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
Monday, June 30, 2003
The Quiet time in todays fast lane
Someone emailed me this week from the US;
“I see that you speaking all over the place …. Can I ask how you keep your personal devotion time in order with so much going on?”
Currently I practice 4 types of "devotion";
Firstly, I practice the pulse – I use the lectionary. It’s a resource provided by Anglican church with 4 daily suggested Bible readings. I read a Psalm and a piece from the Gospel each day. Most times nothing profound happens. But it keeps me listening to God through the Scriptures.
Secondly, I practice God-prospecting – I believe that God is present, not just in a “personal devotion time” but in work and creation and people and film and music. So I go through my day wanting to “listen” to see God in a child’s enthusiasm, in a real life story, in a song, in a moment of stillness in a busy day.
Thirdly, I practice space – I monitor my life and grab coffees or go for walks. Little weekly times when I grab some space. Most times nothing profound happens. But I know I am practising the discipline of listening. So that if the Spirit as wind blows, my sails are set.
Fourthly, I journal – and then look back over my journal every 2 or 3 months. It gives me a sense of whether there are similar themes in God’s wind; an easterly of pruning, a westerly of encouragement; a southerly of challenge.
What about you ..?
posted by spirit2go team at 9:21 PM
Am I mainstream?
It appears I have somehow landed a weekly 5 minute soapbox on our Christian radio station. They want me to be me.
My first one appears tomorrow at 9:50, both am and pm. I am asking WWJV - what would Jesus vote in relation to the Prostitution Reform Bill.
posted by spirit2go team at 9:17 PM
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Following the white rabbit
From a Graceway leader
right before Enliven I dreamt I was at the airport waiting to fly to Christchurch because (for some reason) we were having it down there. When I woke up I thought it was odd, but now I realise God was just preparing me for future expanded-Graceway ventures..."
From Len Sweet:
Kudos on your new appointment, and especially your dream of NZ becoming a training center for emerging church leaders. Resonates powerfully . . . Let me know what I can do to help . . .
From Stan Grenz
Thanks for the update. This sounds like a great opportunity for you. And I
wish you God's rich blessings as you make the transition and begin the
venture at BCNZ. If at any point you need me to lecture on the campus, just
let me know. :-)
From Pete Ward
This is great news. I think the dream of an international college run from NZ is a possibility and very timely. I think intensives - especially those with people from over seas teaching - one or 2 US people for instance would make this attractive eg Tony Jones.
From Mike Riddell
'Follow the white rabbit' - I like that. A postmodern word of knowledge...
posted by spirit2go team at 2:48 AM
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Taylors moving
This is a general letter to communicate with you that the Taylor family is on the move. Steve has accepted a job as Lecturer in Practical Theology at the Bible College of New Zealand (BCNZ), Christchurch Branch. It is a part-time position (2 days/week) and will commence at the start of January 2004. We hope to continue our role with Graceway until then.
Lynne is not sure what she will do, but options to explore include doing parts of her current job by contract, further study or finding other work. We are still exploring what will occupy the other 3 days of Steve’s week, but it will include writing and speaking and a ministerial role. This could well be church planting another Graceway in Christchurch, and being to allow geographically distinct communities to share Enlivens, shared communal texts, website, spirituality resources and internship development. The re-shaped world we live in is pregnant with potential for more globally connected shared spiritual life.
We are making the move for a number of reasons (in no particular order). Firstly, the BCNZ job allowed us to negotiate a specific focus on developing courses on the emerging church and specific training for leaders in new ways of being church. Steve has this wild dream of providing a place in New Zealand and the world for people to train as postmodern missiological leaders and BCNZ Christchurch (with a track record of independent and innovative thinking) were keen to dream with us. Secondly, both of our families are in Christchurch and our parents are aging. We would like to be closer to them. Thirdly, we increasing feel that Steve’s gifts are in thinking and writing and in starting things. After 9 really good years at Graceway, we want to push these areas further.
These are some of the practical wisdom. Other things that have been important to us include Steve’s Bible reading the day he was interviewed in Christchurch (Acts 16:6-10) and that sense of ongoing missionary call. Steve also saw a white rabbit when he drove into Carey Baptist College a few weeks ago. With the words, “follow the white rabbit” in his head, the rabbit looked at Steve, jumped off the road, over the edge, heading south. (Matrix fans will appreciate this guidance more than others!) There is a sense that our current lives are very comfortable and we are in good patterns and that God is calling us to risk again.
We wish to stress that our decision is based totally on what might lie ahead for us. There are no behind the scenes power struggles or grumpiness at Graceway (Ellerslie) or with any of the Graceway (Ellerslie) leadership.
We are aware that Graceway (Ellerslie) is still a small group. It is also currently processing some major building discussions. However, Graceway (Ellerslie) has a more than competent leadership team, a very harmonious and well functioning church community filled with a range of very talented people who have also invested wisely in the lives of a number of new missional leaders.
It has been a heart breaking decision for us to make. We love Graceway (Ellerslie) very much and feel like part of our life is being ripped out. A fair few tears have blotted the computer screen as this was typed. Alongside this, we have to acknowledge that Graceway was established in God’s risk and so God’s call to risk returns to move the Taylors on.
We’d value your prayers for us, for Graceway, for God’s emerging future and for what other ministry possibilities might await us in Christchurch
Steve, Lynne, Shannon and Kayli Anne
posted by spirit2go team at 4:42 PM
Resourcing the future:
We live in changing times. An essential task of leadership today is being aware of tomorrow. Author and speaker Gerard Kelly has a passion for resourcing the next generation in mission. He’s read widely and thought deeply about the future shape of mission, leadership and church. He is with us in Auckland for one day only and has offered to think with us about planning for God’s future. If you want to be better equipped of mission to New Zealand, then join us and be part of “resourcing the future” - Murray Cottle and Steve Taylor
Who is Gerard Kelly? Gerard Kelly is a poet, author and missiologist with a particular passion for the post-Christian cultures of contemporary Europe. He co-directs, with his wife Chrissie, Café-net (Christians Active in the Future of Europe), a UK-based agency mobilsing research, prayer and action for mission across Europe. He is a member of the Leadership Team of Spring Harvest, Europe's largest Christian teaching event, and has written seven books (including Retrofuture). Gerard and Chrissie have four children, aged 6 to 20, and divide their time between Stourbridge in the UK and, as often as possible, Normandy, France. I’ve heard Gerard speak on a number of occasions and he’s well worth hearing.
Venue Carey Baptist College
Times Saturday, August 2, 2004
Programme.
10 am Registration and coffee
10:15 –12 Life in 2010: future trends for mission – Gerard
12 – 1 Lunch
1:00 –3:00 Life in 2010: future trends for leadership - Gerard
3:30-4:30 Earthed in Aotearoa discussion: implications for leadership/mission/church today
4:30-5:30 Resourcing mission in post-Christian west - Gerard
6:00-8:00 pm Missional Dinner, including a facilitated conversation on mission and spirituality
Registration
Costs $20 for seminar
$10 for dinner
"This conversation provokes plenty of enthusiasm. With Gerard Kelly speaking, the quality of the input is assured. However, it will be the space set aside for 'earthed' interaction among younger, emerging Kiwi leaders that will ensure the day is a success. Be in!"
- Paul Windsor
Reasons why you should go to hear Gerard Kelly
1. If the people we seek to reach face hugely complex issues in their lives today, we must offer more than a simplistic answer
2. To find out whether the church is interpreting culture, or the culture is interpreting church.
3. Someone who can hold together evangelical truths, charismatic ministry practice and post-modern cuture has got to be worth listening to.
- Quote by Lindsay Jones
“I heard Trevor Geddes speak in February about the dearth of younger leaders and the need to be intentional in training and resourcing the future. Gerard Kelly has a huge amount to offer, both in the thinking and in the practical doing of mission. It’s a day (and a dinner) worth investing in.”
- Quote by Steve Taylor
…………………………..
Registrations Form
Name …………..
Contact details …………….
Send registration form and full costs to:
Resourcing the Future Conference, Carey Baptist College, Box 12-149 , Penrose, Auckland.
posted by spirit2go team at 12:50 AM
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Needed: lots of wholistic type communities
Email today - Are there similar type wholistic Jesus type communities in Dunedin?I have
been intrigued reading your blogs.
Wow. What a wonderful description of Graceway - wholistic Jesus type communities. Thankyou. I am doing some checking. But the email has got me exercised.
OK, so when are we going to move from one community to a multiplying movement of communities?
posted by spirit2go team at 1:16 AM
Email from Olive Drane re storytelling
Are you going to post the stories on your website site? … Could there be stories to go? Could this be one of the global aspects of community that we talked about when you were here …
Well! I'm really glad I pushed you! I think this has distinct possiblities Steve. The power of the story reading on line is quite something - especially the cryptic lines! I think there's probably some sort of shaping that would emerge if people played with this … Maybe some of this would work with your global/techno/spirituality vision!
posted by spirit2go team at 1:14 AM
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Gods 3 gardens
A story I wrote yesterday.
In the beginning was the Gardener.
Who sketched
In greens and blues
Land and sky
Who painted.
In purple and brown
Flower and fauna
Who crayoned.
In reds and yellows
Sunset and star rise
And the gardener saw that it was good.
And so the gardener breathed life
Kissed the canvas.
of God’s 3 gardens
And so the premodern people rose to life in the Gardener’s garden. They gazed at the greens and blues, the purple and brown, the reds and yellows,
The premoderns walked their garden.
The premoderns listened to their garden.
The observed kaitiakitanga,
how the garden lived in dynamic balance.
West Coast forest where the landslides of death are the birthplace of the pungent green of the pungas.
Where the leaves of the dead pungas then become the fertilizer of the next stage of regeneration, the food of the slow growing beech.
Cycles of birth, cyles of death as nature lives in dynamic renewal.
They saw that when kahikatea that grows in "families".
It grows strong.
The large protect the young.
The mature shelter the new.
They saw that kahikatea seeds that spread far,
When they germinate
Struggle to thrive.
And so they sang
E tu kahikatea
E whakapai ururoa
Awhi mai awhi atu
Tatou tatou e
This the premoderns saw as they listened to their garden. They heard it speak.
Yet the premoderns also feared their garden. They awoke terrified of earthquake and volcano. And so they turned to worship what they fear. They made gods of fire and earth. They laid flowers at their hand crafted statues of birth and death.
And the whole creation groaned in labour pains (Romans 8:22)
As people feared the Gardener’s garden
Then the modern people rose to life in the Gardener’s garden. They too gazed at the greens and blues, the purples and browns, the reds and yellows
They too walked their garden.
They too listened. But instead of hearing cycles of birth and death
Instead of seeing kahikatea and kaitiakitanga.
They read of dominion and saw money.
They cut down the green trees
They made brown chimneys and polluted the blue sky
They built factories and poured their waste into the running blue creek.
And the whole creation groans in labour pains
And we too, who have the first fruits of the Spirit.
Groan, as God’s garden is destroyed.
Now the postmodern people rose to life in the Gardener’s garden.
We who gaze at the greens and blues, the purples and browns, the reds and yellows
We who can be pluralistic and cynical and self-absorbed.
We who can be experiential, spiritual, communal, creative, environmental, global, holistic, authentic and relational.
What will we listen to?
What will we read?
Will we listen to earth’s groan.
Will we understand kahikatea and kaitiakitanga
Will we read of the Gardeners gift, trusted to us.
Will we hear of the Spirit of God, woven into our being, woven into our Earth
Calling us to transformation.
Calling us to tend God’s garden
For the whole creation groans in labour pains
posted by spirit2go team at 2:55 PM
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Dislocation
At turning points, in times of dislocation, I tend to return to old favourites. U2's The Joshua Tree is playing, loud.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:20 PM
Friday, June 20, 2003
Turning Points
Graceway
Ellerslie War Memorial Hall
Sunday, 22 June, 6:16 pm
This weekend is the Winter Solstice, the longest nite in New Zealand. At Graceway we are celebrating Turning Points as the Spirit yearns to heal our earth.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:53 PM
Straight Talk
I've been asked if I would give a weekly soapbox opinion on a New Zealand-wide Christian Radio station.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:51 PM
Are you talking to me?
Yes I am alive. I have survived sharing some missional ideas with my baptist family. I made some new friends
I fear I entrenched some existing enemies even though I worked really, really hard not to.
I'm too close to it to process it all properly.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:50 PM
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Am I speaking your language?
Tomorrow I speak at the Baptist Mission to New Zealand 2 conference. About 70 key leaders, invites only, thinking together about what it means to be missional in NZ.
I am one of 4 plenary speakers. I'm still not sure how I got to be asked, but I am honoured.
I am also scared. The Baptists are a fairly diverse bunch. I've had my head down at Graceway, beavering away, thinking, dreaming, creating. Tomorrow I will come up for air. I will look around the room at this diverse bunch. I will share some of my ponderings on mission in our postmodern world. Will we be speaking the same language? Will I be able to initiate a decent conversation? Will the other participants want to continue a conversation? Or will I be left, abandoned, given up as a lost isolated cause, at my cafe table?
Such are my fears, as I prepare my video clips and massage my images into place.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:09 AM
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
2 steves
Tomorrow I am in 2 places. I am in Auckland, part of the Baptist mission to nz conference. I have been away from home 3 times in the last 12 days, so it is a great relief to be at a conference that I can talk with my kids over meals and sleep with my wife in our own bed.
I am also (virtually) in Hamilton, where the Apostolic church is offering in-service training to existing pastors. The topic is church. A few months ago a video was filmed, 60 minutes of me raving and ranting about the shape of church in a postmodern world. Lynne will also be in Hamilton talking with them about Graceway. I will be present on video only. My prayers are with this group of thinking, exploring pastors. God bless your learning.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:17 AM
Monday, June 16, 2003
People are creative
People are creative. At The Future is tomorrow conference I wanted to model creative play as well as talk about creative play. I gave out one pastel/person. As I talked I asked them to play, to draw the church of the future.
Then I gave them a CD and asked them to write one way God is in culture and one way God is not in culture
Then we made a mobile.
All very quick. But there was some real beauty evident, the sort that makes my heart sing, because I am reminded that God's Spirit is indeed alive and well in the people of God.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:14 PM
Sunday, June 15, 2003
The Future is Tomorrow Unconference Highlights
- my material went down really well; using romeo and juliet to describe contemporary culture; play of creativity, pilgrimage and community for mission today; Graceway and its struggles.
- "you described my world"; audience response after my 1st session of the shape of contemporary culture. Affirmation that postmodernity is biting deep even in more rural nz.
- people really got into the exercises - creative play and CD responses - what an excellent group to work with.
- Paul's hospitality and friendship
Paul adds his impressions.
More photos are here.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:49 PM
Saturday, June 14, 2003
Assessing health
It is hard to assess the health of my body. But there are external indicators – temperature, blood pressure, urine samples. Tentative links between health and externality can be drawn.
In a modern world, assessing church was easier. Members, bums on seats and money in an offering jar. Of course, such statistics overlooked discipleship and spiritual formation, but they were used as concrete forms to evaluate effectiveness.
How to assess effectiveness and faith in a more liquid and fluidly connective world?
Graceway has people in Taiwan and United Kingdom who consider us their home church. Our website attracted 2,500 visits last month, 75/day. A few weeks ago a person who comes irregularly to Graceway offered to rearrange their work schedule and give time to work amongst the poor with us.
None of these people show up in bums on seats and money in a jar. But they are indicators of missional effectiveness in our connective world. It’s got me thinking again. What are the postmodern indicators of discipleship and spiritual formation?
posted by spirit2go team at 9:55 PM
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Seasons
I sat around with some friends last night discussing seasons. Next Sunday is the Winter Solstice and we were brainstorming around 2 worship phrases "Spirit as earth's healer" and "Turning Points." I was thinking about how earth lies dormant over winter. It hibernates. It rests. It just is.
Summer = fruit and plent
Autumn = letting go
Winter = being
Spring = new birth
I feel I'm in the middle of a new season. My June 2003 looks very different from June 2002. I'm part of a Turning Point and a new season. I'm still unclear what the spiritual practises of this season are.
I have not found that easy. It's been a bit scarey because I like structure and clarity.
But then, perhaps this is a "winter spiritual season". It might mean that I just need to go with that, to accept dormancy and lying fallow, to just accept the flow of today.
What season are you?
posted by spirit2go team at 2:34 PM
Running to stand still
Life's a bit too busy at the moment. Just back from a 2 day University retreat. Still trying to catch my breath and clear the floor after Enliven. Conference speaking Friday and Saturday and again Tuesday-Friday of next week.
Shhhh. Don't tell anyone I'm also meant to be doing the final edit of a PHD or spending time with my kids.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:35 AM
Monday, June 09, 2003
Enliven photos
Graceway celebrated Pentecost on Sunday. It was a form of Festival spirituality - a wide range of options which people could browse their way through; including seminars, creativity, coffee, soup, live music and worship.
Participants were given a 25 cm square tile. They were asked to express how the Spirit Enliven's them today.
We also had aluminium cans, that people could sculpt and attach to their tiles.
Finally all these individual tiles were placed together in a frames.
These will be displayed out in the community, a verbal proclamation of the Spirit in Aotearoa New Zealand.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:39 PM
Saturday, June 07, 2003
Tool time goes to church
Today I spent 6 hours grinding iron. Sparks flew as I cut out 25 cm square pieces and then sanded the edges.
At church tomorrow as part of Enliven each participant will be given one of these grey tiles. They will be asked to express what it means for them to be Enlivened by the Spirit, with either paint or recycled aluminium cans.
Each tile will be added together to form large billboards that will be placed outside, a verbal proclamation of the life of the Spirit.
My point is this. It was just great to use my grinder in worship, to make noise and cause smoke. At heart I’m a boy who loves to make noise and make things. And to have an outlet for these skills, to let my tools create worship, was a very spiritual, very earthed, very liberating experience.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:12 AM
Friday, June 06, 2003
Both/and
There is a time for every activity under the sun
A time to build and a time to tear down
George Ritzer is a leading US sociologist. I’ve been reading his book Enchanting a Disenchanted World. He looks at how our patterns of consumption are changing and the rising place of credit cards, e-shopping, mega-malls and mega-churches in our culture. He relates this to the work of Max Weber, that society tends toward rationalization and bureaucracy as a key function of modernity. He explore how shopping malls etc are always seeking to enchant us, how they always tend toward rationality but are always seeking to re-capture our interest and dollars.
He then introduces postmodern theory and argues that postmodernity is an attempt to “re-enchant” the world, to appreciate emotion and intuition and mystery and the earth in response to the rationalization of modernity.
He does not suggest an either/or but a both/and, that the world is made up of forces that both disenchant and reenchant.
I was reflecting on Ritzer in relation to my world – emerging church.
A key realisation for me in recent years is that we as humans are made in the image of God. We are whole people, and so our emotions, our creativity, our relationships to earth, are a key part of who I am as human. And the task of the church is to develop humans made in the image of God, ie whole, creative, emotional, connected people.
Applying Ritzer, I am re-enchanting the human person and re-enchanting the church. I am a key part of the postmodern cultural change.
It also caused me to reflect on the question of disenchantment with church. Because a key part of my journey has also been an extreme dis-ease with the patterns of control often seen within the church. And I’m a small part of a blog world that rails against church and asks “why don’t I go to church”. I suggest Ritzer would argue this actually part of modernity, a cycle of dis-enchantment that happens over time. It’s a provocative thought isn’t it. That when I grumble against church I’m actually an expression of modernity!
Now, I know that I still have to ventilate, express my dis-ease. Otherwise I’m not being true to my emotions. So the space to rail and rant against church is important. But is it only half the picture, the disenchantment that is then asking us to re-enchant our spirituality, worship and church structures?
That’s a both/and reflection for today.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:16 PM
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
It’s all a matter of perspective
Today I
- got an enthusiastic reception from the editor for a paper I am preparing for an academic journal
- got some pro’s and con’s and a lets keep working on it from my publisher
- got asked to speak at 2 conferences, one later in June, one in July
- had a great interview on Radio Rhema about creation, art and Enliven
- sold my first ever spirituality resources
And then got harassed because one part of Sunday’s worship is not yet complete.
I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
posted by spirit2go team at 10:11 PM
Who controls mission
We had our monthly storytelling nite on Monday. It's been a developing part of my and Graceway's mission life. I've been following a hunch, an intuition that storytelling needed some practical mission legs. Following that hunch, we've obtained the use of a local cafe with the goal of telling stories.
I walked in on Monday, a few minutes early. 4 other people in 2 separate groups were there and I knew none of them. I was about to go across to say hello, when I stopped. I was in Graceway-welcoming mode. But this was a cafe. These people had no idea who I was, no idea of my role in this place, no idea of my relationship to storytelling. They had just turned up, for a storytelling, in a cafe. And in a cafe, you don't just bowl up to people and say hello.
Half way through the nite, when we broke and changed from one storyteller, to open mic storytelling, these 4 people in 2 separate groups left. Did they like it? Would they come again? How did they hear about it? Who were they? These were my questions and my agendas. But again, you don't ask these questions in a public cafe.
It caused me to reflect on mission and control. So often, in mission, I've been in control. It's my church service. Its my ministry programme.
Yes. I've done church in pubs. Sure, its a different turf. But I still have control over the content. Yes, I've done outdoor services. But even then, I'm still in control of the content.
Telling stories in someone else's place. I lose control - of my role, of the content, of the space. Which I suspect is not necessarily a bad thing.
posted by spirit2go team at 6:47 PM
Rhema promotion again
I'm speaking on radio rhema again this morning, with Mark Laurent, who is one of the Enliven seminar speakers. He's doing stuff on the Spirit and the earth. 10-10:30 am.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:11 PM
Sunday shopping list: for Enliven Pentecost worship
50 squares of baby iron
test pots of acrylic paint
aluminium cans
rivet guns
tin snips
(all to make the outdoor creative piece)
chalk
stencils
(so that the kids can chalk the outdoor carpark with flames and wind)
red candles
red lighting
(red is the colour of Pentecost)
posted by spirit2go team at 2:10 PM
Sunday, June 01, 2003
Blog ironies
Andrew jones walking pilgrimage is in a van.
Rachels new blog design is definitely tall and skinny (at 17:13 NZT 2 june 2003)
The beach is deserted. Ahh, but it’s a new Zealand winter!
Jordon Cooper is into more living, less pundrity but remains a blogaddiction.
posted by spirit2go team at 10:26 PM
in missional mode part b
2000 spirit postcards go into cafes around Central Auckland city tomorrow. Next weekend is Pentecost, when we remember the Spirit enlivening the church. At Graceway we're celebrating this with seminars and coffee and a creative project, called Enliven.
We're also gifting these spirit postcards to our city. Each card, awesomely designed, has a bible verse, spirituality quote and spirituality exercise for people to do. It links to our church website and to various Spirit services we'll be running.
It's the second year we've done it. (This year has new words and exercises, but same funky design) It was neat to drop them off to the distributor. "Oh these" she said, "they are great. They went like hot cakes last year. Such a good design and such a lovely message."
We believe the Spirit is active in our world and that the task of mission today is to provide the bits and pieces from which people can construct faith. The postcards are the embodiment of that believe, our spiritual gift to the city.
Go Spirit of God.
PS If you want to buy some postcards email me and we can talk!
posted by spirit2go team at 10:01 PM
in missional mode part a
A few months ago I blogged about our outdoor peace services. (Copy of the service content is here.)
It had been part of graceway's response to the war, a desire to concretely express our concern and prayer for peace. One of the joys was seeing passers by stop, light candles and move on.
One of those passers by came to Graceway last night. She'd obviously kept the outdoor order of service. Something meaningful had connected and she was taking another step in her spiritual journey and her checking out of Graceway, this strange group that lights candles in public places when wars break out.
It was really, really, nice to be part of God's work in the lives of passersby.
posted by spirit2go team at 9:55 PM