Saturday, December 24, 2005

Home musings

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

Friday, December 23, 2005

Present- ation






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....

Monday, November 28, 2005

Advent - Into the Unknown

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!

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Help us live the life

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.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

1a.Practicing Church - Improvisationally


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.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

1. Practicing Church


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

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Abstract Expressionism - The Caim and beyond....

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.


Monday, August 22, 2005

A form of Expression-ism?


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!

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Howl's Moving Castle and....



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!

Sunday, July 24, 2005

SIGNS

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.


Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Critical Christianity

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.

Saturday, July 02, 2005

The Compost pile of Text and TXT

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

Thursday, June 23, 2005

devotio post-moderna ?

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.

Sunday, June 05, 2005

Dear Frankie...


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.

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)