I write this post as a response to the confusion on the Jolly Blogger post about Kiwis and the Emergent church and also because many of you ask.
1) a flightless bird native to New Zealand
2) a fruit formerly known as the Chinese Gooseberry
3) a person who comes from New Zealand, also known as GodZone country.
Emergent Kiwi (Steve Taylor) is a New Zealander with one of the best books on Emerging Church - Out of Bounds Church. as well as an interesting blog post A-Z of the Emerging Church
Paul Fromont is Prodigal Kiwi
Duncan MacLeod is Post Kiwi, since he now lives in Australia.
There are plenty more Kiwis where they came from like Rachel, who blogs at Cre8dJournal and Stephen Garner at Greenflame. And even more Kiwis have dispersed around the globe and are acting as salt of the earth and light of the world. Yeehhh Kiwis!!!
I am one of that blessed dispersion, the issuing forth of export-quality Kiwis to bless the families of the earth d;-] I am Tall Skinny Kiwi, because I was born in New Zealand and left when I was 17. I am also 6ft 5ins and fat-deficient.
Please do not confuse Kiwis with Aussie bloggers like Phil Baker and Andrew Hamilton who might be interesting and on rare occasion have something to say (The Emerging Missional Church: Thoughts in Progress" by Darren Rowse is a good example) . . . but PAH LEAZE do not settle for anything less than the GENUINE KIWI ARTICLE.
Do I hear an AMEN from God's Chosen?
Before the blogging thing took off in 2001, Kiwis were assisting the emerging church in their own country and in UK - where the name "alt. worship" is often given to the similar phenomena. There was the breakthrough book The Prodigal Project, at the time the best book on the subject, written by 2 Kiwis (Mark Pierson and Mike Ridell) and one Aussie (Cathy Kilpatrick). Mark Pierson also helped kick off the festival known as Parachute, which is interesting because in UK, Greenbelt is organized and run primarily by emerging church people. In the early-mid 90's Mark was a huge inspiration to people like Tom Sine and myself with his innovative Baptist church in Auckland. In 1999, when we created the multimedia worship installation in Austin Texas called "Ecclesia", I got some good advice on multimedia labyrinths from Mark. I also took the idea of projecting onto sheets in the middle of the room rather than walls from him.
Anyway, when I say Kiwi - thats what I mean.
