Last night the Local Chaplaincy Committee which I chair hosted a variety concert to raise funds for the three chaplains in Helensvale, Pacific Pines and Upper Coomera. It was an event that exceeded expectations in terms of creativity and participation. The night gave us almost three hours of entertainment ranging from juggling clowns and dance troupes to Monty Python comedy and high school Idol winners.
Pictured here is Pacific Pines chappy Alex Franco, usually known as Big Al, playing with the band from his church.
Bessie Pereira’s visiting this week. Today and tonight she’s been working with Pacific Parks Uniting House Church network. It was encouraging to hear about house churches around the world as well as throughout church history. We were able to share our questions and insights in conversation that fitted the style of house church rather than seminar.
Our house church members were very keen to take home the Oikos newsletter. I’m looking forward to further connections with Bessie over the next week, in particular at the Seeds of Hope dinner at Kookaburra Cafe on Monday night in Paddington, Brisbane. Let me know if you’d like to come along.
In the meantime, Bessie’s staying the night here and getting a tutorial on starting a blog.
Darren Wright tonight pointed me in the direction of Tara Brabazon’s book, From Revolution to Revelation.
From her web site, Brabazon.net, comes the editorial summary:
What happens when a strobe light is turned off, a bar closed, the colostomy bag belt unhooked, and a sweaty, smiley bandana discarded? How do we understand our own past, and the collective past we share with others? Popular culture offers a bridge, vehicle and vessel for memory, providing the building blocks of identity. The politics and passion of life are captured in the unforgettable song, the energy pumped out of an extraordinarynightclub, the exuberance of an unexpected goal in extra time, and the love of a film. For a fan, the joy and exhilaration is enough. For those writing on the coat tails of fashion, we need to understand why particular popular cultural forms survive through time and space.
This is the task of From Revolution to Revelation. To rewrite the maxim of the great rock writer Greil Marcus, I am interested in the dustbin of Cultural Studies, the discarded remnants of political struggles and theoretical hopes unrealized. To commence this rummaging, I return to Richard Johnson’s theory of popular memory as a way to understand the - now named - Generation X.
Those born between 1961 and 1981 have endured many (post) youth cultural labels, from slackers to the chemical/blank generation and baby busters. Yet there is no systematic study of the popular cultural literacies that are the basis of - and for - this imagining community. I document the disappearances of history, showing how popular memory - like the Hacienda - can be (re)built, even after the building itself has been destroyed.
The link between Generation X and Cultural Studies is not randomly selected. The histories of both these labels are taken for granted. It was left to Lawrence Grossberg to remind us that Cultural Studies is The Generation X of the academic world Like the post baby-boom generation that is referenced in this odd phrase everyone is talking about it but no one seems to know what it is. Lots of people are suddenly claiming to do it while others, nervous about its rather sudden success, are attacking it.
Such a realization is radiantly revealed and well captured, but requires evidence and clarification. From Revolution to Revelation takes up Grossberg’s challenge, following the bread-crumbed trail of popular memory that snakes through both Generation X and popular culture.”
Tara’s research and writing includes the history of cultural studies, particularly with regard to the theoretical and political relationship between Britain, Australia and New Zealand. She’s written on Australian and New Zealand immigration history, film and television, popular music, feminism and men’s studies.
The second session of the Generations in Conversation course, on Tuesday, focused on those currently at school. We used as our stimulus the Kaiser Foundation’s paper on Generation M, released earlier this year. The report looked at the capacity for multi-tasking held by those between the ages of 8 and 18. We used the Adobe presentation which included the image on the right. Hint: Use Ctrl L to make this full screen.
First question. Is this the Millennial/Gen Y cohort we’re reading about? Or are we seeing the development of a distinct cohort?
We explored the likely impact of a mobile multi-tasking multi-media multi-sensory lifestyle on this emerging generation.
Rushed families, with limited incomes, are now moving towards prepared fresh foods from the supermarkets. We’re seeing a number of reports coming out on the prevalence of obesity among kids who indulge in virtual exercise. It seems as though more kids are being diagnosed as obese and with eating disorders. At the same time we’re seeing a response in the school tuckshops.
The Queensland Association of School Tuckshops is working with Nutrition Australia to provide nutritious, hygienic and economically viable food services. One of the group talked about the emerging ‘black market’ in candy in which kids buy their junky food and bring it to school.
We’re seeing families developing mobile lives in which time together happens only during the commute to work and school. One youthworker shared his need to move closer to work so that he wasn’t spending so much time on the road.
One question. What is different about this generation? After all, Gen Xers and Gen Y adults are used to multitasking. A significant difference is that this emerging generation are growing up as participants and curators of media, as they develop their web spaces. We’re seeing a generation of young people growing up with mobile wireless technology, who will adapt the Playstation Portable as their own.
What does this mean for personal finance? With an expectation of owning mobile devices with subscriptions, there’s a pressure for finding an income. We’re seeing an emerging trend for part time jobs, particularly in the service industry. Friday night is no longer the sacred space it used to be. There are implication for youth groups and for schools who wish to develop extra curricular activities.
We reflected on David Elkind’s thesis ofThe Hurried Child. As youthworkers we see many young people stressed out by the achievement culture of the education system. At the same time there are still young people who have no motivation to buy into an achievement culture. The expectations of parents are clearly critical here.
We looked at the POV (Point of View) television commercial for Portable Sony Playstation. See my write up on the ad at Duncan’s TV Adland. One youthworker asked if we might see a back flip in which young people reject the pressure of being constantly online and connected. Will we see a 21st century equivalent of the Luddites, a social movement of English workers in the 1800s who protested against the Industrial Revolution, often by destroying textile machines. He pointed to the development of Taize as an alternative approach to spirituality, unaided by screens and mobile technology.
The need to see each other is important. That’s becoming provided more and more in virtual communication, via web cameras and perhaps through future generations of PSPs and their equivalents. No matter which generation, we walk through adolescence and into early adulthood searching for the personal, the sense of intimacy that can only be met through the ‘tribe’.
Kenda Creasy Dean, at the national Youth Workers Intensive in Sydney this year, talked about the mobile generation of young people starting conversations with Where are you? rather than How are you? We shouldn’t be fooled by the amount and constancy of small talk in texting and instant messaging. The small talk is a precursor to more significant in-depth intimate conversation.
One youthworker presented the myth that we are always connected. He said that the reality is that only God can connect with us wherever we are.
Another (younger) youthworker asked why we feel threatened by the emerging forms of communication. Conversations that are not in real time can be just as meaningful. Previous generations had to make do with letter writing and ’snail mail’. People who rarely meet each other face to face can still develop a level of connection, trust and relationship over time using email, blogs, and instant messaging.
We explored the appearance of Jesus to disciples in a locked room in the weeks after the resurrection, as written up in John 21. Jesus offered a tangible experience, a face-to-face meeting. But he indicated that this would not be the norm. His followers would need to make do with a connection that was much less tangible.
We thought about the development of the SMS Bible in which youth workers can send a verse to young people via their mobile phones. See my post at Pacific Highlander on this. In the past we’ve used the Bible (book) as a symbol of the capacity to get in touch with God. Likewise the early church had the letters of the Apostles who had little opportunity to visit widely.
Could we name our relationship with God as virtual? We don’t have the luxury of speaking to God, face to face. We have to use our imagination to develop the capacity for prayer.
That set off alarm bells for one youthworker. What do we mean by virtual? “Virtual” for him would mean “not real”. But for many people the term ‘virtual’ is not a negation of reality. It’s more a clarification of how the reality is experienced.
Tom Beaudoin, in his book, “Virtual Faith”, writes about experiences of God that are mediated through a wide range of media. The experience is real, even though some of the aspects of the ritual might have been artificially contrived. See my post on his book back in April.
I told the story of a dance party with a surf theme in which one of the young people brought along a yin-yang symbol (with some meaning in the surf culture) to put on the wall of the church hall. One of the youth leaders belligerently demanded that it be taken down. He was upset that a New Age symbol was being allowed into the building.
We’re seeing an emerging generation of early adults and adolescents who are quite comfortable with visual symbols that may have come from a ‘non-Christian’ or pagan background. Our challenge as youth workers was to help in the discernment of what is real and important in relationships with God and one another. Paul talks about this in first letter to the Corinthians as he addresses the pluralism of Corinth. The gritty reality of loving relationships was what would take a community beyond virtual experience to a real-time life changing experience.
So do we allow multi-tasking in worship? Will we have people engaging with individualist approaches as well as communal participation? Kenmore Baptist start their evening service with the question and assertion,When did God ever SMS you? Turn your phone off. The reality is that even while taking part in communal activities, people of all ages are engaged in their own interpretation of their environment.
So how do we develop resources that connect real life with real faith for members of a mobile generation? What if God was able to to communicate with people via their mobile phones?
Perhaps we could equip people to use SMS for engaging with television shows, music, online games and web sites. We could share prayers for work.
There are spill-over issues that we’ll cover in other sessions. The development of alternatives to the reality television show in which the more a person reveals the more reason we have to reject him or her. The development of family and community patterns that build a generation’s capacity for intimacy and identity formation.
I had the privilege of accompanying my son, Lachlan, in his performance in the Year 12 Music Extension class on Monday night, at Robina Community Centre. When I say ‘privilege’ it was with a certain amount of concern that I practiced for two days to get up to scratch for the concert. We didn’t have the money to pay for a professional. And I didn’t really have enough time to put into getting to a professional standard, with a weekend workshop on the agenda just before the concert.
Still… we turned up and performed “Music of the Night” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera“, “Giants in the Sky”, from Stephen Sondheim’s musical, “Into the Woods“, not to mention a 30-second piece of vocalese. Lachlan did well.
My joints have been aching for a day or so. I was wondering what was wrong with me. Then at lunchtime Craig Johnson at Helensvale State High School gave the weather forecast of rain based on joint pain. Aha! I raced home and cleaned the roof spouting before a massive thunderstorm swept through the area. Here’s the weather radar reading. We live just west of Southport.
Post Script
The storm described here caused thousands and thousands of dollars in hail damage to cars and buildings.
Ennis had tickets through her school through the Youth Access program for under 30s. It meant sitting up in the ‘gods’ balcony. We sat in the middle of Emerald State High School’s party. Which was funny as I’d bumped into them over the weekend at Margate Conference Centre when I was teaching the Reframe course.
The Italian libretto was translated into English on the screen above the stage which meant we could laugh at the right moments. The plot is basically a bedroom farce. Figaro and Susanna, employees of the count, are preparing for their wedding. The wedding must be approved by the count. He, however, is intent on seducing Susanna. An older woman, old enough to be Figaro’s mother, has lent Figaro money on the condition that he marries her. Cherubino, a page boy, is in love with anybody in a skirt, especially the Countess. The Countess is frustrated by the continual infidelity and jealousy of the Count but longs for his renewed affection. As the opera unfolds we see everyone taking their turn at believing themselves to be in control of events.
Being in the audience took me back to 1982 when I sang in the peasant chorus as part of the New Zealand National Opera Company’s production in Dunedin. Unfortunately we spent most of our time in the dressing rooms and never saw the actual production.
Thanks to Matt at Project Outhouse I found my way to Woogle and Toogle this morning.
Woogle is a search toy developed by Gu Jian from Sichuan, China. Based on Google Image Search, Woogle creates image messages out of the words in the phrase you enter.
Toogle is a similar search toy, this time creating images made up of the word(s) in the search. I put in a search for ‘postkiwi’ and got a picture of Hugh McKay’s book, Generations. ‘Kiwi’ gave me this kiwifruit. Take a close look and you’ll see the word “Kiwi” all the way through the image.
Just spent the weekend teaching the “Reframe” course at Margate in Redcliffe. With 15 members of three missional communities, we explored the ins and outs of developing church in the 21st century. We worked through the concept of being the body of Christ carrying out the mission of Jesus - proclaiming and embodying the kingdom of God.
We started Saturday morning looking at examples of world-changing creative innovators, using the Apple “Think Different” television commercial. See my post at Duncan’s TV Adland for the background. It got us thinking about what it was that made Jesus so distinctive. And what make his followers distinctive.
We talked about working as a missional community with a commitment at its core to being mutually accountable for living out the life God calls us to. Interestingly some people are resistant to the challenge of imitating Jesus. ‘There’s no way we can measure up to Jesus so why put the pressure on?” And the word ‘accountability’ is also scary. The Reformed theological response is to remind us that we are saved by grace alone, not by works. Though I would have thought that Paul the Apostle, along with Calvin, would have taught that we are saved for works. This is not just some preparation for life after death. Having Jesus as ’saviour’ is very much linked with having Jesus as ‘Lord’. After all, Jesus in his teaching talked about action and attitude than cognitive trust in his capacity to pay the price on the cross.
We missed out most of the material on postmodernism and post-Christendom. I figured that the groups I was working with had already worked out a new model of being that was responding to these paradigms. And there’s a limit to how much conceptual work you can do in a weekend without losing relevance to what’s happening the next day.
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
Bessie Pereira’s visiting this week. Today and tonight she’s been working with 
What happens when a strobe light is turned off, a bar closed, the colostomy bag belt unhooked, and a sweaty, smiley bandana discarded? How do we understand our own past, and the collective past we share with others? Popular culture offers a bridge, vehicle and vessel for memory, providing the building blocks of identity. The politics and passion of life are captured in the unforgettable song, the energy pumped out of an extraordinarynightclub, the exuberance of an unexpected goal in extra time, and the love of a film. For a fan, the joy and exhilaration is enough. For those writing on the coat tails of fashion, we need to understand why particular popular cultural forms survive through time and space.
Last night I went to see (or should I say experience) the Mozart opera, “The Marriage of Figaro”. It was produced by 
Just spent the weekend teaching the “Reframe” course at Margate in Redcliffe. With 15 members of three missional communities, we explored the ins and outs of developing church in the 21st century. We worked through the concept of being the body of Christ carrying out the mission of Jesus - proclaiming and embodying the kingdom of God.
