Tall Skinny Kiwi

Tim Tams, Steel and Aquaponics

Enjoying a weekend in the Sydney area. 

- NZ time in my body so I am up early.

- Troy Bronsink is streaming his "Songs to Pray By" all weekend long. Good stuff. Sounds a bit like Mumford and Sons.

- Vatican Leaks: Apparently THE BUTLER did it!

- Looking at Wild Goose Festival opening on the West Coast this summer. That would be worth attending for family and friends in the Portland area.

- My family are at a Urban Vision retreat in NZ led by Bob and Gracie Ekblad who, when I was there on Friday, shared some good reflection on sustainable ministry to the poor and then led a charasmatic-style prayer session.Interesting couple with an unusual mix of experiences - including liberation theology, Toronto blessing, faith healing, monastic living and Old Testament Bible teaching. 

- I ate my first Rum and Raisin Tim Tam. YUM! Pretty good biscuits. Not sure if NZ can match that.

- This weekend we are discussing ministry in a steel production city where the steel industry is going down the toilet and unemployment is increasing. Add to that some "severely unaffordable" housing and its a real challenge for these Baptist churches that I am speaking to this weekend. 

- Speaking of urban experiments, I was thinking about The Urban Farming Guys, a team of families that was sent out of a church in Kansas City, MO [where my wife was born] into the poorest area of their city. Their urban agricultural experiments are INSPIRING others, like my mate Tony Arcus the NZ hard-drive repair guru, to set up aquaponic systems on this side of the planet. Watch TUFG "Farmin' in the HOOD' and then check out their weekly updates. 

Australia

This weekend I will be in Shellharbour, just south of Sydney. Thanks to Brian Pember and a small network of Baptist churches who are bringing me over for some chat, reflection, discussion etc about the future of the church in Australia and beyond. Should be good. I think they have invited other churches to join but I guess we will find out tomorrow. 

Image ("No Looking Back") lifted from Aussie blogger and mate for over 30 years,  Andrew Hamilton the Backyard Missionary.

On holiday. No posts. But plz. watch my video

Finally, I have got my family away for a few days holiday. We are close to the beach at a friends bach (shack) which happens to be much bigger than our yurt and quite nice. We haven't got away all year, not even for a weekend, which is crazy because summer came and went here but we didn't have a car and couldn't really get away. But now we have wheels (thanks to a donation of a 99 honda) and a place to go (thanks Wendy), and so we are fishing and watching movies and cooking up our favorite foods. 

This weekend I will fly to Australia to talk to Baptists and others in the Shellharbour area.

But until then I will be in holiday mode and not blogging. 

I am reposing [opps - supposed to say "reposting" but i guess 'reposing' is also appropriate] this video below because I just put it together this month, and because it shows where we are living and the kind of vibe that happens here when festivals happen. And because hardly anyone actually watched my movie which was really disappointing.

So please, make my day and watch my movie. 

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Original Post:

So PassionFest blew us away again this year and it was so good to be here. Its a festival for justice-minded Christians hosted at the Ngatiawa contemporary monastery here in New Zealand. I managed to put a short video together to give you a taste of the festival. Our kids appear constantly and my wife Debbie is teaching spinning and asking young people what they think PassionFest is all about. Hope you like it. 

As much as you need: An invitation to Kirchentag

I am about to accept an invitation to speak at Kirchentag which will happen in Hamburg next year. Every two years, 100,000 Protestants gather in a German city for this festival. In 2011 Kirchentag happened in Dresden and I had the privilege of being on a panel to talk about building and keeping relationships in the church world, as well as leading a workshop on blogging and the internet. It was a great time. The outdoor worship was amazing, as I shared in my post "A worship service your city won't forget".

Anyway, the theme of this 34th Kirchentag is "As Much As You Need" and they want me to lead a Bible study on the feeding of the five thousand, John 6:1-15.  I am about to say YES because it's an amazing event and because Germany is such a crucial country right now as the world steadies itself from a global recession and so many countries look to Germany to help them out. 

The question Jesus asked his disciples in that passage, "Where are WE going to get enough to feed these people" is the same question Germans are asking of themselves. Its not a case of standing back and letting God act apart from his people, but of partnership with him as Jesus and His Body the church find creative ways of providing for a hungry, hurting, struggling world. 

I think I will accept the invitation. Kirchentag will happen in Hamburg May 1-5, 2013 and my session will be May 3.  Is anyone else going top be there, apart from the 100,000 Germans, I mean?

'Mighty to Save' and other worship songs that annoy me

Sorry if I sound grumpy today. It might be my age.

I am not usually a huge fan of contemporary worship songs. I don't like extended chorus singing. This is the stuff of nightmares for me. I can pull off a few tunes with everyone else but then my mind wanders. Sometimes I sit down on the pew and read my Bible until the songs are over. Sometimes I scan the introduction to the hymnal, looking for historical inspiration. Or even trivia.

In moments like these, I prefer Anglican churches because there are more books available to read than Baptist churches and certainly more than Pentecostals churches that offer no reading material whatsoever. But if a solid hour of voice-lifting, arm-swinging, anthem-bashing is not your bag then you shouldn't be in a Pentecostal church anyway. Right?

It's even worse when the worship songs are lame or badly written or have sentences that just hit me wrong.

The old chorus "Sing Hallelujah to the Lord", for example,  always striked me as being just  . .  plain DUMB! Hallelujah is a command, a call to action. It means "publicly acknowledge Yahweh" and is used in the Bible to spur on acknowledgement of God's great acts in a public fashion. It's never used towards God. How do you command God to praise Himself? 

Last month, while fully immersed inside a thousand-strong-crowd of teenage Baptists, I found myself closed-lipped while the song "Your love never fails" was belted out by the band. The offending sentence went like this:

"You cause all things to work together for MY good"

Where did that word "my" come from? It's not in the flipping' Bible passage! Here is the original, unedited version from the BIble. 

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose". Romans 8:28

Not 'my good',  just 'good'.The passage in question is NOT talking about our own personal satisfaction but of God's greater good  - of which everyone will eventually benefit either directly or indirectly.  When did we stop seeking God's good purpose and substitute it with our own? Are we silly enough to think the two things are the same? Am I the only person that noticed? Am I taking crazy pills?

Another annoying song is Hillsong's "Mighty to Save". The line that bugs me is this one:

"Saviour, he can move the mountains"

It's not that the statement is untrue because actually, God can do whatever he wants, including the relocation of mountains. It's just that the particular idea of moving mountains, which occurs most strongly in Isaiah, the minor prophets and later in the Gospels, is almost exclusively in relation to people moving mountains and not God. Jesus told his disciples that they could move mountains. The Isaiah passage [Remember Godspell's "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord"], as Jesus enlightens us, was in reference to John the Baptist who would level the mountains and fill the valleys. 

Mountain moving is the job of God's people!

Yes, our Saviour could move the mountains if he wanted to, but he has commissioned us to move them so let's get on with it, not in our own might or by human power, but by God's Spirit (Zech 4:6-7)

IThe idea behind this lyric, in my opinion, is the same lazy "let go and let God" philosophy that inoculates the people of God from doing anything practical or hands-on because we assume if we just sit back and sing some more songs then God, who is somehow energized by our inaction, will stand up, bare his almighty arm and get things done.

This song is from Hillsong, an Australian church. That surprises me. The Aussies are doers, aren't they? Diggers, Stickers, People of Action rather than talk? [I am speaking to Baptist pastors in Australia next week] But here it sounds like "Hey, there are a whole lot of mountains that need moving but there's no need to bust our guts; God will sort it out, so just be still and chill, let go and let God, say your prayers and then . . . Bob's your uncle. Or in other words, no worries, mate, lets just pass the buck on to God again.

This is Hakuna Matata theology.

Jesus did not say to his disciples, "If you want to remove the mountain, host a city-wide worship evening and when people have reached a heightened sense of spiritual well-being, have them pray that God will do something and then return home feeling like they have done well."

No! "YOU say to the mountain 'Be removed!', said Jesus.

The orders have been given. We are called. We are sent. We look up at huge mountains and we feel intimidated because of their size, and we feel scared because shifting centers of corrupted power and leveling mountains of injustice do not make us friends with those caught up in the institutionalized powers of Babylon. But we act anyway, in faith, because this is what Jesus had in mind for us to do. It's all part of training for eternity and its something that God helps us with but choses not to take on by himself.

Martin Luther King understood this and used the mountain moving imagery from the Scriptures to move some actual mountains, with the help of God.

And so, until someone can tell me a good reason to sing along with everyone else, I will keep silent on these lyrics and continue my historical research in the hymnal book intros.

 Related on TSK: Bible Study: Jesus and the Loony

 

Goodbye Sister Donna

Saddened to hear of the passing of Donna Summer. I enjoyed her songs on the disco floors in the 70's and after that embarrassing period of flared jeans and polyester, I enjoyed hearing of her new life and how her connection with God gave meaning and purpose.

Like Whitney Houston and many other singers, she got her start in the church:

Summer's performance debut occurred at church when she was ten, when she replaced a vocalist who had failed to show up. Her priest invited Summer to perform, judging from her small frame and voice that she would be an "amusing spectacle", but instead Summer's voice recalled a voice older than her years and frame. Summer herself recalled that as she sang, "I started crying, everybody else started crying. It was quite an amazing moment in my life and at some point after I heard my voice came out I felt like God was saying to me 'Donna, you're going to be very, very famous' and I knew from that day on that I would be famous." Wikipedia

Her voice was a gift of God but as with any gift, there was an ethical and spiritual obligation that came with it:

"And I started crying, and I heard the voice of God say to me, 'You're going to be famous, and this is power and you're never to misuse this power." Donna Summer, CBN

Well done, LaDonna Gaines!

It might interest you to know that she became an accomplished painter over the last chapter of her life, during her time in Nashville. Her painting style was described as post-impressionist or neo-primitivist. 

Mother's Arms, by Donna Summer

But I will always remember her as the disco-singer who turned out good. Dang that girl could sing! Have a listen.

Blog banter on church leadership and fresh expressions

Up at 4am this morning. Interesting blog banter going on from 3 Brits:

1. Richard Passmore on Fresh Expressions

"I think FE may actually hinder change in the longer term because of the gravitational pull of the institution and accompanying orthodoxy. I think we are already seeing dissenting voices being marginalised as FE spreads and the orthodox centre gathers pace. I was talking the other day to someone about how some of the most pioneering imaginative work (both inside the Church of England and outside) i see are not part of FE. Is Fresh Expressions a Movement?

 

2. Mike Breen on church leadership.

At the end of the day, what most pastors want (and have been trained to want!) is minions to execute the most important vision of all. Their own. In doing this, they effectively kill people’s ability to get a vision of their own. Why the leadership movement is leaving your church leaderless

A good sharp post by Mike Breen! Worth a read. I left a comment regarding the choice between leaders and entrepreneurs. My comment hasn't popped up yet [don't you miss the coComment web service that stopped in March 2012?] but I have blogged on this before:

"Leaders help move the existing and sometimes struggling structures forward into greater productivity and encourage people to follow. Entrepreneurs invent and innovate new structures tailored for the changing situations, but not without continuity with the past. In a world of relentless change, entrepreneurs rule. If the church expects their impact to continue, it needs to create and celebrate a culture of innovation, finding precedents in the Scriptures [come on . . . look harder] and examples in the developing non-western world." Tallskinnykiwi, Entrepreneurs or Leaders? 

3. Phil Wood explores the impact of Mennonites on fresh expressions/emerging church with his post entitled Mennomergent

Baptist monks and couch-surfing apostles: 10 Signs that the future church is here already.

10 years ago today I published an article on Soularize that suggested the church still had a long way to go before it was hitting its target but that there were early signs that prove hopeful and promising. Reading the article [Postmodern Church: Are We There Yet?] again today, it seems a lot of those first-fruits are more visible and integral to how we do church today.

10 Years! This was a long time before CouchSurfing.org appeared and became a vehicle for young pilgrims to cruise the planet, and before my term "deep ecclesiology " found its way into books, and before the new monastic orders were considered normal inside the Protestant denominations. 

Here are 10 quotes I picked out of the article that strike me as relevant to the new churches and missional social enterprises being launched by the next generation.

1.  Church needs to be missionary as well as missional. We need to act our our "being sent" by actually going out to THEIR HOUSE and bringing church with us as we go.

2. Modernity divided church into CHURCH (the ecclesiastic) and PARACHURCH (the seminaries, missions, youth ministries, etc). What we are seeing now is intentional communities and travelling teams that not only support the church - THEY ARE CHURCH

3. Pilgrimage is becoming the way of missions for postmodern young people . . . There are pligrim points of interest and learning, and available couches in the homes of believers around the world for a new generation of couch-surfing apostles and prophets. 

4. The eucharist becomes the central point of the service.

5. The [church] stages are shrinking because believers are no longer under compulsion to perform the gospel. The community of God becomes a better apologetic for God than the stage ever was. . . . The stage also shrinks because multi-media happens in multi- spaces, on multi-walls, in multi-rooms, by multi-people. Entryways, hallways and sidewalks become stages for art and expression.

6. One of the happy remarriages is church and business . . .  the businesses also formed the platform for their ministry outside their church and their country

 7. . . churches will increasingly include the monastic model as well as the ecclesiastic

8. If the house churches are structured around hospitality, conversational evangelism, interactive teaching and relationships of trust, then there is no doubt that women will play a major role. 

9.  . .  the integration of young and old, children speaking into the movement and the older teaching the younger. The modern world saw church get sliced and diced into sub-groups and more sub-groups of sub-groups that ministered to sub-groups. The postmodern world is a good opportunity to integrate the ages, as well as letting people minister as a family rather than an individual.

10. Many of these [unchurched] believers are finding ways to connect and share life with each other. These connection points and celebration events look like house churches but they are different. Whatever they are, they are part of the postmodern church landscape.

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Btw, I am writing this from a contemporary monastery started by young people who were Baptists. At least they were ten years ago. Lots of couch-surfing pilgrims coming through. Who woulda thought???

Also, ten years ago I used VJ software to present this talk rather than powerpoint, a practice that I kept up during the noughties and one that Len Sweet would suggest 5 years later. Good on ya, Len!

Related: My predictions for this decade

Global emerging church gathering in Brazil

Update: I am reposting this because Encontro Global Tribal Generation 2012 happens next month. They had over 4000 in attendance when they did this event 2 years ago. A teaser for this year:

Olgalvaro Bastos Jr who is hosting the gathering is the guy who kicked off our "new wineskins for new wine" discussion on the video in the previous post. Olgalvaro is the author of A Revolução do Pensamento, a book that describes the emerging church movement in Latin America, which, as everyone knows, started in Chile in the 90's. Hope you can read Portuguese.

Original Post: A global gathering of alternative ministry leaders will take place in Brazil this year. June 6-9 in Uberlandia. The theme is "Rediscovering the faith of our Fathers". Check out Tribal Generation. A similar event they hosted two years ago in Brazil had over 4000 young people attend. I expect it will be mainly Latin Americans. 

I am trying to get there and am speaking on something profound and vital [which means I am not sure exactly what] but I don't have the funds just yet for the plane trip which makes me feel a little unsettled. But I am hoping to find some sponsors by June. Keep ya posted . . .[May 2012: Dont have the funds to get there yet.]

Videos from Underground Ministries Roundtable

I just uploaded some videos I took at the Global Roundtable of Underground Ministries which we held at Cornerstone Festival in Illinois last year. Sorry it took so long to get the videos up. Hope you enjoy them.

Attendance was a little spotty in places because most of us were also involved in Cornerstone Festival [I taught 3 seminars] but we managed to have some really good discussions about what God was doing in our countries and what new movements were springing up.

Here is a taste of our morning worship, this time led by an American, a Romanian and a Portuguese. And a Canadian on his big drum.

 

Olgalvaro Bastos Jr from Brazil kicked off some interesting discussion about the emerging church in Brazil and the need for "new wineskins for new wine." Denny Hurst (Portugal) added some history of the hippie movement in the 1970's, Calvary Chapel, the Christian rock scene and other precedents for this new movement. 

Other leaders shared their point of view on the new wineskins. In this video there are leaders from USA, Canada, Chile, NZ and Brazil.

The discussion on wineskins continued with Romania, Canada, and Brazil and America.

There are more videos. I will upload them when I get a chance.

Bishop-elect rocks the national paper.

The NZ Herald is the country's leading newspaper so we were holding our breath to see what this weekend's spread would say.

Not to worry.

In the interview with with our fearless leader Justin Duckworth, who is getting promoted to Bishop of Wellington, Catherine Masters of the NZ Herald does a FABULOUS job of capturing the spirit of our community, Justin's casual demeanor, and even spotlights our decrepit 17+ year dog named Socks. She gives a realistic and honest view of Wellington's bishop-elect:

Really, this was a wide-ranging and congenial chat with a 44-year-old who lives and breathes God, where just about every answer to every question can be related to God and where you get the feeling every conceivable discussion about God has already been held, and more than once, around the big kitchen table where this community of roughly 20 permanent residents and its frequent guests gather for meals.

Here the wood fire is kept burning, giving off a warmth matched only by the next Bishop of Wellington. Interview, NZ Herald

Have a read. Refreshing and heart-warming. 

Related on TSK: The Dreadlocked Barefooted Bishop of Wellington

NO we are NOT living in a secluded commune!

How embarrassing! After all the news coverage we got last week, my friends and family now think I live in a COMMUNE!

Yes, a flipping' "commune"! When I was a kid in school at Orewa, one of our teachers was a bushy-bearded hippie who lived in a Puhoi commune. We thought that was weird. It probably wasn't as weird as we thought. But the designation as "commune" would never again be a positive thing in my mind.

I am not sure which of the reporters started called Ngatiawa a "secluded commune" [Dominion Post, perhaps?] but the misinformation spread and even the guy on TV used the word "commune". I am hoping NZ Herald gets it right this weekend when they do their big spread. [Hello?]

The media can be terribly ignorant when it comes to reporting about religion. Surely it can't be too hard to say the word "monastery"? Or "intentional community"? 

Some corrections are due:

Firstly, we are not "secluded". We are open to visitors all day long. In fact, my job today is to make tea and show hospitality to strangers, visitors and absolutely anyone who shows up. Every day there is someone on hospitality duty, keeping the tea pot warm and cooking nice little yummies for anyone who turns up.  There is a WiFi signal here that covers the entire community. We might be in a valley, and we might be ten minutes drive from the next big town, and its true we don't have cell phone coverage, but we are not secluded.

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

I just read two books by Michael Lewis. 

The first was his latest book called Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World. Love that title! The book gives some eye-popping background and tragic [and sometimes hliarious] narrative to the financial collapse in Greece, Iceland and Ireland. A great book if you want to understand the current-day woes Europe and the challenges it faces. Surprisingly short. Felt more like the first half of a book than the whole thing  . ..  but a great read.

What I found most interesting in Boomerang was how much much blame for the Greek mess Lewis assigns to the Vatopaidi monks, an historic reversal when you think of how the economic corruption of the church 500 years ago was cleaned up by a different set of European monks who launched the Reformation.

"In a society that has endured something like a total moral collapse, its monks had somehow become the single universally acceptable target of moral outrage." Lewis, on the Vatapaidi monks

As I suggested in Ka-ching in the Ka-church, it's time for another Reformation. In fact, I think there are a lot of parallels between then and now.

The other book by Michael Lewis was The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, which reads like a financial thriller as it traces the story of the Wall Street subprime collapse in 2008 and those who gambled on its demise, and won. I remember being in San Francisco in 2008, praying for the economy and here I am in San Francisco again, still trying to get my head around this gigantic disaster and the invention of these complicated financial instruments that hardly anyone, including the bankers selling them, really understood. 

Economics IS the conversation of our moment. I also recommend Economics of Good and Evil (2011) by Tomas Sedlaćek for a more philosophical understanding of our time and The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business by Umair Haque as a way for business to do good and create a better world.

Our home on television

 Check this TV news special out. See the monastery we are living at as well as my wife and one of my daughters who appears ON TV! How exciting for TJ (10) to be on the telly. All of this big fuss of course because one of the members of our community, Justin, got himself a job promotion [Last post].

The Dreadlocked Barefooted Bishop of Wellington

Update: Watch the news on TV and read May 5 NZ Herald interview.

Original: Some very exciting news. The papers are ablaze this weekend with the announcement that Justin Duckworth has been elected Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand's capital city. 

"The Anglican Church needs to be ''dusted off'' and it believes a dreadlocked, barefooted priest is the man to do it." Dominion Post

"The 44-year-old . . . said he felt "humbled, privileged, excited - and terrified" to have been chosen as bishop." NZ Herald

"He has dreadlocks, for starters. He’s usually in shorts and bare feet, too. But the voters in the Diocese of Wellington saw past that. They saw instead that he’s been at the cutting edge of Christian ministry “to the last, the lost and the least” in Wellington for 25 years." Wellington Scoop

"The new bishop speaks candidly about his love of marathon-running, mountain-climbing and directing stage musicals – and advises he may soon be recruiting members of the clergy to take part." Stuff.co.nz

 Justin and Jenny founded the Ngatiawa contemporary monastery where they now live and where my family have erected our yurt. You might have already read about the Duckworths on my posts "Prophets of the New Order" and "Covenant Making is Not Always Evil" or from their book, On the Waka Against the Tide, Towards the Kingdom. Justin is also working on his PhD which deals with how monastic orders and radical discipleship movements have enabled the church to renew itself and reemerge as fresh and vital. 

Justin Duckworth, behind a desk, signing his acceptance of this appointment and hiding his feet at the same time.

Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences

So yesterday we went through Part One of Duarte's 2Day VisualStory training. There were about 30 of us in the training room at Duarte in Mountain View, sitting at tables, being led through a journey of storytelling ins and outs by our capable and amiable expedition leader named Kevin. Nancy Duarte was there at the beginning to welcome us all.

The basis for this first day of training was the book Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences which I had just bought a few days ago for iPad. They gave us a paper copy of the book but I don't regret having the multi touch version on iPad. The advantage of the iPad version, which was created with iBooks Author, is that it has all the videos from the training at the touch of a button as well as diagrams that enlarge and quizzes at the end of each chapter. 

The training was really helpful. We were writing up the essence of our presentation on post it notes and sticking them on our story board. And with advice from our tables, we were changing them, refining them, shuffling them around, adding stories and sharpening the structure. Looking at the basis of my presentation when I started the day, its pretty obvious that it now has direction and a structure that makes sense. Still a lot of work to do on it, but I have some good tools and ideas now.

Today is the second part of the training which is focused more on the presentation and not so much on beating our stories into submission. They are giving us the book Slide:ology to accompany the training. Cant wait!

Freebie: At yesterday's training we examined great speeches and why they worked. Nancy Duarte spoke on How Great Speeches are Structured recently at TEDx. Have a listen.

Some thoughts:

I was reminded of Hillman Curtis's approach to refining a story. Hillman's books were very influential to me in my digital storytelling days. I just found out that Hillman passed away last week at age 51. We had a little correspondence - see my post Hillman Curtis and me. Praying peace for the Curtis family.

I also thought of Haddon Robinson who taught Denver Seminary students to preach using the structured tension points of a typical television episode.

VisualStory training at Duarte

I am wasting a few hours at Sydney airport before boarding a plane a plane for San Francisco. I just downloaded Nancy Duarte's book Resonate which some are saying is the first interactive business book created for iPad using iBooks Author - something that I am keen to do also one day. 

Oopppps! Forgot to bring earphones!!

I haven't read Nancy's earlier book Slide:ology BUT I am taking Duarte's VisualStory training next week in California and the book will be a good primer. I am also curious to see how the Duarte team, famous for tweaking TED powerpoint presentations,  have fudged the pixels around for the iPad. 

You might ask why am I enduring a 2 day training in story presentation when I am ALREADY such a KICK-ASS, Powerpoint Demolisher!!!

1. Well, actually, I am NOT really a kick-ass Powerpoint Demolisher, despite what my mother says.

2. The last time I gave a powerpoint presentation, a 20 minute presentation to business and foundation leaders entitled "How to Resource Missional Entrepreneurs without creating charity cases" [Slideshare], I failed royally to connect emphatically and emotionally with my audience and realized afterwards that I needed some help.

3. Wolfgang Fernandez and I, [both of us are taking the training this week] believe we have a story to tell. We managed to hook up in 4 continents last year to research and resource some of the sharpest cutting-edge movements of the global missional enterprise and we feel that there is a better way to change the world, going beyond our current efforts which tend to be wonderfully nostalgic but are rarely sustainable, let alone reproducible. I have tried a few times to share my thoughts on this but it often [but not always] comes out negative, or skeptical, or cynical. I need to sharpen my story, streamline my message, figure out what it really is that I am trying to say. And since Wolfgang and I are writing a book together, we both need some help in beating our story into shape.

4. You don't need a good excuse to go to San Francisco.

Anyway, now to read da book and catch da plane.

Update: Check out my first day at VisualStory

Charles Colson Passes

"There’s much about the emerging movement that I applaud." Charles Colson to Andrew Jones on Tallskinnykiwi.

Charles Wendell "Chuck" Colson passed away today. It was good to see so many bloggers and Christian leaders speak well of his life and ministry for a few days before his death. I hope his family shared some of those compliments with him. Best article was "Setting the Captives Free" by Emily Belz on WorldMag.

Colson was a great man and a worthy critic of the emerging church and its dealings with postmodernism. Many of us responded to Colson's critiques which were bold and sharp but not always on target.

One of the posts I had written in 2003 in response to Colson's "The Postmodern Crackup" became a really well-read post, especially for those Princess Bridge fans. In fact, I still read this post to give myself a giggle. 

In 2006, I responded to another of Colson's articles, this time called "Emerging Confusion". My response was very tongue in cheek and full of insider jokes - probably meaningless to people who have not read Colson's books, but nevertheless quite fun to write. 

"I just love how Charles Colson keeps bouncing back with more articles on the same thing, each time getting closer and closer. It's a life sentence to habitually write these articles and a true act of loving God. What perseverance! The man is certainly born again." TSK, Colson takes another shot.

It was always a joy to respond to Colson. He had an approachable manner, apparently something that he also carried in the White House. And unlike many EC critics who never turn up to discuss or defend their criticisms, Charles Colson interacted with us, influenced us, and was influenced by us.

I am grateful that Chuck took the time to talk to me in 2008 which helped to smooth out some misunderstandings. I summed up our correspondence this way:

". . . [Colson] wrote an article on postmodernism and I don't think we saw eye to eye. Later on, things came to a head when Colson wrote Soothing Ourselves to Death? and I responded with Reclusing Ourselves to Death? But it sounds like we are all in a happy place now, and its good to see emerging church people quoted in Colson's book." Link

Praying peace for the Colson family.

Respectfully, Andrew Jones

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Original Post: Watergate figure Charles Colson is not expected to live much longer. He had a brain surgery operation a few weeks ago and he is not recovering from it. Pray for Chuck!

"There’s much about the emerging movement that I applaud." Charles Colson to Andrew Jones on Tallskinnykiwi interview.

It's true that Chuck and I had a few clashes on the internet regarding the emerging church and postmodernism but these were friendly and congenial learning experiences and I look back on them fondly. It was a privilege to have Charles talk about his book "The Faith" on my blog.

Charles Colson leaves a huge legacy with his books, the worldwide Prison Fellowship movement, and what he might most be remembered for, his leadership alongside Richard John Neuhaus  to produce the groundbreaking document called“Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium.”

Chuck, you did well, you rocked the world, you kicked ass! We applaud you!

DID YOU KNOW . . . that he "Born Again" book cover image of Charles Colson was based on a photo by my friend Spencer Burke?

Anyone have an extra DSLR?

I need a camera. My blog has suffered ever since my camera was stolen [by Christians, no less]  in Cairo last year. I have a little money to buy one. Does anyone in USA want to sell me their old Canon or Nikon DSLR?  Let me know. I will be in San Francisco all next week so you could send it to me.

Yes, I took that photo in Prague of one of my daughters at the train station. Back when I had a camera . . . sob sob!

10 Year anniversary of a Christian communal blog

On April 19, 2002, at exactly 11.23am, I gathered a few of my blogging friends and launched a commununal blog called A Kingdom Space. The tag line was "A global diablog - stories that are bigger than our own." Within a very short time, we were about 40 bloggers telling our stories of what God was doing in our countries. A few bloggers got their first taste of blogging on A Kingdom Space and others were quite new at it.

Here's a list of some AKS bloggers that I copied off the WayBackMachine - not all of these links to their own blogs will work but you will recognize some of the names. To everyone on this list, and to the many others that contributed to A Kingdom Space, we thank you and appreciate your efforts not just for blogging, and for snapshotting the emerging church in your countries at that time, but also for being part of shaping the future of the blogosphere.

• Urbanonramps by Rudy Carasco
• Deep Dirt by Karen Ward
• Sion Bubbles by Amy Chapman
• Coop by Jordon Cooper
• Bloggedyblog by Andrew Careaga
• They Blinked by Dan Hughes
• Punkmonkey John O'Keefe
• Wendy Cooper's Blog by Wendy Cooper
• The Invisible Sun by Darren Friesen
• Alan Creech by Alan Creech
• Blah Blah Blog by Kevin Rains
• Jonny Baker Blog by Jonny Baker
• What Is Church Group Blog
• Marc's Messages by Marc Van Der Woude
• Berlin Rocks by Kerstin Hack
• Dutch Traveller by Ronald Van Der Moulen
• Emergent Downunder by SteveTaylor
• Cre8d Journal by Rachel Cunnilife
• My Valentine by Jason Evans
• Daniel's Journey by Daniel Miller
• Ashley's Blog by Ashley McGlone
• Eggbert by Craig Pelkey-Landes
• Cedarlily by Abigail High
• Reinhold's Journey by Reinhold Scharnowski
• Palmer's Journal by Mark Palmer
• Moogloo by Andy and Bea
• Neill's Outbox by Neill Birchenall
• Monkhouse by David Hopkins
• Charles Wear's Notes by Charlie Wear
• Fat Blue Man by John Janzen
• Tall Skinny Kiwi by Andrew Jones
• Fully Devoted by Glen Teal
• Barky by Mark Barkaway
• Moshie by Tom Smith
• Sturdy Bridges by Jessica Stricker
• Shannons blog by Shannon Hopkins
• Living Room by Darren Rowse
• Liquid Thinking by Mark Riddle

If you are feeling nostalgic for the early days of Christian blogging, jump into the first month of A Kingdom Space and have a read.

And if you are a budding blog-historian, tell me if you think A Kingdom Space was the world's first Christian communal blog or if it was preceded by something else that we don't yet know about.

San Francisco next week, but not Seattle

I will be in San Francisco for most of next week. I LOVE this city. Three of my children were born here. Working among alt. youth and street kids in the Haight Ashbury was the turning point in our ministry. It will be great to be back. I will be a part of a visual story training event and will also be working on a book with my friend Wolfgang Fernandez. I hope to carve out a morning to connect with mission leaders and experimenters in one of my favorite coffee shops.

I won't have time to be at Inhabit conference in Seattle, unfortunately - it seems like a great conference and I thank the organizers for their invitation. What I like about it is the framework of the parish for ministry instead of the individual church, a focus that allows more scope for community impact and cooperation among churches rather than competition. And some great speakers also. I expect it to be one of the best USA church conferences in 2012.

Our eco-friendly $5000 home

In the past few months, we have turned a storm damaged yurt into an eco-friendly, toxic-free, funky home for our family. Last night my wife and three of our kids officially moved in to the house we created from recycled materials. We slept on our new wood floor, lit a fire in our pot belly stove, ate some pizza and watched a movie before we all fell asleep. This morning I woke up to see sheep sleeping outside our window

Our home has cost us NZ$5204 which is US$4,287. The only thing left to do is plumbing the bath and sink to the hot water cylinder and installing a wetback in the pot belly stove. And I need to make some more furniture but that can wait a while.

Still a bit more work to do but our house is very livable and enjoyable. A yurt is a Mongolian style round tent, also called a "Ger". Ours was originally made in NZ by Jaia Yurts and was badly storm-damaged when we bought it from an English lady who was moving back to the UK. Much of the frame was broken, the canvas was water-stained and the round ring that holds it together was smashed. But it was worth salvaging and I managed to find the right wood and replicate the broken pieces.

We got permission from the Ngatiawa community, a Christian contemporary monastery near Wellington, to build a small structure on their land. Its a beautiful green valley surrounded by trees and hills.

The biggest expense, apart from the original yurt ($2000), was the floor. When we started, we only had a plastic groundsheet but it was summer and warm enough to get away with it. But the weather eventually changed and the family was flooded out while I was overseas on a trip.

As soon as I got home, I started to get the yurt off the ground and I eventually found some nice native timber offcuts, enough to make the floor.

Having sanded the floor all night long, I was still caffeinated and delirious when the sun came up. I never did get it really smooth because the wood was all different sizes but its a floor nonetheless. And it looks rustic like the rest of the yurt.

While I was busy getting the yurt away from the wet ground, Debbie was created an insulation cushion out of old wool blankets that we are finding in charity shops. It took about 15 blankets to make the ceiling. She filled them with eco-therm insulation which is made from recycled wool. It turned out amazing.

For a complete breakdown of how that $5000 was spent, go to Jonesberries.com

Finding your inner monk

You are never too young to be a monk.

We have been enjoying this weekend with a bunch of young people (16 - 25) from around New Zealand who are part of the Order of St Stephen (OSS). Nice people. Mostly Anglicans, maybe all of them Anglicans, probably due to the re-launching of this monastic Order a few years ago by Bishop Tom of Wellington and the encouragement of Anglican Youth Ministries. But the Order was originally made up of Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican youth who wanted to serve their church and their community.

OSS makes an appearance on the Anglicans Online official list of Anglican Religious Orders and they are now on Facebook. They describe themselves this way:

"The Order of Saint Stephen is a network of young adults and their supporters; living out ministry and mission through prayer, community and service, from within the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand."

Related: New book on St Francis of Assisi coming out this month called Francis of Assisi: A New Biography. I saw that Amy Welborn highly recommends it. Can't believe the publishers did not send me a copy to review on my blog. One day I will tell you about my pilgrimage to Assisi but in the meantime you can give me your thoughts on my revamped movie poster for Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

Blue Like Jazz. Now see the movie.

I haven't read Don Miller's best-selling book by that name but that's not because I was waiting for the movie. I just never got around to reading it. But Steve Taylor's movie Blue Like Jazz is released today and since I will be in San Francisco in a few weeks, so . . . I might go and see it, despite Becky Garrison's suggestion that we should all sit it out, and despite [or because of] the The Gospel Coalition's warning that "the evangelical world will FREAK OUT when they see this movie". Blue Like Jazz might be more suited to Hallmark Channel, as Becky hints, but then I am still interested in low-budget films, especially when they deal with faith journeys and the emerging church. Denver Post liked it.

List of theaters here. Has anyone seen it yet? Did you like it?

Interesting: Blue Like Jazz film was the top Kickstarter project for 2010. The Business Week article is worth reading:

As for Blue Like Jazz, it raced past its $125,000 goal and raised a Kickstarter film record of $345,992 last October. Taylor's backer in Seattle, seeing the interest, matched that sum and tacked on a little more. Taylor shot the movie for $750,000 and, thanks to new investors who have come on board, has $500,000 remaining for post-production. . .. "I just didn't think this was going to work," he says, "so I said for anyone who gave $10 or more, I would call them and thank them personally." He's about halfway through a notebook of 3,300 names.

 

Thomas Kinkade gone

I heard that Thomas Kinkade passed away suddenly at age 54. Although he might have been "America's most collected living artist",  his paintings never appealed to me. However, my son Samuel loved them as a child and I think his first Bible had Thomas Kinkade paintings all through it. I didn't say I thought they were cheesy because I was hoping he would read his Bible more if he liked the pictures.