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, April 30, 2003
3 - I’ve seen a modern movie/person/sign OR I’ve seen a post modern movie/person/sign.
And so you should. People are made up of an immense mix of personality, upbringing, work skills, education, etc. In addition, culture is too broad to drop into narrow boxes. Whether postmodernism will totally take over from modernism, or whether postmodernism is part of a cultural swing within modernism, is best decided by historians. All we can do today is guess. And guess we do. Modernity has been hyperised (hypermodernity), hyphenated (post-modern), liquefied (liquid modernity) and gapped (post modern). These range of terms is evidence that we are in a time of immense cultural flux.
4 - Why is alt.worship/emerging church linked with postmodernity?
A personal story. I liked Jesus and the Bible, but increasingly felt alienated by long, rational sermons, by business models of church leadership, by sexist language, by a lack of community and by an insular faith more concerned about morals than cultural interchange. I felt I was backsliding to have these thoughts.
The word postmodern gave me freedom to grow as a Christian. It helped me realise that rather than backsliding, my faith was being suffocated by cultural additions. Postmodernism has changed my spiritual life for the better. My use of the word postmodern now becomes an easy way to reference that sort of struggle. It's a deep part of my journey. I'm sorry if I sometimes use that in a way you find unhelpful.
5 - I get worried that this is another cultural fad.
So do I. To do so would be trivialize postmodernism and to trivialize many spiritual journeys. For me the aim has not been to be relevant etc. The aim of the journey is to find an authentic and deepening faith. Please don’t see my use of visuals, my language, my music, as a fad. Please pray that it marks an ever deeper expression of what it means for me to be Christian today.
posted by spirit2go team at 12:23 PM
Monday, April 28, 2003
FAQ about postmodernism.
1 - None of my friends talk about postmodernism.
Culture is like the air we breathe. It’s all around us and we without it we’d die, but we don’t often talk about “air.” That doesn’t mean air doesn’t exist.
And then, every now and again, “air” becomes a talking point. When my city has a pollution warning. Or when I choose to study air at school or University. Or on a frosty morning when my air hangs in deep white billows in front of my face.
Just because my friends don’t talk about air, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
2 – Postmodernism is a hard thing to understand.
My five year old doesn’t know what the word “English” means, but she can sure talk it. As she goes through school, she will learn more and more about English – that it has a name, that it has books, that it is written and oral. If she is really keen, she can go to University, or even do a PhD about Enlish.
Postmodernism is like that. It’s a culture, and any culture has layers. We are in that culture, we know how to speak it. But we can equally go deeper and deeper into the study of it.
At times my 5 year old will meet bad teachers, and her learning will be hampered. At times she will meet arrogant teachers, who won't let her into the conversation. I hope she mostly meets good teachers, who love her inquisitive mind and her willingness to learn. Who will know how to speak at her level, without betraying the depths of "English" knowledge, right through to phd level and beyond.
I also hope she does her part, questioning, studying, reading for herself.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:52 PM
Friday, April 25, 2003
My current UK itinerary
Monday 5th - Arrive. Staying with Steve and Kate McCutcheon.
Wednesday 7th
Consultation: Evaluating alt.worship: the elephant of the past, the future (featuring 3 U2 singles, Stuck in a Moment, New York and Walk on). 11 am - 2 pm, Kings College, London
Interview: Youthworker mag and radio
Thursday 8th
Postmodern culture lecture. 11-1 pm, Kings College, London
Postcards from the edge: missiology of the Emerging Church. Pilgrimage-Creative space-DJ sampling, 7:30 pm, Input at CMS, London
Friday 9th - Fly to Edinburgh for research meeting re alt.worship.
Weekend with my brother and sister in law in Edinburgh.
Monday 12th - Meeting John Drane regarding my phd
Doing Practical Theology downunder lecture. 2-4 pm, Postgraduate seminar at University of Abderdeen.
Tuesday 13th
Storytelling. 2 pm, University of Aberdeen, Masters in Ministry and Mission class.
Wednesday 14th - Home
posted by spirit2go team at 7:35 PM
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Shrimps on dem barbies
Karen Ward's Seattle community like my festival blog idea. She writes:
i found myself in real agreement over your "festivals" post. this summer, we 2 larger ("with our band" type services) a month instead of four, and on alternate weeks we will gather in other forms (attend concerts, throw shrimp on my barbie, beach gatherings, day hikes...) much more relaxed with just two formal services... and this also gives us more creative energy for our upcoming 'festivals' - our june 7 vigil of pentecost (in outdoor tents) and our "all hallows/all saints" service oct 31.
The good thing about this is the weekly relational connection is maintained. Most of the early generation alt.worship stuff in UK and in NZ (we're talking last millenium here), started with a monthly worship festival. It then tried to add the weekly relational stuff and it never really worked. I have a theory on this - art collective vs weekly worship, but I will not expound it today. My point is that it is hard to get from monthly event to community.
My other point is that it is hard to get from weekly housechurch mission, to open missional event. Kevin Rains was struggling with this in his blog earlier in the year. He was asking how do people check you out and how do you describe your "house church" to your unchurched friends? Great missional questions.
What Karen and I are suggesting is that both spiral together - weekly relationships, larger events that provide opportunities to be checked out.
Some pilgrims just want to sample, others are looking for experience, still others for a new world view. The task of misison is to cater for a range of pilgrims, and I wonder if weekly relationship and larger festival events do that.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:33 PM
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Video vs flesh
Today I got videod. I got stuck in front of my 1 metre square oil painting, "Today you will be with me in paradise." I was asked to talk about postmodern ecclesiologies (big words for the emerging church). Its for a pastors training course and they wanted to know what it meant to be a church in a postmodern world.
Here is what made me nervous. I have to be videod because I am away in UK when the course is happenning. They really wanted my input, hence the video. Now God comes in flesh, but I come by video. Does this misrepresent the incarnation?
posted by spirit2go team at 10:04 PM
Low days
The Sunday after Easter is called Low Sunday. After the heights of Easter, its a chance to catch up with oneself.
I'm feeling a bit low. All that Easter energy I've expended. I'm heading off for UK in less than 2 weeks and I'm going to miss my family. I have a number of friends who are unwell and feeling a bit broken. A low week.
posted by spirit2go team at 7:00 PM
Monday, April 21, 2003
Hingepoint
Easter is about the biggest hinge in eternity. If life can be resurrected, then the meaning of life and death are now turned on their heads. What to do with a blog? I was tempted to make it totally black on Easter Saturday. God is dead. Life is black.
Instead some Easter Life images.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:01 PM
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Easter Sunday
posted by spirit2go team at 3:16 PM
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Easter Thursday
posted by spirit2go team at 2:58 AM
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
The next watch
I brought my first Lind painting this week. It's a double Lind - Nic the son did one side, Derek the dad did the other.
Derek is one of New Zealand's great artists. He wrote the following lyrics;
Who will start the next watch
Now that Baxter and McCahon are dead
(off his 1987 Strange Logic album). Derek is part of that next watch. I hope to make my small contribution too.
The painting is based on a Bruce Springsteen lyric. One side is the borderlands and the phrase "I am language learner". That's me and many of my friends in the emerging church. We are working the margins. We are, like missionaries, learning the language of postmodern culture. The other side is mostly black with the words "state trooper" and "don't go there". You can interpret that side if you want. For me, today, I'll go and learn some more of the language.
Step 1, log out
Step 2, Insert Radiohead and Salmonella Dub on the stereo rotation.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:00 PM
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Fight club spirituality
Eric is thinking of doing a phd with me. He has just sent me his Masters, on Fight Club as Gen X spirituality. Looks interesting. Even better, its got pictures and jokes.
posted by spirit2go team at 6:54 PM
Easter in the south
Inverted on the other side of the earth
Easter and Lent, its harbringer, take new meaning,
Are not the wheeling festival of birth and death
In spring, but ripe and round in autumn’s waning.
Northern spring miraculous lifts with feeble fists
Of shoot and budding leaf the stone from the frozen
Sepulchered heart of the earth, the embalmed air pours in gusts
Bird-call and shock of wind cry, Christ is risen
Our Easter comes pontifically in purple and gold
With grape on vine and corn in field, the wine and bread
Feeding the hollow mouth, warming the body filled
At last, the sacrament of flesh and blood
By MK Joseph
posted by spirit2go team at 2:59 AM
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Palm Sunday
Mark 1:1-11
posted by spirit2go team at 4:23 PM
Friday, April 11, 2003
Xpressions2
of community and creativity
Kristin Herman
collector and teller of stories traditional and contemporary
followed by open mike
April, Monday 28, 7:30 pm
Ultra Cafe and Bar, Onehunga Mall
posted by spirit2go team at 10:13 PM
Xpressions2
posted by spirit2go team at 10:09 PM
Festival spirituality
I’m working on Enliven, a major Pentecost (8 June, 1:30-7:30 pm) festival. It will offer a mix of thinking in seminars, listening to live music and stories over coffee and creating an art project which we will display in the community. It’s been really exciting starting to plan this, and to blend in thinking and spiritual space and creativity.
It’s got me thinking about the role of festivals and faith. Rather than weekly church services, could religious life be configured as
A – a regular (4-6 weekly) well advertised festivals – that offered input, child care, missional art project and worship over a good 8 hour period. A potent mix of content, creativity and being together, that was also a good place to “stumble over” the church/group.
B – weekly café groups that discussed the input
C – backed up by irregular storytelling and earth mass services
D – daily offices type routines.
Could this provide both events that impact beyond the group and keep it public, take pressure off a weekly routine which is hard to maintain in our pressured world, allow more focus on community forming in groups, all undergirded by regular spirituality practices?
Just musing
posted by spirit2go team at 8:31 PM
Sustaining spirituality
A number of Graceway people will be away over Easter. One of them asked if there was some way we could give them something “Easterish” to do as a family group.
Hmmmm. That got us thinking.
We’ve decided to create a service that can be done by a family at a bach. So anyone going away over Easter can let us know and we’ll deliver the “Easter Pack” for them to take away. We’ll do the same service, ie using the "pack", in groups at church. It is designed with a project, and these will all be brought back next week (Sunday after Easter), so that we can share in each other’s creativity and Easter reflection.
It’s certainly a commitment to a distributed spirituality, to resourcing where people are at rather than expecting them to get with a “Sunday-church-event-programme.”
Already we’ve had a person from outside our church community asking for a pack.
posted by spirit2go team at 8:30 PM
Coding problems
My hosting company has been upgrading software this morning. There's been a few problems. Sorry to all my readers who might have lost me for a day or 2.
posted by spirit2go team at 4:31 PM
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Holy week ambient space
7-8 pm :: Tuesday 15, Wednesday 16, Thursday 17, Friday 18
space :: mediation :: focus :: McCahon art :: bread :: wine :: confession.
Scriptures read at 7:15, 7:30 and 7:45
Ellerslie War Memorial Committee Room
posted by spirit2go team at 12:30 PM
Importers and exporters
I'm off to the UK in May. I've had 2 emails from UK people this week wanting to come chew the fat and check out Graceway.
From here to there and there to here. A very interconnected world.
posted by spirit2go team at 11:47 AM
DJ sampling as a metaphor for church; god prospecting; creativity downloaded; imaginative play; spirituality portals; reframing church as community; god amid video loops; faith in fragments
wednesday may 7 Kings College, 12.30 -2
thursday may 8 Kings College 11-1
cms 6:30-8:30
weekend pastoral care of UK Graceway-ites
monday-tuesday Aberdeen
posted by spirit2go team at 2:17 AM
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Jesus said
I'm still haunted by Graceway's worship on Sunday. People were given out a whole range of Gospel verses. Then the Last Supper Bible narrative was read.
The worship leader and partner stood up.
We betray, one announced.
Jesus says, the other replied - and the first verse was spontaneously read by one of the community.
Jesus says .. Abide in me and I in you.
We betray, Jesus says ... On and on this rolled, as person after person from the congregation responded to betrayal with different words of Jesus. The multiple, repeated power of my betrayal and the acceptance of Jesus, heard again and again through the mouths of women and children, men and boys. It is a long time since I've felt so accepted by Jesus and by the church family.
posted by spirit2go team at 9:17 PM
I am a writer
This afternoon I started on the book.
It's wierd. I never ever in my wildest dreams thought I'd write a book. It was my really expert friends like Mark Pierson or Mike Riddell that wrote books. Now, today, I started.
What disciplines does a writer enact? How does a writer maintain a sense of centred spirituality?
posted by spirit2go team at 3:56 AM
Monday, April 07, 2003
Steve the bun salesman
Today I placed an order for 314 packets of hot cross buns. That's 1884 buns. That's a lot.
We did this last year, giving out a packet of hot cross buns and a journey to easter art guide (This year we've spent hours gazing at copyright regulations and are offering a Holy Week review of McCahon's art.) It's a wholistic way of connecting with people. Last year one of Gracewy's community ministries burst into a spontaneous applause when I announced this, which was very cool really.
This year, I'm coordinating with 2 other churches, who thought it was such a good idea they've joined the bun wagon. If I ever quit ministry, I think I will reshape myself as a bunman! Or is this a solid outworking of Pete Ward's liquid church? - commodifying our spirituality and creating spiritual desire?
posted by spirit2go team at 3:46 PM
Sunday, April 06, 2003
From dawn to dusk: compilation CD of U2 spirituality
On Saturday night I compiled my U2 spirituality CD. 13 songs. I’ve also added Bible interfaces I find provocative. No room for anything off Boy or Zooropa. It’s a reader-response compilation, ie what I think of, not necessarily what the author might intend lyrically. What do you think?
Streets have no name, Joshua Tree
- Genesis 1:1
Gloria, Under a Blood Red Sky
- Genesis 1:27
When you look at the world, All that you can’t leave behind
- www.nzherald.co.nz
October, October
- Isaiah
Wake up Dead man, Pop
- Lamentations
One, Achtung Baby
- Jeremiah 31:31-34
Grace, All that you can’t leave behind
- John 1:14
Promenade, Unforgettable fire
- Colossians 1:20 (Message)
Still haven’tfound, Joshua Tree
- Philippians 3:7
40, War
- Romans 8:19
Pride (In the name of Love), Rattle and Hum
- Matthew 22:39
Sunday Bloody Sunday, Under a Blood Red Sky
- Isaiah 65:17
Walk on, All that you can’t leave behind
- Revelation 21:1
posted by spirit2go team at 8:07 PM
Friday, April 04, 2003
Blogs go mainstream
Feature article in the main NZ newspaper on blogs today, including a photo of good old blogger home page. (Can't give you the URL cos the paper doesn't have their internet features online!)
This comment interested me;
“blogging is popular with an underground culture that is doing it for the love and passion … Now there are people like me coming along and trying to figure out how to package it. It’s time to take it to the next level.” Writes Tony Perkins, who last month started a business blog.
Ah, from love and passion to the lofty next level heights of business. And no, I’m not giving Tony's URL!!
posted by spirit2go team at 9:48 PM
Postmodern hospitality 2
Earlier in the week I blogged about how so much early missionary endeavour relied on the hospitality of the culture. And wanting to consider postmodern culture from this mission perspective, I posed the question as to where in the culture today we might find hospitality.
From my experience, I'd offer 3 suggestions
a) the arts – we’ve had the Local Council give us $ for Christmas art exhibitions
b) the spiritually seeking – I’m thinking of individuals outside the church who interact with me, with my ideas, get excited etc
c) the academy– I’m thinking of the 2 Universities in New Zealand that after 150 years of secularity, have given $ to found Schools of Theology on their campus.
These for me are some places of hospitality in the culture. They are gift to the church. Thanks be to God.
posted by spirit2go team at 12:02 PM
Thursday, April 03, 2003
Teaser
Jonny Baker emailed last night "Your book looks fantastic. What stage is it at?"
Thanks for the encouragement Jonny. I'm juggling quite a number of balls at the moment. Final editing of phd. Graceway. A trip to UK May 5-12 to talk at CMS, Kings, Aberdeen (hopefully). Needing to have a draft book chapter to the publishers for their approval of the book project by mid-May. Preparation for 2 New Zealand conferences on mission and future church in June.
The book is all there in my head. The content is all there in my phd reading and writing. A clear 2 months and it would be written. But all of my bits - leadership at Graceway, study thru PHD, speaking and writing - all feed each other. It is a matter of keeping all the balls afloat and of keeping in a creative zone.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:54 PM
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Lightheaded
I sent in my last research chapter on Tuesday. Today I'm signing off on my conclusion. It feels really funny. This is 3 years research drawing to a close. This is 100,000 (actually 102,001) words. I am in the midst of a transition from "research" mode to "communicate and edit" mode. It will still take me quite a few weeks to edit and polish. But that's tomorrow. Today I just feel lightheadedly giddy.
posted by spirit2go team at 5:51 PM
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Postmodern hospitality
I’ve been reading James Belich’s Making Peoples, a history of New Zealand.
He talks about the early missionary as reliant on the hospitality of Maori.
Ruatara, a Maori chief travels to Sydney and meets Samuel Marsden, local chaplain and a man with a passion to evangelise New Zealand. Ruatara invites the missionaries to live with him. (Belich argues this increases Ruatara’s mana back home.) For the first 15 years of missionary endeavour, it’s a precarious lifestyle, close to starvation, isolated, totally dependant of Maori hospitality.
Jesus talks about mission as walking from town to town, looking for hospitality. Searching for the “house of peace”. It’s a similarly precarious lifestyle, isolated, dependant of the hospitality of the culture.
This is not a mission of conquest, of answers, of certainty. This is a mission of partnership, of shared bread, of lifestyle and of community.
Which got me thinking about postmodern mission. Where are the places in postmodern culture that offer us hospitality?
I’ve got some suggestions. Three actually. But I think its an excellent question, so why don’t you sit and have a think overnight.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:13 PM