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
Thursday, November 28, 2002
An Advent option
Advent is the 4 Sunday's leading up to Christmas. It's a time to prepare, to live in the gospel story. I've suggested people at Graceway might like to complete a spiritual audit. Take some time with a friend over coffee to reflect on the year.
Am I content with who I am becoming?
Am I becoming less religious and more spiritual?
Does my family and friends recognize the authenticity of my spirituality?
Am I generous?
Do I have a quiet centre to my life?
Have I defined my unique ministry?
Is my prayer life improving?
Have I maintained a genuine awe of God?
Is my lifestyle distinctive?
Is my "spiritual feeding" the right diet for me?
Is obedience in small matters built into my reflexes?
Is there enough celebration in my life?
posted by spirit2go team at 5:48 PM
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Consider the lilies is the only commandment I've ever obeyed, writes poet Emily Dickinson. Until now I've never understood this verse as an encouragement to consider creation as an source of divine revelation. But it is. It's an encouragement to take creation, the arts, beauty seriously, as a place to find God. Very cool.
posted by spirit2go team at 7:30 PM
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Lord Holy Spirit
You blow like the wind in a thousand paddocks
Inside and outside the fences
You blow where you wish to blow
JK Baxter
I met for lunch with Paul yesterday. It’s a growing relationship that started in blogosphere. One of the recurring threads of our conversation was how our lives are enriched by the blog world. It’s part of the Spirit’s good gift to us. We are enriched by each other and by a new range of conversations we are part of and we listen to.
To rephrase Baxter
Lord Holy Spirit
You blow like the wind in a thousand blogs
Inside and outside our virtual world
Thanks be to God, and to each of you.
posted by spirit2go team at 8:29 PM
Monday, November 25, 2002
Moments of beauty
Our Advent publicity goes to the printer today. Cathy, the Aussie designer, has done a superb job. We've played with 3 historical Advent art pieces. (Sorry, they're too big to put up on the weblog, you'd be downloading all day). I hope that people who see them will pause for a moment of beauty. I certainly did when I saw the drafts on Saturday - struck by beauty, fragility and feminity of the Christmas narrative.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:13 PM
Did I really say that?
"You have to take what's there in our culture and baptise it with Jesus," said Steve. He believed spirituality had to be tangible, sampled and communal. "Today we need to express spirituality through popular culture - video, music, art."
Ahmmm!
Report in December Baptist on what I said at Assembly.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:09 PM
Saturday, November 23, 2002
Email overnight:
Hey Steve,
just dropped by the Graceway site for the first time in a few months. I found it really interesting that your community is worshiping around the elements. our community of faith just had our first in a series of experiential worship gatherings centered around the four elements (last night was fire). ironic, eh? God moves is very interesting ways.
blessings to you and the Graceway Community.
mark palmer, columbus, oh, usa
We at Graceway continue to get feedback from people using our [Pentecost] spirituality resources and postcards. The images on www.graceway.org.nz were also printed as postcards and placed in cafes all around Auckland. Our deliberate desire to fund Christian spirituality beyond ourselves.
posted by spirit2go team at 6:03 PM
Friday, November 22, 2002
Amaze
I met with Jackie Sewell yesterday. After many years working with Anglican Youth ministry, she’s pursuing a new dream.
She wants to start Amaze, an arts and spirituality space for teenagers. It will have safe prayer space, workshops to enhance creativity and spirituality and offer referral services as need me. A focused prayer space for teenagers.
We dreamed together and explored how our dreams overlap in terms of art and spirituality and monastic movements, and how they differ in terms of her focus on youth, while Graceway started out as 20-30’s and as people grow and join us, as proved to nourish people across the spectrum.
Pray for Jackie. Its a cool dream and a lot needs to happen for her. I offered to build her a simple website. When that happens, you’ll be able to drop in and say Hi and encourage her.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:35 PM
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
More to tell about story-tell-ing
Good article on listening and telling stories here. Thanks Pakaso for the tip.
I like this line "Maybe the most effective way of bringing the gospel to a secular culture is to exchange stories with that culture .. rather than lob mortar shells at each other." Now have you heard the story about Mr Cat!
posted by spirit2go team at 7:32 PM
You' re thinking of me
Going to school is a big event in a child's life. To mark the occassion, I try and take the Graceway 5 year old's out to McDonalds. They choose icecream or chips and we talk about what they like about school, what they don't like, what they like about Graceway. I always feel like a fish out of water, but it does change my relationship with them.
It's produced some classic moments. Standing in the McDonalds queue, surrounded by people, one 5 year announced "the most difficult question is, who made God". And the whole shop turns and looks at me for an answer.
Or the kid whom I wanted to check his learning (honest!) so I asked him what a sign said. "Why? Don't you know how to read" he responded.
Yesterday was Callum's turn. After we finished the icecreams I tried to explain why I had taken him out. "Oh" he says "you do this because you're thinking of me."
posted by spirit2go team at 1:27 PM
Monday, November 18, 2002
Saint Hilda
was the saint for November 17. She founded an abbey in the North of England. She was a key leader in the church, speaking out strongly in favour of preserving the Celtic way of spirituality. She trained ministers. A woman of gospel passion, able to plant spiritual communities and able to reproduce herself by training others.
The church we're looking at using is called St Hilda's. It even has a stone from her abbey in the foyer. It's this historical connection, and the commitment to gospel and woman and training and leadership in Celtic spirituality that excites me about possible use of the building. Please keep praying for us as we negotiate and dream.
PS. St Hilda's life also indicates that back in those days the church was obviously a lot more enlightened. Saint Hilda running abbeys and training ministers and leading the church throughout the country. Very cool. A lot of abbeys at that time (8th century) were partnerships, a male leading the monks and a woman leading the nuns.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:35 PM
Sunday, November 17, 2002
Reviews of xpressions
by Rachel and by Paul on Friday 11 November.
posted by spirit2go team at 12:42 PM
Friday, November 15, 2002
Stuffed
I'm tired. I'm stuffed. Too tired even to watch a video with Lynne. Too much PhD writing. Too much edge surfing. I went to the supermarket. I brought the following.
6 ginger kisses (Signature Range)
6 donuts (cinamon)
spicy fruit muffins
orange juice (Arano, on special)
Export gold (on special)
milk (signature range)
2 bags of potato chips (Ryans)
Now I sit and eat comfort food.
posted by spirit2go team at 11:05 PM
GE Free march proceeds peacefully
Thank goodness, because the family, plus others from Graceway were involved.
posted by spirit2go team at 11:01 PM
Storytelling
Xpressions kicked off on Thursday. 31 people gathered in a local café. We listened to an experienced teller spin some yarns. We opened the floor to first time tellers, and listened as 5 people told first-time “stories” - jokes, growing up, poetry, life.
It was a great night. It affirmed humanity and creativity and community and mission. Let me explain.
a) It affirms humanity. When I run a storytelling workshop, I start by asking people to choose something on themselves – belt, ear ring, ring, shoe – and to tell the person beside them; where the object came from, where it is now, and where it is going. Well done, I then say, you’ve just told a story.
And people grin because they’ve just realised their lives are full of stories waiting to be told. Telling stories affirms our human lives. It helps us rework and rename our past. As Bonhoeffer wrote,
We should give up the foolish task of trying to be saints, and get on with the more important task of trying to be human. Storytelling allows us to explore our human lives as made in the image of God, and shaped by the hand of God.
b) It affirms creativity. Stories are wonderful. They create magic. They evoke memories. Stories remind both teller and listener of our inbuilt – made in the image of God - creativity. They remind us that we are interesting, that we have the ability to make people laugh and cry and groan. So often in church creativity serves rationalism. The artist is reduced to illustration. In a storytelling night, the creative takes centre stage.
c) It builds community. Douglas Coupland writes in Generation X of going into the dessert to tell stories and make our lives worthwhile tales in the process. There’s something communally redemptive about seeing nervous people share of themselves. There’s something precious when you’re given the gift of someone’s life experience. Storytelling builds community.
There’s also a distinct lack of control. Who knows what stories will be told. Who knows how the audience will respond and thus how the told story will be shaped. There’s a delicious sense of community.
d) It affirms mission. “Was that true?” someone asked at the end of the first yarn. And so the space for dialogue is created. Storytelling is a theology from below. If the Spirit is present in the world, then the Spirit can be discerned in the stories told. As the stories multiple, so a bigger thread emerges, the Spirit present in our local context. And so a theology of God in Aotearoa New Zealand emerges.
As our café host commented. “It is a great idea. It’s new and different.” It’s nice for the church to be on public turf and a catalyst for great ideas that are new and different.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:24 PM
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Bit of a stink
When the church becomes an end to itself, it acts pious and begins to turn sour. Anyone with a sensitive nose will smell that and find it dreadful.
- Karl Barth
posted by spirit2go team at 3:21 PM
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Building Updates: For background see blog Tea at the Vicarage on 11/2/02
A recent friendly call from the local Anglican vicar. To build trust between the 2 churches they have suggested a pulpit swap. I took this as a very positive sign of a desire to build relationships. They also asked if we would be open to a lease agreement, as a 4th option. (I had tabled options of 1st, rent, 2nd, strategic alliance or 3rd, co-operating parish, while favouring the 2nd .) Again, a positive sign. The Vicar is meeting the Diocesian Secretary this week with my official letter. Please keep praying.
I’ve also just realised that the building has a large rear lawn. So some of my original dreams for Graceway having an organic community garden to feed the poor might be birthed in this place.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:55 PM
Monday, November 11, 2002
5 improvements at Assembly 2003
1. We got to touch something (a bulb and a parcel)
2. Saturday featured 4 arenas (Quest for the Spiritual, Multi-cultural New Zealand, Mission in the 21st century, Economics) that gave serious expression to mission in New Zealand
3. Technology was professional
4. Dinner views were stunning (new stand at Jade stadium)
5. Vegetarian meals were clearly labelled and easy to find.
5 suggested improvements for Assembly 2004
1. Every word used on powerpoint must be accompanied by an image. (Clip art does not count)
2. All major presentations should be presented as art displays. Verbal descriptions are then allowed.
3. Prayers for life beyond the Baptist world allowed at least daily
4. Major financial motions shall be accompanied by 7 minute brainstorming sessions to increase consumer buy in (pun intended)
5. Appoint environmental delegate to Assembly Organising Committee to enhance our sustainable care for God’s earth
posted by spirit2go team at 12:44 PM
Sunday, November 10, 2002
Nor West Weekend
Wind
Nips,
Like ancient Tuatua,
Spits grit
Topsoil stains
Big sky
Purple stained
Squashed into ochre black
Vast expanse of timeless
Open heaven, tissue thin
Clouds
cotton white as squashed wool
Body arched
Cross laced and lacerated
Mountains
Fingering jagged sky
Anglican at centre
Stoned
On Mother England
Colonised to colonise
A New England at Christ’s church
Little man
Under vast sky
And torn topsoil
Shallow rooted
Or
Primal to primal
Sky, wind, ruach,
Blows tumbleweed cross God’s vast journey
posted by spirit2go team at 11:21 PM
Wednesday, November 06, 2002
I'm off today to our annual Baptist Assembly. It's called The Gathering. Rest assured, unlike its famous namesake in Nelson, there will be no DJ's or grooving in the sun or dreadlocks.
I return on Tuesday. Hopefully I'll be able to blog in between, but we'll see.
I talk twice on Saturday, between 10:30-12:00 and 1:30-3:00. I'd value any stray thoughts and prayers.
Feel free to also pray for my spirituality. Historically it has taken me a month or so after an Assembly to regain my spiritual equilibrium and climb out of a pit of depression. Sorry if that sounds cynical, but its just reality.
On a more cheery note, in preparation I have cheered myself up by printing off a first thesis draft. I've dragged together all my bits and pieces to yield 9 of 11 chapters and 65,000 words. I am taking this with me to cheer myself up. Still a long way to go, but it is immensely satisfying to spit 130 pages and 65,000 words out of a printer.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:07 PM
Tuesday, November 05, 2002
From Halloween to All Saints
On Sunday, I carved a cross and empty tomb out of some pumpkins. Then I placed candles in them and placed them around the communion table. It was a nice effect. We reflected upon this large crowd of witnesses-the saints-that can help us focus on Jesus in death to life.
posted by spirit2go team at 4:42 PM
Monday, November 04, 2002
That man is making thunder come out of his garage
A 3 year old describes fireworks on a wet Auckland Guy Fawkes night.
posted by spirit2go team at 11:58 PM
I'm in print
Check out the New Zealand Herald, Tuesday November 5, Letters to the Editor. Look for the feature letter, highlighted in grey. It's sent by Steve Taylor, Onehunga. That's me. Yeeah.
My Saturday blog rant "Black Cup Supporter on Strike", has become the Heralds feature letter. I'm stoked.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:27 PM
Are you leaving?
On Sunday, at a meeting as part of the church service, Graceway (unanimously) voted to call Mike Crudge to join us as half-time associate pastor next year. This appointment is to provide space for me to finish my doctorate and write me book, and also a chance for Mike to exercise his (considerable) gifts among us. I will continue at Graceway in a reduced role over next year. Mike was with the church in 2000 and 2001 as a Carey student. So it's neat to have invested in someone and see them return!
All of this produces upheaval. A very worried person came to see me during Sunday. They were going to vote against the idea because they didn't want to lose me. It was so sweet! So we had to explain again, that I'm still around, just in a different role.
It's also produced upheaval in me. I rang my spiritual director for emergency counsel on Wednesday. Graceway is changing. I am being asked to change. New relationships. New sharing. New joy. New conflict (inevitable!). I was really struggling with the changes and it's been a few dark days. Mixed with the joy of such a good process and a sense of unanimity around Graceway and the opportunity and privilege this presents to Mike.
Graceway now await Mike's response. Please be in prayer for him and for the church and for the Taylor family that God's best wil be woven together for all.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:06 PM
Friday, November 01, 2002
Black Cup Supporter on Strike.
After listening to negotiations and mediations and press statements and press release, I am presenting my full and final offer. Unless this dispute is resolved by Monday, 4 pm, I will no longer be a cricket watcher.
I'll tear up my terrace ticket. I'll turn off the treacle of Waddle and Coney. I'm sickened by an amateur game that I played for love being held to ransom by a few money hungry elites, gifted though they may be. Rob Nicol's cricketing whites are stained forever.
For a more balanced view
posted by spirit2go team at 8:16 PM
Tea at the Vicarage
Yesterday I met with the local Anglican Vicar and 2 lay leaders. The neighbouring suburb has an Anglican church building that is quite neat; just off a main road, carpeted, airy. It has a really funky concrete basement that looks out onto green lawn and trees (think arts and spirituality centre). It has a concrete walk in entrance (think French doors and outdoor garden/café area as main foyer entrance).
It has two 90 year old ladies attending a fortnightly service. I offered to form an Anglican/Baptist strategic alliance; share building and share some worship. It gives us a more permanent presence and a chance to expand our worship life and run our art exhibitions and be more visible. It gives them life in the building and a chance to secure the building for the future and possibly a regeneration of their worshipping life.
(It is on the main road. We could offer spirituality-to-go between 7-8 am; you come in, place your coffee order, go the church for the Daily Offices, come out, pay and collect your coffee. What more do you need on a busy work day – space, prayer and coffee!)
They listened. The 2 lay leaders were excited “this is off God”. The vicar asked searching questions like would you also be interested in using the vicarage and would you like an office and your rent only works out to $50/week. And said that if this was the work of the Spirit, they were open to that.
They want an official letter to send to the bishop and will discuss it at their next leadership meeting. Blow, Worker Spirit, blow.
posted by spirit2go team at 12:30 PM
Spirituality of the emerging generation
I've been asked to speak on this at our annual Baptist Assembly next weekend. About 250 people registered to attend as part of a 90 minute seminar titled "The Spiritual Quest".
I want to use a bit of video, and then make 3 points; emerging spirituality as communal, as experiential and as tangible. Link it to the Emmaus Road story, God found around table in broken bread - which is communal, experiential and tangible. Then give a few examples of what this means for us at Graceway - spirituality postcards, storytelling.
Am I missing any key components of emerging postmodern spirituality? Any good articles or good images you can point me to? All help mightly appreciated.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:33 AM