implementing change

I'm blogging inspired by Steve Taylor again. He's just written about a 'migration day' that a software provider is offering for an updated version of their software, during which expert help will be available through an online chat room. As I read Steve's wondering about how this might be implemented in a church change - management setting, I became inspired.

I have been canvassing invested parties, and will be taking a proposal to church council next week, inviting the host congregation of The Esther Project to let us establish a story space for our various communities that gather in the one centre. My hope is that such a space will bring some of the smaller gatherings into the forefront of the attention of the wider community of number 26, and that we might be able to support and encourage each other better. So many of our smaller gatherings are around story in one way or another, and the communities of CC, ELC and EP are all entering phases of reimagining over the coming months, so why not try to bring some of the aspects of our lives together in one space, and in the one metaphor of story?

If council approve this idea, I think I will implement something of a 'migration day' - inviting people into the story space to see it, get comfortable with it, and to provide feedback about how it enhances or doesn't their engagement with the communities of faith connected to it.

Thanks Steve!

living a better story

I've been reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller, on the recommendation of my friend Michelle. 

Miller is narrating his movement from the couch into a better story, inspired by the process of turning his memoirs into a movie. 

He talks about the stories we tell, we listen to, and most importantly, the stories we live. I feel like I need to go back and read the book again, to allow the challenge to sink in and actually get me off the couch. 

If I am being fair, I'm probably not on the couch, in that I am actually involved in some creative, energising, life giving, 'better' stories. However, I was challenged by Miller's observations of the life of a writer, as a life of words, dreams, imagining - a life less lived than written about. I often get caught in the dreaming, the imagining, in the words, preferring their familiarity, comfort, and safety to the risky business of living a good story. Because, as Miller notes, the better stories involve the hero(ine) overcoming conflict to achieve the unachievable goal, beating the odds, sacrificing all, taking risks. 

Being fair, there is an element of risk about my story, answering a call of God to create opportunities for new forms of church to emerge, which involves challenging the mighty institution that is The Church; specifically, putting the idea out there for a new community called the Esther Project, and being totally at peace with the possibility that it might not 'succeed', and that this journey is a very public journey, and the risk is that I might fail on a large stage with the spotlight on me ... and there are sacrifices I make, though they seem so petty I can't bring myself to name them (luxuries of food and theatre, gym membership, time off). 

Being honest, there is much that is still quite safe, reserved, afraid, about the choices I make - I don't put my hand up for the difficult suburbs, the overseas mission. There are creature comforts I would be loathe to relinquish, like my M*A*S*H dvds, car, bed, health, car, contents insurance and roof over my head. 

So Donald Miller's story of getting up off the couch to live a better story invites me to ask questions of the story I am living. I may, on reflection, decide I am living a good story, with challenge and risk, plenty of friends, and in relationship with God. 

I may see ways I can improve my story, and I suspect we all might see that there is always somewhere new to take the hero/ine of our story, a new challenge, in order to move the character forward. 

The thing I set out to record here as one of the particular challenges to me, is this: that 'a good storyteller doesn't just tell a better story ... they invite other people into the story with them, giving them a better story too.' 

May we find the better story we might live, and as we do, bring others along with them, giving them a better story, too. 

art in church

another good reflection - this one on art in Uniting Churches. 

using stories in preaching

Just read a fantastic blog from Steve Taylor, with tips for using story in preaching. Well worth bookmarking.

every mistake we make is an opportunity to learn

Yesterday I was asked to expound on my faith and theology. I forgot to mention Jesus, and apparently after I left, some people drew attention to the fact.

I have been trying since that moment (as I walked away I realised my omition) to distill my faith and theology into an answer I won't fumble. This is what I came up with.

If theology is faith seeking understanding, at this point in my journey of faith, I understand God as

Creator Wisdom Spirit

source of life, love and grace

revealed in the stories of creation, Jesus, and community

known as transforming mystery, healing embrace, the cry of and for freedom.

with a sigh of relief at having found, at last, some words to express the inexpressible connection to the Divine.

Maundy Thursday worship

a week of full rich days

Well, it has been a week of creativity this week. I'm not sure I can get it all down faithfully, but I want to try, for better or worse.

The Esther Project has entered a period of discernment, in order to listen for the call of the Spirit into the next phase of our life together. The Esther Project was the focus of my supervised field education placement, part of my formation for ordination in the Uniting Church, which will come to an end after just over 9 months at Easter. Happily, those who have been gathering would like to continue to gather as The Esther Project beyond Easter. So we need to discern where we will gather and how we will organise ourselves with more shared leadership.

It is clear that ideally we need for me to continue in a key leadership role for another 5 years or more, as it takes at least this long for a community to be established, and I have been the vision caster of this community.

It is less clear whether staying at Christ Church will be the long term plan, or whether we might need to incorporate The Esther Project into a placement for me in another congregation, or create a placement separately or alongside an existing congregation.

Our conversation continues, or will do, when I email the summary of the discernment afternoon last Saturday to the core EP group ... (it's coming).

Christ Church continued its journey towards Easter with another portion of the story from Luke on Sunday morning, told by me with help from the children, who made themselves into a stellar fig tree. I'm not sure I told the story as effectively as I might, or perhaps it's a difficult passage, concerning the call to repent or perish, but the congregation didn't offer any wondering for this story ...

This Sunday, I am preparing the parable of the lost son and his brother, and their father (sometimes called the parable of the prodigal son). I've been moved this week by Steve Taylor's reflective retelling of this parable, and, while I will be telling the story reasonably 'straight' as it is recorded, I am hoping in some minor additions, and in my expressions, to convey some of the cultural background to such a story that a 21st century Australian listener doesn't have, to enhance the possibilities for meaning making and wondering.

On Steve Taylor's version, he spoke it into the Chapel worship space at college on Wednesday, which he had curated with Jonny Baker, who is visiting for some conversations around emerging / alternative forms of church. It is one of the most engaging worship spaces I have been in. Jonny's use of music, ambient, chants, as accompaniment to the eucharist; the poetry (spoken by the Irish poet himself and oh so musical); Steve's telling of the parable, and its invitation to us to finish the story; space for reflection; Jonny's photographic images; the warm, fresh baked bread for the eucharist (which was removed from the bread maker in the space as we began) ... sensory, creative, steeped in and also reinventing in order to keep alive our rich tradition - this is what worship should be.

And I've been involved in the Landscape of Desire installation, putting it together, hosting a couple of spaces as people enter into this installation. the feeling of being there - immediately I felt the gift of space to breathe, to engage, to reflect on my experience and journey through life in its darkness and its light, its dryness and its quenching of thirst ... the artistry of Jonny, Bltyhe and Cheryl is such a gift.

That's a long post, so I'll leave it there. I have found it an extraordinarily full week, and thankfully I have managed to carve out space in which to write some things that needed to be written - and essay, the discernment summary - and have found that this is part of what has been exhausting. The carrying around of the words I needed to write. So here is a challenge, to keep space in the diary for the creativity to flow, or it builds up inside and becomes a burden that is exhausting to carry.

discovering Rowan Williams

This is an interesting article. I have come across Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canturbury a couple of times this week, and am impressed with his thoughts and perspective. (one of the things he did, in an interview I heard yesterday, recorded a couple of weeks ago, was advocate for 10 years of funding for fresh expressions of church - no wonder I like what he has to say!)

The Landscape of Desire

I'm helping with an interactive art installation for the Fringe next week.

Come along.

Invite others.

The Landscape of Desire: an exploration of the bewildered perplexed fragile hopeful yearning human in all of us

Pilgrim Uniting Church, 12 Flinders Street Adelaide

9 - 12 March 7.30 - 9.30 pm

11 March 12.00 - 2.00 pm

Free Admission

pub church conversation

This monday come along and join in the imagining of possibilities for shaping authentic, creative, life-giving communities of faith for our time and our place:

musical stories in the heart of the city at lunchtime

I have just been at a lunchtime concert in the city. I caught a tram just down the road from Christ Church, wandered through some food malls in the city till I found a boost juice, drank that way too fast and got a bit of an ice headache, strolled along north terrace to Elder Hall among students and workers of all sorts, and entered the hall. 

With the doors open, we could hear the city sounds, but as soon as the doors closed, the city was far far away. 

Zephyr Qartet and Greta Bradman (all Adelaide based young women) played us stories from Handel (Gentle Morpheus), Ireland (folk songs arranged by Quentin Grant, an Adelaidean), Edgar Varese (quite a hanuting piece taking us into the darkness of night), Hebrew (a lullaby), Bjork (her dream-like hyperballad) and Osvaldo Golihov (another haunting piece of profound sadness). 

The musicians and soprano were superb. 

I was caught up in the music, the stories, the emotions. 

I was reluctant to re-enter the city, but then, it has stories of its own ... 

Esther Esther, Wherefore art thou Esther?

Last night a group from the Esther Project went to Beit Shalom, the Progressive Jewish Synagogue in Adelaide, for their annual Purimspiel. Each year Jewish communities around the world celebrate Purim, the festival introduced in the book of Esther. The story is read aloud, with booing and hissing and rattling of noisy sound makers to drown out the name of Haman for all time, people dress up, and then the story is told again, this time reinterpreted in a play, at least at Beit Shalom that's the custom.

We caught the end of the telling of the story, which was also an interpretation - for some reason I had expected it to be a straight reading of the text as written - and the enthusiasm with which the people made noise at every mention of the name of Haman was palpable.

This year's play had a Shakespearean flavour, with MacAhasuerus, Juliester, Mordlet, and others. There was cross dressing, half a dozen plays on Hamlet's 'to be or not to be', as many Shakespearean insults as could be squeezed in, and reference to most of the well known plays and characters from the Shakespearean canon.

One of the interesting elements of critique of the story of Esther, well from where I sat and I don't know if the playwright intended it as a critique, was that of the role of Vashti. MacVashti didn't disappear from the story, as she does in the Book, but is a murderous cross dresser, divorcing McAhasuerus in anger at his lack of enthusiasm for killing, and taking the identity of her cousin McHaman in order to pursue the throne for herself.

The three witches were fabulous, stealing the show, and MacAhasuerus also did a fabulous job, keeping his accent almost to the end.

With song and dance, clever puns on well known Shakespearean lines (including a very clever sub-plot of Gilbertstern and Rosencrantz, the only characters with 'real' Jewish names but not very many lines, planning a play in which they could actually have leading roles, but who end up victims of MacVashti, who declares that Rosencrantz and Gilbertstern are dead), and humour particular to Adelaide and Beit Shalom happenings, this was a great show. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and was pleased to be invited to share with our Jewish friends the celebration of the story of Esther. It was a good way to finish our encounter with the story, and might prove inspirational in our future telling of our own play version of the Book of Esther.