Wednesday, May 25, 2005

living in the paradox

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.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

unfettering posture

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.

::

Friday, April 08, 2005

Beyond the device-use of church

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.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Unfettered Hope




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)

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Character of a Servant

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.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Credible witness

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)

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

A Character Task (Kierkegaard)

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)

Monday, March 14, 2005

Coming to terms with discontinous change






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?

Friday, February 18, 2005

Space to rest...

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.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Explorations - Into the west

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.'

Friday, February 04, 2005

Explorations of Place

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

Monday, January 17, 2005

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...




Friday, January 14, 2005

[2] Jazz Improvisation

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!

Thursday, January 13, 2005

[1] Jazz Improvisation

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…

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Towards improvisation!

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

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Beyond our equilibrium ?

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

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Not thinking straight

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.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Bible and Mission 2 - Theology, Music and Time

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.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

'our expectations'? more on at-homeness


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.


Friday, December 24, 2004

Christmas Eve - Othering?

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)