jonnybaker

musings from the other side of the world 4: when church collapses

[see part 1 kiwi and proud | part 2 am i in england? | part 3 smug statues and street art saints]

i loved this piece of street art of a quaking church in panic mode. further down the mural the trickster wiley coyote is spotted with some tnt!i am sure it was terrifying to experience the earthquake in christchurch when many buildings wobbled and indeed fell down. and surveying the landscape makes you realise it takes a long time for a city to rebuild. there are still buildings being repaired and many pieces of land where buildings once stood. one area is a whole zone that has been cleared of where house stood. the shapes of gardens and streetlights are there but no people. the land there has lowered so is prone to flooding so is now simply a red zone.

christchurch cathedral is a centrepiece of the city - the settlement was very much church of england centred so it's no surprise to see this central place. but the cathedral (and indeed the catholic cathedral too) were seriously damaged by the earthquake. you can see in the photo above. by any stretch of the imagination this is an interruption or provocation. whilst you wouldn't wish it on anyone, whenever you get provoked in this sort of way there is an opportunity for creative thinking. many writers on creativity suggest you should programme interruptions into your routine because it's how you come up with ideas. i read the book messy by tim harford recently and the first chapter in that is really good on exactly that point. you can listen to a podcast here cautionary tales which effectively rehearses that first chapter - it's the episode bowie, jazz and the unplayable piano.

well the church did get creative. realising it would take a long time to sort out, a japanese architect shigeru ban was commissioned and designed the cardboard cathedral. this is a light structure that might last 50 years i guess. it has been a big hit - i loved it. the interior structure looks like it's made of and held up by cardboard tubes though i am not sure exactly what the material is. but i noticed while i was there that work seemed to be starting to repair the old cathedral. perhaps this is inevitable but i also was disappointed. why?! i like the new one a lot better and it's a sign of travelling much lighter.

one of the church's biggest challenges certainly in england is its buildings. they are old, inflexible, often cold, and not really fit for purpose. sure some of them look beautiful and have been reworked well. usually that is the case where there is a large congregation. but most are a chain round the neck of a small community and would be better given away as heritage sites. in many villages in england there is a small community of older christians - maybe a dozen who put so much energy and effort into keeping the roof on, the lights on, the heating working. in my view it would be amazing to wake up one day and find that the buildings had wobbled and collapsed. what a relief - the people could get on with being the church as a community of people! i am honestly not just being flippant. i genuinely think that. somewhere along the way church easily forgots the why of its existence.

what i had not forseen when i was in new zealand was that when i got back church buildings would soon be shut albeit for a different reason - coronavirus. the church has literally left the building! so people are having to reimagine how to be church, how to connect to one another and encourage community, worship, discipleship, mission. they too have been provoked, interrupted from business as usual. what are the creative and imaginative opportunities for churches in this season? there have been a lot of social media comments about making more of the opportunity than simply broadcasting church services online. and i admit whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with that and it is probably comforting in its familiarity in a time of crisis, it does lack imagination. but my impression is that people are connecting in all sorts of more liquid ways connecting to christ and one another. but i wonder when the crisis is over will they be like christchurch cathedral and go back to the old, to business as usual or will they inhabit the new in an ongoing way?

i have been reading mark's story (gospel) of jesus life this lent - in fact i have been thinking about mark for a year or so. today i laughed out loud when i read the part where jesus' disciples are admiring the temple in jerusalem and saying something along the lines of 'look at these magnificent buildings' to which jesus replies saying they will be demolished and not one stone will be left on top of another! at that stage the disciples really don't seem to get what jesus is about. he is starting a new community of people following in the way of jesus. they largely met and gathered in small groups and communities in homes in the early days. there's no reason why that might not still be a brilliant idea...

when i was in new zealand one of the things i found really inspiring was the imaginative approaches to being church amongst young adults. i got to visit wellington for one day and hang out with some pioneers over breakfast and catch up with bishops eli and justin who are great. it was also good to meet scottie reeve, catch up with jethro who studied with us at cms for a term and others including one follower of my blog (small world and all that) and hear about a network of homes that are community houses for church in a different way. they share life, prayer, mission, food together. in the background seem to be a few decades of a deep rhythm of prayer and radical discipleship through urban vision. i apologise if my description is a bit clunky or not quite right but i was only there for a day - do leave a comment if you are part of it,

the anglican church in wellington have embarked on an experiment in one neighbourhood led by scottie and anna where they have bought a building which is on the high street which can house a residential community, have a small chapel, and run a community space and perhaps an enterprise or two. sadly i didn't take a photo of it as i got there late at night and left first thing (that's my excuse) so can't show you but i thought it is exactly the kind of imagination that is needed - so refreshing to see. the regular church building i assume is being sold or decommissioned. it is just in the throes of beginning so there is not much more to tell on that particular community yet.

i picked up a daily prayer book: he taro ma - tatou daily prayer, that those communities use which i have been using since. though i am on the other side of the world it feels good to unite in spirit and in prayer. i couldn't find where that is available online - let me know in a comment if it is. today's morning prayer was on peacemaking and non violence and references some of the maori prophets and cms missionaries. i'll get back that in the next post...

musings from the other side of the word 3: smug statues and street art saints

[see part 1 kiwi and proud and part 2 am i in england?]

getting stuck in christchurch in new zealand longer than planned meant i had time to wander the streets a bit with camera in hand. i really don't do that enough - linger in a place with time on my hands and get lost on the streets. it's such a great way to see a place. 

one of the immediate things in christchurch that you see is that it is still very much post earthquake and i'll come back to that in a later post. but the other thing i began to notice was street art. i subsquently discovered that post-quake christchurch has become a hub for street art with various festivals and artists commissioned to paint huge murals.

i began to reflect on the contrast between the more fixed statues in the city and the newer street art. lots of cities have pompous statues - london has plenty! look at this guy john robert godley who was the founder of the canterbury settlement ariving in 1850. i really don't like this statue which is in front of christchurch cathedral! he has a sort of english colonialist swagger about him towering over you. it may be totally unfair and i don't know much about him. but i am not naive about english colonial behaviour either. reading up on him, the canterbury settlement (which is the wider area christchurch is in) was particularly tied up with the church of england and he worked to set up the canterbury association with edward wakefield securing 300 000 acres of land. that involved dealing with the new zealand company. when you read artilces in wikipedia or in encylopedias they are very matter of fact about it all. i am not a historian but i am pretty suspicious about this sort of story - so sure enough a bit of digging and it turns out that the wakefield brothers and the new zealand company were a very shady land grabbing company hustling all sorts of property and land from maori by whatever means legal or illegal or inbetween. they lobbied hard to get the treaty of waitangi dismissed. i'll come back to the treaty in a later post but it is the treaty between maori and the british that gives equal rights to maori and settlers. the new zealand company also hated the missionaries with a vengeance because they advocated for the maori. so even if he was a good guy there were some other shameful things going on.

here's another statue in the road below hagley park - james edward fitzgerald. i read up what i could find on him and to be honest they made him sound a really incredible man. it must have been so challenging to work to build a settlement. but he too worked with the wakefields on the settlement. i was giving him the benefit of the doubt. but then his name cropped up in bible and treaty by keith newman which i was reading which said "when the national assembly first met in 1854 the the colonial office had already agreed that native affairs would be the sole preserve of the governor. premier james edward fitzgerald also used the occasion to to announce his plan to acquire 12 million acres - about forty percent of the north island - for settlement. while some maori would resist, the balance should be acquired." wow! according to this article he was an advocate for maori rights, and for self government for new zealand and wanted maori to take part in government and tried to develop policies to improve relations. but at the same time he was securing as much land for settlement as he could. clearly not straightforward and certainly more swagger in the christchurch landscape.

i got slightly obsessed with street art and have added an album of photos - street art in christchurch. i photographed things that caught my attention rather than everything i saw. but two things immediately grabbed me. the first is that the iconography of street saints inc hcristchurch is so different to the statues. the predominant figure celebrated in the landscape is a woman and by and large those women are indigenous. i love the mural above for example. this is whero o te rangi bailey painted by kevin ledo. she was a local elder who the artist painted from a photograph. she was a teacher, counsellor, and "a humble woman who radiated a peaceful and loving energy which was felt by all" according to her daughter.

here is another. it is painted by erika pearce and is of harlem-croz atarangi ihaia. this brings me on to the second thing i noticed - birds. the bird in this picture is the huia which is extinct - sadly the only place i saw one was in canterbury museum stuffed. in this image the woman is wearing kawakawa leaves which would be worn in mourning so it's an image that speaks of sadness and loss. othe birds that feature are largely indigenous birds - the tui, bellbird and kiwi for example.

there were others too such as this image kaitaki by fin dac with an owl and kingfisher - i'd love to read the iconography of that image if someone has any ideas. i have read up that it is about protection and a warning but the image is so interesting. what do the birds represent? the feathers? the eye mask? the kiwi is obviously a national icon but it seemed to me that the birds in so many murals both mourn something that has been lost and express a longing for something too. the loss is real - through settlement the population of birds has been decimated both through the felling of forests but also through the introduction of predators as this mural bunnies vs birds articulates. it's also a loss of deeper and wider things i suspect. but i wonder if they also represent a deep longing, a longing for a recovery of something, to be at home in the land in an environment where the indigenous bird and people are free to be at home. perhaps the longing is not just for recovery but for a new future?

there is a new mural that went up this year on welles street which is really bright and zingy. i didn't photograph the whole thing but you can see an image of the full mural here. it is called cassandra's dream and painted by yoobee design students caitlin booth, sarah dickie, caleb harris, victoria marshall, kayla salt, and phillipa suckling. it is very celebratory and includes all sorts of aspects of christchurch life - creativity, innovation, nature, food, design, dancing, heritage. cassandra in greek mythology uttered true prophecies that no one believed. i can't believe the name is a coincidence or random though i couldn't find anything about it online (cassandra's dream is also the name of a woody allen film). here is a vision that a new christchurch, a new new zealand is possible but will anyone believe it could be so?!

 

musings from the other side of the world 2: am i in england?!

[see part 1: kiwi and proud which ended i hadn't expected to be confronted with england...]

in lent, the community i am part of grace is encouraging practices of soil, soul and society. for soil i am taking note of trees in my road and on ealing common which is my local park. it will be ongoing but i realised a while back that i had walked past trees for years and had no idea what they were so i thought i'd find out as a way of getting to know the place i am in. i won't share the whole list now but of course it includes classics such as lime, plane, oak, horse chestnut, hazel, poplar, beech, hornbeam, birch.

i don't know what i expected in new zealand but after a few days in christchurch i realised i was confused because these were the trees i could see there. in fact i was running through the lovely hagley park and realised the reason i hadn't taken any photos was because it looked like i was in any park in ealing or cambridge or wherever in england. so in the end i did take photographs because the thing that became of interest was the similarity not the difference! what was even stranger was that in the botanical gardens there was a section entitled new zealand. that was a small area with native trees and plants. i began thinking why isn't there a small section labelled england in the botanical gardens with the rest of the park and country being made up of indigenous or native trees? this was further compounded when visiting orokonui which is a lovely ecosanctuary near dunedin. steve taylor took me there and it is fenced off like a rewilding or wilding project and it's beautiful in its trees and plants and birds. in fact the sounds of the birds are amazing - tui, bellbird and the like. i was in canterbury which is an area that it seems the settlers determined to make like england. and i did not visit the west coast which i understand is more like rainforest or the north which is hotter and no doubt more exotic. so this is a very limited view. but it piqued my interest and got me wondering about the process of colonisation and in particular what was the mindset of those who settled. 

i found out that there are whole books on the subject of plants and animals being taken to other countries - they have a range of ways of describing the process - naturalisation, accilmatisation, intrusion, invasion (which of course are interesting words for the whole process of colonisation). the book exotic intruders is online here. and this article on acclimatisation is a pretty good summary. there were acclimatisation societies that were set up as there was a sort of fervour around the idea of introducing plants and animals that could be of use. for settlers the first motivation was survival and sustainability - in other words food! there were apparently not a lot of vegetables and fruit that was easy to access. polynesian islanders had introduced some plants like sweet potato and europeans quickly introduced potatoes, vegetables and all sorts of other plants and fruit trees along with pigs so they could eat. a lot of it acclimatised well. rabbits were introduced and then stoats, ferrets and weasels to keep the population down. of course you do something like that and it has consequences - the native bird population which was not used to these predators struggled through that and the decimation of the native bush cleared for farming. the kiwi is now endangered for example. darwin when he visited said that he thought many of the native plants would not survive the onslaught of the new competitors. it sounds very much like his 'survival of the fittest'. he said 

If all the animals and plants of Great Britain were set free in New Zealand ... in the course of time a multitude of British forms would become thoroughly acclimatised there, and would exterminate many of the natives.

boats came out with blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows, partridges and so on most of which died on the way! i can't get my head round why you would take a sparrow!!! two thirds of new zealand was covered with native bush when settlers arrived and now maybe one fifth is. huge amounts of forest were cleared, swamps drained and so on and the landscape gradually changed. whose to say what is good or bad about this process? i certainly don't have any idea of the wisdom or not of introducing plants, trees and animals. and hindsight is something you only have after the event. in london we have a mix of native and introduced trees such as the plane tree. we know a lot more now than we did then. new zealand is a very fertile country exporting all kinds of things so at some level it worked well. but the cost in terms of creatures and plants has been high too such that some species are now extinct such as the huia (more on that later). new zealand today is a very different prospect and tight on bio security aware of the risks of introducing unwanted plants and creatures that might attack a particular tree for example. 

the thing i hadn't quite appreciated is that colonialism at least in canterbury in new zealand did not just export people and culture. they sought to recreate home, to recreate england almost as a total environment and landscape down to the sort of birdsong they could hear. it is quite a scary imaginary. i have found it quite hard to think myself into it. it doesn't take much of a leap to see how if native species were valued so little then native indigenous peoples and their way of life and culture could be seen in similar fashion. rework darwin's  quote above changing 'animals and plants' to 'people' and right there is the colonial mindset i fear. 

i like to think i would have done it differently. listened, taken time, worked with the local culture, been careful about the introduction of plants, trees and anaimals and their impact on the environment and so on. but i am pretty sure that if i had been alive then i would have done the same thing and thought it was great. so i am not standing on a high horse in judgement. but it's surprising where noticing a few trees takes you in your thinking.

christchurch has a reputation for being very english and that englishness is really a particular kind too - oxford or cambridge - perhaps this is epitomised by this photo of punting on the river. 

i was in christchurch longer than expected due to coronavirus - the rest of my trip was cancelled and i had to rearrange flights. this meant i had a bit more time to wander the streets and see what else i could see...

 

musings from the other side of the world 1: kiwi and proud

this is the first in a series of blog posts which i have called musings from the other side of the world.

i have spent a couple of weeks in new zealand - part holiday and part study leave. i have just got back and i am going to post a series of reflections inspired by the trip. i am a little cautious about it because i don’t know a lot about new zealand and there will be people who have studied and reflected at depth on the things i touch on. i am also english and we english are part of new zealand’s story back in the day as colonialist settlers. i also work for church mission society (cms) and cms missionaries landed in new zealand pretty early in that story and are tied up with its founding and treaty and, as i discovered, that is in quite contested fashion.

i am deliberately writing these as blog posts because blog posts are in the moment, journal like, sharing some thoughts that soon scroll down the page. but i welcome any push back or conversation. i loved talking with people i met in new zealand about these things.

my experience of friends i know from new zealand is that they are super proud of it. they love talking about it. they love making a connection to anyone or anything from new zealand. in fact if there is a chance to claim someone has a connection to new zealand they make it. i love that. i think i particularly love it because i have never felt that way about england - as far as i am concerned there is too much shame in our story! so for example i can never bring myself to wear an england shirt.

anyway all that is to say it is a beautiful country. i loved it! i only really got to see some of the south island (plus a day in wellington) and even then i did not make the north or the west coast of the south island. at some stage i hope i can go back and spend some more time there. a friend roger who used to be a neighbour and is now retired lives there for a few months every year and he has kept trying to persuade me to visit - he also has become an evangelist for new zealand! he hosted me and chauffeured me around - i really appreciated his generosity and kindness especially as i ended up staying a bit longer than planned due to having to change my wider plans because of coronavirus.

we did a whistle stop tour loop largely of mountains and lakes beginning at christchurch and travelling to…

tekapo lake where the night sky is spectacular;

mount cook which was out of clouds and looked stunning across lake pukaki;

lake wanaka where i photographed a tree that is apparently the most photographed tree in new zealand though it has sadly been damaged just this week;

queenstown which really is tourist central where you can do all manner of sports and outdoor activities - like paragliding - i remember my sister showing us a video of her bungee jumping in skipper canyon when she was travelling in a gap year so it was nice to drive by that bridge. we had a more gentile activity going on the earnslaw steamboat down lake wakatipu;

dunedin where it was lovely to catch up with steve taylor at orokanui ecosanctuary where we saw some indigenous shrub, trees and birds (more on that in another blog post);

oamaru which as well as being home to some penguins is a global hub for steampunks;

stopping off at the weird and wonderful moeraki boulders on the way back to christchurch.

i also travelled on day trips to banks peninsula and akaroa. in akaroa where we went on a magical boat trip seeing endangered hector dolphins, blue penguins, albatross and seals. i loved seeing the albatross swooping behind the boat with its amazing flight and huge wingspan. ever since i was a kid i have felt excitement whenever i see dolphins especially in the wild so it was a treat to see hector dolphins. i love the outdoors and being in environments like new zealand do wonders for my soul and spirit.

there is so much beauty in the world and new zealand certainly has its share of it. it has amazing natural resource. it’s a similar size to britain but with only 5 million people. its people are laid back, sporty, hard working, friendly and love to travel. and they make great coffee! what is there not to like?

i have added an album of photographs to flickr - new zealand

kiwi and proud - seems so much simpler than being english and embarrassed! and yet maybe there are some layers of complexity underneath? while i was in christchurch i met some local church leaders and people interested in pioneering and mission. over breakfast we shared conversations and stories and questions (and breakfast!). one of the people who shared what they were up to described their pioneering as exploring what it meant to be a kiwi church and what kiwi identity might be. this was clearly a space in which there was plenty of deconstructing and reconstructing going on. i asked what they meant by kiwi identity as opposed to new zealand identity. kiwi spirituality or church or identity for them seemed to be a way of naming the desire for something beyond anglican, presbyterian, weslyian or vineyard (or whatever other form of western shaped, constructed and inherited church) and also something beyond new zealand identity as constructed solely in the settler communities. in other words a new kind of authenticity that weaves together a hybrid from the various threads of the communities in new zealand in a way that feels honest. like england this is about the wider changes in culture and needing something that resonates in today's world but my sense of this was that it is also getting at the settler, maori and pacific islanders stories and identitites as well. this is not what was said but i read this to be a quest for something post colonial as well as missional. indeed i began to wonder if it was possible to have one without the other.

the conversation took me back to a scene in the film whale rider where the maori grandfather is explaining the maori tradition and the importance of it and the ancestors (the whakapapa) to his granddaughter with a piece of rope showing various threads. he then uses the rope to start a boat motor and it snaps at which point he says 'useless bloody rope'. that tension - a longing for the gifts in the traditions, the ancestral wisdom and a feeling that it is also broken in today's world - is a tension i sensed is very much alive in new zealand. how do you reweave the rope? to really be kiwi and proud might need that weave.

something i hadn't expected was to be confronted with england and my own englishness...

i always knew you would come back

i am currently on a couple of months extended leave from work which is a wonderful thing to be able to do. it's fairly common in other colleges teaching theology that people get time to research and write from time to time and i am glad to say cms have recently agreed that for people like me who are involved in teaching you can apply to do so every four years. i jumped at the chance as this year i think i can fit that in my life! apart from instagram where i post photos i decided to keep a fairly low profile on social media as that can be such a distraction and take what could be headspace for reflecting on other things. but given the weird circumstances we are now in i thought i would post an update and indeed i feel like i have a number of blog posts i want to write so may start to post a bit more anyway.

the exciting news is that i have finished writing a book i have been working on with cathy ross. it's called imagining mission with john v taylor and will be out in the summer in time for greenbelt (hoping that goes ahead?!). i am excited about it and thankful to cathy for inviting me to work on it with her. we had done loads of work on it already before my leave so no i haven't written a book in a few weeks, but i have had the time to add some sections especially focussing on creativity and how you can nurture imaginative approaches to things. john taylor was a cms leader back in the 60s and 70s and the book riffs off of his bold and inspiring work to hopefully speak in a creative and contemporary voice about mission today. anyway more about that nearer the time i guess. 

then the second thing i wanted to do was to take the opportunity to get inspired by visiting other contexts especially to think about pioneering. so the first stop has been new zealand where i am now (and part of that has been welcome rest). i was also due to visit three places in asia to learn more about cms and mission there but unsurprisingly i have had to cancel those. i certainly picked a weird time to travel! i have been to christchurch airport twice so far and returned having had to cancel flights for different reasons. but i am due to fly back later today and get into london thursday. i have boarding pass and seat numbers so am hoping it will all be fine as no doubt the uk will shut its borders like other european countries before long. the photo above seemed apt - and i hope it's not too optimistic. i hope it doesn't prove to be poignant because my host roger gets another phone call from me at the airport saying i am still here and can he come back and pick me up again...

i have loved new zealand - what a beautiful country! this is my first visit. i have not seen much of it really having spent all but one day in the south island but what i have i have loved. and it has been so interesting in relation to cms whose missionaries are so tied up with new zealand's history. one of the ideas around creativity that we explore in the book is that you often come up with ideas when you get knocked off your usual routine as it provokes you in a different way. the most common kind of provocation is something that happens to you that you simply learn to receive. so getting stuck in new zealand has been that kind of a provocation and the gift that has been in it is that in the extended time i have had here i have had more conversations and time to reflect on mission in new zealand and its history. one of the people i met, paul has been amazing in that regard and i have so far read huia come home, bible and treaty and our story: aotearoa – the story of mission in new zealand through the lens of the new zealand church missionary society whilst in coffee shops or park benches round christchurch. i won't say more about that now but i will no doubt blog some thoughts from a naive outsider's perspective at some point.

i have taken a ton of photos - i'll add some here as part of reflections but i have added a selection to two flickr albums if you are interested -

new zealand + street art in christchurch

ants in the pants of the body of christ - first expressions

steve taylor was celebrating the launch of first expressions last night. sadly i couldn’t join him as it was in new zealand (though i am hoping to see him next week as i am off on some travels!). first expressions is a reflection on some of the first wave of new expressions of church that back then were either called alternative worship or emerging church. the language of fresh expressions had not yet landed. steve researched these back when he was doing his phd in 2001. he then revisited the communities in 2013 and met with those involved. i have a personal interest as grace is one of the communities in the research, one of the first expressions, and steve came and had a meal and conversation with a group of us as part of that.

it’s so interesting and such a gift to have someone external take the time to research and write and reflect back to you on what they observe and notice in the sense making they do of what was really you and a bunch of others making some stuff up as you went along. steve posits that the birthing and becoming back then has contributed so richly to the wider life and mission of the church, to the becoming of the church in the west. steve is a creative thinker, writer, and theologian who is close to the ground as someone involved in mission practice and someone who also can navigate the theory. this is what makes it have such a ring of authenticity. 

he frames the whole book through a lens of innovation and the mission of god. i really like innovation as a frame. i have blogged about others writing on innovation and mission - it seems to be a growing conversation. steve takes four approaches to innovation - growth, ecology, indigenous and craft. this immediately begins to open up a broader ecclesiology than the usual narrow ‘gathered and grow’ one that seems to dominate (not that there is anything wrong with gathering or growing per se), what he calls a woven ecclesiology. in conversation with tim nash of nomad i recently explored the wider ecosystem of church life and think this broadening of the landscape helps see that trying new things, innovating, making fresh connections, building communities, sharing ideas and so on seeds all sorts of things in the wider environment. in the natural world it is entirely normal that things grow and age and die and seed other things. i can’t help wondering if a big part of our church challenge is there is not enough permission for dying as well as birthing because we have so many buildings we just seem to have to keep going for ever!!!

steve researches 10 first expressions. half of them no longer exist. steve explores this in detail as he too founded a fresh expression that no longer exists as a gathered community. and it’s lovely to read research that is able to show the immense value in birthing, trying and becoming and how it contributes richly to the wider church producing lots of good in and of itself. it’s hard to know what impacts what but these first expressions have been followed by an amazing amount of innovation and life through fresh expressions and so on. steve takes an organisational look with an interview with rowan williams, a reflection on fresh expressions and how that has helped institutional change, and also how mission is organised. i found the last part very interesting as i work for a mission organisation. it is interesting how challenging the way that first expressions structure and organise is for institutions to marry with their institutional ways ways of being and organising. steve comes back to this in a further chapter where he uses the eucharist as an example of the relationship between innovation and order and how existing governance structures might need to be broken and remade. 

there are so many layers and ideas and reflections in the book. this is really just a hasty blog post to say the book’s out and it’s really worth a read and conversation with others. i think it’s valuable for those of us who were involved at whatever stage, there’s loads to learn for those who have pioneered and are pioneering since, and there is plenty for the wider church in mission to ponder. steve concludes by suggesting that ecclesial innovation is the ants in the pants of the body of christ! 

Ecclesial innovation is the ants in the pants of the body of Christ. Ecclesial innovation enables a becoming as one, apostolic, holy and catholic church. It makes visible the reality that is the conversion of the Spirit in individuals, communities and organisational structures. Hence innovation has value as it makes the church be the church, awakening the essentiality of becoming as one, apostolic, holy and catholic church. Such is the mission of God through first expressions.

big thanks to steve for taking the time to do the research and offer this into the wider conversation. and it was a reminder to me of how much fun it has been to be part of a first expression grace, and my life since has been committed to enabling that innovation in mission to be encouraged and catalysed and multiplied elsewhere. i guess i have never thought of myself as the ants in the pants but it's probably fairly accurate :) . there’s lots of hope but also a long way to go, and a lot more becoming to be done.

if you are in wellington or anywhere else nearby in new zealand...

... harry is coming your way and performing next week on feb 3 and 4. sadly i won't be there myself!

stations of the cross looked like this...

you may remember i blogged here about stations of the cross if you are in nz . it looks like it was amazing - a review and photos here...

if you are in nz

stations of the cross is back this year in hamilton - one of these years i'll make it over!

you can download audio tracks to go with the stations here.

the insatiable moon

the premiere of the insatiable moon was a wonderful evening. the film is based on the novel of the same name by mike riddell which follows the story of arthur, a man who has mental health issues. he thinks he is the second son of god and is part of a community of men with mental health issues who unite around a care in the community home. some members of the community are trying to close the home down to clean up the neighbourhood and others fight for its survival. the charm of the tale is that arthur does seem to mediate something of the presence of god. there are some very powerful scenes. difficult issues are tackled but with a warmth underlying the film and a love of the humanity of the guys.

i guess every film is a long journey only i don't normally know about it. but because i know pip and mike i've followed the journey of this film on and off over 8 years or so. i remember pip saying he wanted to work with mike to turn this into a film way back! that journey has involved fund raising, script writing, recruiting, working out how to continue when a big funder dropped out and so on. in the end the whole thing was made for under a million dollars - i have no idea how exactly. so to see it being played around cinemas in new zealand and now opened in the west end was wonderful. it is actually going to be in cinemas in the uk in january/february so look out for it. you must go and see it. rawiri paratene plays arthur. he was the grandfather in whale rider which was an amazing film. he read the novel and as a result tracked mike down as he wanted to see it as a film and play arthur!

something old something new - hamilton stations a perfect example

something old something new is an article i wrote for the leadership journal in their current issue. the piece has just been put online. in some ways it's nothing that i haven't said a few times before but i'm quite pleased with it...

it opens up talking about stations of the cross in hamilton run by dave white and friends (which i previously blogged about here taking street art to a new level when i met dave last year) which is a curious case of good timing as this year's stations of the cross is running in hamilton as we speak. you can see photos of them here and the audio for the stations is also online - it looks wonderful as ever.

australian post 5 - taking street art to a new level

melbourne is known as the street art capital of the world (at least in melbourne!). it's not hard to see why. every inch of spare wall or garage door is sprayed, stencilled, tagged or stickered. there are some amazing large scale pieces, whole streets of colour, quirky messages and a lot of it is there one day and gone the next as something else takes its place. religion gets a bad rap as ever but i did spot jesus in disguise as a street artist! there are a few streets that are just entirely graffiti and the city council clearly have a policy of creating spaces for this art form. i have added a photo album melbourne street art to flickr. i did see one sole woman lovingly painting her wall white over graffiti but it was looking like an invitation...

at the nosh gathering in queenscliff there were a group from incedo in new zealand. incedo is nzyfc re-invented as a mission order. i really liked what they were up to... dave white, based in hamilton, is  running  a stations of the cross art project on a huge scale outside in the public gardens. he showed us some photos and talked about it. about 3500 visitors passed through the 2008 one. they gather each evening and journey round the stations in groups. the team have to assemble and take down the stations each day for the whole of holy week. mark pierson who i always think of as the person who inspired lots of groups to re-invent stations said that this is simply the best stations in the world. i think he's right. it clearly began on a smaller scale inside a church building, progressed to more public space in a theatre and now is outdoors - see the history. the photos and video give an idea of the scale and the size of the task involved. one station involved people holding an ice cube with a leaf shaped cross in it - this meant making 4000 of them in advance. another involved a guillotine, another creating a 9m light shade suspended over a pond and so on. it's run by a loose collective of artists who 'share meals, paint brushes and the zeitgeist of the resurrection'.

it is inspirational, it's in public space, it's creative and imaginative, it partners with local council and community groups, it's caught the public imagination and it invites people into the story. this is taking street art to a new level...

chrysalis

following on from the post about spirited exchanges a couple of posts back, chrysalis arrived in the post. this is the latest book by alan jamieson (who blogs here with paul). (i think i mentioned it before when i got the manuscript?). alan has written several books offering commentary on and research on church leavers. he has made the case that the journey they are on is valid and in some cases leaving church may even be essential to move on in their growth. i think his work has been very important both to help people in that space and to help churches understand the different journies people can be on.

chrysalis is in the same area but it is a book aimed at the individual in that space of transformation on the journey of faith. it is a thin book (always a plus as far as i am concerned) and is absolutely wonderful. when i originally had the manuscript i immediately gave it away to some people who i could see were exactly in the space it was talking about.

i don't quite know why but i have become an endorser of books - i'm really not sure what value it has or what it means but anyway i am usually glad to oblige particularly if it is someone i know and a book i am enthusiastic about. i gave rather a long endorsement of this one so here it is by way of a review...

chrysalis is a wonderful book that will help many people on their journey of faith. there are many who come to a stage of christian faith where what once sustained them has grown dry and lifeless. no amount of trying harder seems to improve things. this can be a confusing lonely experience and resources to help people in that space are hard to find. chrysalis is a gift to the person in this place offering some signposts or a roadmap and encouragement for the difficult journey. this is a process many travellers have been on before, is normal and leads to transformation into a different kind of experience of faith. it's a book that many church leaders will find helpful to understand those seemingly restless souls in their communities, and to help imagine christian communities that can create spaces for people at different stages of faith.

towards the end of the book alan outlines ten characteristics of this journey which sort of summarise it as a journey...

from black and white to an embrace of black and white and greys
from dependence to interdependence
from answers to mystery and childlike wonder
from doing to being (a deep sense of being accepted by god)
from playing a role to a new giving of self for others
from trust in external authorities to an integration of internal and external voices
from effortful faith to resting faith
from martha's faith to faith that expresses mary's heart and martha's hands
from needing leaders to co-discerning with others
from external truth to communal and paradoxical truth

reading that list makes me think it's about maturing, growing up, taking responsibility. whilst it looks easy actually the journey through those things is anything but. the mystics have referred to it as the dark night of the soul or chrysalis with good reason. but if you are on that journey, this book will be a good friend.

emerging church postcards 2007

go and send steve taylor an emerging church postcard for 2007

take me to the peace labyrinth in new zealand

i love seeing what steve taylor and community get up to each year for advent. if i was in new zealand i'd love to join in. of course it's a bit different to what you can do in the uk as it's summer!

well this year they have a peace labyrinth that has a wonderful promotion campaign and video. driftwood little people with eyes are being left around the city with a tag on saying take me to the peace labyrinth. you can read about it on steve's blog but do watch the trailer. this is fun, spiritual, in the marketplace, and totally over the top - brilliant. i look forward to seeing how it goes.

in response to steve taylor's question: is there a missional agency for the missional church?

steve taylor is today speaking to reps from mission agencies in new zealand on the subject is there a mission agency for a missional church? great to see this being addressed. however steve's original post seems to suggest that he assumes the answer is no - he describes his reluctance to even go for fear of being fed to the lions. i found all of this a bit odd - setting up a straw man kind of thing which is too easy to do so that you feel better for knocking it down.

it obviously begs the question what steve means by missional but his recent response on that to alan roxburgh is to take a narrative approach and show how peoples' imaginations are shifting in a mission direction in his community trying to think how mission applies in their context. so taking a similar tack, this is a few of the things happening in cms, the mission(al) community who employ me.

by way of an intro cms has been around a couple of hundred years and has been part of sharing the gospel of christ in cultures around the world. it's history is complex and contains a mix of inspiring stories of contetxtual mission growing indigenous expressions of church and expressions of church shaped by what i call a colonised imagination.

these are some of the things we 're up to. (my job by the way is leading a team that  encouarges missional leadership and communities)

• we're trying to apply the best of thinking about cross cultural mission to mission in western cultures. europe is a mission context. and part of that context is the challenge of the shift to postmodern times or whatever you want to call it. in many places it feels as though the church is wedded to a bygone era so huge experimentation is taking place and massive change. we work with churches to help them on this journey of change and with the experiments at the edge. thinking specifically about the edge we help...
• share stories - e.g launched the web site www.emergingchurch.info
• encourage reflection and conversation - via a series of blahs around the country to wrestle with the mission challenges, a number of tours related to that with the likes of ryan bolger and karen ward and aland hirsch and mike frost.
• encourage  virtual conversation and dialogue - via blogs, web 2.0 apps, sharing resources, linking people together etc. andrew jones, richard white, mark berry, and me are all part of the team i lead and are very much locked into the online conversations.
• publishing - articles, newspaper columns, podcasts, books, pdfs etc
• networking and encouraging those on the journey - we have helped catalyse and encourage a number of networks. all networks should be relational if they are going to work. some of these are public and some hideen. but we value getting people together to share stories and support each other on the journey. we're not the experts in this. we're also on the journey. two examples of networks - an entrepreneurial network discussing talent and ideas to create social, spiritual and economic captial, and one of mission leaders/key players and communities in the uk. we get together a few times a year and yac online. we help co-ordinate greenbelt worship and specifically a venue for new forms of (missional) church.
• training - we are involved in a number of training initiatives - one example is ReSource - a year long training course for leaders of mission communities or people wanting to start them but we are all regularly training both the church as it is and the emerging new forms of church.
• mission praxis - we have people as part of cms (actually hopefully all of us) who are trying to learn what it is to be missional and have our imaginations reshaped. so mark berry is on my team developing something new in telford and inspires me regularly. i am involved in grace and we are trying to engage (one of our ethos words) in mission locally. we have initiated a team to do stuff at mind body spirit festival in london etc. to this we bring our imagination and creativity. i am working with a team to help try new stuff amongst youth in a rural area of britain to develop new expressions of church where they are clearly not going to join the existing ones. etc etc. richard white is part of dream, a networked mission community in liverpool and is catalysing the birthing of small mission communities elsewhere along with andrew jones. some of these will be in the institutional frameworks and some will be under the radar.
• helping develop residential mission communities - trying to work out to redsicover mission in particular places drawing inspiration from other mission(al) residential communities.
• a youth team who are currently touring the uk working with schools telling the story of the abolition of slavery and encouraging them to reflect and consider modern day slavery and how to get involved in campaigning against that. we are producing a dvd course for youth groups on mission that we will be giving away to thousands of churches next year.
• give people cross cultural experience - facilitating interchange and relationships globally between communities and leaders etc.

i could go on... but i don't think cms ask me to do anything that isn't encouraging the missional church or that isn't missional. of course i get frustrated - it's been around 200 years or so. but there is great freedom and great will for change following the beckoning of god into the future.

in all of these things we try and offer what we do as gift, as a contribution to the wider body of christ. we are fellow travellers. we don't heavily brand or control. we have a fund rasing department who i think get frustrated at times that cms is too hidden in our work. but we have to trust that as we do what we feel is right that it will encourage the kingdom of god and resources will flow. if they don't then i guess it will just all end anyway!

on a wider level cms is engaged in some of the following  -

• thinking what god is calling us to be in a post colonial world. we have plenty of mistakes in our past (and we're not alone). part of this in the next few years will be cms africa and cms asia being independent. they currently have african and asian directors, staff and offices but governance is still by british trustees. so the future will be a networked family of mission(al) agencies with an interchange of theologies, people, resources all united by a shared (missional) ethos or dna. it's a struggle to re-emerge as this of course but it is clearly where the spirit is calling us to head. i'm excited about this. it will include a letting go of power and control (much of which has hopefully been let go already). i suspect it will also mean a lot less white people going to do stuff and a lot more of going to learn and share and interchange (a cms jargon word but a good one). two collegaues have just been to an exciting get together in africa (not amahoro though i am sure that was also good - a cms gathering of leaders) where they were there to listen and learn and it's exciting to hear the younger generation of african leaders tackling the post colonial question in their context.
• reconfiguring as a mission community - this is a bit of a technical anglican thing but cms is exploring shifting to a mission community recognised by the c of e - so it would have an episcopal visitor - in practice this will mean being part of cms will be to share a mission(al) imagination and spirituality and rhythm. what exactly this will look like we don't yet know. but i guess it's a quasi monastic thing. and we would be able to birth mission(al) communities which we are already doing anyway.
• thinking hard about europe - the mission shaped church stuff has led to a lot of creative experiments in the uk. it's a creative place to be. but many parts of europe are struggling with the cultural turn and mission challenge. so how can we help other europeans on the journey?

i aksed tim dakin the head honcho of cms about missional agency and he said some of these things:

cms has always tried to enable church to be missional in its context. we create a missional dimension as a living active force. it's dangerous because it challenges any attempt to define the church by an institutional centre. church has to be defined by mission. cms = msc (mission shaped church).
[as an aside steve i think your defence in your presentation slides of local church as biblical basis for mission is a bit weak - the body of christ has of course local expressions but it also needs translocal expressions and movements and other forms - it's a typical move of a local church pastor in my experience but not one i buy in terms of ecclesiology].

all the things that we are attempting to embody - our programme - is ourselves. deconstructing and refounding ourselves. i.e. we have to be missional in our imaginations and praxis.

we are committed to experimentation, mission delivery at edges.

what we are trying to do is rework the founding vision of the society for today's context

i'm going on so i'll draw to a close. please understand this is a hasty pouring out rather than a crafted article. in other words if i wasn't so busy i could do better!

but in conclusion the reason i joined cms is that i think the two gifts that i see mission agencies have are insights about cross cultural mission (or contextual mission) and a window into the global christ and body of christ. both of these gifts are badly needed in our time and in the mission(al) church, particularly the latter. i also joined them because they offered to pay me to encourage the missional church!

kiwis are always inspired about lent

mark pierson always does something inspiring for lent. and he is usually kind enough to send me something in the post. when i got back from lee abbey last week a small packet of lenten reflections was waiting for me. these are a set of little cards - one for each day of lent. if you want to follow along, then there is a flickr set of the cards that you can look at each day through lent.

similarly i always watch with interest to see what steve taylor and community will get up to for lent. this year they have produced the lenten 7 pack - 7 images, 7 practices, 7 texts. they are business size cards that will fit into your wallet - spirituality to go.

and cityside have developed a process for lent to encourage prayer and art making. the desert files is a simple idea - they put stimulus on their web page and people use that to create art and pray. at the end there is an exhibition of work from the process - brilliant! in fact this is such a good idea that i'm making it a worship trick [93] - maybe we'll try it next year? we often do an exhibition in the run up to easter (this year we are running breathe) but i like the idea of something being created during lent...

on the subject of worship tricks and kiwis, tallskinnykiwi posted a piece that makes a pretty good reflection for lent dangerous words of jesus that he has scripted to run with a sigur ros video. it's a great video - i first saw it at a ReSource weekend. so that makes it as worship trick 94

so thank you to my kiwi friends who are always inspired about lent (or so it seems)...

spirited exchanges and churchless faith 5 years on

had a fab time at lunch today with alan jamieson presenting at cms on churchless faith and giving an insight into his latest research which is in a book published already in new zealand and being published in the uk in august. in it he basically follows up the church leavers whose stories are told in churchless faith.

it was also good to be able to tell people about spirited exchanges uk - based on the inspiration of alan and jenny's work in new zealand we have been quietly setting this up in the uk. if you are interested in finding out what's happening or want to connect with other people in your area go and sign up on the e-mail list. greenbelt this year will be a good place to touch base in more detail with what's happening.

we recorded the session today which will be added to the seuk web site or somewhere so if you missed it you can find out more. i'll let you know when it's up.

[update - you can download it here (13mb) ]

grace postcard from the edge

steve taylor's series of emerging church postcards continues.

we sent one from grace with a (fortunately small) photo of some of us in the hot tub...

emerging church postcards

steve taylor is posting a series of emerging church postcards.

an image and a short snapshot of communities round the world. we (grace) must get round to sending one. you can track the series of postcards. so far postcards from denmark, malaysia and australia. controversially steve doesn't want postcards from the US (though he was happy to have his book published by americans ;-) )...

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