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, October 30, 2002
Publicity for our storytelling night is in circulation.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:23 AM
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
Left behind ... the true story
It was a bright sunny spring day as the happily married couple peered out of their garage. Daffodils swayed and lambs danced. Only a small, dark cloud, nosed over the Southern Alps, warning of trouble.
The happily married couple arrived at church a few minutes early. Just in time to have a decent row. A really, decent row. So decent that the door slammed and the car disappeared back down the road, Mother scowling and blowing clouds of volumous anger.
What to do when you are left behind outside a church service? The marooned man shrugged and joined the beaming, well dressed throng. Entered the hallowed gates to hear of redemption, to sing "Oh God, how great thou Art" and crack the wafer of reconciliation.
Soon the closest daughter slipped in beside. Sent, summoned, to return all those left behind to the family home.
A roast beckoned. A chance to slip off the Sunday best and get down to the business of living.
posted by spirit2go team at 11:28 PM
No longer Steve Taylor
My name is Steve Taylor and I live in Central Auckland and I am reasonably active in various Christian circles.
There is another Steve Taylor who lives in Central Auckland and who is reasonably active in Christian circles. He has stood for a Christian political party and is trying to fundraise to get a float into the Farmers Santa Parade.
I have had 2 phone calls in the last week offering me money. It takes a few minutes to establish that I am Steve Taylor and I am in Central Auckland and I am involved in the local Ellerslie Santa Parade and I would love their money but I am NOT Steve Taylor who lives in Central Auckland and am involved in the Farmers Santa Parade and would love their money. Do you have any idea how sad it is to turn down this money.
I am thinking of changing my name
the pastor formerly known as Steve Taylor
NO Longer Steve Taylor
NO longer in the money
No longer Santa
*.*//
Any other suggestions?
posted by spirit2go team at 5:00 PM
Saturday, October 26, 2002
Spirituality of blogging
This blog is described as a meditation on culture, creativity, community and Christianity. It's a mix of Graceway, my thinking, including being shaped by doing a PhD in emergent or postmodern Christian practices, and my spirituality. In The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris writes of "listening for the eruptions of grace into one's life - often from unlikely sources". For her, this occurs through writing and through a monastic spirituality.
I've realised how important this blog, and my own journal (where the more private and mundane Steve "blogs") is to my spirituality. And how appropriate my blog description is.
"Unlikely sources" - God speaks through culture, through creativity, through my church community. While these are not traditionally evangelical Christian sites of revelation, they are important for me, and I believe, for the emerging church.
"Listening for the eruptions"- and so the unrecognised (then) genius of calling my blog a meditation. Because it has become for me a way of listening and describing God at work. It's a form of spiritual practise. Taking time to look back over my blog and my journal, I start to get an overview of the eruptions of God, to see threads been woven in and out out my life. Breathe O Spirit of God, Breathe.
What does this mean for the way I read other's blogs? That's for my next post.
posted by spirit2go team at 5:05 PM
Friday, October 25, 2002
From tight blades to tight body
The latest New Zealand Baptist has an article which references my blogspot. Again, not my expected audience. (Does cyberspace have an "expected audience"?) Anyhow, the tenseness in my blades has now moved over all of my body.
However, my counter indicates a surge in New Zealand readers in the last week. So its nice to have some new grazers!!
posted by spirit2go team at 2:15 PM
Thursday, October 24, 2002
From the Washington Times, “The number of churchgoing Americans who have quit attending has grown to 14 percent of the population in the past decade, up from 7 percent, and millions of them are baby boomers who were part of the “Jesus movement” of the 1970s. Church-growth experts say religious bodies that are losing parishioners either don’t want to hear about the problem or elect to seek new recruits …” [read more]
posted by spirit2go team at 12:17 AM
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Article by Stanley Grenz on postmodernism. I've just about finished reading his Beyond Foundationalism. Grenz will always be an "outsider", but he is a very sensitive outsider and is a key advocate in terms of giving space for the emergent. He's also a reminder to the emergent that we don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's a huge amount of resource in the Christian theological tradition to resource our postmodern missionary life.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:30 PM
Three live sheep
Jonny Baker (UK), ex Youth for Christ, now Church Missionary Society, says some nice things about my blog. Thanks Jonny. A live export of three sheep is being sent from the colonies to the motherland by way of thanks. Droppings will be given to the charity of the recipients choice.
Seriously, it is weird firing thoughts into cyberspace. So feedback from the likes of Jonny, or comments on the blog are like water in the dessert. (So, changing the metaphor, should I send Jonny a live export of Steinlager or a Blue Goose from the Cock and Bull!)
posted by spirit2go team at 1:06 AM
Sunday, October 20, 2002
The rest of God on the 7th
(sermon as poem)
God, on the 7th
Were you tired
After a hard week
Stuffed, desperate
For a quiet drink and the Weekend Herald
God, on the 7th
Did the kids come running
Bursting with news, scrabbling for attention
Spilling your drink and creasing your paper
God, on the 7th
Did the emails pile and the phone ring
Did the neighbours lawnmower roar, their stereo rap
And their visitors park across your drive
God, on the 7th
What did you do
Did you have a little nap
With a little cat curled on your lap
Did you make yourself a cooked breakfast
Fresh buttered mushrooms and latte sipped in the sun
Did you potter and pull to odd weed
Sip a little port or lighten a light lager
God, on the 7th
Did dolphins die and the world stop
Or did the sun rise without you
God, after this
After this poem
I want a holyday holiday
A 7th day
To hit pause on my work video
To peruse the world
And, with a nod and a wink, think
Well done, good and faithful servant
God, of the 7th
Let me re-create
Align my print head
With
Create, -or and Creation
Re-finger my label
Made,
in the image of God
God
Let it be
Anew in me
On the 7th
posted by spirit2go team at 3:13 AM
Thursday, October 17, 2002
With reference to my tight shoulder blades,
Mark has encouraged me to practice "safe text"
posted by spirit2go team at 6:24 PM
Jordon Cooper blogs about Soularize in the US and about a worship experience with 5 videos, DJ, and people expressing themselves in a range of ways - praying, lying, drawing. And how it freaked people out.
Obviously I wasn't there, so I'm missing a lot. But it sounds like a description of NOS in the UK in the late 80s (I also wasn't there) or Parallel Universe in NZ in the early 90s (I was there).
Talking around Melbourne last week, with the guys from Phuture and Forge, and conversations that emerge from Converse, a gathering of alt.worshippers here in NZ, (see my archives - around August 8-12), we've all realised that worship is the start of the journey. The journey then morphs into church and mission and discipleship.
When you turn from choruses to art and from the front lead band to the environment creating DJ, you are not just playing with toys. You are also inviting new ways of being human. You are then asks questions about control, about community, about how and where God is and is apprehended.
Go Soularize. Enjoy the journey. Put your hand in God's pocket. It's a great trip.
One piece of advice. Keep people and mission at the centre of your dashboard. Look beyond the mutliple video loops to life transformation via Spirit God.
posted by spirit2go team at 6:23 PM
Xpressions: of creativity and community
Storytelling night
with local teller, Simon Brown
spinning yarns from his latest book Parables and Poems.
(books will be available for purchase)
Ultra Café and Bar, 275 Onehunga Mall
8 pm, Thursday 14th November
For details contact Steve Taylor, 6222437, graceway@ihug.co.nz
Under the Umbrella of Graceway Baptist Church. Further publicity to follow.
posted by spirit2go team at 6:09 PM
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Tight shoulder blades
I've just found out that my blogspot URL has been sent out to all the New Zealand Baptist Pastors in a mailer of "web food" for them to consume.
Hmmm. It wasn't really my target audience. So I'm feeling a bit tight across the shoulders. Braced for some sort of attack. Wierd sensation really. Most pastors are quite nice people. Perhaps I should say something really outrageous. Perhaps they'll never check me out. Perhaps I should just be me.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:15 PM
I've been preparing my final lecture for theology, about creation, church and mission. I had a real insight at Easter this year. I suddenly realised that Easter Sunday happens in a garden. And that the new heaven and new earth is a garden loaded with fruit and water as healing for the nations. And that Jesus death and rising in Colossians 1 was a cosmic and seismic re-formation. Resurrection is about the re-birth of ... gardens. So I scored a whole lot of plants from Mitre 10 and turned the hall into a garden. I videod footage of gardens and fountains and those looped continously. I set up communion - themed on life-in front of the video screen. Sat down and realised that by some "fluke", the video image of the fountain was bursting from the centre of the bread. Wow. The heart of Easter pumping with life giving water.
It got even better. As people stepped up to take bread, they stepped into the projected fountain images. Fountains appeared on their back. They stepped into the flow of Life.
All of this is swirling around in my head as I prepare creation, church and mission of God. God pumps life into the universe and we're invited to share in that life.
It's such a personally energising image for me. I used to think mission was about saving souls. Mate, what a pathetically small vision of God's creative and redemptive purposes. This planet is being re-created, and I'm invited to step into that surge of seismic Life. Graceway and our mission - earth mass, mainly music, platform, art and spirituality, storytelling, live on bfm radio - is about participation in Spirit Life.
Rant over. Sorry.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:57 PM
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
from borderland to heartland
I spent yesterday sitting in Old Government House, surrounded by green lawns, at the University of Auckland. Two candidates for the new position of Head of School of Theology were doing seminars. One spoke on Jesus Christ down under, the other on Matthew, violence and discipleship. Listeners included Professors and a Vice Chancellor.
The irony struck me. Christ and Biblical text at the heart of the university, at the heart of the city, at the heart of the government. Christianity, often marginal, briefly centre stage. It's part of deep mission, that commitment to work not only planting new communities of faith, but to engage with the thoughts of culture and ideology.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:08 PM
Monday, October 14, 2002
Same words but same themes?
Romeo and Juliet is a great example of cultural change. It also is very helpful to use in more conservative contexts, because it has the same words. So it implies a continuity with Scripture and with the past, while allowing a reimaging and a reimagining.
But, I wonder if it thus provides some negative implications. While I'm committed to Scripture, I think that in new contexts, new theological themes will emerge. Thus in a postmodern context - community, creation and sampling of culture - come to the fore. Same words but new themes for a new era. And the danger is that we miss these new themes if we stay wedded to the words.
We just produce great websites or new graphics or wack in powerpoint. And all the time we miss that fact that the Spirit of Jesus is active in the world. And thus cultural shifts invite us to find fresh breathes of God, to realise in new ways that God is doing new things.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:42 PM
Sunday, October 13, 2002
Romeo and Juliet
Spoke at the Epsom Baptist Retreat yesterday. They asked me to talk about the emerging, postmodern generation and the implications for mission. It went really well.
As part of the time I showed the first minute of Zaffareli’s Romeo and Juliet, and then the first minute of Baz Luhrman’s and we discussed the differences. Both are a contemporisation, one for the 70’s, the other for the 90’s, of the same text, the same words. The difference is very stark; gender, pace, use of text and image, spirituality. It also proved very helpful at Epsom in affirming both old and new. People still live in Zaffareli’s world and that spirituality needs nuture. Equally, people live in Luhrman’s world and we need forms of community that nurture that spirituality. Both Romeo and Juliet.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:04 AM
Thursday, October 10, 2002
Busy catching up …
Got home at 2 am this morning. And into a day of 3 meetings, plus trying to get my tired head around the weekend; Sunday plus inputting into a church retreat.
And the good news that "this chapter is very good … you are really on the right road … so much so that I have no substantial changes to suggest". And so another thesis chapter is sent to the printer. Thanks Mike Riddell.
posted by spirit2go team at 9:41 PM
Sunday, October 06, 2002
Busy flying ...
And now I'm off to Melbourne for a 3 day conference with Alan Roxburgh. I think he's a legend. I've found his books, Reaching a New Generation and his book on leadership so helpful. I've spoken with him the US.
I want some space and time to think. I'm praying that I'll catch a fresh sense of the purposes of God for my life and ministry. I feel so many voices pulling me different ways, so many expectations of what church and ministry should be. I want to hear from God. Please feel free to pray with me.
posted by spirit2go team at 10:26 PM
Busy talking ... again
A 3 hour lecture at Carey Baptist College/University of Auckland tomorrow. A look at Jesus today. We'll explore the film Jesus of Montreal in the process. But at least the Storytelling workshops in September have concluded. So its only 3 hours of talking, not 5 hours!!
posted by spirit2go team at 1:36 AM
Friday, October 04, 2002
Busy talking ...
I preach 3 times tomorrow. I’m visiting Epsom Baptist and speaking at their traditional and alternative service, and then back at Graceway. It starts a week of input into Epsom, as the next Saturday I conduct part of their leadership retreat, on postmodernism and the implications for them as a congregation.
posted by spirit2go team at 10:26 PM
Thursday, October 03, 2002
Can our churches become environmentally benign and beneficial communities? The institution of a certification process whereby churches could become "Green Churches" would go a long way. What would be some sample features of a Green Church?
A church that builds a future on walking, bicycling, public transport .. Make your church as friendly to two wheel travelers as to four wheel travelers.
A church that promotes recycling and uses recycling itself.
A church that installs at least one "breathing wall" - indoor ecosystems of rocks, plants, waterfall, fish and microorganisms that breathe in dirty air and exhale clean air.
A church that rejects a monoculture of green grass in favour of creation-friendly lawnscapes.
A church that either serves only the new four food groups (vegetables, whole grain, fruit and legumes) or, when it offers meat, makes sure the chickens weren’t caged all their lives in "egg houses".
A church that prays earnestly for all of creation, teaches other how to pray and fast.
From Len Sweet, Soul Tsunami, p. 352,3
posted by spirit2go team at 3:28 PM
Tuesday, October 01, 2002
Loving Gods earth
There is a worship planning group meeting monthly at Graceway to explore a worship service that celebrates God's love for the earth, and that provides that educates and empowers people to live more sustainable lives. We meet again last night. Eac person brought research; on the solstices, on what environmental agencies, both Christian and non-Christian, are doing, and on any historical Christian resources that might be useful.
There was a fair bit of research data that hit the floor. There's a definite need for a worship celebration of God's earth that educates and empowers people to live more sustainable lives. We could find no-one who has tied together worship, creation and practical educative action. Have I missed anything?
Research and planning continues. Next meeting is 22nd October.
posted by spirit2go team at 4:59 PM