importantly the expressiveness of painting is sometimes more significant than the painting itself. Continuing such thinkiing as applied to worship as expression is the simplicity to show feeling and emotion as much as be embraced by the same as we firstly listen and experience God's touch apply his comfort, forgiveness, love, etc.

Having planned several weeks ago to take the theme of todays Sunday service as Our Fears... little did I realise what our midweek half hour Caim readings would contribute.(The Caim is a quiet, reflective space, held Wednesdays, morning and evening taking the readings for the day) . Psalm 34 played a part pastorally as well as today for us all.

We started with a scary story... and then explored anxiety/fear...

THEN...
PSALM 34
4GOD met me more than halfway,
he freed me from my anxious fears.

5Look at him; give him your warmest smile.
Never hide your feelings from him.

6When I was desperate, I called out,
and GOD got me out of a tight spot.

7GOD's angel sets up a circle
of protection around us while we pray.

8Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see—
how good GOD is.
Blessed are you who run to him. (Peterson, The Message)

We then had 'Do not be afraid..' played and invited folks from this point to come place their YELLOW fear post-its on a rough cross at the front. (representative of their anxious fears). Some people came fter the blessing as they left too. It was a very emotional time of unburdening our anxious fears. We prayed aware of the circle of protection.

May the grace of God,
deeper than our imagination;
the strength of Christ,
stronger than our need;
and the communion of the Holy Spirit,
richer than our togetherness,
guide and sustain us today
and in all our tomorrows. Amen.

A form of Expression-ism?

2005-08-22T13:13:00.000+12:00

Yesterday we used the colour tiles again. Steve Taylor had suggested 'colouring our worship' 4th August 2005. and how we name the wide range of emotions and experiences people bring, we bring to church. So.. with permission, as I already had used these tiles in another way previously, we passed round the basket and each person selected a colour. We were looking in Jonah 4 and Jonah’s anger – we listed the things that make us angry,especially the anger that is unrighteous and comes from thinking it's all about us. We did this with a screen in front of the communion table. We then removed the screen to reveal the table. Then, inviting people to select a colour that reflected their mood generally this week, this morning. As they came forward for communion they first placed the tile on the table and ready to accept Christ’s com-PASSION for us in these gifts at this table.

Expressionism was one of the main currents in art in late 19th and 20th centuries. Expressionists attempt to depict the emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in him/her. Unlike Impressionism, its goals were not to reproduce the impression suggested by the surrounding world, but to strongly bring the artist's own sensibility to the world's representation. It seems to me that there is something about what and how we express ourselves in church that needs to move us beyond the impressionistic worship forms. To allow for expressionistic, even abstract expressionism(!) I see as a way of recognising who we are in God's presence with greater honesty and in relationship.
Peter Matheson, (in The Imaginative World of the Reformation) states:

Simplicity is often at the heart of genius. Luther reached straight to the
heart of things, disregarding all peripheral issues and fussy details. In
his....very popular and influential book of prayers for lay people, his aim was
to provide an alternative to a calculating piety which weighed sins against
merits and sought to insure against failure by multiplying devotional exercises
and good works... removing legendary accretions and all Uberfluss, or
superfluity of words. What God really wanted from us was our sighs and tears.
(122)

I’m finding people are more and more open to engaging in this way and it helps bring who they are honestly before God. We have often been starting with a story, a question before we do much else in worship, so that we begin to cease a little and come to rest in God as we worship. I think we’ll try it at one service in the month and see how this develops among us as we deal with some Uberfluss among us and in each of us!

Howl's Moving Castle and....

2005-08-04T11:14:00.000+12:00

Dunedin Film Festival has been running. I missed Hell on Wheels all about following the Telecom Cycle team in 2004 Tour de France, I missed to French films that sounded interesting but... my friend Rory came in the other day to the office and said 'Fancy coming to see an animation later today?" I couldn't recall the name of what I was heading to, but I am glad that Rory suggested it. The animation/art work was stupendous and especially in its fine details. Howl's Moving Castle is a story by Diana Wynne-Jones. (Looked her up since and see she has written many books all of imaginary worlds and maybe a bit like JKR, though of a different litirary style) This one I want to read having seen the anime. Humour weas throughout it too, and it had several layers or threads you could critique of course. But simply having watched it without coming at it with any Christian take on it, it seemed to address issues of war, but the other aspects of it revealed the main female character Sophie showing immense courage and humility and kindness, even unconditional compassion to others who were enemies and outcasts. I wouldn't say it was cheesy at all either. Although i would say the end seemed lame though. What I did love, was very much a reminder of CS Lewis world in the Magicians Nephew and the many pools that would take you to different worlds. The Moving Castle's front door had a coloured disc turn as you turned the handle and each time it would turn and open into worlds where it is utter darkness and ones where it is on a street and yet another into a utopia. I loved the imagination at work here. So I'm grateful to Rory for introducing me to Miyazaki the Japanese animator of this work. For the reason of the artwork and animation alone it is worth going to see and appreciating!

SIGNS

2005-07-24T16:19:00.000+12:00

Today we had borrowed road signs and set them up with cones leading into the building and then in the entry and in the church space itself. We took time in gathering for worship to acknowledge that we are a part of a long story of God’s creativity. (Psalm 78). We spoke of beginnings, we told again the Exodus liturgy, we considered exile and ‘home’ and wove throughout it our sense of journey with signs of God in our mission today aware of the past signs guiding and the signs we need to have eyes to see for today. We had everyone with a postcard of signs and got them to answer some questions –

::There are signs all around us each day, but as
Christians what are God’s signs to us as a church today ?
::Things from our past that I think we should still hold onto today...
::Given the way God has always led his people into new ways and given our sense of God leading us today, I think the following ways of being the church in mission
on Highgate should be considered...

After response time we asked everyone to hear these words of offering our
selves as God’s people -
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you:
Take your everyday, ordinary life—
your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—
and place it before God as an offering.
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can
do for him.
—Romans 12:1,

We then got up, with music from ‘Furious Angels’- (Rob Dougan, track –Will you follow Me?) and placed our offerings and all went outside for the Blessing, physically and visibly reminding us that the story we had heard this day was for this purpose of our being ‘sent out as God’s people’ there was a sense of being on the edge of something impossible and bigger than us that calls us to trust in the impossibilities beyond our management and in the incomparable possibilities with God.

Critical Christianity

2005-07-12T09:30:00.000+12:00

The reforming processing took place with influencers such as Duns Scotus, 13th Century Scottish Franciscan who advocated a practical theology whereby theology should have no separation from prayer, nor dogma from doxology, nor knowledge of God from living communion. The task of theology was/is to guide the life of prayer, praise and communion. Going further back it was an understanding of Anselm’s faith seeking understanding of the Triune God. A rooting of text back into daily life. Then there is the likes of Erasmus, (widely misunderstood in his day) who advocated a Critical Christianity denouncing the pharisaical religion made up of routine practices and works drained of their spirit, a religion of false devotio (that made too much of practices devoid of any honest heart pietas response to grace) which became nothing more than the accumulation of observances. Erasmus returned to essentials of inner piety and the Gospel. So the ground was prepared for the Reformers to continue honing a reformation theology that grew out of their own medieval matrix out of which some was affirmed, modified or abandoned.
It seems to me that any significant ‘reforms’ in church history have all been concerned with a recovery of how we read scripture and it’s place among the community of God’s people and in relation to how it is communicated afresh in the context of that day and provides the necessary ‘constraints’ of Scripture and Tradition. This highlights the under-girding tension of tradition and improvisation into the ‘new emergent’. Begbie (Theology Music and Time) speaks of liberating constraints and in an exploration of Church tradition (noting several points) states that ‘improvisation reminds us powerfully of the futility of searching for a tradition – free environment of creativity.’(217) He reminds us that the intelligibility of any music depends on proven traditions of practice, interpretation and belief as an interpretative grid. There is a necessary apprenticeship required before one can move to find one’s own place and voice so to speak and improvise. Put another way, ‘Spontaneity.. is but the outcome of years of training and practice and thousands of experiments’ Hauerwas (Against the Nations,95)
I do believe that today’s emergent, particularly within the mainstream establishment Presbyterian, Baptist or otherwise, is concerned with living in the in-between place where liberating constraints are beginning to operate. Constraints like it or not give us our identity – one being Scripture. Engaging with this and negotiating this and other constraints (occasional – such as those localized, specific to a social, spatial, situation; cultural – those aspects which come from our own experience, frames of reference, etc; continuous- those things that condition us and are givens) requires improvisation that enables freedom to flourish, is risky and is not predictable. Certeau’s ‘making do’ seems to me to be similarly concerned.

When we bring such things to bear upon worship and the totality of ministry in the emergent then it is concerned with making disciples and learning what it is to be the ‘body’ of Christ. Yesterday we asked “IF we are the body …”

It integrated Romans 12 v1-8 and Ephesians 4 v1-16 as with references to Matthew 18-20 (instances of Jesus teaching of radical new practices of the Christian community). We explored the invitation to live in God’s presence and the realisation that each belong to all in the body with diverse gifts. What does the body-ness of the church look like ? Everyone had a coloured card tile and was asked to come to the front where we had a Bible, baptismal font and Table with Communion cup on. They were invited to take a coloured tile and place it on the Table around the cup and remain around the front of the Church. Once this happened I asked them to look around and see everyone gathered around the now colourful table. We then blessed one another. It was good to see everyone then instantly mix and chat and wander off to coffee.

The Compost pile of Text and TXT

2005-07-02T17:29:00.000+12:00

With a simple historical reading, devotio post-moderna(emerging) in part is about questioning. It asks- how do we handle the text in a txt world ? How to communicate this dangerous text of scripture? Walter Brueggemann states that ‘The Bible is the compost pile that provides material for new life.’
The Reformation stands in a way for the re-discovery of the living God of the Bible. In a fashion the Reformation arose from a long line of ‘protestings’ that challenged those aspects of the Christian Church that were concerned with other means of artificial fertilizers at the expense of the ‘compost pile’ to nourish. Historically, scholasticism which was essentially summed up and strongly optimistic of rational knowledge in handling the text and the methodology applied to faith seeking understanding in many instances degenerated into dry, even ridiculous discussion. Sadly though all it did was over intellectualise and further distance the text from the world. A divorce happened if you like, between theory and practice. The 16th Century’s intellectualsing theology gave rise to a sterile theology and undernourished spirituality. (It must though be said that it was a lively and not all bad, but became so and indeed took root in the later isms tat came with training manuals for right belief and so on. Eg. within Calvin-ism, etc). Perhaps in a similar way the ailing of the Church arises from the lost message in its midst that has been supplanted by so much ‘other stuff’ that has dried it out.

::
Brueggemann (Texts Under Negotiation) proposes a shift from an objective claim of hegemony to a contextual, local perspective. He further states

the end of modernity requires a critique of method in scripture study. It is
clear to me that conventional historical criticism is, in scripture study, our
particular practice of modernity, whereby the text is made to fit our modes of
knowledge and control. As we stand before the text, no longer as its master, but
as its advocate, we will have to find new methods of reading (p11)

This places us with freedom to ‘be our confessing selves in a faith community and that our knowing consists in the actual work of ‘imagination’ which he understands to be the ‘human capacity to picture, portray, receive, and practice the world in ways other than it appears to be at first glance when seen through a dominant habitual unexamined lens.'

The ‘compost pile’ metaphor is useful. For me it means that the lead in to preaching, is as others speak of, a matrix of text, experiences, other readings, others, culture, reason, revelation. All of this enriching us as God’s people freeing us in 'imagination' too. For years now, my contexts have mean me always reading and doing the hard yards some of which never comes out in preached ( for me it is important to have some depth). But also at ways this text allows us to respond, to enter the subversion, the counter drama as Brueggemann says, that enables us, challenges us to respond and participate in God’s presence and purposes for now. This means presenting the text, exploring the text among us through various means. I am further remined of Hans Frei for whom Scripture and community wer key categories for his 'communal hermeneutic' and further the key is not interpretation for abstract knowing sake. Rather it concerns a piety and worship centred on the Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ as centre. So the goal of the 'sermon' is not conclusion, but the ongoing story in which we participate and the ext forms this alternative community of Christ in the 'city'.
::
We have recently completed a journey of threads through Lamentations. Last week we listened, but also used cups/water and a jug in a bringing before God our lament and that of others we knew in visible form of water representative of our tears in the jug. At our Caim (our midweek quiet space) this week our text spoke of being poured out as a drink offering. We used a form of lectio and concluded with symbolically pouring water out into the baptismal bowl and then gathered and anointed with oil as a sign of wholeness and unity as God’s people. We have been seeking to provide daily reading and daily psalms and have the Caim as a place where we gather to do this midweek. It is about allowing the text of scripture to ‘form us’ as God’s people. Indeed, we are re-discovering together, telling our stories, insights around this text in fresh ways that are invigorating. Sundays and Wednesdays and the offering of texts each day we trust will provide the dynamism for the Spirit to re-form us in this place or as Anselm said encourage a ‘faith seeking understanding in the Triune God’.
[My thoughts here aim to extend thinking in my last post, but also in relation to posts relating Chris Erdman and Steve Taylor.]

Erasmus

devotio post-moderna ?

2005-06-23T14:55:00.000+12:00

It is all too easy to dismiss the so-called ‘institutional church’ and it’s structures. So people leave. But I actually think that the real problem concerns us more with what or who we have lost sight of – the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the piety/devotion and spirituality of that life as a disciple. Furthermore, I think that we have so engulfed the life of the church with traditional-ism and sense of our ‘good order’, that these have become the new ‘relics’ for our devotion. I am suggesting that simply to balk at institution and structures alone is inadequate. The cracks in the structure of the Christendom church are seeing various movements arise as I would suggest we can see from church history. In the crucible todays world I wonder if there are insights we may more fully gain from the past.

I have been following the threads of Paul (Prodigal kiwi Blog) on monastic spiritulaity, forms and old new, emergent church matters. Most of which has been part of my own ongoing musings. You can pick up some of Paul's stuff here - June 02, 2005 Shaping Holy Lives - on Benedictine Spirituality; June 07, 2005 Imagining a New Old Church; June 08, 2005New Monasticism – Contemplating a way of living publicly
I was also interested in June 21, 2005 The future of the Church in the West Doesn’t Lie in the Emerging Church Movement and followed from there the piece by Alan Rox. on emergent where he offers very insightful and dare I say 'balanced' critique.

So to lessons from the past. I do think that the recovering of spiritualities from the great monastic traditions and their directing us to key aspects in areas such as leadership, are helping inform and give potential to reshape us today. I want to add to that mix by suggesting that to be emergent, also has something of the devotio moderna in it.
::
Devotio has classical patristic and medieval roots. It carries the sense of inner and outer devotion; modernus simply meaning present day, now. Hence devotio moderna is the piety for now. A religious movement of the 14th Century that lasted to the 16th century in the Low countires of Europe. It had its devotional roots in the 12th century devotion of the likes of St Victor, mysticism of the Rhineland (Eikhart and Jan van Ruysbroek) had created fervour that moved out of the religious institutions and into what are seen as houses of laity. Their intent? To establish the religious, pious life by other forms, spiritualities and structures, than was thought to be offered by the older orders rules and traditions, especially monastic institutionalism. So perhaps we also need to push on beyond lessons from the monastic and explore what led towards reformation. Devotio moderna emphasized the following of the example fo Christ, while living communally, but without vows, in the world. They had a stress on habits of prayer, meditation, communal reading and work. It empahasised a practical piety. Seems to me that emergent is such an expression among us today - a devotio post-modern ? as we find ways forward into reform and beyond.

Dear Frankie...

2005-06-05T17:33:00.000+12:00

Dear Frankie ... a simple little film set in Glasgow and in Greenock. It is nothing flash and maybe I'm being nostalgic about Scotland just now, but it it is the story of nine year-old Frankie and his single mum Lizzie who have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in a seaside town of Greenock. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they've run away from his father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is away at sea on the HMS Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie goes thorugh this complex 'ritual' of reading Frankies's letters to his 'da' sent to a PO Box which she then writes sending news and a stamp from some far off places, pretending to be his dad. It is a big cover up to keep Frankie safe. But she is always afraid.

As Frankie tracks the ship's progress around the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown. With the real HMS Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie must choose between telling Frankie the truth or finding the perfect stranger to play Frankie's father for just one day. See the movie for the rest, but for me it offered hope and said something about love that sets us free again. Lizzie needs to re-learn and in the end you are left to make your choice on these things. But I think its humour, its touch and story speak of hope in the realities of life and asks of us what are we afraid of to be loved and move on in hope?

Today we came nearer to the end of our sojourn with the Book of Lamentations (in case you wonder it is not that I am morose, but we worship in Roslyn 1 and 3rd Sundays of the month, so it takes a bit longer!) We thought about it's teaching resistance as a means of being able to 'lament' and share the stories of our pains etc in a safe place/space together in God's presence, further one that is a resistance borne out of our very weakness in which God's strength is shown and known. Indeed, resistance through lament weakness begins to untangle the mess and knots of greif, woundedness, despair and violent rage that so pervades society. So often resistance is NOt that of the child graspng for the stronger hand of the parent, et tha is what I sense is here and gives us hope to be agents too of different practices in mission. Practices that allow us to be less individulaistic as a church and more of a community sharing faith and life in Christ.

The movement from hostility to hospitality is hard and full of difficulties...
But still - that is our vocation: to convert the hostis into a hospes, the
enemy into a guest and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood
and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced. (Henri Nouwen in Reaching Out , p64)

So today we had some new families present, one with Paul who cannot speak and was in a wheel chair. What touched me was to see and hear how people from the congregation responded and welcomed and laughed with this family. It was not forced or awkward. I pray we continue to grow into being a congregation that with Christ in our midst, and in our weaknesses practices resistance and has the identity as a people who care with the fervour of God and reveals that care in hospitality in and through the precious gift of friendship. LAment encourages us to be such in these 'exile days', and we too must ask and face the honest question 'What are we afraid of in the face of love?'

Go see Dear Frankie if you can, not with blockbuster expectations, but quiet enjoyment of life touched by a stranger.

living in the paradox

2005-05-25T20:24:00.000+12:00

I find the images of the desert and the market place speak to me very
powerfully of my need for withdrawal, for times of solitude and silence and contemplative prayer, while at the same time I am engaged in all the noise and
pressures of ordinary daily living. If I am to survive all the demands that a
busy, active life makes upon me, then I must make sure that I also take
seriously the demands which a contemplative life of prayer makes. The two must
somehow be held together. Prayer is the anchor which brings the inner strength
to my daily activity; my daily activity informs that prayer and anchors it in
the reality of today's world.
Esther De Waal (p101 in Living with Contradiction.)

It has been a while, there has however been a few days with Marva Dawn out and down in Dunedin; conversations and soundings; discerning some worship beginnings; time withother leadership; learning new and deeper lessons...managing my fatigue. So the above quote is a good summary and focus for the posture in mission.

Next week we begin a weekly am/pm 7.15-7.45 quiet, prayer space on Wednesdays. The intention is to provide in our communities the space for quiet, reflection and prayer in the midst of the week's activities and demands. I hope it will also be that prayerful place that engages in real issues. All part of our learning and a vital part of our mission task here.

unfettering posture

2005-04-14T14:51:00.000+12:00

Here on Highgate Martin has, after study leave, been raising the sort of questions that Dawn does in her book, which begin to probe under our skin, so to speak. (ie no longer just the usual banner headings of postmodernity, but getting beneath to the ways such ‘devices’ fetter us.). It is quite stricking how, for example, too often we hear around the churches the financial limiting to what might be… the scarcity fetters us in deep, profound, practical ways and is so deadly to the church.
Chris Erdman and indeed Paul Fromont continue to stimulate my thinking about the ‘posture’ of leadership that sets us free, fills us with hope as witnesses to the abundance found in Christ for us as his people. I’ve been gradually piecing something together based around the older traditional spiritualties of the Christian faith and been considering the ‘Rule’necessary for us as a mission community of grace to help us in the practices’ of the faith. We see 3 key areas for us here in terms of Worship, Habits and Helps. (Live worshipfully, help others and have the habits of faith) Considering this then, I see my posture as missionary in all this to be one of paying attention (prophetic), patience and to relate and care. There may well be more to add, but for now this seems to be clear to me. We operate presently with 3 hubs ofr worship and activity: at the Roslyn end it happens 1( all age and story based) and 3 (communion with reflection and time together) Sundays. I’m looking to develop a ‘new’ worship focus, like Steve Taylor (undertaking Espresso as a new cafe church (experimental stages). In our context though I want part of what we do to form something of the overall rhythm and pattern of our communal life and from this spawn other ‘groups’. On Easter/Holy Week we ran 7.15-7.45 am/pm reflective services. Following these feedback (if seen as a test run) reveals that it provided a safe place (someone not connected with ‘church’ popped in and in their need we ha a pastoral time, their comment was that it felt a ‘safe place’. So… I’m hosting a gathering soon to run this past some folks interested and willing to participate together in. Images of Caim and coracle seem apt for us now as one aspect affirms God’s presence, the other the trusting, journeying, risking and a ‘spiritualty of the insecure’.
So I am seeking out others to have conversations with, as I also sense that in the intimacy of the space we have in the sanctuary at Roslyn we not only put this in place each week for Highgate, but that it could be wider.

::
My dream, if you ask? To offer a ‘Place to stand’ that is a place
of worship where people come closer in their walk wit God through various forms,
but perhaps especially through the Ignation, Benedictine, reformed and other
spiritualities informing us; a place of quiet, to cease and rest; a place
of hospitality; a place of learning, my hope would be to have teaching on
mission that helps and encourages and that there is a sense of and dynamic here
of worship, learning (study and reflection) and some experience of this in
community that is set in and around mission contexts in Dunedin. My
posture, our posture then in mission one of faithful obedience.
::

Beyond the device-use of church

2005-04-08T11:59:00.000+12:00

Reading ‘Unfettered Hope’ continues to stimulate reaction in me and challenge me (and the church) to consider faithful living today. For some time I have begun to see the challenge in mission to move beyond and go deeper in worship, in spiritual formation as disciples and with neighbour to make friends in our communities (wherever they be geographically). Dawn highlights and speaks of these 2 matters as focal concerns::

'Focal concerns’ are those important aspects which give our lives
meaning and purpose and toward which we direct our attention. The root here is
‘focus’ meaning hearth. A useful metaphor for us. In terms of Christianity the
focal concerns are love of God and love of neighbour. So she asks do we live by
such focal concerns?

The device paradigm Dawn outlines (after Borgmann) teaches us that the notion of a device removes from us the burdens we experience with a thing. Eg a hearth,(thing meaning something which cannot be separate from its context, tasks and skills and experiences related to it, and how we engage it, learn and relate to it and one another. (Borgmann instances the machinery of a fireplace and what it is as a hearth thing.) Further, the device paradigm is concerned more with commodities(ends) rather than machinery (means). She notes the following -

Death of culture; LOSS: Truth, authority, community; Quick-fix,
breakdown in disciplines/practices; Pluralism; Rejection of actuality of ‘sin’.

I have been struck by the device paradigm because, I think that Dawn rightly highlights something of the power of this not only in society, but the church. And here it engages me to think more deeply about how we treat ‘church’ as device in so far as the debilitating effects – the fetters and shackles – make church and our experience(s) of faith less than real, more virtual. It concerns us in how we worship, how we relate to others (or not), and more…it all becomes a commodity and it has shaped our identity.

the commodities of our society are so attractively packaged and so
alluringly
advertised that churches sometimes don’t trust their own identity
and think that
they have to be similarly glamorous, even seductive, to
appeal to the seekers in
their communities, to announce their relevance, to
provide all that their
members need, to make a difference in the world. In
the process the churches are
adopting the culture’s device paradigm… and
thereby enter into a spiral of
weakening – becoming less and less what the
Church really is and then having
less to offer. My particular concern in
this book is that adopting these
misplaced priorities means that
congregations have no ability to equip their
members to question the
paradigm by which the church itself is functioning.(89)

I am especially struck by the virtual. Baudrillard speaks of simulacra where something virtual, simulated in the end becomes the real. I wonder in what ways beyond what Dawn mentions church has become a simulacra, when in fact we are missing so much more. If church is a thing and a part f the machinery then it involves us very differently. Reflecting through Lamentations, it might mean then that we become ‘communities of honest sadness’ (Brueggemann) who wrestle with issues and faith, but who know what it is to worship the living God, to live a daily faith, to be friends, to love and serve one another. In other words to organize our lives in ways that love God, love neighbour and begin to make a difference from the margins where we refuse to be DRIVEN any longer in ways that make the church a device/commodity a mere simulation of the God-reality it is called to be.

Unfettered Hope

2005-04-05T18:48:00.000+12:00

Still thinking about pluralism, relativism and fragmentation I had been searching and listening for ways in which not just within culture, but the church the effects showed themselves and how we could name this and reform’ beyond these means of operating. In on this I came upon ‘Unfettered Hope’ by Marva J. Dawn and already it excites me (I’ve got to end of chapter 2 so far!)
I’ve read several books by Marva J Dawn, but I have to say that ‘Unfettered Hope’ is a marvelous piece of writing that offers a Christian reflective response to the “gigantic bluff” (used by J. Ellul) of the technological postmodern world.
In it she uses the word ‘fettering’ to ‘summarise the many ways that our feelings of hope might be stifled or squashed, that our hopes in the form of a possible event might be prevented or spoiled, that our hope for a condition in the world might be thwarted or restricted, or that our hopes in things or people might be disappointed or dis-illusioned.’ (Intro xii) How true this statement is. I think that this reading begins to help me get under some of what I have been wrestling with in relation to the various presentations of fragmnentation etc we see around us in society, but also in the church. But more of that reflecting later as I engage more with what Marva writes.

Of course she wants to give one way of thinking beyond these and that is in the ‘unique and unfettered hope of the Christian faith… that hope in the Triune God gives us the means for dealing with the diverse fetterings in our lives and frees us to be engaged in counteracting the fetterings of violence and injustices in our world.’

As I read on I will share more, but she sets out at the start with David Ford’s(The Shape of Living) and the response process to the world overwhelming us – 3 imperatives, 1:Name it; 2: describe what overwhelms us, 3: attend to the whole shape of living. Dawn will use this as her outline for process in the book.

This is pretinent to us beginning some readings and reflections in the book of Lamentations, beginning last Sunday. We started to explore the relevance of this for us today, we started by considering it as an act of truthfulness. (We will go on and look a Lamentations as an act of impassioned hope, the wish for justice, resistance and tears as the power for newness. [following Kathleen O’Connor]) As an act of truthfulness Lamentations is truthful about the brutality, suffering and tears of exile and fall of Jerusalem. There is no running away, not covering up in niceness it names the reality. Lament engages us with raw reality. We used Bruce Springstein’s ‘My city in ruins” and it’s images of 9/11, and an empty church, empty streets and in the question “tell me how do I begin again?” which moves the song profoundly towards HOPE.

Now with these hands I pray Lord,
Now with these hands I pray for strength Lord
Now with these hands I pray for faith Lord
Now with these hands I pray for love Lord
(Springstein)

Character of a Servant

2005-03-30T20:14:00.000+12:00

I had this film recommended to me and managed to see it Easter Monday. Some reviews seem to belittle it for 'sentimentality', but well I am happy to take that risk. It has subtitles, but if you have enough French from school the pace allows you enough to make it out. It is told by 2 old boys who are significant characters in the main story set back in post war 1948/9 France. They read the diary left by Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot) and the film follows his life through the school from when he arrives at the Fond-de-L'Etang boarding school, an imposing, even intimidating, reformatory boy's school for orphans in the countryside, where he is to be a supervisor, till he leaves. Some critics have slated it for sentimentalising redemtion and hope. I disagree. I actually think that there is an angle that struck me, having simply gone not to analise it but take it and see... for me it was about the character of a servant in Clement Mathieu. His diary entry closes with how he has not done much of significance as a teacher. Yet one discovers the significance was great. An unsung hero, someone who played the second fiddle well and bore the pains of that too. I liked it. I reckon that the message I took from it is simple, straightforward and one that speaks to us about the sort of disicples and leaders the church needs. If you can get to see it go... it's out on DVD in May too.

Credible witness

2005-03-16T20:00:00.000+13:00

I came across this today on Paul Fromont (Prodigal Kiwi) he quotes from John Drane in his recent reading.(his blog 16th March -John Drane - Community Mystery and the Future of the Church) It seems to resonate with my own processing and poins in some other way to the character task I mentioned yesterday.

We need to rediscover how the church can be a place of community, nurture, and personal growth…In a fragmented society people are looking for a place to belong, a place of safety, a place where we can be empowered rather than stifled, a place where we can be open with others, acknowledging our needs and inadequacies with an expectation of support rather than a fear of condemnation, and finding acceptance for who we are rather than having to conform to images of who other people think we should be…This will inevitably be challenging – more for some than others – because it requires us to value one another as persons made in God’s image, regardless of class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality or other characteristics that may appear to divide us. This seems to be a particularly problematic area for the church,

And further,
Finally, we need to rediscover church as a focus for witness and service. Christians love to correct other people. But an appropriate prophetic attitude for a renewed and faithful church will begin with the recognition that we can only effectively challenge others to follow the way of Christ if we are continually hearing God’s voice for ourselves, and allowing our own understandings to be changed in the process. We have something to share with others not because we are different, but because we are no different, and we can become credible witnesses not as we condemn others and dismiss what we regard as their inadequate spiritualities, but as we constantly listen to the gospel and appropriate its challenge in our own lives…. ‘God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in that world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing the things that are…(1 Cor. 1:27-28). In our struggle to find new ways of being church in a context of rapid cultural change, that is perhaps the best news of all, and the most truly empowering message for the postmodern age…” (pp. 98-100)

A Character Task (Kierkegaard)

2005-03-15T18:33:00.000+13:00

In the midst of the church’s experiences of relativism, pluralism and fragmentation, have we lost our way because we no longer are sure ourselves or about the Gospel truth that we too have relativised, pluralized and fragmented church. I recall many years ago now when a survey was taken in the Presbytery I was part of. We asked people 2 simple questions: What do you think about Church? and What do you think about Jesus Christ? It was part of larger national research in the Church of Scotland. The returns pointed out that the majority of people church or not, had many points of view and much to say about ‘Church’. But when it came to Jesus there were few responses. In a very simple way it was felt that we seemed to convey a great deal and talk much about ‘Church’ to the detriment of Jesus. We still seem to be living according the rationalism of Enlightenment and modern Christendom that in one way causes us to place the Gospel in a ‘knowledge framework’.
Hoedemaker’s Secularisation and Mission states that the relationship between Christianity and rationality has become problematic. It calls therefore for a rethink about what ‘mission’ might mean, since secularization questions the suppositions much tradition in faith and mission. The challenge being to rethink the place of ‘religion’ in culture, especially when religion has been privatized or is relative.
Indeed this pervades us at all levels and the tensions between this and the new realities we encounter have caused us to have a sense of displacement. The in word of course is ‘liminality’ which is the place of such crushing removal from our ‘comfort zones’, but equally is the place of potential for the new. Herein lies some hope to be seen.
This is very much where the Highgate is itself. But the crucial question I keep hammering out of late is that how we operate is or should be determined by our vision for this context in which we stake a claim of the Gospel truth. My challenge for us here as I see it is to exercise Sabbath rhythms. Herein lies a challenge for our mission. This means that the leadership and the church needs to shake off all the busy DOING stuff that runs to keep the Prebyterian cogs turning, but which for all the many of them few make a difference to what we should be concentrating upon more effectively We are burning people out, we are keeping people away because we give off all the wrong signals about church, but more about the sort of Gospel we hold to. Hence when we explore what future mission will be its hard to not be all activist and doing and to have an urgency to ‘set priorities’ as PCANZ meeting, or fill the gaps with stuff to get busy as there is a sense that a busy, active place is buzzing and MUST be a good going church that people will want to come and be part of. It is perhaps all too easy in a relative, plural and fragmented world for us to operate this way. Such ‘knowledge’ based approaches almost tend to process people through faith and church. Our mission is surely beyond such!
Rather, my task, as I see it, is to set a different ‘rule’ in place. I fear if we play to the ‘world’ tune we will deny God and seek to control all that is called church and we have all seen that route and lived in it. Emerging, we need Godly Sabbath rhythms that are patterns for us as individuals, as groups, as congregations. Why? Because I believe that if the Gospel is to fulfil its mission then first of all we must begin with ourselves, as Newbigin reminds us “the locus of confidence is not in the competence of our own knowing, but in the faithfulness and reliability of the one who is known.”( Proper Confidence Newbigin p66,67) He further states; “We are not given a theory which we then translate into practice. Instead, we are invited to respond to a word of calling by believing and acting, specifically, by becoming part of the community which is already committed to the service of the Builder.”
It is the Who? question that grounds us. In this way we actually move from knowledge to praxis. By this I understand praxis to be theology is embodied in the practices of the church, it isn’t simply something to be known. The dynamic is also one where practice – living and experience- equally informs theology. Hence, ‘Christianity is praxis, a character task’ (Kierkegaard)

Coming to terms with discontinous change

2005-03-14T18:24:00.000+13:00

Since returning from holiday I have been silent mostly in this blog space. I have in part been working out a rhythm of rest/work. But next week we have Holy Week and a few things have been cropping up as I have begun to process the Easter truth. So I want to begin some reflecting in the hope that others might help me process some stuff regarding our mission approach.
It would seem that the church’s missionary struggle today is concerned with an ever increasing engagement with matters of ‘relative truth’, where the manner of our knowing, though a thoroughgoing relativism would deny any truth being known. It means we can chose what we want, hence there is also a pervading pluralism in ethics, culture, personal, religious/spiritual. Here is the supermarket for lifestyle choice, church/ denominational choice, etc. Hence, we see and indeed, experience fragmentation whereby the new forms of community are no longer purely geographical, indeed they transcend such bounds on a large scale. However, not all bring people into face to face relationships/community.

In a world as complex as this, the church as a community is falling apart. The frayed edges may be seen as part of the fragmenting and impact upon the church of these wider issues. In recent days Chris Erdman on leadership has been engaging:

The Gospel of Leading “Out of Control”Says Roxburgh: Leaders must develop capacities to lead change when congregations are living in the tensions of discontinuity. You lack clarity on the shape of the future and how it is going to be shaped; this is expected. Therefore, those leaders who believe they can address the kind of change we are facing by simply defining a future that people want and then setting plans to achieve that future are not innovating missional congregations. They are only finding new ways of preventing congregations from facing the nature of the discontinuous change that confronts them.

Just last Monday I attended a meeting entitled ‘Focus on the future conversations 2005 . It was part of a series of national gatherings throughout the PCANZ’. It was concerned with the future priorities and tasks of the PCANZ, but it reflected our difficulty to face the nature of discontinous change that is confronting us. In the Foreword of the ‘Focus’ document is a vitally reflective quote from the Presbyterian Outlook (USA) which, as stated, may be said to be the opinion of any member of the PCANZ; ‘budget cuts, painful staff eliminations and heavy turnover… are signs of a denomination that does not understand who it is and how it’s members are connected to one another.’ (bold mine) The reformation or reshaping for today’s mission context asks of us ‘how are we connected?’ What was striking, indeed frightening was the sense of desperation, albeit with the sincere desire of all to find a way through the relativity, pluralism and fragmentation the church is experiencing head on here, where secularization and postmodernity is not simply an arms length encounter for the church, but here in Aotearoa New Zealand is being rubbed in our faces. I use the term ‘desparation’ not simply emotively, but in terms of the confusion of language and a jumping to ask the ‘What should we do…? sorts of questions. The setting of new priorities was immediately set against the financial budget situation we find ourselves in. A prior question to be considered before we can effectively look at future priorities, is to ask ourselves, Who are we? What is the core calling/purposes of the Church (PCANZ)?
Do not get me wrong, my critique is borne out of a desire for this church to be obedient to it’s call to mission and I am committed to it. It is painful, and I am not the only one to see, that we were truly reshuffling the deckchairs on the sinking ship.
It is at this point that I would contend that we can repackgage ‘church’ through various means in our congregations, we can repackage faith as a life option in the supermarket; indeed, we can market our church to bits by resetting our priorities, but does this not simply reveal that we are so consumed by maintaining a Christendom model that we have lost touch with what is at stake in regard to the gospel and not understanding people today.

How can gospel truth claims fulfil their mission in a world of relativity, pluralism and fragmentation?

Space to rest...

2005-02-18T16:04:00.000+13:00

We journeyed north and ithroiugh from Greymouth over through beautiful valleys and then over Takaka Hill to Golden Bay up in the north of this South Island. It was the part of journey that signalled less exploration and more rest. It was everything we needed after the year past. Sea was warm, beaches that were full of space and well don't these views say it all. How blessed we are! What a beautiful space to rest.

Here is where Abel TAsman touched down at Ligar Bay.

Being on the edge of Abel Tasman NAtional Park we entered at our nearest end and doid a short walk to Taupo Point. We only got so far as the tide wasn't fully out. However there was a less coastal route, so I on behalf of the others set off up the steep cliff through the bush amongst the cicadas sounding loudly and the steamy heat. At the top I came out and saw this....

I truly felt like an explorer as I saw it for the first time. It made me stop a while, before heading back down.

So spaces to rest... this coming week when so much of church seems to be abuzz with doing and activity that drains and demands of people, it is my hope that our Lenten journey on Highgate will begin for us the practice of hospitality, that can only truly begin to happen genuinely, if there is a restfulness to it, but also space to get restless as a result of the rest is needed. Hence, I have put out a simple journal that will go out for the next few weeks based on a few psalms. Following all the changes we've undergone to pursue mission, I feel we need to create spaces to rest and the mutual building of one another up in faith.

Explorations - Into the west

2005-02-05T17:18:00.000+13:00

Into the west and through the immensity of the Haast Pass around us on either side, waterfalls gushing amongst the dense forest.

Then the west coast a curious mixture of lengthy, wild grey beaches strewn with driftwood logs and them vast areas over hills of native tree forest/bush.

I picked a small driftwood piece and felt the smoothness that had been given it by the pounding sea. In the immensity of the beach there was a moment to find some quiet. All this newness was stimulating to all the senses. As we traveled it didn’t seem to matter where we were placed or rooted, I felt so caught up in the thrill of exploring and sesing each new place we encountered, even what we might say seemed like the middle of ‘no where’.

A visit up the the Fox Galcier saw us pass signs giving dates of when it was at point x or y and now the distance cvovered to the face of it. To simply look up and see the carved rocks that were huge edifaces, somewaht cathedral like rising sheer upwards... it was overwhelming.

Children need ‘wild’ places. Perhaps we all recovered a sense of that and enjoyed it. No longer did being in a ‘strange’ new land feel as overwhelming. Children in the way they roam break the boundaries between themselves and the world in which they move, no matter their space they are in… imagination helps create this as they can make the place their own for that time. Into the west had a sense of this, as well as a curious mix of intimacy and immensity.

Preparing for Ecclesiastes tomorrow in church, it strikes me that Qoheleth somewhat soberingly makes a call to gather the people and seeks to rid them of illusion, falsehood, fraud and sentimentality, holding up a mirror and more perhaps to enable the people to engage faith with reality, in a very disillusioned context. In the face of those who offer a chummy God who is rather banal /reduced, and hence people's faith is more a quiet resignation. Qoheleth voices a more robust faith affirming the holiness, the awesomness the other-ness of the God of Israel who is the centre of everything we are, we have and we do without such a faith God's care, love, joy - God's YES to us and our 'yes' response are empty, vanity, illusion, fraud, or as Zimmerman says is 'flatulence'. How do we see God today? Can we live with what for us may feel like paradox, a God who is 'other' and evokes awesome fear and intimacy as we know and experience it in Christ ?

Gaston Bachelard in Poetics of Space philosophically explores intimate experiences of place. In Chpt 5 on shells (pp105-135) he aims to open up an understanding of ‘intimacy and immensity’.
‘To imagine living in a seashell, to live withdrawn into one’s shell, is to accept solitude – and to embrace, even momentarily, the whole concept and tradition of miniature, in shrinking enough to be contained in something as tiny as a seashell…’ (Foreword o the 1984 edition p. viii)

Psalm 91 v2 'Say this:' God, you are my refuge, I trust in you and I am safe.'

Explorations of Place

2005-02-04T18:24:00.001+13:00

One of the exciting things on our trip was not that we covered some 2000+Km’s was the way in which it has helped place us here in New Zealand. Each step of the way provided so much visual stimulation among others as we ‘explored’.
In the end it has given us an even better sense of place beyond Dunedin. It was interesting to move from reading lines and names on a map to actually see these places and continue to have even beyond photographs very vivid images still in my minds eye of places, landscapes we simply passed through. Our sense of place is clearly interactive. As a result of our journey I want to reflect a little bit about this.

Central Otago took us up into high-land and mountain country filled with orchards, vineyards and sheep stations. Here we knew some parts having journey that length before. We me family there and they go each year to the same farm cottage. It was clearly a place that they valued and it was good to share in it together.
The mountains and ranges never fail to impress. It’s when you read the old stories of settlers and life in this environment it makes you wonder. I note the big blue skies above them and how small it makes me feel in this grand stage…

Central otago

Lake Wanaka (on approach to Haast Pass)

I ask myself – what kind of place was it for me? What do I value about it? Perhaps further, what relationship do I have with the place now?

What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Psalm 8 v3

2005-01-17T17:34:00.000+13:00

Summer seems to have finally arrived. And we are on family holiday.
Out with the artist brushes, oils and canvas... a few beers perhaps and some nice red's!

And so we are looking forward to rest, relaxation... as well as some exploration with Gillian's folks out visiting us from Scotland. So we are set to explore te Waka-a-Aoraki/Te Wahi Pounamu (the canoe of Aoraki/ the place of Greenstone) - i.e. the South Isalnd.

Off we go then into new places...

[2] Jazz Improvisation

2005-01-14T10:25:00.000+13:00

Simply put improvisation is ‘improvisus’ Latin meaning “ not seen ahead of time.”
What I think strikes me is the exploratory nature of this, the possibilities of the risks.

Jazz improvisation as ‘conversation’ then involves soloing = which means one taking the lead; trusted by others to improvise, while comping is the others supporting. Even improvisers need others and must themselves in due time play such comping role. This seems to involve collaboration and teamwork to a degree even where words are not required, a look, nod or eye are enough to deliver/pass the message. Listening and responding then are of the essence and sensitivity. These form part of the opening of the space for ideas, for response and the taking on board others ideas. Such leadership requirements seem to me to suggest that we must learn to live less out of ur competencies and trsut the work of the Holy Spirit in us and among us, to work through us. It is a far more demanding and risky business to allow the Spirit to 'improvise' through us because we don't see too far ahead. It demands faith of a sort rooted and being built up in Christ - a faithful obedience. I think this is the sort of scripted life Brueggemann directs us to. I also think it is what will lift us in our leadership beyond the endless sense of despair as we see the edifaces crumble, number decrease, etc., etc., and further it will save us from 'false' platitudes of hope.

Organisationally/structurally, the implications for how churches wrestling to find a form that maintains the missionary participation today may revolve around the improvisory nature of life in the Spirit. How much structure is needed in this Post-bop genre will be an interesting one of course, and no-one can see ahead on that! Some studies have shown how the second/third generation of a movement sees all the initial intensities wane and growth rate slows. ( Noted by Donald E. Miller : Reinventing American Protestantism). I’ve also been reading Prayer and the Priesthood of Christ in the Reformed Tradition by Graham Redding (T&T Clark 2003) It covers several paradigm shifts in theology from early Fathers through to reformers and Scottish reformers. It takes a good look at worship and prayer and how our notions theologically about Christ’s priesthood have been affected. Anyway, it strikes me that looking at it from a Jazz improvisation perspective, we can see that in each historical period the emphasis, debates, creed forming, the liturgy, confessional standards were in part developed in relation to the focus of the times. That was why in looking back some aspects of their theology were not as developed. Some was spontaneous, some built on years of understanding, practice (pastorally) and ‘thousands of experiments’ which was exactly what Calvin’s Geneva was in a way and what Thomas Chalmers undertook in the poor house areas of Glasgow and Edinburgh and seeking Godly Commonwealth too. From a historical/doctrinal perspective there is much we can learn that would make us think, reflect and hopefully better understand where we are , but also with a sense of improvisus. This is not to say that we are more Jazz/swing or bebop about handling the past, for present and future, I do actually see in Acts 10 Peter go against the bounds of tradition and go 'outside' in conversation(postbop). Jazz improvisers are interested in creating new material, surprising themselves and others in spontaneous ways with the music. Jazz equally has no prescription of what is to be played.

“Spontaneity… is but the outcome of years of training and practice and thousands of experiments”. (Hauerwas, Against the Nations 1985: 52)

Keep improvising! Keep experimenting and risking!

[1] Jazz Improvisation

2005-01-13T11:52:00.000+13:00

Sorry for the previous theorizing and its labour. But now to turn to the metaphoric use of Jazz that seems to be increasing for the church emergent.

I confess I like it and delved into organisational science to discover a debate going on for some time now in regard to this metaphor and it’s usefulness in organizations generally.

I’ll come back to this another day. But what at the outset I think is striking are the genres of improvisation and the degree of improvisational structure in each shift.

Classical- Minimal = functional hierarchy – formal structure, linear, rigid

Trad. Jazz/swing – constrained = process, flexible

Bebop – extensive = network, complex and structured, organic

Postbop – maximum, new content and structure emerge = functional anarchy, emergent, spontaneous, mutually constructed conversation, chaotic

(see Michael Stack “Jazz Improvisation and Organizing” in Organisational Science vol11/2 2000, pp 227-234)

Within this framework, perhaps we find ourselves in the midst of a conversation throughout the Church at this time between similar genres or in a transition/paradigm shift. I would dare suggest then that missionary thinking has engaged the church with some constrained impro. of Jazz/swing which significantly moved us beyond classical. From the tradition I know, it seems tome that Trad Jazz/Swing fits. There has been room for some fresh impro. with constraint and new flexible structures have been taking shape. Basically impro. here allows for a degree of marginal differences but it is all kept within the bounds of the larger scheme of ‘expected behaviours’.
::
I also would say that church planting, (and perhaps the likes of cell/house church,etc) have in recent decades given rise of more extensive impro. And are more your Bebop genre with emphasis seen on networks of relationship, organic growth changes but still having complexity of structures. Bebop utilized the ‘bad’ notes of swing to create new interesting harmonies. I take this to reflect the bricoleur-like approach of utilizing whatever is to hand and making something of it.
::
But I dare to suggest that what we are now seeing through the breadth of emergent, Alt. Worship (and those who say they have ‘left church’ and those who argue that they still care but want the newer stuff ) is more Postbop – where the basic structure of a tune was not fixed, the structures themselves could be improvised so – notes, structure, harmony emerge spontaneously. Though I dare say even these postbop musicians had a previous background in jazz /swing. This was truly though ‘playing outside’ the norm the box, the accepted structures. It was walking the wire without a safety net. However, even here there is emphasis on rehearsal – playing the same old tunes, same old chord changes, does provide the ability to spontaneously create embellishment... further in relation of this to organization, Zack says, “ it requires practicing communication that builds a deeply shared language, worldview and an understanding of the group’s purpose, mission, and belief system, one part of which is to abhor complacency…” there is a need to have openness to new ways, a need to suspend judgement and even interpretation to accept the apparent anarchy, noise, and confusion that may merely represent unfamiliarity rather than chaos. Hence with a postbop emergent view there is much that is spontaneous carries maximum freer improvisation in which everyone is reacting and listening and thinking ahead to everyone else, connected in interactive ‘conversation’, (perhaps this is a significant part of emergent) which has infinite possibilities and so the group may never find resolution or return to the original point…

Towards improvisation!

2005-01-12T14:04:00.000+13:00

Therefore in finding a way forward in mission, we need not only critique the present, but find a continuity with the past and reframe this in relation to the Jesus' Story which is the Christian point of departure. The radical strategy for mission is the reclaiming and reinterpreting the tradition in such a way that it is consistent with its roots and yet adequate to the new situation. That is a process of improvisation with constraint. Three types of constraint are at work in music; continuous, cultural and occasional. Begbie explores the parameters of each, particularly relevant are metre and syncopation, harmonic sequence and idiom each contributing to a framework of constraint that allows for a flexible responsiveness as music engages with the present particularities. In this way the improviser works with boundaries.

::
The key phrase Begbie uses is 'Freedom-in-relation-to-constraint' (186) through which we gain new personal identity. The danger today is that many seek to be original and creative, but regard freedom as unrelated to the past and tradition. The unease with temporality makes the new mission 'mediocre'(219), the antithesis of freedom. Contingency[i] and constraint allow the church in mission to relate to the particular context in such a way that failure and error can be incorporated. It gives the space to fail without complete disaster, as constraints help carry you through and in this risking new things are learned. The cadence therefore required is a restful restlessness(244) which saves us from activity as busy-ness that leads to lifeless monotony. On the one hand then, the structures give form and meaning to the improvisation; we don't have to make it happen. Yet equally these structures free us for mission and new fruitful possibilities. Significantly, it means identity is found in the repetition of the Eucharistic practice, rooting the community of faith in God's newness and to participate in His mission. From this restfulness comes the restlessness to be willing to give and give back.[ii] This removes a focus on technique and strategy or programme and means in terms of freedom, that we take more seriously the others identity as a person.[iii] The church therefore, does not exist for itself, but for the sake of passing on the Gospel. The mission praxis here too recognises there is no longer a need to have control over others, that power is relinquished. Indeed, music's contribution to our understanding of God's mission and that of the church is a reframing of present roles and responsibilities. With regard to the mission of God and of God's people, the shape of freedom, as restful restlessness, will have a gentle rhythm that is to be learned continually. This frees us from a having to get it right or to happen and so recover the cadence in mission – a provisionality which helps define the church less in terms of building and more in terms of people. It means letting go of traditional organisational and structural baggage; seeing ourselves less a part of a fixed institution and more participants forming the mosaic of an eschatological community. I think that is something of what it is to be emergent in the Spirit today.

In eschatological perspective, the church is the end-time community, called to life by the Spirit, … It is a community, travelling from context to context, emerging in different cultural spaces, putting up signs of the coming kingdom and providing safe environments for people who try to make sense of their world with the aid of the gospel. It lives on the basis of the pneumatological contextualisation of Christ.

(Kirk and Vanhoozer, To Stake a Claim, 225)

I like that! I think that's what we are seeking to do.

FOOTNOTES (all from Begbie)
[i] See p184. Importantly, contingency has the force of newness.
[ii] See chapter 9.
[iii] A useful image of this and the learning process in relation to discipleship is provided in p227/8

Beyond our equilibrium ?

2005-01-05T13:52:00.000+13:00

Our life of faith consists in moving with God in terms of the dynamic of tension and resolution in a process of anticipation and hope. Now I realise that some of these recent posts may seem rather removed, but in wrestling and reflecting theologically I believe that we can learn to live faith today. So, I want to pick up on Paul Fromont’s posts on 2nd January Walter Brueggemann - 19 Theses and 4th January Unpacking the Box within which we think we have confined God – and take these alongside my own process with Begbie.
If we accept a non-linear view of time and if we move beyond homogenous notions and modes, indeed more deeply understanding and experiencing God as Trinity, being caught up in/participating the ‘dance’, then our faith will always be developing, growing changing, deepening, but never have arrived, always in process, beyond our time of equilibrium. Accepting such notions then can we not be more honest about the things of faith and Christ?
Brueggemann’s 19 theses emphasis the scripted life, but I think it is not in terms of a script that confines, but is liberating into the counter – story, text and indeed drama of God's mission (missio Dei)
1. That script is not monolithic, one dimensional or seamless. It is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent. Partly it is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because it has been crafted over time by many committees. But it is also ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because the key character is illusive and irascible in freedom and in sovereignty and in hiddenness, and, I’m embarrassed to say, in violence – [a] huge problem for us.

2. The ragged, disjunctive, and incoherent quality of the counter-script to which we testify cannot be smoothed or made seamless. [I think the writer of Psalm 119 would probably like too try, to make it seamless]. Because when we do that the script gets flattened and domesticated. [This is my polemic against systematic theology]. The script gets flattened and domesticated and it becomes a weak echo of the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism. Whereas the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism is all about certitude, privilege, and entitlement this counter-script is not about certitude, privilege, and entitlement. Thus care must betaken to let this script be what it is, which entails letting God be God’s irascible self.

I would add to this by noting what he does in his handing of the psalms – as a movement and flow involving orientation (where all is perfectly in order and balanced), disorientation (where and when things are ragged, confusing, painful and messy), re-orientation (a newness to life brought about by God’s grace and fresh perspectives and life).
Such faith is not settled and fixed, it has a sense of tension and resolution to it and can somehow see the transient more in the daily-ness of living.
So what is the trouble if the Archbishop raises honest questions and what if we don’t have answers? Is that the point? Must we have answers or are wqe called to something else in response?
In the Telegraph (UK) -
"In a deeply personal and candid article, he says "it would be wrong" if faith were not "upset" by the catastrophe which has already claimed more than 150,000 lives.
Prayer, he admits, provides no "magical solutions" and most of the stock Christian answers to human suffering do not "go very far in helping us, one week on, with the intolerable grief and devastation in front of us".
(for some ongoing discussion on this one go to Jason Clark's Blog)
In the rawness of life perhaps this awful event may act to everyone, the church included, like God’s megaphone (see Craig’s blog) as it threatens and disrupts everyone’s convenient, comfortable equilibrium. If we dare to unpack the box in which we have confined God, perhaps these events may fill us with passion and give voice to another counter script, indeed, our responses in the longer term beyond giving aid, is also to give a voice to the lament (which we have sanitised and cleaned up in our churches and liturgies) of disorientation that the world feels letting experience touch us in new psalms that give voice to how we feel today in the face of such destruction.

Praying the psalms.

"I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that he may hear me' Ps77

Not thinking straight

2005-01-04T17:41:00.000+13:00

How do we understand history? Straight Lines ? The myth of progress of course and other brands of progressivism tend to regard it as a linear movement along straight lines towards some goal. Begbie however directs us to consider how musical temporality is structured upon layers of metrical waves of ‘intensification and release. Directionality is one thing; one-dimensional linearity is another’ (59)

fig 1.Metrical waves

He further notes how linear models:
1. mask or downplay the role of discontinuity
2. linear metaphors often had the effect of minimizing the place of radical and qualitative novelty, which creates a view of the future in mechanistic terms.
3. such also tends towards uniformity. Homogeneity can effect how we understand transience.
Rather then, ‘Musical time is thus not about a line split into equal parts but about waves of tension and resolution.’[i] It is therefore not so much concerned about moving in a straight line, but a varied wave in which there is a sense of ‘carrying from’ and a ‘reaching beyond’ through each present. Musically this means that the wave patterns and the multi-leveled connections of the matrix ‘the first wave lives on in the second, the first and second in the third and so on.’ In that sense therefore the past is not lost forever.
Therefore past and future can be experienced in and with the present. Time is viewed as interpenetrating – a constant intertwining, unlike the old concept of time being seen as 3 exclusive elements. ‘The present is no longer the ‘saddle’ between the two abysses of past and future, but rather that ‘in which’, ‘now’, ‘not yet’, and ‘no more’ are given together, the most intimate interpenetration.’ (63)
It seems to me then that if we consider time differently and our lace in it historically in whatever emergent way you care for the church today, then
1. we can consider God’s newness among us differently. As Brueggemann states in Texts that Linger, Words that Explode , regarding Jeremiah 31:31-34 and the ‘new covenant’. I a context of grief and bewilderment comes the extraordinary articulation of new covenant. The old one, which they broke, cannot be counted upon. ‘But the new covenant! The term is clear. It is “new” If it is new, then there is indeed a season of discontinuity between what was old with Yahweh and what is now given’ (10) He notes that we can see it is re-newal or a revivifying what is old, but that would merely assert continuity. We often speak of renewal, but I wonder if our time perspective would awaken us to a sense of ‘newness’ and so discontinuity even for those of us within institutional frameworks.
2. the creative novelty throughout emerging churches will follow a different rhythm and melody. It will mean for instancve I think, that we begin to lay aside in mission and emegring, reforming missionary churches notions of progress that I am tentative about suggesting are a part of our fabric and nature and we are not yet free of. IS this part of our deeper issues today?The interweaving of times would truly see the church as an eschatological phenomenon which may bring and extend newness beyond itself in mission. Do we see this in what more and more people are stepping into, even in the institution in places?
3. We would live with the lack of uniformity. Is this a danger in any movement of newness? But more significantly, beyond merely saying each context is different, we will begin to appreciate more the transience in life and plug into the cultural climate of the ‘spiritual’ in real and meaningful ways for and with Christ. There are also implications for understanding worship afresh and positively as a kairos experience.
4. I think throughout all this is a call to live in the ‘in-between’ as kingdom living invites us to that place of tension and resolution with a sense of direction, which I think is what we lack today in mission.

___________

Footnote

[i]

Begbie uses tension in the general sense of character of a music event which arouses a sense of anticipation, that matters cannot be left as they are. Resolution is then the closure or dissipation of the tension. This dynamic can be a process, but also a place.

Bible and Mission 2 - Theology, Music and Time

2005-01-02T20:26:00.000+13:00

Having spent some time earlier posts on Bauckham's matters of History and particularity in Bible and Mission. I now wish to retrun and develop from there some other thinking that has been spurred on again from what I have read in Chris Erdman's Blog. There you will find wrestling with the future-past dynamic and matters of Jazz! Take a look.

Therefore I want to move on beyond historicity matters to our consideration of that dynamic which I would suggest is significant ot the mission of the church today. Indeed, it has been a concern in recent years for me that in church planting and now I suppose in emergent church contexts that we can do much without reflection upon things and we betray any praxis. I other words we need to think and reflect theologically and upon practice.

So.... I want to take some time to begin to develop some initial thoughts that have been with me for some time now, but held back on. It may not be knew, that's not the point, rather i want to make sense of the mission ecclessiology of today and that requires me to engage in matters of time and space/place dynamics. It requires some eschatological approach. I want to therefore begin with Jeremy begbie in the next wee while and go on to explore the improvisation issues from there as we may learn from within the metaphor explored in Organisational Science.

INTRO...

Into the dislocations of our times as we experience them, we may usefully place Begbie's explorations[i] into the ways musical phenomena can open up some of the central themes of the Christian faith - in particular those which are formative of an emerging missionary church - and in doing such theology, offer refreshing new models, as well as release faith from the damaging habits and dominance of tradition(s) and thought which have hindered and hampered its work in the past. In other words, in this transitional period, Begbie makes a beginning to challenge the church to engage in doing theology which is in touch with the temporal context and the zeitgeist, therefore seriously offering a way through this inter-phase from modernity to post-modernity, which further permits us to engage with relevance in our mission task.
It is in relation to issues of boundary and change[ii] at this threshold that I wish to critically review Begbie's work. While there are deficiencies due to the boundary constraints of literary conformity, he does encourage us to utilise our imaginations and do 'theology through music.'(4)[iii] Begbie's concern with the temporality and practice of music are useful in the paradigm shift from the tidy efficiency and linearity of modernity to intentional engagement with the pure escapism of postmodernity. Music's time and practice help shape our mission praxis as embodied action and participation in Christ as a dynamic or gravitational field 'which draws us in, we participate in a process, a journey in and through sound.'(18).

Footnotes
[i] The purpose he sets before us, is to allow music to serve, enrich and advance theology in relation to our understanding of God, God's relation to us and the world. More particularly, to do theology 'through music'(4) and in so doing expands and heightens sensitivity to the theological dimension of social and cultural thought and practices.
[ii] Music shows us in a particularly potent way that dynamic order is possible, that there can be ordered being, and becoming, form and vitality, structure and dynamics, flux and articulation. For something to be subject to persistent change need not imply disorder. (86)

[iii] Begbie does state that 'This book is only a preliminary attempt to address this issue.'(4) I would suggest that while it demands a great deal of intense reading, even without a deep musical understanding, I did find it possible to enter a dialogue as reader with the text in a way that used my imagination to carry out the theologising that Begbie did seem to do very little of, yet needed to do.

'our expectations'? more on at-homeness

2004-12-29T15:31:00.000+13:00

In the midst of what is summer holidays here in New Zealand there is a very different feel and approach to Christmas/New Year. For us no white Christmas! and thankfully so, though it has been wet. However, that is not to say that people don't feel the rush and pressures.

My friend Craig says this:

One of my favorite Christmas poems comes from W.H. Auden, For the Time Being. It is a fantastic narrative poem that moves through the story of Christmas at many different levels. One of the lines towards the end suggests that what we have done is tried too hard to make Christmas live up to our expectations. (see Craig's Table Talk for more)

Having offered some reflections on Simeon and Anna myself and as we move to New Year in which people (we too) will have new expectations I wonder if we can resist the temptation to merely try and pull our socks up and try harder and better than before, if we can, not just in relation to Christmas, but in our daily living, not try too hard to make church and life or whatever it is to live up to our expectations...otherwise it makes for busy-ness.
(on that note look at Mark Balfour's blog - December 23, 2004'you must be busy...'. He also in November had some stuff re- quiet spaces)

As Craig says,

Christmas isn't about our expectations. I believe my expectations are too low. I'm not cut of the same faithful cloth as Simeon and Anna. I'm not sure I'd last a lifetime waiting and hoping. My expectations are probably too low. They're probably low so I won't be disappointed. I can hear the echo of phrases like "make sure you have realistic expectations." I believe that means "don't hope for too much." I suppose it is a way of bringing solace to children when they don't get what they want. But it's bad advice.

Christmas is about meeting God in the person of Jesus. Anna and Simeon's expectations were very high. And God went beyond even what they could hope for by sending his Son.
Of course Christmas isn't the only time we can be met by God. Any day will do. In fact any day will have to do. How about the day after? And the day after that? God has his own expectations. He expects us to recognize him each day.

As I begin to look ahead into early 2005 and make some 'plans' for Highgate and aspects of mission I have expectations, but I reckon it has to come from doxology/worship and quiet space for us as community of grace and at a personal level. It demands then an at-homeness in Christ to gain the wisdom of the heart to know what to do in ways that are less 'my' busy-ness that only leads to fatigue and relies on my control. The demand to 'wait expectantly' then is the call to exercise a sabbath rhythm.

Christmas Eve - Othering?

2004-12-24T09:18:00.000+13:00

This Leunig cartoon gave me much to think about 'Others'

It speaks to me of the sort of questions we ask ourselves. It also seems to me to have the sad sense of wandering lostness that we face in the church fortressed. The sadness in it I think is that this figure reflects on how each "other' one is alone, yet he is no better either. What is it like to be somebody else? - speaks of interpathy. How to connect?
On this eve perhaps we need to consider God's interpathy with us in Christ - the incarnation - God in the neighbourhood! Again we speak much about incarnational theology, we study and research demographics, but the reality is that we need to get connected and relate openly and honestly in our humanity as followers of Christ. We need to be othering in our places!

Leanabh an aigh

Child in the manger infant of Mary;

outcast and stranger, Lord of all!

Child who inherits all our transgressions,

all our demerits on him fall.

Mary Macdonald 1817-1890

Happy Christmas
agus moran beannachan (many blessings)

Crowded space

2004-12-23T18:53:00.000+13:00

Often I do not do well in crowds that bustle and elbow and well... so tonight we headed down for 5pm to Otago farmer's Market at the old railway station - a special one tonight before Christmas. (Usually it runs Saturdays) Boy was it busy, squeezed along the platform and wonderful smells of sausage and onion.... not good when you are hungry. Met some folks we knew, bumped into others we didn't. Was struck by the lack of grumpiness in most. Long lines for Waimate Strawberries, flowers and veggies galore, kid's playing carols on recorder, northumbrian pipes also and there were even drummers and 2 belly dancers!(representative of the magi from the east?) and lots more. A fun atmosphere and BUSY for Dunedin.

My wife was amazed as we headed home when I said that I really enjoyed the fun of the crowd and stalls... it made a change from trying to negotiate Union Street in Aberdeen, Scotland and worse Mark's & Spencer's! I did hear a Scottish accent say that this reminder her of Scotland. As a Scot I knew what she meant, but then again it really wasn't !( Billy Connolly was right!!) This crowded space of the marketplace. So often the church has used that phrase for being in the world where people are. I wonder more and more about that image and it's relevance for some cities, however, being where people are is also where we live our daily lives too and so we need to challenge the distinctions that creep into our terms of reference and language of 'mission'. Our dislocation perhaps lends itself to such. This was a contrast to the "waiting space provided last week, but I personally feel that therein is the key, that our waiting space for quiet and still reflection was to be catalytic in our service among the crowded places of our daily living.
One challeneg for us on Highgate is not to set in place a 'come to us' approach, rather to find ways to be good neighbours in the crowded places... even perhaps to see if we can get a stall at the market perhaps?

'waiting' as resistance - 'at-homeness'

2004-12-21T15:21:00.000+13:00

I was asked recently about contentment in old age. The elderly lady who asked me deserved some respect and so I listened, but didn’t feel it appropriate to start suggesting and a-z on it as I was at least half her years. Last week in ‘Waiting’ and Sunday we considered what it was to wait expectantly. Simeon and Anna I felt offered some clues. What was it about these two elderly people that caused them to persevere? To seem so content in their daily life of worship, fasting and praying?
Someone asked me if our ‘waiting art space was open this week as they had thought about it last week and it had gone… they got too busy!!!! I was waiting on someone saying something like that and simply looked at them. What can one say when what was on offer was exactly concerned with all that ensnared them and their week. I hope they got the point!
Me? Well I am actually resting up after the last few weeks and am looking forward to applying the things that had started to run away from me. In fact while I was ‘waiting’ I read
Psalm 90 v12 ‘Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom.’ This verse in particular seemed to hit home and I offered it on Sunday to folks as we pondered Simeon and Anna. I think they cherished God’s promises and they held in hope to it. Hope being as Stringfellow terms it ‘reliance upon grace in the face of death’ More it is ‘living constantly, patiently, expectantly, resiliently, joyously in the effectiveness of the word of God’. I believe that in this hoping is contentment that enabled them to number their days immersed in Christ and gained hearts of wisdom to know that this child was the one. Considering Psalm 90 Brueggemann notes the ‘abiding constancy of Yahweh as home’ being the reality of this psalm. It is the sense of ‘at-homeness’ that Simeon and Anna make reality in their lifestyle – lives not captive to proof, evidence, overly impressed by data or demographic but persistently paying attention to God’s Lordship. Life rooted in faith this way gains ‘a heart of wisdom.’
So I find some way towards an answer for this elderly lady who asked a question , as well as find some lessons from advent myself. Our Highgate mission must continue in the new stages in hope (reliance upon grace in face of all that is deathly) and live out it’s at-homeness that others find home in Christ.

Defining your day?

2004-12-17T14:35:00.000+13:00

Our installation at Roslyn has been up and running a few days now. For those daring to come it seems to have achieved what it offered as a space to wait and be quiet in. "WAITING- the Quiet Place' seems to have offered an experience that has been positive. For those of us on door, so to speak, it has also been defining. In fact I borrow Martin's words - today he commented on how the 'waiting' has also been defining of his day. I agree. It has been that recall to something that I have felt has been rushing away from me in the past few weeks - the rushing of so many things crowds out Christ, leaves little space to hear him.
More deeply though it is a serious reminder of the things that demand of us and so define our days. It asks questions of what drives us? What motivates? is it 'self' importance that denies Christ?
I came upon this from Paul Fromont. While it is directed at clergy (rightly) I think it can apply more widely. I'd direct you to Paul Fromont's Blog(Prodigal Kiwi).
I've taken liberty to pick this part out -

December 14, 2004
Parker Palmer - Leaders and Functional Atheism

Parker Palmer well articulates a recent learning on my part:
“A third shadow common among leaders is “functional atheism,” the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us. This is the unconscious, unexamined conviction that if anything decent is going to happen here, we are the ones who must make it happen – a conviction held even by people who talk a good game about God.
This shadow causes pathology on every level of our lives. It leads us to impose our will on others, [to get resentful and frustrated], stressing our relationships, sometime to the point of breaking. If often eventuates in burnout, depression, and despair, as we learn the world will not bend to our will and we become embittered about that fact. Functional atheism is the shadow that drives collective [and individual] frenzy as well. It explains why the average group can tolerate no more than 15 seconds of silence: if we are not making noise, we believe, nothing good is happening and something must be dying…
The gift we receive on the inner journey is the knowledge that ours is not the only act in town. Not only are there other acts out there, but some of them are even better than ours, at least occasionally! We learn that we need not carry the whole load but can share it with others, liberating us and empowering them. We learn sometimes that we are free to lay the load down altogether. The great community asks us to do only that what we are able and trust the rest to other hands… ” (Emphasis, mine).
(From Let Your Life Speak, pp.88-89).
It's a kind of "messianic complex!" Often it’s all too easy to think that we’re irreplaceable, that we’re the centre of a church congregation or a workplace etc; that somehow if we’re not around those things will fall down around the ears of those who remain. Sometimes we even quietly hope that will happen so that we can say, “I told you so!” This isn’t good for us. Often we remain somewhere longer than we should; a false sense of our own importance damages both us (we burn out, we grow resentful, we grow arrogant, we feel that we have to be involved, be at the centre, be the “experts” rather than co-learners etc. etc) and those we are amongst (they become reliant upon us, never growing up, never learning to take responsibility, never feeling competent or empowered etc. As Palmer says, on the inner journey – that scary journey where we face and confront the realities of who we are (beneath surface appearances), we learn that “we are not the only act in town.” We free ourselves and we free others when we make this discovery. We learn by experience the meaning of grace. In freeing ourselves we learn to become all that God created us to uniquely be, we begin to flourish, we begin to live adventurously. We free ourselves from fear. We learn to worship our triune God.

Art space - conversation

2004-12-15T16:48:00.000+13:00

Having had the weekend to formally initiate the Highgate in it's mission, it was good today to begin fresh conversations about 'future orientated matters. as 2 of us sat in the waiting place. Reflecting on the weekend and the preaching from Isaiah- Leaving the past behind now and moving through into the newness - what does that really mean NOW?
Among the things I recall from conversation it seems to me that the challenge we face is not empathy, there's almost enough of that, rather it's that little bit more in mission in calling as disciples -
Interpathy = an expansion of empathy relating to thinking with and feeling with a person who is other to us. It is actually to step into and genuinely be involved in the experience of the other and see from their world view. Interpathy is cross cultural and is, I think/suggest what Jesus was doing in relation to all alienated groups/people in his day, therefore what about us?

It isn't so much laying on new things and expecting people to turn up, we need to really get into others shoes, genuinely here Therein lies the immense challenge to go deeper and further into the uncharted spaces and places with 'others'.

Creating - Art Space

2004-12-14T21:34:00.000+13:00

Today was spent juggling several things. The main thing was setting in place our art space in Roslyn facility. There is an intimacy in this building that lends itself. We have Leanne's art and are running with "WAITING' as a place for quiet, following her Quiet Space exhibition as it fits advent well. We're open through Saturday afternoon/evenings. Maybe no-one will come, no-one respond, but then again....
Among the projected images/icons I came across this somewhat haunting image of Mary. On a large screening those eyes draw you.(is it just me?)

Oil and gold leaf on zinc panel. Museum of Russian Art, Kiev. (follow the link Vrubel)
Apparently her face, in Vrubel's eyes, was an epitome of the ideal, spiritual beauty; not only are her eyes large and almond-shaped, like the eyes of the Virgin on many icons, but they show a similar anxiety and sadness. The brows are regular, the nose straight but wider than the traditional thin and long noses on icons, and the slightly puckered lips seem to be a prelude to tears of a mother who will eventually give up her son for the sins of the world. Even though strict Orthodoxy would reject this image for its "earthly" character, from the aesthetic point of view Vrubel's icon is a powerful and haunting image. [S.H.]

Anyway, I also have a funeral of the husband of a christian couple of some 63 years marriage. I sat with them yesterday and called again today. I listened to their stoies of days gone bye as well as recent days and what yesterday was and felt like. Waiting has been a hard task in life the past 2 weeks and I don't like how it all is, yet... today setting up and then this visit and waiting alongside them in their grief ( and even some laughter), pointed me to consider again this image we will use. It points me to the earthy-ness of life for Mary and yet God... it points me to the earthy-ness of mourning, and yet God...

Hear the Lord say 'Faith'

Hear the Lord say 'Hope'

Hear the Lord say 'Love'

and hear the Lord say this - to you. Amen

Newness- Highgate Particularity

2004-12-13T13:53:00.000+13:00

It was the big weekend as we became officially the Highgate Mission. Quite a weekend was had. Hence lack of blogging in recent week. Saturday was a buffet around lots of yummy food! A good place to start we reckon.

food (lots of... as well as some improptu singing by kids, lots of chat and laughter together)

Sunday morning was all 'in house' leadership stuff, and in the evening a worship experience signaling God's work of 'newness' in a PCANZ that like many other churches is in the image of Andrew Bell who was guest preacher like the old Irish man dying and smelling the cheese scones he loved so much, scrambled and crawled with every bit of energy he could sum up, grasping the bannister and nearly at the table, reaches in a stretch to get a scone when he gets whacked on the hand by his wife who says " leave them alone! They're for the funeral!' Cruel perhaps, but he pointed us to this as an image of Pressie church.
Don't misread our delight at the newness we sense. There are huge issues to grapple with and some challenges mission-wise which will take many to dimensions of faith and witness they have not gone before - it will at times be painful, but we will also experience joy together!
celebrations music

ONe dynamic that is actually becoming quite fun in a way is the manner in which people around beyond us are very curious about us. They may even be more than curious. We've had all the 'modernity' stuff asked of us and challenge us, but I think we've managed to run the fine line to get us to the juncture now when we can begin to risk newness beyond old paradigms.What's so different? Unlike other tacks on 'mergers', this one has so many unresolved matters of facilities, money... etc. Why? no being blind and nutty, but actually grasping a dream living with it and sharing it and in the oddness beginning to capture and word a vision of mission. Mission is the thrust if this into unknown territory but it happens in our particularity.

It also now means that we create spaces for the new.

Particularity - worship

2004-12-02T19:20:00.000+13:00

Forgive my indulgance. But I do believe that praxis means thinking deeply and working hard. Hence some longer delays in blogging as I wrestle for now in this new context of working out our particularity,history and space/place. So......
in thinking further about particularity, we must not neglect the universal intention of God’s Kingdom and coming. To do so would lead to parochial navel gazing. Bauckham says that the New Testament‘ puts all its readers where its first readers stood – between the church’s commissioning by Jesus and the future coming of Jesus. (25) Further, ‘The New Testament gives the church in every age its missionary identity by plunging it into the midst of the biblical story where the words of the great commission still ring in its ears’ (25)
I think that what we are therefore directed to here is to look for the rhythms ‘of grace’ (?) More technically I wonder if there is a vital eschatological aspect we are neglecting.
The other day a few of us chatted around such matters in a way. It was really about contextual issues and we focused upon the implications for worship as one aspect of our identity – our particularity.
Reflecting since, I am reminded that Brueggemann in Cadences of home Chpt 7 ‘Rethinking Church Models through Scripture’, points to how the late community goes back to learn from the early community to find the resources needed to sustain.
In our own worship, while at Cove and latterly here I have begun to apply something developed from Marva Dawn’s book on Sabbath. In it I hope that it resources us and teaches us a rhythm for our weekly daily living. I admit we’ve got some work to do, but mere experience of it will in time change us.
:: Key elements for Worship based upon a Sabbath Rhythm ::

GATHERING
How we make use of the space we have for fellowship-ing (koinonia). Create a user friendly environment for all ages. Time to relax, chat together.
Welcome

CEASING – from work, anxiety, worry, tensions, trying to be God
Image for the day
Personal story/ a thought/reflection/ listen to a song/collect/response prayer
Object lesson for children

RESTING – spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual, social
Songs
Prayer – various forms
Quiet – poem, reflective music/song/[offering as Thanksgiving]
[Offering]
Bible
[sacrament]
EMBRACING – Intentional/deliberate in practices/actions, value of one another, one’s call to serve/shalom/ healing wholeness world
Overhearing the Good News
Response activity- song, Alt W liturgy, healing /anoint with oil, lay hands on; [sacrament]
Intercession prayer

CELEBRATION – celebration/joy of new, anticipation of Kingdom, new reality in midst
[Offering]
Song(s)
Blessing & Amen

Perhaps it could be simplified, but it offers some form around which much can flexibly be set. Any suggestions, alternatives?

History - Particularity

2004-11-27T15:15:00.000+13:00

Brueggemann in Texts that Linger, Words that Explode, chapter 5 ‘The Scandal and Liberty of Particularity.’ –
I shall suggest that the maintenance of a self-aware, self-conscious alternative identity in the face of totalism is precisely the practice of character ethics that aims to generate and authorize liberated “agents of their own history”; such practice depends upon the great “thickness” of the community that makes possible such liberated agents on a day-to-day basis. (61)

Israel is seen then, as a counter-community that practiced relentless, dense memory as an alternative to the ‘co-opting amnesia of the empire’. He points to the way the story of exodus is character forming and liturgy becomes a launch pad for conversation, but more creates a different world; finally it is learning your history in which recitation defines the memory for generations to come. Bauckham says it this way, ‘ We are always beginning again and again from the biblical narratives, which still open up unexpected possibilities for our own future within the future of Jesus Christ. (21).

In many ways New Zealand is in it’s history dealing with this matter of particularity . In many ways it is of vital importance as it seeks to reflect upon and even shake off the shackles of ‘colonial’ past and find its particular, owned story which incorporates the Maori story(along with the wider cultural diversity here today). It is equally the case for the churches here which wrestle in the present tensions of debate much of which is the tension between ‘the co-opted amnesia’ of their heritage of Presbyterianism and how things are done by good order, which buffers up today with what I would say is the ‘Kiwi’ will to have a go! For instance, there is much radical talk about mission and liberating structures, but in the next it seems to me that more legislation and tightening procedures etc. counter the potential. Why? Is it a fear to move from the colonial Presbyterian (empirical) past into the mission Dei ? There is such opportunity here. Perhaps we need to re-discover in the history here and biblically the liberty of the particularity in the story that will help reshape and reform us.
On a more general note, I have had a course to take and write some papers through in Church History in Aotearoa. One I really enjoyed getting into was Parihaka – Te Whiti. It reveals some of what I am reflecting on here. "Parihaka is a moral, political and spiritual provocation to Māori and Pakēha to turn their anger at the past to the pursuit of peace and righting the historic injustices in the present and future.’ (Paul Morris “ The provocation of Parihaka: reflections on spiritual resistance in Aotearoa” In Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance p105-116)

Bible and Mission (1)- more on History

2004-11-19T17:42:00.000+13:00

I started reading Matthew. The genealogy seems to flout social boundaries and strata, but more than that it includes women and further the likes of Rahab and Ruth (A Moabite), and on it goes a list of names that tell of God’s dealings with people in time; a selecting that places Jesus as central to God's purposes in time. I think it also asserts the peculiar, odd and dare I say alen identity of Christ and his followers, which sets them directly at odds within society. Does it tell of how God works against all the odds and evidence in the face of death ? I find parts in this genealogy that are less than neat and tidy historical reading, nevermind the morality of some and the failures listed. Like most family trees!
A gospel that is concerned with forming identity and shaping of lifestyle of a community of disciples, a small, yet distinctive community set in an urban, hierarchical society with clearly defined social boundaries and practices, Matthew seeks to give guidance to a community looking for identity in its critical situation on how it should understand its calling and mission – its particularity, which is found in this Christ, identified in this line.

As David Bosch says,
In Matthew’s view Christians find their true identity when they are involved in mission, in communicating to others a new way of life, a new interpretation of reality and of God, and in committing themselves to the liberation and salvation of others. A missionary community is one that understands itself as being both different from and committed to it’s environment; it exists within its context in a way that is both winsome and challenging. In the midst of confusion and uncertainty, Matthew’s community is driven back to it’s roots, to the persons and experiences which gave birth to it, so that it can rediscover and reclaim those persons and events, come to a more appropriate self-understanding, and on the basis of this discern the nature of its existence and calling.
(Bosch, Transforming Mission, p83, my bold)

It seems to me that the temporal/historical discovering and (re-) interpretation becomes a catapult into the new. In another way, the coming of ‘this’ Jesus placed as he is within the genealogy the identity and understanding of ‘Israel’ is ruptured and the new eschatological community is revealed in time/history.
Which parts then are we being driven back to in remembering. In some ways it is back to the Christian mystics, celtic Christianity, Monastic, and so on to rediscover ‘spirituality’ as language, practice and so identity forming. This is surely the semper reformanda demanded of us in these times and urged by the reformation itself, upon which we have rested for too long. Is our concern for the now, present time, too valued, too absolute, taken too seriously that we have been in the way of forgetting?

Bible and Mission- (1) History

2004-11-18T17:35:00.000+13:00

For Highgate we have worked through some Biblical materials to discern a way and also something of how we need to set up to be a missionary emerging church here in this place. Alongside this we have sought to work hard at listening and gathering story from the churche's local history. It has allowed us to read something of the significance for now in digging around in that. therefore it was good to start to read Richard Bauckham, (2003) Bible and Mission (Paternoster/Baker).
What I hope to do is use it as a start basis for gathering in some of what I’ve been musing and see where he takes me. For some time I have been concerned that in church plant/emergent church we tend to look at the practice of HOW? Without a deeper theological basis for much of it. That’s not to say we need to reason things out all the time, but I believe that our discernment needs some theological work. I am aware that many figures in emergent church circles are beginning to grapple with theological matters which is encouraging. Hopefully we will allow biblical-theological reflection to interact with practice and vice versa so that such a hermeneutic will provide praxis for mission.(for a good understanding and definition of praxis see John Swinton,(2000) From Bedlam to Shalom, (Pastoral theology vol.1. Peter Lang Publishing Inc NY).

A hermeneutic for the Kingdom of God.. chapter 1

Metanarratives are rejected by postmodernism, exposing them as ‘projects of power and domination. (6). Rather it opts for ‘particularity, diversity, localism, relativism’.(7).

Bauckham proposes a hermeneutic ie. How to read the Bible in a way that takes seriously its mission direction , a kind of movement from particular to universal. In this there are 3 dimensions – temporal, spatial and social. In another way, these equate to Soja’s trialectics of Being – historical, social and spatial.(in Thirdspace, Chapter 2). It seems we have actually uplifted the historical and social aspects within missiology, but there is little consideration and application of the spatial. But I’ll come to that again. Firstly, he mentions the Temporal in which he defines ‘Mission is movement into the new future of God.’(13) It concerns where identity is to be found, here in the narrative and memory of the past, but also being turned by narrative to the coming of God’s Kingdom in the future. ‘The possibilities the narrative opens up for them, when they find themselves in it, are those God gives as they live towards God’s future.’(13)
Bauckham seems to want to propose a movement from the particular to universal. I need to read on to see where he goes with this. But I am reminded of Brueggemann in Texts that Linger, Words that Explode, chapter 5 ‘The Scandal and Liberty of Particularity.’ –

I shall suggest that the maintenance of a self-aware, self-conscious alternative identity in the face of totalism is precisely the practice of character ethics that aims to generate and authorize liberated “agents of their own history; such practice depends upon the great “thickness” of the community that makes possible such liberated agents on a day-to-day basis. (61)

Israel is seen then, as a counter-community practiced relentless, dense memory as an alternative to the ‘co-opting amnesia of the empire’. He points to the way story of exodus is character forming and liturgy as a launch pad for conversation, but more create a different world; finally it is learning your history which recitation defines the memory for generations to come.

It seems that most exodus communities throughout history have actually gone and dug deep into the temporal past to (re-) discover identity and find I suppose those resources that can sustain.

This is a much needed process for the emerging churches today. Indeed, it is what many are doing. The temptations to cultural syncretism are huge though. I find myself questioning of church plants and others more and more who do not appear to listen to the story from a mission Dei stance. I.e from a position that sees where we are at as part of the ongoing God story in a place. The danger of missing this is that we lose the particular identity God given us, our rootedness and connection. Significantly here I am called back to those genealogies, eg. In Matthew that I for one tend to glance and skim through. As advent approaches I will pay more attention in reading Matthew 1.

Art Space

2004-11-12T08:56:00.000+13:00

The Watch House, Catterline, Scotland

Mainland Art Exhibition started. I made an attempt to paint something and give it a go out here. Good news was it was accepted. So last Saturday we went along to the opening. There were some very good paintings, so I was really delighted to be in. Chris the framer was a great help and I have had some great chats with him. (including about good beer - he's from England) Even got to see some early Jeffrey Harris (for you Kiwis who know his status) which he was framing. Dunedin is pretty amazing for the art enclave it has.

My painting was one that I held as a photograph for some time. The Watch House is a significant place memory for me as I recall scottish artist Joan Eardley (follow this link via Creel Inn) who painted there and the small fishing village where several other artists gathered in time with her. I also recall a wonderful day it is bi-ennial art exhibit in which you got to wander around Catterline into church and peoples front rooms to view art and meet the artist too.

So inspired, I found some time to paint the Watch House (above). In a way, I find you need such inspiration to a thing/place to motivate and take you to the depths of concentration and enagagement with the subject. Having been inside it and seen sketch books of work and stood on the cliff there it made all the difference. A little nostalgic perhaps, yet something that is a part of who I am. I just love her almost absract landscapes. She has also done street kids in Glasgow which are also worthy of looking at.

Beehives, Sundown; 48 x 48, Oil on Board, c.1961

Joan Eardley Salmon Net Posts, 1962, Oil on board, 43" x 70"

[See both at http://www.christopherwood.co.uk/bib/eardley.html]

I need to get painting!