Postkiwi

The Boroughs Cafe Wine Bar

Had a late coffee and antipasto last night with Ennis at The Boroughs Cafe Wine Bar. We’d arrived for the national Uniting Church Lay Preachers conference in Margate, checked into a motel and headed out to sample the night life. Redcliffe, we discovered, does have a number of cafes and restaurants open on a Wednesday night. We drove along the peninsula from Margate to Scarborough and decided to try “The Boroughs” because of the ambience peeking out the door. Turned out they’d only been open one week.

The Boroughs was a long and narrow cafe with a strong sense of community, looking out over Moreton Bay. The kitchen had just closed but the ‘Winter Grazing menu’ was still on. The antipasto included olives marinated on site. Ennis tried the chai tea - black tea with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves and honey, made like a latte. I asked the waitress for an afrogato (icecream and espresso) and she said they’d have a go. It was spot on. Mind you the espresso kept me awake all night.

Check out the web site. Pop in to 97 Landsborough Rd, Scarborough and say hello to Mark Pritchard and Bruce Neal. (I assume the “borough’ name comes from the street name and locality name. This is a fine example of a ‘third place’ where people will keep coming back.

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Flooded Home

Got home from an overnight stay in Redcliffe to find the house flooded again. The Gold Coast has had record rainfall over the last 24 hours. So it’s not too much wonder we’re affected by flash flooding coming off the hill behind us and settling into our end rooms, including the library, study and Lachlan’s bedroom (with carpet). So it was four hours of moving furniture and books to allow the carpet people access when they get here.

This happened at the end of last year so we know what to do. Move everything quickly. Call the insurance company immediately so they can get the carpet cleaner and assessment agent on the job. I’m not too sure how much will be affected. I do know the slide projector, keyboard amp/speaker and couch were all affected. Two study desks and a bookcase as well.

Looking at the news tonight we’ve fared lightly compared with many on lower ground. There’s been between 400 and 500 mm of rain in 24 hours. All over the Gold Coast major public services have been closed - roads, airport, and shopping centres like Pacific Fair. It appears as though a couple drowned as they were swept off a causeway on the Coomera River.

I’m flying out to the Emerging Mission Church Summit in Melbourne tomorrow. Hopefully the roads are OK to get to the airport. And then it looks as though the storm’s heading down Melbourne way from here.

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Tom Troeger on Preaching in Multimedia Culture

Thomas H. Troeger in 1996 wrote “Ten Strategies for Preaching in a Multimedia Culture.” Thomas is on the faculty at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, USA, focusing on preaching and communication.

Troeger starts by clarifying his terms. By preaching he does mean preaching in the sense of verbally communicating with congregations. By ‘multi media culture’ he means the world of audiovisually oriented people.

Quoting Pierre Babin he seeks to develop effective communication characterised by “resurgence of the imagination, the importance of affective relationships and the dissolution of national and cultural frontiers”.

He acknowledges the potential for distortion and resistance in engaging with emerging culture. Neil Postman, in Technopoly, wrote, “A preacher who confines himself to considering how a medium can increase his audience will miss the significant question: “In what sense do new media alter what is meant by religion, by church, even by God?”. Troeger responds with the continued call to take the risk of translation into new media. He appeals to what Andrew Walls has called ‘infinite translatability’ of the Christian gospel.

Troeger provides ten strategies for communciating with media savvy people, without the use of any television or computer screens.

1. Assume there is more to the story. Troeger points us to the legends developed around the magi who visited Jesus as an infant. Likewise the stories spun around Noah. He gives us his own sermon on the married couple who received large quantities of wine from Jesus at their wedding, enough to preserve for special occasions throughout the rest of their lives.

The other nine strategies:
2. Create a parable
3. Play with an Image
4. Write the Sermon as a Movie Script
5. Use a Flashback
6. Reframe a Sacrament
7. Let a little child lead you
8. Play a game
9. Listen to the Muffled Voices
10. Compare Translations

I appreciate Troeger’s avoidance of associating multi media culture with young people. Likewise his care not to assume that mature Christians will grow out of thinking in terms of movies, music, story and play.

I’ll be drawing on some of Troeger’s pointers as I work with the Uniting Church in Australia’s national Lay Preachers’ Conference this week. The topic: “Same light, new light switch: Preaching for new generations”.

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Lach LAN Party

Yesterday was the day of Lachlan’s Lach LAN (Local Area Network) party. We had twenty 16-18 year olds here to connect up with each other on XBox and Playstation for eight hours. It’s becoming a trend here. A LAN party every school holidays. Lachlan’s getting it down to a fine art, with a business plan, budget and online registration. There’s a basketball hoop out the front for breakout time. (Pity it rained most of the day) Way too much Pepsi. And a quiet room just for conversation. A card table. And then scattered through the house - an assortment of connected Xbox and Playstation consoles, televisions and projectors.

One of Lachlan’s friends blogged about it at Gifted Twit.

“I’m going to a madd-hizzhouse Xbox party tomorrow at a good friend’s house. This plans to be a grand event, possibly with much cursing and shared hatred, and skinny nerdlingers throwing controllers at each other and screaming prolific phrases like “OMG WTF U HAXOR N00B SHOTGUN WHORE!!!”. Roughly translated, this implies that the target is apparently cheating and appears to favour the shotgun weapon. I used to have a serious Counter-Strike addiction, and you would be astonished by the number of pre-pubescent geeky poofburgers that use this terminology. This however, presents the upside in entertainment, as there is simply nothing funnier than listening to two 12 year-olds facing off (with voice communication) screaming at one another actually saying “double-u tee eff” and “oh-em-gee you noob”. Sigh, no wonder we haven’t cured cancer.”

See my post from the last LAN party.

Take a look at the Lach LAN registration page.

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Richard Tiplady on Postmodern Mission Organisation

Is a ‘postmodern organization’ an oxymoron? Richard Tiplady’s chapter in the book, “Postmission” explores the link between postmodern thought and organizational structure.

Richard’s a consultant based in the UK working with Christian Vocations, Tearfund, Scripture Gift Mission, USPG, Oasis Trust, Global Connections, World Evangelical Alliance Missions Commission, Radstock Ministries, Afrika In Touch. He’s well qualified for his contribution to Postmission’s exploration of the implications of generational and philosophical change for mission organisations.

Tiplady begins his article with a couple of riders. He reminds us that postmodernity is not necessarily a coherent concept that can be pinned down. Some corporations developed or run on postmodern principles have failed. He distinguishes between postmodernity and postmodernism. Postmodernity refers to the social and cultural changes perceived to be impacting the world at this point in history, associated with changes taking place over fifty years. Postmodernism is the thinking and ideas that have developed around those changes.

Tiplady draws on Stanley Skreslet’s description of the 21st century mission organisation:
niche oriented (more specialised with a clear focus in ministry or geography) and networked (an alternative to command and control).

Michael Foucault’s insights on power are used in an exploration of team diversity in the mission organisation. The development of diversity of gender, generation and culture brings to the fore assumptions about what is normal. Foucault identifies a definition of ‘normal’ as a use of power that marginalises. He is concerned that people work out of discourses or world views that know nothing of one another or exclude one another. Tiplady develops a power/resistance matrix to articulate different discourses so as to reveal the arbitrary nature of every rule and norm. For example Jesus healing on the Sabbath reveals the lack of consistency in the ways Sabbath laws favour those in power - male property owners.

Tiplady says that a postmodern organisation will marked by the encouragement of diversity and free exchange of opinions and views. Leaders will allow the exposure and challenge of previously unseen and unintended power plays at work behind all normal operating principles and procedures. The goal is not to arrive at new compromise of norms, but to develop an environment in which continued questioning can happen. The postmodern question: “Who says it has to be that, and not this?”

Tiplady finishes by drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze on chaos and leadership. Chaos theory provides an alternative to classifying systems as closed or open random. In the 1960s Deleuze noted that fascism came from forcing a choice between disorder/anarchy and state-imposed order. Changes come about because chaotic/complex systems are highly sensitive to initial conditions. A amall change can push a system across the ‘bifurcation point’ into new and radically different behaviour.

Since 2002 Tiplady has published two of his own books on globalisation:

World Of Difference : Global Mission At The Pic’N'Mix Counter
Globalisation and postmodernity are combining to create a world characterised by difference and continual change. My latest book looks at how this will affect the practice of mission, and especially how mission agencies (and all organisations) can change to thrive in such a context.

One World or Many? The impact of globalisation on mission
Globalisation is a major factor in today’s world. This book, which includes chapters by writers from around the world, considers its implications for Christian mission. One of the key arguments of this book is that globalisation will lead to a more diverse, complex and plural world, rather than the homogenised Western one we so often assume that the term describes.

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What’s Your Theological Worldview?

So what do you think about online quizzes on theological worldview? Here’s the one currently being used as a public quick self-diagnosis, created by Steven Harris from the UK, known online as Sven.

(See Sven’s blog at the World of Sven,
on which he’s pictured in his hoodie (see picture to right). See Sven’s list of quizzes at Quizfarm.)

I’d take issue with the limits of this online quiz. What about the contemplative side of theology? Or the Eastern orthodox? I suspect the question on icons is used for measuring Catholic theology. How about ‘non-realist’ theology - not that I’d score very highly in it! Fascinating to have the photograph of Brian McLaren tied with the quiz. I’d like to include a few other people there too.

Ok - the test does align me with the Emergent/Postmodern slice of faith. But also with the Evangelical and NeoOrthodox slices, with a twist of Catholic. In the graph below you can chart my journey of theology towards being postfundamentalist, post Evangelical, post charismatic, post Catholic, post liberal.

• Started off as a teenager surrounded by fundamentalist, Evangelical and Reformed leaders in a hybrid Presbyterian church. Signed up with creationism and last days doctrine. Learnt all about Calvin’s tulip. Heard that the spiritual gifts have ceased and pentecostals are of the Devil. Didn’t buy it.
• Dived into the charismatic movement as a sixteen year old.
• My fundamentalism/creationism fell apart during Anthropology 101. Went through an intense phase of rebuilding faith on a relational base.
• Joined a charismatic Catholic covenant community in my third and fourth years at Uni.
• Campaigned for nuclear disarmament as an expression of commitment to the future.
• Engaged in contextual and relational approaches to evangelism and social justice as a youth worker.
• Gave up the end times anxiety as a husband and father.
• Linked up with the Vineyard movement at Wimber conferences in Auckland
• As a theology student discovered theologians who expressed what I’d be intuiting: Barth, Moltmann, Torrance alongside Matthew Fox, Karl Rahner and Hans Kung.
• Developed a kingdom of God missional paradigm for ministry.
• Worked ecumenically in youth ministry in New Zealand and around the world.
• Linked up with alt worship scene
• Found postmodernist writers expressing the world view I’d come to hold.

My Quiz Results

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What would Jesus eat and drink?

Have just posted on the eating and drinking habits of Jesus at Gospel Notes. It’s in response to Matthew 11, where Jesus points out that people are never happy with his behaviour. John the Baptist was considered crazy because he avoided alcohol and good food. Jesus enjoyed parties so much he was labelled a drunkard and a glutton.

So where do we get the inspiration for books like “What would Jesus eat?“, by Don Colbert. Subtitled, “The Ultimate Program for Eating Well, Feeling Great”, this book outlines the secrets of eating less, exercising more. Only problem is that Jesus didn’t have his own kitchen. He ate whatever was on the table in the places where he stayed. It would have been a Mediterranean diet with lots of bread, fish and wine. It’s true Jesus wouldn’t have been threatened with being overweight due to excess sugar and fat in a fast food diet.

Looking at me you wouldn’t know I have diet issues but I’ve been on doctor’s orders for a while to cut down on LDL cholesterol. Which means an end to food cooked in fat. An end to butter and full cream milk. An end to full cream icecream. An end to cream. An end to cheesecake. An end to a diet of pies, KFC, greasy burgers, bacon and liver. Diet’s going OK but I’ve been putting off getting the next cholesterol test. I know I have to ‘up the exercise factor’.

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Hugh MacLeod Blogs Cartoons at Gaping Void

Hugh MacLeod’s got a great cartoon-based blog going at Gaping Void.

He explains his cartooning habit by going back to his time working in Manhattan where he got into the habit of ‘doodling on the back of business cards, just to give me something to do while sitting at the bar’. He’s now living back in the UK, living in Cambria, just south of the Scottish.

Besides publishing his cartoons, Hugh helps run a bespoke Savile Row tailoring firm, English Cut with Thomas Mahon. He also works as a “blogvertising” consultant, helping clients use blogs to spread commercial ideas.

Hugh’s cartoons smack of cynical insight and shock value. He blogs on sexual behaviour and attitudes, the world of advertising, city life, and on the self-preoccupation of bloggers.

A sample…

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Blog Authors Survey

Thanks to John O’Keefe at Ginkworld I discovered Cameron Marlow’s web log research survey at MIT Media Laboratory and took the plunge. Didn’t take too long to fill out. It’s all about who blog authors are linking to, what they’re blogging about, and how they meet people of various walks of life. Try it. It’ll help Cameron and the rest of the world work out what’s happening in the emerging blogosphere. The results are posted here. Cameron blogs about it at Overstated.net.

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Kent Keith and Mother Theresa Say Do it anyway

Tomorrow morning I’ll be using the “Do it anyway” inspirational poem, in a sermon on taking the risk of rejection. See Gospel Notes for the raw material shaping up for sharing.

The poem, as used here, comes from Mother Teresa: A Simple Path, compiled by Lucinda Vardey (1995), page 185. Vardey reported that it was “a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, the children’s home in Calcutta.”

It’s an adaptation of the ten paradoxical commandments written by Kent Keith in his 1968 book, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council. Kent has reclaimed his poem, set up a web site, republished the book and is now on the speaker circuit.

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred - love them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives - be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies - succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you - be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight - build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous - be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow - do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be good enough. Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see in the final analysis, it is all between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

I’ll be using the poem in conjunction with imagery from Shawshank Redemption and the song, “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House.

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