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, July 31, 2003
This man
Will be entering New Zealand shores tonite. Sometimes appearances can be misleading!
Tomorrow he will meet with 50 other young leaders and we'll talk about the future. His ideas. Our realities. The day will end with another Steve and Lynne missional dinner - food and fine conversation about spirituality, community and mission.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:14 PM
Further reading
I have posted my bibliography, books I have read or are reading in relation to culture, Christianity, community and creativity. Categories include;
art and spirituality
church ministry
postmodernity
Generation X
popular culture
gospel and culture
faith in aotearoa new zealand
Don't read them all tonite!!
posted by spirit2go team at 2:55 AM
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
50
Gerard Kelly registrations just hit 50. There is an interview with Gerard on Rhema's Straight Talk; 9:30 am and 9:30 pm Friday and Monday.
posted by spirit2go team at 5:11 PM
Future forms of church
Kevin Ward and I are sharing some teaching at Kingdom builders.
Spent the morning on the phone talking about it. One of the things that concerns us both is that so much talk is focused on church. We're dedicated a whole session to life beyond the church; and how we might connect with people outside Sunday, outside church walls. How does this liquid church thing earth; and so we'll explore film and passages of life.
Thursday: Church and culture in New Zealand today: (summary of our Phd's)
Friday: Re-imaging Church and the Church re-imagined (including the Graceway story)
Saturday: Beyond Romeo and Juliet: film, life passages and values as spiritual connection points.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:30 PM
A brickbat from Sandra
Sandra emailed, asking me where my soapbox rants were. I had announced on the radio that they were on my website. She'd gone surfing, gone checking. Where were they?
I record on Tuesday and the piece plays on Wednesday, both morning and evening. I don't like to put the piece up on the web until after it has played live, in order to respect that live medium. So the piece went up this morning.
Hope I ducked Sandra's brickbat :)
posted by spirit2go team at 3:19 PM
This weeks Radio Rant
Picking up on thinking by Jordon about liquid church, and the relationship between church and technology, i ranted on the radio this week about wifi, solid church, solid preachers, and technology . For more see
posted by spirit2go team at 2:50 PM
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Unexpected
This is the cover for the latest NZ Baptist magazine. It's on the theme of mission to New Zealand. (Graceway and myself are quite prominent.)
I think it's a superb visual reflection on mission. What does it mean for you?
posted by spirit2go team at 4:55 PM
You have 206 bones in your body. Surely, one of them is creative.
- Jonathon Read
posted by spirit2go team at 4:26 PM
38
people currently registered for Gerard Kelly and Resourcing the Future. Good stuff. It's still not too late to register for stimulus, networking and fine conversation.
posted by spirit2go team at 4:43 AM
Create spiritual product
Further to Jordon's post
1. If we are part of a new "experience economy"
2. If we have moved to a liquid modernity in which culture has moved from production to consumption
3. If the church has access to a spiritual treasure chest through history
4. If the community of God are authentically and contextually engaging with this treasure
Then
The missional task of the church is to turn communally authentic resources into consumptive product, allowing consumers to experientially try before they buy and thus be transformed into disciples of Jesus.
posted by spirit2go team at 4:39 AM
Sunday, July 27, 2003
Church and technology.
Great posting by Jordon Cooper. He starts Here are some thoughts on the topic of technology and the church. Seeking Goes Digital...Church Stay Analogue. One of the things that we have to keep in mind is that buyers have changed ...
If this is the new normal for postmoderns and younger generations, contrast that to how many churches advertise today.
for more
He talks about what we count, bums on seats on Sunday rather than internet traffic. This links with my thoughts about gathered and scattered, and the question of how to create meaningful connections between the two. It's an issue I struggle with.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:52 AM
Arts and spirituality
Spent part of the weekend with Chrysalis Seed Trust. They have staged a number of art exhibitions and produce a regular newsletter that goes out to over 300 galleries around New Zealand. They have a library, which has some great art books.
Their vision is for this to be the largest collection of art and spirituality books in New Zealand. They have rooms in the art centre.
The arts centre lies in the heart of Christchurch. It used to be the university and it just pumps on the weekend. They have windows overlooking the new Canterbury Art Gallery and the Dux de Lux. (for more on this fine pub ie see my earlier beer posting).
One of the things we talked about was art and the church. Pakaso has blogged about why we can't have artists - ie photographers and designers shaping worship each week. Chrysalis Seed Trust talked about the sadness of seeing artists get gobbled up by the church.
Churches tend to use artists, to make teaching points or to enhance their visual life. But surely we should just have art for art's sake, an expression of creative, excessive abundance.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:16 AM
Friday, July 25, 2003
Significant changes
I have changed some images around in my header.
1. The lemon tart box is from my favourite Monday-day-off-catch-some-space-and-hold-hands-with-Lynne cafe. They make these gorgeous tarts in these cute boxes. I ordered a takeway just to get a digital pic for you.
2. I have added a butterfly wing, in honour of Kiwi-Canadian relationships.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:02 PM
Flying
Flying down to Christchurch today. Back tomorrow afternoon. Meeting an arts trust and preaching at a church on Sunday morning. Join some dots if you like, but don't ask why.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:45 PM
Happy
Radiohead's Hail to the thief is playing loud and I am working on the links between Matthew 11 and Great Expectations (video). Life is good.
posted by spirit2go team at 12:48 AM
Thursday, July 24, 2003
Graceway blesses UK
This arrived in the post this week. It's a CD of worship resources produced by Spring Harvest. Given out to all UK Spring Harvest participants, about 30,000 of them.
And its got Graceway worship resources, taken from our website. I find it hard to get my head around this; that because of the fluid and connective way of our world, a church in New Zealand can bless 30,000 people in the UK. (For some theological and ministry reflection of this, see here.)
And it makes me wonder if Graceway should be producing its worship ideas in a CD and selling/providing them on-line, as a way of allowing us to fund yet more innovative missional projects.
posted by spirit2go team at 11:08 PM
Note to self
(I hope self will understand)
• Hunger Site (www.thehungersite.com)
• Build a School Site (www.buildaschool.org)
• Rainforest Site (www.therainforestsite.com)
posted by spirit2go team at 4:22 PM
Numbers
6 - is the number of times I have spoken in the last 7 days.
17 - Is the number of letters in “strongly recommend”, which my editor has done with my book proposal to the editorial board. Yeeha, I might be on the verge of breaking the US market! (a big thing if you’re a Kiwi!)
18 - is the number registered for Resourcing the Future. Its not too late to enjoy teaching, connexion and food in the context of mission and postmodernity.
70 - is the number of letters I have sent to young Baptist leaders telling them they are important to the family and we want to (subsidise and) resource them at Resourcing the Future.
108,000 - is the number of words I have to read, in this, the final edit of my thesis.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:20 PM
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Urban mission
I am teaching Urban mission over the next 12 weeks at Carey Baptist College, exploring what it means to be Christian in the city. First class starts in about an hour. I try and use a diverse range of learning approaches to actually get people to engage with the city.
Christians tend to be cut off from people and city and culture. And so we lose an essential part of Incarnation, of Christ immersed (or was that e-mmersed) in life.
So my class will include the following tutorial.
:: The physical development of the city ::
I want you to start in Auckland, at the new Britomart terminal, and travel to Papakura.
You can return two ways. Either
a) directly Papakura-Auckland
Or
b) Much more informative, to return around the loop that branches off at Westfield and goes through Panmure, Meadowbank, Parnell and returns to Britomart.
During the train trip, both there and back, observe
1. How the city looks different from the rail as compared to the road
2. Are there patterns that emerge
3. Try to draw a sketch map of what you see. Try to outline land use, various types of housing, density, general landscape and levels of graffitti.
Your observations will be incorporated into weeks 3 and 4. Please enjoy this different type of learning experience.
posted by spirit2go team at 5:30 PM
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Book picture for Jordon
Emerging Church by Dan Kimball
posted by spirit2go team at 5:59 PM
Are you the God
Are you the god
who dropped me
in this land
this vast interior
where no fences
no clear boundaries
safety pin my eyes to limitations
or the easy steppes of slow progression
...
But I walk here
in this vast unbounded cage
seeking the god to fight
who dropped me in this land.
- extracts from a poem by Rosemary Menzies.
From Spirit in a Strange Land, finalist at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
I love the freedom of exploring new ways of being church. I love the vast interior. I would never consider I need to fight the God who dropped me here. But then, some of my dechurched mates sound like they are really fighting something, a good old Jacob's tustle with someone who has grabbed them from behind in the night.
It's dark. I can't clearly see how they are fighting. But its real and I respect that.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:14 PM
Monday, July 21, 2003
Soulstice
Tonite, Nick Woodley, leads a celebration of Spirit in earth,
and environmental discussion. Our place.
The earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof
O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship
with all living things, our brothers the animals
to whom you have given the earth as their home
in common with us.
We remember with shame that in the past
we have exercised the high domain of humans with ruthless cruelty,
so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to you with song,
has been a groan of travail.
May we realise that they live, not for us alone,
but for themselves and for you,
and that they have the sweetness of life.
- Saint Basil (330?-379?)
posted by spirit2go team at 7:02 PM
No public morals
Today 2 cats perched on my jet black trellis.
Elevated
public
8 foot above the earth
they proceeded to engage in a sexually explicit act.
In front of my 3 year old. Is there no longer any sense of moral decency in our culture?!
posted by spirit2go team at 6:59 PM
Sunday, July 20, 2003
Winter worship
Hey, its winter. Tonight for worship they gave us hot chocolate, marshmallows and we curled up with blankets and watched 2 short films and a video from Good Shirt. For an interview click here
Then we prayed:
We thank you God for winter
Thank you God for the chance to take it easier
Thank you God for the warmth and security of our homes
Thank you God for the opportunity to enjoy creativity and art together
Thank you God that art can enrich our lives and help us see ourselves clearer
And we thank you for all the ways you give us to nourish and protect us. Amen.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:29 AM
Saturday, July 19, 2003
Freaky, coincidence or God?
Part of my talk yesterday was examining a fragment of emerging church liturgy. Done in 2000, it had used local news, a song by U2, global news footage, to help people pray from children. To read about the liturgy and what I said, go here ..
The global news footage was video of the shooting of 12 year old boy, Mohammed Al-Dura, captured by a TV camera.
After I finished talking about this, I went for coffee. I open the local newspaper. I can't believe my eyes. Main world story, front page, and covering two further pages, is all about this incident and who shot the boy.
It was freaky. The day I talk about it, is the day it re-appears in our local newspaper!!!
posted by spirit2go team at 7:47 PM
Friday, July 18, 2003
Saturday afternoon
I am done.
I have spoken.
They have listened.
They have asked questions.
They are aware of a creative, vibrant Christianity.
They are aware that not all Christians think like George Bush.
They are aware of a 3rd way; neither a retreat to fundamentalism or an assimilation into culture but a creative, adaptive, vital stance.
They have shyly told me of their previous faith.
They have become aware of a new voices in theology; (not mine but other contemporary theologians).
posted by spirit2go team at 9:56 PM
Saturday morning
Today I speak at the Poetics of Exile conference. 200 participants from 43 countries, artists, writers, painters, academics. I will speak on the church and my faith. This is VERY public theology, the name of God in contemporary international academic discourse.
I am scared
I am tired
I am lonely
I am insecure
This is today’s lectionary reading
Here is my servant whom I have chosen
The one I love, in whom I delight
I will put my Spirit on him
And he will proclaim justice to the nations
He will not quarrel or cry out
No one will hear his voice in the streets
A bruised reed he will not break
And a smoldering wick he will not snuff out
Till he leads justice to victory
In his name the nations will put their hope.- Matthew 12:18-21
I have worked hard to gain this opportunity. 3 years of PhD study and academic endeavour. The Spirit will bless the graft.
I do not need to shout my faith on the streets. Instead I have an audience of ears. They will come looking for ideas. I will tell them of the idea that God has always worked on the margins. That today Christianity is on the margins. I will tell them of the emerging church. I will tell them of our websites and our art and our worship. I will argue that the margins are in fact a very creative place to be.
posted by spirit2go team at 9:52 PM
Steve's soapbox
Every week I rant for 5 minutes on a local radio station. This week I started;
An article in The New Zealand herald grabbed my attention on Monday. Outlook grim for Taupo's waters it announced.
This year Lake Taupo suffered an algae bloom. A green slime closed Lake Taupo for swimming. The article reported that this algal bloom has started because of rising Nitrogen levels in the water. And Nitrogen is rising because of increased grazing and increased fertilizer. Let me be bluntly down to earth, too many cow poohs and sheeps wees.
The scarey thing is .... for more
posted by spirit2go team at 3:25 AM
Thursday, July 17, 2003
Collecting frothy, abundant, overflowing beer stories
Darren sent me a beer story.
Great story....i have one too - one day a waiter poured almost a complete stubbie of beer down my back! I got two free beers out of it.....
I am now collecting beer stories. Send me the name or image of your favourite beer and your best beer story.
I will make a digital quilt:
Purpose: A creative way of celebrating and giving thanks - individually and
jointly - to God for abundance, a visual reminder of the many things we have to give God thanks for, of the connected lives and shared experiences.
With a nod to rachel, who I hope will help me with the technology.
Salud to God.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:24 PM
words on suffering
I am speaking today to new ministers in the Baptist family about a theology of suffering. 90 minutes. That's a lot of words.
Words. Words. Words. While Jennifer is dying of cancer. As Mark, her husband, blogged about her and her suffering last week.
Have you ever watched your 26 year old wife squirm in complete agony, calling out to God to take away her pain, only to have it grow worse?
I have.
(When will Your healing come?)
posted by spirit2go team at 1:11 PM
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Beer stories
Gareth and Nicola are good friends teaching in Taiwan. They're finding it hard work and have thought about coming home. They are missing home, friends and BEER.
They have just found a genuine Hoegaarden beer supply in Taiwan. They are now celebrating the wonders of globalisation and the goodness of the fruit of the earth. Praise God for the excessive froth of grace.
I have a beer story. I was sitting outside the Dux de lux in Christchurch over the summer. Talking, drinking, on a lovely summer's day. My glass was empty. Could I, should I, order another. Oh the decadence. Oh the excess of another cold, frothy glass of ale.
Excuse me, the waiter asked. I made a mistake in pouring a beer. There's one left over. Would you like a free beer?
Is the pope a Catholic!!
Praise God for excessive froth of grace.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:34 AM
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
the flap of a butterfly, the love of an elephant
Yesterday a butterfly flapped in the Pacific Ocean, as I sent a cheeky post to Jordon Cooper. He lovingly responded with equal humour and panache. 44 of my last 60 visits have come from jordon cooper.com. Butterflies love elephants.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:25 PM
Sorry folks, we have an image problem
the word evangelical is now firmly linked in the public imagination with intolerance and bigotry. How did it come to this?
thus speaks giles fraser in a commentary in UK guardian, via jonny bakers blog.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:22 PM
Graphics
Great graphic at Steve Collins blog. It is such an image of beauty - the clear lines, the provocation, the simplicity. It's the sort of thing that I find deeply spiritually nourishing.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:52 AM
Fight Club
“It is arguably the single finest document to date of the GenX experience”
“As an eloquent statement of the spiritual poverty of contemporary, American culture, it is deserving of attention and study.”
“The world of Fight Club and Life After God is a world largely without enchantment, without magic.”
“Looking upon the wasteland of contemporary culture, painted as it often is as a sort of heaven, we see the answer to our first question: Is there more? The answer as we have it here seems to be “yes, there must be.” We ask: Can we be spiritual? Again the answer is “yes,” but not in any traditional way. Finally, we ask: How? The answer, as we have it here, is “any way that we can.”
- Quotes from a fine Masters thesis by Eric Repphun on the Gen X spirituality of the movie.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:54 AM
Monday, July 14, 2003
I am famous
I have scaled my Everest
I can now die happy with the following enscribed on my tombstone;
I am mentioned on jordon coopers website.
(Or is he accusing me of being a poor excuse for a human being!)
Oh no, I have plummetted to new depths
jordon thinks i am a poor excuse for a human being
will be enscribed on my tombstone.)
because i acted in justice, not petulance, i will now link back to jordon!!
(ps. you are at the bottom of my blogroll though. your ranking can rise if you mention me again.)
posted by spirit2go team at 5:57 PM
Changes
I have added Mark Barkaway's blog to my blogroll. I have deleted Jordon Cooper, since he has not blogrolled me. Not that I believe in petulance, mind you, just justice.
And as a postmodern, perhaps the flap of my butterfly wing in the ocean just might affect that Canadian elephant.
And to underline my lack of petulance, I must congratulate Rach on mistakenly being perceived as NZ's most famous blogger and Paul for making it onto Jordon's blogroll.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:58 PM
Gathered and scattered
What is church? It’s a group of people in reflection of the Trinity.
Yes, sometimes a very poor reflection. But yes, it is best practiced with others and yes, it has a missional impulse at its core.
Words to describe this group of people in reflection of the Trinity have included the notion of gathered and church scattered. The church exists both when it comes together and when it is apart.
For the first years of planting Graceway we put a lot of energy into church gathered. A diet of songs and long sermons had left us with no spirituality. We needed to find God again.
It was a painful process. Like a hull of an abandoned boat, we had to scrape of the barnacles of the past. We had to find God again in our culture and in our thought forms. We had to slowly nourish our spirituality in the mystics, the sonic sounds of U2 and the Celtic love of all God’s good creation. As a gathered group we had to learn what communal and creative meant.
In the last few years the church scattered has become increasingly important. We’ve taught about workplace faith and sought to nourish workplace spirituality. Our monthly church magazine includes a workplace feature. In the first six months of this year alone we’ve placed postcards in cafes, worked on our website, run a Lenten pilgrimage, held outdoor peace services, written articles for Reality, Enlivened Pentecost and lead community ministry. All of this is a scattering of our resource.
Can you scatter too far? Is there a line drawn in the sand that says, step over that line and in time, your gathered community will start to lose energy and momentum?
Two voices speak to me. The voice of the pragmatist says, you need people to give and lead and attend – church gathered not scattered. The voice of the church growther says, we measure you by Sunday attendance – by church gathered not church scattered. So scattering has to lead to gathering.
Now the wise reader at this point will be warning me not to push the metaphor too hard. Gathered and scattered is an artificial divide. The postcards and the website and the Lenten pilgrim blog and the Reality articles are merely a picture of church gathered. But the fact remains that every minute spent pushing pixels and penning prose is one less minute spent on church gathered.
Church gathered, church scattered. I am left pondering two challenges.
1- The challenge when the scattered energises but the gathered does not. Like Pooh to honey, I am drawn to the new, the innovative. Nothing much happens on my home front, so I blog some more.
2 - The challenge of how to connect church gathered with church scattered. How to communicate to the gathered the significance of the scattered? How to help the scattered to bless the gathered?
posted by spirit2go team at 1:40 PM
Sunday, July 13, 2003
What lurks in the deep?
Lots. It was a very quiet nite at Graceway tonite, with lots of people away because of school holidays. We had a "foodbasket" service, where we share food, communion and then ask people to share what is nourishing their spirituality. It is really nice to be in a place where the community get to speak.
It's based on the maori proverb, with your foodbasket and with my foodbasket, the guest will have enough. It speaks of the rich interplay of community and mission. So how is Graceway's foodbasket? Based on tonite, its varied, nutrious and sustaining. People were thinking deeply about the implications of contemporary faith.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:12 AM
Friday, July 11, 2003
Poetics of exile
International conference here in Auckland at the end of next week, 200 people from 35 countries, exploring the relationship between creativity and exile. It will include art and poetry, including the above piece. (Childhood experiences when fleeing Vietnam in a boat imbue Minh Truong-George’s paintings on show at The Poetics of Exile conference.)
I am doing a paper on the emerging church, which I am working on today. I am arguing that we are in a exile, of space more than place, from the modern church. And that this sense of dislocation has actually been a very creative process. Look at our liturgies, look at our websites, look at our art and creativity.
So here, in an international academic setting, the God of the emergent will be being discussed.
For more on the conference see here or here
posted by spirit2go team at 7:18 PM
Thursday, July 10, 2003
Easter bach spirituality
copyright Paul.
A bit late, but better later than never. We experimented with a "scattered" Easter spirituality this year at Graceway. We designed a service to be done both in groups at church OR in family groups if people were on holiday. It was a tactile lectio divino. People were asked to build the Easter garden and then reflect on where they would be in the garden and what Jesus might say to them?
For the results, see
posted by spirit2go team at 4:51 PM
Father/daughter day
I took the day off work today to spend with my 6 year old. She has been missing me a bit, so with school holidays upon us, some time together was possible. She choose the first half of the day and we hit the zoo. I chose the 2nd half of the day and we curled up in a cafe and I read her 3 chapters of Little House on the Prairie.
posted by spirit2go team at 3:42 AM
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Enliven online
The Enliven art process is now online here.
The creative story behind individual art pieces like this
is here.
posted by spirit2go team at 2:52 AM
Sparking a free dinner
One of the things I enjoy doing is sparking things, aligning people and ideas for the sake of God's kingdom. Over the last weeks I've been persuading our Baptist movement to shout under 40's leaders to dinner. It's time we intentionally showed our emerging leaders that we care. Today I "sparked"out this email to Baptist leaders.
As part of the Baptist Union's commitment to resourcing we are inviting
under 40's leaders to a free dinner. This is tied to a seminar, "Resourcing
the Future," with UK mission leader, Gerard Kelly, who is with us for one
day in August (which is open to anyone).
Carey Baptist College, Saturday, August 2, from 10 am.
Gerard is widely used in Europe to stimulate thinking on the future and its
implications for church and young leadership. He's a key speaker at Spring
Harvest
We are wanting to utilise him to target under 40's leaders within our
Baptist family. We are wanting to proactively tell them they an important
part of our future as a movement of God's people.
Can you help us by sending me an email, naming 3-5
under 40's Baptist leaders (and their address) in your church who you think could be a key part of your church's future.
We will then send them a special invite and so serve you, them and your
church by feeding, networking, and encouraging them.
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), is a regular speaker at Spring Harvest, Europe's largest
Christian teaching event, and has written seven books (including
Retrofuture).
Cool aye!
posted by spirit2go team at 1:40 AM
Blagging
I was traveling with a friend over summer. He’d been badly burnt by fundamentalist Christianity. Now as an adult, it was a chance for us to talk about our Christian pasts and what it meant to follow Jesus today.
So why are you, an intelligent, thinking adult, still a Christian?, he asked me. For more
....
This was the start of my sermon on Sunday. It was part of a Reality article I wrote, which Paul appreciated. It was also the basis for my weekly soapbox on that radio station.
posted by spirit2go team at 1:35 AM
Really enjoying
for more
posted by spirit2go team at 1:16 AM
Sunday, July 06, 2003
Tell the story, to find the directions
This is the advice from the Piglet, Big, movie, which I watched with my kids today.
They are lost and arguing about which way to go.
Worse, Piglet is lost and they want to find him.
All they have is the book of memories (of Piglet), as they call it.
As they start to argue about how to find Piglet, they decide to tell the story.
So they start of a process of communal re-telling, and so a communal re-living. In the process they realise how precious Piglet is. It motivates their search for Piglet.
Suddenly, the book of memories gets lost, caught by a gust of wind and blown into the creek
Disaster. How to tell and live the story, with no story?
Desolate, Tigger, Pooh, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo regroup.
They decide to draw the story again. It’s a tremendously energizing process. Paper flies and the search resumes.
Eventually they find Piglet and loose the book and it all ends happily ever after.
(Well actually, at this point, as the credits rolled, the fire alarm at St. Luke sounded and we joined the crowds hastening to emergency exits. But that’s another story.)
All this has interesting parallels to how we read the Bible. In modernity, we placed tremendous emphasis on the book. We dedicated a lot of energy to arguing about direction.
I suspect we forget to tell the story.
As we tell the story, our lives are changed.
And in doing so, we just might find the object of our search and become Jesus people, tremendously energised to live his story.
For where two or three are gathered, there is Christ in our midst.
posted by spirit2go team at 10:52 PM
Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Spirit as water:
The river of God is brimful.
We are flooded with the gifts of the Spirit
- Hilary of Poitiers
I've been thinking about the spirituality of water in Lord of the Rings; is
there a red sea experience in the horse chase to reach Rivendell, a baptism
feel in the ending as Frodo sinks?
posted by spirit2go team at 2:56 PM