Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

Killed while trying to rescue a female colleague who was being attacked.

Paul writes – Very sad news yesterday evening. A long-time, 45-year old business colleague was murdered.

“…Witnesses said a Pacific Island woman was punched by a man in the car park of what is believed to be a call centre where she works on Mills Lane, metres from Queen St, about 5.30pm.A colleague coming out of the lift came to help her. The offender stabbed the man in the chest and ran off. Police were still looking for him last night…”

You can read an initial newspaper story here. His name has not yet been released.

Please pray for his family (wife and teenage children), immediate and extended, his many friends, and for his work colleagues past and present. This will be very very difficult news for them to hear later this morning. He was incredibly well respected and liked.

A Death in our Blogging Community – Tom Allen.

Paul writes – I’ve reflected on the sad news of Tom Allen’s recent (and sudden) death. Tom was an Anglican Priest in Edinburgh. He’s blogged for a number of years as “the big bulky anglican” (here). He’s been described as a “lovely gentle giant”. Steve Taylor makes some good points here, and I’m reminded of a recent post written by Maggi Dawn (here). In that post Maggi reflects that:   

“…[She] was musing this morning about the way the internet is perceived as being real or not-real... to what extent can you say it's "real life" or that you have "real" interaction with people via the screen?…”

I reflected too on what it means, what it feels like, what many of us experience as part of the online communities we belong to; communities into which we both invest something of ourselves, and receive something of others (and their journey’s, discoveries etc) as they share. We are affected by the death of one of our community. We are affected when members of that community decide to stop blogging. Tom’s death touched me. It touches us because we’ve shared something (no matter how small) together; we’ve all seen and experienced things growing amongst us…  other’s learning and experience shapes us and is often given new expression in markedly different contexts. How many times have I been blessed and encouraged by e-mail, a comment, or a phone conversation…?

Many of us actually get to meet face-to-face. Maggi reflects on this above. I would echo her comments. Many of us develop wonderful life-giving friendships. Many of us who haven’t met will meet… We’ll share conversation, a cup of coffee, maybe a meal, maybe a beer, and maybe some of those points of initial contact will grow into ongoing contact and friendships will bloom. The commonalities and overlaps will become the basis for a shared journey and shared lives.  As I’ve reflected before, the virtual gives way to the incarnational… 

I’ll miss Tom’s reflections. I’ll miss the occasional e-mail. I’ll miss the occasional comment that Tom has left on this blog. I miss that I won’t get the chance to share a meal with him.

I want to finish by sharing a poem, written by New Zealander Alistair Campbell.

Now grace, strength and pride

Have flown like the hawk;

The mind like the spring tide,

Beautiful and calm; the talk;

The brilliance of eye and hand;

The feet that no longer walk.

All is new, and all is strange –

Terrible as a dusty gorge

Where a great river sang…

Good liturgy forms us in the way of Christ so that we might embody and live out what is “gospel” in the contexts where God sends us…

Paul writes – John Hebenton asks some good questions about liturgy, specifically Anglican liturgy as part of his learning in relation to some research on Anglican youth worship and the role of liturgy (for more see here).

He suggests that liturgy is intended:

1.           To provide a framework to gather people, [to] tell the biblical story, and send people out to join with God in mission.

2.           To provide a way to form the character of the whole community and the individuals involved to have an incarnational approach to God and mission. The heart of Anglican liturgical tradition is to meet a missional God and to be shaped and changed by that God so that we might become a people of mission.

Does that describe the “function” or “role” of (Anglican) liturgy? What else do you understand (Anglican) liturgy to be about? (Feel free to leave comment or comments below).

Re:mixing a quote from Craig Dykstra (from Len Hjalmarson – see here), good liturgy is, in part:

“…Not … [about] activities we do to make something spiritual happen in our lives. Nor [is it about] duties we undertake to be obedient to God. Rather, [good liturgy is concerned with] patterns of communal action that create openings in our lives where the grace, mercy, and presence of God may be made known to us. [It provides] places where the power of God is experienced…”

Certainly for me, the title of this post says a lot about how I understand good liturgy. Good (Anglican) liturgy gathers us, frees us, provokes us, focuses us, forms us, nourishes us, and sends us…

“Why” and “how” are the two questions I’d use to unpack that statement!

Leave comments too if you can offer books etc that have been useful to you in understanding liturgy, or that provide liturgy that you have or are finding helpful.

Free for God and neighbour

Paul writes – Great little quote from David Bosch. It, unlike a lot of contemporary approaches to talking about “evangelism” has a note of hopefulness and “good news” about it…

“…Evangelism means enlisting people for the reign of God, liberating them from themselves, their sins, and their entanglements, so that they will be free for God and neighbour…. To win people to Jesus is to win their allegiance to God's priorities. God wills …that within us, and through our ministry also in society around us, the "fullness of Christ" be re-created, the image of God be restored in our lives and relationships…”

David Bosch.

Hauerwas, Bonhoeffer and Truthful Witness

Paul writes – An (older) interesting interview by Homiletics Online with Stanley Hauerwas - Bonhoeffer: The Truthful Witness. I’ve been reading, very appreciatively, a few quotes from Jeff Stout recently, so it was of interest that I read the following interview with Stanley Hauerwas. I think it has some useful things to say in regards to the missional conversation, and it’s inherent invitation to “truthful witness”.

HOMILETICS: Jeff Stout, in his book Democracy and Tradition, says that “no theologian has done more to inflame Christian resentment of secular political culture” than you. First, I didn’t know that Christians resented secular political culture, and second, what does he mean, and three, do you agree that no theologian has caused this resentment more than you?

Read Hauerwas’ response, and the whole interview here.

Sydney – Backdrop to the greatest story ever told

Alan writes – There are many aspects of the Roman Catholic Church that I have learnt to admire and draw from; so being near Sydney at the time of the ‘World Youth Day’ events was too good an opportunity to miss.

We waited two hours with hundreds of thousands of others to see the Pope stream past in a whirr of speed and security. Seeing all the security at work – dogs, diplomatic squads, helicopters, police on motor bikes, police on horses, police on push bikes and police in boats etc made the two hours nearly as quickly as the Pope. We wandered the closed of streets with tens of thousands of young Catholics. We toured the harbour to get a feel for the extent of the crowds – 200,000 people is a huge crowd. We watched the Stations of the Cross (see here) from a park in Circular Quay with the noise of trains, rail announcements, helicopters, ferries and cars all around. It was a very moving portrayal in the midst of the market place. And somehow the story of the crucifixion made more sense in the midst of the realities of a large city.

This was the first time I have ever seen western-secular-capitalist-society dwarfed by the Christian story, Christian values and young people openly and unashamedly living their faith. There were no evangelistic hard sells! No one peddling tracts! (oh; us protestants have so much to learn. Why are protestant gatherings like conventions of commission salesmen?) There were just tens of thousands of young Christians waving flags, singing and laughing all over the city. And they ruled the city.

The streets were closed to traffic but awash with people. Sydney, it seemed, didn’t know what to make of it – yet everywhere there was delight in what was happening and open conversations about faith, spirituality and belief. They were happening on the streets, in the cafes and the pubs. The shop keepers, proprietors of flash hotels and restaurant owners seemed more perplexed than annoyed that theses crowds weren’t buying. And all the talk of protests and concern about apologies might have been part of the media view but it wasn’t what it was like on the ground.

As we wandered the streets and listened and watched it slowly dawned on me this was the first time I had ever seen secular capitalist society step back, move beyond perceptions and prejudices of Christianity and enjoy watching, listening to and being with Christians. So for one weekend, in my life time, I can now say I have seen a major western city become the backdrop to the greatest story ever told. And to be honest, from my perspective; most Sydney-ites seemed to enjoy it, be moved by it and value it just as much as we did.

The Year of My Namesake – The Apostle Paul

Paul writes – Mike Riddell always deserves a wider reading audience. This from the latest issue (june) of (NZ) Independent Catholic publication, Tui Motu.

“This June Pope Benedict is due to launch a Year of the Apostle Paul to commemorate his 2000th birthday.
Paul has not always had a good press, says Mike Riddell.
The birthday, therefore, is an opportunity to reassess Paul’s place in the Christian story and note his importance for us today.”

“…Those who are both creative and well-versed in the tradition have a vital part to play in the transmission of faith across generations.

The great achievement of Paul was to take what was a small messianic movement within Judaism and transform it into a dynamic faith free to cross cultural and religious boundaries. The reason he is regarded as a missionary pioneer is that he understood both the universal import of Jesus and the need to do some fundamental translation in order for the gospel to be understood in new settings. It is this quality which distinguishes a dynamic faith from a culturally-bound sect…

….His genius was to mine the surrounding cultures for images which might convey the history-rending significance of Jesus of Nazareth. Paul spoke of redemption – the buying of slaves in the market to set them free; of atonement – God himself offering whatever recompense was necessary to bridge the divide with a fallen humanity; of victory – the Roman practice of leading processions of defeated enemies; of reconciliation – the healing of whatever wounds had marred the cosmos. Through these vibrant word pictures he communicated to the world outside of Israel…”

You can read the whole article here.

Evangelism …?

Paul writes – Cheryl Lawrie, a creative and thoughtful Aussie reflects a little on evangelism.

Cheryl writes: “These are the things that I’ve been thinking about in anticipation [of being on a panel at an “evangelism forum”]. As you’ll see she didn’t make it…Read her full post here. Meantime, here are a few thoughts from her. They resonate for me…

• The story I keep hearing from people who have intentionally and deliberately not chosen Christianity is that they are treated with disdain by some who have, being spouted lines like ‘you just haven’t heard about the Christianity / god / faith that I know’. Some people actually know about Christianity and choose not to go there. How arrogant and smug of Christians to assume that they know better…
• I’ve said this before here, but my primary contact is with people who have been part of the church and have now left Christianity. Not because they’re pissed off with it, or they disagree with it, but they’ve gone another step on from it, to a place that the church can’t follow. They’re not in a bad place there, and don’t want to be talked into going back [squeezing who they are now back into a place they have chosen to leave]… but they wouldn’t mind some company where they are now.
• The only faith that makes sense to many people is one that offers a story to resonate with. Belonging to a community, and any promise of life after death [or even of a god who loves even you, you dirty rotten scoundrel], are no longer draw cards.
• I work with a tiny subsection of the community, and these things may not be true in general…

If you’re a regular visitor to this blog, related areas that might interest you are Alan Jamieson’s research on “Church Leavers” (go here for a series of articles by him); Jenny McIntosh’s excellent work with Spirited Exchanges; a series of posts  by Paul Walker reviewing Leslie Francis and Philip Richter's recent book, "Gone for Good?" . The first post in the series is here. And of course, there’s Alan’s new book – Chrysalis. More information on the book can be found, here. I’ve most recently reflected on evangelism here.

This weekly gathering sounds interesting. Read more here and here.

U2Charist - Hamilton - Tonight

Download U2Charist.pdf

For Alan - You Won't Understand it (I don't think), but Enjoy - Moltmann reading from his autobiography - 55sec