emergent
kiwi
In Liquid Church, Pete Ward takes a deep swim in postmodern waters. While many are just trying to dog paddle, Ward explores ways for the church to incarnationally flourish in our contemporary culture. At times the theologian in me wonders if Ward’s theology is so liquid he ignores Divine person, and thus the importance of gathering. At times the practitioner in me wonders who will fund Pete’s dreams. But the insights around spiritual desire and the creative and missional possibilities around shopping for meaning are worth the price alone. It is a provocative book in which the missionary heartbeat is undeniable. The book is well written. It is concise. It handles well. If you’re serious about being church in the postmodern world, it is worth taking the plunge.
liquid church
Coming:
Olive Drane, creativity and the image of God
Christchurch, January 04
Going:
Taylor's to Chch, Jan04
Church and Society, Auckland, Feb04
Stuff I've written:
Celebrating a Postmodern Pentecost
Sketching a postmodern missiology
Romeo/Juliet/altworship
DJing salvation
Piglet reads the Bible in a postmodern world
Coupland/community
cultural
wildflowers
1 Peter:mysogynist
or feminist
New generation/new
millenium
Church
in a global world
My further reading
art and spirituality
church ministry
postmodernity
Generation X
popular culture
gospel and culture
faith in aotearoa new zealand
Conversations that enhance me:
andrew jones up close
small ritual
douglas rushkoff
jonny baker
God-n-
club culture
paul fromont
darren rowse
Christian greenie
God-n-club culture-2
human in london
intellectually gritty
rachel cunliffe
jordon cooper (mentioned my blog 3x)
mark barkaway
Interview with:
Archives:
June 2002
July 2002
August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November 2002
December 2002
January 2003
February 2003
March 2003
April 2003
May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Off to converse tomorrow. 3 days, gathering with 20 other people from Baptist Churches in New Zealand doing alt.church. Select invite in order to spotlight and resource those doing it. A time to hang, to network, to pray, to resource. A group of brave pioneers, who have studied the future and dared to step out. There''ll be lots of wounds, lots learnt, lots of ups and downs (if they're anything like me).
Pray for us.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:59 AM
Monday, July 29, 2002
Another buzz, on Sunday Rachel whom I met because of this weblog, and 3 of her friends, came to Graceway. It was so cool to meet someone through this weblog and to have a cyber relationship turn tangible (I was going to say real, but that says somethings about the "reality" of cyberspace.)
posted by spirit2go team at 8:31 PM
On Monday I listened to Riki Waters, New Testament lecturer at Regents. He talked about his life and theological journey.
He talked about the refining of creation and humanity in his life,
- that creation is part of God’s palace, God’s temple;
- that the Biblical narrative is about being human, and embracing God’s care for the earth; - - that being human includes Jesus celebration of wine, of goodness, of life, of creation and includes being enculturated, being particularly involved in creation and culture;
- that being human is not just rationality, Descartes, " I think, therefore I am", but about the whole person, and so the importance of the arts and the whole body;
- that God shows emotion and so should we.
So much of Graceway’s search for humanity, creativity, spirituality was affirmed. It was neat.
posted by spirit2go team at 8:30 PM
Friday, July 26, 2002
The man pulled the crumpled note out of his pocket. Sir Edmund stared back.
Sorry, she smiled, and pointed to the ballot box.
The man searched his pockets and grabbed a US dollar coin. In God we trust he announced. For God we fight, the bearded bystander, destroyer of twin towers, growled back.
Give what belongs to God to God, and to Ceaser to Ceaser he said tossing his coin.
That's dictatorship. This is democracy. Two ticks please, and she smiled again.
The disciples shook their heads and walked away.
To pray
for today we vote.
posted by spirit2go team at 11:01 PM
Thursday, July 25, 2002
There have been some changes within blogger and the computer was unable to recognise my template. So I have been unable to publish for the last 4 days. I've given up waiting for blogger to get it right and changed my template. It means I lose my customisation which I'm pissed off about.
Anyhow, at least I'm readable. Sorry if you've come visiting.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:23 PM
Wednesday, July 24, 2002
I've had lots of email support re the Mikey Havoc interview. It's nice to have some caring friends. It reinforces some of my ramblings below about community. That's its a lot wider than people we see and touch.
On the theme of touch, I went to really switched on feminist, writer, environmentalist last night - Elizabeth Green. She was talking about touch, about how Jesus touched and was touched, about how touch is such a giving and recieving, in contrast to sight and sound.
I'm in Dunedin, away from family, so my touch needs are heightened. But a good reminder of Incarnation, of just getting involved with people.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:03 PM
Monday, July 22, 2002
I've continued to reflect on the BFM interview.
It strikes me that Mikey Havoc could not get his head around the fact that Christians could be interested in anything that wasn't moral. Christians have been reduced to morals; to pure, chaste lives. And so why would we be interested in the spirituality, humanity, creativity of an artist like Moby.
What a reduction of the life and death of Jesus. A cosmic event has been reduced to "do you allow sex before marriage?"
posted by spirit2go team at 3:11 PM
Friday, July 19, 2002
I survived my 15 minutes of fame. My fan club (Graceway listeners) tell me it was excellent and that I came across well. Thanks fans.
It was nice to be talking in the "market place", ie with the culture, rather to myself on the blog, or within church, which is so much safer.
Opening question;
why do you go to church?
Answer
cos Graceway is a good community to be part of
and cos I love Jesus.
How sweet.
posted by spirit2go team at 7:11 PM
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
OK. I replied to BFM. Now they want to interview me; "to answer questions
like: What are the meanings behind his songs? Why Moby? And what about
his links with drugs and alternate sexuality?"
Live, on Saturday morning with Mickey Havoc.
Any of you got some good soundbites for me?
posted by spirit2go team at 9:19 PM
Moby @ the thinking room - where humanity, creativity and spirituality meet.
An evening to explore Moby’s music and life. Interact with his album essays and reflect on the meanings behind a sample of his songs.
We sent this advertising blurb for Sunday to a range of radio stations. b95fm emailed back, interested, asking questions. Quite a buzz really.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:58 PM
Tuesday, July 16, 2002
Long posting today since I’ve been a bit preoccupied with my PHD
Community. Sociologist Zymunt Bauman thinks the increased choice offered by the information age means freedom to construct new identities and new forms of community. Bauman; “when the old stories of group (communal) belonging no longer ring true, demand grows for the ‘identity stories’ in which ‘we tell ourselves about where we came from, what we are now and where we are going.’” (Bauman, Community 98-9)
Peg communities involve agents, events and interests, provide a focus, a peg, for the participation of disconnected spectators. (Bauman, 65ff) He illustrates this with reference to the entertainment industry or the constant recycling of talk shows or attending a weight watchers programme. They offer a focus and through a shared listening, evoke a sense of belonging. However this offer of belonging never requires an engagement with other spectators and thus comes without the discomfort of being bound.
Ethical communities, weave ethical responsibilities. They require long term commitments and unshakeable commitments and in turn offer inalienable rights and a planned future. They can engender in members a shared communal confidence in a 21st world that demands fragility and flexibility.
So how does this compare with the emerging church? It seems to me that we have a number of ways of ways of building and expressing community.
The art collective; monthly, high tech, video and visual orgies. This seems to be predicated on the amount of work required to manipulate video, provide slide images and create new liturgy and music. They are produced by a team of people, which given the nature of their media, tend to be creative, even artistic. Hence the term art collective. This process of producing worship becomes incredibly rich experience of community for the collective. Such groups run the risk of being a peg experience of worship; a focus, a peg, for the participation of disconnected, twenty-something spectators that never require an engagement with other spectators and thus remain essentially individualistic. Attenders of the monthly event are seeing the product while missing the communal process of worship formation.
The weekly communal participatory church service. This seems to occur in emerging communities that meet weekly for public worship. They often utilise less technically sophisticated approaches. Prior group participation is replaced by more individual prior participation. Such groups can still be a peg community. I feel a sense of belonging as I participated in a communal experience. Like the intimacy of a talk shows or the public revealing of a popstars private lives, each week various people participate, offering me a glimpse into their lives, with no need to participate. I can listen for week after week, with no compulsion to share. I can peg my regular schedule around an interest group that dissolves when the event ends. I can lay on the floor with my eyes closed, a perfect illustration of Bauman’s detachment, indifference, disengagement, of a peg community.
Yet as I sit, it is not always clear how I become part of this ethical community? How does one move from Sunday by Sunday observation, to being able to receive inalienable rights and a planned future in exchange for long term commitments and unshakeable commitments?
House churches – Surely ethical communities. Surely a place for deep commitments. Yet I how do I check you out? How do I lie on the floor, detached, while I decide if I want to journey with you? How do I try before I buy?
Peg and ethical. No easy answers, but an interesting perspective from which to view new forms of community.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:05 PM
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
I have a confession.
I just got a God-nudge through Tom Clancy. The bear and the Dragon.
Somewhere in p. 350, just as one country was about to invade another country, there was this comment about the danger of government's group think and the need to seek advice from those we don't agree with.
I thought about how easy it is for me to hang out with people I agree with. So I made a resolution, to connect with people I know don't think like me. I've started a list ...
PS. If I hear from Steve soon, does that mean he doesn't agree with me?
PSS If I don't hear from Steve soon, does that mean he does agree with me?
PSSS I'm confused.
posted by spirit2go team at 9:22 PM
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
Weather here is very changable. I love it. Thunder and rain pelting the panes.
Life is SO domesticated for us Westerners. I need the reminder of God as Ruach - Hebrew word for Spirit - and for wind, the wind that rushes down dessert wadis and stings sand across your legs. That's God. Beyond domestication. Wild, untamed.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:50 PM
She was. A magic night of humanity and spirituality. Sitting on sofas as God leaked out through Baxter, through coffee beans as a worship aid, through Baxter put to music.
Its good to alive.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:48 PM
Monday, July 08, 2002
Spent Saturday sifting for sofas. Salvation Army is THE place. We got them outside and the heavens opened. Here we were, renting these sofas and the first thing we do is get them wet!!
Sofas and armchairs are now scattered around the hall the church borrows, complete with black candle stands and orange candles.
You can tell a sofa's yummy-ness by the response of people.
Do the adults sit on them?
Do the kids run and jump onto them?
If so, it is likely that Spirit God will be relationally present!
posted by spirit2go team at 1:59 PM
Thursday, July 04, 2002
Bonhoeffer wrote from his prison cell:
We should give up the foolish task of trying to be saints and get on with the important task of trying to be human.
(I scored the quote from a paper by John Drane called Rebuilding the Household of Faith. Being Spiritual, human and Christian in today's world. Available at www.ctbi.org.uk/assembly.
In July at Graceway is thinking room .. couches, coffee, conversation .. as we take the poetry of Baxter, the art of Paul Johnstone, the music of moby, the Bible as beyond words. As I wrote in the advertising blurb : As we are human, so we are spiritual. It's neat to find this Bonhoeffer quote in agreement as I've followed my intuitions and put the thinking room adventure together. Now its off to find some more couches ...
posted by spirit2go team at 6:36 PM
I talked at Graceway on Sunday about creating community. I really like Douglas Coupland. It strikes me that most of his books are about 20 somethings who in community find relationships. I'm arguing this in my thesis; (very bald summary here) that premodern found God through tradition, modern through Bible, postmodern through community. This has major implications for how we shape church and faith. But its like the emmaus rd in luke 24. It's not in the sermon, Jesus walking down the road explaining the BIble, but its gathered around table that God is discovered.
I've posted the sermon on the church website and will add a link on the blogspot.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:00 AM
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Still thinking about my daughter (previous posting). It underlines the importance of involvement. We can talk with her about poverty and money, but it was being part of life that impacted her.
Which reminds me of my need to be involved in the emerging culture. It's not just about text books and conferences and speakers. It's about people and parties and popculture, about buying the CD's and hanging at the pub and yarning over coffee.
posted by spirit2go team at 7:03 PM
Tuesday, July 02, 2002
I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now.
Phone rang and there's some hungry people in our community to feed. Cool.
They had a kid, same age as my daughter, so I asked my 5 year old daughter if we she wanted to come and help me choose food. She did. I asked her to choose one special thing for the 5 year old and strawberry muesli bars appeared in the food basket.
We took the food around. On the way home, my daugher announced she wanted to give her pocket money to poor people.
So active involvement produces life change. I am now wondering how I can involve the other kids at church, so that this sort of thinking and action is spread throughout the community.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:18 PM