mountain masala

working on worship

I've just finished two days as part of the Uniting Church's national Working Group on Worship which meets three times a year in my home town Brisbane. I joined a year ago. As well as being something that I feel called to participate in, I get to see my family more often, which has been and continues to be important through some very difficult times.

There are some wonderful people on this group and a great deal of breadth and depth of experience in worship. I was a member of its predecessor, the Commission on Liturgy, for a time in the early 1980s. Things have changed a lot in the church and society, yet in some ways I feel that I am in the same place, seeking to be a more progressive voice in terms of approach, language, music, context, creativity, and engaging with the church. And the rest of the group knew that from day one, if they hadnt guessed already!

so what did we talk about for 2 days?

- promoting the new affirmation of faith relating the the new UCA Preamble to our Constitution along with a set of images that people can use

- an online 'calendar of saints', including Australians, a work in progress that is close to going 'live'

- a project to write and promote new Australian music for worship

- how to recognise/commission lay presiders of sacraments

- an issue relating to 'dedication' of children in worship that are not simply thanksgiving for the birth of a child but are pretty much baptism without any water

- filming a training DVD designed to teach people about Holy Communion

- liturgical resources in languages other than English

- issues around training ordained and lay leaders in worship leading

- and a bunch of other things.

We also spent an afternoon meeting with the Synods' Mission & Evangelism Network exploring issues of common interest - Christian Initiation, Missional Preaching, Response in worship, Worship in new faith communities, and other stuff. We didn't come out with any actions but it was a useful first interaction. There were certainly some differences of perspective across the two groups.

Now that we have most of the print resources that our church needs, there's a fresh opportunity to ask how to stimulate, encourage, network, learn and create in other ways that are life-giving for congregations.

messing with Tim's head II

round 2 of my album photos of Tim Hein

music in the lane

Last Monday Sean Gilbert and I (sans facial hair) played a bunch of tunes for Pilgrim Uniting Church as part of their weekly "Music in the Lane" concerts. We played some Paul Kelly (Leaps & Bounds, Deeper Water, Special Treatment), Things of Stone and Wood (Share The Wine), Bruce Springsteen (Devils & Dust), Bruce Cockburn (Mystery) and one of Sean's songs called "Rosie". We've never played as a duo and it seemed to go OK. I got to play guitar, mandolin, slide guitar, ukulele, harmonica, tin whistle, melodica and hand percussion. Sean just plays the guitar and sings with his eyes shut...

How did I get to look so old?

Photo by Kathy Pike who organised it all.

new music

here's what's on my playlist for this month....

"Before Lately" and "We Don't Need" - Cheyenne Marie Mize - folky, roosty, fragile

"Seeds" and "Into Your Lungs (and Around In Your Heart and On Through You)" - Hey Rosetta! -Paul Simon meets Counting Crows - brilliant!

"Set Your Heads On Fire" - The Black Box Revelation -from Belgium, cross the Black Keys with early Rolling Stones

"Night Falls Over Kortedala" and "I Know What Love Isn't" - Jens Lekman - lush swedish pop-folk, I suppose you could call it

"The Best of Richard and Linda Thompson" - need more be said?

"U22" - U2 - double live album. fantastic!

"Theatre is Evil" - Amanda Palmer and The Grand Theft Orchestra - former Dresden Doll - theatrical alto, Ben Folds. Not for the faint-hearted

"The O'l Razzle Dazzle" - Missy Higgins - lovely. I like it more than i thought I would!

"Port of Morrow" - The Shins -yeah! pop-rock!

"The Noisetrade Collection" - Robert Francis - folky and funky, think Ryan Adams

"Writer's Block" - Peter, Bjorn and John -folky, rocky, low-fi, smooth, breezy, fun

"The Imagined Village" and "Bending the Dark" - The Imagined Village -multicultural Brisith folk collective, including Jackie Oates and Simon Emmerson from Afro Celts

"Strange Communion" - Thea Gilmore - UK folkie, her anti-Christmas album, bleak and cynical.

World of World of Warcraft

Thanks to Andy Root for this gem.

Faith formation and discipleship in the 21st century

Last week at our national in-service for people in ministry with children, youth and families, I led a session on this topic, inviting people to reflect on the questions that are shaping my research into the future of Christian education in the Uniting Church. So I didnt give much input at all other than give an overview of the project and provide people with some ways to engage the topic. Anyway, here are the few props that I did use.

Video Clip - Dumt & Farligt - Phantom Flex Highlights

The point of this being that faith development sometimes happens in 'transforming moments'

Video Clip - Portrait of Lotte

The point of this being that faith development also happens gradually, indiscernibly, and you can only see its effects over the space of months or years

Discipleship Quotes - Download PDF

Each person was given a quote and they were invited to walk around, have a brief conversation with another person about their quotes, swap quotes and then move on to another person.

Defining terms

Christian education is "the theory and practice 
of teaching, learning and formation in Christian faith 
and discipleship, 
both for individuals 
and communities of faith." (my definition for the study)

Christian education is oriented towards life-long 
growth in Christian discipleship and 
participation in
the mission of God.

Research question - What dynamic characteristics of educational leadership and of learning communities are significant for effective education for Christian discipleship in the Uniting Church’s
postmodern mission context?

Discipling is NOT

Discipling does not equal Worship

Discipling does not equal Worship + Pastoral Care

Discipling does not equal Worship + Pastoral Care + Community Service

Discipling includes Vital Worship, Christian community, Mission engagement and Intentional faith development

(The above is not a 'model', just a blunt instrument to make a point about the intentionality of faith formation and discipling.)

Local Experiences

People were invited to talk in pairs about something that their church was doing to intentionally develop faith and discipleship.

Four Questions, Four Activities

The following ran concurrently, with people able to move between the activities at any time.

What is the same and different about discipling in 21C?

This was a Mind Map exercise where people could write on an A3 sheet something that they thought was the same or different about CE in 21C. They could also write comments on other sheets.

How is discipling / formation / education related to God’s mission?

This was a fishbowl exercise where 3 people discussed the question while others listened, and people could enter or leave the fishbowl conversation.

What promising strategies in formation, education and discipling are you seeing?

This was a storytelling exercise where people sat in groups of four and could tell each other stories, with the stories being recorded on someone's phone and the audio file given to me afterwards.

What do you see as the critical needs of congregations in discipling children, youth and young adults?

This was a soapbox where people could stand on some steps and have a rant to the crowd below.

Plenary

People were invited to reflect on the following question in pairs and then feed comments into the whole group.

How do we work nationally to help faith communities be effective in forming and educating people for discipleship and mission?

It was designed as a conversation starter and seemed to work. Thanks to those who helped run the activities and to the participants.

The spirituality of young people

At the national in-service last week I led a session on youth spirituality, revisiting some previous material - five metaphors for spiritual growth and five questions to ask about young people with whom you are in ministry. This started with my interest in how and why people look at spirituality differently when they research it, so the full session (I did a truncated version)

The sessions starts with some quotes playing on-screen with video images - Download Spirituality Quotes

We heard Ephesians 1:3-14 and then looked at and discussed a Wordle based on it - Download Ephesians 1-3-14 (not sure why I originally chose this text. Next time I think I'll try a different one.)

We then started to explore the nature of spirituality for Australian young people - with some data from the 2009 Australian Communities Survey. Responses from 15-29 year olds:

There is something beyond this life that makes sense of it all.

38% agree
26% disagree
36% neither

Which philosophies of life most influence how you live today?

23% Christian
8% Non-Christian religion
11% Secular / humanist
18% Other philosophy
39% Don’t know/ nothing

Teaching deaf children

A few days ago I received an email from a guy in New Zealand who is researching the teaching of deaf people. Apparently in the 1860's my great great aunt Dorcas Mitchell moved from the UK to New Zealand where she lived in Hawkes Bay before moving to the Christchurch area, where she taught deaf children. Apparently she was a forerunner to the van Asch School which still exists today. The story is that she applied for the principal's job but didn't get it.

According to the researcher, Steve Hooker, she had worked at an institution for the deaf in London. As I have blogged previously, the Mitchell family (my great grandfather Rev David Forrest Mitchell, her younger brother) lived in Dundonald, near Glasgow, for four generations. David moved to Brisbane in 1876, and was Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in 1884.