Archive for May, 2005
Tuesday, May 31st, 2005
This morning on Educating Christians I posted on the Belonging Kit, edited by Cheryl Lawrie back in the late 1990s. It was a Uniting Education project designed to help churches nurture young adults into an active reflective faith.
I first met Cheryl when she was promoting her work on mentoring and youth. I invited her over to New Zealand to work with the Presbyterians mostly, though that did spill over into ecumenical gatherings involving Anglicans, Methodists and Catholics. We published an article or two by Cheryl in Crumbs the ecumenical youth ministry magazine.
Cheryl is still in Melbourne working with the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria. Just recently she moved from the Children and Families area into Alternative Worship. Lucky woman! Fancy having the cheek to design her dream job and put it to her employers!
She made it into the Age newspaper this last Easter, with an “unorthodox media” Easter stations experience.
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Tuesday, May 31st, 2005
I’ve enjoyed listening to Brian McLaren speaking during the commuting hours, the last two days. Cedar Ridge Community Church in Baltimore, Maryland (near Washington DC) have moved from RAM streaming of sermons, to full downloadable MP3 files at their blogspot site.
It’s called podcasting - from the concept of sending material to someone who can download it to their iPod. If I had the iPod connected to the car that would be simple. In the meantime, I’m just burning a CD each time I want to listen to a sermon. And it does take a whole CD - 50 minute sermons these are. Just the right amount to get me from school drop off on the Gold Coast to the office in Brisbane. And I’m listening to the same talk again on the way home to catch the bits I missed the first time round.
So far I’ve listened to Brian talking on the “power in our mouths” and the “power on our wrists”. The Power in Your Mouth is a valuable reminder to speak positively into the lives of others, and to find others to mentor us. A valuable reminder - particularly in the face of public criticism. The Power on Your Wrist is an excellent invitation to find ways of using our God-given time with integrity.
There are a few other preachers on the site:
Patsy Fratanduono, Jimi Calhoun, and Keith Matthews. I’m looking forward to hearing from them as well.
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Tuesday, May 31st, 2005
As Jesus was leaving, he saw a tax collector named Matthew sitting at the place for paying taxes. Jesus said to him, “Come with me.” Matthew got up and went with him. Later, Jesus and his disciples were having dinner at Matthew’s house. Many tax collectors and other sinners were also there. Some Pharisees asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and other sinners?” Jesus heard them and answered, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. Go and learn what the Scriptures mean when they say, `Instead of offering sacrifices to me, I want you to be merciful to others.’ I didn’t come to invite good people to be my followers. I came to invite sinners.”
Matthew 9: 9 - 13
Back in the late 1980s I went to a seminar on reaching Baby Boomers, led by Jack Sims. Jack and Richard Rossi started a controversial church in the United States called “Matthew’s Party”. The church met in a bar, served wine and hor d’oerves, worshipped with rock music, was attended by movie stars, and gave the offering back to anyone in attendance who needed the money. If I remember right, they didn’t do any communal singing - as it was counter culture for most of the people there.
Jack explained that when Matthew met Jesus, it wasn’t possible for them to meet up at the local synagogue. It would have been cultural suicide for Matthew to turn up there. He and his friends probably wouldn’t be welcomed anyway. So he invited Jesus over to his place, held a party, and got his friends to meet Jesus in their space.
I took that to heart. What would it look like if people got to meet Jesus in friendly spaces that didn’t drip with the mood of church meetings? What if we met in restaurants or cafes? Since that time, I’ve experimented with Restaurant Church, Cafe Church, and House Church. In each of those settings there’s an opportunity to reinvent worship and learning. Meeting round tables usually rules out communal singing. It leads to conversation instead of lecturing. All these settings lend themselves to story telling, laughter and connecting with the difference Jesus might make in our lives.
Andrew Jones, (Tall Skinny Kiwi) posted a few gripes about house church networks back in July 2004 (based on article from 2002). He points out that the focus needs to change from “Our House” to “Their House”. His words:
Much of the present house church movement is still an attempt to contain and control the meetings in their own camp, in this case OUR HOUSE. The full gains that are available will not be realised until we can begin to let the movement flow into THEIR HOUSES. The church in Lydia’s house was just that - in Lydia’s house. Matthew’s party was in Matthew’s house. Not the more convenient house of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. And don�t tell me it was her stomach complaints that kept them away. It was strategy, not dysentry, that led them to Matthew’s house. Jesus told his missionaries to put peace on THEIR (those other people, the ones they were sent to) HOUSE, enter their house, live in their house, eat in their house, heal someone or something in their house. Right there is the base of a new church and it is in THEIR house. Think of the benefits. Financial, because if the party is in their house then they pay for it. Security, because if the party is in their house then they will guarantee every one is safe.Culture, because the friends of the host already appreciate the culture of their style of music and culture so there is no culture barrier. Convenience, because they already have that house.
I warm to Andrew’s challenge. One of the best experiences of church I’ve had recently was the blessing of a child eighteen months ago. The family had family connections with the Uniting Church elsewhere. And they wanted to have their boy baptised. We looked at the options and chose a service of thanksgiving and blessing. The next door neighbours were members of Pacific Parks Uniting, our house church network. They looked at coming along to one of our homes for a service. But they had about 50 friends and relatives to fit in. So we had it all at their place. What a celebration! We showed photographs of all the meaningful people in their life together on PowerPoint, through the TV. We had poetry, prayer, Bible readings, and a song on the stereo. The next door neighbours presented the certificate. And then we cracked open the bubbly. Way to go. Maybe we’ll get together again at their place, for another experience of church. Hope so.
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Tuesday, May 31st, 2005
Ennis, my better half, turns 50 next week. She’s started a blog, Too Old To Blog, to show our teenage kids that she’s still savvy enough to learn new computer skills. I don’t think that’s ever been in doubt. E
nnis learnt Pagemaker to edit Crumbs back in 1996, and picked up Quark to edit her school magazine back in 2003. She’s just not as addicted to computer screen time as the rest of us are in the family.
We’re getting ready for a party in 10 days time. 50 people to celebrate 50 people. There will be family from New Zealand. And all the party going friends we can invite. Should be a good time had by all!
Here’s Ennis pointing to the restaurant menu on her recent trip to China.
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Sunday, May 29th, 2005
Everything on earth has its own time and its own season.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 (CEV)
I am sure that God who began the good work within you will keep right on helping you grow in his grace until his task within you is finally finished on that day when Jesus Christ returns.
Philippians 1:5 (Living Bible)
It’s taken a year to get to Day 28 on this Driving With Purpose blog. The first post was on June 3, 2004. Hopefully we’ll get to Day 40 before the day when Jesus Christ returns!
Rick Warren uses a couple of metaphors to explore the slow process of maturity:
1. Vine-ripened tomatoes (as opposed to gas-ripened)
Rick reminds us that quality is best achieved with slow growth.
2. Occupation of Pacific Islands during World War II (Lane Adams, Spirit, 1985) Rick uses Lane Adams’ analogy of God’s pre-conversion ’softening-up’ through ‘bombing’, the initial beachhead in our lives, followed by the longterm campaign to take over more and more territory until all of our life is completely God’s. It’s a violent image but it makes the point that God’s in for the long haul with us.
It takes so long to grow into maturity because:
1. We are slow learners
2. We have a lot to unlearn.
3. We are afraid to humbly face the truth about ourselves.
4. Growth is often painful and scary.
5. Habits take time to develop.
I appreciate Rick’s reminder that what takes years to learn can take years to unlearn. I remember the year before I started as a minister telling a friend I needed to develop stronger spiritual disciplines in the next two months. He wryly smiled and reminded me that spiritual disciplines took years to develop. So true.
We can co-operate with God in the process
1. Believe God is working in your life even when you don’t feel it.
2. Keep a notebook or journal of lessons learned.
3. Be patient with God and with yourself.
4. Don’t get discouraged.
I appreciate the image of seasons Rick uses to describe the times we seem to be shooting ahead and the times we seem to stagnate. I’ve found this especially applies to periods of fresh creativity that tend to be followed by times of dryness.
This chapter is a welcome alternative to the “Easy steps to maturity” approach to spiritual growth we can find ourselves pining for. Rick finishes with the sentence, “Even the snail reached the ark by perservering”. Nice.
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Sunday, May 29th, 2005
I am using Jeremiah’s letter to the Jewish people living in Babylon, found in Jeremiah 29:1-14, to explore the experience of being the church in exile. I have used Jeremiah 29 in worship and study workshops for leaders in a variety of congregational and judicatory settings, along with parallel passages, Psalm 137 and Jeremiah 4:23-26.
I have drawn heavily on insights shared by Walter Brueggemann and Gerald Arbuckle. Both writers link the future of God’s people with the gradual process of moving through stages of grief towards hope and action.
William Bridges material on change and transition reminds leaders that the introduction of any change involves a process of letting go, in-between (neutral) time, and the launching of a new beginning. I have used the framework of grieving tasks, outlined by authors such as William Worden, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and John Westerhoff and echoed by Scott Peck in his study of community formation.
Jeremiah 29 stands alone in the gathered writings and sermons of the Jewish prophet Jeremiah. It is addressed to all those who were deported from Jerusalem to Babylon in 598 BCE. Jehoiachin, son of Josiah, has become the exiled ruler of the Jewish people, while Zedekiah, his brother, remains in Jerusalem. Jeremiah’s role up to this point has been to warn the people about the consequences of their complacent and rigid responses to God’s call for obedience and trust. Jeremiah is now writing to a group who, while experiencing low morale, are likely to be looking for a fresh sense of vision. He has identified this group of exiles as the ones who will take the Jewish faith and culture into future.
Brueggemann has written that visionary leadership is integrally linked with the prophetic phrase, “It could be otherwise”.[1] The prophet Jeremiah believes that no matter how desperate the situation, there is a future. That belief is expressed strongly in his letter to the exiles in Jerusalem. In this letter Jeremiah is able to talk about the past in ways that releases people to live in the present and prepare for the future. If the exiles continue to spend their lives pining for the past, they will either dwindle into an insignificant family-based cult or disappear altogether, subsumed by the Babylonian culture. These people cannot afford to passively wait for the day of their return to the glorious days. The time of mourning is now over - the work of grief has begun. Now is the time to live again, to put roots down in the new context. Jeremiah outlines the practical implications of living as residents of Babylon - and in that context he presents the hope of future generations going home.
[1] Walter Brueggemann, Unmasking the Inevitable, From The Other Side Online, 2001 The Other Side, July-August 2001, Vol. 37, No. 4.
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Sunday, May 29th, 2005
This morning I posted the second resource at “Educating Christians” - Willow Creek’s “An Ordinary Day with Jesus”. In the spirit of Brother Lawrence’s “Practicing the Presence of God”, this resource by John Ortberg and Ruth Haley Barton provides eight sessions on spirituality for everyday life.
I haven’t yet used it so can’t comment on its usefulness. But it looks good. I’d be interested to hear from anyone on how they’ve found this resource.
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Saturday, May 28th, 2005
I’m currently finishing off a paper reflecting on the challenge of motivational communication - the task of building vision amongst congregational leaders. This is in the context of Jeremiah 29 - the call to deal with the past, live in the present, and prepare for the future.
I have been writing this paper for six years! I have worked in three different positions in those three years. I was National Youth Ministry Coordinator for the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, Minister of Youth and Families for Robina Surfers Paradise Uniting Church and am Mission Consultant for the Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland Synod. Throughout this time I have struggled with what it means to be a visionary leader who inspires and equips others to become visionaries themselves.
I’ve discovered that a lot of writing by Christian leaders focuses on the need for the congregational pastor/senior leader to take a visionary lead, inspiring others to get in behind a common vision. In many cases Christian leaders are encouraged to take most of the responsibility for discerning purpose and direction.
Within the circles I’ve moved, this approach to leadership leaves many cold. It is perceived to be an approach rooted in a corporate church culture, espoused by men rather than women, and suitable for hierarchical structures. In many cases this approach in fact disempowers people, expecting lay people to be loyal and enthusiastic followers of charismatic or authoritative parent figures. [1] Peter Senge calls instead for the sharing of vision which involves the skills of unearthing shared pictures of the future that foster genuine commitment and enrolment rather than compliance. [2]
I believe there needs to be, at a congregational level, visionary people, rather than a compliant people lead by a visionary leader. In this paper I will explore a framework for guiding disillusioned congregational leaders [3] through a grief process in order to build the capacity for vision. I will discuss the practice of communicating that motivates people to thoughtfully move into the future with purpose and direction, with both an individual and a common vision.
As part of my preparation for this paper I have worked my way through three sets of reading.
My initial focus was on communication as an art. I was looking for clues on more effective communication of vision in my role as National Youth Ministry Coordinator. I looked at the importance of clarifying the message, knowing the audience, using symbols and stories that could be related to by a variety of stakeholders, while using feedback to develop the message. As I read through this material and talked it through with my colleagues and support group, it became clear that empowering a new generation of visionary leaders was more important than the mere communication of national strategies for youth ministry. This shaped my work significantly.
My second focus became the nature of visionary leadership. This follows on from my previous paper on servant mission leadership. I prepared a summary of writing and resources on leadership and have published this on my work website.
The focus of this current paper has been narrowed down to the process of motivating, inspiring and mobilizing visionary leaders in the Uniting Church in Australia, particularly in situations where levels of morale and innovation are low. As mission consultant I have a key role in the redevelopment of threshold congregations - congregations who are facing either continued decline and death or the reinvention of their models of membership, ministry and mission. The development of vision in these settings requires initial groundwork in grieving processes.
More tomorrow…
[1] Loren Mead, Transforming Congregations for the Future, pp. 97-100. Mead uses the concept of parent tapes to describe unhealthy levels of dependency in the church.
[2] Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, Random House, Sydney, 1990, pg. 9
[3] I am working with teams of congregational leaders rather than just the ordained leaders of churches.
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Saturday, May 28th, 2005
I hate to admit it, but I’ve just started a new blog! (This makes number 7)
Educating Christians is a site dedicated to highlighting resources for Christian Education, with particular reference to how they might be accessed by Uniting Church congregations in Queensland, Australia. This is a work project linked to my role as mission consultant. I’ll be working with my colleague Graham Beattie to provide a summary of resources, ranging from Alpha and An Ordinary with Jesus through to Yoga and Youth Alpha. I can’t think of anything starting with Z just now.
The purpose is to highlight rather than review. We have a huge range of theologies and needs in our congregations. There will be resources listed on the blog that I would never use. And others that I could champion with enthusiasm. I’m hoping to get users to comment on what they’ve found helpful and what they’d like to adapt or develop.
The first post is on Alpha. I was a national advisor for Youth Alpha in New Zealand last century. My congregation used Alpha a couple of times each year. Ennis and I took a small group through Alpha in our home, trialling a combination of Youth Alpha principles (use of movies as conversation starters) and informal question-oriented environment (we had the freedom to stop the Nicky Gumbel video at any point). I wouldn’t like to limit Christian faith to the version worked through by Nicky but it’s a useful starting point.
One factor I’ve come across again and again is the assumption made in Alpha that people actually believe in God, or even acknowledge a spiritual side to life. There are other resources and processes available for addressing these starting points. I must remember to add them to the “A to Z” list.
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Thursday, May 26th, 2005
Over at PostKiwi’s Generational Posts I’m working through a review of PostMission, the work of GenX writers from global mission agencies in 2001. They engage with a mix of generational theory and postmodern theory as they engage with the conflicts between younger and older missionaries.
One paragraph of the review provoked a response from Phil Johnson.
My summary
“They examine the modernist Evangelical focus on individual morality, with its preoccupation with sexual sin. Holiness, they say, has been reduced to personal individual sins linked with sexual behaviour, dress codes, divorce, alcohol taboos, tithing, abortion, swearing, and dirty jokes. Postmoderns are more concerned with moral issues such as weapons of mass destruction, environmental destruction, womens’ rights, Third World debt, racism, exploitation of child labour.”
Phil: The perspective that evangelicals have been fixated on personal individual issues (especially sexual mores) is partly true but also runs the risk of misreading and distorting history in evangelicalism…
Read more at Generations in Conversation
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