Here is an attempt to provide the gist of our postcard, as promised. Unfortunately I am pretty sure that all you will be left with is the text which you would need to re-work.
Page one:
listening understanding accepting leaping blessing rejoicing expecting trusting
connecting
joy
Page two:
In those days Mary got up and went hurriedly into the hill country, to a town of Judah, and entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She exclaimed with a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child in your womb! And who am I that the mother of my Lord should come and visit me? For the instant the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Luke 1: 39-45 (New English Translation)
Reflecting on Blessing
The five blessings of the story:
Elizabeth’s baby is blessed – he leaps for joy when he hears Mary’s voice
Elizabeth is blessed – because the mother of the Saviour visits her
Elizabeth says Mary is blessed – because she is carrying the Saviour
The baby Mary is carrying is blessed – he will bring reconciliation between God and humanity
Elizabeth says we are blessed – those of us who believe
Listening and Blessing
Choose 2 or 3 words from the front of this card. Spend time sharing with someone and spend time listening to their response.
Connecting with Blessing
Think of someone you have haven’t spoken to for a while & re-connect.
Your Local Church
25 Local Road
IN YOUR CITY Tel:
25 December 2008 at 10.30am
Okay, that didn't work. If you want the original document send me an email and I will try sending it to you as an attachment.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Assignment 1: Course Reflection
My initial thought, when I read Steve’s book (in preparation for the course), was “Oh no, it’s about trendy churches and I don’t do trendy”.
My next thought was that that this course would be about “off-with-the-pixies” spirituality and I don’t do “off-with-the-pixies”.
My third reaction, when I actually started doing the course (and a reaction which continued through the course) was that I have actually done some of this already, even though I wasn’t actually trying to be creative or post-modern. As I warmed to the course I began thinking that the course gave me permission to do some of these things intentionally and that they could be introduced, even in a fairly traditional setting, provided that they were applied with wisdom and gentleness.
I suspect that the reason for my initial concern was because my exposure in the past to some of these approaches has been in a fairly liberal context and it has seemed, fairly or unfairly, that this post-modern style ministry style was a substitute for substance. In recent years my experience has been that “creative form” has been linked to “creative theology” as we drift further and further away from the Bible and the heritage of John Wesley.
What impressed me was that Steve, as a Baptist, actually believed in the things that Christians are supposed to believe in and that Course Reader reminds us that the objective of ministry should be, in part, to point people towards the Bible. The article by Christine McSpadden states “Preach so that your hearers want to hear more about the Bible” and also concludes with a method for testing, a week after the sermon, to ascertain how effective it was.
DJ-ing with juxtaposition and amplification I found easy to apply although subverting is something I would need to work through because I am sure that if I used George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” someone would get upset because I used a song dedicated to Krishna. Perhaps one way to get around that would be to acknowledge with a mischievous grin that a text or an image was being used out of context but was being used as a cultural echo to illustrate a point. Perhaps my caution is that having pushed the envelope a few times I got some reactions. These days the only battles I engage in are those which are worth fighting.
One thing I did appreciate was that art and the visual will be a feature of post-modern ministry. Today the cathedrals of England have bare walls whereas once they were festooned with decorations and images. Art could be used with a video projector provided that it served as an aide and not a distraction to the sermon. Relevant images could be projected while the offering was being collected or during a moment of meditation or reflection.
However this still leaves the sermon as an oral experience. I have a copy of the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery and have used it in a conventional sense but the idea of preaching a sermon with 3 metaphors instead of the traditional three points intrigued me. (In fact I might try it in my next sermon). I could then have three images projected during the sermon, each image connecting to a metaphor. This would then add a visual element to the sermon without being unnecessarily distracting. Likewise I’ll need to venture a bit more out of my comfort zone and try preaching more inductively.
Furthermore, engaging in a more conversational style, for me, is “do-able”. In our tradition the Sunday Service often includes a Children’s Talk which involves interacting with the small number of children present, or in their absence, with the “older children” who are normally in their seventies. This is a part of the service where there is an inbuilt permission to be “different”, to engage conversationally and thus extend the story-telling once the children have been dismissed. Perhaps this is an area I should experiment with. I actually enjoyed the class exercise in which we told someone else the story of Elizabeth and Mary, so perhaps it is merely my inexperience and a lack of confidence which causes me to be reticent. This is one area of the course which definitely needs more follow-up.
However the above says a lot about technique. Engaging the text is also important and as a day dreamer I liked the idea of Lectio Divina and also viewing the text from different perspectives, from the viewpoint of the disempowered, the voices not normally heard and other unusual directions. I like the ideas of making an effort to become part of the text with the hope that the congregation would also be more likely to enter into the text. This would also tie in with the tendency in recent years to acknowledge that we all read the text through our own cultural lenses and that scholars and commentaries from other cultures can provide additional insights. It therefore occurs to me that post-modern engagement with the text releases new possibilities.
To conclude, I found in this course much to think about.
One thing I must do though, if it is to be of ongoing benefit is to develop a checklist so that each time I develop a service I am forced to think engage with the alternatives and insights presented by this course and consider the total experience. I must also make a point of considering not only the parishioners I know will be present but also who should be, such as the young lady on the video who explained what it is to be part of a post-modern generation.
My next thought was that that this course would be about “off-with-the-pixies” spirituality and I don’t do “off-with-the-pixies”.
My third reaction, when I actually started doing the course (and a reaction which continued through the course) was that I have actually done some of this already, even though I wasn’t actually trying to be creative or post-modern. As I warmed to the course I began thinking that the course gave me permission to do some of these things intentionally and that they could be introduced, even in a fairly traditional setting, provided that they were applied with wisdom and gentleness.
I suspect that the reason for my initial concern was because my exposure in the past to some of these approaches has been in a fairly liberal context and it has seemed, fairly or unfairly, that this post-modern style ministry style was a substitute for substance. In recent years my experience has been that “creative form” has been linked to “creative theology” as we drift further and further away from the Bible and the heritage of John Wesley.
What impressed me was that Steve, as a Baptist, actually believed in the things that Christians are supposed to believe in and that Course Reader reminds us that the objective of ministry should be, in part, to point people towards the Bible. The article by Christine McSpadden states “Preach so that your hearers want to hear more about the Bible” and also concludes with a method for testing, a week after the sermon, to ascertain how effective it was.
DJ-ing with juxtaposition and amplification I found easy to apply although subverting is something I would need to work through because I am sure that if I used George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” someone would get upset because I used a song dedicated to Krishna. Perhaps one way to get around that would be to acknowledge with a mischievous grin that a text or an image was being used out of context but was being used as a cultural echo to illustrate a point. Perhaps my caution is that having pushed the envelope a few times I got some reactions. These days the only battles I engage in are those which are worth fighting.
One thing I did appreciate was that art and the visual will be a feature of post-modern ministry. Today the cathedrals of England have bare walls whereas once they were festooned with decorations and images. Art could be used with a video projector provided that it served as an aide and not a distraction to the sermon. Relevant images could be projected while the offering was being collected or during a moment of meditation or reflection.
However this still leaves the sermon as an oral experience. I have a copy of the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery and have used it in a conventional sense but the idea of preaching a sermon with 3 metaphors instead of the traditional three points intrigued me. (In fact I might try it in my next sermon). I could then have three images projected during the sermon, each image connecting to a metaphor. This would then add a visual element to the sermon without being unnecessarily distracting. Likewise I’ll need to venture a bit more out of my comfort zone and try preaching more inductively.
Furthermore, engaging in a more conversational style, for me, is “do-able”. In our tradition the Sunday Service often includes a Children’s Talk which involves interacting with the small number of children present, or in their absence, with the “older children” who are normally in their seventies. This is a part of the service where there is an inbuilt permission to be “different”, to engage conversationally and thus extend the story-telling once the children have been dismissed. Perhaps this is an area I should experiment with. I actually enjoyed the class exercise in which we told someone else the story of Elizabeth and Mary, so perhaps it is merely my inexperience and a lack of confidence which causes me to be reticent. This is one area of the course which definitely needs more follow-up.
However the above says a lot about technique. Engaging the text is also important and as a day dreamer I liked the idea of Lectio Divina and also viewing the text from different perspectives, from the viewpoint of the disempowered, the voices not normally heard and other unusual directions. I like the ideas of making an effort to become part of the text with the hope that the congregation would also be more likely to enter into the text. This would also tie in with the tendency in recent years to acknowledge that we all read the text through our own cultural lenses and that scholars and commentaries from other cultures can provide additional insights. It therefore occurs to me that post-modern engagement with the text releases new possibilities.
To conclude, I found in this course much to think about.
One thing I must do though, if it is to be of ongoing benefit is to develop a checklist so that each time I develop a service I am forced to think engage with the alternatives and insights presented by this course and consider the total experience. I must also make a point of considering not only the parishioners I know will be present but also who should be, such as the young lady on the video who explained what it is to be part of a post-modern generation.
Monday, September 29, 2008
My name is Peter and I am a D.Min. student here at Tabor. I am gradually working towards my doctorate with an emphasis on the word "gradually."
I grew up in a Methodist/Uniting Church family although I spent close to 20 years in Pentecostal churches. For nineteen years I was with the same church which went through exponential growth several times and also went through a couple of church splits. Out of this one small church hidden away in the back streets of Mitchell Park grew two of the largest churches in Adelaide (Coastlands and Southside which is now Edge Church). I was on staff for six years at Southside and then part time for a couple of years at Bethesda.
I went to the AOG's bible college in Katoomba where I completed an American degree and then spent three years at a Christian & Missionary Alliance Seminary in Canada where I completed a Master of Divinity.
Over the years I have seen it all - the good, the bad, the ugly, the amazing and so on. Then God led me back to the Uniting Church. In some ways I was surprised but God has his reasons. For the past few years I have been involved in adminstration and keep myself busy with some lay preaching. And as for "The Ministry" God will work it all out in his time.
The Uniting Church has some great things happening at the moment. However we do have a problem with aging and declining congregations. From an evangelical perspective there is also the problem of theological liberalism which when combined with post-modernism creates an interesting ministry environment. I'll be diplomatic and leave it at that but hopefully the course I am doing this week will provide some insights.
I grew up in a Methodist/Uniting Church family although I spent close to 20 years in Pentecostal churches. For nineteen years I was with the same church which went through exponential growth several times and also went through a couple of church splits. Out of this one small church hidden away in the back streets of Mitchell Park grew two of the largest churches in Adelaide (Coastlands and Southside which is now Edge Church). I was on staff for six years at Southside and then part time for a couple of years at Bethesda.
I went to the AOG's bible college in Katoomba where I completed an American degree and then spent three years at a Christian & Missionary Alliance Seminary in Canada where I completed a Master of Divinity.
Over the years I have seen it all - the good, the bad, the ugly, the amazing and so on. Then God led me back to the Uniting Church. In some ways I was surprised but God has his reasons. For the past few years I have been involved in adminstration and keep myself busy with some lay preaching. And as for "The Ministry" God will work it all out in his time.
The Uniting Church has some great things happening at the moment. However we do have a problem with aging and declining congregations. From an evangelical perspective there is also the problem of theological liberalism which when combined with post-modernism creates an interesting ministry environment. I'll be diplomatic and leave it at that but hopefully the course I am doing this week will provide some insights.
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