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
Friday, January 31, 2003
Peanuts Tarot
Still not sure about tarot? Nor am I. But a friend, Stuart Woodward found this;
Peanuts Tarot. Postmodern? Ironic? Serious?
posted by spirit2go team at 1:22 AM
Thursday, January 30, 2003
Tarot Cards
Now this is interesting. Tarot cards were originally designed by medieval artists and they, naturally, culturally, sourced their art in the Biblical ideas that they were culturally submerged in. At a later date, tarot cards were appropriated by fortune tellers.
So why not use Tarot cards to talk about Christianity? Grab a pack. Pray for the Spirit of God to work. Deal to your mates. Tell them what God wants to do in their life by explaining the design on the card.
For more, see
posted by spirit2go team at 11:27 AM
Imagination - the God spot
Keith Putt, US Baptist lecturer and pastor, has written 2 PhD's. One is called "Imagination as a prolegomena for theology". It's fairly hard work, as the title suggests. Let me simplify and summarise and apply.
Our imagination is how we connect with God. All of us are stuck in our ruts, and imagination lets us break beyond our rut to see the world in new ways. That's the God spot.
Which raises interesting questions about how we do church. For example, most people are more imaginatively stroked and teased by art and music, coffee and conversation, than by university lectures. So on Sunday, at the local church, why are we listening ONLY?
posted by spirit2go team at 11:21 AM
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Cory Labenow
emailed this week asking for advice. He is just starting his PhD with John Drane at the University of Aberdeen. John is also one of my supervisors (along with Mike Riddell and Gregory McCormick - I'm a slow student and so I need extra supervisory help!).
He's wanting to study emerging church. That makes 5 PhD's that I am aware of being done about alt.worship/emerging church, plus 3 Masters. That's a fair body of research data. It's a good sign. It adds depth and significance to what we're about.
One of my hopes it to at least pool all of this resource in one place. It's probably also about time to think about an edited book - theological reflections on emerging data.
Good stuff Cory. Go for it.
posted by spirit2go team at 4:42 PM
Monday, January 27, 2003
Mark Palmer likes it
He wrote: Steve Taylor from Graceway has some really profound thoughts on "embodies prophecy" and church planting at his blog. Cheers Mark.
posted by spirit2go team at 4:58 PM
Smiling back at you
An hour ago I handed in another thesis chapter - about 11,000 words, about 28 pages - describing our contemporary postmodern context. I argued for a decentred world, which produces individualised routes of meaning, tribal communities of choice and a celebration of marginality and difference. I have now done 8 out of 11 chapter, and 75,000 words.
I am left with 2 chapters, plus a conclusion to write. One of them is a chapter on image, imagination and creativity as it applies to being human and being church. It's really the reason why I started the PhD thesis, as I wanted to explore how images and creativity, rather than words shape and stimulate faith. So it is the chapter I am most looking forward to writing.
If you have any suggestions of books and articles, I'd be grateful. In the meantime, can I ask you to smile at the monitor, in solidarity cos I am smiling back at you.
posted by spirit2go team at 4:50 PM
Saturday, January 25, 2003
Imagine; the image
posted by spirit2go team at 4:17 PM
Imagine; the image
posted by spirit2go team at 4:16 PM
Friday, January 24, 2003
`Jerusalem, Jerusalem' receives $20,000
Dunedin playwright Mike Riddell's dream of taking his hit show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has come $20,000 closer.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem has won backing from the Dunedin City Council, which will be its principal sponsor at the arts event in August.
In return, the 18-strong cast and crew will be cultural ambassadors for Dunedin during their stay in its sister city.
The council's contribution will be a fifth of the estimated $100,000 it will cost to transport and stage the show, which made its debut in Dunedin last year. The rest will come from fund-raising, grants and seasons in Wellington and Dunedin later this year.
"We're very pleased at the support the city is showing through the council. It's taken us a bit by surprise," Mr Riddell said yesterday.
The play is based on the final year of New Zealand poet James K. Baxter's life, and the council made a point of announcing the grant yesterday as part of celebrations to mark the birthday of Scottish poet Robbie Burns, who is close to the hearts of many in Dunedin.
"It's a great opportunity to showcase the city's artistic excellence on the international stage and make our sister-city relationships more meaningful," council development manager Peter Brown said.
Mr Riddell said he appreciated the moral support of the city embodied in the council's endorsement, as much as the financial help.
From Otago Daily Times, Friday, 24-January 2003
posted by spirit2go team at 12:58 AM
Thursday, January 23, 2003
Imagine
Imagine the unlocking of the doors.
Imagine the re-emergence of church interiors as public spaces in the city.
Imagine if the worship installations could stay up all the time.
Imagine your local church building as an open-doored hangout.
Imagine sofas, visuals, newspapers, books, food, drink.
Imagine a church with good coffee.
Imagine a church with plenty of places to plug in your laptop.
Imagine opening hours 10am to midnight.
Imagine spiritual resources and personal space available at all times.
Imagine a place to work, rest and pray.
This is a sample from small ritual. I found it yesterday and frankly, this is one of the best websites I've ever seen. The visuals are much better than the words. And the design is stunning.
Graceway and St Hilda's have negotiated a lease. Both parties are happy with all details, apart from price. And on that we're stuck. I try not to worry, but I am. I'm in Dunedin and my hands are tied. I want to be fair to St Hilda's. I don't want to see Graceway pushed too hard financially.
Above all, I want to turn imagination into reality. I want to throw upon the doors and turn on the coffee and plant the garden and welcome the artists and turn on the internet access and welcome the neighbours. Please pray with me ..
posted by spirit2go team at 12:10 PM
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
ambiguity as Jesus leaves Mulholland Drive
I went to see Mulholland Drive last year. Great movie. The most interesting moment was as we walked out the door. Their was a crowd of "next-movie-goers" waiting to come in, excited waiting their turn to view Mulholland Drive.
One of them burst out "wow, is that what the movie's like." I suddenly realised that we all looked like stunned mullets, our brains whirring, trying, desperately, to put the bits and pieces of the movie puzzle together.
Mark 3:12 - Jesus ordered the evil spirits not to tell anyone who he was.
Sounds quite Mulholland Drive to me. The crowds around Jesus leave, confused, trying to put all the bits together. Meanwhile Jesus is sharing a beer with disciples encouraging them not to break the ambiguity of the sounds of silence. Why is so much of our church communication so obvious?
PS My nagging question is this: how mainstream is Mulholland Drive? Most "mainstream" movies do make the point ie plots are VERY simple. So if we do resort to the ambiguity of silence, are we in fact only communicating with an arty-elite of disciples.
posted by spirit2go team at 11:04 AM
A Dunedin gift of summer
Prodigal keeps hassling me about this Dunedin secret. But which one do I choose? Reviews are here. Suggestions are welcome.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:44 AM
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Embodied prophesy
Random thought 1 - I grew up in a setting where prophecies are all talk. And often talk in King James English. I have enough trouble understanding Shakespeare let a KJV prophesy.
Then I stumbled across the Old Testament prophets. People who use their bodies to speak of the Tomorrow.
Random thought 2 – I was moaning to Al Roxburgh (an "immigrant" who I respect immensly) about how hard church planting was, and how often other ministers don’t understand me and judge me by modernist indicators. He shrugged and said, “what do you expect. What you’re doing is prophetic.”
And it suddenly clicked. If Graceway just is, it is prophetic. To do nothing more than live .. to just drink beer and loves Jesus and tells stories and runs art exhibitions … is to get heat. Why? Because it’s embodied prophesy. It’s a challenge to the way others are.
Alan Hirsch commented on his blog;
“Ours is not merely an apostolic role in establishing new ground for the Gospel and church, but must be by nature a prophetic one as well. I find this the most painful aspect of my ministry--an almost total rejection/marginalization from the established church which I am so committed to."
Again, embodied prophesy. Tonight I pray for all my fellow embodied prophets. We who have thrown off the KJV English. We who by the very act of living, feel marginalized. Long may the Spirit pulse in our veins.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:31 AM
Monday, January 20, 2003
Stepping out!
Church planting - starting a Baptist church, that’s innovative, in a city - is the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Lots of people talk about emerging church ministry and postmodern church. I respect people like Len Sweet, but I keep wanting to yell out “well go and plant”. It’s a lot easier to talk about ministry than to do it. There are very few guidelines and heaps of doubters. Let alone my own insecurities – have I got the goods, maybe I really am spiritually maladjusted and should really respond to all those modernist altar calls.
I’m raving cos I’ve been talking with Darren Rowse in Melbourne’s who’s just about to start - a Baptist church, that’s innovative, in a city – and I’m really excited and scared for him.
My advice for postmodern start ups.
1. Have fun. Keep looking for the laughs, the joy, the God-moments in the midst of the down-times, the slow Sunday’s, the people who don’t get it.
2. Planters will shape it. We have to face the fact that if we're planting, then you will shape it heaps. That's certainly been my experience at Graceway. I had these ideals of it being someone else’s church, shaped by the community, drawn from the community. Until I looked around the room and realised that all that was in the room was Lynne and I. And unless we started, nothing would happen.
3. The hardest thing will be letting go. The issue is not - how much planters shape it - but can planters let go when it gets shaped differently down the track. It’s like having kids. I don’t expect babies to function as adults, but I work with them to become adults. So in the early stages my hands are all over Graceway - and if they weren't the baby would never be born or never survive, but I work with them through to adulthood ie it is all of our church. This takes years.
4. Serve the culture. Listen and reflect on your interactions with people you’d like to be in the church. Listen to their stories, their pain, their joy. Now they might never join you, but they will have shaped how you do church. This means its not your church but their church. So as Graceway formed I played squash with a Christian leaving church cos of sexual identity issues. He never came to Graceway, but his story was behind words like "grace"-way and the bar stool we use for community sharing. I kept thinking "if he came what would he need". If I serve the culture by listening well, its not my church and my leadership but its being shaped by all my people encounters. And its missional!
5. Don’t push too hard the dualisms between church and community. If Spirit is active in the world, then our church plants must be shaped from Spirit-in-the-world people. The culture becomes God's gift. All people are God’s gift. If the church is the body of Christ, then what you have has all the gifts for what you need – today. Don’t look for ideals, but look for God today.
God bless you heaps Mr Rowse. You’re giving birth. What an adventure!
posted by spirit2go team at 1:06 AM
Sunday, January 19, 2003
I am a penguin abuser
I confess. I have been caught redhanded. We visited the Catlins over this weekend. Bush rolling down to unstepped sands, fossiled forests, rugged, rocky coastlines. A beautiful part of the country.
The Catlins is famous for its penguins who come in from the sea to sleep at night. At dusk you sneak down to the beach and watch them waddle and jump their way from rocky shore to their nesting young. The Department of Conservation signs are clear. Don’t go in the Penguin Landing Area. Marked in Orange.
So I am down on the beach, outside the orange area. It is dusk. And these 2 penguins are eying me up. Not moving. Staring.
I stare back. I look behind me. It is a rocky outcrop. Now I know penguins nest in the bush not in the rocks. Again, I am safe. It is these penguins who are misguided and in the wrong place. I wait.
Above me the tourists have gathered, video and flash poised.
Suddenly the Penguin Thought Police arrive. Local viligantes. Self selected and self-imposed.
“They won’t come in unless you move” they yell.
Whom are they talking to, I think, as I watch these 2 penguins, who are watching me.
Down the steps come the PTP (Penguin Thought Police). They point at me – safe outside the orange area. But alas, I am hauled back to the gathered tourists. And now the video whirrs and cameras really do flash. Slide show back home; "This was my holiday photo shot of a penguin abuser, caught red-handedn." Eventually the crowd moves away, eager for new spectacle.
And still those 2 penguins remain, unmoved, unaware that another Penguin Abuser has been caught by the PTP.
posted by spirit2go team at 12:51 AM
Friday, January 17, 2003
Americans are nice
Got 2 great emails from Americans today. I’ve been talking to them both about my study.
Keith Putt, lecturing at the philosophy faculty at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.
“Please feel free to stay in contact. Ask me any questions you might have. I cannot guarantee answers given the limits of my knowledge but I can guarantee an interest in what you are doing."
And Stanley Grenz, lecturing in theology at Regents in Canada, has offered to read a chapter of my thesis,
“You may have tried to send materials to Sonia McKenzie only to discover that she has left her post at ACTS/TWU. Her replacement has been named and is now up and running:
Blessings!”
That's been part of a good day.
posted by spirit2go team at 12:18 AM
Thursday, January 16, 2003
Posuers
OK, just before New year, my comments changed from "comments" to "poseurs". So did a number of other blogs using enetation, like Pakaso and Jonny bakers. I assumed it would right itself. But I'm still posing.
So I'm now posing you, O reader, a poseur. Anyone know what's going on?
posted by spirit2go team at 11:06 AM
Are we a bit sad?
Been reading Kurt Anderson's "Turn of the Century"; billed as "playful, knowing and lightning sharp, essential reading for anyone who wants to know where we are at as we dip our toes into the 21st century."
He writes "Neither of [his 2 main characters] fully embrace the web lifestyle. If you're a reporter who requires many disparate bits of information quickly, fine. Or a trader in stocks and bonds or currencies .. Or if you're a person in the thrall of a cult or pathology or hobby, or some lonely loser who can't make friends the ordinary ways. ... The suburbs will make the World Wide Web happy"
OK, so what are we? Have a good day.
posted by spirit2go team at 10:53 AM
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
New group
starting up in Brisbane. Interesting name Cafe Jugglers . They just emailed me. I've had some other neat emails recently.
Dr. Bert Roebben, Associate Professor of Practical Theology/Religious Education, Faculty of Theology, Tilburg University keen to know more about the theology and praxis of alt.worship;
Gerard Kelly, who jacked me up to speak at Spring Harvest, keen to come to New Zealand and so some stuff with us in July.
posted by spirit2go team at 12:48 AM
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Shedding alien skin
Just before Christmas I blogged (OK, I raved and ranted) about Jesus needing to be found downunder. For too long Jesus has been Westernized and Americanized. Now thats’ fine if you stand in America. But I don’t. If the Word became flesh, then he needs to find Kiwi flesh.
This week Rachel wrote about the cricket:
Kiwis only sing when they are drunk, at a sporting event, or both. There was a whole lot of singing going on today and cheering and screaming and chanting.. and yes, my voice is rather sore and hoarse right now!! ... A lot of church songs I find really hard to sing. I'd rather listen to other people sing, or do something else that is creative. ... .
It’s the same thing. Kiwis don’t sing by nature. And then we design whole church services around this alien hobby
I spoke on worship at a TSCF conference a few years ago. I asked them what they enjoyed doing. And they spoke of talking with friends, looking at art, drinking coffee, listening to music and watching video. Then I asked them if that could be worship for them.
And you could see all the lights come on as they began to shed their alien skin; that worship=singing, and to realise that worship could be an expression of all that we are responding to all that God is. That we perhaps could use our music and our coffee as part of our loving of God.
This has been so important to our journey at Graceway. We sing very little. But we do listen to lots of music. And we do talk and make things and listen to each other. We’re not there yet. In fact we need to find more songs we can sing. But we’re shedding our alien skin. And it feels good.
posted by spirit2go team at 6:10 PM
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Why a phd Steve?
One-beware amateur sociology. I wanted to expose my thinking on culture and reflection of mission and church to rigourish debate. Mark Sayers blogged in December about the risk of amateur sociology - Christian blogs reading each other and so - my words not his, a spiralling circle of urban Christian myths. It captured for me my reasons for starting the phd - being forced to read and write widely, critically.
Two-beware theorists. Doing my phd through Otago meant I could stay rooted in emergent Christian ministry. It opened me up to a method called practical theology. Where thinking starts with action (alternative worship), moves to reflection in light of Christian gospel, that then informs action. So I could stay rooted at Graceway. My thinking about alt.worship is grounded in creativity and community day by day, week by week.
That's why the phd journey began.
posted by spirit2go team at 6:43 PM
Dunedin gaze
I look out my window, past the tight hills of Corstophine, over Carisbrook, to the Dunedin Harbour. It’s the Dunedin gaze. I will have it for the next 7 weeks, doing an extensive write on my PhD.
We’ve moved the family from one Island to the other, a 4 hour flight, 1400 kilometres. Two reasons. Firstly, to break from my regular Graceway commitments and thus to enhance my potential to write uninterrupted. Secondly, the end of a thesis can become very intense and quite family unfriendly. So I’m hoping that a new place and less distractions makes it more of a family adventure.
As my 3 year old sang, mostly tunefully, most of the journey in the car;
"we are going to Dunedin..to have fun"
posted by spirit2go team at 1:31 PM
Thursday, January 02, 2003
Dunedin bound
When I return from holiday, I am residing in the "Visitors Lecturer's Office" at the University of Dunedin. A solid 7 week writing spell awaits me, as I try to complete the last of the 3 chapters of my PhD. I am excited, looking forward to a "sabbatical" and what will hopefully be the last downward slog of the thesis. (Then the book! - postcards from the margin - a theology for the emerging church)
In preparation, I have a new blog look; blue and yellow are the colours of the Otago rugby team. Also, some new images including a summer holiday flower and an overhead shot of the university campus.
posted by spirit2go team at 11:47 PM